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So certain Astartes chapters such as the Black Templars, The Marines Malevolent, and the Dark Angels have a well known habit of committing friendly fire on loyal guardsmen forces and being at best a hinderance to Guard Generals battle plans. Which leads to the interesting question of if there has ever been a time when a Guard cammander just decided "feth it its not worth it" and ordered there troops to shoot at the marines. Cause like If I was a guard commander and I saw the Dark Angels comming down thats what I would do. Has there ever been a battle that they participated in where they didnt either kill friendly forces or cause more harm to the battles progress then help? And If i had any santioned psykers or Abhumans under my command id do the same to the Black Templars as there are several instances in the lore of them just slaughterering loyal Abhuman for no reason. Well they had a reason. They think abhumans are impure or some BS. But yeah with certain astartes chapters you really just gotta wonder why Guard commanders even try to work with them instead of just shooting them down as they land and pretending the enemy did it.

All depends on the chapters and the regiment.

You’ll likely never see animosity between salamanders and cadian troops as both respect the other highly.

Without including traitor regiments, krieg would be most likely to attack Astartes, but not out of hatred.
It would be more likely that the Astartes were in the way and got hit with bombardments as kriegsman really don’t value life, especially when it gets in the way on the battle field.


It would also be likely for regiments to attack Astartes that are out of control.
Flesh tearers scare most guard to death without even being deployed.
Having a detachment of them “help” would likely involve casualties on both sides.

Attacking marines is like attacking your superior officer. Even if you've extreme provocation and sound judgement in attacking them - unless your orders came from someone higher up than you and the marines you're attacking; chances are you're dead.


You'll be shot for attacking superior ranking officers/marines. Even if those same marines were slaughtering you.


The only way to get out alive would be to either hide the event or to prove that the marines were corrupted by chaos or other vile xenos influence.s

In most cases, you probably aren't even aware of the differences between most Chapters, save the colour scheme, and those you do know a little more about are probably the most famous. So, you probably wouldn't know at all about the Black Templars or Dark Angel's reputation, and likely wouldn't even have heard of the Marines Malevolent.

And, seeing as this is most likely your first (and probably only) experience of fighting with Space Marines, anything they do you'd probably just accept as normal. Marines not co-operating with my plans? Sounds normal. Marines leaving my troops to die? They're Marines, that must be normal.

Then it comes down to politics. There are very few, and I mean VERY few regiments with enough political clout behind them to outrank a Space Marine force in terms of political power - I can really only think of the Cadian 8th, purely for Creed. Any other regiment tries to take revenge on their Space Marine allies will find themselves cut off from Administratum supplies, labelled a heretic by the Imperium, and most likely find themselves turned upon by every loyalist force in the warzone. That is, of course, provided they can stop the word of their treachery spreading.
Sure, *maybe* you can kill that squad of berserk Marines that was rampaging through your lines before their force commander sees, but can you convince them that it was the enemy's fault?

TL;DR - It's unlikely a guard commander will ever know enough about a specific Chapter to know their unsavoury nature, and the ones that might know about that are smart enough to know that friendly-firing Space Marines is both political and actual suicide.

 Overread wrote:
Attacking marines is like attacking your superior officer. Even if you've extreme provocation and sound judgement in attacking them - unless your orders came from someone higher up than you and the marines you're attacking; chances are you're dead.


You'll be shot for attacking superior ranking officers/marines. Even if those same marines were slaughtering you.


The only way to get out alive would be to either hide the event or to prove that the marines were corrupted by chaos or other vile xenos influence.s

Incidents of fragging....

Sorry, seems like he did run headfirst into nades of us sir.

The Astartes are the Emperor's holy angels of death. A Guard officer ordering his men to open fire on them would be shot by his own commissar before he'd even finished speaking such an obviously heretical order.

I could see some units attacking some loyalist marines in some cases.

Dark Angels are part of an operation and are supposed to be a a given sot at a given time to operate with a catachan force, they hear a rumor a fallen might be nearby and abaodon the catachan unit to get slaughtered, the catachans accuse the DA of cowardice and desertion and attck them in a jungle setting where the catachans hold the advantages.

