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I think the description of the plasma weapons being "hotter than a star" is artistic license, and the fact that BL authors are writers, not scientists, and do not realize that having something that shot something that hot would kill everyone on the battlefield, and beyond.

Remember, the IG often packs plasma weapons, too, as do many Inquisitors. It cannot be explained that the Power Armor is what keeps the Marines from dying from it.

The only thing that might keep the SM around is the fact that we have zero defense against the Librarians. We don't have psychic powers or magic in the real world, so suddenly some seven-foot giant that can shoot lightning out of his eyes and tear a tank apart with his bare hands is going to give a lot of groups pause.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Oh man they'd get removed from existance so quickly its not even funny.

Except if they're mid end or the high end. In which case we're hurt bad or all life on Earth is killed off. We could only deal with low end Astartes fairly reasonably. Anything else and we either are crippled or are vaporized.

Well, I doubt a plasma pistol shoot far enough to both ignite the Earth's atmosphere and spare the shooter. Otherwise my mental representation of the tabletop scale was quite wrong...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
The only thing that might keep the SM around is the fact that we have zero defense against the Librarians. We don't have psychic powers or magic in the real world, so suddenly some seven-foot giant that can shoot lightning out of his eyes and tear a tank apart with his bare hands is going to give a lot of groups pause.

Psykers would have an incredible effect on our moral, but if there's only one, I imagine it wouldn't take more than a few seconds to reduce him to a pile of ashes.

Without void warfare superiority and teleportation technology, Space Marines are just steroided machomen in fancy, mostly brightly coloured armour. A single spore pod landing safely on Earth would have more dire consequences for humanity than an entire Chapter (without the fleets).

 Psienesis wrote:
I think the description of the plasma weapons being "hotter than a star" is artistic license, and the fact that BL authors are writers, not scientists, and do not realize that having something that shot something that hot would kill everyone on the battlefield, and beyond.

Remember, the IG often packs plasma weapons, too, as do many Inquisitors. It cannot be explained that the Power Armor is what keeps the Marines from dying from it.

The only thing that might keep the SM around is the fact that we have zero defense against the Librarians. We don't have psychic powers or magic in the real world, so suddenly some seven-foot giant that can shoot lightning out of his eyes and tear a tank apart with his bare hands is going to give a lot of groups pause.

No, this is the hilarious world of calcs and yields for fictional worlds, as it's everyone's game. The reason why everyone isn't vaporized by plasma weaponry (including Imperial citizens) is because everyone in W40K is superhuman akin almost to Kryptonians and just with naked skin, can survive exposure to temperatures in excess of fifteen million Kelvins so long as they do not make direct contact with the source of the heat. And space marines are superhuman teleporting ninjas able to dodge instantaneous-beam weaponry via moving at faster-than-light speeds.

And then there's low end marines that go down to hordes of angry peasants with pitchforks.

W40k is delicious for it's most ludicrous occurrences.

Imperial Guard are *roughly* equivalent to our current military, minus the energy weapons.

There is no reason to think that 1000 space marines and their equipment would fare any better against the U.S. Military than they would against an equivalent size IG unit.

1000 marines die to 5.56x45 and .50 BMG just as easily as they do to Autoguns and Heavy Bolters.

Heavy stubber is .50, a heavy bolter is bigger, but that's what 40mm grenade launchers are for.

Q_Arkhan wrote:
Imperial Guard are *roughly* equivalent to our current military, minus the energy weapons.

There is no reason to think that 1000 space marines and their equipment would fare any better against the U.S. Military than they would against an equivalent size IG unit.

1000 marines die to 5.56x45 and .50 BMG just as easily as they do to Autoguns and Heavy Bolters.

Lolwut? No they don't. Modern ammunition will ping harmlessly off their armor. Even if they get shot by modern firearms, naked they'll still survive. The Imperial Guard are vastly more advanced than us, a good point would be tanks like the Baneblade being able to take what's equal to a nuke in firepower directly to the armor and launched it a hundred feet into the air.... with no damage. And lasguns are vastly more effective than modern weapons.

