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Serder wrote:

Ignatius wrote:
A Space Marines Chapter doesn't have the numbers or support to defeat a sizable WAAGH completely by themselves. That's why the Guard anchor a position and the Marines (when they are able to be bothered to support the Guard) strike into the WAAAGH's heart. Otherwise, the Guard just charge in and eventually put down the Orks. Same thing with the Tyranids. The Hive Fleets in the galaxy now are held in check pretty much solely by the Guard. It's fairly clear that you have bought in to the whole idea of the Guard being worthless and the Marines being the saviors of mankind and all that crap.

Don't get me wrong, I love Space Marines, and the Horus Heresy novels. I just don't think it's fair for people to put down the Guard in such a way.

The problem with the guard is their commanders. SM are usually sent to reinforced IGs offensive when the Lord generals leading said assaults are incompetent. These generals are the ones making the guard look bad. When the earthshaker platform finally make a breach in a wall, sending a million guardsmen into it trying to overrun the opponent, when it doesnt work, they send 2 million, etc. When these Lord Generals are in need, the SMs are sent as reinforcments...

If there were more Generals that thought like in the Dan Abnett books or like in storm of Iron (chaos vs guard, the guard there were pretty good fighters despite being attacked by an Iron Warrior Legion), the guard would be less looked down on.

So overall, usually, SMs commander (captains and such) are usually more sound tactically because they don't see their forces as an edless supply of insects... Like a lot of Generals in the Guard do...

This is a stereotype. And a bad one. There are hundreds of trillions of guardsmen in the galaxy. There are millions of worlds, millions of generals, and hundreds of thousands of battlefields. Because you read of a few generals that sacrifice the lives of their men it doesn't mean they all do- as you said.

GW and the BL are going to try to paint the picture for you that all generals are incompetent fools because it makes the Space Marines all the more heroic looking when they come in and save the day. I would say that the instance of poor leadership as bad as those milllion-men-sacrificing lord generals are an extreme minority. If they weren't, then the Imperium would have been overrun a hell of a long time ago.

Ignatius wrote:

This is a stereotype. And a bad one. There are hundreds of trillions of guardsmen in the galaxy. There are millions of worlds, millions of generals, and hundreds of thousands of battlefields. Because you read of a few generals that sacrifice the lives of their men it doesn't mean they all do- as you said.

GW and the BL are going to try to paint the picture for you that all generals are incompetent fools because it makes the Space Marines all the more heroic looking when they come in and save the day. I would say that the instance of poor leadership as bad as those milllion-men-sacrificing lord generals are an extreme minority. If they weren't, then the Imperium would have been overrun a hell of a long time ago.

My bad, didn't phrase my thoughts right.

What I meant is that the guards are sometimes looked down uppon (I love the guard btw) because, when their leader are incopetent, the SMs are usually called upon to save the day (and again, only if acompany of a chapter is close by, otherwise, the commander will die with his men) I've actually not read a book where the Lord Generals were all idiots (only some cases in the gaunt's ghost series). So cases when the guard comes to repare the tactical errors of the SMs are way rarer (if even existant???) than the opposite.

And reputation is like trust, it takes a long time to build and only one blunder to ruin it...

Dayvuni wrote:So if IG are really the backbone of the Imperium, why do the SM have as much support as they do Instead of funding the IG more? I under stand that SM are special forces team but why not just send the guard to wipe out an ork WAAAGH or Tyranid Hive fleet?

The IG has funding that would make the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes pale in comparison.

The Asartes have a world, or a few worlds, per chapter, and even then really only function because of the assistance of the Imperium and the Mechanicus. The Imperial Guard has the rest of the Imperium combined. And the Astartes worlds are rarely developed to the point of having any real industry, so their output is minimalistic.

A single hive world can export more military power than an entire Astartes chapter in less than a decade.

And they do! Minimal taxation would result in millions of guardsmen being recruited from hive worlds every year, and most hive worlds also have the manufacturing capability to equip every single one with basic guard equipment and some basic support such as chimera,s heavy weapons, and perhaps a few tanks.