Given commissars in catachan units have a habit of suffering 'accidents' I'm not sure they would be much of a factor in stopping them.

The DA can't officially complain about the catachan action as it would involve questions about where they were and what they were doing instead of being where they were supposed to be.

This is the sort f thing cypher might like to pull.

A local PDF unit of a world that came under attack thru no fault of its own might decide to fight an iron hands unit that decided the world needed to be punished for it's "weakness" in not avoiding an attack it could not stop.

 Duskweaver wrote:
The Astartes are the Emperor's holy angels of death. A Guard officer ordering his men to open fire on them would be shot by his own commissar before he'd even finished speaking such an obviously heretical order.

This. The image the average Imperial citizen has of Marines makes them a religious icon that invokes fear and awe in equal measures. The chances of a Guardsman ever seeing, let alone actually fighting with Marines is astronomical and a nigh holy experience.The idea of even thinking of possibly attacking one is abominable to the vast majority of them. If the Commissar didn't shoot a Commander that suggested it first, his own men would tear him apart.

Matt Swain wrote:I could see some units attacking some loyalist marines in some cases.

Dark Angels are part of an operation and are supposed to be a a given sot at a given time to operate with a catachan force, they hear a rumor a fallen might be nearby and abaodon the catachan unit to get slaughtered, the catachans accuse the DA of cowardice and desertion and attck them in a jungle setting where the catachans hold the advantages.

Given commissars in catachan units have a habit of suffering 'accidents' I'm not sure they would be much of a factor in stopping them.

Commissars are single people who are considerably squishier than elite Space Marines.
A Catachan's 'home turf' advantage probably still isn't enough to match Space Marines, especially the kind of Space Marines who'd be taking on the Fallen.

The DA can't officially complain about the catachan action as it would involve questions about where they were and what they were doing instead of being where they were supposed to be.

Eh, they probably could, at least to the Guardsmen's commanding officers. Against other Space Marines or other highly influential figures, maybe not - but that's ignoring that the DA could just kill off the Catachans, and accuse them of turning traitor - and I think more authorities are more likely to believe Space Marines. Given the amount of autonomy Space Marines are typically afforded, I don't think anything short of another Space Marine could really complain that they were in the "wrong place".

A local PDF unit of a world that came under attack thru no fault of its own might decide to fight an iron hands unit that decided the world needed to be punished for it's "weakness" in not avoiding an attack it could not stop.

They might try and fight, but that's out of self-defence, not the kind of scenario that OP describes of the guardsmen firing first.

chimera0205 wrote:
So certain Astartes chapters such as the Black Templars, The Marines Malevolent, and the Dark Angels have a well known habit of committing friendly fire on loyal guardsmen forces and being at best a hinderance to Guard Generals battle plans. Which leads to the interesting question of if there has ever been a time when a Guard cammander just decided "feth it its not worth it" and ordered there troops to shoot at the marines. Cause like If I was a guard commander and I saw the Dark Angels comming down thats what I would do. Has there ever been a battle that they participated in where they didnt either kill friendly forces or cause more harm to the battles progress then help? And If i had any santioned psykers or Abhumans under my command id do the same to the Black Templars as there are several instances in the lore of them just slaughterering loyal Abhuman for no reason. Well they had a reason. They think abhumans are impure or some BS. But yeah with certain astartes chapters you really just gotta wonder why Guard commanders even try to work with them instead of just shooting them down as they land and pretending the enemy did it.

GW haven't ever really described such an event that I can think of where they didn't refer to the guard forces as heretics in this manner, and it generally doesn't jive with their marketing efforts, but certainly Guard forces have fought Space Marines before when ordered to. But in general military discipline would probably prevent a Guard commander from just deciding to engage Space Marines without provocation on their own without orders.

 Duskweaver wrote:
The Astartes are the Emperor's holy angels of death. A Guard officer ordering his men to open fire on them would be shot by his own commissar before he'd even finished speaking such an obviously heretical order.

Guard fight other Imperial forces and Space Marines all the time, there have been countless Imperial civil wars where these groups have fought, and this sort of thing is never mentioned. Likewise, it's not that hard to paint the Space Marines as heretical when they need to be, stuff like often not embracing the Imperial Cult (in favor of their own rites and beliefs) and the Emperor as a truly Divine being (as opposed to revered father).

