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Just to end all this anti-French war remarks:
1. There modern military is well trained and very well-equipped.
2. If you lose lots of wars due to being unprepared it just shows you don't like war. Which is a GOOD thing.



'coughUSAcough' But turning up for no reason is enexcusable.

But Rowboat was a bellend

Is that why they're depressed? I find it kinda amusing that there are Chapters suffering from clinical depression.

There's a chapter called The Doom Warriors that have a mutation in their hibernation organ that has the effect of them not needing to sleep ever, but as a result they suffer from depression! Hilariously wierd.

Because when space marines sleep they get to be unicorns! Deprive them of that joy and you have a grumpy grumpy space marine.

I have a mild dislike of Ultramarines for their holier-than-thou attitude and because I don't like the way the greek aesthetic is done in some of the character models. I have a somewhat stronger dislike for Calgar because of his fluff (although I don't mind Telion's). But then I don't particularly like the Imperium in general and have the same mild dislike for most chapters. It would be quicker to list the chapters that I do like, and most of them are for equally flimsy reasons.

For the 'what other primachs could have been corrupted': I think Ferrus Manus could have been a reasonable, if unusual choice. The strong ties to the Mechanium were there, and they were known for being rather coldly ruthless. Even now they still blame the other loyalists just as much as the traitors for what happened. He'd also been previously exposed to the influence of something odd. I see such a style as being more a quiet undermining, not outright battle or espionage. Just gradually hardening hearts of all the legions to do what must be done, despite the cost, and prodding into more terrible acts until the Emperor started protesting (ala the World Eaters) at which point most of the primachs could be caught in the displeasure.

codex is by all means limiting though. though this could be another discussion i see this as one in the same, take a good look at codex marines. in forth edition we had options t make chapters as we wished, but now.... and i say this is the same argument simply because how can a book change from one moment to the next? in simplicity reconning the fluff. under 4th ed codex marines gulliman was actually okay, but now they've gone back to the whole "i'm a ridged hard obey me or be destroyed" BS. actually now that i think about it gulliman almost killed Dorn because he refused to follow the codex

We like to count to 10, 100, and 1000. If you do not, you are not a true marine.

i like to count 1000, 10000, 100000 myself... legions are better for this. I know my thousand sons and luna wolfs keep my occupied

I think Chaos counts in square roots of prime numbers.

I like Sanguinus... he plays a very crucial part in the Heresy, I think he sort of represents the slaying of purity and innocence on Horus' part.

He is the Jesus figure of the game, combined with angelic beauty and god's angry wrath how could they go wrong with a character like that? It's bible elemants all over. Guilleman would be more the Moses to sanguinous's Jesus... Stern, unrelenting, law above all else.

Yep, and his Codex is the what? The 10^10 commandments of Guilliman?

Guilliman is a pawn of Tzeentch simply because Just as planned

Guitardian wrote:He is the Jesus figure of the game, combined with angelic beauty and god's angry wrath how could they go wrong with a character like that? It's bible elemants all over. Guilleman would be more the Moses to sanguinous's Jesus... Stern, unrelenting, law above all else.

Hmm, I'd say Sanguinius is more of an Abel figure. Everyone knows Empra is Jesus. And it seems to me that Guilliman is the Paul to Dorn's Peter.

This is kind of off-topic, but have you ever noticed that Horus is more defined by how the other Primarchs are not like him rather than anything specific to his own personality? Using the example of Sanguinius: Horus murders Sanguinius, which is an act of rejecting the nobility of the Emperor's vision in favor of Chaos--i.e., Horus is not noble . . . unlike Sanguinius.

What i haven't seen stated around is this :
During the Great Crusade, there were 20 Legions, each 10.000 strong. That would make 200.000 Marines, plus the Guard accompanying the respective Legions and their expeditions. And those forces conquered thousands of planets.

Now, in the present 40k time, there are around 1000 Chapters, each with roughly 1000 Marines, making a total of 1.000.000(!!!) Astartes, plus the Guard. But, the splitting into Chapters has rendered this 5-times-bigger-than-the-Crusade-time number of Marines totally useless, making it impossible for any leader to attain power and use it wrongly, but also preventing them from uniting and starting another Great Crusade.

Furthermore, the Codex works only for the Astartes, and it was totally useless to prevent the rise of Vandire and his reign, while being even more useless in causing its downfall.

This is what the Codex actually did. While (arguably) preventing another (Astartes) Heresy, it also prevented the Imperium from starting campaigns of conquest of the magnitude of the Great Crusade

The smurfs are the poster boys so most everyone's gonna hate on them. The question is why do we hate Googlyman and his smurfs.

For me Rowboat is supposed to be this great administrator and yet technology falters into religous zealotry. He should of put a boot into Mars' behind to keep technology moving forward, not backwards. I guess his book didn't have enough room to write about a subsection on maintaining of all your gear instead of just your Bolter and Power Armour.

