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Corporal_Reznov wrote:
Why the hell should they know?

Because not revealing your plans and what you want accomplished from your second in commands is bad management?

I've known Burger King managers who could have done a better job managing the Imperium than the Emperor.

I stand with Dorn, minimizing the size of the Astartes Legions and forcing them into strict guidelines weakens their effectiveness. And I think we can all agree they need to be as effective as possible.

There should have been a 3rd option on the poll.

I like to call it the "Horus Option". Gather all of them on a planet and let the guard virus bomb them. They have caused at least as many problems as they've solved.

 Eetion wrote:

There are times when you absolutely positively need to hammer your size 15 power armoured boot up the arse of some filthy xenos or heretic, and a Chapter jsut isnt as good at it.

In fairness, the 9 Loyalist Legions didn't actually have much more (if any more) Marines than the 40K Imperium does. Sure, they could coordinate their forces a bit better but ultimately they'd still be stretched just as thin (notwithstanding any individual Legion turning traitor in its majority). I don't think the break up of the Legions had that much of an effect on the ability of the Space Marines to defend the Imperium unless there's a significant chance almost an entire Legion could have turned traitor after the Heresy, in which case things would likely be worse. Certainly they could amass their forces anyway (and on Armageddon they didn't really seem to have much of a problem in deciding on a leader).

Void__Dragon wrote:Because not revealing your plans and what you want accomplished from your second in commands is bad management?

In fairness, the Emperor told them what was wanted of them in the short term (and by short term we're talking about centuries here. We've no idea how long the human connection to the rest of the Webway was going to take). All the Primarchs needed to do (and arguably they weren't his second-in-commands, Malcador seems to fulfill that role a bit better in most matters) was unite human populations with the Imperium and destroy xenos. That's all they, bar Magnus, were required to do as far as I know. And even Magnus was needed to do that for a good while.

Really, I don't think the Primarchs needed to know about the Webway. Or, for that matter, Chaos. All they had to do was say no. Some of the treacherous ones refused to, and the others hitched onto them for reasons beyond the Emperor's control (two of the Primarchs turned traitor to a large extent because they performed genocide on their homeworld, and who knows what's up with Alpharius). As for Mortarion, he seems to have actually gotten the wrong idea about the Emperor (the whole idea about the Emperor being a tyrant when it appears he actually wanted to transfer authority to normal humans).

But with not telling the primarchs about the dangers of chaos, or warning pertarbo about the warp gate (so he would know better then to contact the big E and cause that big issue when he did)


it is bad management... If I am sending armies into unknown dangers, fine,

but when you know some of the dangers, why not tell the super soldiers that they might have to kill daemons and look out for chaos corruption.

maybe we would have had more loyalists if they knew exactly what chaos was before they encountered it?


but actively hiding knowledge of a danger and how to properly counter it, what good does that do?

I side with Guilliman, he may have had his own flaws, but he was definately a visionary and a man gifted with foresight.

easysauce wrote:
But with not telling the primarchs about the dangers of chaos, or warning pertarbo about the warp gate (so he would know better then to contact the big E and cause that big issue when he did)


it is bad management... If I am sending armies into unknown dangers, fine,

but when you know some of the dangers, why not tell the super soldiers that they might have to kill daemons and look out for chaos corruption.

maybe we would have had more loyalists if they knew exactly what chaos was before they encountered it?


but actively hiding knowledge of a danger and how to properly counter it, what good does that do?

I agree here. Perhaps if Horus had known about Chaos, he would have seen what was happening. Or, perhaps, one of the other primarchs would have. In any event, hiding chaos from the general populace makes sense. Hiding it from your top military commanders... that's dumb.

 Traejun wrote:

easysauce wrote:
But with not telling the primarchs about the dangers of chaos, or warning pertarbo about the warp gate (so he would know better then to contact the big E and cause that big issue when he did)


it is bad management... If I am sending armies into unknown dangers, fine,

but when you know some of the dangers, why not tell the super soldiers that they might have to kill daemons and look out for chaos corruption.

maybe we would have had more loyalists if they knew exactly what chaos was before they encountered it?


but actively hiding knowledge of a danger and how to properly counter it, what good does that do?

I agree here. Perhaps if Horus had known about Chaos, he would have seen what was happening. Or, perhaps, one of the other primarchs would have. In any event, hiding chaos from the general populace makes sense. Hiding it from your top military commanders... that's dumb.

