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@Taffy17

With the new Skitarii book, we finally have good amount of information about the basic Skitarii and their combat capacity. Of course, there is a lot of dark corners and there isn't a wealth of information and comparison to draw, but here i what I think after reading their codex and their novel. I will only be talking about Vanguard and Ranger Skitarii, not the Sicarans which are more advanced.

The basic armor of the Skitarii is a sealed carapace armor of excellent craftsmanship much like Scions. They have some bionics enhancement, most prominent of all being their legs and waist which are fully robotic and some cranial implants that allows them to share information and receive orders, tactical data and other information directly in their brain from an orbiting or otherwise distant supercomputer or techpriests. They also possess some bionic limbs or organs, but they seldom are standard and don't set them apart to much from what highly trained human can do.

Their armor thus gives them a certain amount of protection against Space Marines basic weapons like boltguns since carapace armor can deflect or absorb bolt shots yet still offer significantly less protection than power armors. Their enhance resistance due to bionics isn't really an issue since bolt weapons (and to a certain extend lasguns to) are weapon so powerful that having a particularly hardy set of bionic lungs for example isn't going to help you survive a wound let alone still be combat operational unless you are very lucky. So Space Marines have a significant advantage there.

The Skitarii weapons are both significantly more powerful than a standard bolter. The Rad gun is basically a high power lasgun with armor piercing capacity capable of damaging the softer part of a power armor that also happens to have a ridiculous fire rate and viciously toxic ammunition. A Space Marines could suffer serious injuries, despite their resistance to radiation, from the radiation of the rad gun even if the ray itself doesn't wound him severely. The only advantages of the boltgun would be its range and then again. The Galvanic rifle are even more powerful. These are basically snipers that fires intelligent seeker bullets that carries enough electrical charge and punch to not only pierce flesh and armor, but also fry your complete neural structure in one blast. This easily gives them awesome range and precision since the bullets can compensate a little bit for poorer marksmanship. All in all a Space Marines would be outgun by a Skitarii.

In the training department, the Skitarii fall behind Space Marines much more. If Skitarii are good competent soldiers, they don't have the same level of training and excellence requirements than the Space Marines. In fact, of all human elite troops, the Skitarii are those with the «worst» training. They don't meticulously select and train their recruit from infancy, don't train them in an holistic, systematic and permanent way like Sisters would do. Neither do they receive careful training from experimented tutors for prolonged period of time using rigorous testing method like Scions. They receive basic training directly implanted in their brain alongside an almost unbreakable devotion to the Mars Creed. Their enhanced body and weapons allows them to exploit that training to the point where they became much superior to guardsmen, but not enough to compensate for their inferior physical attribute against Space Marines.

With all that taken into account, I would declare that a Space Marines is worth about 4 times its number in Skitarii. The hardest challenge the Space Marines would face against the soldiers of Mars would be their superior weaponry and the fact that unlike guardsmen, shock and terror tactics have little to no effect against them. Their coordination and calculated strike also make them terrible to face and not to be underestimated. Skitarii are a bit like Necron made flesh. They are relentless, surprisingly fast and wield exotic weapons that can kill you in new and implausible fashion.

Despite this, In my head canon I would declare the basic Skitarii to be the «least» of the elite troops of the Imperium while Sicarans can definitely rival Space Marines in one on one. So in resume Space Marines > Sisters of Battle > Scions > Skitarii (basic) > elite guardsmen and Arbites > regular guardsmen > PDF and law enforcement troops> Conscript and common criminals> Frateris Militia.

epronovost

Sounds about right to me, but I actually would put them above scions personally

I'd argue Scions struggle against Astartes. Their weapons have excellent penetrating power, which really helps, but in the end they just lack the stopping power to effectively deal damage.

Frickin excellent comment epronovost, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for!

Its interesting that you put Scions above Scitarii, I thought the Scitariis toughness and relentlessness might put them above Scions but you make a valid point regarding training

@Ashiraya

Stopping powers doesn't exist when it comes to energy weapons, but if you mean that the beam is small and doesn't cause massive trauma in terms of size then yes, hot-shot lasgun would be weapons of «small» stopping power compared to bolters for exemple. The truth is if they can pierce their armor, they can pierce their skin, flesh and bones even more easily. A shot in a vital organ will kill, or cripple a Space Marines. A shot to the head and it's instant death for any Marines. A shot to the liver (they only have one) and it's the same outcome. A Shot the spine and it's death. A shot to the stomach and it's excrutiating death in the next ten minutes. Plus these weapons aren't low fore rates one shot to the chest may not kill or cripple a marine but three or four will certainly and burst fire grant's them that capacity easily. Scions have demonstrated their ability to kill Space Marines numerous times without resorting to horde tactics against them.

