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Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...

First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.

furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...

Thyhadras wrote:
Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...

First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.

furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...

I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.

 Grumblewartz wrote:
I absolutely agree that the chapter size should be changed to 10,000. Of course, the fluff has hinted and outright said more than once that the 1,000 is often ignored. The Ultramarines are the extreme example of this. The 1,000 chapter size also does not take into account new but not complete marines, their supporting crew (regular humans who do all the mundane day-to-day maintenance, etc.), and servitors. I think if they moved the baseline to 10,000 then we could comfortably be looking at roughly 50,000 total strength of a standard chapter including their dependents and place the larger chapters that are stretching the restrictions at 100,000+.

Either way, I support the idea that the total size of the space marine force should be changed and the OP suggestion that you blame it on the failings of the administration would work perfectly fine. I have always though of it that way anyways.

I would surmise, given that Chapters a) are in charge of their own recruitment, indoctrination, etc and b) they don't answer to anyone except the Emporer, that the 1,000 number was simply a statement from Ole' Rob about what would constitute a functional Chapter, not a limitation as to maximum size. That limitation is more realistically based on how fast a Chapter can recruit, geneseed and equip an Astartes. I expect that 10th companies are far larger, as they should contain at least 100 full-up scout marines to augment battle companies, a significant number of trained Astartes ready to fill shortages in the battle companies, plus a sizeable number of initiates (at least 1 per trained scout), and a full up training cadre, several times the size of a battle company hq; extra Apothecaries, Chaplains and Librarians to monitor the initiates' physical, spritual and psychic adjustment.

Battle and reserve companies as well could exceed that, with HQ and the 10 squads as the "first team", and a number of "on deck" replacements who've already been initiated into the company.

The 1st company could be huge, since becoming a veteran should be a matter of valorous deeds rather than waiting for a slot to open up. Given the indefinite lifespan of an Astartes if not killed in battle, if it hasn't gotten itself cornholed by a WAAAAGH or hive fleet or tomb world, the 1st could be the size of the battle companies combined. Further, there's good internal reason for this; if a chapter has one company go renegade, it should be able to squash it with it's own 1st company, quickly and decisively. Astartes fighting one-on-one isn't quick. Five-on-one, where the five get Land Raiders and TDA, is quick.

Any consensus on what Chapter size should be? The only real limitation is that it needs to be small enough to be under control of the Chapter Master and his advisers/Captains of companies. Geneseed purportedly increases mental acuity in addition to other characteristics, so the number can be larger to a certain extent than what a regular human could manage.

Also, keep in mind that the Legions would have to be even larger, by two(?) orders of magnitude. So a First Founding chapter of a million would have been 100 million strong pre-Heresy.

I'm sticking with a typical strength of 10 million for now, split into 10 Grand Battalions, which operate more or less autonomously. At some point down the chain of organization, there would be 1000-strong Divisions that are the equivalent of the canonical chapters, which are in turn split into the Companies with which we are familiar.

 asorel wrote:
Any consensus on what Chapter size should be? The only real limitation is that it needs to be small enough to be under control of the Chapter Master and his advisers/Captains of companies. Geneseed purportedly increases mental acuity in addition to other characteristics, so the number can be larger to a certain extent than what a regular human could manage.

Also, keep in mind that the Legions would have to be even larger, by two(?) orders of magnitude. So a First Founding chapter of a million would have been 100 million strong pre-Heresy.

I'm sticking with a typical strength of 10 million for now, split into 10 Grand Battalions, which operate more or less autonomously. At some point down the chain of organization, there would be 1000-strong Divisions that are the equivalent of the canonical chapters, which are in turn split into the Companies with which we are familiar.

Well that's certainly better than the current nonsensical claims of the books.

I personally prefer the small chapters, but I don't like how the number of chapters is so limited at 1000. Why not make it a million chapters? Or more? Leave plenty of room for practically unlimited unique chapters.

I do agree that there should be more but I'd refrain from getting too far. Space Marines don't conquer, that's the job of Astra Militarium. Space Marines provide military support as shock troops. They come in, kill key targets, hit key fortifications, or whatever is the hardest toughest job needed to be done, then they go. The rest is done by the meat grinding AM.

