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the ancient wrote:
If it was d-day they just get 1 or 2, maybe a squad of marines to defend those bridges. If they even bothered.
Marines would prolly laugh at the d-day landings. Theyd drop a squad or 2 right on the Reichstaag, turn up kick Hitler and everyone within 1km in the balls, with a angry boot and say whos next, way back in 40.
If you think Himler or Borman are going to say woohoo, im in charge, after that your dreaming.

First of all, you're missing the point of the example. It wasn't a literal substitution of space marines into the real-world battle, it was highlighting the absurdity of how few marines there are. 100,000 marines seems like a lot until you realize that it's smaller than the D-Day invasion force, a not particularly large battle happening in one small region of one country. Spread those 100,000 marines out across an entire planet to have the marines protect every landing zone as the person suggested and you have a ridiculously weak defense. A massive assault force could land with maybe one or two marines at most to oppose it, and only a handful within range to arrive in time to do anything. And then it gets worse when you realize that 100,000 marines is a full 10% of the Imperium's entire total.

Second, what makes you think that marines would be on the invading side? They'd probably approve 100% of Hitler's actions and slaughter the invasion fleet.


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 argonak wrote:
5) 100 super humans drop pod directly into the planetary government building and butcher everyone. A thunderhawk blasts its way through their air force and recovers the marines before the ground forces can respond.

Or, even easier approach: a ship in orbit puts a lance strike through the planetary government building with no need for space marines. If your goal is to destroy a point target from orbit there are much easier ways of doing it than sending a bunch of screaming idiots with chainsaw swords to go down and kill everyone.

as long as they control the local air space via thunderhawk and space based support.

That's a pretty big assumption. What exactly do space marines do against, say, a Tau networked air defense system capable of shooting down an entire chapter worth of drop pods in seconds? The assumption of immediate and total victory in the air and space battles means that space marines are only useful against low-tier enemies that can't fight back against even the fairly weak air and space forces of the space marines. And if you just need to deal with a poorly supplied rebel PDF then why do you need space marines instead of conventional forces?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
one has to imagine every single marine as an Avenger.

Sure. Now imagine that the Avengers, instead of fighting against enemies that insist on running up and engaging in boxing matches, have to deal with a million artillery guns aimed at their location. The guns fire, everyone dies, end of story.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 argonak wrote:
5) 100 super humans drop pod directly into the planetary government building and butcher everyone. A thunderhawk blasts its way through their air force and recovers the marines before the ground forces can respond.

Or, even easier approach: a ship in orbit puts a lance strike through the planetary government building with no need for space marines. If your goal is to destroy a point target from orbit there are much easier ways of doing it than sending a bunch of screaming idiots with chainsaw swords to go down and kill everyone.

Once again Peregrine forgets about the potential value of infrastructure.

 Apple Peel wrote:
Once again Peregrine forgets about the potential value of infrastructure.

A planetary government building is hardly vital infrastructure. And a space marine assault is hardly a calm and careful thing, stuff is going to get wrecked anyway.

 JNAProductions wrote:
There are 1,000, give or take, Marine chapters.
Each chapter has 1,000, give or take, Marines.

That's one million Marines.

Let's assume that's off by a factor of 10, so there are actually ten million Marines.

Cadia has (okay, HAD) a population of 850,000,000.
Catachan has a mere 12,000,000 people.
Mordia has 10,000,000,000+ people.
Armageddon has 1,000,000,000+ people.
And there are thousands or more of other planets that include Guardsmen.
That's at least twelve billion people, just on four named planets. Let's assume that a mere one in twelve people are Guardsmen-the rest are children, the old and infirm, etc. etc.
That's one billion Guardsmen. Or one hundred Guardsmen for every Marine, from just FOUR PLANETS.

How many Guardsmen is a Marine worth? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?

Because, even though the tabletop is not representative of the fluff fully, I think it's safe to say that I'd prefer a hundred Guardsmen for most engagements than one ordinary Space Marine. (And for every more powerful Marine, like Chapter Masters, Captains, Librarians, or others; there's a Scion or other type of advanced Guardsmen.)

Now, there are some times when force ABSOLUTELY has to be concentrated in a way Guardsmen cannot manage, but Marines can. But those engagements are, far as I can tell, rare, relatively speaking, compared to what else there is.

I'm not saying Marines are BAD. But I do question why they're considered SO important.