Serder wrote:

Ignatius wrote:

This is a stereotype. And a bad one. There are hundreds of trillions of guardsmen in the galaxy. There are millions of worlds, millions of generals, and hundreds of thousands of battlefields. Because you read of a few generals that sacrifice the lives of their men it doesn't mean they all do- as you said.

GW and the BL are going to try to paint the picture for you that all generals are incompetent fools because it makes the Space Marines all the more heroic looking when they come in and save the day. I would say that the instance of poor leadership as bad as those milllion-men-sacrificing lord generals are an extreme minority. If they weren't, then the Imperium would have been overrun a hell of a long time ago.

My bad, didn't phrase my thoughts right.

What I meant is that the guards are sometimes looked down uppon (I love the guard btw) because, when their leader are incopetent, the SMs are usually called upon to save the day (and again, only if acompany of a chapter is close by, otherwise, the commander will die with his men) I've actually not read a book where the Lord Generals were all idiots (only some cases in the gaunt's ghost series). So cases when the guard comes to repare the tactical errors of the SMs are way rarer (if even existant???) than the opposite.

And reputation is like trust, it takes a long time to build and only one blunder to ruin it...

All in good fun. I jumped the gun a little bit in my response and I do understand what you are saying. I agree with what you are saying, I just wanted to make sure you weren't saying what I thought you were.

Imperial Guard would definitely win. There are millions of Guardsmen for every Space Marine, and they can simply crush them despite taking heavy casualties.

Melissia wrote:"The Astartes are holding me hostage, and wish for you to surrender. And so I have contacted you asking you but one thing: Artillery barrage on my position, hold nothing back."

Thats not the point of Astartes. If there were fifty Lord Generals operating in an area, they'd teleport into 49 of their HQ bunkers, then teleport out and ask the last guy if he'd like to surrender now.

Maybe he wouldn't, so they'd kill him and just keep working down the foodchain until they get to someone who will.

Billions of men. tanks and planes aren't worth squat if the have no-one to fight.

Thats why this would only ever be a contest between the Imperial Navy and Astartes Battlefleets.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space, but if they didn't there would be nothing the IG could do to stop the Astartes, despite their overwhelming military advantages.

Kaldor wrote:Thats why this would only ever be a contest between the Imperial Navy and Astartes Battlefleets.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space, but if they didn't there would be nothing the IG could do to stop the Astartes, despite their overwhelming military advantages.

You are making a point in the first part of the sentence, but then contradicting yourself in the second part.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space. 100% true. So there is no "but if they didn't" because it wouldn't happen that way. They would crush them in space.

So then the Astartes would have to either get off their ships and onto the planet to be killed to a man, or sit on their ships and be killed to a man.

End result either way: They are killed to a man. Or Astartes rather.

I think "killed to a man" is pretty much the greatest 40K meme that exists thus far.

Ignatius wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Thats why this would only ever be a contest between the Imperial Navy and Astartes Battlefleets.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space, but if they didn't there would be nothing the IG could do to stop the Astartes, despite their overwhelming military advantages.

You are making a point in the first part of the sentence, but then contradicting yourself in the second part.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space. 100% true. So there is no "but if they didn't" because it wouldn't happen that way. They would crush them in space.

So then the Astartes would have to either get off their ships and onto the planet to be killed to a man, or sit on their ships and be killed to a man.

End result either way: They are killed to a man. Or Astartes rather.

A hypothetical is not a contradiction. The most common theme in the thread is that the IG would win because they have so many men, tanks, planes and so on. Marines don't care about that, and being outnumber five to one or a trillion to one makes no difference to them. It's the Navy that would be their real opponent.

Kaldor wrote:

Ignatius wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Thats why this would only ever be a contest between the Imperial Navy and Astartes Battlefleets.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space, but if they didn't there would be nothing the IG could do to stop the Astartes, despite their overwhelming military advantages.

You are making a point in the first part of the sentence, but then contradicting yourself in the second part.

The Navy would crush the Astartes in space. 100% true. So there is no "but if they didn't" because it wouldn't happen that way. They would crush them in space.

