Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

You're missing the difference between it being unlikely to get through the armor and it being impossible to get through the armor.

 Melissia wrote:
You're missing the difference between it being unlikely to get through the armor and it being impossible to get through the armor.

It was in my criteria, constantly melissia. I doubt any thinking human or marine is going to stand there long enough for one to penetrate. I consider extremely unlikely good enough and have made mention of this.
Worth mentioning Joan of Arc used her sword to chase prostitutes out of camps. I can't stop laughing at the thought of a saint doing this

I think one space marine is worth a thousand guardsman, but not because of brute force. If you read over all the different organs implanted in a space marine, and what each of them do you can see space marines are designed to be an ultimate combat machine. One space marine will probably be in a hundred battles by the time he graduates from a scout to a space marine. Then he'll probably be in hundreds, and hundreds of other battles. The point is they don't often get into situations they aren't prepared for. As someone said they can run at car speeds so shooting them isn't going to be easy. They can chew up, and eat anything including metal from what I've read.

Then they have ten thousand years of battle experience, and knowing what to do to win. Coupled with as many have stated much harder standards to become a space marine than there were before indicating that the ones today are tougher than the ones of the 30th century. I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.

My point is their tactics, bodies, and minds are far far more tuned for battle than that of a standard human with a flak jacket and a lasgun like me, and you with far less combat, and survival training than say a member of a current military.

Then they have their 1v1 capability because of all those organs. How does a space marine fair against a terminator from the movies? How does he fair against spider-man? Their worth isn't defined in their ability to charge blindly into combat(though it seems like they sometimes think it is from the fluff).

Just my opinion from the stuff I've read.

Niexist wrote:
I think one space marine is worth a thousand guardsman, but not because of brute force. If you read over all the different organs implanted in a space marine, and what each of them do you can see space marines are designed to be an ultimate combat machine. One space marine will probably be in a hundred battles by the time he graduates from a scout to a space marine. Then he'll probably be in hundreds, and hundreds of other battles. The point is they don't often get into situations they aren't prepared for. As someone said they can run at car speeds so shooting them isn't going to be easy. They can chew up, and eat anything including metal from what I've read.

Then they have ten thousand years of battle experience, and knowing what to do to win. Coupled with as many have stated much harder standards to become a space marine than there were before indicating that the ones today are tougher than the ones of the 30th century. I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.

My point is their tactics, bodies, and minds are far far more tuned for battle than that of a standard human with a flak jacket and a lasgun like me, and you with far less combat, and survival training than say a member of a current military.

Then they have their 1v1 capability because of all those organs. How does a space marine fair against a terminator from the movies? How does he fair against spider-man? Their worth isn't defined in their ability to charge blindly into combat(though it seems like they sometimes think it is from the fluff).

Just my opinion from the stuff I've read.

This is what I said. They're worth a thousand guardsmen over their lifetimes.

A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.

Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.

That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.

I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.

The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.

xruslanx wrote:
A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.

Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.

That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.

I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.

The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.

and then look at that the emperor has consumed 10,000 humans a day, which were for the most part fully grown, which is what about 36 billion or 365 billion I'm not sure. That's a lot of calories!!

Niexist wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.

Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.

That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.

I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.

The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.

and then look at that the emperor has consumed 10,000 humans a day, which were for the most part fully grown, which is what about 36 billion or 365 billion I'm not sure. That's a lot of calories!!

I'm probably off on this but if you stuck a bus filled to the brim with mildly healthy food that's about the amount we're talking.

It's kind of amusing that everyone is arguing about whether or not lasguns can penetrate marine armor when you can get enough krak missiles to arm an entire regiment of guardsmen for the cost of a single marine. So what if you can resist lasgun fire, you're getting shot at by guided anti-tank missiles that will kill you in one shot.

Niexist wrote:
I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.

That would be the stupid way to do it. Why sneak up with a frag grenade when you can pull out your convenient radio, call in an air/artillery strike, and kill everyone from a safe distance? And hey, you don't even need a marine for that. You only need the marine if you need to make a propaganda film about the heroic warrior-monks sneaking in and swordfighting everything.

Also, citation for 60mph running speed, because that's just ing stupid.

xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.

Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.

That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.

I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.

The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.

