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It is true that there is some hand waving in for most of the races (I wouldn't say all) when it comes to the numbers required to accomplish tasks.

I'd say the Tyranids, Orks, and Necrons...all seem to accomplish what you'd imagine they'd accomplish based on their respective numbers and capability. The Space Marines are mentioned by some, and supported by me, because of how terribly bad the hand waving is to make some of the 'forge the narrative' writing done on their behalf. Far worse than any other in game organization.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
It is true that there is some hand waving in for most of the races (I wouldn't say all) when it comes to the numbers required to accomplish tasks.

I'd say the Tyranids, Orks, and Necrons...all seem to accomplish what you'd imagine they'd accomplish based on their respective numbers and capability. The Space Marines are mentioned by some, and supported by me, because of how terribly bad the hand waving is to make some of the 'forge the narrative' writing done on their behalf. Far worse than any other in game organization.

Battle Sisters? They are far fewer than Space Marines.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Snark begets snark.

And heresy begets retribution.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Yes. Suffice it to say I have my reasons for changing the name.

Yes, no problem with the name change. Your avatar changed again !

 EmpNortonII wrote:
The foremost virtue of a Space Marine isn't his aggression or durability. It's his resistance to Chaos.

I do not agree, they are not that useless ! I mean, they wear power armor, after all, that gives them some relative durability !

.......well, along this line of thought, I suppose the answer to the original poster's question is "It depends on whether or not Games Workshop wants it to fall apart without the Space Marines."

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Snark begets snark.

And heresy begets retribution.

And retribution begets EXTERMINATUS!

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

jhe90 wrote:
Minus there elite combat arm, they would not last as long. Baselines humans cannot fight with same sheer aggression and durability

But they do have the bloody mindedness and massive numbers to make up for it.

The foremost virtue of a Space Marine isn't his aggression or durability. It's his resistance to Chaos.

Imperial Guard go traitor all the time. Hell, the Tau have IG working for them happily, and they don't have magic psy powers of corrupting the mind.

Load and loads of Astartes have fallen to Chaos - hey half of the original Legions did....and its not that uncommon in the "present day" - only the Grey Kinghts are heavily resistant to Choas - Astartes are resistant to some aspects but often their pride and other emotions sends them into the hands of the enemy. Linrarians are also another point of weakness for Choas incursion.

Depending on what you read about the Tau depends on if you think they have mind control - see the Vespid......................

Astartes being especially susceptible to falling is a logical fallacy. If the Guard had been in the Marines' shoes during the crusade you can be damn sure they wouldn't be better off.

The fault lies with the Primarchs and the way the Emperor handled them, plain and simple. Yeah, of course the Marines followed their Primarchs. If the Guard had equivalents they would probably fall even faster due to lack of psycho-conditioning and being trained to only follow orders and not act independently.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hell, the same would probably go for Sisters. Fanaticism is well and good, but when the Emperor is distant and Alicia Dominica is standing in front if them...

 Ashiraya wrote:
Astartes being especially susceptible to falling is a logical fallacy.

"The Traitor Legions are not the only Space Marines to fall to Chaos. Each millennium, dozens of disillusioned or power-hungry chapters defect, just as Horus did. Only the High Lords and the Inquisition have any idea of how deep the rot goes." - Codex CSM.

Corrupted Astartes = dozens of chapters. Corrupted Sisters = 1 (maybe)

Really we should just burn them all now and be done with it.

The HH series has really done a number on the image of the Astartes - admittedly the Chapters of 40K are not the same as the Legions of 30K, but the arrogance and insularity of the Astartes (even the loyalists at times) does make it easy to believe that they would fall.

There are on average 1 space marine per inhabited planet.

That includes chapters like the Black Templars, who actually spend their time wandering the galaxy on a journey of self fulfilment, and the Ultramarines, who spend their time almost getting their home world obliterated by the Tyranids.

 ashcroft wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Astartes being especially susceptible to falling is a logical fallacy.

"The Traitor Legions are not the only Space Marines to fall to Chaos. Each millennium, dozens of disillusioned or power-hungry chapters defect, just as Horus did. Only the High Lords and the Inquisition have any idea of how deep the rot goes." - Codex CSM.

Corrupted Astartes = dozens of chapters. Corrupted Sisters = 1 (maybe)

Really we should just burn them all now and be done with it.

The HH series has really done a number on the image of the Astartes - admittedly the Chapters of 40K are not the same as the Legions of 30K, but the arrogance and insularity of the Astartes (even the loyalists at times) does make it easy to believe that they would fall.