I think the size of a chapter is pretty much stuck as is, it's been 1000 marines for a very long time and it's not in any way ambiguous in the fluff

Number of chapters however is EXTREMELY ambiguous, we have no exact number of chapter, not even a list of every 2nd founding chapter... i think that is where we should increase scale

I am down for there being 10-20 million marines, but I agree that it is not adjusted on the chapter size but on the amount of chapters...

hell I am in the process of adding one

Dont forget the Millions of undocumented Scouts.

I can see a 1000 x 1000 marines being sufficient considering while there are plenty of planets not ALL of them are on fire at the same time. and that the majority of space is empty.

The majority of protection would come from the imperial navy and the planets own PDFs.

Realistically im sure marines are holding quite a bit more dudes then they let on and or they replace them pretty quickly with a big contingent of scouts.

Marines in theory should drop in get the job done and be back home in time for dinner. and let the guard clean up afterwards.

Edit: Basically besides a few special cases like EoT or some crazy area with a LOT of conflict. how often does revolts or bad guys pop up that need a swift boot to the head.

@Desubot - lol, now that Scouts are BS4/WS4, those scouts make even more sense!

And yeah, they're meant to be used more like an elite SEAL team.

 Talys wrote:
@Desubot - lol, now that Scouts are BS4/WS4, those scouts make even more sense!

And yeah, they're meant to be used more like an elite SEAL team.

I think the PC term for them is illegal astartes.

Edit woops that would be the opposite of PC

Yep, between needing only a handful realistically-as you don't need them in every damn firefight, and the fact they probably replace men quite quickly, it seems reasonable that only 1 million "full fledged" marines are out there, and about as many, if not more, are under "training"


The fact you don't like the numbers do not change them from what they are. marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game.
For an example, a terminator once got stomped by a titan. his only problem was that he got stuck in the concred, but wasn't actually harmed.

Fluff marine armors are flying rodent gak crazy, thier abilities are beyond any scope reality can match, and then you realize that the freaking terminators, are not even the second best soldier the IoM can throw at you-the grey knights are even a more elite version, and then the assassins make them look like a guardsmen in return.

You don't need many marines. you need only a few, at the right place, at the right time.
They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job. they just go in directly by podding to engage the general's bodyguards and take out the leader.

"marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."

Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.

"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"

Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.

Martel732 wrote:
"marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."

Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.

"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"

Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.

Do you buy the fluff or do you not buy the fluff, Martel?

You are both disregarding it and using it as an argument.

 Gamgee wrote:
Also you don't seem to realize the Tau Empire probably has hundreds of thousands of worlds within it. I don't think you realize how big SPAAAACE is. Not to mention they can terraform an entire planet if need be. So a lot more of the worlds in their space will be usable. Where as in the Imperium only a few worlds will be true production worlds. Where as almost every Tau world has that capacity. Also a single factory when the Tau factories can spread across the entire planet alongside Earth Caste factories and science labs to further develop and test things.

You might need to turn down your fanboy-ism and re-read the fluff, because almost everything you're saying in this thread is ridiculous. Just to address these tidbits, for the sake of accuracy:

The Tau Empire numbers in the tens or maybe hundreds of systems at best, including sparsely populated colonies and non-Tau allied races. The number of fully settled systems (like the ones you're talking about who are well developed enough to crank out Mantas) is more or less known: the first sphere of expansion brought in 8 major systems, the second sphere brought in at least 7, and the third sphere brought in an unknown number but probably not significantly more. For every one of these major systems, there are at least a handful of sparsely inhabited systems too. Even growing exponentially, you're looking at hundreds of planets, not hundreds of thousands. Not to mention an unknown number of Tau systems are part of the Farsight Enclaves, which are actively hostile to the rest of the Tau race - they wouldn't count towards the Tau's strength except in the most dire of circumstances. So saying the Tau have hundreds of thousands of worlds is pretty far off the mark. Extremely far.

The Imperium, on the other hand, is acknowledged as controlling at least 1 million systems. The Imperium is well known for having factories that really do cover entire planets (what do you think Forge Worlds are?). In fact, although this is an impossible bet to settle conclusively, I can guarantee you the Imperium has more Forge Worlds than the Tau have planets of any kind.

The Tau are an absolutely insignificant race in the galactic sense. In fluff terms, they're a stand-in for the very many tiny, interesting, and incredibly advanced races the Imperium has met and subsequently crushed over 10,000 years. Maybe since the Imperium is dying, they'll get a chance to keep advancing - that is, if the Tyranids, Orks, Necrons, Dark Eldar, etc. don't wipe out their pitiful dozens of heavily populated planets first through sheer weight of numbers.