Nice post. Though keep in mind in a galactic scale empire the calories from food is essentially waste energy from a star that most likely could not be used more efficiently due to the widely ranging educational and productive level of the planet populaces. Also shipping food from 1 planet to another would use more energy than the food contains. Additionally you are looking at what is essentially a very very wealthy and important place when you talk about the UK as compared to a death world or hiveworld in 40K. Most of these people probably don't know what fresh food is and just east what they manage to get the mits on. In other words take the price of food in the UK (£1460 for 1 year, keep in mind you only NEED ~1500 calories) versus the price of food in a 3rd world country (£23 for 1 year) and make that difference (1.5%) a factor of a million greater. You will see that people are worth very little in terms of gbp when metals are so much rarer than carbon and solar energy, in a galactic sense.

Peregrine wrote:It's kind of amusing that everyone is arguing about whether or not lasguns can penetrate marine armor when you can get enough krak missiles to arm an entire regiment of guardsmen for the cost of a single marine. So what if you can resist lasgun fire, you're getting shot at by guided anti-tank missiles that will kill you in one shot.

Niexist wrote:
I'm not saying that one space marine against one hundred guardsman is going to win, but say 3 or 4 space marines who are camoflouged, and sneak up on unsuspecting guardsman, detonate a frag grenade in the middle of them while sleeping, then run around at 60 mph shooting the guardsman who are in a panic before clearing out the few survivors with chainswords and other melee weapons.

That would be the stupid way to do it. Why sneak up with a frag grenade when you can pull out your convenient radio, call in an air/artillery strike, and kill everyone from a safe distance? And hey, you don't even need a marine for that. You only need the marine if you need to make a propaganda film about the heroic warrior-monks sneaking in and swordfighting everything.

Also, citation for 60mph running speed, because that's just ing stupid.

To be fair they would make good ship to ship boarding parties as compared to IG. I do agree that in open warfare they are totally outmatched by a leman russ or vendetta.


BTW
Dragonskin was great at stopping bullets fired directly at it with no angle. If you fired a bullet from below the target (ie the soldier is on a roof and shot at from a street) the armour was penetrated every time from the first shot. If the armour was dropped the plates would come loose or shift and the armour would quickly lose its bullet stopping power. If the armour was heated to >120 degrees Fahrenheit (ie the temp soldiers spend a great deal of convoy time at) the plates in the armour would lose adhesion and fall down causing the armour to be 29 Ibs of useless metal in a bag. The armour was great at stopping bullets in a lab but useless in the real world. Checkout any of the senate or army response after NBC's report. Either way this has nothing to do with 40K but is instead a discussion of armour design.

 ansacs wrote:

xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.

Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.

That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.

I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.

The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.

Nice post. Though keep in mind in a galactic scale empire the calories from food is essentially waste energy from a star that most likely could not be used more efficiently due to the widely ranging educational and productive level of the planet populaces. Also shipping food from 1 planet to another would use more energy than the food contains. Additionally you are looking at what is essentially a very very wealthy and important place when you talk about the UK as compared to a death world or hiveworld in 40K. Most of these people probably don't know what fresh food is and just east what they manage to get the mits on. In other words take the price of food in the UK (£1460 for 1 year, keep in mind you only NEED ~1500 calories) versus the price of food in a 3rd world country (£23 for 1 year) and make that difference (1.5%) a factor of a million greater. You will see that people are worth very little in terms of gbp when metals are so much rarer than carbon and solar energy, in a galactic sense.

The problem with this is that if you assume a third world price for the production of food, then you have to assume a third world level of production. Clearly the Imperium of Man couldn't operate with the level of technology found in Uganda, it needs factory farming with capital investment. That farm machinery needs some of those precious materials, so do the lorries, space shuttles, logistics, etc. Clearly with such food producing infrastructure, price comparisons should be made with more advanced nations than subsidence farming nations.

xruslanx wrote:

 ansacs wrote:

xruslanx wrote:A human life is not worthless. A 20 year old man has consumed ~ 13,687,500 calories during his life (2500*365*15, to account for reduced calorie intake as a child). That's 13.6 million calories that could have gone to armament workers, or admin staff, or space marines.

Now let's look at the cost of that food. We have no way of knowing what the productivity of food is in 40k, so let's leave that til later. I can get 1kg of rice from tesco for about £1.50, that'll give our Imperial citizen 1100 calories. But he needs some protein too, so let's add some chicken in at £1.25 for 500g (these are very rough numbers) for a total cost of £2.75 per day, that's excluding the cost of cooking etc.

That number alone gives us a total cost of £20,000 for a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Now add in his schooling (since we can assume most Imperial citizens can read/write to at least a basic level), his healthcare (basic but still there), transport, housing, utilities...you can probably put at least £100,000 on the life of a 20 year old Imperial citizen. Clearly that is a lot more valuable than his gun or body armour.