Implying IG do not fall in proportional or even greater numbers?

Yes there record is not great, they are not incoruptable however unlike IG, do not need a comisars bolt pistol to stay loyal and follow orders.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 ashcroft wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Astartes being especially susceptible to falling is a logical fallacy.

"The Traitor Legions are not the only Space Marines to fall to Chaos. Each millennium, dozens of disillusioned or power-hungry chapters defect, just as Horus did. Only the High Lords and the Inquisition have any idea of how deep the rot goes." - Codex CSM.

Corrupted Astartes = dozens of chapters. Corrupted Sisters = 1 (maybe)

Really we should just burn them all now and be done with it.

The HH series has really done a number on the image of the Astartes - admittedly the Chapters of 40K are not the same as the Legions of 30K, but the arrogance and insularity of the Astartes (even the loyalists at times) does make it easy to believe that they would fall.

Implying IG do not fall in proportional or even greater numbers?

The Astra Militarum it is now.
The good news is, even then the new dex is clear that at the time of the HH the Imperial Army turned as much as the others.
Marines chose their allegiance, imperial army did too, Titan Legios did, knight houses did, the mechanicum itself...
So IG should be equally capable of turning traitor.


GW had to have Space marines turn, to keep the CSM from eradication.
Plus "space marines aren't incorruptible" is a silly argument. No one campaigns to get rid of the Mechanicum, no matter that they didn't stay loyal to the throne.to a 100% .. its always just the SM and always the same part of the fanbase.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Implying IG do not fall in proportional or even greater numbers?

It's an interesting question really.

Traitor Guard get a lot less attention in the fluff of course, likely since they haven't been an official army since RT. My impression has always been that the IG are most likely to turn to Chaos as a side effect of rebellion or secession by their commanders. It's just a new banner to follow rather than a new ideology like it is for the Astartes. So while the IG may turn to Chaos in greater number than the marines it's less significant when they do so.

Not to say that they wouldn't make an interesting army. Abnett's done some good work at giving them a face with the Blood Pact (though they're more modelled on the IG than recruited from them as such) but generally they're very overshadowed by the guys in the spiky power armor.

 1hadhq wrote:

GW had to have Space marines turn, to keep the CSM from eradication.
Plus "space marines aren't incorruptible" is a silly argument. No one campaigns to get rid of the Mechanicum, no matter that they didn't stay loyal to the throne.to a 100% .. its always just the SM and always the same part of the fanbase.

If people started threads about how the AdMech are incorruptible and so on, then I can guarrantee you 100% that the same 'part of the fanbase' that you are trying to claim are victimising you would make exactly the same comments about them.

 Ashiraya wrote:
If the Guard had been in the Marines' shoes during the crusade you can be damn sure they wouldn't be better off.

How ? Why ?

 Ashiraya wrote:
The fault lies with the Primarchs and the way the Emperor handled them, plain and simple.

So, the Guardsmen are very susceptible to corruption, the Primarchs are very susceptible to corruption, but somehow the Astartes are not ? Uh ?

 Ashiraya wrote:
If the Guard had equivalents they would probably fall even faster due to lack of psycho-conditioning and being trained to only follow orders and not act independently.

Your first argument defeats your second argument.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Hell, the same would probably go for Sisters.

Yeah, we all know what happened when the Sisters' supreme leader went rogue. Not even Chaos, just rogue. Alicia Dominica decapitated him. So, now you know what would have happened if there were Sisters during the Heresy, rather than Astartes. A few decapitated primarchs.

jhe90 wrote:
Yes there record is not great, they are not incoruptable however unlike IG, do not need a comisars bolt pistol to stay loyal and follow orders.

Yeah, unlike the marines, the imperial guard know fear. However, the Marines now pride, bitterness, power-hungriness, hate, …

 1hadhq wrote:
The good news is, even then the new dex is clear that at the time of the HH the Imperial Army turned as much as the others.
Marines chose their allegiance, imperial army did too, Titan Legios did, knight houses did, the mechanicum itself...

See just above. The marines made an ideological choice. The Imperial Army wet their pants because the choice was to follow the order from their legion overlord or get killed in gruesome, horrible, painful ways. That makes a world of difference.

If the Marines turned hostile? Depends if they ganged up. If they did they'd be unstoppable, if not then meh.. There are billions of Guard to a marine but we've seen the competence of Guard generals and the response times for Imperial Guard units. You also have to consider that any worlds that the SMs have control over, like recruiting worlds, will immediately stop giving tithes to the IoM. It'd be a close one, but I don't think there are enough SMs to take a sizable chunk of the IoM.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
If the Marines turned hostile? Depends if they ganged up. If they did they'd be unstoppable (...)

