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You are assuming that it took the Space Marines to do that.

No, it took the Emperor to do that. And even then, the Space Marines didn't do it alone.

Just Dave wrote:Oh yeah, genius Melissia, because none of the Imperial Guard turned traitor? Forgot that.

I actually meant it as the Space Marines were at the forefront of one of the greatest galactic expansions and that they were created as the Imperial Guard couldn't manage it alone.

What's too tough for the Guard they send the Marines to deal with. I imagine they're referred to as the greatest warriors in the galaxy for a reason...

yes 40-50% of the imperial army turned traitor but who turn first? half of the SM, you have it the other way around concering the great crusade. whats too tough for the guard? please explane to me whats too tough for the guard.

No, I'm not assuming it took the Space Marines to do that, I'm saying they were at the head of this galactic expansion. Which they were. I admit the Space Marines didn't do it alone, of course they didn't, however, they led the way.

As to the Imperial Guard also turning traitor, lets not get into an argument of 'he started it' when it comes to that, as that won't prove much of worth imho.

As to what is too tough for the Guard? I'm not sure, maybe rapidly crippling and overwhelming entire planets? The Nurthene? A planet with flying buggers featured in A Thousand Sons? Orbital Combat? The list goes on...

I ask you, what is too tough, particularly on the offence, for Space Marines?

Space Marines are better speechifiers. "SPESS Mahreenz! Todah we fight foh deh honra of deh Emprah!"

Hand to hand combat:Space Marines
Gun fight:Space Marines
Tank fight:Imperial Guard
Aerial Fight:Imperial Guard
so it kinda depends on what the situation of the battle

ironhand45 wrote:Aerial Fight:Imperial Guard

Thunderhawk Gunships say hell no.

You do of course realize that Thunderhawk gunships are designed primarily for space combat and ground support, right?

They're not interceptors or superiority craft.

Kanluwen wrote:You do of course realize that Thunderhawk gunships are designed primarily for space combat and ground support, right?

They're not interceptors or superiority craft.

Doesn't mean they can't perform as such. They're maneuverable enough. Not as maneuverable as a Vulture, but much more heavily armed than a Vulture as well.

Tthe Thunderhawk is really just for pick ups and drop offs and occasionaly have small dogfights and bombing runs. The Imperial Guard have two ships for all of those things and have more superior fighter planes

Just Dave wrote:

As to what is too tough for the Guard? I'm not sure, maybe rapidly crippling and overwhelming entire planets? The Nurthene? A planet with flying buggers featured in A Thousand Sons? Orbital Combat? The list goes on...

I ask you, what is too tough, particularly on the offence, for Space Marines?

And space hulks! Can't forget space hulks! Guardsmen crammed into a space hulk... I'd like to see that!

SaintHazard wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:You do of course realize that Thunderhawk gunships are designed primarily for space combat and ground support, right?

They're not interceptors or superiority craft.

Doesn't mean they can't perform as such. They're maneuverable enough. Not as maneuverable as a Vulture, but much more heavily armed than a Vulture as well.

No, they're really not maneuverable. Not against the Imperial air superiority or interceptor craft--of which the Vulture isn't, as it's a ground attack VTOL.

Thunderhawks pitted against Lightnings or Thunderbolts are going down.

Just Dave wrote:As to what is too tough for the Guard? I'm not sure, maybe rapidly crippling and overwhelming entire planets? The Nurthene? A planet with flying buggers featured in A Thousand Sons? Orbital Combat? The list goes on...

I ask you, what is too tough, particularly on the offence, for Space Marines?

1: Nope, the Guard are capable of that with the proper strategy (for example, naval bombardment followed by rapid mechanized advance with close artillery support). Space Marines, however, cannot rapidly conquer an entire planet by themselves without committing significant forces-- a single company of Marines isn't really capable of withstanding the attrition necessary to truly conquer a well-defended planet on their own, nevermind suppress a resisting populace. Multiple companies would be necessary to say the least.

2: The Nurthene destroyed themselves after the Imperium pressed them too hard. Hardly a threat capable of dealing with a full fledged Imperial invasion.

3: Hydras and aerospace fighters could deal with them with proper planning.

4: Astartes ships are designed for the sole purpose of deploying Astartes and providing orbital bombardment support when necessary, they are not designed for space combat. The Imperial Navy, however, is designed for space combat, and has far more in firepower and numbers.


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Freelancer48 wrote:And space hulks! Can't forget space hulks! Guardsmen crammed into a space hulk... I'd like to see that!

Space Hulks might be the one place that Astartes are unequivocally better.

I also liek Spaec Marines because they're like the Master Cheif who is the coolest space marin of all.

"We are space Marines we doesn't afraid of anything!"

"Purge the aleins!"

Lolz.

