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On Terra? Good luck with that.

thats working on the principle that they get to terra

They situation described by the OP works on the principle that the marines are overthrowing the High Lords. They aren't going to do that from anywhere else. If you virus bomb the marines, you virus bomb Terra. Like I said, good luck with that.

For all currently loyal astartes to turn against terra then something serious would have to happen which I'm sure would lead to many Imperial Guard and others siding with the astartes. This means there would be a lot of resistance yes but there would also be a lot of opposition to the resistance. This means it would be like the horus heresy just with astartes only on one side.

The first question I have is: are the astartes still loyal to the emporer or not because if they are and I was a high-lord on terra I'd stand next to the off switch and say: off or emporer here 's off. Your choice...

Either way, as soon as this happens chaos would go mad, as the imperium suddenly has basically no defence from others. Then orks would go: oooh, that's a big fight, let's go join in! Then dark Eldar would go there's some easy undefended world's to raid. Tau would begin expanding for the greater good quite a bit. If the void dragon is in Mars then I would imagine it would go wakey wakey and this galaxy is mine. Eldar would either join in fighting for the imperium or loyal/unloyal astartes or might sit there and go we're too old, leave them to it. And tyranids would go nom nom nom nom.

And Matt Ward would rejoice that he's no longer the most hated fluff writer.

Brother Coa wrote:Uhhh......I am pretty sure that 1 Space Marine = 300 Imperial Guardsman.

And besides, if Marines are that much useless as being 1 Marine = 10 Guardsman the Imperium wouldn't have any need for them. It is more cheat to train one Stormtrooper who is worth like 10 Guardsman in cannon than one Space Marine.

Because as numbers increase, so does pointless losses. If a single Marine is able to do the job of 10 Imperial Guards, 10 Marines would be more than adequate to do 100 Imperial Guardsmen's job. 10 Marines don't make a huge target the way 100 Guardsmen do, not to mention that smaller groups are easier to keep disciplined, motivated, and mobile. While Space Marines might not be as cost-efficient as decently trained Imperial Guards, due to the Marines' high training cost and individual maintenance, they are a more compact fighting force.

Seriously, marines at that efficiency does make sense, what doesn't make sense is their statue-approach to combat, since that more or less negates the biggest benefit of a small, elite, force - they aren't easily spotted.

Should a Space Marine be as efficient as 300 IG, they'd be scrapped since at that point should they go rogue you'd not be able to handle them. I mean, if the Imperial Guard are powerful enough that they have to split the army into sections to keep it in check so that an insurrection doesn't carry with it the full swing of equipment, imagine what 1,000 super-soldiers at 1-to-300 level could do.

DaemonJellybaby wrote:I believe this has been looked at before, and each individual Space Marine would have to walk thru around 25,000 Guardsmen. No matter how many Guardsmen a single marine could kill, the space marine would be broken under the sheer weight of the bodies.

Plus the SM have to get past the Navy. An average chapter has two or three strike cruisers that are designed to deploy troops and provide support fire, the Navy is there for pure voidbourne combat. Navy>>SM space travel therefore, if not impossible, incredibly improbable that the SM could take on the Navy.

+1 to purplefood

I think the actual number was 25,000 tons of guardsmen not 25,000 guardsmen...
At any rate chapter fleets are larger than you think.

fair point, i concede

Another civil war, fought on Terra, both sides believing they are on the good side?

It would break the Emperor's heart D;!

Brother Coa wrote:... Black Templars have 6000+ marines,

This gets thrown around a lot and.....no, they're not 6000+.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:... Black Templars have 6000+ marines,

This gets thrown around a lot and.....no, they're not 6000+.

Codex: Black Templars p8: "5000-6000 Marines spread through several Crusades"


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purplefood wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:It's more like a tradition now...

No it's just stupid. Really really stupid.

Ok, I get it, no more M.W. jokes...

Brother Coa wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:... Black Templars have 6000+ marines,

This gets thrown around a lot and.....no, they're not 6000+.

Codex: Black Templars p8: "5000-6000 Marines spread through several Crusades"

Please quote the whole text.