Unless, of course, they tried to travel from planet A to planet B. The Imperial Navy would easily destroy them all.

But yeah, if they all meet in a single planet, and the Guard lacks resources to destroy them, and the Imperial Navy is not there, then the planet is probably doomed.

 da001 wrote:

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
If the Marines turned hostile? Depends if they ganged up. If they did they'd be unstoppable (...)

Unless, of course, they tried to travel from planet A to planet B. The Imperial Navy would easily destroy them all.

But yeah, if they all meet in a single planet, and the Guard lacks resources to destroy them, and the Imperial Navy is not there, then the planet is probably doomed.

Battle Barges are extremely fast and extremely powerful

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 da001 wrote:

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
If the Marines turned hostile? Depends if they ganged up. If they did they'd be unstoppable (...)

Unless, of course, they tried to travel from planet A to planet B. The Imperial Navy would easily destroy them all.

But yeah, if they all meet in a single planet, and the Guard lacks resources to destroy them, and the Imperial Navy is not there, then the planet is probably doomed.

Battle Barges are extremely fast and extremely powerful

Just like Imperial Battleships... only there is far less of them.

It is exactly like Space Marines Vs Guarsmen. Marines are an elite army, incredibly small. One million soldiers, one thousand Battle Barges... a drop of water in the ocean that is the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
There are billions of Guard to a marine but we've seen the competence of Guard generals

Do you mean Creed, or Macharius ? Because both are geniuses that match or outclass their SM equivalents.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
You also have to consider that any worlds that the SMs have control over, like recruiting worlds, will immediately stop giving tithes to the IoM.

Which they do not already. On the other hand, the Mechanicus will not have to spend so much resources on marine stuff.

Battle barges are massively powerful in bombardment and combat, though a dedicated impirial battleship may have edge in space combat.

 ashcroft wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Implying IG do not fall in proportional or even greater numbers?

It's an interesting question really.

Traitor Guard get a lot less attention in the fluff of course, likely since they haven't been an official army since RT. My impression has always been that the IG are most likely to turn to Chaos as a side effect of rebellion or secession by their commanders. It's just a new banner to follow rather than a new ideology like it is for the Astartes. So while the IG may turn to Chaos in greater number than the marines it's less significant when they do so.

Not to say that they wouldn't make an interesting army. Abnett's done some good work at giving them a face with the Blood Pact (though they're more modelled on the IG than recruited from them as such) but generally they're very overshadowed by the guys in the spiky power armor.

The need to preserve CSM and the fact that Astartes in general recieve colossal amounts of GW attention is probably the #1 reason of traitor SM seeming so common when they are not.

Your first argument defeats your second argument.

Psycho-conditioning =/= training to follow orders.

The lack of psycho-conditioning makes them less resistant to turning against the Emperor overall. The training to only follow orders rather than thinking individually means that once an IG officer fall the rest of his men falls like domino bricks. Istvaan III would never have happened in a Guard Heresy, because those who would have remained loyal would be too few to make a stand.

So, the Guardsmen are very susceptible to corruption, the Primarchs are very susceptible to corruption, but somehow the Astartes are not ? Uh ?

Everyone that is not Grey Knights, Custodes, possibly Sisters (That we have only seen them fall once so far does not mean that they can't ever do so, but then, the same goes for GK) or one of the few special individuals like Emps himself can fall.

Marines can fall, though their psycho-conditioning into Emperor-loyalty and training into thinking more individually than Guardsmen do beyond Emperor-loyalty helps them.

Yeah, we all know what happened when the Sisters' supreme leader went rogue. Not even Chaos, just rogue. Alicia Dominica decapitated him. So, now you know what would have happened if there were Sisters during the Heresy, rather than Astartes. A few decapitated primarchs.

My proposed idea was what would happen if some time later, far from Terra, Alicia Dominica, Katherine and the rest would start planting the seeds of corruption in the Sisterhood.

I doubt that they would have resisted that. It's the closest equivalent to having your Primarch fall as well.

Yeah, unlike the marines, the imperial guard know fear. However, the Marines now pride, bitterness, power-hungriness, hate, …

Which Guard do too. One could argue that Marines feel greater arrogance but they do have psycho-conditioning helping with that part.