I think a lot of people are confusing 40k with the real world. Irl when a society is threatened it will throw human lives at the enemy in an attempt to stop it - see the USSR during world war 2. But this only works in the short term, as using manpower so inneficiently will simply mean you run out of bodies - the USSR in 1945 had essentially run out of manpower.

The Imperium of Man has to think of the longterm and cannot simply throw men away en masse. Sure in individual sectors or planets such tactics might be employed, but the entire Imperium of Man is not a giant meatgrinder, it's economically unpheasable.

Nice post. Though keep in mind in a galactic scale empire the calories from food is essentially waste energy from a star that most likely could not be used more efficiently due to the widely ranging educational and productive level of the planet populaces. Also shipping food from 1 planet to another would use more energy than the food contains. Additionally you are looking at what is essentially a very very wealthy and important place when you talk about the UK as compared to a death world or hiveworld in 40K. Most of these people probably don't know what fresh food is and just east what they manage to get the mits on. In other words take the price of food in the UK (£1460 for 1 year, keep in mind you only NEED ~1500 calories) versus the price of food in a 3rd world country (£23 for 1 year) and make that difference (1.5%) a factor of a million greater. You will see that people are worth very little in terms of gbp when metals are so much rarer than carbon and solar energy, in a galactic sense.

The problem with this is that if you assume a third world price for the production of food, then you have to assume a third world level of production. Clearly the Imperium of Man couldn't operate with the level of technology found in Uganda, it needs factory farming with capital investment. That farm machinery needs some of those precious materials, so do the lorries, space shuttles, logistics, etc. Clearly with such food producing infrastructure, price comparisons should be made with more advanced nations than subsidence farming nations.

You would also need to figure in a way of factoring in the Imperiums various methods of recycling human flesh, whether through servitors or even possibly "soylent green"

Can't ... resist ...

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:In a thousand Sons: When a 1k sons captain tests the strength of an demonically possessed Eldar Titan he says "these hands that can rend steel in their palms". He isn't boasting as he actually attempted it.
Ragnar also pulls off the hatch of a Leman Russ so he can toss in a grenade in a SW book.
Lightning Claws are 70 kg and space marines use them like people use rapiers. Brother of the Snake
In Eisenhorn the group is being monitored by a Slaaneshi SM. When they try something he runs through a concrete wall like its not there to get to them.

Oh, you were talking about novels! And here I thought you were referring to Codex fluff instead of your favourite instances of plot armour and superhero legends.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Space Marines live thousands of years without ever weakening, they are supremely superhuman. Is it that hard to understand and accept this?

If you'd actually read GW's own material, you might have noticed they are said to live three times as long as the average Imperial citizen. Or were you aware of that bit and just chose to present exceptions such as the Blood Angels as a standard?

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Space marines are not alone in the fluff to tt nerf. Everyone but imperial guard (puny 'umies) are subject to this to a similar degree as space marines.

Or perhaps you've got it the other way around and it's not a "Fluff to TT nerf", but a "TT to Stories" buff. Why should 40k be different than the real world as far as legends and propaganda are concerned?
This is why I like the unbiased, un-plotarmoured simplicity of a ruleset that just aims to represent all fighting forces in a conflict, rather than a story that just exists because the author wants to tell us how awesome X is.
Or why I prefer general descriptions of how something works as opposed to individual instances that may well be exceptions from the rule.

Matter of taste, though. This being 40k, neither our visions can be "wrong" - I'm just here to clarify that yours is a bit off from what GW's books are saying, as you are apparently trying to justify it with them.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:In a GW source marines take lasgun shots to the head, and only suffer a crack in the black carapace, and a bit of blood loss. You noticed Lynata didn't comment on this? Because that happened in a codex to a raged out standard battle brother.

I didn't comment on it as I saw no need - or rather, have little problem with that. However, you really shouldn't turn a "this Marine shrug off a single hit on his head" into an "every Marine will shrug off every hit to his head", as this would mean you are ignoring a lot of factors such as exact hit location and focus, range (lasguns become less dangerous over distance - as per Codex fluff the blast "dissipates" quickly in atmosphere), or whether or not the Marine has been wounded before or if it's the first hit he takes.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:This is worded in all the codexes so we're supposed to believe they're biologically immortal.

You really need to stop making things up.
#1 This isn't worded anywhere. Absence of evidence is not evidence to the contrary.
#2 Chaplain Cassius is "close to four centuries of age". The SM Codex makes a point of him looking the part. It also establishes Chapter Master Malneus Calgar to be younger than 400 years.
#3 Again, please, read the 6E Rulebook.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:It's ceramite.....

