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 Haighus wrote:
Also worth bearing in mind that Marine casualties can often return back to service in a short time frame...

When I said casualties I meant deaths. I should have specified that.

epronovost wrote:
First, a 200 years old Space Marine is supposed to be exceptional. Very few Marines reach that age.

No. Space marines over a century old are outright stated to be relatively common in the lore. Veterans over two centuries old are much less common, but still somewhat common. Completely anecdotal, but from my understanding a good 20-30% of all marines make it to 200 unless their chapter gets mauled ala hive fleet behemoth or something similar. This is completely at odds with marine forces taking 20% *deaths* every battle. Realistically no marine should survive past 40 if what is depicted in the lore is the norm because that is guard levels of attrition.

epronovost wrote:
It's the minimum to go from teenage boy to Space Marine in power armor. It's not going to replace a Tactical Marine in one of the first 5 company, but it's a fully operational Space Marine. If there is nothing else, he will have to do the job.

I thought space marines recruited boys from the ages of 7-12... 5 years is barely enough time to turn them into a scout. A full fledged marine would probably take closer to 10 years. And again, this doesn't take into account wash out rate from implants failing or attrition from scout deaths.

epronovost wrote:
At worst, they can be mass produced then frozen until they need to be activated.

I may be wrong but I don't think this was ever done in the lore. Space marine recruiting (at least in the 40th millennium) is a very traditional process steeped in mysticism. I don't think 40k marine chapters would ever do this, but if you can provide a lore example I would accept that.

epronovost wrote:
By the fluff, the Ultramarine fully recovered from their battle againt Hive Fleet Behemoth where they lost over 80% of their numbers in a century. If they got the material (AKA geneseed and equipment) to produce a Space Marine, a Chapter can recover very quickly especially since they always train at least 10% of their total number in permanence. Space Marines Chapter can thus take about a 100 casualty every three to four years and not even go bellow maximum number.

Your math is wrong. It took almost 100 years for the ultramarines (1,000 in number) to recover 800 casualties. That is roughly 8 per year. A bit more then 2 per year I was stating earlier but a lot closer to my end of the spectrum than yours.

Please stop making excuses for bad writing and just accept that space marines should not be able to sustain the casualties that they are depicted as sustaining in most of the lore if what we know about how hard it is to generate new space marines is true. Even under contrived circumstances such as 70% implantation rate success and unrealistically large numbers of applicants, it doesn't mesh with the fact that most marines are pretty old, older than the average human.

 Haighus wrote:
Technically, the Scout company has no upper limit, so this can be handled by having massive Scout companies (or multiple- is it the Aurora Chapter that has three?). Some Chapters are specifically noted as having enormous recruitment rates, which suggests they have a huge number of initiates in the pipeline- perhaps not frontline combat units yet, but at least close to deployment. The Imperial Fists are a good example- they have multiple recruitment worlds, and seem to be able to replenish entire companies within a few years in extreme examples...

A chapter replenishing a company per two years is still not enough to offset the deaths of even a squad per battle. How many battles does a space marine chapter have in a year? Multiply that by ten. That many marines must be recruited per year in order to simply break even... and most lore depicts marine chapters losing more than a single squad per battle.

If we were talking realistically, the death of a single marine would be a significant event that was uncommon and only happened a few times per year. Once a month at most.

To be fair though. The lore tends to focus on only the big battles. It doesn't focus on the long periods of time spent training, in space warp transit, mustering, for space ship resupply, to replenish headcount, etc etc.

And not all missions are huge battles. Many are recon. And given how long and iffy even warp travel is, I bet half the time even when the space marines get there, there is nothing left.

Also, space marines are intelligent. Their chapter masters even more so. If they are in a "rebuilding" phase because their body count are low. They will not throw the whole chapter into a big battle of a meat grinder recklessly.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
To be fair though. The lore tends to focus on only the big battles. It doesn't focus on the long periods of time spent training, in space warp transit, mustering, for space ship resupply, to replenish headcount, etc etc.

Marines don't like spending long times without fighting, as they feel their talents are being wasted. I don't have official numbers, but I would be willing to bet that space marines are not as inactive as the average guard regiment. I'm not saying that marines are fighting 24/7, but I would be very surprised if they didn't get at least 1 battle/skirmish a month on average, factoring in transport times between warzones.

w1zard wrote:

No. Space marines over a century old are outright stated to be relatively common in the lore.