This is worse than Battletech. This is why I am a devout Xenos Scum. We at least do not worship Toasters.

I believe it was necessary to separate the Astartes from anything but their religious zealousy of their chapter. Mars would be included. What if a chapter of Marines pinpoint strike a Titan facility, and suddenly have all that power too? I think it was deliberate to keep them separated, which is why Techmarines (and techpriests) are kind of the intermediaries of two separate, important, yet not self sufficient entities. The division could go further down the ladder and you have a chapter who has their own Imperial Guard regiment at their disposal, their own titans, doesn't matter any more if there's only 1000 of them if theres a billion serving soldiers, tanks, titans, etc following their doctrine. That's why it was in his infinite wisdom to draw up a law by which Marines only tend to Marine matters (like tending the boltgun and the armor) and left other military matters to other branches.

Given the size and splendor of Ultramar, I would say he did pretty well for himself by restricting everyone else's ambitions... Regardless of gameplay worthiness, they are still the pinnacle and most well respected of all chapters (fluffwise) because they follow the rules to the letter. All chapters have a flaw. I think for the Ultramarines, it's OCD. Try telling someone with OCD that they have OCD, they will write up a meticulous list of exactly why that is not true, possibly complete with diagrams, charts, quotes, and um... a codex?

Manchu wrote:If I wanted to make fun of the Space wolves, I wouldn't call their Primarch "Lemon Rust." I would . . . actually there's nothing but awesome when it comes to Space Wolves.

And I don't like the Space Wolves. It's all a matter of perspective. There will always be at least as many opinions of the various canon Chapters, particularly those most directly descended from the original Legions, as there are Space Marine players. A universal consensus on the awesomeness of anyone (except maybe the Emperor) is unattainable.

As to the name-based puns, I think poor Girly... excuse me, Guilliman, bears the brunt of those because of how peculiar his name is in the first place. Until I encountered the "Rowboat" appellation I had no earthly idea how to even begin to pronounce "Roboute."

Manchu wrote:And don't give me that "they get all the coverage" bs, either. We all know that you can build any other Codex SM army out of C:SM5th perfectly well with plenty of Chapter-specific fluffiness.

...unless you play the Iron Hands. Or want more than one chapter-specific special character without being the Boys in Blue. I will admit, though, that Tigurius, Telion, and Chronus are generic enough rules-wise that their stats can be subbed for almost any uber-psyker, uber-scout, or impressive tank commander. So from a certain perspective, the azure ones only have three times the usual amount of unique characters instead of six times... still not that much nicer.

You can build some really nice, really fluffy non-Ultra armies out of the 5E Codex, but it's undeniable that the lion's share of the book goes to the Ultras (and we all know the Lion's share ought to go to a new Dark Angels Codex... ).

Morgrim wrote:I don't like the way the greek aesthetic is done in some of the character models.

It's interesting, I actually think I'd like the Ultras a lot more if they played the Greco-Roman aesthetic up more. It's the one thing they have going for them that really makes them stand out from the crowd, and yet since they've been chosen as the generic example template marines they're usually depicted with bog-standard equipment. Meh.

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:actually now that i think about it gulliman almost killed Dorn because he refused to follow the codex

It's Guilliman's response to opposition to his Codex that bothers me more than anything else about him personally. I understand that tensions must have been running unbelievably high in the wake of the Heresy, but I think ol' Robby would have a good many more supporters both in-universe and in the real world if he hadn't chosen that moment to force his vision of the future on his fellow Primarchs rather than opening the matter up for discussion.

Ironically, for all the talk of the Ultras being unlikable for being flawless, it's their Primarch's one moment of overweening arrogance that has won them my enmity more than anything else.

Manchu wrote:This is kind of off-topic, but have you ever noticed that Horus is more defined by how the other Primarchs are not like him rather than anything specific to his own personality? Using the example of Sanguinius: Horus murders Sanguinius, which is an act of rejecting the nobility of the Emperor's vision in favor of Chaos--i.e., Horus is not noble . . . unlike Sanguinius.

That's an off-topic note I can get behind. I'll admit I've not read any of the HH books directly featuring Horus, but he never did seem to have much of a personality to me, blander than Guilliman, even.

aka_tizz wrote:What i haven't seen stated around is this :
During the Great Crusade, there were 20 Legions, each 10.000 strong. That would make 200.000 Marines, plus the Guard accompanying the respective Legions and their expeditions. And those forces conquered thousands of planets.

Now, in the present 40k time, there are around 1000 Chapters, each with roughly 1000 Marines, making a total of 1.000.000(!!!) Astartes, plus the Guard. But, the splitting into Chapters has rendered this 5-times-bigger-than-the-Crusade-time number of Marines totally useless, making it impossible for any leader to attain power and use it wrongly, but also preventing them from uniting and starting another Great Crusade.

