Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey everyone. So a buddy of mine recently helped get me into the 40k lore. I fell in love with it. Been a fan now for about a week. I grew up on World of Warcraft, so that was my thing. I'm honestly really glad I got into 40k. It's so interesting. I love it. The lore is so rich and deep.

My question is - do chapters fight alongside each other in the battlefield? Say, will the Blood Angels fight alongside the Ultramarines, or is it usually that they each go off and do their own thing?

Also, I read that the space marines and the imperial guard never fight together. Why is that? Are they both not fighting for the same thing - the Emperor?

Thanks for your time!

Yes chapters do fight alongside each other regularly, they wouldn’t intermingle their commands though. Think of it more like the Americans and the British and others in desert storm or world war 2, their more like allies than one army. Like in the situations above one person from one faction is usually put in charge. Look up the second war for Armageddon for an example. Dante chapter master of the Blood Angels was unanimously elected as overall commander by the numerous chapters present including the ultramarines by the way. Then the different chapters were given different roles and objectives, they’d cooperate and follow Dante’s direction but would stay as separate forces.

Chapters will also fight alongside the Guard in a similar manner but this will almost certainly not be an equal relationship. A chapter is outside the imperial chain of command, and so the Guard general in charge of the guard has no say in how the marines fight.

The relationship will depend on the personality of the chapter. Some will come in and not even bother speaking to the guard, they’ll just smash their targets and complete their objectives and then leave. Others may just tell the Guard what their objectives are and expect the guard to work around them. But some chapters will respect the Guard and meet with their leaders to form a joint strategy maybe even going so far as to deploy marines directly into guard forces to bolster them.

Space marine chapters are more like imperial allies than directly part of the imperium, it’s more complicated than that but that’s the simplest way to think of them. But the marines will almost always be the power player when working with forces such as the Guard

Ah alright. That makes sense. Because I've been playing the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine game, and you help fight with the imperial guard. I was just wondering if that happened regularly.

Then I would assume even though there are chapter masters, each captain would still be in charge of their own battalion, right?. Like if the general gave orders to the Army to capture an objective, and then the captain directed his troops on how to go about achieving that objective.

Also, The successor chapters, like the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, what does that mean? Because in terms of that word being used in context, the Space Marines are the successors to the Thunder Warriors. There are no more Thunder Warriors. So then wouldn't that mean if the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, that there are no more Ultramarines?

One last thing - do all chaos space marines have chapter masters as well? Like the Night Lords for instance. Konrad Curze is dead. He was their primarch. So then who leads them now?

Pretty good summary

The Marines tend to arrive, do what they feel needs doing and depart. Some Chapters might speak to the "mortals", others won't bother and some will demand that the Guard do what they want and may even use them as a diversion, especially Chapters like the Iron Hands. Marines often had difficulty understanding the fraility of humans and humans have great difficulty even cosndiering refusing a marine - the annoited chldren of their God.

Its noted that in the recent campaign the Marine Commanders worked closely with the local Cannoness of the Sisters of Battle as they saw her as a "powerful ally with vital information" and figures of legend like Yarrick will be respected.

So in order:
Yeah, the other guys have summarised it quite well. The relationship between guard and marines on the field varies based on chapter and regiment- some marines ignore them and get the job done themselves but others work on a 1-1 basis forming plans and working closely. It all depends on the chapter and regiment.

Captains command companies. Chapter masters command 1000 marines(a full chapter) and then the captains control companies of marines that usually are organised based on number. Say the 1st company is a terminator force, 5th is an assault company, or the 10th is scouts. So the captain commands this contingent of marines and follows (usually) the chapter masters orders.

Successor chapters are what came with guillimans codex Astartes. He wrote that a chapter could not contain more than 1000 marines unless on campaign, so if any chapter would turn heretic then the threat CAN be dealt with and there is no second heresy scale event. So, the legions needed to be split up-this is what is known as the first founding, where chapters first happened. So these first founding chapters were all derivatives of legions, so were successors of the legion chapters(if that makes any sense). Also meaning all the successors of a chapter share gene seed in some way. In the second founding, even more marines were made and more chapters were created m, some as successors to others. Because they have the same gene seed they may be doctrinated very similarly, as in fight in a specific manner like their founding chapter. Then,,, there was the Ultima faction which was primaris and it's complicated and confusing and this probably reads horribly so sorry but can you kind of understand it? At least this is what I know about the marines
(So to answer ur question, no, it does not mean there are no more Ultramarines (also, technically, marines are not a successor legions of thunder warriors) (and that's even more complicated)

