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I'm in the same boat OP. Its not just the Primaris marines, its the writing.

I can overlook small details & mistakes but when the new writing is so unbelievably ridiculous at times, it makes it very difficult to immerse myself in the setting & I find myself reverting back to the setting when all the silliness wasn't present. Yeah, there have been trainwreck additions to the lore for many years (example Tau lore) but some of the new writing just makes me facepalm.

Take the Fall of Cadia for example. We are to believe the 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had less than a billion defenders. Let that sink in. The 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had 1/7th the defending population as present day Earth in a setting where human body count is measured in trillions if not exceeding trillions. How about Guilliman being present in almost every single conflict currently going on in the galaxy atm. Logistically, its impossible. Unless he is using the webway to travel, its impossible. He is one man (Primarch). He cannot & should not be in every conflict. This is like Marvel comics level of stupid.

How about the focus on astartes at the expense of the entire setting? The 40k universe is massive. Composed of infinite life, endless conflict, numerous armies, political infighting etc. Almost all of which is never discussed outside of the novels. Why are space marines amazing? They are genetically enhanced super mutants that surpass human potential. Ok. That has absolutely no significance when the human experience is never written about. Again, another Fall of Cadia example. What should have been Cadian's finest hour turned into d*ck measuring contest. Every time Cadians did something significant, it was one upped by a space marine chapter. Whenever the SoB did something significant, it was one upped by another space marine chapter.

How did Dante & the Blood Angels survive the Tyranid fleet? Ka'Bandha came & saved the day? That is some Saturday morning cartoon level of stupid.

I just want GW to slow down & start taking the lore seriously. Put the spotlight on some of the other armies. What are the orks up to? What is it like to live in a hive city plagued by genestealers? Talk about supply lines, ration planning, contagion prevention, docking disputes, manufacturing processes, exports/imports, tariffs, tithes etc. These were things that used to be discussed on occasion & now they are seemingly absent entirely. The setting is slowing moving away from a grim dark sci-fi setting to a sci-fi drama of personalities. The whole "Saint Celestine sheds a tear for Guilliman" garbage needs to stop.

keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:
Identity politics can GTFO

Retcon years of fluff for what>? Shallow gender representation?

As opposed to the noble reasoning of simply selling more models?

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

I'm not suggesting regular Marines can be girls. It has been well established that regular Marines implode from lethal cooties, and cannot be given shots for it. But the Primaris...well, they're bigger, better, improved. They've been modified from those Marines that start melting when you say 'menstruation'.

If nothing else it would be nice to make them distinct, instead of 'Space Marine Xtreme - So 90's Vanilla Ice Sued Us!' which seems to have been the main design document for their creation.

Personally I hope that problem will be solved once they release plastic SoB that actually are Female Space Marines. No women in Space Marines is one of the dumbest parts of 40K fluff for me, but oh well, the roots of the game lie in the British 80's, so it's no surprise. Also, if they'd taken the opportunity to allow "Primaris Women" that'd have been the one good aspect of Primaris. Right now I'm not really seeing what they're getting at. I had hoped the rift actually splits the imperium also concerning dogma, so you have one side following the fanatical regime of terra and another more reasonable side following Guilliman. That obviousely didn't happen, everybody seemingly accepted Guilliman and heretical Cawl right away throwing out 8000year old Dogmas. It's as if Breshnev would rule over a capitalist-reformed USSR. I really hope for a coup attempt against Guilliman, led by some SoB, council of Terra and the Inquisition.
What I like about the new fluff is that Chaos has actually won. Abbis crusade was successful. Unfortunately we don't get to know the details, but maybe Black Library will expand on it. I hope we'll see renegade primaris in the future (in the fluff) and Fabious Biles super-Chaos Marines on the tabletop (he had that idea first after all).

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

That in itself is an issue. The Fall of Cadia starting during the second wave is like Star Wars Trilogy starting at the Empire Strikes Back. What preparations did Cadia make prior to the 2nd wave? Where were troops garrisoned on the planet? How many? What regiments were called to aid Cadia? Who answered, who didn't? What areas held the longest? There is a million other details that we will never know because they couldn't be bothered to describe them.

You're correct, he is not in every battle but battles all over the galaxy. Logistically, its getting pretty silly. Tyranids about to eat Dante & Blood Angels & magically Guilliman & Ka'Bandha save the day? Doesn't he have enough problems in the Ultramar systems?

I still pretend that fluff wise, it is still 3rd edition. Pretty much ignored the fluff from then on since what bits of it I read is generally nonsensical bolter porn garbage, with a splash of "other than Space Marine". For how few Marines there is in comparison to everything else in the 40k universe, it gets tiring only ever hearing about them.

 Commissar Benny wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

That in itself is an issue. The Fall of Cadia starting during the second wave is like Star Wars Trilogy starting at the Empire Strikes Back. What preparations did Cadia make prior to the 2nd wave? Where were troops garrisoned on the planet? How many? What regiments were called to aid Cadia? Who answered, who didn't? What areas held the longest? There is a million other details that we will never know because they couldn't be bothered to describe them.