Stop making things up.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Through a helmet......
That's a bit far.
I mean wearing a helmet in real life is enough to stop rifle rounds. With marines they have a lot more to go through than just the helmet.
There's also a MASSIVE difference in resilience of the face with the eyes and nose, and the top of the forehead which was where he got hit.

This isn't "far" by all. It's novel stuff - coincidentally reinforcing the point I was making above, hm? - but it is in line with GW's own material:

The most important element in the construction of a suit of Space Marine power armour is the large ceramite armour plates, which provide the main form of protection against enemy attack. Individual plates of armour can be up to an inch thick, and have a special "honeycomb" design which helps to dissipate energy and localise any damage suffered by the suit. 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.
-2E C:AoD

You'll note how the high end of that range roughly conforms to the chance of a lasgun dropping a Marine in the tabletop. And just to stress it as you seem to apply a great degree of resilience to naked Space Marine skin, this isn't just penetration, this is about injury.

In GW's Inquisitor RPG, a lasgun also has a 16.6% chance to punch through Marine armour (again conforming to the Codex fluff .. could we have a pattern here?) and cause an injury. A Triplex lasgun on higher charge settings will have a better chance.
The only thing a Marine's toughness does in the Inquisitor game is that it lets him take up to 4 of such hits in the head. The first one will stun him a bit, the second makes him move slower, the third causes him to go into system shock. Being a Marine, he'll probably shrug that off, however, so that only the 4th hit will finally drop him.

This is why I like the Inquisitor rules so much better than FFG's - Toughness doesn't render you invulnerable, it just lessens the injuries you do incur, and thus gives your character a chance to soldier on in spite of grievous injuries. Much more realistic, no?

ansacs wrote:Do you think the safety of the process and the recruitment planet state are tied together. ie ultramarines can recruit from civilized worlds as they do not waste thousands of lives to create a SM whereas SW have are creating "wolves" from failures fairly often so a civilized world would have difficulties accepting this?

The actual implantation process is relatively safe - not as good as it used to be, but the failure quota is maybe 1 in 10 or something, though this depends heavily on how good the Chapter managed to preserve the knowledge.

What's more dangerous is how some Chapters choose to test the applicants, as the various different trials may end in deaths amongst the suitable candidates. The nature of these tests (and the risks involved) depends on the individual Chapter - so the Space Marines could recruit more people if they just wanted to, but tradition is often presented as hindrance in 40k, even beyond the SM. That being said, generally they don't appear to have a problem finding new members. Most Chapters are granted recruitment rights to an entire planet of people, and I imagine that the dangers of any tests might well be "tailored" to the percentage of geneseed compatibility amongst its people. If just about everyone can take the implants, as with the Fleshtearers' homeworld, there's no reason why you couldn't impose more dangerous tests on them, as you have a larger pool of applicants to select from.

xruslanx wrote:The problem with this is that if you assume a third world price for the production of food, then you have to assume a third world level of production. Clearly the Imperium of Man couldn't operate with the level of technology found in Uganda, it needs factory farming with capital investment. That farm machinery needs some of those precious materials, so do the lorries, space shuttles, logistics, etc. Clearly with such food producing infrastructure, price comparisons should be made with more advanced nations than subsidence farming nations.

This would be true if the IoM acts like modern day world with reliable, cheap communication to distribute ideas and reliable system to system transport. Instead what 40K has is the guilds and psykers who imperfectly communicate even relatively simple messages and loose ships in the warp for a few years here and there. This is a setting where you can go to one system and have a civilization of monguls and then skip over to another system and everyone and their brother has a valkyrie transport. Clearly the worth of commodities has no way to stabilize between systems and perhaps even worlds within a system.

I will give you a better example then. I have personally been to the UK and I live in the USA. The prices for food in the UK were and seemingly still are (considering your rice example) about 2-3x higher than the USA. This is a comparison of two wealthy advanced nations. Also do you really think farming subsidies actually has a significant effect? I can tell you that in the USA there are some farming subsidy programs and in several African nations there are farming subsidy programs...the prices for food in the USA are >10 times greater.

piprinx wrote:You would also need to figure in a way of factoring in the Imperiums various methods of recycling human flesh, whether through servitors or even possibly "soylent green"

That is so true. We would also have to consider the forced "recycling" performed by some of the planets...aka flesh tearers.

