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I've been wondering if 2000pts lists are true to the fluff? I've read that regiments usually have dozens of companies, which have 2-6 platoons, which in turn have 2-6 squads. However, the lists used on the tabletop roughly have 6 - 10 squads but a few company commanders, which means that there are disproportionately many commanders to squads. What do you guys think?
Also, would units like artillery or leman russes generally be in an infantry regiment or be part of separate ones.

Not really, realistically the bigger games like Apocalypse are truer to the fluff. Astra Militarum are supposed to be unwed img waves of men fed through a meat-grinder. 2000 Pts will hardly get any of the big war-machines that are like 500 Pts per model.

What about the number of company commanders? Given that they only have 2 orders, if you want to have an order per squad you'll have to take 1 for every 2 when in reality there'll be one for maybe 15.

An imperial guard regiment is a nonspecific sized formation. It could be 1000 men, it could be 500,000. A company is still supposed to be normal to modern company sized (which actually goes back thousands of years in general use). But anything and everything is possible in the immense variety that is the imperium.

But anyway, the game is only a rough approximation. Marines in the fluff are super rare and able to chew through hundreds of guardsmen. On the board, they're worth maybe 3 guardsmen.

Artillery and Russes would be their own regiment (with the except of Krieg fixed artillery, which can be part of Siege regiment, which are a mix of arty and infantry), you can justify having them the same color by saying its common camouflage they both use on the same battlefield.

As for Marines chewing through hundreds of Guardsmen, no, just no, especially not if those Guardsmen are packing special or heavy weapons.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Artillery and Russes would be their own regiment (with the except of Krieg fixed artillery, which can be part of Siege regiment, which are a mix of arty and infantry), you can justify having them the same color by saying its common camouflage they both use on the same battlefield.

As for Marines chewing through hundreds of Guardsmen, no, just no, especially not if those Guardsmen are packing special or heavy weapons.

Marines absolutely chew through literally hundreds to thousands of guardsmen, it's what they were made for. Guardsmen's advantage is that even if they have a 100,000:1 kill ratio, it's still a victory for them as they are all completely worthless mass fodder that can be churned out near infinitely given the Imperium's demographics (literally hundreds of billions being slain and conscripted daily)

 Bobthehero wrote:
Artillery and Russes would be their own regiment (with the except of Krieg fixed artillery, which can be part of Siege regiment, which are a mix of arty and infantry), you can justify having them the same color by saying its common camouflage they both use on the same battlefield.

As for Marines chewing through hundreds of Guardsmen, no, just no, especially not if those Guardsmen are packing special or heavy weapons.

Actually there are Regiments that have earned the right to be mixed regiments and not just tank/ inf/ mechanised, etc. Krieg is one of the few that is allowed to form mixed ones to my knowledge.

Pretty much no army is true to fluffy in the game.

Marines put down way too many models for their points value; Tyranids and Guard and Orks put down far too few. Tyranids should be putting down thousands of gaunts and countless sporemines.

Plus the heroic units we use would likly only appear in the largest and most important of battles; whilst the artillery units should be a few miles back from the front lines. Your Basalisk should be on the street outside not on the other side of the table. Air units should be flying through so fast that you don't even see them on the table.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Artillery and Russes would be their own regiment (with the except of Krieg fixed artillery, which can be part of Siege regiment, which are a mix of arty and infantry), you can justify having them the same color by saying its common camouflage they both use on the same battlefield.

As for Marines chewing through hundreds of Guardsmen, no, just no, especially not if those Guardsmen are packing special or heavy weapons.

They pretty much NEED to carry special or heavy weapons seeing power armour is pretty much immune to lasgun. Sole marine can run up into platoon of lasgun wielders and only Q is does he run out of ammo first before targets.

Your army represents just a portion of what is deployed to the battlefield.
A few hundred metres away will be another portion of the same force, with a similar (or opposite) mix of units, commanders, vehicles, etc.
Your airstrikes, artillery bombardments, etc, are all just off the table. While your units are fighting, the tank battalion is rumbling along behind, waiting for you to clear the enemy from the objective.

