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Hey, when I do fluff arguing about Mahreens, I do not take my own preferences into account. I only use what I can explicitly source as arguments.

Nothing's stopping me from mentioning my preferences, though. Just like you mention yours.

I think perhaps the OP has a point, but I suggest an alternative viewpoint for him to consider.

A small force of Space Marines can handle a planetwide infestation of bugs or heretics, a larger force can protect an entire star system, and the whole Chapter? Well, haha, they can pretty much do anything. Which seems pretty akin to say, the SAS, except on a much much larger scale.

Think of it this way, Space Marines are like USMC or SAS or whatever flavour of Special Forces you like, except that the scale on which they operate is much more vast. Taking control on an entire planet is akin to holding a critical objective for a Space Marine. Drops in a bucket kind of logic right?

As for the marketing of GW, well I think it's safe to say, some Englishmen just can't hold their finances! Someone mentioned the cyclical nature of mass marketing, and I think that's very true. If lets say for example the new Tyranids Codex got the same attention as the Space Marines then regardless of it's content it would still sell exponentially better. Let me ask you, when was the last time you even saw a GW advertisement outside of the painfully obvious spots, like a games store?

I personally think that Tyranids look great and even though the book is said to be weak and all the other publication jive that's been attached to it has pretty much blackballed 'Nids I would still like to own a Tyranid army!
Why because they look killer! I can just imagine my Sons of Medusa completely surrounded by bugs, bolters spewing out death, the ground covered in gross icky 'Nid blood... Marines going down with gaping wounds, tanks exploding into melted sticky chunks, giant aliens screaming in the background while a million mandibles click and clack...

It's almost intoxicating, you saw it too didn't you! And I wasn't even trying! How awesome would it be to have a full on Tyranid assault? Black Library starts cranking out books about Nids eating everything, GW quietly rewrites the Codex as Biggest Supplement Yet (Read: Tyranids Codex 7th ed) and instead of trying to backtrack with them, bring out new models, cut the prices, and tell store owners to give away a box of Warriors with every purchase over $50.

Bam, suddenly everyone wants to play 'Nids because, wow hey look, people are excited about them! All it took was a little effort...

You could do the same with any of the factions! Also I think having the solid SM fanbase helps with that too. SM are constantly hailed as being great for new players, so already you have a large section of players who are already at least somewhat interested in the other factions. The Allies rules were probably intended to encourage players to expand their armies to include other factions, but without any marketing or support, and with the overarching problem of pricing that idea just flopped hard.

You want to see Space Marines become more aligned with their role as Special Forces I say sure! Do it by making the other factions more appealing to everyone. At least that will fill your meta up with a more varied range of opponents.

 Peregrine wrote:
....They're doing the equivalent of "try typing 'passw0rd' at the login screen" while everyone else is sitting around consulting the holy texts and trying to find the proper ritual of password breaking...

Brilliant.

Think of it this way, Space Marines are like USMC or SAS or whatever flavour of Special Forces you like, except that the scale on which they operate is much more vast. Taking control on an entire planet is akin to holding a critical objective for a Space Marine. Drops in a bucket kind of logic right?

Special forces can't operate on a large scale though. If you want to control a planet, you need a bunch of guys standing around guarding stuff. If that's what space marines are doing then they are vulnerable, because their chief advantage (in my opinion) is mobility. Of course, the marines could hang around in orbit and strike at the enemy whenever they begin to mobilize on the planet's surface, and this would effectively lock down the planet. I believe the marines could do this very effectively, but that is very different from actually holding the planet

The problem is that many people here keep trying to apply real-world tactics and military doctrines for Space Marines when:

*It should be clear that the GW staff know ****all about actual military tactics (which would also explain Failbaddon).

*GW writers clearly all failed their Maths (but then so do most authors as TV Tropes shows us) when its comes to just how many Space Marines their need to be for them to actually be effective, super-human or now (I recall a brilliant topic either here or on BoLS discussing it, and the consensus was SM chapters needed to be at least 2 orders of magnitude larger, if not more, to be an effective fighting force).

*Even the codices are not consistent about how powerful Space Marines are. Yes I know, "biased POV" and all, but still. I'm actually starting to think some people at GW didn't realize the Movie Marines list was Tongue-in-Cheek.