 Overread wrote:
Attacking marines is like attacking your superior officer. Even if you've extreme provocation and sound judgement in attacking them - unless your orders came from someone higher up than you and the marines you're attacking; chances are you're dead.


You'll be shot for attacking superior ranking officers/marines.

Hrm, Marines actually have no place in the Imperial Guard's chain of command, in fact are typically prohibited from such except under special circumstances. While certainly there would be issues with a Guard officer going off and starting their own little war, a Space Marine actually holds no rank superiority over the Guard.

A Chapter Master is acknowledged as an Imperial noble on the same scale as a Planetary Governor, so there's that, but a typical marine or sergeant or captain actually has very little direct authority if their reputation and presence aren't enough.

I would suggest that taking an eight-foot tall psychopathic superhuman fascist to task is unwise.

.......

If you are going to take on space marines as a normal human then you are going to avoid direct combat if you are not terminally stupid.

Use snipers to snipe them from outside their bolter range use land mines and other traps use artillery to bomd them from a distance. and try to fight them in terrain where their armor becomes a disadvantage. And if you have the technologytry to fry their armor with an EMP blast

 Matt Swain wrote:

A local PDF unit of a world that came under attack thru no fault of its own might decide to fight an iron hands unit that decided the world needed to be punished for it's "weakness" in not avoiding an attack it could not stop.

That's more-or-less what happens at the start of Storm of Iron. The opening Point of View is a pdf trooper in a squad that's defending a bunker. They don't know anything about what's going on. The marines are described as terrifying invaders, and the bunker... well.
They're calmly informed that they aren't loyal. And then they die.

The book goes pretty down hill from there. The end is particularly brutal. But the middle consists of the Guard general working with the Iron Hands not grasping the reality of the situation and trying some strategic and political maneuvering to get around what he sees as cooperation problem.

Most of the time if a war zone gets a space marine deployment, things are already really bad. It’s very doubtful the guard unit would fire on any reinforcements if they’re in a fight that drew the attention of the theoretically limited number of available marines.

That being said, any unit is likely to defend itself if they are attacked by any force. I doubt many regiments would just accept their fate and die under the marines bolters. The problem is if they win, that regiment is going to have a field with the rest of the chapter. That probably won’t end well for the regiment in the long term.

Also remember that the incidents of dark angels attacking friendly forces or abandoning friendly forces are actually rare in universe. The Dark Angels have scores of campaigns for every incident with the fallen and not every fallen run in requires them to kill friendly forces. Not even every Dark Angel knows about the fallen. In universe they’re a fairly respected chapter. Unfortunately some writers are very dull so every Dark Angel event has to be tied to the fallen.

Voss wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

A local PDF unit of a world that came under attack thru no fault of its own might decide to fight an iron hands unit that decided the world needed to be punished for it's "weakness" in not avoiding an attack it could not stop.

That's more-or-less what happens at the start of Storm of Iron. The opening Point of View is a pdf trooper in a squad that's defending a bunker. They don't know anything about what's going on. The marines are described as terrifying invaders, and the bunker... well.
They're calmly informed that they aren't loyal. And then they die.

The book goes pretty down hill from there. The end is particularly brutal. But the middle consists of the Guard general working with the Iron Hands not grasping the reality of the situation and trying some strategic and political maneuvering to get around what he sees as cooperation problem.

Love the novel - just so dark and brutal.....and really says Iron Hands to me.

Saying Astartes have no offical rank is true but remeber that they are the children of God, and even ignoring the whole its a huge, fast deadly killing machine telling you what to do you are still not going to refuse the chosen of your god, you will be awe struck that he has even spoken to you, allowed you join them in their holy duty.. Sisters have some of the kind of the same influence.

Now some veterans may know enough to try and stay out of their way but refuse a direct order.....or fire upon them - unlikely.

That will be why a Fallen Marine or Alpha Legion inflitrator will be able to manipulate the loyal of the Imperum so well.