So, if you think you have too many commanders on the table for the number of squads, there is a table just out of view where their own units are.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Artillery and Russes would be their own regiment (with the except of Krieg fixed artillery, which can be part of Siege regiment, which are a mix of arty and infantry), you can justify having them the same color by saying its common camouflage they both use on the same battlefield.

As for Marines chewing through hundreds of Guardsmen, no, just no, especially not if those Guardsmen are packing special or heavy weapons.

Marines absolutely chew through literally hundreds to thousands of guardsmen, it's what they were made for. Guardsmen's advantage is that even if they have a 100,000:1 kill ratio, it's still a victory for them as they are all completely worthless mass fodder that can be churned out near infinitely given the Imperium's demographics (literally hundreds of billions being slain and conscripted daily)

Well, it depends on the circumstances.

They 'can' chew through hundreds if they were just blindly being thrown at them (as the cultist/renegade rabble most of Chaos consist of usually end up doing) or when they're utilising their typical shock and awe doctrine of appearing from the skies and slaughtering confused, disorganised and panicking defenders who can't rally. But as we see in stuff like Gaunt's Ghosts, even a handful of 'mere mortals' can screw over Marines who underestimate their opponent. Remember that Marines aren't meant to actually fight in circumstances where their enemy is prepared for conventional battles. They get absolutely mulched in attrition or when they're caught out of position to act like... well, descending angels of death.

Not gonna lie. For my "internal theater of the mind" i tend to expand how many men a model represents.

In the case of space marines, one model might be one model.
A single guardsman model might be a fireteam of 5 to 10 men.
An eldar guardian might be a 2 man team
A single tyranid gaunt might be 30 of the buggers.

Helps me forge epic narratives in my head, ymmv

 iGuy91 wrote:
Not gonna lie. For my "internal theater of the mind" i tend to expand how many men a model represents.

In the case of space marines, one model might be one model.
A single guardsman model might be a fireteam of 5 to 10 men.
An eldar guardian might be a 2 man team
A single tyranid gaunt might be 30 of the buggers.

Helps me forge epic narratives in my head, ymmv

This is the only way it really works, otherwise no army really represents fluff properly on the table.

The game's fluff is all over the place, in some stories, a squad of guardsmen mulch a couple space marines without issue, in others a tac squad will slaughter thousands of Eldar without a single casualty as if it were all part of a days work. That's all up to the individual author and how far they want to stretch rule of cool. One can find Space Marines being as absurdly OP as one wants, and one can also find them dying to simple and relatively mundane wepaons and opponents wielding poison darts, exploding lasgun powerpacks, simple mortar shells, etc. It's all about who the protagonist is and how the author writes.

As is, for tabletop IG armies, IG fluff is also all over the place, with unit designations being only minor reflections of their modern equivalents in many cases, and model names that are intended to cover a very broad range of officers. In 40k terms, a Company Commander is basically any officer higher than a platoon level officer, the game just doesn't really have rules for differentiating different levels of officer or unit size beyond that.

Units like artillery or Russ tanks generally would be from other regiments, as combined arms units are generally avoided, but some do exist.

 Arbitrator wrote:

They 'can' chew through hundreds if they were just blindly being thrown at them (as the cultist/renegade rabble most of Chaos consist of usually end up doing) or when they're utilising their typical shock and awe doctrine of appearing from the skies and slaughtering confused, disorganised and panicking defenders who can't rally. But as we see in stuff like Gaunt's Ghosts, even a handful of 'mere mortals' can screw over Marines who underestimate their opponent. Remember that Marines aren't meant to actually fight in circumstances where their enemy is prepared for conventional battles. They get absolutely mulched in attrition or when they're caught out of position to act like... well, descending angels of death.