You're correct, he is not in every battle but battles all over the galaxy. Logistically, its getting pretty silly. Tyranids about to eat Dante & Blood Angels & magically Guilliman & Ka'Bandha save the day? Doesn't he have enough problems in the Ultramar systems?

many of those questions where addressed in a varity of codices etcwe've basicly spent the last 15 years with the battle of cadia being "on going"

 Commissar Benny wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind the fall of Cadia depicts the "second" wave. the conflict had been going there for some time. the 1 billion defenders in fall of cadia makes more sense when you realize this wasn't the fresh defences of cadia. this was "the badly depleated remains of the defence of cadia"

as for Gulliman, he's NOT in every battle. he's just in some of the select ones we hear about.

That in itself is an issue. The Fall of Cadia starting during the second wave is like Star Wars Trilogy starting at the Empire Strikes Back. What preparations did Cadia make prior to the 2nd wave? Where were troops garrisoned on the planet? How many? What regiments were called to aid Cadia? Who answered, who didn't? What areas held the longest? There is a million other details that we will never know because they couldn't be bothered to describe them.

You're correct, he is not in every battle but battles all over the galaxy. Logistically, its getting pretty silly. Tyranids about to eat Dante & Blood Angels & magically Guilliman & Ka'Bandha save the day? Doesn't he have enough problems in the Ultramar systems?

I believe that the Blood Angels one is actually been answered already.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

given we don't know why standard space marines are "males only" we can't suply a reason on why Primaris ones could or couldn't break that rule. the info is incomplete

BrianDavion wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

given we don't know why standard space marines are "males only" we can't suply a reason on why Primaris ones could or couldn't break that rule. the info is incomplete

The reason is pretty damn clear in the fluff if you ever bothered to read it

Seems in a nutshell to me that they are stepping away from hobbyist/gamers and focusing on attracting new younger audiences with quick fit coloured models with no conversion opportunities and a 'bigger tougher' image including very cliched imagery and models we don't need with a silhouette that doesn't fit the grim dark.

 nerdfest09 wrote:
Seems in a nutshell to me that they are stepping away from hobbyist/gamers and focusing on attracting new younger audiences with quick fit coloured models with no conversion opportunities and a 'bigger tougher' image including very cliched imagery and models we don't need with a silhouette that doesn't fit the grim dark.

This. Although, they have given us GS Cults and Ad Mech which are both pretty much pitch-perfect.

I'm happy with the release of asinine models/fluff for a younger audience, so long as they throw out some kickass grimdark gribblies as well.

 nerdfest09 wrote:
Seems in a nutshell to me that they are stepping away from hobbyist/gamers and focusing on attracting new younger audiences with quick fit coloured models with no conversion opportunities and a 'bigger tougher' image including very cliched imagery and models we don't need with a silhouette that doesn't fit the grim dark.

This which is really funny because i was reading and article from a guy who was making some very good points about how this is an awful awful marketing strategy. Some of his points were, younger kids want to play video games, parents dont want kids to have messy toys, the price vs entertainment time for a kid (under 18) is not worth it generally. The guy basically made points that the only people that really buy GW are the older generation who grew up as modelers and hobbyists, and thats who it should be marketed toward since they are the ones spending the money.

On the subject of OP, im really not a fan of the new fluff in any fashion, the whole aesthetics of 8th is really off putting. Nu-marines are the biggest shark jump in the lore i have seen in a while, the amount of tech and super secret squirrel research that cawl managed to do with out no one noticing is ridiculous. The ultramarines got even MORE marry sue, idk how. The entire dark imperium thing is super forced, anyone with half a brain can see that old space marines are going to be getting phased out and their story is effectively done. Meaning anyone who had/has or does not like the primaras marines is about to know what it feels like to be an empire player with AoS launched. So far the only thing out of this edition that looks good thus far are the new bolter primaras marines, their armor is pretty damn nice, and i like the true scale.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

Population isn't the issue when it comes to Marines. Compatability and stability are. Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Also, that was neither a reason why it was a bad idea nor a reason why, fluff wise, it's impossible for the same process that has refined and enhanced the Gene-Seed to allow Primaris couldn't be used to remove the boys only invite system.

We all know why it was that way - because it was written by a bunch of guys back in the 80's, when the ideas of girls even wanting to play was completely unthought of. It has continued and been justified by the fluff since then - only men can use the Gene-Seed, and the Gene-Seed can't be tampered with. That's heresy. But now we know that it can and has been tampered with. There is no longer any reason for it. More, it doesn't make any sense to continue it, in this day and age. Or that one, either.