I agree. At the point where Chaos was clearly aware of the Primarchs and had teleported them all across the galaxy the Big E should have sat them down and given them the chaos and the bees talk. His policy of destroying Chaos through ignorance only makes sense if Chaos Gods required recognition in order to act. But they don't.

Interested idea. Do you think with Inquisition now that bigger legions would be more manageable than chapters and could be policed so that the worry off mass betrayal was minimized considerably?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Eetion wrote:

There are times when you absolutely positively need to hammer your size 15 power armoured boot up the arse of some filthy xenos or heretic, and a Chapter jsut isnt as good at it.

In fairness, the 9 Loyalist Legions didn't actually have much more (if any more) Marines than the 40K Imperium does. Sure, they could coordinate their forces a bit better but ultimately they'd still be stretched just as thin (notwithstanding any individual Legion turning traitor in its majority). I don't think the break up of the Legions had that much of an effect on the ability of the Space Marines to defend the Imperium unless there's a significant chance almost an entire Legion could have turned traitor after the Heresy, in which case things would likely be worse. Certainly they could amass their forces anyway (and on Armageddon they didn't really seem to have much of a problem in deciding on a leader).

True but its a matter of response.
To co-ordinate against a larger threat it is entirely dependent on an astropathic message being received by more than 1 chapter at the same time, and the nature of that is a uncertain at best. Astropathic messages are not reliable.

Wheras a Legion only needs to pick the message up once, and they could deploy 5, 10, 15000 marines, the legions do not need to be spread in one big smear but at strategicly vital locatiions and deploy accordingly.

The size of 40k Chapters and number is irrelevant. That's 10'000 years of growth.

Not to mention had they had Legiuons still both Dorn and Guilleman may still be allive. Dorn would have a number of Legion ships and may have not have needed to board the chaos cruiser where he died. Guiilleman may not have died to fulgrim if he had 7000 instead of just 1.

What it boils down to, is that when faced with a major threat, a Legion can deploy more troops without having to rely on the vagaries of the warp to obtain an equivalent number from a Chapter.

In the cases of conflicts such as Armageddon. A legion might be able to deploy 10000 simultaneously rather than 1000 marines here 500 there 100 there.

It truly gives them a capability to go for the throat of a serious threat.

 Eetion wrote:
Gulleman may have crippled to threat to internal in fighting.... but he also crippled the Marines ability to truly throw crushing forces at an enemy.

No, the Legions did that to themselves. They fethed up big time, fully half of them betrayed the Imperium, got a HUGE amount of people killed, failed to hold a metric fethton of conquered territory, and lost the privilege of trust.

Even if they had continued on as legions they would never be trusted with the same power and authority as they were during the Great Crusade, and more likely than not they'd have been marginalized instead of living on as heroes.

I think it's funny when people pretend that the Astartes are the only one's who've ever rebelled and nearly destroyed the Imperium. For every betrayal a Space Marine as has ever made toward the Imperium, a thousand regular humans have made a similar betrayal. Horus didn't use mass mind control to make thousands of Imperial Army regiments and fleets turn traitor, nor did he use mass mind control to get nearly 50% of the Mechanicum to join his cause, they did it out of their own initiative. Space Marines had nothing to do with Vandire going insane and nearly destroying the entire Imperium, nor did they have anything to do with the Sisters of Battle embarking on a mass genocidal campaign that ended the lives of billions of innocents at the behest of a mad man because they were collectively too ignorant to recognize a refractor field when they saw one. Nor did they have anything to do with the head of the Officio Assassinorium going ape-gak and slaughtering the High Lords of Terra. The list goes on. Mankind *in general* kind of sucks at the whole loyalty thing, and that's been a constant throughout all of 40K. If your criteria for "who deserves trust" is "Who's never rebelled against the Imperium", the answer is "no one".

Furthermore, the idea that "50% of the legions went rogue" is false. The Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, Word Bearers, World Eaters and Death Guard had to purge massive numbers of their ranks on Isstvan (or earlier inthe WB's case) due to them being loyalists. So considering that most of the traitor legions were barely above half strength post-Isstvan, and considering that most of the biggest legions remained loyal, you're looking at something closer to barely a third of the astartes actually going traitor. The rest either stayed with the Emperor, or died before they could make the choice.