There is the possibilty that other Astartes and say an Inquistor may be with them which changes things but even then their may well be hesitation and you donlt want to hesitate against marines

Voss wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

A local PDF unit of a world that came under attack thru no fault of its own might decide to fight an iron hands unit that decided the world needed to be punished for it's "weakness" in not avoiding an attack it could not stop.

That's more-or-less what happens at the start of Storm of Iron. The opening Point of View is a pdf trooper in a squad that's defending a bunker. They don't know anything about what's going on. The marines are described as terrifying invaders, and the bunker... well.
They're calmly informed that they aren't loyal. And then they die.

The book goes pretty down hill from there. The end is particularly brutal. But the middle consists of the Guard general working with the Iron Hands not grasping the reality of the situation and trying some strategic and political maneuvering to get around what he sees as cooperation problem.

You sure you're on about Storm of Iron? Not Wrath of Iron?

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
The Astartes are the Emperor's holy angels of death. A Guard officer ordering his men to open fire on them would be shot by his own commissar before he'd even finished speaking such an obviously heretical order.

the average Imperial citizen

I think here-in lies the problem. A general in charge of an army or a crusade defintely isn't an average Imperial citizen. Neither is a planetary governor. Least of all an inquisitor. All these are able to command Astra Militarum forces, and they all got their own political agenda.
After all, it's not like the Imperial bureaucracy is anyway near efficient, or cares about unnecessary bloodshed. If a decades old order to wipe out all life on planetoid X finally arrives, it will be followed, and if in the meantime some Space Marine units (or other Imperial forces) happen to be in the way, all the worse for them. Or worse for the attacking army, but still no reason not to try to execute the order.

The fact, that Traitor Marines do exist is probably hard to hide in an Imperium that is ripped apart by a civil war, and if an Imperial Guard soldier gets the order to shoot at guys in flashy power armour, he will, as long as the order came down the regular chain of command.

Excommunicatus wrote:I would suggest that taking an eight-foot tall psychopathic superhuman fascist to task is unwise.

To be fair, that equation changes if you have an open radio to a heavy artillery battery and a tank brigade at your back

Mr Morden wrote:
Saying Astartes have no offical rank is true but remeber that they are the children of God, and even ignoring the whole its a huge, fast deadly killing machine telling you what to do you are still not going to refuse the chosen of your god, you will be awe struck that he has even spoken to you, allowed you join them in their holy duty.. Sisters have some of the kind of the same influence.

Hrm, we usually don't see quite that reaction in most representations. Space Marines certainly never fail to impress, but it's only relatively rarely that we get characters that act truly awestruck (at least anymoreso than seeing a particularly terrifying or high ranking officer or commissar), that sort of reaction appears to be more variable. If it's a field situation where a Space Marine encounters guardsmen on the battlefield and says "Take cover over there" or "suppress that target while I move to outflank and charge it", yeah, they'll probably do it without hesitation. If it's a Space Marine Lieutenant demanding a regimental IG commander do something expressly against their orders, I suspect they would not.

Likewise, with the range of opponents the 40k universe has to offer and that Guardsmen have been thrown against for millenia, Space Marines aren't the scariest things they've fought and killed, be they Tyranid bio-horrors, the perfidiously cruel Dark Eldar, or literal Daemons.


That said, pretty much all of this depends on the author with GW above and beyond anything else

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

A local PDF unit of a world that came under attack thru no fault of its own might decide to fight an iron hands unit that decided the world needed to be punished for it's "weakness" in not avoiding an attack it could not stop.

That's more-or-less what happens at the start of Storm of Iron. The opening Point of View is a pdf trooper in a squad that's defending a bunker. They don't know anything about what's going on. The marines are described as terrifying invaders, and the bunker... well.
They're calmly informed that they aren't loyal. And then they die.

The book goes pretty down hill from there. The end is particularly brutal. But the middle consists of the Guard general working with the Iron Hands not grasping the reality of the situation and trying some strategic and political maneuvering to get around what he sees as cooperation problem.

You sure you're on about Storm of Iron? Not Wrath of Iron?

Possibly. Whichever has Iron Hands.

The number of book titles in my digital library with various combinations of 'Iron,' 'Storm,' and 'Wrath' is actually kind of disturbing now that I look at it.

chimera0205 wrote:
Cause like If I was a guard commander and I saw the Dark Angels comming down thats what I would do. Has there ever been a battle that they participated in where they didnt either kill friendly forces or cause more harm to the battles progress then help?

