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(probably been posted before, sorry)

One of the things I don't get about Space Marines is how they can maintain themselves after each battle.

Let's take an army that includes maybe 3 Tactical squads, an Assault Squad, a Land Raider, a squad of Assault Terminators and 2 Devastator squads.

Often I see an army like have at least half their army wiped out, and sometimes even more.

Yet somehow they maintain armies of 1000 Marines despite rigorous training and high barriers to entry.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Anyone have a valid reason?

Because what happens on the tabletop does not equate to the fluff. The TT SM are seriously underpowered compared to their fluffy counterparts.

It should equate to the fluff though. The entire game is based on commanding the armies of the 41st Millenium.

yeah but then gw would go broke because everyone is buying the 1000p armies that have extremely low model count as opposed to like 100 models.
Its like saying, would you rather PAY for 20 or 100 models, since they have the same points cost!
(for them, its all about the money)

They then at least should retcon the fluff to make it more appropriate. It really doesn't make any sense.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
It should equate to the fluff though. The entire game is based on commanding the armies of the 41st Millenium.

It doesn't, though. It shouldn't. If it did, 3 marines would wipe out your squad of 30 boyz, Eldar rangers would be able to one-shot kill your prized chapter master in terminator armour, the presence of a single chaos deamon on the board would make your entire IG gunline flee in terror or go insane and start killing eachother.

It wouldn't work.

Exactly, if they degraded the fluff:

Than no one would like it as the badassery would be gone,

Second there would be heaps of confusion as the books have suddenly changed from sm being bad-ass giant super humans in impenetrable amour and don't feel pain to weaklings who die after geting shot in the foot and wear armour that only protects them two thirds of the time.

and finally, orks will be bs -10 as all they do with their guns is shoot them in the air because they like the noise it makes (dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka dakka click... dakka dakka )

SM's don't actually get in that many fights. It might be hundreds of years before they have to face an opponent that challenges them. Also as long as the scout company is doing well, they can just promote people to fill in the ranks.

Welcome to the world of 40k fandom.

As others have said, there is little connection between the fluff and the reality of the tabletop game for reasons of balance.

Most of their time is getting to and from said fights.

Keep in mind that models removed as casualties may not necessarily be dead. They may just be badly wounded, which Marines have an incredible ability to come back from thanks to redundant organs and quick clotting blood.

Though if you do want to see Marines that are closer to the fluff, see if you can find the rules for "Movie Marines" that came out a few years back.

Or have a look at inquisitor 1sm in that is like a tank, if you dont have some serious firepower your fethed

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
It should equate to the fluff though. The entire game is based on commanding the armies of the 41st Millenium.

The game mechanics in fact pre-date the fluff by some years; when the system was designed, Space Marines were battle-hardened, enhanced humans (essentially Sardukar), not the near-gods they are today. The "point" of the game is for the players to enjoy a tactical contest, and for Citadel to sell plastic men; the fluff primarily exists to justify each army fitting particular pre-determined tactical and aesthetic niches.

The fluff, rules and indeed models are not consistent in anyway. They only overlap superficially to give background to why each army is fighting, and how to model/paint your models. If it was "realistic" you could have a squad of 10 marines (each bigger than a terminator model wise) and quite easily defeat over 100 orks (look up "movie marines" rules for a laugh).

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:They then at least should retcon the fluff to make it more appropriate. It really doesn't make any sense.

The TT rules are closer to the fluff - at least GW's fluff - than many Space Marine fans would like to admit. The actual problem is less that the Astartes are allegedly underpowered (perhaps they are, but not as much as is claimed here - the "godlike" hype is largely novel and computer game interpretation), but rather that the 40k games press them into combat situations the Marines would rarely find themselves in. The Adeptus Astartes are not line infantry; their actual purpose is that of shock troops who strike deep into the heart of an enemy position to take out some critical objective or force open a path for the masses of the Imperial Guard to follow through. Yet what we see on the tabletop is two sides charging each other head-first like in some sort of Civil War reenactment. In short, the Marines are used "incorrectly". The battles you see on the tabletop would only occur if something has gone wrong.

Someone, I believe it was Kaldor, mentioned that the Epic40k game does a much better job at portraying Marines not because they are more powerful there, but because that game gives you the opportunity to deploy them in a way that actually lines up with their combat doctrine.