Guard is really underrated... they don't just go die in droves, it's just a tactical option for their commanders which Marines don't have. If they have to do a meat grinder war, they can do it-- but most commanders would rather destroy their enemies without such high costs in life (any guardsman that survives the first battle will be able to fight a second one after all, and they'll be less likely to run during the second one to boot). And the commanders have stormtroopers and veterans to dispatch on special missions (Although technically there wouldn't be a rank called "veteran", just that they'd pick the most skilled people for that particular mission). Not quite as good as Marines for special missions, but it gets the job done more often than not.

I will agree to that.

But I still think that the Space Marines get the job done faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly than the Guard in most situations.

And isn't getting results what matters most?

SaintHazard wrote:But I still think that the Space Marines get the job done faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly than the Guard in most situations.

Define "most situations". Because I disagree, and I think that's what it hinges on.

SaintHazard wrote:But I still think that the Space Marines get the job done faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly than the Guard in most situations.

Marines get the job done "faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly" when it comes to surgical strikes. If it's an opponent who can psychologically be intimidated then Marines are king. Putting down insurrections, up and coming heresies, etc is a fantastic job when it focuses on putting down a single target to break the back of the enemy.

Otherwise, Marines are absolutely useless without Guard support. And considering "most situations" in the 40kverse are against beasts that feel no fear, pity, nor remorse...

That makes Marines pretty damned useless.

Kanluwen wrote:Marines get the job done "faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly" when it comes to surgical strikes.

Which is the minority of all conflicts in 40k.

Melissia wrote:

SaintHazard wrote:But I still think that the Space Marines get the job done faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly than the Guard in most situations.

Define "most situations". Because I disagree, and I think that's what it hinges on.

To be more specific, if it's a job the Guard can do, I think that the Space Marines have the technology, training, equipment, and resolve to get in there and do it better, even if that's not necessary.

The Guard almost always boils down to 1) fight a war of attrition, 2) send in our best men, or 3) holy gak, we won this one? How'd that happen? (Incompetent enemies.)

Space Marine engagements always boil down to 1) strike hard, fast, and true (and win) or 2) fail, because we'll be damned if ANYONE can handle this one, followed by Exterminatus.

Of course, if you can think of examples where this is reversed or untrue, feel free to cite them, I personally have not seen any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

SaintHazard wrote:To be more specific, if it's a job the Guard can do, I think that the Space Marines have the technology, training, equipment, and resolve to get in there and do it better, even if that's not necessary.

Better != more efficiently (note that I do not agree on that point, either). Marines are extravagantly expensive to bring up, to maintain, to equip, and to train, and the results are not always worth what you pay for. And even then they aren't reliable, as they are loyal to their chapter first and the Imperium second.

Melissia wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Marines get the job done "faster, more efficiently, and more thoroughly" when it comes to surgical strikes.

Which is the minority of all conflicts in 40k.

Which was my point. There's very few times where Marines are the clear cut, 100% only viable option for a campaign. However, the Guard are always worthwhile

Melissia wrote:

SaintHazard wrote:To be more specific, if it's a job the Guard can do, I think that the Space Marines have the technology, training, equipment, and resolve to get in there and do it better, even if that's not necessary.

Better != more efficiently (note that I do not agree on that point, either). Marines are extravagantly expensive to bring up, to maintain, to equip, and to train, and the results are not always worth what you pay for. And even then they aren't reliable, as they are loyal to their chapter first and the Imperium second.

Not necessarily! Are we talking about Space Wolves here, or Ultramarines? Blood Angels, or Imperial Fists? Dark Angels, or Salamanders? In any of those situations, the former, yes, you're correct, they are loyal to the Chapter and Chapter cult before the Emperor, but in the latter case, I disagree. Codex chapters, while they may honor the Chapter cult in words, typically will serve Emperor and Imperium first.

And while they may be more expensive to maintain than Guardsmen on a one-to-one basis, think about numbers here. Guardsmen outnumber Marines billions to one. If your average Guardsman costs five widgets to maintain, and your average Marine costs five thousand widgets, the Guard, on the whole, is still vastly more expensive to equip and maintain than the Marines. Especially since most Marine chapters quite literally provide for themselves - Techmarines maintain their equipment (which is, often thousands of years old), they handle their own recruiting, only their brand new wargear comes from a forge world, and they're getting brand new gear wayyyyy less often than your average Guard regiment.

I love this thread, look what you fluffers did SHAME!

Anyways I shall come out of the dark to say once more.

Look at the models, what do you find cool about them? Why, ask yourself questions before spending hundreds of $$$ on the army.