Chaos! Chaos are organised chaotically- they are not necessarily organised. Usually there will be a warband led by s chaos lord or aspiring champion, but this is very loose and can vary very much.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hopefully this all makes sense

 Ironbeer wrote:
Hey everyone. So a buddy of mine recently helped get me into the 40k lore. I fell in love with it. Been a fan now for about a week. I grew up on World of Warcraft, so that was my thing. I'm honestly really glad I got into 40k. It's so interesting. I love it. The lore is so rich and deep.

My question is - do chapters fight alongside each other in the battlefield? Say, will the Blood Angels fight alongside the Ultramarines, or is it usually that they each go off and do their own thing?

Also, I read that the space marines and the imperial guard never fight together. Why is that? Are they both not fighting for the same thing - the Emperor?

Thanks for your time!

The Imperium is very complex, there are many sovereignty's within the Imperium. Space Marines fight for the Imperium but most are kind of like independent states. Read about the Space Wolves for instance which technically went to war with the Imperium after the months of shame. Then you have the Chambers militant that also are independent from other institutions as is the Inquisition, yadda yadda yadda. You have to think of the Imperium less like our governments and nation states and more like a gestalt of independent and dependant institutions that either work alongside each other or butt heads.

Also remember that, due to the complexities of the command structure, it is possible for Space Marines and the Astra Militarum to end up fighting each other, or even for two AM armies or two SM armies to end up on opposite sides. In the background material it is rare for this to happen without some amount of Chaos taint being involved, but it is not unheard of. Corrupt planetary governors can point their forces at the wrong targets, particularly bloodthirsty Space Marine chapters can assume heresy first and ask question later and so on.

 Ironbeer wrote:
Ah alright. That makes sense. Because I've been playing the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine game, and you help fight with the imperial guard. I was just wondering if that happened regularly.

Then I would assume even though there are chapter masters, each captain would still be in charge of their own battalion, right?. Like if the general gave orders to the Army to capture an objective, and then the captain directed his troops on how to go about achieving that objective.

Also, The successor chapters, like the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, what does that mean? Because in terms of that word being used in context, the Space Marines are the successors to the Thunder Warriors. There are no more Thunder Warriors. So then wouldn't that mean if the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, that there are no more Ultramarines?

One last thing - do all chaos space marines have chapter masters as well? Like the Night Lords for instance. Konrad Curze is dead. He was their primarch. So then who leads them now?

Chapter master rules the whole chapter, captains surve under them running companies of 100 marines. It’s extremely rare for the whole chapter to fight in one place together, so when separated from the chapter master the captains are in charge. There will also be an order of seniority amongst the captains with the captain of the first company mostly being top dog.

The word successors is being used slightly differently here, the space marines are successors of the Thunder Warriors only in that they came after them and do a similar function. The Hawk Lords are a Successor Chapter to the Ultramarines, here the word Successor means more it is a title that means they use the same Gene Seed as the ultramarines.

First the emperor created the primarchs but they were stolen as babies, luckily he had samples of their DNA left over so he used that DNA to create 20 legion of Space Marines each using the DNA of one Primarch. A Primarch was far more powerful than a marine and was never a normal human, but marines can be made comparatively quickly. As the crusade went on these legions found their Primarchs and grew massive in size ranging between about 100,000 to over 200,000. Then half turned Traitor and were eventually driven off. roboute guilliman Primarch of the ultramarines then reorganised the loyalist marines into tiny chapters ending the legions. The founding of the legions was retroactively called the First Founding and those chapters that kept the legion name and heraldry became the first founding chapters, the thousands of excesse marines were organised into totally new chapters with new heraldry and were the chapters of the second founding. There’s been many other foundings since and all chapters of the second founding and later are collectively Successor Chapters of whichever first founding chapter there gene seed comes from. This was done so no single person would have the power of a space marine legion at their command.

The organisation of chaos marines is very different, mostly they’ve degenerated into a number of war bands of various sizes led by a particularly powerful and charismatic champion. Some legions maintain a faded command structure but others are a legion only in name. It’ll take a powerful individual to get the majority of a chaos legion moving in the same direction.