Also, what nomotog and blood guard26 have said. The Astartes are not actually in combat "24/7". Some fluff may present them as humanity's most important defenders, but in truth this is the Imperial Guard's job. Space Marines are a fast-reaction force largely concerning themselves with critical missions only. The big and bloody campaigns are the territory of the IG. After the initial invasion on Armageddon, for example, almost all Marine Chapters have departed again simply because the ongoing war of attrition between the Orks and the Imperial Guard is incompatible with their own fighting style.

nobody wrote:Though if you do want to see Marines that are closer to the fluff, see if you can find the rules for "Movie Marines" that came out a few years back.

Yeah, it's not like the article for Movie Marines specifically pointed out that it throws realism out of the window in favour of cinematic exaggeration, including "Stunt Double Marines".
Do people even read the entire article or are they just looking at the superior stats and then wander off believing that this is how their Marines "should" be? Sheesh.

The bit about "neutralised" Marine models not necessarily being dead is true, though. Their increased resilience would give them a much improved ability to survive battlefield injuries, recover from then within days or weeks, and rejoin the fight with little more than a scar as a memory. Or maybe a bionic replacement, if it was real bad.

 Lynata wrote:

nobody wrote:Though if you do want to see Marines that are closer to the fluff, see if you can find the rules for "Movie Marines" that came out a few years back.

Yeah, it's not like the article for Movie Marines specifically pointed out that it throws realism out of the window in favour of cinematic exaggeration, including "Stunt Double Marines".
Do people even read the entire article or are they just looking at the superior stats and then wander off believing that this is how their Marines "should" be? Sheesh.

6 th edition = cinematic.

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:(probably been posted before, sorry)

One of the things I don't get about Space Marines is how they can maintain themselves after each battle.
Let's take an army that includes maybe 3 Tactical squads, an Assault Squad, a Land Raider, a squad of Assault Terminators and 2 Devastator squads.
Often I see an army like have at least half their army wiped out, and sometimes even more.
Yet somehow they maintain armies of 1000 Marines despite rigorous training and high barriers to entry.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
Anyone have a valid reason?

"removed from the tabletop" =/= dead, for a start. beyond that, while whats on the tabletop "represents" the background, its done in an abstract form, it is not "real". its not "accurate". balance must be maintained.

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:It should equate to the fluff though. The entire game is based on commanding the armies of the 41st Millenium.

its a wargame, not a warsimulation.

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:They then at least should retcon the fluff to make it more appropriate. It really doesn't make any sense.

It makes perfect sense. Just stop thinking that what you see on the tabletop is what happens in the fluff. marines can fire after the move. rapid fire guns get more than 2 shots. guns have ranges longer than 40 yards. tanks move faster than infantry. grenades do stuff. a guy shooting a lasgun does more damage than punching something in the face. and so on.

 Lynata wrote:

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:They then at least should retcon the fluff to make it more appropriate. It really doesn't make any sense.

The TT rules are closer to the fluff - at least GW's fluff - than many Space Marine fans would like to admit. The actual problem is less that the Astartes are allegedly underpowered (perhaps they are, but not as much as is claimed here - the "godlike" hype is largely novel and computer game interpretation), but rather that the 40k games press them into combat situations the Marines would rarely find themselves in. The Adeptus Astartes are not line infantry; their actual purpose is that of shock troops who strike deep into the heart of an enemy position to take out some critical objective or force open a path for the masses of the Imperial Guard to follow through. Yet what we see on the tabletop is two sides charging each other head-first like in some sort of Civil War reenactment. In short, the Marines are used "incorrectly". The battles you see on the tabletop would only occur if something has gone wrong.

That kinda makes me a little confused. What about the Imperial Fists who will defend fortresses and lay siege to enemy cities? It will seem longer than the "strike deep" kind of thing. And you brought up Armageddon, but what about the Black Templars in Helsreach? They stayed for a danged long time if the novel is to be believed.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
It should equate to the fluff though. The entire game is based on commanding the armies of the 41st Millenium.

Armies dont agree to have an even valued fight in the 41st millenium either. Imagine the Chaos Lord saying to the Marine Captain "hey I should have 1-2 extra guys because we aren't as disciplined as you"

Okay, so I pretty much will summarize what people are talking about fluff vs gameplay.

1: If the gameplay fit the fluff, it would not be as balanced (lol) or flow as well in the game.
2: If the fluff would fit the gameplay, it would make it a bit more streamlined and not as fun.


So yes, the fluff is different then the gameplay, but there are pretty good reasons for this.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
(probably been posted before, sorry)

One of the things I don't get about Space Marines is how they can maintain themselves after each battle.