I wouldnt put much truth in Gaunts Ghosts. They shouldve been dragged out and shot behind the barn after their first adventure.
Really theres 1 in 10 guys that can bother them. If he gets a shot off. Well those marines arent worthy of the name

the ancient wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

They 'can' chew through hundreds if they were just blindly being thrown at them (as the cultist/renegade rabble most of Chaos consist of usually end up doing) or when they're utilising their typical shock and awe doctrine of appearing from the skies and slaughtering confused, disorganised and panicking defenders who can't rally. But as we see in stuff like Gaunt's Ghosts, even a handful of 'mere mortals' can screw over Marines who underestimate their opponent. Remember that Marines aren't meant to actually fight in circumstances where their enemy is prepared for conventional battles. They get absolutely mulched in attrition or when they're caught out of position to act like... well, descending angels of death.

I wouldnt put much truth in Gaunts Ghosts. They shouldve been dragged out and shot behind the barn after their first adventure.
Really theres 1 in 10 guys that can bother them. If he gets a shot off. Well those marines arent worthy of the name

If we're gonna bag on Gaunts Ghosts in that manner, we cant take other SM fluff seriously either. Putting any minimal amount of thought, logic, and extrapolation onto how Marines and Marine chapters actually work, they become nonsensical quite quickly. There's also other places outside of Gaunts Ghosts with similar events where Marines are killed relatively easily (e.g. Storm of Iron, almost anything where CSM's are not the protagonist, etc). Abnett's writing of Space Marines is dramatically more nauseating than any of his IG/GG stuff (e.g. Brothers of the Snake where a single tac squad blows through literally thousands of Dark Eldar in a single firefight and one space marine is sent to cleanse a world where a DE ship crashed full of hundreds of warriors).

Helsreach is pretty good when it comes to Marines, there's a lot less absolute power (one Marines bleed out because of his massive injuries, rather than having his blood always clot nearly instantly no matter, their armor can be countered, etc), they are described as being overwhelmed when facing 5/6 to 1 odds in melee with Ork boys. They are powerful, no denying it, but none of that hundreds to one kill ratio idiocy we read about sometimes.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Helsreach is pretty good when it comes to Marines, there's a lot less absolute power (one Marines bleed out because of his massive injuries, rather than having his blood always clot nearly instantly no matter, their armor can be countered, etc), they are described as being overwhelmed when facing 5/6 to 1 odds in melee with Ork boys. They are powerful, no denying it, but none of that hundreds to one kill ratio idiocy we read about sometimes.

Which is nonsense because it ignores core marine fluff published in every single codex since the augmentations were codified in Second Edition. Likewise Orks being dangerous in melee against a skilled fighter is ridiculous when Orks themselves are completely lacking in finesse and purely rely on raw strength in melee. Their only notable trait is that they should realistically be able to parry the blows of a one-tonne massed enemy by being equally close to the same level of Astartes (or exceeding them in the case of Nobs). Although it's more ridiculous as the Marines somehow getting "overwhelmed" in melee (such as the Champion) have power weapons that should be able to simply cleave through anything in their way until coming in contact with either an object of obscene density (such as adamantium) or a power weapon as well. Especially the Champion, who is wielding a greatsword which is specifically designed to be used in sweeping rotations that allows the user to fend off or even kill an entire horde of enemies trying to encircle them. The issue is that the writers never actually put their heads into the game of making things work, they just throw anything they deem to be "cool" thematically in literal hack works. Especially when mathematically marines make the most sense as being posthuman horde-killing abominations due to their low numbers, and it checks out with the other modified creations of the Emperor which are either equally or superior in their absurd lethality.

As a fencer for example, I can tell you that not only should no guardsmen be able to parry the blow flung at them by a marine, but neither from Orks, Tyranids, or Necrons for that matter. Any Commissar hero trying to block a strike from a foe massing in the hundreds of pounds and able to leverage that mass (even if they do not possess superhuman strength) is going to force the Commissar's blade upon himself and kill him in an instant. It gets grating seeing the mindless heroics of guardsmen characters being somehow able to go toe-to-toe with things that completely outclass them and should reduce them to paste in a fight. Nobody without extensive bionics, mutant genes, or warp empowerment has the strength to physically throw down with pretty much any of the Imperium's foes.