Something to consider is the sheer vastness of the setting. To put in WoW terms...

Let's take the in-game Alliance. One faction with a bunch of players. Only there are no chat channels, the only way to communicate is to /say something to another player in person. You can send mail, but the amount of time it takes to get there varies between seconds to months, if it gets there at all. There are no portals and when using flight/boat paths you may be attacked by mobs, arrive at the wrong destination, or find that you have experienced inexplicable lag and arrived long after (or even before) you expected. There is world pvp going on in all zones all the time, but if a quest hub is overrun the NPCs never respawn and you lose access permanently. If Stormwind falls you lose and every Alliance character is deleted. Darnassus is already gone (duh) Ironforge sees Horde raid groups attacking it by the hour, and the deeprun tram no longer functions. All mobs are set to hostile with a very large aggro radius, and may randomly respawn with elite, boss, or even raid-tier stats. To top it off there are Alliance players are working against the faction from within and entire guilds can have their characters killed then deleted just on suspicion that some of their members were doing so.

A Space Marine chapter is like a guild of a few dozen dedicated players trying to do something in all that mess. Sometimes they work with similar guilds when a particularly nasty threat shows up. Imperial Guard are newbie guilds with thousands of members who are underleveled and equipped with vendor gear. Yes they can help but it's also a lot of scrubs who may not be worth the more elite guild's time to coordinate with.

Does that make sense?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Something to consider is the sheer vastness of the setting. To put in WoW terms...

Let's take the in-game Alliance. One faction with a bunch of players. Only there are no chat channels, the only way to communicate is to /say something to another player in person. You can send mail, but the amount of time it takes to get there varies between seconds to months, if it gets there at all. There are no portals and when using flight/boat paths you may be attacked by mobs, arrive at the wrong destination, or find that you have experienced inexplicable lag and arrived long after (or even before) you expected. There is world pvp going on in all zones all the time, but if a quest hub is overrun the NPCs never respawn and you lose access permanently. If Stormwind falls you lose and every Alliance character is deleted. Darnassus is already gone (duh) Ironforge sees Horde raid groups attacking it by the hour, and the deeprun tram no longer functions. All mobs are set to hostile with a very large aggro radius, and may randomly respawn with elite, boss, or even raid-tier stats. To top it off there are Alliance players are working against the faction from within and entire guilds can have their characters killed then deleted just on suspicion that some of their members were doing so.

A Space Marine chapter is like a guild of a few dozen dedicated players trying to do something in all that mess. Sometimes they work with similar guilds when a particularly nasty threat shows up. Imperial Guard are newbie guilds with thousands of members who are underleveled and equipped with vendor gear. Yes they can help but it's also a lot of scrubs who may not be worth the more elite guild's time to coordinate with.

Does that make sense?

This is one of the best explanations of 40k I've seen. Exalted.

Who wants to explain Wolves and Dark angels?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Something to consider is the sheer vastness of the setting. To put in WoW terms...

Let's take the in-game Alliance. One faction with a bunch of players. Only there are no chat channels, the only way to communicate is to /say something to another player in person. You can send mail, but the amount of time it takes to get there varies between seconds to months, if it gets there at all. There are no portals and when using flight/boat paths you may be attacked by mobs, arrive at the wrong destination, or find that you have experienced inexplicable lag and arrived long after (or even before) you expected. There is world pvp going on in all zones all the time, but if a quest hub is overrun the NPCs never respawn and you lose access permanently. If Stormwind falls you lose and every Alliance character is deleted. Darnassus is already gone (duh) Ironforge sees Horde raid groups attacking it by the hour, and the deeprun tram no longer functions. All mobs are set to hostile with a very large aggro radius, and may randomly respawn with elite, boss, or even raid-tier stats. To top it off there are Alliance players are working against the faction from within and entire guilds can have their characters killed then deleted just on suspicion that some of their members were doing so.

A Space Marine chapter is like a guild of a few dozen dedicated players trying to do something in all that mess. Sometimes they work with similar guilds when a particularly nasty threat shows up. Imperial Guard are newbie guilds with thousands of members who are underleveled and equipped with vendor gear. Yes they can help but it's also a lot of scrubs who may not be worth the more elite guild's time to coordinate with.

