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 Iron_Captain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"we're meant to accept that a hundred marines can conquer a whole planet"

Except they wouldn't remotely be able to do that.

Except that they can, the fluff has multiple examples. This is science fiction, it is not meant to be realistic.

Well, not really. Even in fluff, I have never (not once) heard of a hundred Space Marines conquering a planet without outside assistance (or organizing the assistance of PDF survivors, Imperial Loyalists on the ground, etc.). They can destroy any infrastructure and render the place an anarchistic wasteland, but that's kind of stretching the meaning of "conquer".

Iron_Captain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"we're meant to accept that a hundred marines can conquer a whole planet"

Except they wouldn't remotely be able to do that.

Except that they can, the fluff has multiple examples. This is science fiction, it is not meant to be realistic.

Objection.

Science Fiction is supposed to be relatable to realistic expectations.

40k, however, is Fantasy in Space.

I can see how chapters that are stealthy, like the Raven Guard, can be good for infiltration specialists. If you know where the enemy's main production or ammo stores are, they sneak in, plant bombs and get out. And since they are superhumans, they may be able to ambush the enemy better and such... I don't know.

Depend on the chapter and its speciality

Raven guard/ White Scars/ Ultra marines/space wolves/salamanders realistically useful

Iron hands/imperial fists/dark angels realistically impediments to succes.

Martel732 wrote:
"we're meant to accept that a hundred marines can conquer a whole planet"

Except they wouldn't remotely be able to do that.

well conquest is determined by eliminating your opponent's will to fight. In my own example (ork invasion), the marines are mostly useless. Ork will to fight is far to strong.

But if 100 space marines drop podded into a rebel governor's palace and eliminated his core government, as long as the general population wasn't too enthusiastic to begin with, the replacement government might be more accomadating. So . . . there's certainly some circumstances where 100 marines might be able to conquer a planet. Although in that circumstance they're acting more like mafia enforcers than as conquerors.

"Nice planet you got here, shame if something were to happen to it, eh? Now how's that tithe coming?"

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"we're meant to accept that a hundred marines can conquer a whole planet"

Except they wouldn't remotely be able to do that.

Except that they can, the fluff has multiple examples. This is science fiction, it is not meant to be realistic.

I don't care what the stupid authors vomit forth. I'm applying realism to anything that is remotely relatable to realty. Such as taking and holding planets. A hundred marines are a rounding error on the planetary scale. Especially because shootas and lasguns kill them real good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"we're meant to accept that a hundred marines can conquer a whole planet"

Except they wouldn't remotely be able to do that.

Except that they can, the fluff has multiple examples. This is science fiction, it is not meant to be realistic.

Objection.

Science Fiction is supposed to be relatable to realistic expectations.

40k, however, is Fantasy in Space.

I demand some adherent to physical reality even in fantasy. LoTR has gravity, for example.

Not if you read the books...

 Vaktathi wrote:
Right, but ulitmately, you can take the lascannon hit and fight as if nothing was wrong with zero degradation of ability or armor damage (i.e. there's no gaping melted hole in the armor) and reset your health to full a short time later.

Lack of gameplay granularity. The same is true if you shoot your meltagun at a Nob. He takes no visible damage, nor is his performance impaired, though his invisible healthbar is significantly depleted.

no, but it is heavily in their favor, and the AI isn't exactly using cover spectacularly either. If you played the game with real minds controlling all of the combatants (if you watch things like shoota boyz and guardsmen, you'll often see them tracking the player but only shooting once every few seconds, while standing completely still in the open and miss like crazy) and health & shields that didn't regenerate, it wouldn't be beatable.

Obviously it wouldn't, because the game is designed with regenerating health in mind. You could redesign the game without regeneration, but then many other things would need changes (many attacks would deal effectively no damage at all because it wouldn't get through or deal significant damage to the armour) and in the end it would be more frustrating than fun. I think it balances out.

The basic boyz in the warboss encounter do not however, which was what I was getting at, they just kinda run around and swing a choppa every few seconds and that's about it. Very rudimentary AI designed to look real enough but not actually be real (as otherwise the game would be impossible).

They charge at you and hit you with their weapons. That seems consistent with their depiction in all text and media. I have never actually seen them grapple anything larger than a human, and why would you try to grab a Marine? It's like asking why you'd try to stop a car by grappling it.