How would you know about other battles and other worlds? You overestimate by an order of magnitude the level of awareness people within this setting would have of things. They don't have codices with an omnipotent POV that tells them everything. In any case, by the time your order has gone through the proper chain of command, filtered through to the troops at the frontline, got past the commissars (and thry haven't shot you for it!), the dark angels,have come, gone, and left a big hole in the ground that used to be a bunch of heretics. If you are lucky, the average guardsmen won't ever see space marines, and those that do, might see them once or maybe twice in their entire lives. Briefly, from a great distance.

Plus, you are forgetting, guard will have 'accidents' and 'grudges' with other guard plenty of times. And pardon the phrase, but crap happens in war. Shells fall where they're not supposed to etc. You lose a few companies of guardsmen to a 'friendly fire' incident on behalf of the dark angels - well, things like that happen every day in the guard. Heck, most commanders probsbly wouldn't even notice it on the casualty reports.

chimera0205 wrote:
And If i had any santioned psykers or Abhumans under my command id do the same to the Black Templars as there are several instances in the lore of them just slaughterering loyal Abhuman for no reason. Well they had a reason. They think abhumans are impure or some BS.

From the POV of your average imperial, it's not BS. And I suggest you go to the commissar and tell them how you feel about them not being impure. The commissariat will find a way to... clear your head for you.
You're assuming your average guard commander doesn't also share their predjudice. Stop thinking like an open minded twenty first century human. That's not forty k.Any right thinking imperial citizen will see the templars purging a few mutants as a good thing. If you yourself don't have a laspistol to the head of every psyker under your command you too are failing in your duty. Any one of them could get a headache at any time and open a portal to a daemonic invasion. As for having a few less ogryns or railings? Well, at the very least, you'll have more food for your guardsmen, and less thefts. Marines did you multiple favours by cleaning house. Besides, A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system in the lore. Frankly, them killing a few expendable mutants that no one I see going to miss before hand is a small price to pay if Their next actions basically tear the heart out of the bad guys and clear the way to victory for you.

Deadnight wrote:
your average imperial

again, you don't get to be commander by being average. So, being a dumb propaganda drone might apply to some generals, but not for all of them. And the question to be answered is not "Does the Tactica Imperialis recommend attacking your neighborhood Marines chapter whenever you had a bad day", but, "Do loyal Guardsmen ever attack Astartes". And given the width of the Galaxy, the difference in individuals who get to command all sorts of Imperial troops, and the Imperial dedication to blind loyalty to your superiors over your own common sense, there are bound to be instances where attack orders against Astartes were received and followed through.

I mean, Alpha Legon exists, and Red Corsairs and other marauders don't even follow Chaos, so if Imperial Guardsmen had a tendency to refuse to shoot at every power-armour without an 8-pronged star on it, these forces alone would run rampage.

 AuntHerbert wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
your average imperial

again, you don't get to be commander by being average. So, being a dumb propaganda drone might apply to some generals, but not for all of them. And the question to be answered is not "Does the Tactica Imperialis recommend attacking your neighborhood Marines chapter whenever you had a bad day", but, "Do loyal Guardsmen ever attack Astartes". And given the width of the Galaxy, the difference in individuals who get to command all sorts of Imperial troops, and the Imperial dedication to blind loyalty to your superiors over your own common sense, there are bound to be instances where attack orders against Astartes were received and followed through.

I don't think anyone's saying it couldn't, only that it's not as easy as OP describes it (ie, "I've heard bad things about them Dark Angels, lets shoot them!").

Again, while generals and suchlike are more than "average", they're still not privy to in depth information about Space Marine Chapters. Chapters tend to operate outside of normal Imperial scrutiny, so I imagine the only main thing a general would ever know (beyond the name, which is already better than many of his troops, especially if they're an obscure Chapter, like, say the Praetors of Orpheus) might be their livery, their commanding officer, roughly how many Marines, and the general plan of action those Marines will take. Only the exceptionally savvy commanders will dedicate any effort into attempting to gather more information, and only a handful of them will succeed in learning anything remotely important (ie, who their Chapter Master is, notable campaigns, perhaps other commanders' reports, the disposition of their current commander, etc etc).

