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Martel732 wrote:
"A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "

War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.

Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.

However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.

Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.

@Martel732

" there's nothing you can do about this, and it's canon."

I can reject GW's fiction. Which I do. They have no sense of scale and it shows in the garbage they write.

" if they say SM are awesome, that's what they are"

No, because that's not how they are mathematically modeled. If the game in no way reflects the fluff, which it never has, then the fluff is useless because the math affects me way more from a purchasing standpoint, etc.

" I don't think one can link SM performance on the tabletop and what they can do in the fluff. "

But you see, the fluff doesn't save me from my buddy's Eldar. So as far as I'm concerned, all the badass stories should be about scatterbike pilots. Because marines are lambs to the slaughter for those guys. I don't care about the fluff because that's not what they've modeled. They've modeled the marines as a turkey shoot for Eldar.

You reject GW fiction and you're still on the background forum? Do you feel better than everyone saying "lol I know my stuff about war, all of you people believethis stupid sh*t"? Everybody in here knows GW is not Forgeworld and does not have the military expertise to stick closely to something realistic. But you know what, they don't have to because they just have to write "this has happened like this" and no one will complain because you know... fantasy? Who cares about your "mathematicalmodels", seriously?

Hierophant and pretty much every Dakkanaut in this thread have destroyed your arguments and you're still whining about Eldar on the tabletop? Mate, if you're not happy with your SM army, learn to play or change faction, but stop BSing us on the background section.

Plus Marine can be credible, whether you like it or not, cause when they work in synergy with other imperial forces, they can bring utter destruction when it is critically needed. That's the way it is and your stupid attitude won't change that.

".. fantasy?"

Even fantasy needs to have some basis in something that's believable.

" thread have destroyed your arguments"

No, not really.

" learn to play'

You just lost all credibility.

" The values of dice rolls here are meaningless"

Except they are not, because that's what most people spend their time doing.

Note that this thread originally not in background. It's a thread about scale, which is both mathematical and fluff-related. I never post in the background section because I hate GW's background. Retro-future grimdark is an extremely poor trope in my view.

Just look at Hiroshima for example.

That's not the best example of a ''they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. ''. The war was won before that, and it's a known fact written in history books all over the world. The display of power the Ally shown that day was purely politic, not much to do with the actual war. (Of course, politics and war are close relative, but I though we werre talking purely about war here)

I don't remember ever a case were a single target was decisive to win a war, but it's also not true that a single target can't change the 'Outcome' of a war. A single target can definitly tip the balance of power one side of the other, but you will always need more to win.

Ironic that someone brought up Hiroshima, because that is what Xenos would do to the handful marines that exist in 40K's fluff. I guess the bottom line is that I've lost most of my suspension of disbelief, and this setting really exacerbates it.

The pacific front of the war wasn't over before the bombs were dropped, Japan were still, no matter how much of a desperate situation they were in were being resistant to the allied forces. It could have, and quite scarily required land invasion on Japanese soil (73% forest and mountain terrain), and not to mention the Burma campaign.... Could have took years to accomplish potentially.

In that respect though, Vietnam probably wouldn't have happened though as the US would have realised then how much of a bad idea it is to try and fight wars in such terrain against enemies who are master of that terrain.

Vietnam was going to happen no matter what because of $$. But that's getting super off topic.

Vietnam had nothing to do with money (Vietnam doesn't and didn't have anything of value to us) and everything to do with our policies concerning the containment of the spread of Communism.

However, in 40k, we are told (and provided examples of) single events absolutely being the deciding factors in the prosecution of a war. The death of Horus was the end of the Siege of Terra and the end of the Horus Heresy, everything after that in the era was simply clean-up, to use one example. Ever since that time, it's been either separate Black Crusades (new wars behind an old ideology) or containment practices around the Eye of Terror.

Martel732 wrote:
Vietnam was going to happen no matter what because of $$. But that's getting super off topic.

True, but we would have been able to win with the lessons we would have learned from the invasion of Japan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

I'm gonna take a page outta your book to see if I can somehow understand why you're trying to maintain your untenable position...