Does that make sense?

Except that some of these newbie guilds actually have fairly good track records and or are themselves freaking professionals compared to the PDF forces.
That said it is indeed a good analogy.

 Ironbeer wrote:

Then I would assume even though there are chapter masters, each captain would still be in charge of their own battalion, right?. Like if the general gave orders to the Army to capture an objective, and then the captain directed his troops on how to go about achieving that objective.

Space marines don't have batalions. The organisation is generally straight forward, and bar some local variations, or in the case of the Space Wolves utter disregard (exception rather than the rule though), a chapter is divided into 10 companies, plus support elements (apothecarion (apothecaries), Armoury(techmarines), librarium (librarians), each led by a company commander. Space Marine forces are very flexible and there is no hard and fast rule for how they are deployed and organised. Some chapters, like the Minotaurs only ever deploy in their entirety. Most would generally divide their forces into a number of strike forces. Most chapters active strength would be deployed into several (probably 3-4) strike forces that are deployed and redeployed constantly. There would also be limited garrisoning elements and whatever other deployments that are deemed necessary which could be a single space marine 'bodyguard' or 'escort' to a single squad on special assignment. The leadership cadre would come down to seniority, or maybe a duel to sort it out (amongst the more barbaric chapters for example). There is no hard and fast. A chapter master could lead one strike force comprising elements of several companies with less senior company commander said being present being his 'lieutetnants' while less or more senior company commanders could independently command other strike forces operating at the other side of the galaxy. A captain would generally know where his guys are, but those on special assignment would logically be expected to operate on their own initiative.

 Ironbeer wrote:

Also, The successor chapters, like the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, what does that mean? Because in terms of that word being used in context, the Space Marines are the successors to the Thunder Warriors. There are no more Thunder Warriors. So then wouldn't that mean if the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, that there are no more Ultramarines?

The is an ultramarine chapter, there is no longer an ultramarine legion.
It's Nomenclature. The space marines 'succeeded' the thunder warriors in the sense that the replaced them after the emperor had them liquidated once they'd served their purpose. Kinda like how jets succeeded propellar driven aircraft. Successor chapters are something's different. The tl;dr is that originally space marines were organised into legions. Legions were huge. Some were 250,000 marines strong. After the Horus heresy, marines were reorganised into chapters to stop any one individual commanding the strength of a legion. One chapter from a legion kept the original name and heraldry, and all the others were organised into new 'chapters' with new names and heraldry, but still claiming lineage to the original legion. These were the 'successor chapters' to the legions. So since then, there's ave been numerous other foundings, with new chapters budded off from existing ones (for a mind boggling number of reasons) etc.

 Ironbeer wrote:

One last thing - do all chaos space marines have chapter masters as well? Like the Night Lords for instance. Konrad Curze is dead. He was their primarch. So then who leads them now?

Chaos marines don't follow the codex. The tl;dr is that After the heresy, the legions broke up into various warbands. Being chaotic, there is no hard and fast rule to define what shape or size a warband could be. Some would be entirely comprised from warriors from a single legion, others would be a mush mash of elements of several legions brought together by a charismatic, or tyrannical figure who can essentially call themselves whatever they want. Warlord. Reaver king. Tyrant. Warbands tend to form, disintegrate and reform. Quite chaotic.

The other thing to remember is the sense of scale, that GW really doesn't do well with. There are (allegedly) 1m marines and trillions of guardsmen. It is most likely that the vast majority of guard forces would never see a single marine.

40k the game, however, provides a radically different viewpoint and feel compared to a lot of the fluff.

Deadnight wrote:

 Ironbeer wrote:

Also, The successor chapters, like the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, what does that mean? Because in terms of that word being used in context, the Space Marines are the successors to the Thunder Warriors. There are no more Thunder Warriors. So then wouldn't that mean if the Hawk Lords are the successors to the Ultramarines, that there are no more Ultramarines?