Chapters being as insular as they are, unless you are intimately familiar with the Chapter, perhaps on a long term crusade or your regiment is part of that Chapter's domain (such as Ultramar Planetary Defence Forces and the Vigil Opertii), you won't be privy to much.

But back to the actual question of if Guardsmen have shot on Marines? Yes, certainly, somewhere. Is it common? No. Is it anywhere near as simple as OP described? No.

I mean, Alpha Legon exists, and Red Corsairs and other marauders don't even follow Chaos, so if Imperial Guardsmen had a tendency to refuse to shoot at every power-armour without an 8-pronged star on it, these forces alone would run rampage.

I mean, that's *why* the Alpha Legion are so threatening - because they're able to pose so easily as loyalists that they're able to infiltrate bases through walking straight through. I remember in one of the Deathwatch campaign books, there's a plot hook where you're told about a squad of Black Templars who essentially took over a planet's PDF, and would commandeer troops from it for various explorations. When the party find traces of these Black Templars (either through a corpse or discarded armour, I can't remember), they realise that it's literally just Alpha Legion Marines painting badly over their armour in the Black Templar colours that any Black Templar or other Space Marine would recognise as fake, but not the planet's leadership.

As for the Red Corsairs, I'm fairly sure they do follow Chaos. And, in any case, if the Marines are charging and firing at you, you'll shoot back, loyalist or not.

Would a Guardsman ever willingly let off a burst at an Astartes, no. Would a EarthShaker Battery ever accidentally target an area with Astartes resulting in a Danger Close scenario, yes, it happens all the time in the Fluff. Same goes for Baneblades accidentally shooting at targets near Astartes.

Deadnight wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:
Cause like If I was a guard commander and I saw the Dark Angels comming down thats what I would do. Has there ever been a battle that they participated in where they didnt either kill friendly forces or cause more harm to the battles progress then help?

How would you know about other battles and other worlds? You overestimate by an order of magnitude the level of awareness people within this setting would have of things. They don't have codices with an omnipotent POV that tells them everything. In any case, by the time your order has gone through the proper chain of command, filtered through to the troops at the frontline, got past the commissars (and thry haven't shot you for it!), the dark angels,have come, gone, and left a big hole in the ground that used to be a bunch of heretics. If you are lucky, the average guardsmen won't ever see space marines, and those that do, might see them once or maybe twice in their entire lives. Briefly, from a great distance.

Plus, you are forgetting, guard will have 'accidents' and 'grudges' with other guard plenty of times. And pardon the phrase, but crap happens in war. Shells fall where they're not supposed to etc. You lose a few companies of guardsmen to a 'friendly fire' incident on behalf of the dark angels - well, things like that happen every day in the guard. Heck, most commanders probsbly wouldn't even notice it on the casualty reports.

chimera0205 wrote:
And If i had any santioned psykers or Abhumans under my command id do the same to the Black Templars as there are several instances in the lore of them just slaughterering loyal Abhuman for no reason. Well they had a reason. They think abhumans are impure or some BS.

From the POV of your average imperial, it's not BS. And I suggest you go to the commissar and tell them how you feel about them not being impure. The commissariat will find a way to... clear your head for you.
You're assuming your average guard commander doesn't also share their predjudice. Stop thinking like an open minded twenty first century human. That's not forty k.Any right thinking imperial citizen will see the templars purging a few mutants as a good thing. If you yourself don't have a laspistol to the head of every psyker under your command you too are failing in your duty. Any one of them could get a headache at any time and open a portal to a daemonic invasion. As for having a few less ogryns or railings? Well, at the very least, you'll have more food for your guardsmen, and less thefts. Marines did you multiple favours by cleaning house. Besides, A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system in the lore. Frankly, them killing a few expendable mutants that no one I see going to miss before hand is a small price to pay if Their next actions basically tear the heart out of the bad guys and clear the way to victory for you.