See just above. The marines made an ideological choice. The Imperial Army wet their pants because the choice was to follow the order from their legion overlord or get killed in gruesome, horrible, painful ways. That makes a world of difference.

We don't have a lot of info on this, but to me it seems (Like what happened to the crew of the Dies Irae) that it was not nearly as much force in play as you think.

After all, the 63rd expeditionary fleet LOVED Horus.

Furyou Miko wrote:

If people started threads about how the AdMech are incorruptible and so on, then I can guarrantee you 100% that the same 'part of the fanbase' that you are trying to claim are victimising you would make exactly the same comments about them.

Me victimzed ?
Really?

There is an obvious pattern. Easy to prove.
But OT, so am not venturing off .

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: So, now you know what would have happened if there were Sisters during the Heresy, rather than Astartes. A few decapitated primarchs.

No.

HH/Scars. page 73:
Malcador,Jaghatai and Big E's choices.
Malcador smiled. 'You Brothers - such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised.
He thought I was joking. I wasn't.'

To question the Emperor is...Heresy. So go purge thyself.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
The marines made an ideological choice. The Imperial Army wet their pants because the choice was to follow the order from their legion overlord or get killed in gruesome, horrible, painful ways. That makes a world of difference.

No. The local leaders were as powerhungry as humans always are.
Wet pants aren't the reason the IoM broke nearly down.

 Ashiraya wrote:
My proposed idea was what would happen if some time later, far from Terra, Alicia Dominica, Katherine and the rest would start planting the seeds of corruption in the Sisterhood.

I doubt that the lead Sisters would fall so easily. Remember, most of the Primarchs who fell were unstable/disloyal in the first place. Meanwhile, the Sisters are all extremely indoctrinated and faithful, with the top Sisters being the best at this within their organisation.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I doubt that they would have resisted that. It's the closest equivalent to having your Primarch fall as well.

Eh, I'll have to disagree. I think that the Sisters would notice their leaders going off-message. And I don't think that anywhere near the same percentage of Sisters would fall as Marines did since, again, there were pre-existing faults within those Legions that Chaos could exploit.

 Troike wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
My proposed idea was what would happen if some time later, far from Terra, Alicia Dominica, Katherine and the rest would start planting the seeds of corruption in the Sisterhood.

I doubt that the lead Sisters would fall so easily. Remember, most of the Primarchs who fell were unstable/disloyal in the first place. Meanwhile, the Sisters are all extremely indoctrinated and faithful, with the top Sisters being the best at this within their organisation.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I doubt that they would have resisted that. It's the closest equivalent to having your Primarch fall as well.

Eh, I'll have to disagree. I think that the Sisters would notice their leaders going off-message. And I don't think that anywhere near the same percentage of Sisters would fall as Marines did since, again, there were pre-existing faults within those Legions that Chaos could exploit.

*cough* Goge Vandire *cough*
It took the Emperor himself to get the Sisters to notice their leader had gone off-message. As if the insanity, cruelty, love of torture and needless slaughter of billions wasn't a hint. The greatest weakness of the Sisters is their loyalty to the Ecclessiarchy. The Ecclessiarchy is not in accordance with the Emperor's ideals. It is corrupt, power-hungry and far from infallible. If the Ecclessiarchy falls again, the Sisters are likely to fall with it.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
*cough* Goge Vandire *cough*

Not really the same thing. Through all of that, they still believed they were faithfully serving the Emperor. Their faith wasn't perverted or broken, just misdirected. That's very different to outright abandoning the Emperor and serving Chaos instead. So, in this hypothetical scenario, I'm still going to say that the Sisters would be far, far better placed to resist corruption than the Legions that fell.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
It took the Emperor himself to get the Sisters to notice their leader had gone off-message. As if the insanity, cruelty, love of torture and needless slaughter of billions wasn't a hint.

And they've certainly learned from this since.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The greatest weakness of the Sisters is their loyalty to the Ecclessiarchy. The Ecclessiarchy is not in accordance with the Emperor's ideals. It is corrupt, power-hungry and far from infallible. If the Ecclessiarchy falls again, the Sisters are likely to fall with it.

The Sisters don't just follow the Ecclesiarchy blindly. They actually serve as its internal policing force. They both monitor the Ecclesiarchy and execute any clergy who step out if line. What's more, they live separately from the Ecclesiarchy, so the two aren't joined at the hip, so to speak.

Also, it is incorrect to say that the whole Ecclesiarchy is corrupt and power-hungry. Some clergy could be, sure, but plenty of them are very sincere in serving the Imperial Creed.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Psycho-conditioning =/= training to follow orders.