Mahtamori wrote:
Should a Space Marine be as efficient as 300 IG, they'd be scrapped since at that point should they go rogue you'd not be able to handle them. I mean, if the Imperial Guard are powerful enough that they have to split the army into sections to keep it in check so that an insurrection doesn't carry with it the full swing of equipment

And that is exactly what happened. See Soul Drinkers, they didn't quite destroy them yet. Relictors to.
Space Marines in fluff are REALLY hard to kill. Every Marine have at least 100-200 years of combat experience.
And Guard is more massive than you think.

Mahtamori wrote:imagine what 1,000 super-soldiers at 1-to-300 level could do.

Crimson Fist vs. Orks.
Ultramarines vs. Tyranids.
Space Wolves on Armageddon.

They can do a LOT of crazy gak, like holding down a sector or 2...

Brother Coa wrote:
Space Marines in fluff are REALLY hard to kill. Every Marine have at least 100-200 years of combat experience.

That much more of a loss when their ships get blown up.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:... Black Templars have 6000+ marines,

This gets thrown around a lot and.....no, they're not 6000+.

Codex: Black Templars p8: "5000-6000 Marines spread through several Crusades"

Please quote the whole text.

Do you know how much do I have to write?

"The Black Templars chose not to adhere to the Codex Astartes and, following the oath of Sigismund, the Chapter embarked upon its Crusade, escheving the idea of a homeworld and living aboard their Crusade fleets, made up of dozens of battle barges, strike cruisers and other craft such as training vessels and gigantic forgeships."

"Only the High Marshal of the Chapter has any idea how many Black Templars Space Marines there are, but it is obvious that they are far more numerous than most conventional Chapters, although dispersed over much wider area. If certain accounts are to be believed, they could even be as string as five thousand to six thousand battle brethren in total, a force that would be all but unstoppable if ever gathered in a single place. Certain members of the Inquisition have expressed concern over the potential size if the Chapter, but since there has been no evidence of disloyalty in their long history, and none have found evidence to challenge the Chapter on it's numbers, the Chapter true size remains a mystery." ( witch means it may have more than 6000 marines, but there is no data on that).

Now answer me, why did you think this data is incorrect?


And P.S. Why do people always wanted something quoted here from codex? REDACTED BY THE MODQUISITION read it yourself.

I think that the Imperium would win. Space Marines (and Chaos Space Marines) are definitely important forces in the universe, but the entire Imperium including the Guard, Ad Mech, SoB and PDFs could take on the Space Marines if they rebelled. It wouldn't be an easy battle but over all I think the Imperium would win. Space Marines would probably start a "tactical withdrawl" when things got bad and set up a sizeable empire in Ultramar or some other Space Marine headquarters thingy.

I do apologize. I didn't mean the whole text. I meant the whole sentence. Sorry about that.

Brother Coa wrote: If certain accounts are to be believed, they could even be as string as five thousand to six thousand battle brethren in total, a force that would be all but unstoppable if ever gathered in a single place.

See?

"If certain accounts"....meaning not all accounts.

"are to be believed".......meaning they might not be accurate.

"could even"....meaning it might not be true.

"be as strong as"......meaning up to, but might be less.

"five thousand to six thousand".....meaning certainly not the 6000+ drivel being perpetuated as fact all the time.


If somebody throw out an off-hand and final statement like;" Black Templars are 6000+ strong".
They will receive an equally off-hand and final answer like; "No, they are not".


Again I apologize about the "whole text" thing.

...

That also doesn't mean that they don't have 6000+ Marines.
It's just hard count them all when they are dying and recruiting in who knows how many marines daily. And they are all over the galaxy and Administratinum is highly accurate about many things ( they can lost a planet to ).

And we don't know their exact number for 1 more reason: it is a secret guarded by Inquisition. And why would they hide numbers of 1 Chapter?

And don't sweat, it's damn copy-paste thing. Don't work with PDF...

Anyway, wait until 5'th edition by the end of this year. I can bet that their numbers will rise to 10.000.

Brother Coa wrote:That also doesn't mean that they don't have 6000+ Marines.
It's just hard count them all when they are dying and recruiting in who knows how many marines daily. And they are all over the galaxy and Administratinum is highly accurate about many things ( they can lost a planet to ).