"Even fantasy needs to have some basis in something that's believable. "
The Imperium of Man is based upon a hegemonic government lead by overzealous religious leaders with a poorly maintained dominance over the region they dwell in (late-era Imperial Rome, anyone?). Oh, yes, and it has a God-Emperor *cough* Egypt *cough* who is worshiped by virtually everyone in his Empire, though he has little direct influence over events *cough* Imperial Japan *cough*. Oh yes, and they have some really badass soldiers, who have most of their aspirants die during training *cough* French Foreign Legion *cough*. Did I forget to mention the fact that they like to drown their foes in bodies? *cough* Stalin-era Russian Army *cough*.

"You just lost all credibility"
No, he just made a foolish assumption that is surrounded by logical statements.

"Except their not, because that's what most people send most of their time doing."
That is completely fallacious. Most of the people on this forum love 40k specifically because of its poorly-written fluff, which GW happens to have struck poorly-mined gold with. If not for this glorious setting, the crappily written rules of Warhammer 40k never would have seen even a hint of the success it currently has. I, for one, don't even play the TT game anymore, and I stick to the many video games, novels, and arguing with people whose names I don't even know.

 Psienesis wrote:
Vietnam had nothing to do with money (Vietnam doesn't and didn't have anything of value to us) and everything to do with our policies concerning the containment of the spread of Communism.

However, in 40k, we are told (and provided examples of) single events absolutely being the deciding factors in the prosecution of a war. The death of Horus was the end of the Siege of Terra and the end of the Horus Heresy, everything after that in the era was simply clean-up, to use one example. Ever since that time, it's been either separate Black Crusades (new wars behind an old ideology) or containment practices around the Eye of Terror.

Vietnam had everything to do with money. Specifically, huge government contracts for huge corps like Boeing.

" why you're trying to maintain your untenable position... "

It's not untenable, just unpopular. I've had some people agree with me. Just not the majority. Good enough for me.

Hierophant wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "

War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.

Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.

However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.

Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.

Actually the main difference between 40k and real world examples is the fact in the 40k universe we are willing to exterminate entire planets. And even then for no reason other than to contain the enemy.

IRL even when you see cities sacked, it's mostly due to troops wanting their due spoils of war. Even with entire cities being wiped out it ended up being more practical to sell a notable portion as slaves or intergrate them into the conquerors society. Never mind the defender wiping out their own troops/citizens as you see in 40k, which you never really see IRL.

All in all it's not only humanitarian concerns, it's also economic and large scale cultural concerns. The impression I get from the Imperium is the fact it is willing to sacrifice billions to protect it's ideology over absolutely anything else, whatever what, which then again suggests the Imperial Cult is just as dangerous as the ruinous powers in making the Imperium of Man collapse imo.

My mate has a whole theory how the Imperial Cult was actually created by chaos to undermine the Emperor.

Hierophant wrote:
The thing about the 40k universe though is that the fiction displayed on the tabletop is likely only a very tiny slice of the fiction in the universe. It's a skirmish game in a galaxy of colossal battles.

Space Marine forces are relatively small, because they likely get relatively little use compared to other forces. The majority of battles will be fought and won by the Imperial Guard, The Imperial Navy and the Titan Legions. The Space Marines will be in constant action, but only because in a universe of quadrillions, even their rare need will be constant, but the VAST majority of wars and battles will be fought and won in space or via orbital bombardment and the deployment of millions of guardsmen.

The Imperium almost never deploys millions of Guardsmen. They rarely send more than 5 regiments, which would amount to 50.000 men at most. Not enough to capture a small country, and most certainly not enough to capture an entire planet. Only the largest engagements such as Armageddon see the deployment of millions of Guardsmen, and even then the Imperial forces are laughably insignificant compared to RL military forces.

Hierophant wrote:
Comparing Space Marines to actual Marines used in WW2 is incorrect. WW2 was a largely symmetrical conflict of conquest and occupation. Space Marines are an asymmetrical force of annihilation. They're not like a WW2 platoon (who are more analogous to the Imperial Guard), they're like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. They don't fight wars, they end them. Often in a matter of days, if not hours, then move on.