If you don't think marines matter than you have never read a single HH novel. The game makes SM's look like nurglings, in the lore they are far more powerful, but they've never matter in relation to the IG, SM's at least after the HH have always been pretty much special forces, if the legions existed today at same strength and organisation as in the HH the Imperium would not be in as dire straights as they are. I mean a squad of SM's can turn the tide of a battle/war in the lore and most marines are sent out on missions as squads, I think you highly underestimate them, given the lore. I mean if you are really intersted in finding out read blood of asaheim and storm caller and you'll realise how effective even a squad of them can be or play SM for the PS3 lol

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
There are 1,000, give or take, Marine chapters.
Each chapter has 1,000, give or take, Marines.

That's one million Marines.

Let's assume that's off by a factor of 10, so there are actually ten million Marines.

Cadia has (okay, HAD) a population of 850,000,000.
Catachan has a mere 12,000,000 people.
Mordia has 10,000,000,000+ people.
Armageddon has 1,000,000,000+ people.
And there are thousands or more of other planets that include Guardsmen.
That's at least twelve billion people, just on four named planets. Let's assume that a mere one in twelve people are Guardsmen-the rest are children, the old and infirm, etc. etc.
That's one billion Guardsmen. Or one hundred Guardsmen for every Marine, from just FOUR PLANETS.

How many Guardsmen is a Marine worth? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?

Because, even though the tabletop is not representative of the fluff fully, I think it's safe to say that I'd prefer a hundred Guardsmen for most engagements than one ordinary Space Marine. (And for every more powerful Marine, like Chapter Masters, Captains, Librarians, or others; there's a Scion or other type of advanced Guardsmen.)

Now, there are some times when force ABSOLUTELY has to be concentrated in a way Guardsmen cannot manage, but Marines can. But those engagements are, far as I can tell, rare, relatively speaking, compared to what else there is.

I'm not saying Marines are BAD. But I do question why they're considered SO important.

If you don't think marines matter than you have never read a single HH novel. The game makes SM's look like nurglings, in the lore they are far more powerful, but they've never matter in relation to the IG, SM's at least after the HH have always been pretty much special forces, if the legions existed today at same strength and organisation as in the HH the Imperium would not be in as dire straights as they are. I mean a squad of SM's can turn the tide of a battle/war in the lore and most marines are sent out on missions as squads, I think you highly underestimate them, given the lore.

So how much stronger is a Marine than a Necron Warrior?

Can 1 Marine take on 1 Warrior?
How about 5?
10?
100?

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
There are 1,000, give or take, Marine chapters.
Each chapter has 1,000, give or take, Marines.

That's one million Marines.

Let's assume that's off by a factor of 10, so there are actually ten million Marines.

Cadia has (okay, HAD) a population of 850,000,000.
Catachan has a mere 12,000,000 people.
Mordia has 10,000,000,000+ people.
Armageddon has 1,000,000,000+ people.
And there are thousands or more of other planets that include Guardsmen.
That's at least twelve billion people, just on four named planets. Let's assume that a mere one in twelve people are Guardsmen-the rest are children, the old and infirm, etc. etc.
That's one billion Guardsmen. Or one hundred Guardsmen for every Marine, from just FOUR PLANETS.

How many Guardsmen is a Marine worth? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?

Because, even though the tabletop is not representative of the fluff fully, I think it's safe to say that I'd prefer a hundred Guardsmen for most engagements than one ordinary Space Marine. (And for every more powerful Marine, like Chapter Masters, Captains, Librarians, or others; there's a Scion or other type of advanced Guardsmen.)

Now, there are some times when force ABSOLUTELY has to be concentrated in a way Guardsmen cannot manage, but Marines can. But those engagements are, far as I can tell, rare, relatively speaking, compared to what else there is.

I'm not saying Marines are BAD. But I do question why they're considered SO important.

If you don't think marines matter than you have never read a single HH novel. The game makes SM's look like nurglings, in the lore they are far more powerful, but they've never matter in relation to the IG, SM's at least after the HH have always been pretty much special forces, if the legions existed today at same strength and organisation as in the HH the Imperium would not be in as dire straights as they are. I mean a squad of SM's can turn the tide of a battle/war in the lore and most marines are sent out on missions as squads, I think you highly underestimate them, given the lore.

So how much stronger is a Marine than a Necron Warrior?

Can 1 Marine take on 1 Warrior?
How about 5?
10?
100?