- - - - -

I believe that the Legions should have remained legions, perhaps not of the same size that they were pre-heresy, but certainly larger than the measily 1000. Splitting them up into tiny, impotent chapters has done nothing good for the Imperium this far, and we've seen from the Red Corsairs how pointless an idea it is anyway. The legions did not do as much damage to the Imperium as they did because "ermahgawd that's a lot of space marines in one place". They did as much damage as they did because they controlled *everything*. There was zero checks in balances between them, the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum. Thus, when Horus went traitor everything else went to hell. Post-Heresy, a legion does not need that much control, though. You can give a space marine chapter 50,000 men, but without support from the Mechanicus, the Guard and the Navy, all of which are separate but equal entities within the Imperium(well, Mechanicum not so much, but you get the idea), a legion of that size turning traitor isn't getting far.

On the other hand, a legion or two of that size could beat the gak out of Leviathan, or Gazzy, and that's exactly what the Imperium needs right now.

I think that one of the main things that many people in this thread are getting incorrect is the effectiveness of the legions and in fact the greater Imperium post-heresy.

9 of the 18 legion turned traitor, so that is fully half of the space marines gone. Then, the Raven Guard and Salamanders were all but destroyed at Istvann, leaving 7 functioning legions left. The Iron hands also lost all of their veterans and their primarch, so about 6.5 legion sized forces remaining.

The Ultramarines lost about half of their numbers to the Word Bearers and the World Eaters, making it about 6 legions left. The Fists lost the vast majority of their numbers in the siege of Terra and in the Iron Cage, the Dark Angels were relatively unscathed, but the Blood Angels took massive losses at Signus Prime and at the Siege of Terra, and they lost their primarch. There is not much info on the White Scars, but it is safe to assume that a large number of them were lost, and the wolves took some losses at Prospero, but otherwise were fine. After all of these casualties, there would have been about at most a third of the number of loyal astartes post heresy that there was pre-heresy. With all of these losses, and the huge task of cleaning up the mess that the Imperium had become, the system of using astartes as the main fighting force as the Imperium was impractical to say the least.

In addition to the massive Astartes losses, fully half of the mechanicum turned traitor, and the remaining loyal mechanicus had been devastated by the heresy. The army had lost an insane amount of men, and needed a new system for it to be succesful, and the Navy had also taken massive losses. Without reforms, the Imperium would have been destroyed.

Without the Codex Astartes, the Imperium would have been all but lost, as the Imperial Army was not used to fighting the sort of conflicts that were demanded of it. Guilliman's reforms may not have been popular, but they were necessary.

In addition, the people suggesting that if the Imperium had kept the legion system, they could start the great crusade are simply wrong. The Imperium did not have the manpower to start crusading again.

At the end of the heresy, the Imperium needed strong leadership. It was in disarray, with many primarchs almost fighting over who would take the top job. Many of the primarchs wanted to go straight back to conquering, but Guilliman stood up and imposed a sense of order.

In addition, the codex astartes was a much more stable method and is much better at preventing large betrayals.

TLDR; Guilliman was right

The expression is "seconds in command."

One thousand is an important number.

easysauce wrote:
But with not telling the primarchs about the dangers of chaos, or warning pertarbo about the warp gate (so he would know better then to contact the big E and cause that big issue when he did)

Magnus (I assume you meant him) caused that big issue because he wanted to prove himself right and the Emperor wrong. While telling him about the Webway expedition may have caused him to err on the side of caution and instead use conventional methods to message him, the problem only came about because he was willing to disobey the Emperor mainly to prove a point. Magnus' arrogance caused that situation, not the Emperor not telling him about something he didn't need to know about.

The only Primarch I think might have stayed loyal if forewarned was Fulgrim, and even then I suspect his pride was such that he wouldn't look to himself for fault.

but when you know some of the dangers, why not tell the super soldiers that they might have to kill daemons and look out for chaos corruption.

Was it necessary? They could kill Daemons regardless of knowing what exactly they are. Any Chaos corruption was very well hidden within the Legions. Giving them a few pointers probably wouldn't have helped. Although it may caused people to look at Curze and Angron a bit more suspiciously.

maybe we would have had more loyalists if they knew exactly what chaos was before they encountered it?

Maybe. Maybe they would have had less. Maybe it would have been exactly the same.

but actively hiding knowledge of a danger and how to properly counter it, what good does that do?