And we don't know their exact number for 1 more reason: it is a secret guarded by Inquisition. And why would they hide numbers of 1 Chapter?

And don't sweat, it's damn copy-paste thing. Don't work with PDF...

Anyway, wait until 5'th edition by the end of this year. I can bet that their numbers will rise to 10.000.

What?
First off, the administratum don't count SM. SM chapters keep track of their own members, everynow and again the Inquisition or a high ranking Administratum official gets a quick headcount or someone pieces information together from various reports of SM actiions across the Imperium. This is why many of them are so vague about SM numbers.
Secondly the BTs are spread out across the Imperium, that is the reason it is hard to count them all. The Inquisition would probably like accurate unit and equipment dispositions on all BT crusades and garrisons and they probably have a fair idea but i doubt they are actively hiding the numbers mainly because that makes no sense whatsoever. And if it says that in the codex then Ward isn't the only person you should hate for 'bad' fluff.

Bad Fluff?

This is a great fluff, it's realistic. They have the strength of 5-6 chapters, but they are all over the galaxy so they can't really put that to good use.

And it's likely that they will never all meat in the same place ( well not until the end times at least ).

And Marines must report their numbers to Admanistratinum who then send them to Inquisition. And they are quite reliable when it comes to that kind of thing.

Brother Coa wrote:Bad Fluff?

This is a great fluff, it's realistic. They have the strength of 5-6 chapters, but they are all over the galaxy so they can't really put that to good use.

And it's likely that they will never all meat in the same place ( well not until the end times at least ).

And Marines must report their numbers to Admanistratinum who then send them to Inquisition. And they are quite reliable when it comes to that kind of thing.

That's not what i'm talking about Coa and you know it.
The Inquisition has no reason to hide the numbers of BT and if that's what it says in the codex then it's bad fluff.
Where is your source on that last point?
Space Marine chapters are pretty insular due to their autonomy. They have their own records and requests can be made to gain copies of them by the administratum but otherwise they don't have to tell them anything.

purplefood wrote:
Where is your source on that last point?
Space Marine chapters are pretty insular due to their autonomy. They have their own records and requests can be made to gain copies of them by the administratum but otherwise they don't have to tell them anything.

Well, they have to report their numbers to someone, I assume that they report it to Administratinum who then report this to Inquisition.

Belexar wrote:If all regular (no SW, BA, etc; it would be too one-sided otherwise) chapters agreed, it would be the greatest war the galaxy has ever seen. All the IG and the loyal chapters against the Ultramarines, the Imperial Fists, the Crimson Fists, all those guys. Can you imagine that? Trillions woud die in the name of awesomeness!

That would be extremely one-sided. Without IG or IN support, the Traitor Marines would be completely steamrolled. Firstly, they'd be outnumbered millions to one-and that's just the forces who would be available at the time. If you factor in the soldiers who are in combat or otherwise unable to enter combat immediately, it's billions to one. Secondly, Space Marine fleets are composed almost entirely of transports; they aren't allowed heavy gunships in case of a rebellion like this. Thirdly, Space Marines have a very narrow tactical role and are unsuited to wars of attrition that the Guard commonly uses. All in all, they'd be pretty low down on the list of threats.


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Brother Coa wrote: If certain accounts are to be believed, they could even be as string as five thousand to six thousand battle brethren in total, a force that would be all but unstoppable if ever gathered in a single place.

Unstoppable? Send in a few hundred thousand+ Guardsmen and a mid-sized IN fleet. 6000 men? Pretty much irrelevant compared with the power an IG battle group commands.

TrollPie wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother Coa wrote: If certain accounts are to be believed, they could even be as string as five thousand to six thousand battle brethren in total, a force that would be all but unstoppable if ever gathered in a single place.

Unstoppable? Send in a few hundred thousand+ Guardsmen and a mid-sized IN fleet. 6000 men? Pretty much irrelevant compared with the power an IG battle group commands.

In respect toward Imperial Guard, I will just say that 6000 Space Marines can do a much higher damage with much few losses of both manpower and equipment. The only real advantage the Guard has in that kind of situation is to wage that kind of war for decades, Marines are meant for short term wars.