So this is just a 'I want my guys to be as awesome" thing? I mean you have to look at it as an Imperium vs Necron thing not a SM vs Nacron thing, a necron warrior is never going to be as powerful as a SM but an elite necron will. I mean does it really matter that much, love your army for your armies sake.

A Chapter sacrificed itself destroying a Necron world engine that up to that point had proven unstoppable. It had "tens of thousands" of necrons (which could be anything really and presumably many constructs) fighting against 772 Space Marines.

Okay. So call it 77,200 Necrons versus 772 Marines, or a factor of 100 to 1.

A single tomb world can have BILLIONS of Necrons-if you gathered every single Marine in the Galaxy to fight them, they'd be outnumbered 1,000 or more to 1.

Their numbers just seem too small to matter.

Edit: And I don't play Necrons. I just want to understand what I'm missing that makes Marines matter so damn much.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. So call it 77,200 Necrons versus 772 Marines, or a factor of 100 to 1.

A single tomb world can have BILLIONS of Necrons-if you gathered every single Marine in the Galaxy to fight them, they'd be outnumbered 1,000 or more to 1.

Their numbers just seem too small to matter.

Edit: And I don't play Necrons. I just want to understand what I'm missing that makes Marines matter so damn much.

Well not every fight is fought in a phonebox. There could be a regiment of guard with them or Titan legions or there could be multiple chapters against a single foe. Saying why do they matter is like saying why do Nobz matter in an Ork army. I mean you sound like you've never read a single SM novel.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. So call it 77,200 Necrons versus 772 Marines, or a factor of 100 to 1.

A single tomb world can have BILLIONS of Necrons-if you gathered every single Marine in the Galaxy to fight them, they'd be outnumbered 1,000 or more to 1.

Their numbers just seem too small to matter.

Edit: And I don't play Necrons. I just want to understand what I'm missing that makes Marines matter so damn much.

Well not every fight is fought in a phonebox. There could be a regiment of guard with them or Titan legions or there could be multiple chapters against a single foe. Saying why do they matter is like saying why do Nobz matter in an Ork army.

Because more than 1% of Orks are Nobz, And because Nobz are the leaders of Orks. Are Marines the leaders of Guardsmen? And do they comprise even a percent of a percent of humanities' numbers?

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. So call it 77,200 Necrons versus 772 Marines, or a factor of 100 to 1.

A single tomb world can have BILLIONS of Necrons-if you gathered every single Marine in the Galaxy to fight them, they'd be outnumbered 1,000 or more to 1.

Their numbers just seem too small to matter.

Edit: And I don't play Necrons. I just want to understand what I'm missing that makes Marines matter so damn much.

Well not every fight is fought in a phonebox. There could be a regiment of guard with them or Titan legions or there could be multiple chapters against a single foe. Saying why do they matter is like saying why do Nobz matter in an Ork army.

Because more than 1% of Orks are Nobz, And because Nobz are the leaders of Orks. Are Marines the leaders of Guardsmen? And do they comprise even a percent of a percent of humanities' numbers?

You're just being ridiculous now. Can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in comparison to their whole numbers.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. So call it 77,200 Necrons versus 772 Marines, or a factor of 100 to 1.

A single tomb world can have BILLIONS of Necrons-if you gathered every single Marine in the Galaxy to fight them, they'd be outnumbered 1,000 or more to 1.

Their numbers just seem too small to matter.

Edit: And I don't play Necrons. I just want to understand what I'm missing that makes Marines matter so damn much.

Well not every fight is fought in a phonebox. There could be a regiment of guard with them or Titan legions or there could be multiple chapters against a single foe. Saying why do they matter is like saying why do Nobz matter in an Ork army.

Because more than 1% of Orks are Nobz, And because Nobz are the leaders of Orks. Are Marines the leaders of Guardsmen? And do they comprise even a percent of a percent of humanities' numbers?

You're just being ridiculous now.

How so? Please, explain.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Okay. So call it 77,200 Necrons versus 772 Marines, or a factor of 100 to 1.

A single tomb world can have BILLIONS of Necrons-if you gathered every single Marine in the Galaxy to fight them, they'd be outnumbered 1,000 or more to 1.

Their numbers just seem too small to matter.

Edit: And I don't play Necrons. I just want to understand what I'm missing that makes Marines matter so damn much.

Well not every fight is fought in a phonebox. There could be a regiment of guard with them or Titan legions or there could be multiple chapters against a single foe. Saying why do they matter is like saying why do Nobz matter in an Ork army.