Than why does almost every single piece of 40k fluff describe them in such a way? SM, unless they are Raven Guard or Alpha Legion, almost always fight in a very symmetrical way, fighting wars of attrition, conquering territory, holding defensive lines, laying sieges that last for years. SM do all of these things, even without IG support.

Also, there recently was an interesting discussion about this on OT, but the bomb on Hiroshima did not end the war. While it, along with many other factors played a role, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria along with increasing internal unrest were actually the decisive blows for the Japanese leadership. Wars never end with just a single stroke.

Hierophant wrote:
They have few problems with civillian casualties or diplomacy, and have no real rules of engagement to observe or worries about hearts and minds, leaving other forces to do the inital softening up and the occupation and rebuilding. A million marines is fine. You can't compare a grunt to a nuke.

No force in a total war cares about civillian casualties (look at Dresden). SM often operate independently without support, so they can't always rely on the IG to do those things. SM are not like nukes (the Imperium has actual nukes for that), they are just like the IG, only with 10 times more awesome and grimdark. Oh yes, and they can operate indepently, which given the Imperial bureacracy actually is their biggest advantage.

Hierophant wrote:
You also forget their dwindling numbers is part of the grimdark nature too. They're difficult to produce and maintain, both in terms of geneseed and equipment. If there were billions, the galaxy would be locked down. The fact they are rare is one of the reasons the galaxy is so dangerous for mankind. Change that, and Imperium's outlook is far more optimistic.

Also, the argument that there should be more due to the size of the Imperium also makes a fundamental mistake - the Space Marines are not the police. The size of the Imperium is irrelevent, as they're very rarely fighting their own people.

The millions of heretical cults in the Imperium beg to differ. About half of the fluff about SM has them fighting renegade Imperial forces, so yes, they do often fight their own people. The galaxy is a huge place. A billion Space Marines would still be extremely rare as to be almost non-existent. Modern earth alone has 7 billion people on it.

Also, regarding the size of the Imperium 'a million worlds' should be taken with a grain of salt. The Imperium is constantly gaining and losing worlds, and it is clear that the Administratum has no idea how many worlds exactly there are in the Imperium. It is likely intended as a poetic figure of speech to indicate the Emperor ''is the master of a huge lots of worlds but no one has ever really bothered to count all of them which also would be an almost impossible task due to the sheer distances, horrible communication, dangers and unreliability of travel in the Imperium''.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hierophant wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "

War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.

Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.

However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.

Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.

Wars have never ended with a single stroke. Well, some medieval ones did, but that was tied in to the feudal system. Back then, there were no set countries or states, only the personal domains of feudal lords. If the king was dead and had no heir, that was an end to his claim and thus to the casus belli for the war.
The Imperium, while being feudal in many aspects, does not work in such a way.

 Baldeagle91 wrote:

Actually the main difference between 40k and real world examples is the fact in the 40k universe we are willing to exterminate entire planets. And even then for no reason other than to contain the enemy.

IRL even when you see cities sacked, it's mostly due to troops wanting their due spoils of war. Even with entire cities being wiped out it ended up being more practical to sell a notable portion as slaves or intergrate them into the conquerors society. Never mind the defender wiping out their own troops/citizens as you see in 40k, which you never really see IRL.

We can't exterminate planets, as we only got one, but we are perfectly fine with next best thing, which is exterminating entire cities or even nations for relatively trivial reasons (look at WW2) There are no humanitarian concerns in total war, and the own population and infrastructure is fair game in a scorched earth strategy or when armies have to live of the land.

Back then, there were no set countries or states, only the personal domains of feudal lords. If the king was dead and had no heir, that was an end to his claim and thus to the casus belli for the war.

Um... no? That's... not how feudalism worked. At all. Nations and countries most certainly existed. Almost every part of Europe bears the national names they have had since the fall of Rome, and in many cases even before then.

I think what you're trying to say is that, if the king died in battle, his kingdom would be conquered or annexed or in some other way taken over by the king of the victorious country... which is true (to some extent), which is why most of the various nobles of Europe (including those still living, even if they no longer wield political power) are all related to one another. In modern times, when the invaders kill the head of state, they replace them with a puppet government or completely annex the defeated nation, thus ending its existence as a state.