Imperial Guard is powerful, and the Guardsman are the most brave things in 40k universe. But they pale in comparison to the Astartes who can do everything they can with much grater performance.

Brother Coa wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother Coa wrote: If certain accounts are to be believed, they could even be as string as five thousand to six thousand battle brethren in total, a force that would be all but unstoppable if ever gathered in a single place.

Unstoppable? Send in a few hundred thousand+ Guardsmen and a mid-sized IN fleet. 6000 men? Pretty much irrelevant compared with the power an IG battle group commands.

In respect toward Imperial Guard, I will just say that 6000 Space Marines can do a much higher damage with much few losses of both manpower and equipment. The only real advantage the Guard has in that kind of situation is to wage that kind of war for decades, Marines are meant for short term wars.

Imperial Guard is powerful, and the Guardsman are the most brave things in 40k universe. But they pale in comparison to the Astartes who can do everything they can with much grater performance.

Except waging a war, thanks to their pitiful numbers and somewhat one sided equipment ( i mean, just look at their main battletank, all the suck of a Leman Russ without even it's armour or battlecanon /o\ )

Unless they got support or somehow got back to legion strength the Marines are not up for a war of attrition. 6000 marines would cause serious problems considering 1000 can take an entire system by themselves though, but unsupported would start to lose ground once the initial spearhead slowed down.

To be honest the winner would probably be whoever got the Mechanicus's support

IF the Space Marine had Navy and AM support heading in... maybe (better get the Adeptus Custodes in on it too). If not, then forget it.

BTW: I think if a united SM council was formed that ruled Terra, the IG would just accept it. No pack of commissars/priests is going to get any number of IG to fight against a united SM occupation of Terra... just isn't going to happen.

But what is more unfortunate is that scenario will be happening in the end. I read ( I can't remember, probably the 5'th edition codex fluff ) that in the last 250 years HLOT are giving more and more planets under the control of Space Marine chapters to assure continued stability in the Imperium's space.

And after the end times starts, Space Marines will surely go to Terra and take military command of the Imperium's armed forces.

Brother Coa wrote:But what is more unfortunate is that scenario will be happening in the end. I read ( I can't remember, probably the 5'th edition codex fluff ) that in the last 250 years HLOT are giving more and more planets under the control of Space Marine chapters to assure continued stability in the Imperium's space.

And after the end times starts, Space Marines will surely go to Terra and take military command of the Imperium's armed forces.

Unlikely. Even if the highlords decide to put some strategicaly important/ unstable worlds under Astartes control there are still many more who are under the normal imperial system of rulership.
To give you an idea on how outnumbered Spacemarines are compared to the Imperium of Man let us have a look at the naval assets of both. There are between 250000 and 750000 warships under the control of the Imperial Navy, that is 10000 sectors with 100 planets and 75 warships or 5000 sectors with 200 planets each and 50 warships ( the average sectorfleet has between 50-75 warships and a sector seems to have somewhat between 100 and 200 planets ). If we assume that there are two escorts for every capital ship then we have something between 83333 capital ships and 250000 capital ships with the rest consisting of escorts.

Your average spacemarine chapter has between one and three battlebarges, a number of strikecruisers and some escorts. There are 1000 chapters. That makes, at best, 3000 battlebarges ( grandcruiser/ battleship equivalent ) and perhaps ( wild guess, but i think that between 5 and 10 strikecruisers seems to make sense ) between 5000 and 10000 strikecruisers ( which are barely more than uparmoured light cruisers ) and perhaps 26000 escorts ( if we assume 2 escorts per capital ) which will mean at best 39000 ships of all kinds. So even at the most optimistic estimate the Astartes fleet, which consists mainly of light cruisers and escorts, is outnumbered more than two times by my most pessimistic estimate for the Imperial Navy's capital ships alone.

Brother Coa wrote:

purplefood wrote:
Where is your source on that last point?
Space Marine chapters are pretty insular due to their autonomy. They have their own records and requests can be made to gain copies of them by the administratum but otherwise they don't have to tell them anything.

Well, they have to report their numbers to someone, I assume that they report it to Administratinum who then report this to Inquisition.

Tey really don't have to tell anyone...
They're autonomous remember.