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Gargantuan wrote:

kronk wrote:That was during the era of Rogue Trader and 2nd edition, though. Didn't we start getting Space Marine "creep" after that?

Newest Chaos Space Marine codex page 36, first paragraph.
"the Space Marines stand seven feet tall"

And Jes Goodwin's lifesize drawing is from 1997, so about ~3rd Edition (whose WH&DH codices had a lot of overlap with the Inquisitor game the drawing was made for).

To my knowledge, the 7 feet thing has been a constant throughout GW's material. It should say so in the 5E Marine 'dex as well, if I recall correctly.

I feel that some people just do not stop to think what these numbers actually mean in practice. I made few illustrative comparisons (human gentlemen are stock images.)



A bit over seven foot for armoured marine is quite enough (Seven foot unarmoured plus few inches from armour.)
He looks massive, yet he would be capable of operating in human scale environment.


Ten feet on the other hand is just ludicrous. Best defence against these marines would be to build human sized corridors and they cannot enter.


And something like twelve or thirteen feet is even more absurd. Then we are in territory where a marine would be able to pick up a Rhino and carry it around instead of other way around.

/applause

I really like how the gentleman is going all "" in the second image, as if asking "r u srs?" to the reader (or perhaps a certain Black Library author).

Also, can you do one with 12 or 13 feet, just for lulz?

Though this explains how these SM die to common lasfire... sheesh, the eye-sockets in those helmets are the size of dinner plates. You couldn't help but put a round through them at 200 meters.

Going by GW's Codex fluff as well as equipment stats in the Inquisitor RPG, Astartes power armour isn't all that effective at stopping lasgun rounds. I feel their properties have been greatly exaggerated in various licensed products.

Who needs to shoot helmet lenses if the helmet "just" has 8 armour points and the average IG lasgun can do anything between 2-12 points of damage per shot?

You cannot cite rules vs The Lore, we have clearly been told by GW that marines on the tabletop are nothing like as powerful as they should be, because if they were as powerful as they should be, you'd take one or two vs an entire 2k tyranid army.

Using game mechanics to prove issues of The Lore for your side of a debate is inherently flawed.

I also liked the scale images but don't see why 'they wouldn't fit in human constructed buildings' would be a concern? The Imperium makes everything to grand scale and in addition, their size certainly wouldn't be a hindrance in xenos constructs they would be assaulting or outside. It also has one massive achilles heel, if you're right and marines are a mere 8 feet tall, then terminators, built for assaulting bunkers and space hulks, would still be 10 feet tall and they are built to do the very things you say are proof of the 'tiny marine'.

While PA isn't impervious to lasgun rounds, the shot will have lost a lot of its killing power melting through the ceramite. Then it has to also get past the ribcage(which is practically a second layer of armor) and have enough energy to fry internal organs. Which themselves have redundancies.

Its a marine's insane physical build plus his armor that makes him "imperivious" to lasguns.

 Grey Templar wrote:
While PA isn't impervious to lasgun rounds, the shot will have lost a lot of its killing power melting through the ceramite. Then it has to also get past the ribcage(which is practically a second layer of armor) and have enough energy to fry internal organs. Which themselves have redundancies.

Its a marine's insane physical build plus his armor that makes him "imperivious" to lasguns.

That's why you shoot them in the *EYEBALL*.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I also liked the scale images but don't see why 'they wouldn't fit in human constructed buildings' would be a concern? The Imperium makes everything to grand scale and in addition, their size certainly wouldn't be a hindrance in xenos constructs they would be assaulting or outside. It also has one massive achilles heel, if you're right and marines are a mere 8 feet tall, then terminators, built for assaulting bunkers and space hulks, would still be 10 feet tall and they are built to do the very things you say are proof of the 'tiny marine'.

Rhinos were originally designed to normal sized people. Think about that.

And they're not eight feet tall. They're seven. Also, A terminator is not two feet taller than a PA marine. Only thing that makes terminators taller is the part of armour that goes above their heads (and maybe an inch from the boots if they've thicker soles.) That is not even a foot. Terminators are a bit under eight feet tall at most.

Which is also not garunteed to kill them. Regular people can get shot in the eyeball and survive. You have to have a certain angle to get the brain or spinal cord.