How do you properly counter Chaos? All the Primarchs had to do was trust the Emperor and follow him, but instead the Traitors thought they knew better. Lorgar would have embraced it regardless (and perhaps even earlier). Horus assumed he could master it.

Traejun wrote: Perhaps if Horus had known about Chaos, he would have seen what was happening. Or, perhaps, one of the other primarchs would have.

Horus was told about Chaos, to a degree at least. It just so happened that he sided with it. Even if another Primarch grew suspicious it's exceedingly unlikely that anything would have been done about it. The Emperor seems to have assumed that they would never turn against him. Why would the other Primarchs?

Shlazaor wrote:Do you think with Inquisition now that bigger legions would be more manageable than chapters and could be policed so that the worry off mass betrayal was minimized considerably?

No. The Legions would likely grow more insular. They'd reject the idea of some Inquisitor coming in and accusing their brothers of turning to Chaos. The situation would consistently require a lot of finesse lest the Legions turn against the Inquistion.

Eetion wrote: Wheras a Legion only needs to pick the message up once, and they could deploy 5, 10, 15000 marines, the legions do not need to be spread in one big smear but at strategicly vital locatiions and deploy accordingly.

That would only be the case if the Legion had 15000 Space Marines in one position doing nothing, which is incredibly unlikely.

The size of 40k Chapters and number is irrelevant. That's 10'000 years of growth.

The size is relevant. It's the High Lords of Terra who decide on the numbers of Astartes through the number of Chapters. The reasonable assumption is that the 9 remaining Legions would only have a similar number of Space Marines. Which means they'd be stretched just as thin.

Not to mention had they had Legiuons still both Dorn and Guilleman may still be allive. Dorn would have a number of Legion ships and may have not have needed to board the chaos cruiser where he died. Guiilleman may not have died to fulgrim if he had 7000 instead of just 1.

Unlikely. The Legion ships would still have been split up to fight different battles. The Legions generally gather all their forces together. Besides, Dorn and Guilliman could both call on other Chapters. Those from the Imperial Fists would still obey Dorn's orders. Guilliman apparently brought the full (or at least, considerable) might of the Ultramarines against the Night Lords and scattered their Legion. Basically, they'd still be in the same positions which led to their loss.

In the cases of conflicts such as Armageddon. A legion might be able to deploy 10000 simultaneously rather than 1000 marines here 500 there 100 there

Only if they have the equivalent of 10 Chapters nearby and not doing much. Which leaves other areas of the Imperium that much more vulnerable. Concentrating their forces leaves other areas with less defences. So either the Imperium loses siginificant amounts of territory for the sake of defending certain areas or the Legions would be spread just as thin and in the same position.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
Why the hell should they know?

Because not revealing your plans and what you want accomplished from your second in commands is bad management?

I've known Burger King managers who could have done a better job managing the Imperium than the Emperor.

So why doesn't the government tell us about all the very secret weapons projects they are working on?

We have already had this convo before and as usual you have ignored what I've said before and just go on praising Magnus.

easysauce wrote:


that the primarchs were flawed to begin with is the emperors fault, as is his assumption that they were immune to chaos and his assumption that warning them about chaos wouldnt help them.

They were flawed cause they are living, breathing people with personalities that grew up and were raised not by the Emp but on other worlds and by other people. Humans are also flawed if you remember?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:


The only Primarch I think might have stayed loyal if forewarned was Fulgrim, and even then I suspect his pride was such that he wouldn't look to himself for fault.

Fulgrim was forewarned, it might have been by a Xenos, but he did have the heads up.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:


The only Primarch I think might have stayed loyal if forewarned was Fulgrim, and even then I suspect his pride was such that he wouldn't look to himself for fault.

Fulgrim was forewarned, it might have been by a Xenos, but he did have the heads up.

Eldrad IIRC. Warning was useless cause Fulgrim already had the daemon sword.

Off-topic :
Stupid aunt has got me downloading more music and movies for her thus why I'm online right now.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Eldrad IIRC. Warning was useless cause Fulgrim already had the daemon sword.

How does that make a difference, he was still acting under his own steam here and didn't suspect the magical talking sword of being anything other than his conscious.

He still chose to ignore the warning, and when it came down to it, went along with Horus even though he had been warned of the treachery beforehand.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Eldrad IIRC. Warning was useless cause Fulgrim already had the daemon sword.

How does that make a difference, he was still acting under his own steam here and didn't suspect the magical talking sword of being anything other than his conscious.