So then the Astartes would have to either get off their ships and onto the planet to be killed to a man, or sit on their ships and be killed to a man.

End result either way: They are killed to a man. Or Astartes rather.

A hypothetical is not a contradiction. The most common theme in the thread is that the IG would win because they have so many men, tanks, planes and so on. Marines don't care about that, and being outnumber five to one or a trillion to one makes no difference to them. It's the Navy that would be their real opponent.

I understand exactly what you are saying. And I do agree with it. But the OP asked who would win between the Guard and the Astartes. I choose to look at it as who would win should the two fight each other. Since the Guard can't actually fight in space, then it would have to be done in a way that they both can participate. That limits it pretty much to a force on force engagement. Which the guard overwhelmingly wins.

The OP should specify what exactly is meant. Did he mean Guard and Navy vs Space Marines? Did he not even want space combat to be a part of the deliberation? (Which cuts out one of the Astartes better advantages, they are Space Marines after all.)

Kaldor wrote:Thats not the point of Astartes. If there were fifty Lord Generals operating in an area, they'd teleport into 49 of their HQ bunkers, then teleport out and ask the last guy if he'd like to surrender now.

They wouldn't know where to teleport to to find these high-ranking officers, realistically. If Space Marines magically know where all these people are, I imagine it would only make sense for the Guard to know where the Space Marines are, in which case --> massive artillery strike on that position equals the gg from the Astartes.

Kaldor wrote:If there were fifty Lord Generals operating in an area, they'd teleport into 49 of their HQ bunkers

Yeah, your proposition is non-sense.

Astartes aren't unbeatable battle gods who always win always without fail. They just have good press agents that try to make it seem like they do because it sells more miniatures, all the while GW puts in lots of battles where they lose that conveniently go under the radar

BlaxicanX wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Thats not the point of Astartes. If there were fifty Lord Generals operating in an area, they'd teleport into 49 of their HQ bunkers, then teleport out and ask the last guy if he'd like to surrender now.

They wouldn't know where to teleport to to find these high-ranking officers, realistically. If Space Marines magically know where all these people are, I imagine it would only make sense for the Guard to know where the Space Marines are, in which case --> massive artillery strike on that position equals the gg from the Astartes.

Melissia wrote:Yeah, your proposition is non-sense.

Astartes aren't unbeatable battle gods who always win always without fail. They just have good press agents that try to make it seem like they do because it sells more miniatures, all the while GW puts in lots of battles where they lose that conveniently go under the radar

If the Astartes are fighting the IG, it means the Astartes have already defeated the Navy. We have to accept that premise for the entire scenario to work.

So, the Astartes have defeated the Navy, and now are faced with the task of defeating the IG. From orbit, they bombard any concentrations of troops. Then they open communications and demand surrender or exterminatus. If surrender is refused they identify any HQ areas and destroy them with teleporting Terminator companies.

There'd be hiccups and battles, sure, but the Astartes have the overwhelming tactical advantage. They can strike whenever and wherever they want, and are immune to any and all retaliation.

As I've said, the only way the IG would have a chance is with Naval support, in which case the IG themselves are relegated to cargo inside troop carriers while the Navy does the fighting.

So, the only way Space Marines could ever beat the Imperial Guard is if they have the support of their own navy in orbit and the Guardsmen are stuck on the ground with no way to defend themselves from Astartes ships.

Okay, I guess I can accept that.

BlaxicanX wrote:So, the only way Space Marines could ever beat the Imperial Guard is if they have the support of their own navy in orbit and the Guardsmen are stuck on the ground with no way to defend themselves from Astartes ships.

Okay, I guess I can accept that.

lol, pretty much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd even go further and say that, apart from exceptional circumstances, thats the only way Astartes could really beat anyone. At the end of the day they're just another grunt with a gun. It's their ability to deploy directly onto critical locations that makes them valuable.

Kaldor wrote:If the Astartes are fighting the IG, it means the Astartes have already defeated the Navy.

So the entire unbelievable scenario is based off of one unbelievable fact.

And a fact that isn't even necessarily true, as Astartes can get troops on the ground without having defeated the naval assets in space, and frequently they're shown as doing exactly this. This is what happened in the Space Marine game, for example.

