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It's pretty interesting moment. How space Marines impact outcome of imperium campaigns?
There is always 1000 times more guards of all kind in any campaign. Thousands of tanks, artillery and sentinels. Fleet. Titans. Do space marines really commit somehow to victory? Doesn't scions/Aquilons/kasrkins can't do same work way cheaper?
We definitely have lot of novels displaying what sm are unreplaceable. But it's sm selling novels. Logic logistic and economy say different.

What you think?

They are force multipliers. They act on strategically important small contained objectives with large rammifications. Like assassinations, communications disruptions, depot demolitions, power disruption etc.

Small targeted attacks that generate large knock on effects. That's the only real way they can fight. No amount of bolterporn power fantasy makes a marine anything other than a tough infantry soldier. They still have to work to their strengths to be effective.


If they are caught in a frontal assault, they will be steamrolled by virtually anything that outnumbers them.

I can give a common example. Planetary defenses. Things like city-sized void shields and surface to orbit missiles and gun batteries are extremely powerful and surprisingly common. Turns out you can get a lot of bang for your buck when your weapons and armor don't have to be mobile and can be plugged straight into a city's power grid.

Orbital supremacy is often what makes or breaks a war in 40k, and achieving it can often make victory a foregone conclusion. That's where space marines come in. There's only so many guardsmen you can squeeze into a physical space. A few squads of astartes would have no problem drop podding down, knocking out those orbital defenses and leaving the rest to the IG/IN. But they either never would've made it through or it would've taken substantially longer without astartes.

Since there's supposedly only about 1 Million Marines in the galaxy 99.9% of all battles will be fought by other imperial factions and Space Marines should hardly have any imüact on the overall setting and only appear on the most decisive battlefields.

However, actual fluff shows Marines everywhere and sometimes even in trench and siege warfare. Hence I'm of the opinion every chapter should be 1 Million Marines for that to make any sense. With one Billion in Marines you could put a small contingent of 1000 of them on every imperial Planet and use them as the Spec OPs they're shown as.

Currently you have the to me immersion breaking Situation where they are somehow a myth and somehow the most important imperial asset when they're by pure numbers more irrelevant than say, Tau Crisis suits, the elite of the smallest faction.

jareddm wrote:
I can give a common example. Planetary defenses. Things like city-sized void shields and surface to orbit missiles and gun batteries are extremely powerful and surprisingly common. Turns out you can get a lot of bang for your buck when your weapons and armor don't have to be mobile and can be plugged straight into a city's power grid.

Orbital supremacy is often what makes or breaks a war in 40k, and achieving it can often make victory a foregone conclusion. That's where space marines come in. There's only so many guardsmen you can squeeze into a physical space. A few squads of astartes would have no problem drop podding down, knocking out those orbital defenses and leaving the rest to the IG/IN. But they either never would've made it through or it would've taken substantially longer without astartes.

With some limitations, Vraks, for example, had far too many anti-orbital weapons for a Marine assault to succeed without crippling Marine losses, it specifically states so before the Siege starts. There's also a mention of something like that with Firestorm Nexuses smashing Flesh Tearers to bits in space/orbital, but that's from the Scion dex and it's kinda biased to make Scions look cooler (which is appreciated, if only for the role reversal)

Didn't Vraks still have the Dark Angels play a major roll in the opening stages of the war by capturing the spaceport though?

There’s a scene in the Scottish Sitcom “Still Game”, where the Craiglang Gang are involved in a Walking Football tournament, only to come up against some right dirty players in the final.

So they call in Navid, who’s sole contribution is to come on the pitch, slide tackle the biggest bruiser on the opposing team, breaking his leg with a compound fracture. This allows Jack, Victor and the others to win the tournament, as the single biggest threat is stretchered off.

I’m struggling to find a clip, but that? That is a comedy based representation of how Marines work.

Identify the main threat of the enemy, go in quickly and just Take It Out with minimal fuss, in a manner they’re not going to be able to recover from terribly quickly.

A single intervention can drastically reduce the length of a given conflict, which means in turn the Imperium’s resources can go that much further in the long run.

On the point on Astartes battlefield roles being able to be done by Scions or other elite Guard units, in theory sure, but in practicality nowhere near the same level of effectiveness.

A squad of Astartes sent on a decapitation mission to take out a command and control asset like a Warboss, Cult Leader or Farseer, will fight far harder and far longer than any mortal troops. Each Space Marine is a weapon unto itself, and running out of ammo doesn't stop them from being a threat, and that's not even counting the ones with crazy mutations.
There's also the morale benefit to be had when mortal troops are told "The Emperor's Angels fight by your side". Mortal troops worship the Space Marines almost as much as they do the Emperor himself and fight all the harder. Even the idea that Astartes reinforcement is coming can give soldiers the boost they need to hold out just a little longer.