Then do it. Vostryoan Guardsmen, Black Templar, hell even Dark Eldar. It's cool man

Really good oppinions from all, just on a side note, whenever IG face tyrannids alone they die, even their fleets, when facing a major swarm ussually, die, right then whennever they do win, its really lucky, SM their ships highly armoure and all, can just teleport, or, hmmm lets see drive right down the middle, and drill into the hive mind and win they do this they ussually do win, but if they fail, its ussually a terrible, loss yes, but wothout SM, IG die when facing nidds, its a fluff fact, give me one battle where IG win against nidds alone on the ground, when facing nidds, in fluff, IGs' numbers dont count for squat.

Gregersen wrote:... give me one battle where IG win against nidds alone on the ground, when facing nidds, in fluff, IGs' numbers dont count for squat.

Cadian 9th defeated Hive Fleet Scarabus at Carcasonne without losing a single company. The Catachan 18th wiped out the Tyranid infestation on Koralkal 8.

ironhand45 wrote: What do you think is better, Imperial Guard or Space Marines ?

The Tau







@OP-
Seriously, Go with the IG. Greater variety of builds and good looking models that have a militaistic feel about them. The IG are arguably the arny that best fits the fluff and playstyle that it is supposed to have.

IMO,The SM models suck, from their severe scoliosis (Look at a terminator from the side and try to draw a spine line frim the head to the back) all the way down past their pencil thighs to their gianormous disco bell bottom calves. Then there are the rediculously oversized pauldrons that would prevent them from scratch their noses much less let them swing a sword. SMs are just horrible looking models that can only be liked by that portion of the inner psyche that identifies with being 10-11 years old.
They are horribly proportioned and scaled(8' tall SM same hight as IG gaurdsman?) and they look more like an ugly version of a Buzz Lightyear than fearsome warriors.
I will admit that the Land Raider is a cool model and it is the only SM model that GW itself produces that I like.

focusedfire wrote:

ironhand45 wrote: What do you think is better, Imperial Guard or Space Marines ?

The Tau

Amen.

focusedfire wrote:@OP-
Seriously, Go with the IG. Greater variety of builds and good looking models that have a militaistic feel about them. The IG are arguably the arny that best fits the fluff and playstyle that it is supposed to have.

I'm not sure I agree with you here - which fluff? What playstyle are you referring to? Zooming around in APCs while tanks and artillery pound away from afar? Doesn't actually sound terribly fluffy to me.

focusedfire wrote:IMO,The SM models suck, from their severe scoliosis (Look at a terminator from the side and try to draw a spine line frim the head to the back) all the way down past their pencil thighs to their gianormous disco bell bottom calves. Then there are the rediculously oversized pauldrons that would prevent them from scratch their noses much less let them swing a sword.

A straight line can be drawn from a Terminator's waist to his head. He's hunched forward a bit, but it can be done easily. As for the rest, that's power armor dude. The pauldrons are kind of ridiculous, I'll grant you that, but if nobody had oversized pauldrons, how would you know who's in charge? It's like the IG with their enormous hats. "I have the biggest hat, therefore I am Commissar."

focusedfire wrote:SMs are just horrible looking models that can only be liked by that portion of the inner psyche that identifies with being 10-11 years old.
They are horribly proportioned and scaled(8' tall SM same hight as IG gaurdsman?) and they look more like an ugly version of a Buzz Lightyear than fearsome warriors.
I will admit that the Land Raider is a cool model and it is the only SM model that GW itself produces that I like.

Okay, I take a little bit of offense at you likening me to a 10 year old, but I'll let it slide, since I'm in a good mood today. As for the scale, their all 28mm miniatures, unfortunately the scale is going to be a little off. APCs that can't possibly actually hold 10 of these miniatures, Space Marines who are the same size as Guardsmen, etc. As for the Land Raider, you picked one of my least favorite models as your favorite, but to each his own.

SaintHazard wrote:

focusedfire wrote:@OP-
Seriously, Go with the IG. Greater variety of builds and good looking models that have a militaistic feel about them. The IG are arguably the arny that best fits the fluff and playstyle that it is supposed to have.

I'm not sure I agree with you here - which fluff? What playstyle are you referring to? Zooming around in APCs while tanks and artillery pound away from afar? Doesn't actually sound terribly fluffy to me.

The IG Is supposed to be a mechanized and manpower based army. It lives not off of its elites but instead the massed firepower of it troops and support units. This last codex was amazingly well written and formulated in how it allowd you run viable infantry mobs with artillery support, fully mechanized forces or an arial strike Air Cav style armies. The IG ,IMO, uses the most easily recognizable strategies because they are the closest thing that 40K has to being a corollary to a real world Army.

SaintHazard wrote:

focusedfire wrote:IMO,The SM models suck, from their severe scoliosis (Look at a terminator from the side and try to draw a spine line frim the head to the back) all the way down past their pencil thighs to their gianormous disco bell bottom calves. Then there are the rediculously oversized pauldrons that would prevent them from scratch their noses much less let them swing a sword.