The is an ultramarine chapter, there is no longer an ultramarine legion.
It's Nomenclature. The space marines 'succeeded' the thunder warriors in the sense that the replaced them after the emperor had them liquidated once they'd served their purpose. Kinda like how jets succeeded propellar driven aircraft. Successor chapters are something's different. The tl;dr is that originally space marines were organised into legions. Legions were huge. Some were 250,000 marines strong. After the Horus heresy, marines were reorganised into chapters to stop any one individual commanding the strength of a legion. One chapter from a legion kept the original name and heraldry, and all the others were organised into new 'chapters' with new names and heraldry, but still claiming lineage to the original legion. These were the 'successor chapters' to the legions. So since then, there's ave been numerous other foundings, with new chapters budded off from existing ones (for a mind boggling number of reasons) etc.

Unless you are Dark Angels. Then you're still a legion. In the book "Azrael" when he becomes Grand Master he calls upon all the successor chapters grand masters to come to the rock. (To which they oblige). Then Azrael says "right listen up you lot. I'm the SUPREME grand master, you all do what I say, and what I say is we hunt for the fallen above all else, got that?". They then all agreed and now Dark Angels are back to being a leg..........ffxzzztt......<COMMAND OVERIDE>........<control>....<input>...<New MEssage>..<Update Received>.........DARK ANGELS ARE THE MOST LOYAL OF ALL SPACE MARINE CHAPTERS AND FOLLOW THE IMPERIUMS CODEXIS AND COMMANDS WITH FULL DUE PROCESS. ANY BATTLE BROTHERS FOUND DEVIATING FROM THE PATH OF THE SERVICE TO THE EMPEROR ARE HANDED OVER TO THE INQUISITION IMMEDIATELY.

"Unless you are Dark Angels. Then you're still a legion."
That was already posted; Chaos Marines don't necessarily follow the Codex Astartes, so have different organizations.

(@OP - Dark Angels are "Loyalists", meaning they serve the Imperium, but there are hints that they *may* have sided against the Imperium in the "Heresey". So they're referred to as 'closet chaos'.)

CHeck out the Lexicanum for some fun lore and wiki diving. I'd share a link, but if I visit that site, I'll lose the next 4 hours of my life to it - google will direct you.

Another note: if you make a Chapter, you decide how "Codex Adherent" they are. Maybe your Chapter only has 500 Marines. Maybe they're technically two chapters that are practically one, and hide that fact from the Inquisition.

For example, "my" Chapter is the Wings of Dawn. Most chapters have a Vet Company, a handful of Battle Companies, a handful of Reserve Companys, and a Scout company (check out any Space Marine Codex or the Lexicanum for more details). Mine has a Vet Company, but two Scout Companies ("Little Brothers" and "Younger Brothers"), and the other 7 are all Battle Companies. It's not entirely Codex-Compliant, but is canon-compliant. Different chapters actually *do* differ.

There are exceptions. Your Chapter can't support Democracy, Freedom, Rationalisim, Atheism, or any non-EmperorIsGod relgion. That's heresy.

actually most chapters do embrace atheism.

Basic breakdown is. Space marines began as legions. There were 18 originally. Actually 20 but 2 have mysteriously gone. These were led by primarchs all of whom are either dead, turned into daemons, in a coma or resurrected. The Horus Heresy (another universe in itself) happened, and split the legions into 9 loyalist and 9 traitor legions. The loyalists then split their legions into smaller chapters. The chaos legions largely fractured into small unorganised warbands although occasionally band together under abaddon the despoiler (horus' former right hand man) to slaughter their way across the imperium. There are also traitor space marines who have turned since the Heresy. That's the long and the short of the space marine legions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forgot to mention, in the loyalist legion chapter splits, one chapter keeps the name and insignia of the original legion, just hugely reduced in number.

It should be noted that a number of Legions broke up in name only to various degrees.

The Dark Angels essentially didn't do the issue the Fallen cause for them and ultimately the Chapter Master of the Dark Angels still has command of a legion.

The Space Wolves until recent times didn't have successor chapters but run a little or a lot above codex size depending on the source.

The Black Templars are far larger than 1000 marines, though they probably don't exactly how many due to being spread out and constantly crusading for the Emperor

Speaking of the Sons of Dorn, he put in place a plan for them to come together in times of crisis and fight as a legion, something that happened before and can probably happen again.

Even the Ultra Marines have an undue influence on many of their successors. In short Bobby Gs reforms were put into place but aren't exactly that well enforced.

SeanDavid1991 wrote:Who wants to explain Wolves and Dark angels?