Lynata wrote:The actual implantation process is relatively safe - not as good as it used to be, but the failure quota is maybe 1 in 10 or something, though this depends heavily on how good the Chapter managed to preserve the knowledge.

What's more dangerous is how some Chapters choose to test the applicants, as the various different trials may end in deaths amongst the suitable candidates. The nature of these tests (and the risks involved) depends on the individual Chapter - so the Space Marines could recruit more people if they just wanted to, but tradition is often presented as hindrance in 40k, even beyond the SM. That being said, generally they don't appear to have a problem finding new members. Most Chapters are granted recruitment rights to an entire planet of people, and I imagine that the dangers of any tests might well be "tailored" to the percentage of geneseed compatibility amongst its people. If just about everyone can take the implants, as with the Fleshtearers' homeworld, there's no reason why you couldn't impose more dangerous tests on them, as you have a larger pool of applicants to select from.

I was actually referring to the "process" as a whole from start of SM candidate selection to having a SM. I wonder if the savageness or closeness to violence changes the likelihood of a success. This leading to a more thorough selection process being available for the most savage worlds.

And here I thought you were referring to Codex fluff instead of your favourite instances of plot armour and superhero legends.

Every time a space marine appears he does gak like this. There are far more examples, Some sergeant in armor lifted a very large truck out of the mud one handed. I don't feel like giving any more because I'm finally getting fed up..There was that instance of the marine getting shot with lasgun to to the head with no injuries.

they are said to live three times as long as the average Imperial citizen. Or were you aware of that bit and just chose to present exceptions such as the Blood Angels as a standard?

I don't know where you're getting this. They don't die of old age at all. They get killed on the battlefield. If you look at getting killed on the battlefield than yeah that's their lifespan. But they don't die of old age so by definition they're biologically immortal. How did you not know what I meant?

Or perhaps you've got it the other way around and it's not a "Fluff to TT nerf", but a "TT to Stories" buff. Why should 40k be different than the real world as far as legends and propaganda are concerned?
This is why I like the unbiased, un-plotarmoured simplicity of a ruleset that just aims to represent all fighting forces in a conflict, rather than a story that just exists because the author wants to tell us how awesome X is.
Or why I prefer general descriptions of how something works as opposed to individual instances that may well be exceptions from the rule.

Matter of taste, though. This being 40k, neither our visions can be "wrong" - I'm just here to clarify that yours is a bit off from what GW's books are saying, as you are apparently trying to justify it with them.

Apparently to you mine is.Because you feel the need to see everything demystified (boring and really idiotic) doesn't mean everyone needs too. A lot of the codex stuff is boring compared to FFG and the novels and FFG are just as canon as anything is. I don't know why you don't comprehend this easy concept but whatever.
By your definition of Fluff to TT nerf and Fluff to TT buff it can be seen either way. A single space marine can hold off (and eventually kill) a imperial guard platoon by utilizing fear tactics and picking them up one by one, with precise strikes.
I listed tons of stuff from black library. All sources agree they're much stronger than any normal human can ever hope to be. How much depends on who's writing.

[ didn't comment on it as I saw no need - or rather, have little problem with that. However, you really shouldn't turn a "this Marine shrug off a single hit on his head" into an "every Marine will shrug off every hit to his head", as this would mean you are ignoring a lot of factors such as exact hit location and focus, range (lasguns become less dangerous over distance - as per Codex fluff the blast "dissipates" quickly in atmosphere), or whether or not the Marine has been wounded before or if it's the first hit he takes.

He was a standard battle brother as far as anyone knows. The shot was from (I think and imagine) 50 meters. Obviously another hit to the same part of the head would of at least cracked the skull and likely done more.

You really need to stop making things up.

I was quoting someone else who stated facts leading to my view, and I explained to him what GW intended us to take from this. Chill out, but seriously your misquoting nourishes me.

#1 This isn't worded anywhere. Absence of evidence is not evidence to the contrary.
#2 Chaplain Cassius is "close to four centuries of age". The SM Codex makes a point of him looking the part. It also establishes Chapter Master Malneus Calgar to be younger than 400 years.
#3 Again, please, read the 6E Rulebook

.
I also said "they may look old, but they'll still be stronger than an average battle brother" their muscles never seem to actually weaken and they never seem to suffer any negative consequences of aging.

The most important element in the construction of a suit of Space Marine power armour is the large ceramite armour plates, which provide the main form of protection against enemy attack. Individual plates of armour can be up to an inch thick, and have a special "honeycomb" design which helps to dissipate energy and localise any damage suffered by the suit. 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.
-2E C:AoD

This was back when space marines where only peak human and 7 ft tall instead of 8 ft tall. It's codex history.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Every time a space marine appears he does gak like this.