So, do you mean that Astartes disobeys orders more often than guardsmen ?
Astartes are more likely to follow their officers if the officers fall. A guardsman is more likely to disagree and rebel.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Marines can fall, though their psycho-conditioning into Emperor-loyalty and training into thinking more individually than Guardsmen do beyond Emperor-loyalty helps them.

So, let me rephrase : primarchs can fall very easily (between 9 and 11 out of 20 fell !), guardsmen can fall very easily, and astartes hardly ever fall ?

 Ashiraya wrote:
My proposed idea was what would happen if some time later, far from Terra, Alicia Dominica, Katherine and the rest would start planting the seeds of corruption in the Sisterhood.

The question is, would they have been forced into the repentia, or outright executed, then. But for some reason, it did not happen. That reason is Alicia Dominica, Katherine and the rest never fell to Chaos. Which is not surprising.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Which Guard do too.

Yeah, but it is exacerbated by the culture of most if not all marine chapters.

 1hadhq wrote:
No.

HH/Scars. page 73:
Malcador,Jaghatai and Big E's choices.
Malcador smiled. 'You Brothers - such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised.
He thought I was joking. I wasn't.'

I, uh, completely fail to see your point. Do you even have one ?
Malcador made a sexist comment to one primarch about how primarchs should have been female. How is that related to the Sororitas ?

 1hadhq wrote:
No. The local leaders were as powerhungry as humans always are.

Local leaders ? Are we talking planetary governor, or Imperial Army ? Because the leader of the Imperial Army were astartes.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
*cough* Goge Vandire *cough*

Yeah, a good example of the fact the Sisters would kill their leaders if they go out of control, and not an example of a Sister of Battle falling because… well, he was not a sister of battle, he was some bureaucrat from the administratum.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
It took the Emperor himself to get the Sisters to notice their leader had gone off-message. As if the insanity, cruelty, love of torture and needless slaughter of billions wasn't a hint.

The Emperor is good at taking such hint, because he now have a lot of practice. He failed the couple of first time too, though. Cruze, Angron, …

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The greatest weakness of the Sisters is their loyalty to the Ecclessiarchy. The Ecclessiarchy is not in accordance with the Emperor's ideals. It is corrupt, power-hungry and far from infallible. If the Ecclessiarchy falls again, the Sisters are likely to fall with it.

Except for the part about one of their most important role being to police the Ecclesiarchy and execute any apostate or heretic member of the clergy. Yeah, apart from the fact they will zealously kill any member of the Ecclesiarchy who would fail, they certainly would fall. Not.

Also the Ecclesiarchy did not fall in the first place during Vandire's reign of blood. What actually happened is that the Administratum fell to the scheming of a dictatorial madman, which then killed the Ecclesiarch and took his place by force. The first part may happen again, but now thanks to the Sororitas, it will be way, way harder for the second part to happen !

I think it would eventually doom the imperium unless you got a commensurate positive boon. For example, you could lose every marine but if you got say a Single working non hostile man of iron into an open minded tech magus's dendrites then the imperium would lose ground temporarily, for probably a millennia, then bulldoze all opposition in the galaxy. People forget that it would only take finding a few uncorrupted golden age STCs to make the Imperium an unstoppable aggressor.

Plus guard formations can be very nasty. I'm thinking about the Elysian D99. If that level of tech could augment all guardsmen at the cost of losing the marines.... might be worth it, frankly.

 Silverthorne wrote:
I think it would eventually doom the imperium unless you got a commensurate positive boon. For example, you could lose every marine but if you got say a Single working non hostile man of iron into an open minded tech magus's dendrites then the imperium would lose ground temporarily, for probably a millennia, then bulldoze all opposition in the galaxy. People forget that it would only take finding a few uncorrupted golden age STCs to make the Imperium an unstoppable aggressor.

Plus guard formations can be very nasty. I'm thinking about the Elysian D99. If that level of tech could augment all guardsmen at the cost of losing the marines.... might be worth it, frankly.

Except that most areotech like the men of iron is impossible to use due to the existence of scrapcode. Hell, it's even a big part of IOM fluff that they abhor the use of full AI's... which the men of iron and all things like them are. They'd work great at the start, right up till they got infected and now the Lost and the Damned has a near functionally infinite army of sentient machines. And there's how any areotech with an AI is hostile to 40K humanity and the Inquisition will likely kill anyone they find consorting with AI's from the DAOT.