Let's take an army that includes maybe 3 Tactical squads, an Assault Squad, a Land Raider, a squad of Assault Terminators and 2 Devastator squads.

Often I see an army like have at least half their army wiped out, and sometimes even more.

Yet somehow they maintain armies of 1000 Marines despite rigorous training and high barriers to entry.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Anyone have a valid reason?

Just work backwards with the numbers.

If Marines have an anticipated casualty rate of 200, and only one in a thousand survives the recruiting process, then the Chapter must be recruiting 200,000 initiates a year.

Remulus wrote:

2: If the fluff would fit the gameplay, it would make it a bit more streamlined and not as fun.


So yes, the fluff is different then the gameplay, but there are pretty good reasons for this.

@ #2. it wouldn't be more streamlined, it'd be completely retconned and utterly stale as just another "Starwars meets Dune" that it sort of originally was. As much as we like to bash the Ultrasmurfs and all the rest of the SM's, their badassery gives scale to the rest of the universe, especially our favorit races like the Orks and shows how utterly pathetic humanity is unless it is in a state of total war.

To the OP,

Play the video game Space Marine to get a sense of fusion between reality and lore that the TT version was never designed to accommodate. You're going to find very quickly that nobody.. and I mean NOBODY is going to want to play Orks when one captain of the Ultramarines can singlehandedly demolish your entire army which costs likely 100-1000 times more than that single SM model.

Tiger9gamer wrote:That kinda makes me a little confused. What about the Imperial Fists who will defend fortresses and lay siege to enemy cities? It will seem longer than the "strike deep" kind of thing. And you brought up Armageddon, but what about the Black Templars in Helsreach? They stayed for a danged long time if the novel is to be believed.

For the Imperial Fists, I would assume that they are used to working in concert with the Imperial Guard, somewhat like in the old days during the Great Crusade, just that they are not as interlinked anymore. Many Space Marine Chapters coordinate with the IG to make sure each force is deployed to the best of their abilities and to better advance the campaign; the Dark Angels being one of the exceptions due to their secrecy.
My explanation is obviously oriented at the overall image and standard battle doctrines of the Adeptus Astartes as rapid reaction shock troops; there will be some Chapters that do not "fit in" but who have found a way to cope with how they run things (like my theory regarding the Fists).

As for the Black Templars - like I said, just because the Space Marines are not meant to be dragged into such situations does not mean it will never happen. The Astartes are still the very best troops you could ask for if you want to hold a critical position; it's just that they will have a much harder time replacing their casualties, so those Imperial Guard reinforcements better get there fast. If no reinforcements are available ... well, the Emperor protects!

Armageddon in particular was a rough place, and the Space Marines too have suffered considerable losses there. The Celestial Lions deployed their entire Chapter, all 10 companies, and the entire Chapter was wiped out over the course of weeks. Granted, much of this had to do with the Inquisition sabotaging their intel, but it just goes to show how even the mighty Astartes can buckle if the pressure gets too high.

DemetriDominov wrote:Play the video game Space Marine to get a sense of fusion between reality and lore that the TT version was never designed to accommodate. You're going to find very quickly that nobody.. and I mean NOBODY is going to want to play Orks when one captain of the Ultramarines can singlehandedly demolish your entire army which costs likely 100-1000 times more than that single SM model.

First the Movie Marines rules, now this?
I'm not sure how anyone could regard the player character magically regaining health by doing cool melee moves as "more realistic".

Here's a radical thought: Computer games like "Space Marine" and various Black Libary novels, all of which portray an individual author's interpretation of the setting that may (and in many cases clearly does) conflict with GW's own vision, has over the years created a rift in some fans' perception of the Space Marines and GW's presentation of them in their own fluff.

 Lynata wrote:

nobody wrote:Though if you do want to see Marines that are closer to the fluff, see if you can find the rules for "Movie Marines" that came out a few years back.

Yeah, it's not like the article for Movie Marines specifically pointed out that it throws realism out of the window in favour of cinematic exaggeration, including "Stunt Double Marines".
Do people even read the entire article or are they just looking at the superior stats and then wander off believing that this is how their Marines "should" be? Sheesh.

Actually, the reason I suggested it was due to a memory I had of the article mentioning that they had written the list purely because they kept getting asked why Marines on the tabletop didn't match their fluff, so they decided to go over the top. I'm quite aware that they are intended to be "unrealistic" (though expecting realism period in this game is hilarious).