For more Space Marine fun (though I think I have linked this one several times before):


I remember solokilling 1,000 Orks and IG by soloing the first, second and part of the third arena of Chaos Invasion, though I didn't record that one.

CSM are seriously mean.

Martel732 wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"we're meant to accept that a hundred marines can conquer a whole planet"

Except they wouldn't remotely be able to do that.

Except that they can, the fluff has multiple examples. This is science fiction, it is not meant to be realistic.

Objection.

Science Fiction is supposed to be relatable to realistic expectations.

40k, however, is Fantasy in Space.

I demand some adherent to physical reality even in fantasy. LoTR has gravity, for example.

LoTR only has gravity when it wants to.

Remember when Saruman threw Gandalf into a ceiling that was like 300 yards away?

Or Legolas' flying-stair-running in the Hobbit.

All fantasy universes run on magic. Some more than others.


40k is more Some than most.

Im a nerd, yet reading some of these replies where people cant fathom one unrealistic thing like getting memories from eating brains IN A LORE ABOUT SUPER SPACE KNIGHTS IN THE UBER FAR FUTURE just makes me want to laugh at them and call them a nerd.

Now that i've gotten calling out the sperglords off my shoulders...

The lore is a bit mixed. The stories make it seem that space marines are easily killable (depending on the story and the enemy) yet other lore states things like 1 space marine squad being enough to conquer a world. With that being said, the space marines are not comparable to imperial guard or humans, as they are supposed to be huge gods of war. To push them off to "special forces" would be to equate them to really well trained humans, like tempestus scions. The marines instead are a different level of infantry, not like an elite human squad.

So what do they do? They use their supposed genius IQs and genius strategies to better rally forces of the imperium. They are force multipliers. Like super green berets. They supply morale, strike fear in the enemy, and are supposed to do impossible missions.

Thats the lore of coarse.


On the tabletop they are the standard by which everyone measures what they need to kill, and thus very killable.

Tankman131 wrote:
IThey use their supposed genius IQs and genius strategies to better rally forces of the imperium.

Sadly they often come off as pretty dim-witted. Hmm, enemies over there? The genius strategy is obviously a full frontal assault with chainswords!

Tankman131 wrote:
Im a nerd, yet reading some of these replies where people cant fathom one unrealistic thing like getting memories from eating brains IN A LORE ABOUT SUPER SPACE KNIGHTS IN THE UBER FAR FUTURE just makes me want to laugh at them and call them a nerd. v

It's about the suspension of disbelief. People can deal with genetically engineered super soldiers in the far future. But there comes a point where the suspension of disbelief no longer holds and the illusion is broken.

So what do they do? They use their supposed genius IQs and genius strategies to better rally forces of the imperium.

There's nothing about a Space Marine that makes them all geniuses. Nothing in the gene-seed enhances intelligence, while their psycho-indoctrination is more akin to rapid education than any sort of direct intelligence enhancement.

Nothing in the geneseed enhances speed either, yet that they are superhumanly fast is almost as consistent as them being superhumanly strong.

Keep in mind there's more to the process than just the new organs. There's also various chemical treatments, some of which continue the rest of their lives. Who knows what space-juice is in those chemicals?

If you know anything about modern strategy, 40k marines are a day one of war asset. You throw them against the best defended and most vital targets, but they don't have the mass to hold gains, they can only destroy.

Marines are there to kill the biggest bad guy that's there, or destroy a heavily fortified cities defenses, or whatever mission critical object that needs removed.

The guard are there to actually take the city and hold down the fort fighting wars of attrition. The Space Marines are just supposed to pop in, destroy their objective, and then leave before anyone can retaliate.

The armies of the Imperium rarely are able to operate effectively without support from multiple branches.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Nothing in the geneseed enhances speed either, yet that they are superhumanly fast is almost as consistent as them being superhumanly strong.

Keep in mind there's more to the process than just the new organs. There's also various chemical treatments, some of which continue the rest of their lives. Who knows what space-juice is in those chemicals?

Speed derives from strength, any fast animal on this planet has a significant % in muscle mass in comparison to their overall mass. Also, I've argued this before, and I'm not going to go through it fully again, but basically, 2 hearts, plus the changes to their endocrine system and the unknown biology that has never been explained but can be expected, such as a vastly increased phospho creatine energy system, and insanely efficient energy systems in general... And then adding powered armor on top of that is going to make them insanely fast.