It gets even crazier when you realize that many of the major nations of Europe have had sitting monarchs of entirely different nationalities at several points in their history.

Of course, "suing for peace" was an option available even then, not to mention the influence and involvement of the Church to ensure that things did not get too out of hand. Don't underestimate the power of the real-world Ecclesiarchy.

Everyone seems to be arguing in circles, so I'll just summarize my views on the subject here.

There don't need to be many Marines because they are 1337 special forces

The Imperium is big. Insanely big. Even a hundred billion Astartes are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population. Furthermore, these worlds are spread very thinly across the Galaxy.

It's just fantasy

That's not an excuse to throw basic common sense out the window. Fantasy titles still have rules of their own, and are assumed to only deviate from reality where explicitly stated. An Imperial citizen spontaneously combusting every time he saw a vase for no explained reason, for instance, wouldn't be appreciable story telling, even if explained away as "It's fantasy, deal with it, nerd."

Can we, at the very least, agree that a million Marines is too small a number, no matter how good each Astartes may be, for the simple reason that most Astartes can't be in two places at once?

That's not an excuse to throw basic common sense out the window. Fantasy titles still have rules of their own, and are assumed to only deviate from reality where explicitly stated. An Imperial citizen spontaneously combusting every time he saw a vase for no explained reason, for instance, wouldn't be appreciable story telling, even if explained away as "It's fantasy, deal with it, nerd."

Which can happen in this setting, because Chaos can work like that.

Can we, at the very least, agree that a million Marines is too small a number, no matter how good each Astartes may be, for the simple reason that most Astartes can't be in two places at once?

Whether it is or isn't too few, it's the number we're given. A thousand Chapters of a thousand Marines, one Marine for every planet in the Imperium.

Feel free to make up whatever number you want, the setting allows you to be that open with it, but if you're going to seriously discuss the background and fluff of the setting, you have to separate "what I think" from "what GW/BL said".

Martel732 wrote:

Vietnam had everything to do with money. Specifically, huge government contracts for huge corps like Boeing.

Vietnam had to do with the spread of Communism. When the French were in there in the 50s, they wanted to leave because it was terrible place to fight a war. We pressured them to stay and footed the bill. America poured millions of dollars in the last few years of French occupation to keep them fighting there and the French still left. We then went in to stop the spread of Communism, aka the "domino theory". It's up for debate whether our intervention actually caused the spread into Laos and Cambodia, but I digress. Vietnam wasn't about "the military-industrial mega complex" that so many people harp on about in the wars today. We went in there to stop the Communists, who we saw as the greatest threat to our way of life. We wanted a democratically-friendly (or at least American friendly) country as a buffer strategically located on the border with China.

"Vietnam had to do with the spread of Communism."

I respectfully disagree. I don't think the powers that be cared if a bunch of rice farmers were communists or not. I was about the military industrial complex. They were already in charge.

" but if you're going to seriously discuss the background and fluff of the setting,"

Seems like an oxy moron to me. Peace out.

 asorel wrote:
Everyone seems to be arguing in circles, so I'll just summarize my views on the subject here.

There don't need to be many Marines because they are 1337 special forces

The Imperium is big. Insanely big. Even a hundred billion Astartes are a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population. Furthermore, these worlds are spread very thinly across the Galaxy.

It's just fantasy

That's not an excuse to throw basic common sense out the window. Fantasy titles still have rules of their own, and are assumed to only deviate from reality where explicitly stated. An Imperial citizen spontaneously combusting every time he saw a vase for no explained reason, for instance, wouldn't be appreciable story telling, even if explained away as "It's fantasy, deal with it, nerd."

Can we, at the very least, agree that a million Marines is too small a number, no matter how good each Astartes may be, for the simple reason that most Astartes can't be in two places at once?

Martel732 wrote:
"Vietnam had to do with the spread of Communism."

I respectfully disagree. I don't think the powers that be cared if a bunch of rice farmers were communists or not. I was about the military industrial complex. They were already in charge.