Unfortunately, i can't find a copy of the article to confirm it (my copy of WD 300 either was "borrowed and not returned" or packed away). All I can find online are scans of the army list so I can't confirm that.

 Kaldor wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
(probably been posted before, sorry)

One of the things I don't get about Space Marines is how they can maintain themselves after each battle.

Let's take an army that includes maybe 3 Tactical squads, an Assault Squad, a Land Raider, a squad of Assault Terminators and 2 Devastator squads.

Often I see an army like have at least half their army wiped out, and sometimes even more.

Yet somehow they maintain armies of 1000 Marines despite rigorous training and high barriers to entry.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Anyone have a valid reason?

Just work backwards with the numbers.

If Marines have an anticipated casualty rate of 200, and only one in a thousand survives the recruiting process, then the Chapter must be recruiting 200,000 initiates a year.

That's if they fight every year. If they get in battles every 100 years then that's 2000 a year. Still kind of high, but doable. One of the things is that SMs get to choose battles. If there is risk they will lose too much, they just won't fight.

Edited my math error.

 Lynata wrote:

DemetriDominov wrote:Play the video game Space Marine to get a sense of fusion between reality and lore that the TT version was never designed to accommodate. You're going to find very quickly that nobody.. and I mean NOBODY is going to want to play Orks when one captain of the Ultramarines can singlehandedly demolish your entire army which costs likely 100-1000 times more than that single SM model.

First the Movie Marines rules, now this?
I'm not sure how anyone could regard the player character magically regaining health by doing cool melee moves as "more realistic".

Here's a radical thought: Computer games like "Space Marine" and various Black Libary novels, all of which portray an individual author's interpretation of the setting that may (and in many cases clearly does) conflict with GW's own vision, has over the years created a rift in some fans' perception of the Space Marines and GW's presentation of them in their own fluff.

......... 2 things.......

1st.) Referencing the whole Vampiric Combat Marine thing is just a game mechanic that brings the SM closer to the lore of being a godlike killing machine that GW does support, and has been pushing with even stronger zeal over more recent years.

2.) Not sure if you're referencing the evolution of the SM, but from what I know of the SM's they really haven't changed much in the past ten years I've been playing, and in the offical cannon, they don't really contradict each other. Yes, video games and TT as we know cannot be always true to lore - SM really did get about as close as they can to it - and even then there's a strawman argument about SM's multiplayer. Really, you're over thinking it.

 Lynata wrote:
Here's a radical thought: Computer games like "Space Marine" and various Black Libary novels, all of which portray an individual author's interpretation of the setting that may (and in many cases clearly does) conflict with GW's own vision, has over the years created a rift in some fans' perception of the Space Marines and GW's presentation of them in their own fluff.

Absolutely.

We all know that the protagonists of any given narrative have heaps of plot armour. They always win in the end, they very rarely die, and they are usually 'juiced up' variants of their peers. So, because Space Marines are popular, lots of novels feature them as protagonists which, as we've established, are better versions of their peers. Since so many novels feature Marines, it has created a false expectation of their abilities. Every Marine we encounter is a protagonist in his own story, and so of course he never dies and never loses.

yeah, and as tirelessly discussed already in this thread, they are under extremely underpowered on the table top. (otherwise they would have to roll five dice and get five 1s to fail their armour save and have like ten attacks: acid spit, shoulder charge, warcry, short sword x 2, pistol whip, stomp and charging)

 blood guard26 wrote:
yeah, and as tirelessly discussed already in this thread, they are under extremely underpowered on the table top. (otherwise they would have to roll five dice and get five 1s to fail their armour save and have like ten attacks: acid spit, shoulder charge, warcry, short sword x 2, pistol whip, stomp and charging)

Except that's not the case. As I just explained, the Marines that we are exposed to in the background are all the protagonists of their various stories. They wear loads of plot armour and carry plot weapons. They are not good examples of what regular Marines are capable of.

Regular Marines very closely match their table-top abilities. Their strength lies in their ability to concentrate force. To accurately mirror this on the table-top would not require boosted Marine stats. It would require scenarios like: Marines have four times as many points as the defender. Marines may take free drop pods. The Marine force has three free Thunderhawk Gunships.

And so-on. Because their real strength is their ability to easily project overwhelming force into a small area.

I partially agree with you Kaldor. I agree with you that the main SM character of an SM book is always going to be above and beyond, but I think it's clear from other BL books that their combat ability is still quite fearsome. The main characters of the Eldar Path books show a significant amount of fear/respect whenever Space Marines enter the picture.