He still chose to ignore the warning, and when it came down to it, went along with Horus even though he had been warned of the treachery beforehand.

The sword was influencing him plus his brotherly love thing made the warning useless which is what I said.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
So why doesn't the government tell us about all the very secret weapons projects they are working on?

We have already had this convo before and as usual you have ignored what I've said before and just go on praising Magnus.

Oh I'm sorry, are we the second in command to the president of the United States? No, we're not, therefore your analogy is worthless. I'm not saying the Emperor should have been completely straight with random Imperial citizen number 2,535,395. But his Primarchs? Yes.

I didn't mention Magnus. At all. You might want to calm down, and rethink your argument.

 reddwarf54 wrote:


9 of the 18 legion turned traitor, so that is fully half of the space marines gone.

This is empirically wrong. Read above.

 reddwarf54 wrote:

Without the Codex Astartes, the Imperium would have been all but lost, as the Imperial Army was not used to fighting the sort of conflicts that were demanded of it. Guilliman's reforms may not have been popular, but they were necessary.

This is a non-sequitier. How did the Codex Astartes breaking up the legions into chapters allow them to more effectively fight the threats in the galaxy?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
Why the hell should they know?

Because not revealing your plans and what you want accomplished from your second in commands is bad management?

I've known Burger King managers who could have done a better job managing the Imperium than the Emperor.

So why doesn't the government tell us about all the very secret weapons projects they are working on?

We have already had this convo before and as usual you have ignored what I've said before and just go on praising Magnus.

easysauce wrote:


that the primarchs were flawed to begin with is the emperors fault, as is his assumption that they were immune to chaos and his assumption that warning them about chaos wouldnt help them.

They were flawed cause they are living, breathing people with personalities that grew up and were raised not by the Emp but on other worlds and by other people. Humans are also flawed if you remember?

We may not know. But I bet the high ranking officials at the Pentagon/moD are aware.

Chapters allow the Imperium to deploy small numbers of marines almost anywhere, they assist the imperial Guard, in victory or defeat.
What they don't allow, is for ease of unification and command structure, multiple autonomous units are more unwieldy than a single disciplined (in some cases) body.

A legion will not fight those small battles. They will identify their main target, and crush it with overwhelming force. Be it a Hive fleet dominatrix, Gazzy, or whatever. They will assault and crush whatever they wish, virtually nothing in the Galaxy can withstand a coordinated Legion assault. How many chapters could do a drop like that and stand a realistic chance of winning.

By removing the Legions from play it removes that tactic from the Imperial Play book.
After all it boils down to this. A Legion can send out a detachment for a smaller fight or all at once to lay to crush a serios threat.
A chapter cannot, without help from hopefully nearby chapters that also picked up the call for aid.

I'd side with Dorn of course because if the emperor suddenly jumped off his GT all better, he would then witch slap the high lords of terra yelling "wtf did you do to my legions!"

We may not know. But I bet the high ranking officials at the Pentagon/moD are aware.

Chapters allow the Imperium to deploy small numbers of marines almost anywhere, they assist the imperial Guard, in victory or defeat.
What they don't allow, is for ease of unification and command structure, multiple autonomous units are more unwieldy than a single disciplined (in some cases) body.

A legion will not fight those small battles. They will identify their main target, and crush it with overwhelming force. Be it a Hive fleet dominatrix, Gazzy, or whatever. They will assault and crush whatever they wish, virtually nothing in the Galaxy can withstand a coordinated Legion assault. How many chapters could do a drop like that and stand a realistic chance of winning.

By removing the Legions from play it removes that tactic from the Imperial Play book.
After all it boils down to this. A Legion can send out a detachment for a smaller fight or all at once to lay to crush a serios threat.
A chapter cannot, without help from hopefully nearby chapters that also picked up the call for aid.

This, let us not forget that ANYTHING a Chapter can do, a Legion can do for one simple reason. Legions still have Chapters in them. Legions are made up of chapters that can be sent out by themselves.

You loose nothing by going with a Legion.
With a Chapter you lose unified command when fighting in a massive warzone and issues of refusal to follow orders.

 chapgrimaldus wrote:
I'd side with Dorn of course because if the emperor suddenly jumped off his GT all better, he would then witch slap the high lords of terra yelling "wtf did you do to my legions!"

More likely he'd be "I'm surprised any of you bastards are still alive, haven't you gotten yourselves killed yet?"