The Dark Angels are closeted emo's who eschew social interaction and like to keep secrets. The Space Wolves are a lot like other chapters except they like to ride atop wolves, some of them are werewolves and everything in their armoury contains the word wolf.

BrianDavion wrote:actually most chapters do embrace atheism.

Really? Aren't Space Marines pretty much warrior monks dedicated to zealously protecting the realm of their immortal God Emperor with their lives?

The warrior monk thing is more in aesthetics and them having rituals. The Emperor is revered as an extremely powerful and intelligent figure but he's not divine. This is because Space Marine Chapters predate the Heresy when the Imperium was all about athiesm and logic.

Some of them are religious like the Black Templars but they're a minority.

As above. Most Chapters venerate the Emperor, as their forebearer and as a great man, but not necessarily as a God. To most, he isn't divine, but just supremely powerful.

Of course, some Chapters, like the Black Templars and other Chapters close to the Ecclesiarchy, do see him as a divine being.

pm713 wrote:The warrior monk thing is more in aesthetics and them having rituals. The Emperor is revered as an extremely powerful and intelligent figure but he's not divine. This is because Space Marine Chapters predate the Heresy when the Imperium was all about athiesm and logic.

Some of them are religious like the Black Templars but they're a minority.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:As above. Most Chapters venerate the Emperor, as their forebearer and as a great man, but not necessarily as a God. To most, he isn't divine, but just supremely powerful.

Of course, some Chapters, like the Black Templars and other Chapters close to the Ecclesiarchy, do see him as a divine being.

But they literally call him the God Emperor of Mankind!

 Ironbeer wrote:
Also, I read that the space marines and the imperial guard never fight together. Why is that? Are they both not fighting for the same thing - the Emperor?

It's not that they don't fight together, it's the fact that Imperial doctrine and tradition makes it illegal (in most cases) for a commander from one organisation to give orders to personnel from another. The Space Marines are outside the normal chain of command, but they also have about zero legal authority to tell anyone else what to do. That's the result of changes to the IoM military after the Horus Heresy, changes meant to make it much harder for a single man to collect a galaxy-shaking force ever again.

That said, a Space Marine Sergeant giving a few suggestions to an IG platoon as his squad sets up with them is perfectly acceptable. He's just not supposed to be commanding them directly. The "advice" of a Space Marine Captain will certainly be well received and probably mostly acted on by some IG line colonel, and even Planetary Governors will lend an ear to what a Chapter Master has to say about helping to defend their world. As long as the forms are obeyed, of course.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Ironbeer wrote:
Also, I read that the space marines and the imperial guard never fight together. Why is that? Are they both not fighting for the same thing - the Emperor?

It's not that they don't fight together, it's the fact that Imperial doctrine and tradition makes it illegal (in most cases) for a commander from one organisation to give orders to personnel from another. The Space Marines are outside the normal chain of command, but they also have about zero legal authority to tell anyone else what to do. That's the result of changes to the IoM military after the Horus Heresy, changes meant to make it much harder for a single man to collect a galaxy-shaking force ever again.

That said, a Space Marine Sergeant giving a few suggestions to an IG platoon as his squad sets up with them is perfectly acceptable. He's just not supposed to be commanding them directly. The "advice" of a Space Marine Captain will certainly be well received and probably mostly acted on by some IG line colonel, and even Planetary Governors will lend an ear to what a Chapter Master has to say about helping to defend their world. As long as the forms are obeyed, of course.

The Marines, Custodes and Sisters of Battle are all considered figures of reverence by most imperial citizens and soldiers, so one of them - especially a Marine or Cusodes giving an order is unlikely to be refused. All three are not above acting violently should their authority be challenged

 Ginjitzu wrote:

pm713 wrote:The warrior monk thing is more in aesthetics and them having rituals. The Emperor is revered as an extremely powerful and intelligent figure but he's not divine. This is because Space Marine Chapters predate the Heresy when the Imperium was all about athiesm and logic.

Some of them are religious like the Black Templars but they're a minority.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:As above. Most Chapters venerate the Emperor, as their forebearer and as a great man, but not necessarily as a God. To most, he isn't divine, but just supremely powerful.

Of course, some Chapters, like the Black Templars and other Chapters close to the Ecclesiarchy, do see him as a divine being.

But they literally call him the God Emperor of Mankind!