Because more than 1% of Orks are Nobz, And because Nobz are the leaders of Orks. Are Marines the leaders of Guardsmen? And do they comprise even a percent of a percent of humanities' numbers?

You're just being ridiculous now.

How so? Please, explain.

Well first with the ork comment, the numbers are irrelevant to the point I was making, nor are their function. Secondly, can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in relation to their whole numbers.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well first the ork comment, the numbers are irrelevant to the point, nor are there function. Secondly Can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in comparison to their whole numbers.

Give me an example of how Marines stop an entire army.

And don't give me BS about killing the command structure, like was talked about with Guard earlier. Cadia broke before the Cadians did, there's no way they'd just stop fighting and surrender if the officers aren't there.

Well no other troops could have breached the World Engine. That's why they matter.

 Gael Knight wrote:
Well no other troops could have breached the World Engine. That's why they matter.

Custodes couldn't've?

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well first the ork comment, the numbers are irrelevant to the point, nor are there function. Secondly Can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in comparison to their whole numbers.

Give me an example of how Marines stop an entire army.

And don't give me BS about killing the command structure, like was talked about with Guard earlier. Cadia broke before the Cadians did, there's no way they'd just stop fighting and surrender if the officers aren't there.

Most Grey knights novels especially the omnibus. The Ragnar omnibus etc. but how bout Marneus Calgar everyone knows about his battle with the orks, where he held them back single-handedly. The HH novel (can't remember the name) the short story where the Wolves took on a whole army of eldar themselves. Then look to their cousins and see what the Custodes can do, they destroyed a whole army and only lost 3 men and they only had 10,000 at full capacity and it was never said how many actually fought.

I think you're just being purposefully obtuse at this point.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well first the ork comment, the numbers are irrelevant to the point, nor are there function. Secondly Can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in comparison to their whole numbers.

Give me an example of how Marines stop an entire army.

And don't give me BS about killing the command structure, like was talked about with Guard earlier. Cadia broke before the Cadians did, there's no way they'd just stop fighting and surrender if the officers aren't there.

Most Grey knights novels especially the omnibus. The Ragnar omnibus etc. but how bout Marneus Calgar everyone knows about his battle with the orks, where he held them back single-handedly. The HH novel (can't remember the name) the short story where the Wolves took on a whole army of eldar themselves.

I said of HOW, not where I can read it myself.

All you've said is "Marines did it" not HOW they did it.

 Gael Knight wrote:
I think you're just being purposefully obtuse at this point.

Who me?

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Gael Knight wrote:
I think you're just being purposefully obtuse at this point.

Who me?

No, probably me.

Because I brought up Custodes, who are better than Marines, even if smaller in number.

No JNA for suggesting Custodes. Who typically didn't leave Terra and certainly didn't when this fluff piece about the World Engine was written.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well first the ork comment, the numbers are irrelevant to the point, nor are there function. Secondly Can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in comparison to their whole numbers.

Give me an example of how Marines stop an entire army.

And don't give me BS about killing the command structure, like was talked about with Guard earlier. Cadia broke before the Cadians did, there's no way they'd just stop fighting and surrender if the officers aren't there.

Most Grey knights novels especially the omnibus. The Ragnar omnibus etc. but how bout Marneus Calgar everyone knows about his battle with the orks, where he held them back single-handedly. The HH novel (can't remember the name) the short story where the Wolves took on a whole army of eldar themselves.

I said of HOW, not where I can read it myself.

All you've said is "Marines did it" not HOW they did it.

Just like I said a squad defeated an army, you'd have to read them and tally every number they killed etc. I don't care If you want evidence where 5 of them killed every single 1000 or 10,000 by hand. That's not how war works, it doesn't matter how they are defeated, but even at that there are tonnes of stories like that, like the Calgar story.

 Gael Knight wrote:
No JNA for suggesting Custodes. Who typically didn't leave Terra and certainly didn't when this fluff piece about the World Engine was written.

They leave now.

Going by DC's logic, namely that numbers are entirely irrelevant when you're badass enough, clearly the Custodes should matter more than Marines.

And if you don't follow that logic, and say that numbers matter, then again-how many Warriors of the Necron variety are worth a Marine? Because there's billions of them on a planet. And billions on another. And another. And another.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gael Knight wrote:
No JNA for suggesting Custodes. Who typically didn't leave Terra and certainly didn't when this fluff piece about the World Engine was written.