There is nothing to stop Chapter's remaining male only. Tradition is a thing, and some won't accept it. Others may well have Gene-Seed that resists the extra whatever needed to let women use it. But there is absolutely no reason to keep it that way.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

Population isn't the issue when it comes to Marines. Compatability and stability are. Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Also, that was neither a reason why it was a bad idea nor a reason why, fluff wise, it's impossible for the same process that has refined and enhanced the Gene-Seed to allow Primaris couldn't be used to remove the boys only invite system.

We all know why it was that way - because it was written by a bunch of guys back in the 80's, when the ideas of girls even wanting to play was completely unthought of. It has continued and been justified by the fluff since then - only men can use the Gene-Seed, and the Gene-Seed can't be tampered with. That's heresy. But now we know that it can and has been tampered with. There is no longer any reason for it. More, it doesn't make any sense to continue it, in this day and age. Or that one, either.

There is nothing to stop Chapter's remaining male only. Tradition is a thing, and some won't accept it. Others may well have Gene-Seed that resists the extra whatever needed to let women use it. But there is absolutely no reason to keep it that way.

Perhaps while we're at it we can get rid of the God Emperor, and have a secular elected president of the Imperium, I mean, after all a divine god emperor is hardly in keeping with modern sensabilities too! sure it'd absolutely, and arbitrarily change the setting, but so would female space marines. Space Marines core concept is a monastic warrior brotherhood. female space marines would dillute that concept. I'm not arguing against greater gender representation in 40k, If they brought out a new guard pack that included female guardsman minis I'd buy a pack just to show my support. if Sisters ever get a plastic line, I'm getting a new army. BUT, I don't think there is much to be gained by suddenly saying "female space marines are a thing now" and a LOT that would actually be LOST. 40ks a pretty gak universe to live in, if you try to push modern sensabilities into it you lose the point. As I said, do that and suddenly you have the "perfectly secular republic of mankind"

I'm not the one whose made the arbitrary change - Games Workshop is. I'm simply pointing out an option that makes sense. It's not like the idea of female Space Marines hasn't been floating around for nearly as long...and I'm not putting in modern day ideology into the 40k world. There are plenty of female fighters in the fluff. Just not on the table top.

Now, if Games Workshop were to actually support Sisters and include female models for other forces, it might be a little different. But they don't, and apparently won't.

I won't bother getting into the importance of diverse representation in media and such because frankly I doubt anyone here would care.

 Jon Garrett wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:

Tell you what - give me one fluff reason why it can't happen, now that we know that Primaris Marines exist and the Gene-Seed can and has been altered. Give me one good reason, in fluff, why it would be a bad idea to increase the number of potential Marines.

Sorry, but since when did the Imperium have a population shortage?

Population isn't the issue when it comes to Marines. Compatability and stability are. Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Also, that was neither a reason why it was a bad idea nor a reason why, fluff wise, it's impossible for the same process that has refined and enhanced the Gene-Seed to allow Primaris couldn't be used to remove the boys only invite system.

We all know why it was that way - because it was written by a bunch of guys back in the 80's, when the ideas of girls even wanting to play was completely unthought of. It has continued and been justified by the fluff since then - only men can use the Gene-Seed, and the Gene-Seed can't be tampered with. That's heresy. But now we know that it can and has been tampered with. There is no longer any reason for it. More, it doesn't make any sense to continue it, in this day and age. Or that one, either.

There is nothing to stop Chapter's remaining male only. Tradition is a thing, and some won't accept it. Others may well have Gene-Seed that resists the extra whatever needed to let women use it. But there is absolutely no reason to keep it that way.

It would be more in line with how 40k has always been to say that they take those top ten Female Candidates and have them breed with the top ten Male Candidates prior to undergoing or completing the implantation, for futher Aspirants and genetic materials. Then continuing to harvest the top 10 of both sexes from the homeworld or recruiting world and breeding them to keep the lines fresh. Any offspring (of both sexes) that dont hold up to the standard are killed or put through some sort of Storm Trooper training to serve as an Auxiliary Force.

 Jon Garrett wrote:


Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Simply put,
Genetics combined with statistical analysis of athletic performance effectively says no to your identity politics laden non-argument;

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/we-thought-female-athletes-were-catching-up-to-men-but-theyre-not/260927/

Also, stop bashing the 80's and inventing nonsense statements about the said decade.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:


Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Simply put,
Genetics combined with statistical analysis of athletic performance effectively says no to your identity politics laden non-argument;

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/we-thought-female-athletes-were-catching-up-to-men-but-theyre-not/260927/

Also, stop bashing the 80's and inventing nonsense statements about the said decade.

I don't know, the part of the text you've quoted is a solid in-universe reason to include women in the pool for Marines (and especially Primaris) recruitment. Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it? It's certainly not about any notion of 'protecting your womenfolk' seeing as in terms of gender and race the Imperium's actually somewhat of a utopia (although twisted to the point that every human life is equally worthless, because grimdark).

Also, the genetics thing flat-out doesn't stand up when you're talking about a society and process that specifically involves rewriting genetic code in order to produce their soldiers (or, at the very least, implanting biologically engineered organs which provide a similar effect).