@DoomShakaLaka

I would say the Scions vs Skitarii is the toughest call. I would say Scions are better trained, but have lower grade equipment and inferior «body performance». Scions are better against Marines than Skitarii, but worse then them against most other ennemies.

'Stopping power' is just another term for damage.

Skitarii have the rules I always wanted Stormtroopers/Scions to have, almost exactly :(

@Ashiraya

Damage is a very relative terms when it comes to weapons. A nuke doesn't do more damage to single human being than a medieval maul to the head since both end up with a human equally dead if you know what I mean.

"Stopping power is the ability of a firearm or other weapon to cause ballistic trauma to a target (human or animal) enough to immediately incapacitate (and thus stop) the target. This contrasts with lethality in that stopping power pertains only to a weapon's ability to incapacitate quickly, regardless of whether death ultimately occurs."

EDIT: ultimately, as with any weapon, shot placement is king, far above and beyond raw power.

 Ashiraya wrote:
'Stopping power' is just another term for damage.

So is penetration ability. The 40k rules give them two separate stats and rolls, but in reality a weapon that can punch straight through marine power armor like it hardly exists isn't going to have much trouble damaging the marine under that armor.

To be fair, there are differences in how penetrating weapons and flesh damaging weapons work, at least with kinetic energy weapons

Hollow point bullets for example are terrible at penetrating armor, because, by design, they work directly in favor of how body armor wants to dissipate that force. If they hit flesh however and properly expand, they cause a great big cavity to form and dump all of their energy effectively into the target.

Meanwhile, a round that pierces armor effectively often will go straight through flesh, creating a nice hole (that will destroy anything it comes across) but won't be hitting as much or causing as much collateral damage, and often will retain significant energy to pass back out of the target, meaning that energy isn't all transferred to the target.

That said, anything that's effectively punching something like Power Armor is likely to retain a buttload of energy to dump into flesh, and if we're talking a thermal energy weapon, then the above goes out the window and if its penetrating armor then it should vaporize flesh far easier.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Well, I am a student of sport science, who is specialising in biomechanics, and I gave a relatively detailed explanation of how and why a marine would be 'that' fast on the previous page.

I mean, if Usain Bolt can accelerate to 47kph in 7 seconds without the use of illegal performance enhancing eugenics, in 38000 years, it stands to reason that an un augmented human may be able to breach the 5kph gap to 52pkh in under 10 seconds, let alone an augmented super human with many additional organs that facilitate the power and strength required to run so fast, and accelerate to it even faster.

So no mate, not magic marines, with magic legs. It is theoretically more than possible if the described science of a marine in powered armour was to become correct that they could run that fast. Absolutely no bones about that in my mind. In fact, I expect with rejuvenation techniques that such speeds may be possible in my life time, tif such techniques were used for performance enhancing purposes.

What would take years of body honing could be achieved in months.

Well that is wrong though. Usain Bolt had a MAXIMUM SPEED of 47. His average is 37km per hour. Now Usain bolt is thin, sleek, light and has all his gear designed for running. He trains for running and running only. The ground he runs on is designed fro running.

A space marine, weighs near 1000kg (800kg for armour + gear then himself?), is not sleek or light and is not on a running track. If you believe those qualities are good for speed then I think you got some more student learning to do.

Remember, the claim is that a Space Marine can run 52KM an hour in 5 seconds. That is not possible. Unless of course you have some idea of how that much weight can push itself so quickly on 2 legs?

See this discussion is important, because of their super hearing they can apparently hear artillery shells coming from a very long distance away and quickly zoom away from the area. That was the claim I thought was ridiculous. It still is ridiculous.

He weighs a bloody tonne mate? Even if he did reach these speeds he has no brakes, so he will have to have a lot of foresight to start stopping in time so he doesnt fall into small ditches or crash into objects etc.