If you have sources, please cite them, I would like to check them out. I think calling Vietnam "a bunch of rice farmers" is ignorant, considering their geographic position in the South China Sea and their resources.
From America's Longest War, 5th ed. by George Herring: "By early 1950, American policymakers had come to view Vietnam as the key to keeping Southeast Asia out of Communist hands, an importance it would retain for nearly a quarter of a century....Indochina was in 'the most immediate danger', the State Department warned and was therefore 'the most strategically important area of Southeast Asia'...Indochina was considered intrinsically important for its raw materials, rice, and naval bases, but it was deemed far more significant for the presumed effect its loss would have on other areas." (quote taken from a memo from the Secretary of State at the time, Dean Rusk, to the Pentagon) p.22

The fear of the spread of Communism was real to the US and its government. The Soviets overrunning of Eastern Europe and creation of the Eastern Bloc post-WW2 and the Korean War cemented this view in the eye of American politicians that the Communists wanted to overrun the world.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
We can't exterminate planets, as we only got one, but we are perfectly fine with next best thing, which is exterminating entire cities or even nations for relatively trivial reasons (look at WW2) There are no humanitarian concerns in total war, and the own population and infrastructure is fair game in a scorched earth strategy or when armies have to live of the land.

We don't even exterminate entire cities or nations (Ancient examples of destroying cities that is, modern examples A) Still don't wipe them out and B) are in the context of a war containing millions and we now lack city states).

Even using WW2 as an extreme example, the closest you got was the holocaust, mostly due to the fact they where a minority (basically how mutants were treated), useful minorities such as scientists etc where kept. Even concerning the USSR they never planned on wiping the entire country or culture. Mostly because they needed the manpower and living space. The main point in all current and previous warfare was generally to increase manpower. When they do need to stop attackers, it is slightly different, but once they gain the upper hand, gaining resources, land and manpower eventually becomes the goal.

In the 40k universe the imperium arguably needs neither requires more manpower or resources.

@Martel

Reducing the outbreak of the Vietnam War to a matter of money is either a sign of utter ignorance or deliberate partisanism. The famous "iron triangle" seeing foreign policy and military acquisition to a mere bargain between isolated state elites was quite popular in the sixties, especially in antimilitaristic groups but in the end, social science in general dissmissed it as a monocausal explication for such outcomes. Demonstrating how military industry can seldom capture democratic decision has been a major contribution to political science but if you use this only tool to make up your mind about Vietnam, your analysis will be very poor.
Anyway, the way you're claiming your outdated positions, like you got the ultimate truth and everybody else is dumb, really irritate me. At least, your historical interpretations and your tone quickly show there is zero interest in arguing with yo, especially if your arr as expert in 40k background as in history.

Well, after this absolutely out of topic post, I will stop posimg there, since everybody is arguing im circle, just like a fellow just said earlier.

 Psienesis wrote:


Feel free to make up whatever number you want, the setting allows you to be that open with it, but if you're going to seriously discuss the background and fluff of the setting, you have to separate "what I think" from "what GW/BL said".

So Proper Scale was the subject... or is?

In WH 40.000 , we have some nice and useful Maps of the Galaxy and pretty useless ones of Planets.
In WH 40.000 , we have some half decent and entertaining stories with acceptable scale and some pretty whacky ones.
In WH 40.000, the "standard size" of the TT game is a dozen to one hundred models per side, so maybe a fight over a bridge / small settlement / etc . Not very impressive if you aim for decisive battles of a war ( in your narrative, you are supposed to forge )
In WH 40.000, the "army" we put on the TT would rather look like a company of the IG or a special ops team, but GW deemed it more epic to add almost everything you can find on the battlefield to the "catalogue" you pick your army from..
In Wh 40.000, the background to support the game and to build the theme of your army on , has no "canon" and thus sources who are incompatible or just of so different times and teams, its hard to reach a consesus of the "proper" scale.

If you treat all of the numbers from GW as gospel, you are stuck in the corner where GW has already painted themselves.

WH 40k works fine if you consider the TT as a snapshot of what is going on. A small window into a greater conflict maybe, so unique characters are justified to be there.
The Background however, cannot "end" at the borders of this small window.