"A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system" i have heard that claim repeated a hundred times over and I just have to ask. What the actual feth does even mean? I mean like depending on the system a single squad of the worst most cowardly guardsmen can conquer with ease. Like say a system whos sole inhabitated world Feral world with a low popualtion. That squad of guardsmen will be gods to the poor feral worlders. Meanwhile there are systems like the Sol System, Tauva, Major necron Tomb worlds and the capitals of major Ork Empires where you can throw a hundred entire chapters of marines at them and only acheive a bunch of dead marines. Like the idea that a company of marines can conquer a star system is both objectively and massively false in a LOT of cases and a extremely unhelpful and pointless even in the cases where its true like minor undeveloped systems.

Chimera, did you actually ask your question in the original psot to get information, or are you just looking for justification for a IG on Marine hate train?

ok first of all a major necron toimb world or Sol etc is not a typical star system. a typical star system is, likely actually pretty sparsely populated, likely with one or two major population centers and then rural areas around said population centers. also even a majorly populated world can be conquered by Marines because they don't fight fair. now you're right they don't have boots on the ground eneugh to occupy, that is the guards job. but the Marines typically go in tear the metaphorical jugalar out and then send in the guard while the metaphysical corpse thrashes.

now back to the question at hand, do guard fire on Marines? ABSOLUTELY. but it will be inevitably a scenerio where the Marines fire first because opening fire unprovoked on a marine is well.. heresy.

To the thread totle: I'd imagine so. If say, the marines attacked them unprovoked, or they were ordered to by the inquisition/high command. Or if they had ample reason to believe the marines were in concert with xenos or chaos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although I'd say most reports of guard units being killed in collateral fire by spacemarines would basically be covered up. The marines are a much more valuable arm of the imperial armies than a single regiment of guard. Hell it's not necessarily going to be as bad as when working with some other guard units. Any commander who gave the order to fire on the marines would likely be executed. Their life is not worth as much as an Astartes.

Also for dealing with pain in the arse astartes I'd just call a fire mission on their coordinates. And when the basilisks plough them under with heavy ordinance, well the marines would hardly know who made that vox call. lol.

Well, it's heresy to use a pen, without prior having filled out the correct form to apply for the right to use a pen, Forms have to be filled out in pen, off course!

On a more serious note, the Imperium of Man is amongst other things a huge kafkaesk bureaucracy, that buggers its citizens with contradicting demands. If some ancient order from the Inquisition (or from Terran Department of Housekeeping, for all that matters) has declared an area off bounds for long forgotten reasons, while some dashing Marines commander decides he needs the area for maneuvering space, the local Imperial Guard is screwed either way. If they fire on the Marines they commit heresy by disrespecting the Astartes, if they don't fire, they commit heresy by disregarding Inquisitional orders.

In the novels you find countless examples of ambitious figures within the Imperium bending, re-interpreting, conveniently forgetting, or openly breaking ironclad rules to navigate the maze. If things turn out well, then they obviously had the Emperor's blessing, if things turn sour, they get burned at the stake.

Remember the setting's motto: In the 40's millenium, there is only war! If there was some piece of fluff, that would forbid two groups to fight against each other, it would break the intent of the whole setting: To provide excuses for any possible set-up for the underlying table-top. There is no question whether Imperial Guard would attack Space Marines, the question is only how deep you have to dig to come up with the correct excuse. Every faction has its internal quarrels, even Tau will fight Tau, Greater Good be damned, and Genestealers will fight Tyranids, Hivemind Schlivemind!

About the question, which force is more important for the Imperium, an Astra Militarum army or some part of an Astartes chapter, the correct answer is brilliantly obvious: the force with more firepower and durability is more important! So, generally the ones who win the fight. Unless a third party comes along, and decides to take issue as a prerogative for a power move of their own!

Yeah, the moment loyal guardsmen open fire on loyal astartes, no matter how callous or disrespectful the marine, the guardsman ceases to be loyal.

On the other hand if it is provable self defence on an unprovoked attack, well the loyalty of the Astartes is now in question.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Basically common sense.