A straight line can be drawn from a Terminator's waist to his head. He's hunched forward a bit, but it can be done easily. As for the rest, that's power armor dude. The pauldrons are kind of ridiculous, I'll grant you that, but if nobody had oversized pauldrons, how would you know who's in charge? It's like the IG with their enormous hats. "I have the biggest hat, therefore I am Commissar."

A)That straight line puts the neck about 6" in front of where it would be on a humanoid that is 8' tall.
B)Then try to lay out the body dimensions under the armour. It doesn't even come close, the shoulder and arm ratios would necessitate that they were cut off from the body and set a considerable distance outside of any concievable attachment point to the torso.
C)There are other ways to determine the rank. The SMs do not need to have transmission case bell housting for their pauldrons. Actually, the bell housings would be smaller. Still thanks for agreeing about the Pauldrons.
D)I'll take your silence on the ridiculous legs as an agreement that they are obnoxious

SaintHazard wrote:

focusedfire wrote:SMs are just horrible looking models that can only be liked by that portion of the inner psyche that identifies with being 10-11 years old.
They are horribly proportioned and scaled(8' tall SM same hight as IG gaurdsman?) and they look more like an ugly version of a Buzz Lightyear than fearsome warriors.
I will admit that the Land Raider is a cool model and it is the only SM model that GW itself produces that I like.

Okay, I take a little bit of offense at you likening me to a 10 year old, but I'll let it slide, since I'm in a good mood today. As for the scale, their all 28mm miniatures, unfortunately the scale is going to be a little off. APCs that can't possibly actually hold 10 of these miniatures, Space Marines who are the same size as Guardsmen, etc. As for the Land Raider, you picked one of my least favorite models as your favorite, but to each his own.

A)Re-read what I said. I highlighted the pertinent part. I never made a statement that likened you to anything.
B)My comment was about a portion of the human psyche that would be drawn to such. We all have an inner child of many ages, I refered to what I believe the target age range for these models are.
C)I Wouldn't call a failure to increase hieght and mass by 30% "a little off". GW claims to be a model manufacterer first and that is why we have to suffer with poorly written rules, yet they can't be bothered to make their models any where close to being scale accurate.
D) GW has made other armies that are very nicely scaled, the SMs just are not one of those armies.

And Finally
E)Yeah I like the landraider because of it being closer to scale and for the working assault ramps that show GW actually put effort into the model design. It also looks right for what it is supposed to portray. Now I agree with what you said about our difference of tastes, "to each his own".

IG can get Land Raiders

Gregersen wrote:Really good oppinions from all, just on a side note, whenever IG face tyrannids alone they die, even their fleets, when facing a major swarm ussually, die, right then whennever they do win, its really lucky

That's funny, so do Space Marines.

The Guard pushes off Tyranid and Genestealer threats all the time.


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SaintHazard wrote:And while they may be more expensive to maintain than Guardsmen on a one-to-one basis, think about numbers here.

No, they're more expensive on a thousand to one basis, if not moreso. A lasgun is cheap and reliable, easily serviceable, and effective (despite its infamy in tabletop). Its ammunition recharges itself, it's cheap to produce and each clip holds quite a few shots. Flak armor is cheap and easy to manufacture (Even primitive cultures can manufacture it), yet still effective against most enemies. It's also extremely light as well (modern body armor is heavy and clunky in comparison), allowing for ease of movement and lack of fatigue.

Meanwhile, Bolters are expensive. A single clip of civilian-quality bolter shells costs more than five lasguns. A civilian boltgun itself costs nearly seven times as much as a lasgun. These aren't the high quality, huge and powerful boltguns used by the Astartes, these are just the imitation brands, so to speak, purchased by nobles and bounty hunters. An imitation Astartes caliber bolt carbine (not as high quality as the real thing, but able to fire the right ammunition-- the real thing would cost around ten times this much) costs ~27 times as much as a lasgun. And the Astartes class bolter shells themselves are also extremely expensive.

And then there's maintenance, as both power armor and bolters require a ton of maintenance. They are far too expensive just to replace, and they cannot last as long on the field without maintenance as lasgun and flak armor-- even the best quality bolters are prone to jamming in comparison to a common quality lasgun, and power armor has to be maintained meticulously because you do NOT want that malfunctioning at all. This maintenance costs time and money, either time for the Astartes or the time purchased for their servants (who could have been doing something else), and any jamming or malfunction can mean death to the soldier involved or a failure of the mission.


The last thing Marines are is cost efficient. Powerful, skilled, useful perhaps, but not efficient. The Imperium does not keep supplying Marines because they are efficient, they do so out of tradition and religion.


edit: Oh, and these costs come from Dark Heresy and supplements. In Dark Hersy, bolters are actually kinda undercosted for balance purposes (they should cost more given the fluff, but don't so that players can actually have them occasionally), as it is a roleplaying game after all.