Anyway enough of that, everyone has moved on to the topic etc.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are differences in how penetrating weapons and flesh damaging weapons work, at least with kinetic energy weapons

Hollow point bullets for example are terrible at penetrating armor, because, by design, they work directly in favor of how body armor wants to dissipate that force. If they hit flesh however and properly expand, they cause a great big cavity to form and dump all of their energy effectively into the target.

Meanwhile, a round that pierces armor effectively often will go straight through flesh, creating a nice hole (that will destroy anything it comes across) but won't be hitting as much or causing as much collateral damage, and often will retain significant energy to pass back out of the target, meaning that energy isn't all transferred to the target.

That said, anything that's effectively punching something like Power Armor is likely to retain a buttload of energy to dump into flesh, and if we're talking a thermal energy weapon, then the above goes out the window and if its penetrating armor then it should vaporize flesh far easier.

That's right, the AKs I trained with in the Russian army would probably not penetrate quite as well as an M-16 an American would use due to not quite having the same velocity, but the bullet used was probably going to leave a hideous hole when it came out since the 74's rounds tumble like a mother-fether.

C7 (canadian M16) rounds tumble as well, or so we're told. Got some pretty vivid description of what they'd do to people, especially considering the size of the bullet itself.

 Bobthehero wrote:
C7 (canadian M16) rounds tumble as well, or so we're told. Got some pretty vivid description of what they'd do to people, especially considering the size of the bullet itself.

The 74 chambers a round made especially for tumbling as much as possible, it's slightly smaller than the M16's bullets. The Afghans thought we were poisoning our bullets in the 80s because of the injuries it tended to leave. This is opposed to the earlier 47's tendency to just punch right through someone without deforming too much.

 Vaktathi wrote:
"Stopping power is the ability of a firearm or other weapon to cause ballistic trauma to a target (human or animal) enough to immediately incapacitate (and thus stop) the target. This contrasts with lethality in that stopping power pertains only to a weapon's ability to incapacitate quickly, regardless of whether death ultimately occurs."

EDIT: ultimately, as with any weapon, shot placement is king, far above and beyond raw power.

^ This.

"Stopping power" is a very nebulous term. While a hot-shot lasgun might (and this is a big "might") offer higher armor penetration than a bolter, the nature of its ammunition indicates that it tends to "flash-fry" the target at the point of impact, if not burning a hole right through them. This is actually inferior to a bolter, which delivers an explosive payload timed to detonate inside the target, creating much greater wound cavities and damage to tissue, organs and bones surrounding the point of impact. Of all the small-arms carried by Imperial forces, anything packing bolter rounds offers the best overall performance of range, armor penetration and raw stopping power.

A space marine, weighs near 1000kg (800kg for armour + gear then himself?), is not sleek or light and is not on a running track. If you believe those qualities are good for speed then I think you got some more student learning to do

The armor is self-supporting (it doesn't weigh anything at all to the Marine wearing it, and lifts its own weight, at a minimum, while further enhancing the Marine's strength) and provides its own musculature and motivators in order to move.

Self supporting doesnt change its weight though... its still 1000kg+ to move which isnt easy for anything to do quickly.

Do Space Marines have force fields?

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, there are differences in how penetrating weapons and flesh damaging weapons work, at least with kinetic energy weapons

Hollow point bullets for example are terrible at penetrating armor, because, by design, they work directly in favor of how body armor wants to dissipate that force. If they hit flesh however and properly expand, they cause a great big cavity to form and dump all of their energy effectively into the target.

Meanwhile, a round that pierces armor effectively often will go straight through flesh, creating a nice hole (that will destroy anything it comes across) but won't be hitting as much or causing as much collateral damage, and often will retain significant energy to pass back out of the target, meaning that energy isn't all transferred to the target.

That said, anything that's effectively punching something like Power Armor is likely to retain a buttload of energy to dump into flesh, and if we're talking a thermal energy weapon, then the above goes out the window and if its penetrating armor then it should vaporize flesh far easier.

That's right, the AKs I trained with in the Russian army would probably not penetrate quite as well as an M-16 an American would use due to not quite having the same velocity, but the bullet used was probably going to leave a hideous hole when it came out since the 74's rounds tumble like a mother-fether.

I love my AK-74...I just wish I could have a giggle-switch auto-sear in it

 Vaktathi wrote:
Skitarii have the rules I always wanted Stormtroopers/Scions to have, almost exactly :(

This is pretty much the reason I made this thread

 Swastakowey wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Well, I am a student of sport science, who is specialising in biomechanics, and I gave a relatively detailed explanation of how and why a marine would be 'that' fast on the previous page.