God Emperor is basically the most common title AFAIK.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:

 Ironbeer wrote:
Also, I read that the space marines and the imperial guard never fight together. Why is that? Are they both not fighting for the same thing - the Emperor?

It's not that they don't fight together, it's the fact that Imperial doctrine and tradition makes it illegal (in most cases) for a commander from one organisation to give orders to personnel from another. The Space Marines are outside the normal chain of command, but they also have about zero legal authority to tell anyone else what to do. That's the result of changes to the IoM military after the Horus Heresy, changes meant to make it much harder for a single man to collect a galaxy-shaking force ever again.

That said, a Space Marine Sergeant giving a few suggestions to an IG platoon as his squad sets up with them is perfectly acceptable. He's just not supposed to be commanding them directly. The "advice" of a Space Marine Captain will certainly be well received and probably mostly acted on by some IG line colonel, and even Planetary Governors will lend an ear to what a Chapter Master has to say about helping to defend their world. As long as the forms are obeyed, of course.

The Marines, Custodes and Sisters of Battle are all considered figures of reverence by most imperial citizens and soldiers, so one of them - especially a Marine or Cusodes giving an order is unlikely to be refused. All three are not above acting violently should their authority be challenged

that reverance is a good point as well, If a chapter master "suggests" that the local guard commander takes an action, he's proably going to do it, especially if it's the chapter master of a partiuclarly celebrated chapter. If someone like Calgar, Dante or Logan shows up and tells the guard commander "I need you to do X" the guard WILL do X.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:

 Ironbeer wrote:
Also, I read that the space marines and the imperial guard never fight together. Why is that? Are they both not fighting for the same thing - the Emperor?

It's not that they don't fight together, it's the fact that Imperial doctrine and tradition makes it illegal (in most cases) for a commander from one organisation to give orders to personnel from another. The Space Marines are outside the normal chain of command, but they also have about zero legal authority to tell anyone else what to do. That's the result of changes to the IoM military after the Horus Heresy, changes meant to make it much harder for a single man to collect a galaxy-shaking force ever again.

That said, a Space Marine Sergeant giving a few suggestions to an IG platoon as his squad sets up with them is perfectly acceptable. He's just not supposed to be commanding them directly. The "advice" of a Space Marine Captain will certainly be well received and probably mostly acted on by some IG line colonel, and even Planetary Governors will lend an ear to what a Chapter Master has to say about helping to defend their world. As long as the forms are obeyed, of course.

The Marines, Custodes and Sisters of Battle are all considered figures of reverence by most imperial citizens and soldiers, so one of them - especially a Marine or Cusodes giving an order is unlikely to be refused. All three are not above acting violently should their authority be challenged

that reverance is a good point as well, If a chapter master "suggests" that the local guard commander takes an action, he's proably going to do it, especially if it's the chapter master of a partiuclarly celebrated chapter. If someone like Calgar, Dante or Logan shows up and tells the guard commander "I need you to do X" the guard WILL do X.

It's a holdover from the heresy. During the big civil war, traitor legion marines had battlefleets and army regiments under their command following them around. Most of the reforms following the heresy (like the codex astartes, second founding and formation of the astra militarum) boiled down to "lets not do that again..."

The army was spun off as a seperate entity which the marines can't formally command, the navy as a third seperate entity (also meaning rebel guard regiments don't have their own interstellar transport) whilst the marines get 'planetary assault specialist' ships which are good but would lose pound-for-pound against 'proper' battlefleet warships with lances, nova cannons and heavier cruiser-class vessels.

However, as noted, there are exceptions. Taking the ultramarines as an example, a space marine cannot give orders to guardsmen. Marneus Calgar specifically, however, is both Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and also Lord Macragge - the latter persona is a planetary governor (actually a Lord Sector) and an Administratum official, who holds direct command over the Ultramar PDF and can legally order around guard units attached to support them (like the Baneblade Pride of Hera).

One assumes his various legal personas aren't on speaking terms with one another.

Just wanna say thanks to everyone replying. I've been learning a lot and also checking out the lexicanum. I really want to envelop myself as much as I can in the lore.

 Ironbeer wrote:
Just wanna say thanks to everyone replying. I've been learning a lot and also checking out the lexicanum. I really want to envelop myself as much as I can in the lore.

Welcome to the rabbit hole, citizen.