I'd like to add that the same issues would come up much more often with other imperial guard units, oh and literally any inquisitional/ecclesiarcy force. Because astartes are rare, astartes who do this behaviour are seemingly also rare, the inquisition/ecclesiarcy is full of crazies. I think the most common thing you're going to have is guard units calling down fire missions a bit too close to other units they don't like. A form of deniable intentional collateral damage.

chimera0205 wrote:

"A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system" i have heard that claim repeated a hundred times over and I just have to ask. What the actual feth does even mean? I mean like depending on the system a single squad of the worst most cowardly guardsmen can conquer with ease. Like say a system whos sole inhabitated world Feral world with a low popualtion. That squad of guardsmen will be gods to the poor feral worlders. Meanwhile there are systems like the Sol System, Tauva, Major necron Tomb worlds and the capitals of major Ork Empires where you can throw a hundred entire chapters of marines at them and only acheive a bunch of dead marines. Like the idea that a company of marines can conquer a star system is both objectively and massively false in a LOT of cases and a extremely unhelpful and pointless even in the cases where its true like minor undeveloped systems.

What's does it mean?

Easy.

Ultimate 'heroes' of the setting doing hero things and no small amount of Plot armour is the simple answer.

Those guardsmen can be clubbed over the head and made dead. And they're not exactly immune to bows and arrows. Marines? Not so much. To be fair, the Lasguns might tickle the ferals a bit too. I'll give the guardsmen that.

Remember. This is 40k. Not logic. Logic got sucked into the warp, twisted by tzeentch, molested by slaanesh before being chopped to bits by khorne. And you don't even want to know what nurgle did with what was left. That's part of the charm of the setting. It's silly, it's over the top, it's plainly ridiculous, but dammit, it's a fun bloody ride.

A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system. For no other reasons than fleet assets and utter contempt. Despite the 'line up and shoot' nature of what you see on the tabletop, from the perspective of the Lore, a lot more happens to go on. And Even if it's not strictly true all of the time and in all.

In any case, and far more importantly, from an in-universe perspective of its inhabitants, it is absolutely undeniably true.

Deadnight wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

"A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system" i have heard that claim repeated a hundred times over and I just have to ask. What the actual feth does even mean? I mean like depending on the system a single squad of the worst most cowardly guardsmen can conquer with ease. Like say a system whos sole inhabitated world Feral world with a low popualtion. That squad of guardsmen will be gods to the poor feral worlders. Meanwhile there are systems like the Sol System, Tauva, Major necron Tomb worlds and the capitals of major Ork Empires where you can throw a hundred entire chapters of marines at them and only acheive a bunch of dead marines. Like the idea that a company of marines can conquer a star system is both objectively and massively false in a LOT of cases and a extremely unhelpful and pointless even in the cases where its true like minor undeveloped systems.

What's does it mean?

Easy.

Ultimate 'heroes' of the setting doing hero things and no small amount of Plot armour is the simple answer.

Those guardsmen can be clubbed over the head and made dead. And they're not exactly immune to bows and arrows. Marines? Not so much. To be fair, the Lasguns might tickle the ferals a bit too. I'll give the guardsmen that.

Remember. This is 40k. Not logic. Logic got sucked into the warp, twisted by tzeentch, molested by slaanesh before being chopped to bits by khorne. And you don't even want to know what nurgle did with what was left. That's part of the charm of the setting. It's silly, it's over the top, it's plainly ridiculous, but dammit, it's a fun bloody ride.

A company of marines is enough to pacify a star system. For no other reasons than fleet assets and utter contempt. Despite the 'line up and shoot' nature of what you see on the tabletop, from the perspective of the Lore, a lot more happens to go on. And Even if it's not strictly true all of the time and in all.

In any case, and far more importantly, from an in-universe perspective of its inhabitants, it is absolutely undeniably true.

Yet one pure unaltered human killed so many Choas Astartes during the aftermath of the 13th Black Crusade that the Administratum was convinced he was an entire chapter of loyal astartes operating behind enemy lines. And its not just Sly Marbo either. There are more then a couple pure unaltered humans with several Astartes kills to yhere name. Astartes are not invincible. Litterally any planet with any sort of actual defense force can hold off a company of astartes easy. Hell there are indivual guard regiments that can slaughter companys of astartes. Put a company of astartes vs a Catachan regiment in the jungle and I guarantee the ones that leave that jungle alive certainly wont be the blokes wearing power armour.