Where? I have never seen any "average age" of Space Marine stats ever. The only average age we have are the age transformation into Space Marine and the age of some Space Marines. Before Hive Fleet Behemoth attack, Chaplain Cassius was supposed to be the eldest Ultramarine at age 350 if I remember correctly.

I thought space marines recruited boys from the ages of 7-12... 5 years is barely enough time to turn them into a scout.

Scouts don't need the Black Carapace, in fact they don't have it. They do recruit children around 12 years old, but by the age of 15, they might have received all the new organs since most implantation can be simultaneous. Scout training usually last 2 or 3 years after which they receive a Black Carapace. Since Scouts are technically Space Marines, it takes three years to put them on the field and 2 or 3 more to have them move up to Devastator.

I may be wrong but I don't think this was ever done in the lore. Space marine recruiting (at least in the 40th millennium) is a very traditional process steeped in mysticism. I don't think 40k marine chapters would ever do this, but if you can provide a lore example I would accept that.

It does mention that people can be frozen to survive through long journey in space so it might have other applications. I have not heard of any Chapter doing it, but then again, I don't read that much stuff on Space Marines and I don't see why they couldn't do it. It seems like a sensible and simple solution to a problem. Cawl kept a huge number of Primaris Marine frozen afterall.

Your math is wrong. It took almost 100 years for the ultramarines (1,000 in number) to recover 800 casualties. That is roughly 8 per year. A bit more then 2 per year I was stating earlier but a lot closer to my end of the spectrum than yours.

The Ultramarine were not inactive during that period. They participated in several battles too.

it doesn't mesh with the fact that most marines are pretty old, older than the average human.

I would question this assertion that Space Marines are old. Special snowflake Marines we read about in a few books are old, older then humans, but they are special, not normal Marines. In the same fashion, we can read book about Inquisitors who are century old, but since they do such a dangerous job, most of them probably seldom live even close to that long. Same thing for Commissars and Sisters of Battle. The fluff mentions several of them bein over a century old, but I wouldn't take that as an average.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Anyway, we shouldn't use tabletop rules to determine how good or bad a space marine is compared to a guardsmen. Tabletop rules need to be balanced for tabletop play.

Lorewise, If you ask me, a huge superhuman with two hearts clad in power armor will have a much lower attrition rate compared a guardsmen clad in a kevlar armor.

Heck in urban warfare (where you can't really bring heavy weapons to bear), that one space marine could probably keep on going and clear entire blocks if they are filled with just guardsmen with lasguns.

Quantity does have a quality of its own once it reaches a certain stage. But firstly, in certain environments (like urban warfare), then the benefits of quantity matters much less. Secondly, the mobility and independence of space marine units (They can go on and on without really requiring resupply), also reduces the benefits of quantity that guardmen may have. And where the benefits of having numbers are negated or reduced substantially, thats when space marines would definitely be much more sought after than just guardsmen.

Take an infested space hulk. You don't know if that Hulk is infested with chaos, tyranids, orcs, etc. But are you really going to send in squads of guardmen into its narrow corridors to investigate? What if there is no air even ? lol. What if there are important relics or STC you need to retrieve? Send in guardmen into that space Hulk ? If you had space marines, then its a no brainer to send them instead of guardsmen for such a mission. The guardsmen probably wouldn't survive 5 minutes.

How big you reckon a Terminator is compared to a Taurox? I bet if lots of the hallways in the hulk could have two termies walking abreast of each other, you could fit a Taurox Prime and some Scions in a pinch if one didn’t have marines to deploy. Especially with the gothic Architecture.

The first door or 90 degree turn, that Taurox prime would be stuck. And while most lifts are designed for humans, I doubt most are designed for a Taurox prime.

To be honest. I do feel that most jobs a Termie would do an Ogryn with their beefy slab sheilds and a maul could do just as well. And you'd give zero effs about leaving them to complete the mission.

Oh gak GW give us Tempustus kitted Ogryns.

epronovost wrote:
I would question this assertion that Space Marines are old. Special snowflake Marines we read about in a few books are old, older then humans, but they are special, not normal Marines. In the same fashion, we can read book about Inquisitors who are century old, but since they do such a dangerous job, most of them probably seldom live even close to that long. Same thing for Commissars and Sisters of Battle. The fluff mentions several of them bein over a century old, but I wouldn't take that as an average.