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

Simply put, Jon Garrett's entirely sensible in-universe explanation of why it would be beneficial to increase the recruiting pool for Primaris Marines effectively says no to you non-argument based on present-day genetics when we know that genetic engineering is pretty commonplace in the 41st millennium.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it?.

Going back to what 44Ronin said, because there is effectively no limitation to the pool of potential recruits.

The number of chapters is limited to how many there are and how many more the High Lords are willing to found. So around 1000 at the end of the 41st millennium.

The number of Marines per chapter is limited, to around 1000.

The number of geneseed that can be harvested is limited, and in a healthy chapter exceeds demand because of the limit to how many Marines a chapter may have.

The number of potential candidates is, given the human population of the Imperium, effectively infinite compared to demand. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by expanding that pool.

 Geifer wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it?.

Going back to what 44Ronin said, because there is effectively no limitation to the pool of potential recruits.

The number of chapters is limited to how many there are and how many more the High Lords are willing to found. So around 1000 at the end of the 41st millennium.

The number of Marines per chapter is limited, to around 1000.

The number of geneseed that can be harvested is limited, and in a healthy chapter exceeds demand because of the limit to how many Marines a chapter may have.

The number of potential candidates is, given the human population of the Imperium, effectively infinite compared to demand. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by expanding that pool.

If you take the official figures for the quantity of Marines to be accurate then I get your argument. Each Hive has a population of billions. The potential recruiting pool is not an issue.

However, simply because the population of each hive is 10-100 billion, having 1000 chapters of 1000 Marines would be utterly inconsequential on even a planetary scale no matter how post-human Marines are. It's really difficult to conceptualise properly big numbers, but if each hive has at minimum 10,000,000,000 people, 1000 supersoldiers would be killed even if the population was armed with nothing but rubber ducks and attitude, simply by weighing 900 times the weight of the great pyramids at Giza (based on 60k for an average weight of a person).

If most worlds have more than one hive, and the Imperium has well in excess of a million worlds (a significant proportion of which are Hive Worlds which are basically one single planet-scale hive), you can begin to understand why 1,000,000 Marines is just a stupid number.

That, however, is a different issue entirely. 'Sci-fi writers don't understand scale'. I suppose it's about looking at things critically, and deciding on a more realistic number given that we're given the freedom to dismiss official fluff as 'propaganda and/or ignorance' as we see fit.

Now, by that same token, I suppose I'm not quite grasping the scale difference between Marines and the rest of humanity even when accounting for a vastly increased number of Marines. Perhaps even with that it's still not really an issue. Could be an issue locally though, if Marines are trapped somewhere with a limited population. Happens quite frequently when they're cut off by warp storms and what have you.

Yeah, but what can you do? You can take the numbers at face value and have something concrete to work with, or apply critical thinking (which I don't dismiss, mind - even if it may seem so) and take everything as narrated with limited perspective, possibly including faction agenda. Where do realistic, corrected numbers stop and simple speculation start?

While "sci-fi writers not grasping numbers" is a thing, I don't think Marines are a problematic example of this, if it's an example at all. The idea behind 40k was a slow decline of the Imperium over an immense time span. 10,000 years is a really long time. Historically we haven't waged constant total war for more than a couple of years. The idea that there are so few Marines, the dedicated super badasses of the setting. that they are only able to slow the Imperiums demise is, as far as I'm concerned, a pretty clever device. You get these wonderful super soldiers that can do basically anything they set out to do, but there simply aren't enough of them to turn the tide. And the best part of it? It's not because of technical limitations but simply stupid doctrine.

Which, if you'll allow a jab at modern 40k background, is a massive contributor to why I the 40k background is dead to me. It's completely shifted to super hero comic fiction. Ro'bout'é pops up, reorganizes the Imperium, tells Cawl to pull new armies out of his ass, and off we go on a second Great Crusade. Nobody bats an eye. Nobody has their own agenda. Nobody suffers from ego or inefficiency. Characteristic behavior of an Imperial faction getting in the way? Welcome to Retconville where there is only happiness and compliance! Alright, I'm going to stop now.

Anyway, the only way that the Imperium can be realistically portrayed as losing the fight is if for all its might, it cannot spare the manpower or strategic vision to go on the offense and its super elite Marines get relegated to the role of fire fighters that put out the biggest fires before moving on to the next war zone without ever resolving anything.

I think it's a good contrast to have, the impossibly large number of humans versus the clearly inferior number of Marines. Even if you question the exact numbers, you can see the idea behind it.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 44Ronin wrote:

 Jon Garrett wrote:


Let me put it you this way - you have enough Gene Seed to make ten Marines. Great! So you have 100 male candidates. Take the top ten best. Simple, right?

But what if you can also get a 100 female candidates? Taking the top five from each category is, for obvious reasons, better than taking the top ten from one. The more potential candidates, the higher standards you can hold to, and the better the created Marines will be, with a lower rate of rejection and, of course, occasional heresy. If you can grab the top Novices for a Soriritas Convent, you pretty heavily reduce the chances of Chaos.