Furthermore, the Codex works only for the Astartes, and it was totally useless to prevent the rise of Vandire and his reign, while being even more useless in causing its downfall.

This is what the Codex actually did. While (arguably) preventing another (Astartes) Heresy, it also prevented the Imperium from starting campaigns of conquest of the magnitude of the Great Crusade

'kay, I think I'm going to have to actually come to the defense of Guilliman's Codex here.

There can't be another Great Crusade because the enemies now arrayed against mankind are much stronger and better entrenched than during the original Crusade, and there are no figures as powerful and charismatic as the Emperor or his Primarchs around to lead it. The division of the Legions under the Codex Astartes is insignificant in the face of all the other factors preventing another Great Crusade, and I believe that if there were anyone around capable of leading such a campaign the disparate Chapters would unite under his/her banner just as easily as full Legions might have. It's just that there isn't that sort of leader anywhere in the Imperium. If anything, the Codex has greatly helped the Imperium survive as long as it has, the scattered deployment of the myriad Chapters allowing the Marines as a whole the tactical flexibility they desperately need in order to be present on even half the battlefields that demand their expertise.

UsdiThunder wrote:The smurfs are the poster boys so most everyone's gonna hate on them. The question is why do we hate Googlyman and his smurfs.

For me Rowboat is supposed to be this great administrator and yet technology falters into religous zealotry. He should of put a boot into Mars' behind to keep technology moving forward, not backwards. I guess his book didn't have enough room to write about a subsection on maintaining of all your gear instead of just your Bolter and Power Armour.

This is worse than Battletech. This is why I am a devout Xenos Scum. We at least do not worship Toasters.

Unlike the Ecclesiarchy, the Mechanicum was already entrenched prior to the heresy, and the state of human technology was already on perilous ground. Remember that the Crusade came at the end of the Age of Strife, and by that time many of the wonders of ancient times had already been lost. Humanity was only just beginning to wade forward again, technologically speaking, when the Heresy struck, and mankind could have lost what little grasp of the mysteries of the machine it now retains if Guilliman had tried to interfere in the internal affairs of the Adeptus Mechanicus at that time. In any case, we know he could organize armies and empires. We have no idea if his alleged administrative genius would have even been applicable to the workings of the Mechanicum.

Guitardian wrote:I believe it was necessary to separate the Astartes from anything but their religious zealousy of their chapter. Mars would be included. What if a chapter of Marines pinpoint strike a Titan facility, and suddenly have all that power too? I think it was deliberate to keep them separated, which is why Techmarines (and techpriests) are kind of the intermediaries of two separate, important, yet not self sufficient entities. The division could go further down the ladder and you have a chapter who has their own Imperial Guard regiment at their disposal, their own titans, doesn't matter any more if there's only 1000 of them if theres a billion serving soldiers, tanks, titans, etc following their doctrine. That's why it was in his infinite wisdom to draw up a law by which Marines only tend to Marine matters (like tending the boltgun and the armor) and left other military matters to other branches.

Given the size and splendor of Ultramar, I would say he did pretty well for himself by restricting everyone else's ambitions... Regardless of gameplay worthiness, they are still the pinnacle and most well respected of all chapters (fluffwise) because they follow the rules to the letter. All chapters have a flaw. I think for the Ultramarines, it's OCD. Try telling someone with OCD that they have OCD, they will write up a meticulous list of exactly why that is not true, possibly complete with diagrams, charts, quotes, and um... a codex?

On the other hand, though, I'm still not calling his wisdom infinite. While I think splitting the Legions was probably ultimately the right decision, even if I'm not fond of how G-man went about it, there should really be a closer cooperation between the various arms of the Imperial military, and seeing as how he himself maintained influence over his little corner of the Imperium, who's he to say there shouldn't be close ties between Marine Chapters and Imperial Guard Regiments and Titan Legions? The deployment of Imperial forces would be so much more easily orchestrated if they didn't all have their own independent chains of command.

And on an off-topic note, it's my understanding that the majority of people suffering from OCD, or at least OCD severe enough to be diagnosable, recognize they have a problem.

I think the biggest problem with Guilliman himself as a character is that his best traits were much subtler talents than those of his brother Primarchs. He's the epic accountant standing amidst epic warriors, and he missed out on his biggest chance to prove his valor through visible awesomeness when he failed to reach the Siege of Terra. His merits end up being harder to see, and when his chapter gets relentlessly promoted as being awesome anyway, it leads to resentment from all the other SM players who can point to more concrete evidence of their Primarchs being cool.

aka_tizz wrote:What i haven't seen stated around is this :
During the Great Crusade, there were 20 Legions, each 10.000 strong. That would make 200.000 Marines, plus the Guard accompanying the respective Legions and their expeditions. And those forces conquered thousands of planets.