Here's some food for thought:

I read somewhere that a single Astartes (not-named or special) is worth roughly 12 Guardsmen (not-named or special).

This means that a single Chapter is worth 12,000 Guardsmen, which is considerably less than most infantry regiments.

If there are 1000 chapters, that means that the entire force of Space Marines is 12,000,000 Guardsmen, or somewhat less than the entire military output of a single Imperial, Civilized, or Hive World.

A single output in a single year for a hive city.

Unit1126PLL wrote:Here's some food for thought:

I read somewhere that a single Astartes (not-named or special) is worth roughly 12 Guardsmen (not-named or special).

They're not tools to do the same job, so you can't compare them. Thats like asking how many screw drivers is a hacksaw worth.

Kaldor wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:Here's some food for thought:

I read somewhere that a single Astartes (not-named or special) is worth roughly 12 Guardsmen (not-named or special).

They're not tools to do the same job, so you can't compare them. Thats like asking how many screw drivers is a hacksaw worth.

I get what you mean. But not exactly. An Imperial Guardsmen can do the job of an astartes, just as an Astartes can do the job of an Imperial Guardsmen. A screwdriver won't do what a hacksaw is supposed to do and vice versa.

Ignatius wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:Here's some food for thought:

I read somewhere that a single Astartes (not-named or special) is worth roughly 12 Guardsmen (not-named or special).

They're not tools to do the same job, so you can't compare them. Thats like asking how many screw drivers is a hacksaw worth.

I get what you mean. But not exactly. An Imperial Guardsmen can do the job of an astartes, just as an Astartes can do the job of an Imperial Guardsmen. A screwdriver won't do what a hacksaw is supposed to do and vice versa.

Perhaps it's more like comparing a knife and a screwdriver?
Both can do the same jobs but are designed for quite different roles.

Ignatius wrote:

Kaldor wrote:They're not tools to do the same job, so you can't compare them. Thats like asking how many screw drivers is a hacksaw worth.

I get what you mean. But not exactly. An Imperial Guardsmen can do the job of an astartes, just as an Astartes can do the job of an Imperial Guardsmen. A screwdriver won't do what a hacksaw is supposed to do and vice versa.

Astartes are designed to do jobs that the IG simply can't. Not jobs that would carry a high casualty rate, or otherwise require lots of manpower, but jobs that are simply impossible for the IG. Like teleport attacks from orbit, drop pod attacks, fighting in environments impossible for the IG (like hard vacuum, or corrosive environments).

Kaldor wrote:

Ignatius wrote:

Kaldor wrote:They're not tools to do the same job, so you can't compare them. Thats like asking how many screw drivers is a hacksaw worth.

I get what you mean. But not exactly. An Imperial Guardsmen can do the job of an astartes, just as an Astartes can do the job of an Imperial Guardsmen. A screwdriver won't do what a hacksaw is supposed to do and vice versa.

Astartes are designed to do jobs that the IG simply can't. Not jobs that would carry a high casualty rate, or otherwise require lots of manpower, but jobs that are simply impossible for the IG. Like teleport attacks from orbit, drop pod attacks, fighting in environments impossible for the IG (like hard vacuum, or corrosive environments).

The IG certainly COULD do all of the above in a pinch with different wargear.

Teleport attacks, granted, for some reason the Guard don't use.

Drop pod attacks are replaced with Drop-Troop Regiment attacks.

Fighting in a Hard Vacuum or corrosive environments can be done by Cadians with the Hazardous Environment pack, just as an example, and the DKoK and Steel Legion fight on corrosive-atmosphere planets all the time.

Also the Imperial Navy has its own marines (actual proper space marines, not Space Marines) who can fight in a hard vacuum.

And the IG can carry out space to planet insertions (no drop ship required) with the use of Grav Packs.

How else do you think Storm Troopers deep strike? plus they are the elite of elite in the IG and can do Space Marine missions if nessasary and kitted out correctly. they are the SEAL team of the IG.

a Storm Trooper can do anything a Space Marine can. Up until the point of super human requirements, which there are few.