Simply put,
Genetics combined with statistical analysis of athletic performance effectively says no to your identity politics laden non-argument;

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/we-thought-female-athletes-were-catching-up-to-men-but-theyre-not/260927/

Also, stop bashing the 80's and inventing nonsense statements about the said decade.

I don't know, the part of the text you've quoted is a solid in-universe reason to include women in the pool for Marines (and especially Primaris) recruitment. Why take candidates from a smaller pool of potential recruits when you can double it? It's certainly not about any notion of 'protecting your womenfolk' seeing as in terms of gender and race the Imperium's actually somewhat of a utopia (although twisted to the point that every human life is equally worthless, because grimdark).

Also, the genetics thing flat-out doesn't stand up when you're talking about a society and process that specifically involves rewriting genetic code in order to produce their soldiers (or, at the very least, implanting biologically engineered organs which provide a similar effect).

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

Simply put, Jon Garrett's entirely sensible in-universe explanation of why it would be beneficial to increase the recruiting pool for Primaris Marines effectively says no to you non-argument based on present-day genetics when we know that genetic engineering is pretty commonplace in the 41st millennium.

You have a very low grasp of the fluff.
Space marines aren't made into superhumans overnight.It takes years, and most die along the way.

The 'pool' is irrelevant, the resources put into their creation are more costly and finite than the human stock 'pools'.

And when you have limited resources (time, gene-seed) why would you logically attempt to create space marines from a gender that has an even lower chance of surviving to become a fully fledged space marine? It just makes ZERO sense to use a pool that will end up with a higher number of failures. That is just poor, pointless unjustifiable economics of production.

Even then we are ignoring the underlying issue that the gene-seed is incompatible with females, and also ignoring that the guy who created the space marines is a living corpse who can't explain to people how to make a female version..

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

WRONG! the fluff is littered with examples of selective choices in aspirants leading to preferred outcomes within the final output of space marines. That's why barbaric worlds, hive worlds and thus are ideal choices for recruitment.

You need to be tough to SURVIVE to finish your transformation.

Anyway, there's no need to insert the SJW agenda into the game. The space marines are a greco-roman influence

Yeah I'm with you on the shoddyness of the change in narrative from 'death by a thousand cuts' to 'superhero action funtime'. That was hamfisted and a little jarring. I'd have liked to see a similar thing to how they handled the Ynnari thing. I definitely feared that we'd end up with one big eldar superfriends faction, but they actually ended up being more fractured than they were before.

This should have happened to the Imperium. It should have caused massive schisms all across the whole thing as all of the various different powers that be started to swing their weight around. Instead, everything seems to have gone swimmingly. That's alleviated somewhat in 'Dark Imperium', but it still feels like they've got away scott-free,

I definitely like the idea that Marines would be enough to halt the decline of the Imperium, but there's just too few of them. However, 1,000,000 Marines (maximum, mind you) is still too little for that to be the case. I get that there's a point where we leave critical thinking behind in a science fantasy setting (although I'm of the opinion that the more the better), but a million Marines is so far behind that line as to not even be worth considering.

To attempt to put it into perspective, during the pre-battle bombardment of the Battle of the Somme the allies fired 1,700,000 shells. That's the opening bombardment of one battle, between a handful of nations, on one planet, with a population at the time of less than a single hive in the Imperium. The battle itself resulted in 623,907 allied casualties.

The point being that in a total-war situation between two equivalent-technology forces (which is the case of Allies vs Axis, or Marines vs Chaos/Eldar/Necrons/Tau/'nids) between a handful of nations, on a puny world with a population that didn't even rival a single Imperial Hive, well over half of the entire galactic population of Space Marines were casualties.

One battle. In one war. On one planet.

The Imperium has millions of planets, a significant proportion of which are in a total-war situation against which both world wars combined would pale.

If there were two battles of similar intensity, the entire galactic population of Space Marines would be extinct. So, either the sum total of warfare in the entirely of the 41st century Imperium is less than 2x the intensity of the Battle of the Somme, or there are many, many, many, many more Marines than are officially reported. Of those two options, I feel that 'the Imperial bureaucracy has no idea how many Marines it has' is the more believable situation.

Sorry if I went a bit strong with that :S I just find it's a little tricky to get the point across about 1,000,000 Marines being insignificant to the point of not even being worth mentioning in a galactic war situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 44Ronin wrote:


You have a very low grasp of the fluff.
Space marines aren't made into superhumans overnight.It takes years, and most die along the way.

The 'pool' is irrelevant, the resources put into their creation are more costly and finite than the human stock 'pools'.

And when you have limited resources (time, gene-seed) why would you logically attempt to create space marines from a gender that has an even lower chance of surviving to become a fully fledged space marine? It just makes ZERO sense to use a pool that will end up with a higher number of failures. That is just poor, pointless unjustifiable economics of production.