In most of their novels, sure.

As I said before, I believe general descriptions to be more accurate than individual incidents. That's just a personal interpretation, of course, but I hope I don't need to explain that "official averages" may be a better representation than one-offs. Especially considering Marc Gascogne's statement about legends and myths - even Codex fluff isn't reliable.
This is by no means something that applies only to the Space Marines; they just tend to hog the more epic and legendary feats as it fits the overall theme and their role in the setting. Do I believe that Canoness Aspira liberated a hundred worlds with only a thousand Sisters and no further backup just because that's what history says in the Codex? Nope. But it makes for a nice legend.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I don't know where you're getting this. They don't die of old age at all.

6th Edition rulebook page 181.

"With their genetically enhanced bodies, Space Marines live extended lifetimes - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two or three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Apparently to you mine is.Because you feel the need to see everything demystified (boring and really idiotic) doesn't mean everyone needs too. A lot of the codex stuff is boring compared to FFG and the novels and FFG are just as canon as anything is. I don't know why you don't comprehend this easy concept but whatever.

What concept, exactly? There is no canon - even one of the writers of the novels you like so much pointed that out.

But no, as difficult as it may be due to my personal preferences, I do not regard your vision as "wrong" - just that you are so utterly insistent on it being the only truth. So I am listing counterpoints to build a contradiction and at least help you see that there are other ways to perceive the setting, such as the one I am adhering to.
If you like Black Library epic stories more than GW's "boring" fluff, go ahead and enjoy it, but keep in mind that other sources say different things, and that it is GW's own material on the subject that is still more of a common ground between all of us than individual novels we may fancy.
Also, you may want to enjoy any BL book that does not feature Space Marines as protagonists.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I was quoting someone else who stated facts leading to my view, and I explained to him what GW intended us to take from this. Chill out, but seriously your misquoting nourishes me.

I didn't "misquote" - it was you who wrote that, and it is an exact copy of what you wrote.

If you simply fell victim to another poster's claims, that is of course something I can understand. The same things happen/ed to me, and unfortunately a lot of what gets propagated on dakka and other 40k forums is often just flawed hearsay...

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:This was back when space marines where only peak human and 7 ft tall instead of 8 ft tall. It's codex history.

Nope, 2nd Edition was Space Marines as we know them today. The armour details also never were "retconned" in any later source.
And today's Space Marines are still "only" 7 feet tall - in GW's fluff anyways.

While Lynata is correct in that there is no canon and you are free to draw your own conclusions and view. However, a 40K filled with immortal invulnerable SM means that any discussion involving SM falls apart the second they are capable of going 1000:1 against every enemy and winning. If these examples are taken to their logical conclusion "there is only war" would become "there was travel time punctuated with 5 minutes of a SM chapter conquering the planet, killing a hive fleet, and exterminating the orks".

Also you should read some of the novels from the point of view of the IG or Chaos SM. If you have or do you will quickly realize that these guys kill SM like SM kill cultists and pull off all sorts of super impressive feats. In the HH novels a group of CSM prisoners beats up an entire prison and several custodes. Gaunt has killed more CSM than I have in ~15 years of wargaming...

ansacs wrote:like SM kill cultists

I can't help but remember the outrage on dakka as White Dwarf published that excerpt of a story about a squad of Space Marines being overrun by a bunch of cultists with autoguns and close combat weapons back when some new novel was released.
Goes to back up the point you/we were making, I guess.

Oh! And I just noticed I forgot to reply to your earlier post ...

ansacs wrote:I was actually referring to the "process" as a whole from start of SM candidate selection to having a SM. I wonder if the savageness or closeness to violence changes the likelihood of a success. This leading to a more thorough selection process being available for the most savage worlds.

Gotcha. Well, it is said that a Chapter invariably adopts some things from the culture of the local people - for example, before they were excommunicated and a purge mission was launched against them, the Sons of Malice began to introduce cannibalistic rites into their Chapter traditions. Supposedly this was something they picked up from the people they were recruiting from. Similarly, I could easily see a Chapter adopt tougher and more dangerous tests/trials if that's what the locals do. And needless to say, someone who is already accustomed to savageness and violence will have an easier time facing such challenges.

Whether or not this has any effect on the surgical part of the induction is probably debatable, but in case of the Fleshtearers ... well, their homeworld was described as "rivaling any deathworld known to man", yet of its people, only a small percentage reject the implanted organs. Coincidence, or connected? Might be worth a few thoughts. Here is the relevant Index Astartes entry.