I really don't mean to be rude here, but is your argument really "ignore the fact that pretty much every named space marine character and all of the marines shown in the lore are far older than a standard human... most marines are in their 30s"?

Google "average age of a space marine", no idea if it is accurate or whatnot but what is the first thing that pops up?
300-350 years...

Even if that result isn't accurate, the fact that many people seem to believe it is means that what you are espousing isn't so clear cut.

Don't space marines have "service studs" signifying 100 years of service? Further proof that the age of the average space marine is far older than you seem to believe.

There is no way the average space marine is 300 years old if even 15% of the chapter dies in a major battle once a DECADE.

Once again, stop trying to defend bad writing. There is no way that space marine numbers would be sustainable given the average amount of casualties they are portrayed as taking in most of the lore.

I see a couple of issues discussed in this thread. One is how space marines are so few they can't commit to a meaningful number of missions. The other is the attrition rate of space marines.

As to the first issue, I like to believe that once they are in a war zone each marine will be flying several missions each day. Compare this to guard, who might do a guard or patrol every day or two with the occasional 'big push'. The space marine will be fighting an order of magnitude more missions than one of his guardsmen allies over the same time period.

This level of activity puts the marine at constant risk of casualty; fortunately he is many times more likely to avoid serious injury (whether through speed, skill, equipment or experience) and is better able to fight on through injury. When the marine suffers an injury serious enough enough to take him out of combat he has a much faster recovery speed than a guardsmen. Fly him back to base, slap a new arm on to him and tomorrow he is fighting fit again. A guardsmen could need months of rehabilitation or be retired. The final thing, is despite how difficult it is to mortally wound a space marine they also have a cheat; Sus-an. If not immediately killed by a mortal wound he will go into a state of suspended animation and if he is lucky get 'fixed' or if appropriate wired into a suit of dreadnought armour. There are plenty of veteran marines that are quadruple amputees with a third of their head replaced by bionics and vital organs replaced with automated systems (hi Calgar! Honestly, your primaris upgrade must have been little more than giving you some platform boots and a primaris sticker on your bonnet. Is there even a human part of you left anymore?! Your one good eye?).

So in culmination, amarine makes 10 times as many missions, is worth 10 times as many men on those missions, is 10 times less likely to be injured and recovers 10 times faster when he is. Used properly in a war one marine is worth over a thousand guardsmen (I'm not saying a marine wins a fight one vs 1000 on an empty battlefield)! On a galactic scale do they make a difference? I dunno, but if they are deployed with you on campaign they sure do!

w1zard wrote:

I really don't mean to be rude here, but is your argument really "ignore the fact that pretty much every named space marine character and all of the marines shown in the lore are far older than a standard human... most marines are in their 30s"?

Most Marines presented in the fluff on which we have "intimate" information are member of the first 5 companies and most often officers, the most experimented Space Marines. Most Marines presented in the fluff on which we have "intimitate" information are officers, not regular Marine. We don't know the exact age of most Space Marines we read about. At best, we have estimates.

Don't space marines have "service studs" signifying 100 years of service? Further proof that the age of the average space marine is far older than you seem to believe.

Service stud can signify any length of time from a single, year, a decade or even just the number of campaign they have won honor on. There is no set meanong for the service stud.

There is no way the average space marine is 300 years old if even 15% of the chapter dies in a major battle once a DECADE.

Once again, stop trying to defend bad writing. There is no way that space marine numbers would be sustainable given the average amount of casualties they are portrayed as taking in most of the lore.

The simplest solution would be for you to stop holding the belief Space Marines median age is century old instead of a few decades,

Just a question, where are people getting this "20% of Space Marines die every battle" statistic?

Sure, we see battles with HORRIFIC Space Marine casualties (not necessarily deaths though), but these are always treated as tragic events and rare occurrences. But for standard wars and "normal" Marine missions, 20% sounds incredibly far fetched, even for casualties, not just deaths.

Take the Assault on Black Reach novella - Ultramarines 2nd Company attack Black Reach, acting very much in the way I think Space Marines *should* behave. They're not in the war for very long, but make several strikes within short spaces, and over the course of their entire duration fighting, I think it's something like 6 Space Marines, and one Terminator, who actually die. I won't include casualties, because that's largely negligible - they'll be back up and running by the next battle anyways, so they're hardly a massive loss.