Even then we are ignoring the underlying issue that the gene-seed is incompatible with females, and also ignoring that the guy who created the space marines is a living corpse who can't explain to people how to make a female version..

Although I do agree with your argument that quantity of applicants isn't really an issue that required fixing, I'd like you to read some of my other ~2600 posts on here before you go making baseless accusations regarding my knowledge of the fluff. Not to say that quantity of posts is the quantum by which that's measured, but it might provide some understanding of how baseless that statement is.

There is no evidence or even suggestion that your strength as a Marine has anything to do with your strength before being a Marine. If anything, realistically it would be your compatibility with the implants that determines how strong you are. That's also ignoring the fact that strength is far from the only (or even most important) trait for a soldier to have.

WRONG! the fluff is littered with examples of selective choices in aspirants leading to preferred outcomes within the final output of space marines. That's why barbaric worlds, hive worlds and thus are ideal choices for recruitment.

You need to be tough to SURVIVE to finish your transformation.

Anyway, there's no need to insert the SJW agenda into the game. The space marines are a greco-roman influence

That's not the same thing, is it?

You need to be tough to survive the process =/= your previous strength is directly related to your biologically modified strength.

Find me an example where it suggests bigger stronger people become bigger stronger marines.

Also, what you point out here specifically counteracts your argument that 'the pool is irrelevant'. If Marines search high and lo for worlds with populations who are capable of surviving implantation, the potential 'pool' of applicants is a lot smaller than you suggest. If that is the case (and it is), there is definite economic and logistical benefit to increasing the potential pool of recruits.

Ignoring all political arguments, this is not a possibility with Astartes as the fluff states (why this one bit of fluff is sacrosant while others are freely bent or broken is another argument). However, it is specifically not an issue with Primaris. Cawl has demonstrated the ability and knowhow to alter geneseed. There is precisely zero reason why it wouldn't be possible for him to alter it so that it works on both sexes. Furthermore, there is positive incentive to do just this due to the aforementioned paucity of worlds that are capable of producing people suitable for implantation.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I definitely like the idea that Marines would be enough to halt the decline of the Imperium, but there's just too few of them. However, 1,000,000 Marines (maximum, mind you) is still too little for that to be the case. I get that there's a point where we leave critical thinking behind in a science fantasy setting (although I'm of the opinion that the more the better), but a million Marines is so far behind that line as to not even be worth considering.

To attempt to put it into perspective, during the pre-battle bombardment of the Battle of the Somme the allies fired 1,700,000 shells. That's the opening bombardment of one battle, between a handful of nations, on one planet, with a population at the time of less than a single hive in the Imperium. The battle itself resulted in 623,907 allied casualties.

I'm going to narrow the quote down to this to save space. You're not wrong, but those are Guard numbers. Not Marine numbers. I'll get back to that a bit further down.

I think the old writers (Rick Priestly, Andy Chambers and such) that formed the basis for 40k during 2nd ed out of the wild assembly of stuff from Rogue Trader actually had a pretty good grasp of historical battles. I'm going to have to do it again, but if I read anything from the current writers, all I get is comic fans writing about super heroes. Previously, the logistics of getting armies somewhere and maintaining them were considered. They couldn't just teleport around on a whim but had to get around the old-fashioned way. Where it really hit me is when I finally got around to reading Farsight Enclaves. The established early battles read like a serious military campaign conducted by a competent officer with limited resources. What was added to bring the background beyond, I think, the second sphere of expansion, read like super hero fanfic. Farsight literally flying around like Superman and channeling the four elements on four world to single handedly, literally without any Tau forces doing anything, exterminating the Tyranid or Ork (I don't even remember anymore...) forces.

If I had to go historical, I'd equate Marines more to SS divisions on the eastern front. Intended as the speartip of an invasion, they were relegated to putting out the fires the regular troops couldn't handle. Those guys did a pretty good job of it, too, and prolonged the war accordingly. The downside to that is what I think gets us into sci-fi territory. SS were still normal guys and got depleted through constant fighting. Marines as the super awesome guys that they are, don't have attrition rates that are comparable to, let's just say it, mortal troops. They are meant to be, and portrayed as, demi gods.

That's why before the slow change to the current background, Marines were actually pretty restricted in how they were deployed. They got to be the surgical scalpel they were meant to be most of the time. They get inserted on their terms, take the fight to a target of their choosing, engage in environments that benefit them and pull out are the job is done before the enemy can bring its superior numbers to bear. It's a bit of an exaggeration, of course, since back then they also had hero stories of a squad of Marines going in, killing the enemy head honcho and saving the planet single handedly. But the tendency was there in the portrayal that their deployment served a tactical purpose in the overall war fought not just by them but the Imperial Guard that could exploit the opening provided by the Marines.