It ignores non sensical fluff that makes Marines boringly unaffected by anything (can't be stunned, suprised, bleed out, slowed down by injuries, age has little to no effect on them, can't be knocked out etc) so its good for me.

As for the weight and everything, probably, but it gets grating to have Marines wade through fire and be unaffected by it all, so I am not exactly gonna shed a tear when they pegged down a notch, its all they deserve.

 Bobthehero wrote:
It ignores non sensical fluff that makes Marines boringly unaffected by anything (can't be stunned, suprised, bleed out, slowed down by injuries, age has little to no effect on them, can't be knocked out etc) so its good for me.

As for the weight and everything, probably, but it gets grating to have Marines wade through fire and be unaffected by it all, so I am not exactly gonna shed a tear when they pegged down a notch, its all they deserve.

Except that's the entire point of a supersoldier. They are completely superior in physical regards and aren't effected by trivial causes, and the idea that that somehow makes them boring is both unimaginative and the fault of black library hack work.The issue is that most of the fluff is little more than the pornographic pulp nonsense mass produced in magazines in the 20's and 30's with only the occasional work or specific authors really standing out as well written legitimate works of art. If we want an actually good 40k story, the Black Library needs to hire professional, serious authors delving into topics completely excising fighting altogether. Peter Watts for example would be a great author to throw a Space Marine bone for a psychological dissection novel.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Helsreach is pretty good when it comes to Marines, there's a lot less absolute power (one Marines bleed out because of his massive injuries, rather than having his blood always clot nearly instantly no matter, their armor can be countered, etc), they are described as being overwhelmed when facing 5/6 to 1 odds in melee with Ork boys. They are powerful, no denying it, but none of that hundreds to one kill ratio idiocy we read about sometimes.

Which is nonsense because it ignores core marine fluff published in every single codex since the augmentations were codified in Second Edition. Likewise Orks being dangerous in melee against a skilled fighter is ridiculous when Orks themselves are completely lacking in finesse and purely rely on raw strength in melee. Their only notable trait is that they should realistically be able to parry the blows of a one-tonne massed enemy by being equally close to the same level of Astartes (or exceeding them in the case of Nobs). Although it's more ridiculous as the Marines somehow getting "overwhelmed" in melee (such as the Champion) have power weapons that should be able to simply cleave through anything in their way until coming in contact with either an object of obscene density (such as adamantium) or a power weapon as well. Especially the Champion, who is wielding a greatsword which is specifically designed to be used in sweeping rotations that allows the user to fend off or even kill an entire horde of enemies trying to encircle them. The issue is that the writers never actually put their heads into the game of making things work, they just throw anything they deem to be "cool" thematically in literal hack works. Especially when mathematically marines make the most sense as being posthuman horde-killing abominations due to their low numbers, and it checks out with the other modified creations of the Emperor which are either equally or superior in their absurd lethality.

As a fencer for example, I can tell you that not only should no guardsmen be able to parry the blow flung at them by a marine, but neither from Orks, Tyranids, or Necrons for that matter. Any Commissar hero trying to block a strike from a foe massing in the hundreds of pounds and able to leverage that mass (even if they do not possess superhuman strength) is going to force the Commissar's blade upon himself and kill him in an instant. It gets grating seeing the mindless heroics of guardsmen characters being somehow able to go toe-to-toe with things that completely outclass them and should reduce them to paste in a fight. Nobody without extensive bionics, mutant genes, or warp empowerment has the strength to physically throw down with pretty much any of the Imperium's foes.