Also Teleporter Tech is restricted to the SM for the simple fact of the tech used isn't very stable and its size is too big for a guardsmen to use....
but i would strap a large teleporter to a Leman Russ any day of the week and try it out......

Unit1126PLL wrote: The IG certainly COULD do all of the above in a pinch with different wargear.

Teleport attacks, granted, for some reason the Guard don't use.

Drop pod attacks are replaced with Drop-Troop Regiment attacks.

Fighting in a Hard Vacuum or corrosive environments can be done by Cadians with the Hazardous Environment pack, just as an example, and the DKoK and Steel Legion fight on corrosive-atmosphere planets all the time.

Sorta kinda, I guess. Drop Regiments are a different beast from a drop-pod insertion though. I'll concede the point on Krieg and Steel Legion though

Engine of War wrote:And the IG can carry out space to planet insertions (no drop ship required) with the use of Grav Packs.

lolwut? Cite please.

In the end, the planet which they are fighting on's PDF will take out the astartes, no problem. They always do brilliantly against off-world invasions.

Oh man, laughed soo hard.

What I think a lot of people are missing here however is the different styles of warfare that the Guard and Space Marines use. Space Marines are much more, "We're going to outflank your entire army/insert a bunch of strike teams, and proceed to kill all of your officers from the rank of General up." When Space Marines fight against human non astartes armies they go for the head of the snake. The largest most powerful army in the world would stop giving organised resistance if you killed everyone above the rank of Colonel. Did you pacify the area that that army was defending? Hell no, what you did do is remove it's ability to fight as a coherent force, the only thing left to do if you want to pacify it is mop up.

The Guard on the other hand is more conventional military, "We might attempt to take out all of your leaders at once, but at the same time we're going to attempt to knock you off the ground you're holding and pacify the entire area."

Actually defeating an army does not take large numbers of troops, pacification on the other hand requires a certain number of troops with regards to the population and area of the place you are attempting to pacify.

I think the Space Marines would win, I feel they would kill the important people, and then leave the now leaderless armies to wither on the vine. Occasionally coming back and pruning every so often when it seems they've found a new leader.

Henners91 wrote:Let's use a feudal analogy:

Think of Medieval warfare. Right now.

I bet there's a 90% chance that the first things you thought of were Knights

Japan? You might think of Samurai.

In both settings we have prominent members of a warrior caste who actually did a minority of the fighting, yet capture our imaginations. Peasants/Ashigaru did the majority of the killing and dying and yet they'd never have been honoured anywhere near as much as a Knight.

Even today one might argue that the most influential war heroes are the officers or members of elite military branches.

The term 'Medieval' refers specifically to the period of European history between the 5th and 15th centuries AD, therefore that scenario doesn't include Japan . And for the record, despite being a rhetorical statement, I thought of men-at-arms first.

Melissia wrote:

Kaldor wrote:If the Astartes are fighting the IG, it means the Astartes have already defeated the Navy.

So the entire unbelievable scenario is based off of one unbelievable fact.

And a fact that isn't even necessarily true, as Astartes can get troops on the ground without having defeated the naval assets in space, and frequently they're shown as doing exactly this. This is what happened in the Space Marine game, for example.

Don't use Space marine the game for reference. It is a game after all, they've made everyone weaker to make it more CoD-like.

Novels always portray the very hardest battles SM fight. A normal SM battle would not make a fun read.

Massed IG vs Massed SM? Yes, Ig would eventually win, though not thanks to the infantry. (basic guardsmen have literally no chance to take down a Marine alone, as I've proven in another thread) No, it would be battle and demolisher cannon fire that would eventually bring down marine after marine with sustained fire.

Also, IG are more susceptible to command structure damage than you think. They are trained to rely only on orders. Without orders they are confused and vulnerable (More so than other races)

This seems like a fluff discussion to me. Do not bring in tabletop rules and similar as examples. If you are using the "Ig or SM matters little, both are oneshotted by plasmas" then you can explain why being promoted to a company commander instantly allows you to take two direct hits from frag missiles without dying, hits that would kill other guardsmen.