I mean, if Usain Bolt can accelerate to 47kph in 7 seconds without the use of illegal performance enhancing eugenics, in 38000 years, it stands to reason that an un augmented human may be able to breach the 5kph gap to 52pkh in under 10 seconds, let alone an augmented super human with many additional organs that facilitate the power and strength required to run so fast, and accelerate to it even faster.

So no mate, not magic marines, with magic legs. It is theoretically more than possible if the described science of a marine in powered armour was to become correct that they could run that fast. Absolutely no bones about that in my mind. In fact, I expect with rejuvenation techniques that such speeds may be possible in my life time, tif such techniques were used for performance enhancing purposes.

What would take years of body honing could be achieved in months.

Well that is wrong though. Usain Bolt had a MAXIMUM SPEED of 47. His average is 37km per hour. Now Usain bolt is thin, sleek, light and has all his gear designed for running. He trains for running and running only. The ground he runs on is designed fro running.

A space marine, weighs near 1000kg (800kg for armour + gear then himself?), is not sleek or light and is not on a running track. If you believe those qualities are good for speed then I think you got some more student learning to do.

Remember, the claim is that a Space Marine can run 52KM an hour in 5 seconds. That is not possible. Unless of course you have some idea of how that much weight can push itself so quickly on 2 legs?

See this discussion is important, because of their super hearing they can apparently hear artillery shells coming from a very long distance away and quickly zoom away from the area. That was the claim I thought was ridiculous. It still is ridiculous.

He weighs a bloody tonne mate? Even if he did reach these speeds he has no brakes, so he will have to have a lot of foresight to start stopping in time so he doesnt fall into small ditches or crash into objects etc.

Anyway enough of that, everyone has moved on to the topic etc.

You are well aware that olympic level weight lifters, you know, those guys and gals who are literally massive, will outstrip most sprinters, including elite ones over short distances? Why is that you reckon? And why is it do you think that the lighter frames of the sprinters eventually catch up to the weight lifters and outpace them?

The marines have the benefit of both of their advantages, they have the power and strength of the weight lifters, so will be incredibly quick off the mark, but also the cardio-respiratory system that can handle working at that rate, and above it. They have two hearts... TWO HEARTS, an absolutely insane endocrine system that can pump them full of so many hormones on a whim that your regular human would drop dead in an instant, they can adapt and heal almost instantly, so those fast twitch fibres they have will adapt in hour rather than days to stress, causing them to be even stronger. That isn't even thinking of the energy systems of the marines, they could have a creatine-phosphate energy system with enough reserves in their muscle tissue to work for minutes rather than seconds for all I know. How fast can their heart(s) beat per minute at maximum, how long can they sustain their maximum, what sort of tidal flow are they capable of, what is their lactic threshold? All of these are unknowns in quantity, but due to their adaptations, it can be safely assumed they are INCREDIBLY high, in which case. Yeah, they can go fast bro, and accelerate quickly to those speeds also.

Anyway, why is Usains speed topping at 47, but averaging at 37? He is usually slowing down at the 70m mark, he is also lazy, and as I have mentioned, his technique in the acceleration stage is also quite sloppy.

Anyway, already mentioned about the marines hearing the sound of the shells, and being able to cypher the sounds to accurately guess the direction it is coming from and where it is going to land with enough time to get out the way. Now, I don't know how fast said shells can travel, but I would assume it is faster than sound. If the marine could see the shell, and see it coming towards them, depending on blast radius.

The Armor doesn't weigh 1000kg. I don't think it clocks in at even 100kg. The Marine himself weighs way more than his armor does... and a car can move itself at 52mph easily, using technology that's now almost a century old.

There's also the fact that FFG's rules have been brought into this, and those are just absolutely redonkulous, but not out-of-line with feats Marines are described as doing in various sources.

Also, 1000kg is quite easy to move, you just need the engine and vehicle to do it, and those ridiculously strong and powerful marine legs with his ridiculous physiology is a big enough engine.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Also, 1000kg is quite easy to move, you just need the engine and vehicle to do it, and those ridiculously strong and powerful marine legs with his ridiculous physiology is a big enough engine.

You have a big word in your last reply. Assume.