 Galdos wrote:
You loose nothing by going with a Legion.

You lose control over it, because inevitably the legion is given to an emotionally immature and easily manipulated idiot.

You know, like the primarchs.

Well it should be the method of observation and oversight that needed addressing and not the structure of the Legion.

By having larger Legions you have a larger pool of individuals to consider for 'legion commander' thus a higher possibility of exceptional individuals for command.

By having chapters the imperium would have to monitor a 1000 chapter masters for corruption.
By having legions you only have to monitor 9 commanders, and ensure purity checks are monitored.

The cynic in me believes the guillemans codex and chapter afvocation was based on 1 reason.

Legions are responsible for their own recruitment, thus influence is evenly spread.

Chapters are founded and by 'coincidence' are RG gene seed is the most used by a significant margin, despite some illustrious history of other Legions.

A larger legion results in more tithed gene seed, resulting in an increased likelihood of further chapters being of that gene seed.
Given the size of the UM being the largest legion post heresy and pre codex. What he esdsentially did was cap the recruitment and recovery of the other legions, and swung the balance o influence firmly in the favor of the UM legion being the largest legion for the production of further chapter.

The question is why, I personally believe RG was maneuvering the situation to increase his own influence in essentially a sudden power vacuum following the emperors 'death' malcadors gone and Dorn was discreditted for his resistance to the Codex who was the natural 3rd choice following his heroics in holding the enemy from terra. Dorn was out consolidating the imperium assaulting Traitor forces while RG institued the changes and seeking support for them.

It is my personal belief the RG was seeking to improve his own influence, with a view to Leadership, and the codex was politically minded and not military minded.

Having read all of the Gaunts Ghosts books, I'm left wondering what we humans need Space Marines for at all!

Ive always thought the whole 40k universe underestimates normal physically fit fighting age humans.

I mean, sure I'm sentimental about Space Marines because they are awesome, but if you take that petty emotion out of the picture, aren't we better off without them?

Seriously, humans breed like rats, and 500 humans with baseball bats could kill a space marine, a tyranid warrior, a necron.

If there are up to 300 billion on single hive worlds, we must number in the trillions/quadrillions.. I'd just virus bomb all the marines to save us all the trouble if they rebel, thus depriving all the traitors of gene seed to thieve, and then force every 18 year old adult to do 2 years of harsh military training, give everyone a las-gun and tell every planet to batten down the hatches!

 Melissia wrote:
You lose control over it, because inevitably the legion is given to an emotionally immature and easily manipulated idiot.

You know, like the primarchs.

Name ways the loyalist Primarchs were emotionally immature and easily manipulated idiots.

Not that your point isn't nonsensical I mean. The Primarchs have not been around for thousands of years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mattyrm wrote:
Having read all of the Gaunts Ghosts books, I'm left wondering what we humans need Space Marines for at all!

Ive always thought the whole 40k universe underestimates normal physically fit fighting age humans.

I mean, sure I'm sentimental about Space Marines because they are awesome, but if you take that petty emotion out of the picture, aren't we better off without them?

Seriously, humans breed like rats, and 500 humans with baseball bats could kill a space marine, a tyranid warrior, a necron.

If there are up to 300 billion on single hive worlds, we must number in the trillions/quadrillions.. I'd just virus bomb all the marines to save us all the trouble if they rebel, thus depriving all the traitors of gene seed to thieve, and then force every 18 year old adult to do 2 years of harsh military training, give everyone a las-gun and tell every planet to batten down the hatches!

500 humans with baseball bats couldn't even penetrate the armour of those you named.

 Void__Dragon wrote:


500 humans with baseball bats couldn't even penetrate the armour of those you named.

I think you underestimate the power of a mob.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:


500 humans with baseball bats couldn't even penetrate the armour of those you named.

I think you underestimate the power of a mob.

And I think you underestimate 500kg of ceremite, muscle, and grit, armed with assault weaponry that detonates inside you with strength enough to toss a small car over with contemptuous ease.

But this is all besides the point.

Its not going to be 1 space marine. It will be a few dozen, dropped down in a rapid assault, to slaughter everything in their path, and then withdraw and repeat.
A case of absolute overwhelming forc decimating 500. Destroying their command structure, and assets.

Don't confuse Spacemarines with guardsmen. You can achieve with 100 marines what you might not be able to do with a regiment or 2.