So, 7 Space Marines, out of a full Battle Company + auxiliary forces (lets say 20 Astartes from the 1st and 10th Companies combined): that's what, 120-130 Space Marines? That's a death rate of about 6%.

Bear in mind that the missions we see the Marines undertake are:
Deepstriking in to blunt the main Ork offensive as it is about to overwhelm the planetary defenders, and drive them back with shock and awe tactics.
Scout out and destroy Ork camps in hit and run raids.
Plant homing beacons on Ork submersibles to locate their central base.
Act as lynchpin units in the defence of the main Imperial base.
Attack the Ork stronghold with overwhelming force via Thunderhawk gunships, and destroy the Ork's leader.

After doing this, they leave the rest of the Imperial forces to mop up the rest, and move on to the next war.

Ultimately the issue boils down to the fact that 40k is really more Fantasy in space than hard scifi, the setting has changed dramatically since inception and is wildly variable and inconsistent, and GW in general has a very poor sense of Galactic scale (the numbers of IG troops on Armageddon given for that gargantuan system wide war were fewer than were found on the Eastern Front in WW2 for instance). At the very least there should be tens of billions of Space Marines and they'd still be mythically rare.

With regards to SM casualties, a third of the Dark Angels chapter was lost in the siege of Vraks in relatively short order in what ultimately was a sideshow battle, but that never seems to have any effect on them or even be mentioned anywhere else

This was the same Vraks campaign that no SM chapter would touch on its own, that the Munitorum expected would take 5 centuries of stormtrooper commando operations to retake on their own, and ultimately took 18 years of gruelling attritional siege by millions of guardsmen

 Vaktathi wrote:
Ultimately the issue boils down to the fact that 40k is really more Fantasy in space than hard scifi, the setting has changed dramatically since inception and is wildly variable and inconsistent, and GW in general has a very poor sense of Galactic scale (the numbers of IG troops on Armageddon given for that gargantuan system wide war were fewer than were found on the Eastern Front in WW2 for instance). At the very least there should be tens of billions of Space Marines and they'd still be mythically rare.

With regards to SM casualties, a third of the Dark Angels chapter was lost in the siege of Vraks in relatively short order in what ultimately was a sideshow battle, but that never seems to have any effect on them or even be mentioned anywhere else

This was the same Vraks campaign that no SM chapter would touch on its own, that the Munitorum expected would take 5 centuries of stormtrooper commando operations to retake on their own, and ultimately took 18 years of gruelling attritional siege by millions of guardsmen

DA are heretics in disguise. Do you really think they follow the chapter code?

epronovost wrote:
Service stud can signify any length of time from a single, year, a decade or even just the number of campaign they have won honor on. There is no set meanong for the service stud.

You are wrong: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Service_Studs

The shortest length of time that any service stud represents is 10 years, the longest is 100 years based on material. Marines are regularly depicted having multiple service studs.

epronovost wrote:
The simplest solution would be for you to stop holding the belief Space Marines median age is century old instead of a few decades,

Again, google "average age of a space marine"... if you have contradictory lore that backs up your assertion that the average marine is in his 30s I would be glad to hear it.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So, 7 Space Marines, out of a full Battle Company + auxiliary forces (lets say 20 Astartes from the 1st and 10th Companies combined): that's what, 120-130 Space Marines? That's a death rate of about 6%.

Even an attrition rate of 6% per battle is unsustainable because marines participate in dozens of battles per year.

Put this into perspective... say 12 battles a year at 6% attrition means that for a chapter of 1000 space marines only about 600 would be alive at the end of the year. A chapter of marines are really getting replenished at a rate of ~400 per year? Why did it take the ultramarines a century to replace 800 losses then?

except DO Space Marines participate in "dozens a battles a year"? that was the entire fatality rate for the black reach campaign. travel in 40k takes awhile, as does in system transit. (it's rarely if ever details but intrsystem transit would take time) they might participate in a doizen battles (*ala fights) a year, but not a dozen campaigns a year

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Ultimately the issue boils down to the fact that 40k is really more Fantasy in space than hard scifi, the setting has changed dramatically since inception and is wildly variable and inconsistent, and GW in general has a very poor sense of Galactic scale (the numbers of IG troops on Armageddon given for that gargantuan system wide war were fewer than were found on the Eastern Front in WW2 for instance). At the very least there should be tens of billions of Space Marines and they'd still be mythically rare.