It doesn't help either that depending on the yields, the Space Marines might laugh off nukes. Taken directly to their face. Because anything and everything is possible. Mid end marines however wouldn't even be phased by modern small arms fire, not even .50 BMG would do anything unless we suddenly have admantanium bullets. The only things that might start to be capable of harming them are heavy cannons, but it certainly doesn't help us that their small arms fire has accuracy well over a kilometer and will probably penetrate our armor. The only thing that we have that might be effective at all are missiles and high-altitude bombers.

What really hurts is how they have a Librarian, who is likely quite able to mindfeth global leaders into his puppets.

As for Bolters, base bolters used by Astartes tactical squads are .75 caliber mass-reactive rocket propelled rounds. Their real lethality however comes from their admantanium tips, which is why they can penetrate power armor. 40mm frags however are likely just going to tickle them.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Q_Arkhan wrote:
Imperial Guard are *roughly* equivalent to our current military, minus the energy weapons.

There is no reason to think that 1000 space marines and their equipment would fare any better against the U.S. Military than they would against an equivalent size IG unit.

1000 marines die to 5.56x45 and .50 BMG just as easily as they do to Autoguns and Heavy Bolters.

Lolwut? No they don't. Modern ammunition will ping harmlessly off their armor. Even if they get shot by modern firearms, naked they'll still survive. The Imperial Guard are vastly more advanced than us, a good point would be tanks like the Baneblade being able to take what's equal to a nuke in firepower directly to the armor and launched it a hundred feet into the air.... with no damage. And lasguns are vastly more effective than modern weapons.

It doesn't help either that depending on the yields, the Space Marines might laugh off nukes. Taken directly to their face. Because anything and everything is possible. Mid end marines however wouldn't even be phased by modern small arms fire, not even .50 BMG would do anything unless we suddenly have admantanium bullets. The only things that might start to be capable of harming them are heavy cannons, but it certainly doesn't help us that their small arms fire has accuracy well over a kilometer and will probably penetrate our armor. The only thing that we have that might be effective at all are missiles and high-altitude bombers.

What really hurts is how they have a Librarian, who is likely quite able to mindfeth global leaders into his puppets.

As for Bolters, base bolters used by Astartes tactical squads are .75 caliber mass-reactive rocket propelled rounds. Their real lethality however comes from their admantanium tips, which is why they can penetrate power armor. 40mm frags however are likely just going to tickle them.

Given that a root applied with a few hundred pounds of pressure can and has been used to strangle a Marine, I think you overstate the resilience of Astartes epidermis.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Q_Arkhan wrote:
Imperial Guard are *roughly* equivalent to our current military, minus the energy weapons.

There is no reason to think that 1000 space marines and their equipment would fare any better against the U.S. Military than they would against an equivalent size IG unit.

1000 marines die to 5.56x45 and .50 BMG just as easily as they do to Autoguns and Heavy Bolters.

Lolwut? No they don't. Modern ammunition will ping harmlessly off their armor. Even if they get shot by modern firearms, naked they'll still survive. The Imperial Guard are vastly more advanced than us, a good point would be tanks like the Baneblade being able to take what's equal to a nuke in firepower directly to the armor and launched it a hundred feet into the air.... with no damage. And lasguns are vastly more effective than modern weapons.

It doesn't help either that depending on the yields, the Space Marines might laugh off nukes. Taken directly to their face. Because anything and everything is possible. Mid end marines however wouldn't even be phased by modern small arms fire, not even .50 BMG would do anything unless we suddenly have admantanium bullets. The only things that might start to be capable of harming them are heavy cannons, but it certainly doesn't help us that their small arms fire has accuracy well over a kilometer and will probably penetrate our armor. The only thing that we have that might be effective at all are missiles and high-altitude bombers.

What really hurts is how they have a Librarian, who is likely quite able to mindfeth global leaders into his puppets.

As for Bolters, base bolters used by Astartes tactical squads are .75 caliber mass-reactive rocket propelled rounds. Their real lethality however comes from their admantanium tips, which is why they can penetrate power armor. 40mm frags however are likely just going to tickle them.

Given that a root applied with a few hundred pounds of pressure can and has been used to strangle a Marine, I think you overstate the resilience of Astartes epidermis.

No, the firearms will penetrate their naked skin, but the damage won't kill them or mortally wound them. The rounds certainly won't penetrate their fused ribcage or their skull. Any bullet wounds taken will be near immediately plugged by clotting and soon healed over.