That's putting the Tau in their proper scale.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."

Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.

"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"

Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.

Do you buy the fluff or do you not buy the fluff, Martel?

You are both disregarding it and using it as an argument.

I don't really buy the fluff. My primary argument would be that space marines wouldn't exist in the first place, the story of the Emperor is stupid, and the setting is ridiculous. Some elements are less absurd than others, which explains the cherry picking.

Then what the hell are you even in the conversation for, you literally refuse to accept the very BASIS of the storyline

GAdvance wrote:
Then what the hell are you even in the conversation for, you literally refuse to accept the very BASIS of the storyline

Because the numbers that GW claim are so absurdly low and the gap between fluff marines and table top is so huge that someone needs to point this out. Everyone goes on about how great the setting is, but I think that GW writes terrible fiction.

Martel732 wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"marines in fluff are far, far, FAR beyond anything they can do in-game."

Except I don't care about that. As far as I'm concerned, they are as modeled on the table top. The GW fluff writers are awful.

"They don't NEED to face armies of millions-that's the AM's job"

Except if you read what they as supposed to have done, they could never have done that without millions of marines. Especially the battles against Tyranids, who would be able to assault multiple continents simultaneously.

Do you buy the fluff or do you not buy the fluff, Martel?

You are both disregarding it and using it as an argument.

I don't really buy the fluff. My primary argument would be that space marines wouldn't exist in the first place, the story of the Emperor is stupid, and the setting is ridiculous. Some elements are less absurd than others, which explains the cherry picking.

What you're doing is talking out of both sides of your mouth.

If you don't buy the fluff, that's fine, but then you complain that the Tyranids should have been able to assault multiple continents at once... if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes.

" if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes."

Fair enough. But it's still a galactic war. And the rate at which marines die on the tabletop would force there to be more than 1000 chapter for sure. 20 tablings X 50 marines per table = chapter eradicated. We could rate chapters in how many Wraithknights it would take to exterminate them since 90% of marine weapons are worthless against them.

I'd think rather than increase Chapters sizes (my fluff knowledge is a little creaky but weren't the HH Legions downsized after the HH to avoid it happening again ?) you just need to increase the number of Chapters, a 1000 Chapters of 1000 Marines was most likely something that sounded cool at the time but makes little sense in the modern fluff, plus given how huge the IoM is nobody really knows how many of what there is with information being up to Centuries late by the time it reaches Terra

Martel732 wrote:
" if we are going by TT, then you're sending like 500 points of Bugs to each of 4 continents in a 2k points game... and 500 points of Bugs is Not At All Difficult to blow off the board in a turn or two with 500 points of Astartes."

Fair enough. But it's still a galactic war. And the rate at which marines die on the tabletop would force there to be more than 1000 chapter for sure. 20 tablings X 50 marines per table = chapter eradicated. We could rate chapters in how many Wraithknights it would take to exterminate them since 90% of marine weapons are worthless against them.

You are assuming off table means dead.

You wouldn't need Marines to defend a continent vs 500 points of bugs. 500 points of the cheapest of IG infantrymen blows them off the table as soon as they arrive...

... and that is actually how the Imperium functions. *Most* of the fighting, like, 99% of it, is done by the Guard. It's why it exists, it is its sole function. Fighting. Prosecuting the Emperor's wars across the void of space. Claiming new worlds in the name of the Emperor. Defending the Emperor's worlds from the encroachment of Xenos and Traitors.

Planet in rebellion? Send the Guard.
Weird Xeno world? Send the Guard.
Found a new planet and aren't sure what lives there? Send the Guard.
Pirate raiders? Send the Navy, carrying the Guard (in case the pirates have terrestrial holdings)

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
I agree, the marines are much more adaptable,able to actually enter buildings and such

If there are still buildings standing you have failed as an Imperial Guard general. Report to your nearest Commissar for re-education.

USMC are not MT either. Veteran guardsman at best.

Martel732 wrote:

Thyhadras wrote:
Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...

First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.

furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...

I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.

While I agree the GW authors understand very little about military history/actual combat, there are plenty of examples in history of small teams changing the tide of large battles. Also, just because you have tools like orbital bombardment and titans doesn't mean you can use them. Even using precision-guided munitions in today's war where a laser-guided bomb can accurately land within 3m of its target is tough during the heat of a firefight.
I think the closest we've seen of a top unit in action like the SM in real life is Black Hawk Down. If you see the Delta Force/Rangers as SM/Tempestus, it was 160 men against 4-6k Somalis, losing 18 and inflicting 1k+ casualties. Even though there's a massive gulf in the amount of discipline and training vs the militia (many were somewhat well-trained and veterans of combat despite the movie making them out to be a mob), I still think SM are meant to be way more elite.