 Lynata wrote:

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Every time a space marine appears he does gak like this.

In most of their novels, sure.

As I said before, I believe general descriptions to be more accurate than individual incidents. That's just a personal interpretation, of course, but I hope I don't need to explain that "official averages" may be a better representation than one-offs. Especially considering Marc Gascogne's statement about legends and myths - even Codex fluff isn't reliable.
This is by no means something that applies only to the Space Marines; they just tend to hog the more epic and legendary feats as it fits the overall theme and their role in the setting. Do I believe that Canoness Aspira liberated a hundred worlds with only a thousand Sisters and no further backup just because that's what history says in the Codex? Nope. But it makes for a nice legend.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I don't know where you're getting this. They don't die of old age at all.

6th Edition rulebook page 181.

"With their genetically enhanced bodies, Space Marines live extended lifetimes - if they do not fall in battle, they can easily live two or three times longer than a normal man, and sometimes far longer."

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:Apparently to you mine is.Because you feel the need to see everything demystified (boring and really idiotic) doesn't mean everyone needs too. A lot of the codex stuff is boring compared to FFG and the novels and FFG are just as canon as anything is. I don't know why you don't comprehend this easy concept but whatever.

What concept, exactly? There is no canon - even one of the writers of the novels you like so much pointed that out.

But no, as difficult as it may be due to my personal preferences, I do not regard your vision as "wrong" - just that you are so utterly insistent on it being the only truth. So I am listing counterpoints to build a contradiction and at least help you see that there are other ways to perceive the setting, such as the one I am adhering to.
If you like Black Library epic stories more than GW's "boring" fluff, go ahead and enjoy it, but keep in mind that other sources say different things, and that it is GW's own material on the subject that is still more of a common ground between all of us than individual novels we may fancy.
Also, you may want to enjoy any BL book that does not feature Space Marines as protagonists.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:I was quoting someone else who stated facts leading to my view, and I explained to him what GW intended us to take from this. Chill out, but seriously your misquoting nourishes me.

I didn't "misquote" - it was you who wrote that, and it is an exact copy of what you wrote.

If you simply fell victim to another poster's claims, that is of course something I can understand. The same things happen/ed to me, and unfortunately a lot of what gets propagated on dakka and other 40k forums is often just flawed hearsay...

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:This was back when space marines where only peak human and 7 ft tall instead of 8 ft tall. It's codex history.

Nope, 2nd Edition was Space Marines as we know them today. The armour details also never were "retconned" in any later source.
And today's Space Marines are still "only" 7 feet tall - in GW's fluff anyways.

No canon means everything is equally canon
That's what I was implying.

We talk like the writers of the fluff are talented writers who understand the genre, and not just guys churning out license fiction at a breakneck pace. Think about how many novels these guys are writing per year. How much effort do you think goes into any individual one? I imagine they aren't getting supremely lucrative book deals.

The author pitches an idea to TBL. TBL okays the idea. The author writes the book as quickly as possible. TBL copyedits it for grammar/spelling/diction errors, and then publishes it. It isn't like if the book sucks they send it back and say "Rewrite these parts." I wouldn't even be surprised if the copyeditors don't even work for TBL and they just outsource it, so the copyeditor doesn't recognize any inconsistencies.

So yeah, sometimes a Space Marine is made out of invincible. Other times he is made out of paper mache. Whatever, write me a check and let me get onto the next book.

Lynata, your views on Canon become more ridiculous every month. Nathanial Garroa is now mentioned in Codex: Chaos Space Marines. So he's canon but the like 3 novels and 5 audiobooks he's in aren't? Ditto on Commissar Gaunt?

Previously GW said The Emperor found about about Horus' betrayal because of the psychic death scream of the murder of Istvaan III. But actually it was Garro's Flight of the Eisenstein. As you can see the only think in 40K that isn't canon is GW's rulebooks and Codexs.

Actually, Garro and Flight of the Eisenstein date back to the rulebook for Space Marine (Epic) in 1989.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:No canon means everything is equally canon.

Yes, that is what I have been saying all the time. Feel free to go back to page 1 where I have explicitly stated this.
I'm sorry, but now I have trouble following you. Why do you feel a need to debate something you supposedly agree on? Or did I say something that made you think I don't?

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Lynata, your views on Canon become more ridiculous every month.

Care to elaborate? I am operating on what the people writing these books are telling us. What about you?