GW once said : IoM = 1 Mio worlds. These got a Type attached and listed to them, i know we had this in the 3rd ed Rulebook. Basically the size of one faction should be known.
So if we had a planetary population of 3-4 Million shown there, and we know who would be part of the pool of possible recruts, the possible output of PDF and IG is just maths.

But then, people can't agree if this is a Planet at a war footing and would gather troops like we do in real life, or if this is purely GW sci-fantasy and moar grimdarker and moar epic and has to have bazillions of this and that.
We are stuck between personal takes on 40k = scifi = 19th/20th century sizes and 40k = fantasy = RPG / ancient / medieval sizes.
Its GW. so most likely both at the same time....

Consider one of the many sources of GW ( disclaimer: yes, all their ideas are new and never used before and obviously nothing inspired them ) , the Roman Empire.
It controlled a good portion of land an sea. It had Legions of ~ 5000 Legionairies and ~ 20 of them sometimes.
Now go and tell those people on the internets to conquer the same area with the same amount of troops. Not enough of them to achieve that goal nowadays?
Maybe GW started with the idea of Legions and 5-10.000 combatants and realized years later the environment of the era where some thousand were enough isn't what their own background goes for.
A SM Legion was 10k once. Now we are at 250k. Actually.
Why?
Because without control, without some overall idea of the surroundings, GW moved on from "some minis and their story" to epic epicness of epichood where everything is bigger.

Take Armageddon for example. The set up of the opposing forces is ok. Almost equal if you consider size and quality as factors. But it seemed to small, because just 7 main settlements are the whole planet and the forces of 3 mio per side didn't feel like Armageddon had more people than modern earth.

You could just enlarge the forces. Or decrease the numbers GW listed as population.
But the first thing we need IMHO, is to sort out the mix of "modern" and " back in the day of the stone axe" .

The settlements and civilian population cannot be at 1 Hive and billions of Humans as is, because thats silly. The surface of a planet is going to make even the largest hive like a extremly small dot. The only way to get things sorted is to change the Maps.
Using Earth here to get the scale iamginable: They want one Hive City at the north american continent? Ok, let it dwarf the rocky mountains. If this is a small Hive...
A Planet of 10 billion Humans? PDF is 10% of the populace? ...so china would provide 100 million Troopers... I don't think they do?
A Fortress world contributing 50 mio to the IG per anno. IG is 10% of the PDF usually but maybe thats different here.? If it was the 10%, the planet would have 500 mio PDF. At 1% mobilization this is 50000000000 Humans. Maybe rather 10% mobilization cause its a fortress world already. Still a lot of Humans. How do you assault such a fortress if the background limits you to a few thousand?

Thats why I think we can't have barely imaginable numbers of Humans and small easy to swallow numbers of members of a force of the IoM without changing the sizes if we want a scale we can believe in.
I admit my point is we should shrink something to get things back into imaginable country.

Our Earth is, in sci fi terms, a Home-world of a species.
Would it be wrong of Terra as the center of the IoM still got the endless hordes there ,but we also decrease Hive World n° 7538 to something that isn't 100 billions ?
Armageddon and its ash wastes could have 300 million people, 3 million fighting over it and the 1% of combatants would fit nicely into 10 people backing up 1 to fight scheme.
Or maybe if thats "too smal" for your taste, just stay with 3 billion Humans and move the forces up to 30 million. But you have to do something about the less numerous forces then. Re-scale by cutting the overall numbers 10:1 and adding to specific sizes by 1x10 ?

Additionally, the base for the comparisons made is important.
"Britannia rules the waves". Heard of it? Did they fill the 7 oceans with hundreds of thousands of ships?
Ships of the Line were expensive.
In wh 40k, Knight houses got knight worlds, forge worlds got a Titan legion etc. Both expensive and take some time to build.
If a conflict is settled with dozens of capital vessels, another conflict in another universe with dozens of god-machines is believable too.

Proper scale is possible.