I think that secretiveness and divided nature of the chapters should also be taken into account together with the lack of communication in the Emperium. The Dark Angels and Black Templar are prime examples of this. Dark Angels are so secretive that it will never be clear to the Imperium how many marine they have and the Black Templar extremely divided making it impossible to keep track of the numbers. And then there is the terrible communication, by the time someone figures out the numbers don't match it will have been a couple hundred year later.

Because of this I wouldn't be surprised if a large amount of chapters don't precisely consist of a 1000 marines.

Think of it in HALO terms.

Originally, only 20 SPARTAN-II's made it through the procedure, 3 after 2552 (John, Kelly, Kurt).

The first batch of SPARTAN-III's had less than ten survivors of 300.

There's about a 1000 SPARTAN III/IV's alive and on duty, and ONE of them, who had been asleep for 7 years and surviving atmospheric reentry single handedly killed the biggest threat humanity ever knew.

And ODST's (read:Tempestus) are proven to be around the same calibre.

Every race in Halo is more advanced than anything in 40k and one guy can kill legions of aliens 8ft tall, while Spess Mahreens have a hard time liberating a tiny world when they have access to more stuff while SPARTANS use anything they pick up.

God Space Marines suck compared to these guys.

To answer to Martel, I don't think one can link SM performance on the tabletop and what they can do in the fluff. If GW says a demi-company can turn the tide of battle, well, there's nothing you can do about this, and it's canon. Whether you think their fluff awful or not, if they say SM are awesome, that's what they are. Same points about titans, 15km long space cruisers and other stuff like this; from a military standpoint, their effectivness could be ... contested, at the very least. Now, GW is also a mini company and, even though their rules are unbalanced, they need to keep people playing their game. If marines could effetivly take out my whole IG army with two or three minis, I'll probably won't play against them and they would be really profitable for GW either. Same thing about Terminators, Land Raiders and other SM gear. You can't put the SM power on the same level in the fluff and in the tabletop but if you want to, either you give Primarch stats to each plastic tactical marine, either you retcon the whole fluff written for thirty years and you say SM chapters numbers are 1.000.000 or whatever.

Best way for GW to choose between these? Keep calm and sell minis. And let termies die to massed lasgun fire.

 Flanker wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Thyhadras wrote:
Based on the fluff of what marines do though I am seeing two problems...

First most people have never even heard of a space marine and an even smaller portion have seen one.

furthermore, in the fluff a demi company can tilt the tide of battle in favor of the imperium... really this is an argument that I can see both sides and there would never be a good answer...

I don't believe a demi company changes the outcome of a large battle at all. Especially ones with orbital bombardment, titans, and mantas. The GW writers don't understand anything about military history more than likely. They are their own fanbois.

While I agree the GW authors understand very little about military history/actual combat, there are plenty of examples in history of small teams changing the tide of large battles. Also, just because you have tools like orbital bombardment and titans doesn't mean you can use them. Even using precision-guided munitions in today's war where a laser-guided bomb can accurately land within 3m of its target is tough during the heat of a firefight.
I think the closest we've seen of a top unit in action like the SM in real life is Black Hawk Down. If you see the Delta Force/Rangers as SM/Tempestus, it was 160 men against 4-6k Somalis, losing 18 and inflicting 1k+ casualties. Even though there's a massive gulf in the amount of discipline and training vs the militia (many were somewhat well-trained and veterans of combat despite the movie making them out to be a mob), I still think SM are meant to be way more elite.

The worlds most powerful military beating up a 3rd world militia isn't probably the best example of elite troops turning a battle around, in fact they didn't turn anything around, the mission went FUBAR and the Rangers/Delta were unable to turn that result into victory.

1940, Belguim, fort of Eben Emael. Around 80 elite Fallschirmjager capture a fortress garrisoned by 1200 Belgians and sustain 6 casualties in the process. This is an elite unit turning a battle around. Schwerpunkt relies on speed, and a huge fortress would have slowed the advance considerably. Germany's vaunted Panzers could have bashed their heads against this wall for weeks with no result. Both sides involved were first world nations possessing modern militaries.