In my own fencing, I see expert fencers get doubled out in bouts with a fair bit of regularity, often by extremely novice fighters, usually because the other fencer isn't playing by the same expectations and is just thinking about hitting and not defending themselves. I've seen raw strength and speed easily overwhelm skill and finesse, just as I've seen the opposite happen. Sweeping greatswords like Montantes designed for dealing with crowds or groups of enemies have downsides and can be overwhelmed (for example, if you stop a Montante's momentum for a moment). At least with regards to the Ork question, I don't find the Ork scenario to be all that offensive in such a regard, particularly as we have lots of imagery, cutscenes, descriptions, tales, etc showing Orks doing grievous things to Space Marines with relative ease, and Ork weapons have had at various points rules for limiting the effect of powerful armor. Their weapons are suited to their fighting style, and while an artful saber-esque parry-riposte likely isn't in their A-game of fighting tactics, I suspect trying to execute the same sort of technique against a Choppa swinging down on your head like the fist of Gork isn't going to work terribly well either. Fencing is also different from real melee combat in that in fencing we just have to worry about 1 opponent and typically are given a broad enough space to maneuver a bit and usually on nice surfaces, instead of dealing with a swarm of combatants fighting over rubble or in hallways or rough ground or in trenches or battlements where people combatants may be engaged against multiple opponents simultaneously (and your sword can only block from so many angles at once). A Marine force being overwhelmed by 6x their number of Orks doesn't seem at all to be ridiculously underpowering them in a pitched close quarters melee where the Orks are at their strongest and the Marines have their fewest relative advantages.

We also have to realize that 40k's hero power stuff gets applied pretty broadly across the entire spectrum. GW has a history of overinflating Characters (hence why 2E IG Colonel had WS6 T4 W3 compared to a genetically engineered super soldier basic Marine at WS4 T4 W1 and a basic Guardsmen at WS3 T3 W1, and even an 8E CC matches a Space Marine for WS with quadruple the number of wounds). Yeah, there are things Guard characters shouldn't be matching blade for blade, absolutely. There are things Marines shouldn't be either, or Eldar characters, but yet there's fluff of that sort too.

If we want an actually good 40k story, the Black Library needs to hire professional, serious authors delving into topics completely excising fighting altogether. Peter Watts for example would be a great author to throw a Space Marine bone for a psychological dissection novel.

Unfortunately I suspect the number of people who have real experience and knowledge of combatives, various sciences, etc, and who are interested in and willing to do 40k writing, are relatively few, and the payoff for GW (given the typical audience) relatively small . Not that I wouldn't love to see better stuff out of GW, but that's also a tall order.

 Wyzilla wrote:
If we want an actually good 40k story, the Black Library needs to hire professional, serious authors delving into topics completely excising fighting altogether.

IOW, "don't write a 40k story".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:
As a fencer for example, I can tell you that not only should no guardsmen be able to parry the blow flung at them by a marine, but neither from Orks, Tyranids, or Necrons for that matter. Any Commissar hero trying to block a strike from a foe massing in the hundreds of pounds and able to leverage that mass (even if they do not possess superhuman strength) is going to force the Commissar's blade upon himself and kill him in an instant. It gets grating seeing the mindless heroics of guardsmen characters being somehow able to go toe-to-toe with things that completely outclass them and should reduce them to paste in a fight. Nobody without extensive bionics, mutant genes, or warp empowerment has the strength to physically throw down with pretty much any of the Imperium's foes.

And as an engineer for example, I can tell you that Tyranids shouldn't exist at all, LRBTs should not be capable of moving on anything but a perfectly flat road, etc. This is a universe where warrior-monks in service to a lunatic theocracy create portals through literal hell to fly mile-long cathedrals with guns to a planet, then drop from orbit with chainsaw swords and rocket launcher pistols to fight a horde of rioting British soccer fans led by Margaret Thatcher. Objecting to the idea of a hero commissar and protagonist of the story being capable of blocking a swing from a space marine is, to put it politely, kind of silly.

None of the lists are realistic at all. You don't fight a battle with equal forces unless both sides are really stupid.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Your army represents just a portion of what is deployed to the battlefield.
A few hundred metres away will be another portion of the same force, with a similar (or opposite) mix of units, commanders, vehicles, etc.
Your airstrikes, artillery bombardments, etc, are all just off the table. While your units are fighting, the tank battalion is rumbling along behind, waiting for you to clear the enemy from the objective.