Now, in the present 40k time, there are around 1000 Chapters, each with roughly 1000 Marines, making a total of 1.000.000(!!!) Astartes, plus the Guard. But, the splitting into Chapters has rendered this 5-times-bigger-than-the-Crusade-time number of Marines totally useless, making it impossible for any leader to attain power and use it wrongly, but also preventing them from uniting and starting another Great Crusade.

Furthermore, the Codex works only for the Astartes, and it was totally useless to prevent the rise of Vandire and his reign, while being even more useless in causing its downfall.

This is what the Codex actually did. While (arguably) preventing another (Astartes) Heresy, it also prevented the Imperium from starting campaigns of conquest of the magnitude of the Great Crusade

wrong, raven guard had atleast 80000 and they were one of the smaller legions

However, all of them combined never reached even close to 1 000 000, and even admitting that some Chapters have less than 1 000 this number would never be comparable to pre-heresy Space Marines.

And besides, where does it say they had 80 000? It's the first time i'm hearing about this

but the BT have 6000 at least... so yeah

Emperor's Children were supposed to be the smallest Legion and they numbered 80,000.

And what about the Thousand Sons part where Ahriman says that some 1200 and something Marines had escaped, "a tenth of the Legion". That makes the Thousand Sons 12 000 strong, not anywhere near 80 000. And they weren't the smallest

Could have been a tenth of the ones left standing at that point? Or maybe not everyone was home at the time (I haven't read that book yet).

I think, much like the old testament bible, a lot of numbers are lost to the ages, and more mythological than factual. When someone says 'millions' it doesn't necessarily literally mean 'millions'. Given the modern U.S. military has about 50,000 deployed and that's just in a few areas of a single planet, I would think the Legion numbers for a whole galaxy being occupied would number a lot more. It's just good propeganda to fudge the numbers in the records ("We conquered the galaxy with only a few good men!") makes their mystique that much more chuck norris-ey.

aka_tizz wrote:However, all of them combined never reached even close to 1 000 000, and even admitting that some Chapters have less than 1 000 this number would never be comparable to pre-heresy Space Marines.

And besides, where does it say they had 80 000? It's the first time i'm hearing about this

The numbers you're quoting are way off.

The Raven Guard numbered around the 80-90K mark by Isstvaan V. The Ultramarines alone had over 250, 000 marines prior to the heresy. In the immediate aftermath of the HH when the chapters were split they still had enough to form at least 23 separate chapters.

The Chaos Codex has Angron leading 50,000 Khorne Berzerkers on a 200 hundred year invasion during the "Dominion pf Fire" period post heresy.

Where as the 1k Sons at full strength were around 10,000 strong, with.. amazingly enough..... about 1,000 of them left post their scrap with the Space Wolves.

I would suggest that all the numbers are bs.

Games Workshop does not have some kind of mythic bible at Nottingham HQ that lays down the exact facts and nature of the 40k universe, and people do not consult this non-existent tomb when writing new bits of 40k fluff.

Therefore the fluff contradicts all the time. The gist is often similar across bits of fluff, but major contradiction is common. We can explain this as the ancient history of the 40k universe being known very loosely (at present day) and the tales being corrupted over the centuries.... But honestly, it's just that new fluff is not cross checked across everything ever written previously.

I think that future quotes of numbers/facts should cite the source (eg. 4th Ed codex, HH book, etc...) to stop people flinging various numbers around as corrections to everyone else's numbers

Gulliman is like Manchester United, everyone hates him because he is so awesome.

Think about it, nobody hates Accrington Stanley!

... I see you drank milk as a child eh ?

mattyrm wrote:Gulliman is like Manchester United, everyone hates him because he is so awesome.

Think about it, nobody hates Accrington Stanley!

QFT

Atre wrote:I would suggest that all the numbers are bs.

Games Workshop does not have some kind of mythic bible at Nottingham HQ that lays down the exact facts and nature of the 40k universe, and people do not consult this non-existent tomb when writing new bits of 40k fluff.

Therefore the fluff contradicts all the time. The gist is often similar across bits of fluff, but major contradiction is common. We can explain this as the ancient history of the 40k universe being known very loosely (at present day) and the tales being corrupted over the centuries.... But honestly, it's just that new fluff is not cross checked across everything ever written previously.

I think that future quotes of numbers/facts should cite the source (eg. 4th Ed codex, HH book, etc...) to stop people flinging various numbers around as corrections to everyone else's numbers

except you know the books and audio books are a good source of info. raven's flight stated the raven guard went to istavaan V with 80,000 marines and left with about 5 or 6 thousand