Then its going to be difficult to hit them there deliberatly. Its hard enough to hit center mass of a moving target. To deliberatly get a shot through the eye is nothing short of extraordinary luck.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:You cannot cite rules vs The Lore, we have clearly been told by GW that marines on the tabletop are nothing like as powerful as they should be, because if they were as powerful as they should be, you'd take one or two vs an entire 2k tyranid army.

Told by whom?

You can also consult the Codex: Angels of Death for The Lore:
"Against most small arms the armour reduces the chance of injury by between 50-85%, and it provides some form of protection against all except the most powerful weapons encountered on the battlefields of the 41st Millenium."

In the end this too is just as much a matter of interpretation and personal preferences as Marine height, but I think it's rather interesting that this fluff quote, the TT rules and the Inquisitor game all seem to be fairly consistent in this.
On a sidenote, Inquisitor isn't actually balanced all that well (although I tend to think this is more a result of the game mechanics rather than individual stats).

MeanGreenStompa wrote:It also has one massive achilles heel, if you're right and marines are a mere 8 feet tall, then terminators, built for assaulting bunkers and space hulks, would still be 10 feet tall and they are built to do the very things you say are proof of the 'tiny marine'.

I think he is saying that Marines are 7 feet tall. At least this is how I interpret the lines on the paper. Quite similar to what Jes Goodwin has drawn.
Given how often I see the "8 feet" pop up, I'm almost inclined to start believing it is some sort of reflex now.

Looking at Terminator armour, it probably adds a single foot or so of size, so basically make the 7 foot Marine an 8 foot one. On that note, it should be pointed out that this is already too big and bulky for a Rhino - a vehicle originally designed for baseline human explorers - though! Certainly, Terminators cannot be deployed everywhere.

Grey Templar wrote:Its a marine's insane physical build plus his armor that makes him "imperivious" to lasguns.

Apparently not, given the Codex quote and how it refers to injuries.
Although I do not doubt that certain novels etc may paint a different picture, if the protagonist is an Astartes. Probably the same ones where Marines are 8-12 feet high, too.
Damage location likely plays a role, but considering how lasguns work, they can make flesh react in a real messy way.

But this is something where I think the Inquisitor rules represent the Marines quite well. They don't drop dead from receiving a single lasgun wound - they just get hurt, and their performance suffers accordingly, but you need to hit them several times more than a normal guy in order to stop one.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Which is also not garunteed to kill them. Regular people can get shot in the eyeball and survive. You have to have a certain angle to get the brain or spinal cord.

Then its going to be difficult to hit them there deliberatly. Its hard enough to hit center mass of a moving target. To deliberatly get a shot through the eye is nothing short of extraordinary luck.

Rarely does a ballistic round of any moderate caliber enter a human body through the eyeball and fail to evacuate the brain-pan through the back of the skull, and certainly not at the calibers of most 40K war-fighting weapons. A las-round, which couples both ballistic impact damage as well as thermal energy transfer, would both destroy the eye and, exceedingly likely, cook the vital brain-meat behind it. You don't need to be killed instantly to become a casualty when your frontal lobes and a good portion of your cerebral cortex has been turned into so much blackened gristle.

 Lynata wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:You cannot cite rules vs The Lore, we have clearly been told by GW that marines on the tabletop are nothing like as powerful as they should be, because if they were as powerful as they should be, you'd take one or two vs an entire 2k tyranid army.

Told by whom?

Other than the billion quotes and references in codices and background shorts and black library novels about tiny groups of marines holding the line against hundreds of orks and such, I guess the open admittance came in the 'Movie Marines' article in White Dwarf.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Other than the billion quotes and references in codices and background shorts and black library novels about tiny groups of marines holding the line against hundreds of orks and such, I guess the open admittance came in the 'Movie Marines' article in White Dwarf.

You mean this one?

"Thankfully, most people understand the concept of dramatic license, an amusing little technique that involves exaggerating or ignoring facts, physical laws, and general plausability to keep things entertaining. Space Marines are embellished in fiction, where their heroism and invincibility are accentuated."
- introduction to the WD Movie Marines list

Seriously, these rules incorporate stunt doubles. Did you actually read the article, or are you just operating on popular hearsay?

[edit] I'm actually glad you brought this up. It kinda serves the point I'm demonstrating.