And again, you don't seem to have any understanding of the concept of 'yields' or 'calcs'. Depending on them, we won't even be able to scratch a Space Marine.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Lolwut? No they don't. Modern ammunition will ping harmlessly off their armor. Even if they get shot by modern firearms, naked they'll still survive. The Imperial Guard are vastly more advanced than us, a good point would be tanks like the Baneblade being able to take what's equal to a nuke in firepower directly to the armor and launched it a hundred feet into the air.... with no damage. And lasguns are vastly more effective than modern weapons.

(Snipped stuff)

As for Bolters, base bolters used by Astartes tactical squads are .75 caliber mass-reactive rocket propelled rounds. Their real lethality however comes from their admantanium tips, which is why they can penetrate power armor. 40mm frags however are likely just going to tickle them.

Autoguns are stated as being equivalent to modern firearms, but possibly made of more clever or lighter materials. In game they have the same effect as a lasgun. In the background troops armed with autoguns are just as effective as those with lasguns. The US has a couple of hundred thousand guys with autoguns, russia probably has more and china and north korea can field upward of 1m each, not counting europe, india, pakistan, all the south american countries and the vast array of private individuals, terrorists and freedom fighters all armed with Mr Kalashnikov's most enduring legacy.

We could build bolters now if we wanted and could certainly back engineer captured examples probably within days.

Surround them with helicopters firing wire guided missiles from beyond visual range and they are toast. Can't spoof a TOW.

Alternatively just keep shooting at them until some lucky shots go through an eyepiece or an armour joint. Alternatively alternatively send in the suicide bombers or exploding dogs to grab them in a c4 shaped hug. They will cerainly run out of bullets before we run out of nutters.

It depedns if you look at it through real world terms or the strange fantasy way GW looks at warfare and battle, not to mention the large dose of plot armour and fantasy that marines receive as well

Explosives, and large caliber weapons, marines have limbs blown off by grenades in the novels, auto cannons rip Armour apart.

if bolter shells can slay a marine a 50 caliber machine gun could find the weak spots in the Armour, a 25mm chain gun would rip them apart, as would an artillery strike from a 155mm Gun

explosives whether they be from jets or drones or simply a direct hit from a Gustav or rpg will also slay them, not to mention IED's etc

Marines are not immune to dying either they die all the time, Half the fluff is contradictory anyway, a marine can survive a nuclear blast in his Armour yet die from a bolter round

You also forget that that the planet is large and that earthlings will simply spread out, and conduct a gorilla campaign a war of attrition fighting the millions of fighting men and women in world will destroy them.

I guess the next question would be could a librarian use telekenisis to block missiles from drones or could techmarines hack drones from orbit if the answers are yes, we couldn't do much to them without resorting to nukes.

Given that, they'd eventually be worn down by attrition but we would take incalculable levels of casualties.

Technically, they could bombard our planet to dust from orbit, and we couldn't do anything about it. One display of power, and half the world would bend the knee to their new overlords.
If they didn't they could bomb every airfield on the planet before they land with inpunity. Every Nuclear weapon silo destroyed, every planetary capital reduced to a ruin. There wouldn't be much of an organized defense.

Why has this thread even reached two pages.

A single MOAB would vaporize the entire strike force. Nukes are overkill.

OP mentionned no orbtial assets.

Humans would win eventually, after years of brutal attrition warfare.

Well the idiot's who don't where helmets (sergeants I'm looking at you) would die to normal gunfire. also I think a direct hit from a tank or large bomb/missile would break a space marine wide open. And enough tanks/missiles/bigbooms would break many a thing. If not, NUKE THEM WITH NAPALM!

 Wyzilla wrote:
No, the firearms will penetrate their naked skin, but the damage won't kill them or mortally wound them. That would depend entirely on where the round land and how many hits there are.

The rounds certainly won't penetrate their fused ribcage or their skull. Petition of principle. A 5.56×45mm NATO round will dent steel at 500m, and even if the skull can actually distribute the hit, there's still the question of weither the neck and spine can.