Because seemingly every thread has to have you saying something along the lines of "Oh, you're taking about the novels pffff". You're even aware of it leading in jokingly with "Can't resist:"

How is this in any way inconsistent with what I've been saying about "canon" since page 1?

My opinions on the novels and the contradictions they introduce should be widely known by now, and is it really that far-fetched to point out that it is quite normal for novels to have "plot armour" for their protagonists, thereby almost being expected to have them appear much more heroic than other sources of fluff make them out to be?

Me ridiculing various licensed products does not change anything about my "views on canon", so I don't see how the latter would supposedly have changed somehow.

Your views haven't changed that's the problem.

Then I don't see how they could have become "more ridiculous".

What I regard as "the problem" is the insistence on way too many people to treat the various sources as if they would indeed add to a single greater whole, expecting consistency and hard facts, rather than acknowledging the "manual" of how they are to be used, as provided by the various authors.

Except even the GW published material has just as many inconsistencies. You're just forgiving of them.

 Lynata wrote:
How is this in any way inconsistent with what I've been saying about "canon" since page 1?

My opinions on the novels and the contradictions they introduce should be widely known by now, and is it really that far-fetched to point out that it is quite normal for novels to have "plot armour" for their protagonists, thereby almost being expected to have them appear much more heroic than other sources of fluff make them out to be?

Me ridiculing various licensed products does not change anything about my "views on canon", so I don't see how the latter would supposedly have changed somehow.

You constantly look at the novels like they're less canon. You're not at all consistent. The novels are simply meant to expand even if you think they're silly. ( It's fantasy, it's not )

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Except even the GW published material has just as many inconsistencies. You're just forgiving of them.

I disagree. The licensed material has many more inconsistencies simply on the basis that you have way more people writing on them.
The more authors you add, all with their own ideas, and - unlike with GW - generally not discussed in a fixed team - the more individual interpretations you'll get.
Sure there have been changes and even mistakes in GW's own material, but to say they have been as numerous as the contradictions between BL novels is an exaggeration that does not hold up to the simple fact that more people equals more visions.

TheSaintofKilllers wrote:You constantly look at the novels like they're less canon. You're not at all consistent. The novels are simply meant to expand even if you think they're silly. ( It's fantasy, it's not )

I apologise if my posts somehow came across like that; this was not my intention. It merely grinds my gears when people attempt to use those novels as "evidence" to override something that my preferred material (GW's own writings) is saying.

This is why - contrary to the majority of people engaging in debates like these - many of my posts have me pointing out the differences between the sources by specifically referring to the contradiction (e.g. "Your book may say that, but in GW's fluff [...]") rather than just waltzing in and consistently claiming "this is how it is, end of story". Again I refer you to page 1 where I posted one such disclaimer. Perhaps you've missed it.

 ansacs wrote:

This would be true if the IoM acts like modern day world with reliable, cheap communication to distribute ideas and reliable system to system transport. Instead what 40K has is the guilds and psykers who imperfectly communicate even relatively simple messages and loose ships in the warp for a few years here and there. This is a setting where you can go to one system and have a civilization of monguls and then skip over to another system and everyone and their brother has a valkyrie transport. Clearly the worth of commodities has no way to stabilize between systems and perhaps even worlds within a system.

I will give you a better example then. I have personally been to the UK and I live in the USA. The prices for food in the UK were and seemingly still are (considering your rice example) about 2-3x higher than the USA. This is a comparison of two wealthy advanced nations. Also do you really think farming subsidies actually has a significant effect? I can tell you that in the USA there are some farming subsidy programs and in several African nations there are farming subsidy programs...the prices for food in the USA are >10 times greater.

There are plenty of factors that go into the price of food, agricultural subsidies are just one of them. Regardless though, inbuilt in the cost of food is the cost of capital investment - American farmers still need to buy tractors, petrol for those tractors, fertiliser, paying farmhands, paying the engineer to come fix those tractors, painting the fence, etc. Similarly in the Imperium, food produced at any decent scale would require both capital and labour, which didn't just spring up out of nowhere. They would have to be paid for out of the cost of food, we can therefore say that food does indeed have value within the Imperium, just as it does in the real world. I'm sure it would vary from system to system, but that doesn't change the fundamentals of my argument - that human beings, by virtue of existing, represent substantial capital investment, so the statement "human life has no value in the Imperium of Man" is untrue.

Not that human life is still worth *less* than some things. Certainly a Leman Russ would probably be worth a hundred or so men, and a space marine maybe twice as much. But they're still not worthless, and certainly worth - in every sense of the word - more than their lasgun/equipment.