Also a car has 4 wheels, I said earlier if a Marine had 4 legs I would think the speed possible, but not on 2 legs. Especially not with legs like theirs (with Armor on)

Usain Bolt has an average speed and a top speed if you google his speed. Hence the difference.

See when all these extra organs are added and assumptions based on the fact they probably have 2 of every organ etc is where I cant really argue much further. Since I have no idea if two hearts matter when they have all these other organs or if it effects their blood pressure, if their veins etc have been changed to support this etc. I have no idea. So if all these extra organs are added I cannot argue, I dont know enough about that stuff. A quick google search suggest we dont know just how much a second heart would effect people if it even will. But im not sure.

Reasonning Space Marines with science is a huge mistake. They are very, very implausible in most of their aspect from physical appearence, creation to capacities. Here is a short list of problem.

1) Fused rib-cage equals breathing problems, incapacity to lift and rotate arms over head, overheating issues, crippling lack of flexibility, balance and mouvements.

2) laraman cells = blood pressure problem, strokes, cloged arteries and veins, etc.

3) massive muscle and dense bones create problems of mobility, short tendons, lack of flexibility, posture issues.

4) massive adreline surges and high level of testosterone = stupidity, insanity, hallucination, etc.

5) fast healing, high strength, endurance and low body fat = high metabolism and heat issues.

6) thick skin produce transpiration issue, cooling issue, mobility issue.

7) second heart creates blood pressure differencil that can cause, death, fainting, burst blood vessels and is basically useless on a human frame of body (Octopus have 1 major heart and 8 secondary hearts to help give blood to their huge tentacles. Damage the main heart and they die. Damage a secondary heart and they may well bleed to death.)

Space Marines are being of fiction lets treatt them has such. They can do thing that makes no sense because they live in an imaginary world with it's own laws and parameters.

Just thinking of the caloric requirements of a Space Marine is insane. Many top athletes consume 8-12 thousand calories a day. For a Space Marine, with all that extra mass, those extra organs, etc, on top of apparently even more extreme physical feats, they'd probably need ,*at the least*, a similar caloric intake just to keep from starving to death, and probably 50,000-100,000 calories a day for the kind of training and combat they engage in.

Food would be a very real concern for a Space Marine, and whole they can eat things others can't, getting sufficient calories out of it would be very difficult indeed.

@Vaktathi

... and since they don't have bigger mouth and better teeth, they would spend all their days eating food just to stay in shape. This would be a good thing since the most simple physical activity could overcook their internal organs and they would have so much problem walking around.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Just thinking of the caloric requirements of a Space Marine is insane. Many top athletes consume 8-12 thousand calories a day. For a Space Marine, with all that extra mass, those extra organs, etc, on top of apparently even more extreme physical feats, they'd probably need ,*at the least*, a similar caloric intake just to keep from starving to death, and probably 50,000-100,000 calories a day for the kind of training and combat they engage in.

Food would be a very real concern for a Space Marine, and whole they can eat things others can't, getting sufficient calories out of it would be very difficult indeed.

I personally imagine them as cows, just eating everything they can on their journey, leaving poop trails everywhere. Stripping trees of leaves and bark as they travel, eating anything they can pick up just to keep them going. Grazing Space Marines eating the dead and consuming the local vegetation cracks me up. Probably why they have all these organs in the first place.

There's a system in their armor to recycle waste into a nutrient paste or water.

There's also 38,000 years of development to take into account. High-calorie, nutrient paste is probably child's play.

In the army we have emergency rations based on chocolate bars (those all in one candy bars were originally intended for quickly splurging on calories when healthier food couldn't be eaten fast enough) that are extremely dense in calories that you could chow down on quickly for fast energy. It's meant to be for emergencies though, and in the past this chocolate would often be made to taste like gak to prevent you from chowing down on it like candy.

In the future they probably don't need anything as crass as calorie dense chocolate+nuts+caramel+whatever and can probably just make a slurry of carbs, proteins and fats to get you going or even put it in bar form.

Recycling urine to water is one thing, but solid waste is another. If they're efficient in digesting that food in the first place, there shouldn't be much worth bothering with to recycle. As for nutrient paste, I'm sure they have something, but it's never mentioned or talked about, and they'd still have to be eating a gak-ton of it.

And yeah, the sheer amount of poop they'd generate would be a deal in and of itself