So, if you think you have too many commanders on the table for the number of squads, there is a table just out of view where their own units are.

The other armies are all really good at ambushing the command elements of Astra Militarum regiments.

pm713 wrote:
None of the lists are realistic at all. You don't fight a battle with equal forces unless both sides are really stupid.

No, of course you don't, but that's not the point. 40k, like any other wargame, focuses on the battles that are interesting and ignores the one-sided massacres that nobody is going to enjoy playing. Even if equal-forces encounters are only a small percentage of combat in the 40k universe they're going to be significantly over-represented on the tabletop, just like a WWII game focuses on iconic scenarios with roughly equal forces and ignores all of the times that someone with a radio saw an enemy squad and called in artillery to win the "battle".

 Peregrine wrote:

pm713 wrote:
None of the lists are realistic at all. You don't fight a battle with equal forces unless both sides are really stupid.

No, of course you don't, but that's not the point. 40k, like any other wargame, focuses on the battles that are interesting and ignores the one-sided massacres that nobody is going to enjoy playing. Even if equal-forces encounters are only a small percentage of combat in the 40k universe they're going to be significantly over-represented on the tabletop, just like a WWII game focuses on iconic scenarios with roughly equal forces and ignores all of the times that someone with a radio saw an enemy squad and called in artillery to win the "battle".

What about when I bring 9 Basilisks and play on an 8x8 table?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

pm713 wrote:
None of the lists are realistic at all. You don't fight a battle with equal forces unless both sides are really stupid.

No, of course you don't, but that's not the point. 40k, like any other wargame, focuses on the battles that are interesting and ignores the one-sided massacres that nobody is going to enjoy playing. Even if equal-forces encounters are only a small percentage of combat in the 40k universe they're going to be significantly over-represented on the tabletop, just like a WWII game focuses on iconic scenarios with roughly equal forces and ignores all of the times that someone with a radio saw an enemy squad and called in artillery to win the "battle".

What about when I bring 9 Basilisks and play on an 8x8 table?

Clearly it is 2 batteries of an artillery company that are being attacked by an enemy force that has penetrated the Imperial line. If those Basilisks are destroyed, then another critical section of the Imperial front will lose artillery support, possibly at a crucial moment when they are being attacked by more enemy forces.

While what exactly can beat what at what numbers vary wildly in the fluff, most factions are only represented properly in broad strokes due to GW's desire to sell models while also realizing that at a certain point if they make horde armies to big it'll discourage players from wanting to play them.

If a chapter took casualties like we see on the table top marines as a faction would be extinct as a faction long ago. If guardsmen or orks as individuals were as effective as they are on the table top it would be a very different setting.

However that would require buffing marines to the point were you should have about ten on the table versus 100s if not 1000s of guardsmen/orks. That just isn't a practical game or business model.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Artillery and Russes would be their own regiment (with the except of Krieg fixed artillery, which can be part of Siege regiment, which are a mix of arty and infantry), you can justify having them the same color by saying its common camouflage they both use on the same battlefield.

As for Marines chewing through hundreds of Guardsmen, no, just no, especially not if those Guardsmen are packing special or heavy weapons.

Not necessarily... tanks and artillery are usually seconded or parceled out to infantry commanders for fire support. There is also plenty of examples in the lore of combined arms regiments, although it is far more rare then dedicated regiments.

It's hard to coordinate a tank push backed by an infantry assault wave when the tanks and infantry have separate chains of command.

However, on an organizational level, yes they would be "separate" regiments on paper. Although even such things as "armored" regiments that are supposed to be predominantly tanks have infantry and logistical elements to them.

The entire point of the Imperial Guard is that the chains of command ARE separate. It's theoretically meant to prevent any one person being able to have a fully supported regiment that can go rogue with a chance of surviving.