Isn't Dan Abnett's book Horus Rising a point where he claims marines are ten feet tall and genetic mutation by Fabius Bile/Admech that sought to improve Space Marines through an Index Astartes reference?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 WarOne wrote:
Isn't Dan Abnett's book Horus Rising a point where he claims marines are ten feet tall and genetic mutation by Fabius Bile/Admech that sought to improve Space Marines through an Index Astartes reference?

Also in podcat, Jes Goodwin has stated:

Jes Goodwin wrote:"because actually if you read the novels they get progressively bigger every time we write a novel."

guys ... guys... I just checked.... Space Marines are 1.5 inches tall... guys...

 Lynata wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Other than the billion quotes and references in codices and background shorts and black library novels about tiny groups of marines holding the line against hundreds of orks and such, I guess the open admittance came in the 'Movie Marines' article in White Dwarf.

You mean this one?

"Thankfully, most people understand the concept of dramatic license, an amusing little technique that involves exaggerating or ignoring facts, physical laws, and general plausability to keep things entertaining. Space Marines are embellished in fiction, where their heroism and invincibility are accentuated."
- introduction to the WD Movie Marines list

Seriously, these rules incorporate stunt doubles. Did you actually read the article, or are you just operating on popular hearsay?

[edit] I'm actually glad you brought this up. It kinda serves the point I'm demonstrating.

Of course i read the article... But thanks for the vote of confidence...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/238362.page

Whilst it keeps it's tongue firmly in it's cheek and is disclaimer ridden as a fun article (- we could do with more of this sort of thing again GW), it's about making the marines on the tabletop reflect the marines in The Lore, that included background written in the codices as well as novels. The question should be which is more 'real'? The rules that are supposed to bring about a 'fair game' on the tabletop or the books about marines 'in their own universe'? I'd say it's The Lore which holds the 'real' marines performing outstanding actions and being a million super beings in an Imperium of millions of worlds, a tiny bastion of superbeings. Calgar is supposed to have held back a full waaagh of orks at some gate or other single handed, try that on the battlefield and I guarantee I can swamp him with a few mobs of grots, hardly the hero's death...

If marines died to lasguns and massed grots and dangerous terrain as easily as they do on the table, the million marines would go extinct in a few decades of the 40k universe's basic health and safety risks.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Calgar is supposed to have held back a full waaagh of orks at some gate or other single handed, try that on the battlefield and I guarantee I can swamp him with a few mobs of grots, hardly the hero's death...

I can't be the only one who now wants to see in next marine codex a fluff piece where Marneus Calgar is killed by grots.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Whilst it keeps it's tongue firmly in it's cheek and is disclaimer ridden as a fun article (- we could do with more of this sort of thing again GW), it's about making the marines on the tabletop reflect the marines in The Lore, that included background written in the codices as well as novels. The question should be which is more 'real'? The rules that are supposed to bring about a 'fair game' on the tabletop or the books about marines 'in their own universe'? I'd say it's The Lore which holds the 'real' marines performing outstanding actions and being a million super beings in an Imperium of millions of worlds, a tiny bastion of superbeings. Calgar is supposed to have held back a full waaagh of orks at some gate or other single handed, try that on the battlefield and I guarantee I can swamp him with a few mobs of grots, hardly the hero's death...

Wait, so you are saying that legends, propaganda, myths and exceptional one-offs are "more real" than general and thus less biased descriptions of the properties of their equipment or their physiology?

Okay, we'll just have to disagree there. But I will point out that each and every army has these legends and myths, and I don't actually see the setting "working" if they were all real.
And let's not even get into the lack of consistency between the novels, where the very same limitations apply. In one book you have Space Marines be the invincible protagonists who hold back an invasion with a dozen people, and in the next you've got Gaunt's Ghosts zapping CSMs by the dozen with their lasguns... (In the end, it's up to you which interpretation you prefer - but I thought we'd be discussing GW material?)

MeanGreenStompa wrote:If marines died to lasguns and massed grots and dangerous terrain as easily as they do on the table, the million marines would go extinct in a few decades of the 40k universe's basic health and safety risks.