As such I wouldn't look at it like "what are ten guys going to do against a million troops" and instead a million heretics versus a million Guardsmen with ten Marines in the right place at the right time. Look at D-Day. What difference are a couple of paratroopers and some misinformation going to do? Right? All it takes for those ten Marines to make a difference is to walk into a place, disrupt communication and the Guard can overrun an enemy sector because they have no means of calling in reserves. And if there is anything to be learned from WW2, it's that once you gain the initiative and can establish tactical superiority over your opponent, it turns into a rock slide that cannot be stopped. You just need the right pebble in the right place to start it.

That's how I look at it. If you go the super hero route and always talk about how Marines are in the thickest fight, you make it appear as though that's their job and because we know Marines aren't that tough, yeah, you end up needing bigger numbers. But in the role of classic special forces with the bonus of being super soldiers that you expect to take down their objective, they work even in the smallest numbers.

It's why people are rightfully upset that Marines take such a focus and the Imperial Guard is luck to take the backseat, if they get to play any role at all. Marines are not line infantry. Marines don't fight wars of attrition. They shouldn't even fight on equal terms but instead exploit weak spots that cannot put up enough resistance to cause them serious casualties. Even the glorious an undoubtedly awesome Imperial Fists don't dig trenches to sit in them alone. The grinder is the province of the Imperial Guard.

I feel Marines' numbers were sufficiently accounted for in their role in the past. One Marine for each planet in the Imperium seems like very little, but I never got the impression it's too little.

I think you've hit the nail on the head for how I feel about the gradual change in how fluff is depicted Geifer. It appears to have moved from a situation where individual 'heroes' do heroic things in the midst of colossal planetary-scale wars that might perhaps just tip the scales in favour of their army. Modern fluff feels like one dude(tte) basically doing absolutely everything on one massive improbable cross-galactic tour.

Your depiction of Farsight 'flying around like Superman to single handedly, literally without any Tau forces doing anything, exterminating the Tyranid or Ork forces' could be placed into the story of Guilliman, the story of Yvraine, the story of pretty much all of the latest wave of Herohammer dude(ttes). Completely breaks my suspension of disbelief.

In that context, I can see 1,000,000 Marines being useful. Using them as line-soldiers wouldn't make much sense, which is alas what they've been depicted as.

The one thing I'd question is this: 'The downside to that is what I think gets us into sci-fi territory. SS were still normal guys and got depleted through constant fighting. Marines as the super awesome guys that they are, don't have attrition rates that are comparable to, let's just say it, mortal troops. They are meant to be, and portrayed as, demi gods. '

Compared to Guardsmen (i.e. our military forces) they're demigods. Compared to the horrors that the 41st millennium throws at them they're par for the course. The Imperium send in Space Marines when they want to fight on equal footing with the jacked up/daemonically possessed/biologically and genetically engineered/superhumanly fast/psychically powerful/technologically advanced forces that the galaxy holds. There's a great quote I like to use from a guy over on Ammobunker to describe this which is:

'While I love marines they're kinda puny when compared to other things, which is one of the reasons i like them, It's like you had to do THAT much to a human being AND THEN stick him in power armour just to give them a chance and even then your average Ork is still equipped with the upper body strength to rip an Astartes limb from limb.'

They're demigods...on a battlefield populated primarily with other enemy demigods, and a few literal gods thrown in there for good measure it's only in the vein of the whole 'herohammer' guff that they're depicted as being nigh-invulnerable, which is frankly a little bit boring.

Ok hold on work with me, how about, it's just written into fluff that way, so why bother messing with it or arguing it because at the end of the day it does not matter.

I mean arguing over female space marines here is a thread that never ends I just autistic shrieking.

The hero focus has irked me for a while, and while I personally did not read the Gathering Storm, I read a couple of synopses with... disaffection. It's not new, but very much the culmination of a trend I would have never seen going as far as it does. The first time I noticed was in the 4th ed Ork codex where the special characters were written to pop up everywhere across the galaxy in spite of the established about 30-year lifespan an Ork was supposed to have. It just seemed wrong, but I dismissed it at the time.Talk about discontent ten years in the making!

I like that quote and it sums up my feelings about Marines. I like Marines. Always have. These days, yes, it's the memory of Marines that I like much more than the actual thing.

In my perception it doesn't even contradict what I said before about Marines having to pick their fights very carefully. When you say:

"The Imperium send in Space Marines when they want to fight on equal footing with the jacked up/daemonically possessed/biologically and genetically engineered/superhumanly fast/psychically powerful/technologically advanced forces that the galaxy holds"

I mean, that's pretty much where I'm coming from. This is not my interpretation of how the Imperium works. It's not how it can work, simply because it does not have the manpower to send Marines to fight an enemy on equal footing. That's the core of the idea of its slow decline. It send whoever it can. Imperial Guard, Battle Sisters, Arbites, the janitor and his pals because the Ministorum preacher convinced them it's their turn to die for the Emperor. They send whoever they can because it's all they can do, and then the Marines arrive and hopefully enough to tip the scales.