Any bullet wounds taken will be near immediately plugged by clotting and soon healed over. Same NATO round will penetrate up to 50cm of soft tissue, and can fragment (but not enough). That's quite a hole to patch through, and that's not, by far our better rounds.

And again, you don't seem to have any understanding of the concept of 'yields' or 'calcs'. Depending on them, we won't even be able to scratch a Space Marine. The question is open to an interpretation that base itself on the representation of Marines in the narrative.

Startling number of people here who have lost all sense of reality and logic when it comes to the ultra-manly super amazing Space Marines.

The notion that a Battle Company could take on any single modern military and win is ludicrous.

 Bobthehero wrote:
OP mentionned no orbtial assets.

Airstrikes aren't oribtal assets.

Furthermore, he was referring to the Space Marines when he said no orbital superiority, meaning they have no ships.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Q_Arkhan wrote:
Imperial Guard are *roughly* equivalent to our current military, minus the energy weapons.

There is no reason to think that 1000 space marines and their equipment would fare any better against the U.S. Military than they would against an equivalent size IG unit.

1000 marines die to 5.56x45 and .50 BMG just as easily as they do to Autoguns and Heavy Bolters.

Lolwut? No they don't. Modern ammunition will ping harmlessly off their armor. Even if they get shot by modern firearms, naked they'll still survive. The Imperial Guard are vastly more advanced than us, a good point would be tanks like the Baneblade being able to take what's equal to a nuke in firepower directly to the armor and launched it a hundred feet into the air.... with no damage. And lasguns are vastly more effective than modern weapons.

It doesn't help either that depending on the yields, the Space Marines might laugh off nukes. Taken directly to their face. Because anything and everything is possible. Mid end marines however wouldn't even be phased by modern small arms fire, not even .50 BMG would do anything unless we suddenly have admantanium bullets. The only things that might start to be capable of harming them are heavy cannons, but it certainly doesn't help us that their small arms fire has accuracy well over a kilometer and will probably penetrate our armor. The only thing that we have that might be effective at all are missiles and high-altitude bombers.

What really hurts is how they have a Librarian, who is likely quite able to mindfeth global leaders into his puppets.

As for Bolters, base bolters used by Astartes tactical squads are .75 caliber mass-reactive rocket propelled rounds. Their real lethality however comes from their admantanium tips, which is why they can penetrate power armor. 40mm frags however are likely just going to tickle them.

I don't think you understand how powerful nuclear weapons here. We aren't talking about a concentrated blast of light. We are talking about the unleashed energy inside of atoms. A Space Marine will get vaporised. No amount of surgery will save a human from a nuclear weapon. If a Battle Cannon can kill a marine outright a Nuclear bomb will obliterate them.

Librarians aren't that strong unless you are talking about legendary guys like Tigrius. At most they'll be able to mindfuck local squad commanders but not all world leaders. Besides that, we have contingencies in place to replace our leaders in case they are killed or incapacitated.

In addition, Lasguns aren't all that much powerful that modern day weaponry. They got some kick, to be sure, and are awesome in terms of logistics but they don't poop all over what we have. People are able to survive direct Lasgun shots although they won't live for much longer. While Marines would be quite resilient to our small arms there is no way in hell that they can take our higher caliber weaponry and laugh it off. The figures Games Workshop fluff gives us for their stuff isn't all that far off from what we have today.

In addition, we have more of everything than of them. Tanks, nukes, planes, jets and all sorts. Jets alone would do a crap ton of damage to marines because their missiles can crack tanks with ease. While our quality of weapons are worse than what marines have they aren't all that worse but we have a crap ton more.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
OP mentionned no orbtial assets.

Airstrikes aren't oribtal assets.

Furthermore, he was referring to the Space Marines when he said no orbital superiority, meaning they have no ships.

You posted in between the post I was answering to and mine, there's the confusion.

Id laugh if they had landed in the sea.

But really marines and there vehicles die to things like auto cannons, and missiles who have there real world equivalent.

not to mention if a grot can kill a marine a human can as well.

Edit: Also anti-material rifles are a thing. so yeah.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
No, the firearms will penetrate their naked skin, but the damage won't kill them or mortally wound them. That would depend entirely on where the round land and how many hits there are.