Not at all. It's just that the Marines don't tend to fight the kind of battles we see in the standard tabletop (two armies meet head-on like it's 1540), but rather deploy in a manner more suitable to their strengths. Deepstriking into unexpected places with overwhelming force, driving terror into the hearts of the Emperor's foes and watching as the enemy's morale dwindles and their ranks break.
I've never played Epic 40k, but from how its rules were explained to me here on dakka, that game might be a better representation as it grants a Marine player more options regarding deployment and tactics.
That said, the fate of the Celestial Lions (GW fluff) is an excellent example on how an entire Chapter can get wiped out just because they were handed faulty recon. It's not that impossible to kill a Space Marine - you just have to apply the right amount of pressure. Like Colonel Straken who strangled a CSM Lord in Codex Planetstrike.

I don't even see where the idea that lasguns shouldn't kill Marines originates from. The tabletop rules were there first and the background was crafted around them. If GW really thought that Marines should be impervious to lasguns, they'd be so in the TT as well.

PS: Great thread in the link, by the way. Those are some awesome conversions!

@Crimson great pic, man...I mean I'm really glad how you showed what is proportional and what isn't...


P.S. Only Dorn has that big head (shown on pic 2:-)

I remember the one story where Kharn grew for every skull he took in battle. I'd have to imagine he's pretty big by now, but nowhere near the size of a standard plague marine.

 Lynata wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Whilst it keeps it's tongue firmly in it's cheek and is disclaimer ridden as a fun article (- we could do with more of this sort of thing again GW), it's about making the marines on the tabletop reflect the marines in The Lore, that included background written in the codices as well as novels. The question should be which is more 'real'? The rules that are supposed to bring about a 'fair game' on the tabletop or the books about marines 'in their own universe'? I'd say it's The Lore which holds the 'real' marines performing outstanding actions and being a million super beings in an Imperium of millions of worlds, a tiny bastion of superbeings. Calgar is supposed to have held back a full waaagh of orks at some gate or other single handed, try that on the battlefield and I guarantee I can swamp him with a few mobs of grots, hardly the hero's death...

Wait, so you are saying that legends, propaganda, myths and exceptional one-offs are "more real" than general and thus less biased descriptions of the properties of their equipment or their physiology?

Okay, we'll just have to disagree there. But I will point out that each and every army has these legends and myths, and I don't actually see the setting "working" if they were all real.
And let's not even get into the lack of consistency between the novels, where the very same limitations apply. In one book you have Space Marines be the invincible protagonists who hold back an invasion with a dozen people, and in the next you've got Gaunt's Ghosts zapping CSMs by the dozen with their lasguns... (In the end, it's up to you which interpretation you prefer - but I thought we'd be discussing GW material?)

The novels are often set 'as is' in terms of describing what is occurring. Helsreach is a 'realtime' description of the battles, not an epic recounting around the campfire. There is certainly inconsistancy between the novels, there is a great deal of inconsistancy between editions of the rules. Which is accurate? The powersword cutting armor like tissuepaper or the powersword not cutting armor like tissuepaper? If it's the second, was it true of your idea of how it all works prior to 6th edition? I'm entirely certain that the tabletop game is an abstract of the 40k universe's 'reality' and that the novels and background Lore are recounting it's 'reality', it is far more like a high fantasy setting rather than a realistic scifi after all. Or do you really believe that a pistol shoots a shorter distance than the length of a rhino tank??
WHFB used to state this very clearly in that units represented a ratio of 1 model representing 10 'real' warriors. Ranges and other rule mechanics are on the table to represent a playable game rather than how the game designers imagine that fictional reality operates.

Does the Imperium of Man use standard of Metric? Maybe that is causing some of the confusion with conflicting reports about the size of Space Marines?

 Lynata wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Calgar is supposed to have held back a full waaagh of orks at some gate or other single handed, try that on the battlefield and I guarantee I can swamp him with a few mobs of grots, hardly the hero's death...

Wait, so you are saying that legends, propaganda, myths and exceptional one-offs are "more real" than general and thus less biased descriptions of the properties of their equipment or their physiology? I will point out that each and every army has these legends and myths, and I don't actually see the setting "working" if they were all real.

You don't have to go further than real wars and real soldiers to get into the legends and myths territory a few years after it happened. And when it comes to war propaganda they might publish the legendary version to raise morale during the war too. Lone soldiers single-handedly holding off a large enemy force for hours, small groups bravely defending a choke point for days, a company pulling off the supposedly impossible assault. All these things happen, and it becomes legendary because we don't remember all those who failed.