No argument about the power of Marines. They are great by human standards and they are humanity's greatest warriors (that can be fielded in effective numbers anyway). I personally wouldn't put many enemy line troops on their level, to be honest. Because on the flipside there also needs to be a reason why the appearance of Chaos Marines spells doom on Imperial worlds - Chaos armies are made up of dregs about as much as Imperial armies. Orks, too. Sure, they're strong, but badly armored with varying morale and combat experience (specifically against Marines anyway), so while an Ork could kill a Marine one on one, the Marine has a massive technological and tactical advantage. Tyranids are chaff, too. Spiky chaff that can penetrate power armor and impale Marines, but still little guys that are not particularly resilient to gunfire. And so on. Daemons and Necrons are honestly the only things I would consider as powerful and terrifying as Marines in their own, special way.

But mostly, it's pretty much a scenario that Marines are not basic troops and they are frequently portrayed as being superior to the enemy's basic troops. This works the opposite way, too. Because it doesn't matter how super jacked the enemy elites are because the Imperium can drown them in the blood of its Guardsmen.

Eh, I think I'm ranting now. My point really is that the important thing is not to rank things by their individual power. That's kind of how you get to the current super hero situation by constantly having to one-up the last thing. Super awesome Marines too awesome? Here, have a super villainous monster guy. But worry not! This here hero that you have never seen before is even super awesomer and beats up the super villainous monster guy after all.

Now this is personal preference, but I would much prefer if the setting was grounded again and that it's acknowledged that most of the fighting and dying and, importantly, winning is done by the grunts and all the special forces get to contribute to their side's eventual victory by playing a small but crucial part. Yeah, the special guys are super cool and crazy good at what they do, but they don't win wars on their own. And any one of them, without exception, can just get gunned down by enough of the little guys. At any time. Not just when it's convenient for Celestine to die again so that she can pop back up later at the crucial time to save the day.

Got to add that it may occasionally come across as if I'm knocking the new background for making overly large heroes out of Marines when before they were not. I mean, they were always intended to serve as the super heroes that could fix things no one else could so as to attract impressionable kids like me. Very much playing the super hero part, functionally. It's just now they're literal super heroes when before they were more the kind of hero you would see in Seals or SAS or what have you.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


That's not the same thing, is it?

You need to be tough to survive the process =/= your previous strength is directly related to your biologically modified strength.

It's relevant to the reason why females would be a lesser stock as a basis for space marines.

Find me an example where it suggests bigger stronger people become bigger stronger marines.

Find a strawman argument, oh wait you have

Also, what you point out here specifically counteracts your argument that 'the pool is irrelevant'. If Marines search high and lo for worlds with populations who are capable of surviving implantation, the potential 'pool' of applicants is a lot smaller than you suggest. If that is the case (and it is), there is definite economic and logistical benefit to increasing the potential pool of recruits.

Poor Strategy.
Instead of looking for needles in a male haystack, you are saying it is a good idea split your efforts into two, looking for needles in a male and female haystack when the female haystack has less needles in it AND the aspirants are more likely to die along the way....?

The hyperbole levels in this thread are literally dangerous...

But seriously, OP. If you're not enjoying yourself, just quit. The whole point of having a hobby is to have fun, right?

If you do hang on to the army and come back years down the line, you can be that cool old guy with the really old models from back in the day though.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Commissar Benny wrote:
I'm in the same boat OP. Its not just the Primaris marines, its the writing.

I can overlook small details & mistakes but when the new writing is so unbelievably ridiculous at times, it makes it very difficult to immerse myself in the setting & I find myself reverting back to the setting when all the silliness wasn't present. Yeah, there have been trainwreck additions to the lore for many years (example Tau lore) but some of the new writing just makes me facepalm.

Take the Fall of Cadia for example. We are to believe the 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had less than a billion defenders. Let that sink in. The 2nd most defended planet in all of the Imperium, had 1/7th the defending population as present day Earth in a setting where human body count is measured in trillions if not exceeding trillions. How about Guilliman being present in almost every single conflict currently going on in the galaxy atm. Logistically, its impossible. Unless he is using the webway to travel, its impossible. He is one man (Primarch). He cannot & should not be in every conflict. This is like Marvel comics level of stupid.

Just out of curiosity, have you read the books this lore is in? And not just heard about it second-hand on the internet?

I ask because I've never played guard and aren't really that invested in them beyond the occasional novel and the background benchmark for what the human military is in this setting, but reading Fall of Cadia left me continuously impressed with them. They weren't humbling space marines with their dicipline and tactical acumen, or killing daemon princes in single combat (now, that would have been bad writing!) but they held the line and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with giants. It occasionally veered off to the one thing this company of space wolves does, or the heroic collapse of yet another sister of battle defense position, but it always came back to the guard, it was very much their book.

And Bobby G's been the focus of this recent updates because the setting has jumped ahead a hundred years and he's the focal point around which the setting's changes are moving. We're not hearing about how he intervened in every battle that's going on right now, but the battles he has taken part in over the course of a century-long crusade.