The rounds certainly won't penetrate their fused ribcage or their skull. Petition of principle. A 5.56×45mm NATO round will dent steel at 500m, and even if the skull can actually distribute the hit, there's still the question of weither the neck and spine can.

Any bullet wounds taken will be near immediately plugged by clotting and soon healed over. Same NATO round will penetrate up to 50cm of soft tissue, and can fragment (but not enough). That's quite a hole to patch through, and that's not, by far our better rounds.

And again, you don't seem to have any understanding of the concept of 'yields' or 'calcs'. Depending on them, we won't even be able to scratch a Space Marine. The question is open to an interpretation that base itself on the representation of Marines in the narrative.

You're forgetting there is no realism in W40K. It doesn't matter if 5.56 can dent steel at 500m, they'll take the hit in stride- they've deflected bolter shells from their skulls before. Hell, it's actually completely possible for them to slap the rounds out of the air with the back of their gauntlets. It doesn't matter what physics tells us should happen, what matters are the feats presented to us and the yields we set to a debate, then you attempt to apply any logic. This is how all sane versus debates of fiction run, for example, Spacebattles.com. As opposed to insane pits of garble like Factpile. Otherwise it's simply FFA with everyone choosing their favorite Black Library book.

heavy stubbers are .30 cal, at best. Space Marines are eminently killable by our modern weapons. We have .50 armor piercing, explosive, incindiary rounds (raufaus). I play Marines and I laugh at the plot armor given to Marines in the various terrible novels GW allows to happen.

Cluster bombs and networked 155mm howitzers turn Marines into paste

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
No, the firearms will penetrate their naked skin, but the damage won't kill them or mortally wound them. That would depend entirely on where the round land and how many hits there are.

The rounds certainly won't penetrate their fused ribcage or their skull. Petition of principle. A 5.56×45mm NATO round will dent steel at 500m, and even if the skull can actually distribute the hit, there's still the question of weither the neck and spine can.

Any bullet wounds taken will be near immediately plugged by clotting and soon healed over. Same NATO round will penetrate up to 50cm of soft tissue, and can fragment (but not enough). That's quite a hole to patch through, and that's not, by far our better rounds.

And again, you don't seem to have any understanding of the concept of 'yields' or 'calcs'. Depending on them, we won't even be able to scratch a Space Marine. The question is open to an interpretation that base itself on the representation of Marines in the narrative.

You're forgetting there is no realism in W40K. It doesn't matter if 5.56 can dent steel at 500m, they'll take the hit in stride- they've deflected bolter shells from their skulls before. Hell, it's actually completely possible for them to slap the rounds out of the air with the back of their gauntlets. It doesn't matter what physics tells us should happen, what matters are the feats presented to us and the yields we set to a debate, then you attempt to apply any logic. This is how all sane versus debates of fiction run, for example, Spacebattles.com. As opposed to insane pits of garble like Factpile. Otherwise it's simply FFA with everyone choosing their favorite Black Library book.

So, then this discussion is entirely pointless since 40k is horribly inconsistent. I think this answers the thread pretty well.

Edit: Stupid double post... I only clicked it once, why did it do that?

OP should just specify if he asking about mid, high or low yield Marines.

They are different enough to be separate beings.

It seems the confusion is caused by some assuming that the low yield is the standard.

Space Marines are eminently killable by modern forces. If grots can beat them in hand to hand on the tabletop if you make them roll enough dice...

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
OP should just specify if he asking about mid, high or low yield Marines.

They are different enough to be separate beings.

It seems the confusion is caused by some assuming that the low yield is the standard.

Or perhaps because some assume the standard is medium or high yield.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
OP should just specify if he asking about mid, high or low yield Marines.

They are different enough to be separate beings.

It seems the confusion is caused by some assuming that the low yield is the standard.

Or perhaps because some assume the standard is medium or high yield.

I usually go with medium yield, that seems the most plausible. Neither blow-up-continent-with-plasma-pistol nor die-to-pointy-stick seems appropriate to me, so I am going with something in between.

Yes, should've specified, I always assume medium yield, ie. a marine for a town, a squad for a city, a company for a world, a chapter for a sector and a legion for a culture. The marines also have all the rounds and ammo they need carried in spare vehicles. Also, I did say the marines had Stormravens.