In a Grimdark future with only war there's a legend made every day (and a thousand failures we don't mention).

MeanGreenStompa wrote:The novels are often set 'as is' in terms of describing what is occurring.

Yet apparently this still does not make them 'more real':

"Keep in mind Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are worlds where half truths, lies, propaganda, politics, legends and myths exist. The absolute truth which is implied when you talk about "canonical background" will never be known because of this. Everything we know about these worlds is from the viewpoints of people in them which are as a result incomplete and even sometimes incorrect. The truth is mutable, debatable and lost as the victors write the history...
Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40K universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it. Let's put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex... and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths."
- Marc Gascoigne on Black Library novels

Also see this thread where Aaron Dembski-Bowden - a fairly renowned novel writer himself by now - discusses the issue on dakka.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Ranges and other rule mechanics are on the table to represent a playable game rather than how the game designers imagine that fictional reality operates.

There is a difference between something being an abstraction and something being a contradiction, however. The TT rules - and yes, I do think that all in all they have been far more consistent than the protagonist-dependent storytelling of the novels - should not be looked at for detail, but they give a very good approximation of what is supposed to be close to or better/worse than something else, and who can be killed by what.
You also conveniently neglect that there is Codex fluff supporting the rules, at least the part which I have been discussing here.

Honestly, if you want to support your argument based on novels, I'm fairly sure I can find one where Marines die like flies to lasgun fire, just because they happen to be the antagonists.

I'm not saying that your interpretation is "wrong" (as this is not how the franchise works), but you at least need to realise on what basis you are debating here. You cannot even go and say "the novels", you'd need to find specific ones just because each and every author writing for 40k has his or her own idea on how something works, and they are granted sufficient artistic licence to create the contradictions we are used to by now. If you are looking for consistency between the novels, I would think you are going to be sorely disappointed, at least once you begin to look deeper into the details.

"It all stems from the assumption that there’s a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or ‘true’ representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."
- Andy Hoare

I see, so you're saying if I've read Dan Abnett stating that marines are 10ft tall, there's no absolute that binds him to any 'subjective construct' that they are shorter, nor to that mysterious earlier writer who says the Grey Knights are broader and shorter than the other marines. So all this stuff about tiny 7ft marines can be treated as someone else cherrypicking their version of 'the truth''...

So, I was right after all it seems, to state that what I have read about, that a marine stands at 10 feet, is valid. It's interesting that what I've said was treated as untrue but that the counter argument is 'it's all untrue and everything is also real'... I'll take that and bid you a good night.

This thread is disgusting in its ignorance.
Marines are 11ft tall.
Space wolves are 12ft tall.
Grey Knights are 14ft tall (Due to having the Emperor's gene-seed and he was 28ft tall)

No, space wolves are not larger than other space marines.

Only their egos are bigger.

It's not an easy thing to fit an ego the size of a planet into a head the size of a watermelon. To make it fit into their heads, some sacrifices had to be made. The brain was trimmed of excess tissue - since all it needed to do was allow the wolfy mcwolfy to scream "for the wolf time", "more beer", "that's it, they're all going to die." and "where's the beer?" and to have basic hand-eye co-ordination.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I see, so you're saying if I've read Dan Abnett stating that marines are 10ft tall, there's no absolute that binds him to any 'subjective construct' that they are shorter, nor to that mysterious earlier writer who says the Grey Knights are broader and shorter than the other marines. So all this stuff about tiny 7ft marines can be treated as someone else cherrypicking their version of 'the truth''...
So, I was right after all it seems, to state that what I have read about, that a marine stands at 10 feet, is valid. It's interesting that what I've said was treated as untrue but that the counter argument is 'it's all untrue and everything is also real'... I'll take that and bid you a good night.

We were discussing the height of Space Marines in different sources - and acknowledged very early that different sources also means different heights. I've made my position clear in this post on the first page of the thread, and I think I have said at least two or three times how it's a "matter of interpretation" throughout the thread.

So, yes, in a way we are all cherrypicking, and you are quite at liberty to retain your preferred opinion, of course. I guess this may have gotten lost in the last couple posts as I thought we would be discussing "GW vs other fluff".
I can get a bit too passionate on the subject, and I do apologise for possibly having worded the last couple posts a bit too pushy.


Also, I approve of purplefood's clarification.

Well they do have larger teeth...i mean fangs