And before anyone says anything about how much they weight, again look at weight lifters, they actually can do good 30 yard dash times, they just don't have the insane physiology that a marine has to increase, maintain and recover from such exertion.

shootas and lasguns kill them real good

Maybe on tabletop
In canon - not so much.

There was a point made in several Steel Rat books that interplanetary war was not at all feasible for the same reasoning that is displayed in this thread. One cannot realistically haul big enough army to take and hold an entire planet.
This is obviously not the case for Wh40k, is it?

Somehow in this thread i saw no mention of void warfare. In Wh40k space battles are fought with boarding actions (why and how this is stuupid or unrealistic is a topic for another thread for those willing to start an argument). And in boarding actions space marines should exel
Next, for effective SM tactics one might look at their chaotic counterparts, in particular Night Lords. There are enough descriptions of their MO, which boild down to enjoying orbital superiority to distrupt opposition until terror tactics can be employed at earnest.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Nothing in the geneseed enhances speed either, yet that they are superhumanly fast is almost as consistent as them being superhumanly strong.

Wouldn't that go along with the Biscopea? There's lots of things that can affect speed in ways that things can't really affect intelligence. GW's fluff has stated that Space Marine's may gain things like photographic memory, ability to endure pain, and greater nervous system control through Indoctrination, but these are all essentially "forced learning" things, imparting experience through a more direct means, it doesn't actually change raw intelligence and problem solving capability.

Keep in mind there's more to the process than just the new organs. There's also various chemical treatments, some of which continue the rest of their lives. Who knows what space-juice is in those chemicals?

This has, as far as I'm aware, always been described essentially as "maintenance" to ensure stable metabolic processes.

Wait, would a SM who has been cut off from the IOM die without the upkeep?

Or at least, start raiding other chapters for drugs?

We've seen Astartes survive for fairly long without upkeep. Most likely the chemicals are to keep them at top function, rather than actually keeping them alive at all.

 Selym wrote:
Wait, would a SM who has been cut off from the IOM die without the upkeep?

Or at least, start raiding other chapters for drugs?

They don't really say. Ostensibly without such chemical maintenance they would not be able to maintain a stable metabolism. We don't know what that may result in. Death is a possibility, but so is just getting the butt-squirts, though I imagine it would be rather critical to battlefield performance if they're putting the effort into maintaining such treatments, but we've seen SM's go long periods of time without direct support too, so who knows. Like lots of SM things, it's an aspect routinely not picked up on by most fluff authors, and I'm not sure if the chemical treatment stuff is even reprinted in newer books or only the pre-5E stuff, I think they stopped including the non-progenoid creation fluff in SM codex books after the ~2003/2004 Index Astartes books.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Tankman131 wrote:
Im a nerd, yet reading some of these replies where people cant fathom one unrealistic thing like getting memories from eating brains IN A LORE ABOUT SUPER SPACE KNIGHTS IN THE UBER FAR FUTURE just makes me want to laugh at them and call them a nerd. v

It's about the suspension of disbelief. People can deal with genetically engineered super soldiers in the far future. But there comes a point where the suspension of disbelief no longer holds and the illusion is broken.

So what do they do? They use their supposed genius IQs and genius strategies to better rally forces of the imperium.

There's nothing about a Space Marine that makes them all geniuses. Nothing in the gene-seed enhances intelligence, while their psycho-indoctrination is more akin to rapid education than any sort of direct intelligence enhancement.

*facepalm* and space nuns with guns, super strong killer fungus, anything involving the made up concept of the warp is just SOOO much easier to believe. The picture below is for you my friend, as well as other derpers to come.

*facepalm again* im guessing the indoctrination, mental training, genetic alterations, and all that other lore about the tactical genius of the space marines (especially ultramarines) was just too much for you to believe? Is the Orks genetically ingrained knowledge also go a bridge too far for you?

Edit: Damnit i had to reread your post to see the laughing ork. The picture below is for me too. my leadership roll

EDIT: NVM

Autism is not an insult.

Please don't try to use it as one.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Autism is not an insult.

Please don't try to use it as one.

EXACTLY.

In fact, this thread probably didn't start out well, and it is DEFINITELY NOT doing well now.

As such, it is now LOCKED.