They leave now.

Going by DC's logic, namely that numbers are entirely irrelevant when you're badass enough, clearly the Custodes should matter more than Marines.

And if you don't follow that logic, and say that numbers matter, then again-how many Warriors of the Necron variety are worth a Marine? Because there's billions of them on a planet. And billions on another. And another. And another.

I never said numbers don't matter, I actually said the contrary. You are making strawman's and you aren't making much sense. Numbers matter but so does quality of said numbers.

Fair-you did say numbers were irrelevant to your point at the moment, not overall.

But at the same time, 1,000 Guardsmen are, in most circumstances, better than a Marine.

And in the circumstances they're not better, a Custode is better than a Marine.

They rarely leave Terra now. It's like you don't really understand the fluff, or how humanity was subjugated by all manner of xenos abominations before the Great Crusade. Astartes break the backs of the most horrific foes.

You seem to be constantly shifting what matter means. You have an example where marines were the only ones to get the job done. That's why they matter. They shut down the shields of the World Engine and the remaining Imperial forces were able to destroy it.

If the Imperium could be retaken & held by the un-altered humans alone then the Emperor wouldn't have created the Astartes.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Fair-you did say numbers were irrelevant to your point at the moment, not overall.

But at the same time, 1,000 Guardsmen are, in most circumstances, better than a Marine.

And in the circumstances they're not better, a Custode is better than a Marine.

No I said the number of Nobz was irrelevant to their value in relation to the army. I never said the numbers of your army or opponent don't matter. Again you show that you haven't read a lot of the lore, you are focused on how much 1 soldier can kill equal to or over an above other factions soldier. You are asking why marines matter, well a squad of marines doesn't have to kill 1000 guardsmen in a battle royale. They can infiltrate and sabotage the 1000 marines; striking and retreating and keep doing that until they win, which they've done time and time again in the lore. That's why they matter, even though in a pitched battle royal type fight they can do far more damage than any other faction.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well first the ork comment, the numbers are irrelevant to the point, nor are there function. Secondly Can a squad of necrons take on an army single handled: no. and if a squad could do that then its exponential in comparison to their whole numbers.

Give me an example of how Marines stop an entire army.

And don't give me BS about killing the command structure, like was talked about with Guard earlier. Cadia broke before the Cadians did, there's no way they'd just stop fighting and surrender if the officers aren't there.

loylaist guardsmen, whom are part of a large orginized military stationed in an area where they are equipped to deal with space Marines.

and the thing is, we don't need them to stop fighting and surrender, we need their command structure to be shattered so that they are unable to cordinate an effective defence, so that the Imperial guard, rather then deal with a prolonged fight with a cordinated enemy, instead gets to sweep up small confused remnaints.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I’m sorry, 3:1 Guard to Marine ratio? If he has nothing but officers, sure, but there are one million marines total.

Individual planets have way more Guardsmen than that. By a massive margin.

Yes they do, but this is irrelevant because PLANETS ARE BIG that entire guard force is gonna be spread out, trying to hold the planet. the space Marines hit a single area, with concentrated force, causing a break down in communications and cordination, and then the Imperial Guard deploys to mop up. thats the ONLY way Marines can operate.

Perhaps the issue with Spacemarines is that they are much like a comic book character. A being that the writer wants to make seem super human in every respect but at the same time they need to be challenged by their opponent to try and make a compelling story. Then throw in the grim dark aspect of 40K where any being no matter how strong, can be wiped away by the brutality of war, the uncaring mass death of planet wide combat with alien races.

This leaves you with a being who is apparently worth 100 regular troopers with high quality armour and weapons but often die by the hundreds when fighting enemies who are meant to be capable of killing all life in the galaxy if left unchecked.

Compare the fluff, where you'd be lucky to have any sort of special or heavy weapons in a squad of gaurdsmen or orks, vs the actual game where often you'll have one in every single available slot. To the point where front line troopers feel sort of weak and obsolete with their boltgun or lasgun compared to the bunch of mooks with plasma guns.

Then factor in how often in fluff and reality you wouldn't be able to fire at a space marine as he wades through a squad a few meters away from you in a trench or no mans land due to the threat of frendly fire. You are less likley to fire at a bear if it's currently in the midst of a bunch of people An actual space marine in a modern day conflict would be rather terrifying. But then again so would most of the alien races.