If every part falls into place.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

 Flanker wrote:
Space marines are far more elite than US Marines, though. If Army=IG, then I'd say Marine Corps=Stormtroopers. I would think the numbers of Space Marines relative to the rest of the Imperial forces would be closer to SEALs, Green berets, or more likely Delta Force. I don't have numbers of SOF for you, since it's likely classified.
Yes, the Imperium is in a constant state of war, but I don't think the US in WW2 is a measuring stick in terms of manpower. The USSR may be closer since it was closer to "total war" where everything was geared towards fighting the Germans, but they relied on US industry and aid for support. 90% of the German casualties were on the eastern front. The size/scale of armies and casualties from the US standpoint is much smaller than what the USSR had. So, while some worlds may be like the Soviets and dedicate most of what they have towards the war, other worlds must be like the US, and send industrial and agricultural aid to the other worlds/IG regiments. Fighting a war of extinction requires lots of manpower. The Nazis spent much of their resources maintaining concentration/death camps and the Gestapo/death squads in occupied areas. Resources that could've been spent on the front.
As Swastakowey pointed to, it's extremely difficult to try to find numbers that would make it feasible. I'd argue the USSR wasn't in a "total war" state like the Imperium supposedly is, and even that wasn't feasible in the long-term. They lacked the industry, workers, and farmland to feed and equip their army while fighting the Germans, relying on the allies for aid. I'm sure some of these planets use servitors and automatons for these functions which frees up manpower, but I still don't think it's feasible.

I think he was using generalizations because he was comparing real life to a fictional universe. That aside I think that his numbers are closer to the truth. And as far as Space Marines being US Marines. IM ok with that Comparison We are more badarse then the navy/army/Airforce after all

Ghaz I never knew you were a Marine, always liked something about you. Explans it.

Does anyone else remember way back when - I don't remember precisely - GW stated that the models were representative of much larger numbers? It was something like a guardsman actually represented 100, a gaunt was something like that as well, an Ork was 50ish, etc. but 1 space marine equaled 1 space marine. That always seemed like an acceptable solution, albeit an imperfect one.

 asorel wrote:


Thoughts on this? Any values you would like to add?

You've given this some thought, as I have with other issues in other sci-fi universes. I've found similar inconsistencies and rather than try to fix or justify them, I just say "hey, it's a work of fiction -it's going to be inconsistent!, and that's ok."

Other issues that spring to mind:

A star destroyers shield generators can repell turblaser grade firepower, yet the generators themselves, oddly, don't benefit from this shield an can be blown up by laser fire from a one man fighter...

Have enough firepower on a space marine battle barge to annihilate 90% of enemies on a planet, instead choose to go down and swing swords in their faces...

Where are a thunderwolves balls? They're certainly nowhere visible on the model. I guess GW decided that illustrating that animals do indeed have privates is inappropriate to their younger audiences...but grinding a chainsword through someone's skull isn't



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 Grumblewartz wrote:
Does anyone else remember way back when - I don't remember precisely - GW stated that the models were representative of much larger numbers? It was something like a guardsman actually represented 100, a gaunt was something like that as well, an Ork was 50ish, etc. but 1 space marine equaled 1 space marine. That always seemed like an acceptable solution, albeit an imperfect one.

I remember reading that in a WFB ruleset. Whicherver edition came with the Brettonian + Lizardmen set. "1 elf can represent 10 or 100 or whatever you please" or something worded to that effect.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

Have enough firepower on a space marine battle barge to annihilate 90% of enemies on a planet, instead choose to go down and swing swords in their faces...

Just because they have the firepower doesn't mean they should use it. If you want to seize a city or assets or pacify an area, you'll need to send in troops to seize it instead of blowing it and its population to bits.

 Flanker wrote:


Just because they have the firepower doesn't mean they should use it. If you want to seize a city or assets or pacify an area, you'll need to send in troops to seize it instead of blowing it and its population to bits.

That may be the case much of the time, but there have been plenty of silly instances where collateral damage isn't an issue and a space marine captain sends his company toe to toe with an enemy, receiving considerable casualties, when he could have been winked out with a nicely placed macro-cannon bombardment. A more entertaining read to be sure, but doesn't hold up under scrutiny.