The major problem with GW campaigns and novels is that it has to be the poster Chapters so the likes of the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists end up teleporting to every major warzone with a third of their Chapter command every time.

They’re particularly effective against Warbosses, as those lads tend to have their cronies, and so most obvious immediate successor, close on hand.

So a successful strike won’t just kill the Warboss, but remove from the board the Orks most likely to quickly take over that role, helping the collapse of the command structure last longer.

And it’s not just their martial prowess. Going up against a Farseer? Marines are more likely to have their own Psyker, who’s perfectly capable of a high level punch up as well, tagging along. Even if it’s just to keep Eldar psychic attacks at bay? That’s a strong addition to the attack line up.

They’re a pretty flexible force, and when they can do their preferred rapid ingress, make a right mess, warfare? It can be devastating for the enemy.

But? And here’s the most important part….without The Imperial Guard’s sheer numbers, they’d be oddly ineffective, as there’s nothing to really capitalise on the sudden tipping of the scales.

Orks will sort out their own command structure in time. How much time depends on how much damage you did removing the old one (see my comment above). The Guard can then maintain their usual pressure and grinding tactics, chipping away at the now disorganised Orks, inflicting more one sided losses.

If the Marines have Thunderhawks? They can then troubleshoot locations where it looks like some kind of organisation is re-emerging, taking out whichever Boss or Nob is looking tasty,

Keep that up? And you can rapidly fragment the Ork force into competing warbands who’ll continue to diminish their own numbers. But it will always come down to the Guard to make sure the job is done properly. The Marines have neither the numbers nor the time for that bit of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On published background stuff? It is a bit deceptive.

Whilst they do tend to focus on massive Space Marine actions (multiple companies, sometimes multiple Chapters), despite being a majority of the sourcebooks for the game? They still represent a tiny minority of the overall conflicts.

The same is true of the often maligned PDF armies, those standing forces that every Imperial World has. Often portrayed in novels as incompetent.

Except…a competent PDF rarely requires further support, being quite capable of seeing off raiders and invasions. Hence, the Guard never see those worlds, because why would they? They go where they’re needed, not where they like.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Didn't Vraks still have the Dark Angels play a major roll in the opening stages of the war by capturing the spaceport though?

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiish? Some claim the Kriegsmen could have used it as a possible logisitical base down the lines, and argue the DA actually proved to be more of an hindrance in that regards, furthermore, the loss of the port didn't stop Chaos from dropping reinforcements all over regardless

I've always thought that besides the BL bolter pr0n, the in-world effect of Astartes is mainly symbolic/inspirational to the IoM. Their numbers are too few for anything meaningful, but the legends they inspire are priceless to the Imperial propaganda machine. They are a remnant of the Horus heresy, a mere shadow of their former might, the stuff of legends..

The flip side to that is whilst Astartes are legendary within the Imperium? Very few of the Imperium’s foes will have ever run into them.

Sure, every Ork knows Beakies are ded ‘ard, and having one’s skidlid on your Bosspole means you too are ded ‘ard? Hardly any will ever get to fight a Beakie.

Exarchs and Farseers might well have encountered them before. But most Eldar won’t have.

The vast majority of traitors and renegades that aren’t themselves Marines will have fought Astartes.

This all grants an advantage to the Marines in terms of psychological stuff, more so when they start doing what they do (going through you like a dose of salts).

Conversely? It’s what makes Traitor Astartes far more dangerous. Even the most recent turncoats will be intimately familiar with their own capabilities - and quite possibly have already killed former Brothers as part of their own rebellion.

The longer a given Traitor Astartes stays alive? The more experience they’ll inevitably gather fighting other Astartes. Not just loyalists, but other Traitors as warbands jockey for position, power and influence.

Fighting, killing and surviving against a Marine will give you vital insight and experience. Making a career of if? All the more so.

Which is also why the Primaris had their upper hand, at least for a while. Of course they’re not invincible - but they are noticeably stronger more resilient compared to Firstborn.

Should a Traitor’s final honed “one hit kill” move suddenly not kill? They may not survive to learn “but why didn’t it work”.

But as I said, that would be a temporary advantage. A costly one for Traitors, yes. But sooner or later survivors would learn, fallen Primaris corpses captured for study and so on, greatly reducing the advantage overall. At least for those with the resources to become privy to such newly won knowledge.