With regards to SM casualties, a third of the Dark Angels chapter was lost in the siege of Vraks in relatively short order in what ultimately was a sideshow battle, but that never seems to have any effect on them or even be mentioned anywhere else

This was the same Vraks campaign that no SM chapter would touch on its own, that the Munitorum expected would take 5 centuries of stormtrooper commando operations to retake on their own, and ultimately took 18 years of gruelling attritional siege by millions of guardsmen

DA are heretics in disguise. Do you really think they follow the chapter code?

Apart from the Ravenwing and Deathwing they're pretty much the same on Chapter only basis.

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Ultimately the issue boils down to the fact that 40k is really more Fantasy in space than hard scifi, the setting has changed dramatically since inception and is wildly variable and inconsistent, and GW in general has a very poor sense of Galactic scale (the numbers of IG troops on Armageddon given for that gargantuan system wide war were fewer than were found on the Eastern Front in WW2 for instance). At the very least there should be tens of billions of Space Marines and they'd still be mythically rare.

With regards to SM casualties, a third of the Dark Angels chapter was lost in the siege of Vraks in relatively short order in what ultimately was a sideshow battle, but that never seems to have any effect on them or even be mentioned anywhere else

This was the same Vraks campaign that no SM chapter would touch on its own, that the Munitorum expected would take 5 centuries of stormtrooper commando operations to retake on their own, and ultimately took 18 years of gruelling attritional siege by millions of guardsmen

DA are heretics in disguise. Do you really think they follow the chapter code?

Apart from the Ravenwing and Deathwing they're pretty much the same on Chapter only basis.

You are missing the point. You can't trust the DA. They kill other Astartes to keep their secrets. If they'll do that what else will they do?

BrianDavion wrote:
except DO Space Marines participate in "dozens a battles a year"? that was the entire fatality rate for the black reach campaign. travel in 40k takes awhile, as does in system transit. (it's rarely if ever details but intrsystem transit would take time) they might participate in a doizen battles (*ala fights) a year, but not a dozen campaigns a year

I wasn't claiming they take place in dozens of interplanetary campaigns a year... merely a dozen battles or as you put it "fights".

I find it hard to believe that a marine would see less action then a guardsman, and I have already shown how even with 12 battles a year (one per month) and a measly 6% death rate per battle that space marine recruitment rates are still unsustainable.

I think peeps also need to keep in mind that the brutality of The Imperium is nigh on beyond our comprehension. And Marines are a significant part of that.

Consider if Marines attacked us, that we’re actually a lost world of Man, that’s just called itself Earth.

Right now? You could more-or-less utterly cow our planet with precision strikes on The White House/Pentagon, The Kremlin and wherever China has its Army Command (I don’t actually know that myself!). All at once. 5 Marines a piece, so a single drop Pod each, ought to do it.

Over. In. An. Instant. The main military strength of our entire planet ripped out, root and stem. In minutes. The intergalactic RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!

The fear of that keeps systems inline, 40k’s very own Tarkin Doctrine. It ensures Planetary Governers tend to actually do their job. This all helps keep The Imperium ticking. I mean, you could full yourself into genuinely thinking your PDF is strong enough to resist The Astra Militarum. But Astartes? It takes a very special kind of mental to think you could possibly resist them. Sure, that kind of mental does exist. But it’s still comparatively rare.

 Xenomancers wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Ultimately the issue boils down to the fact that 40k is really more Fantasy in space than hard scifi, the setting has changed dramatically since inception and is wildly variable and inconsistent, and GW in general has a very poor sense of Galactic scale (the numbers of IG troops on Armageddon given for that gargantuan system wide war were fewer than were found on the Eastern Front in WW2 for instance). At the very least there should be tens of billions of Space Marines and they'd still be mythically rare.

With regards to SM casualties, a third of the Dark Angels chapter was lost in the siege of Vraks in relatively short order in what ultimately was a sideshow battle, but that never seems to have any effect on them or even be mentioned anywhere else

This was the same Vraks campaign that no SM chapter would touch on its own, that the Munitorum expected would take 5 centuries of stormtrooper commando operations to retake on their own, and ultimately took 18 years of gruelling attritional siege by millions of guardsmen

DA are heretics in disguise. Do you really think they follow the chapter code?

Apart from the Ravenwing and Deathwing they're pretty much the same on Chapter only basis.

You are missing the point. You can't trust the DA. They kill other Astartes to keep their secrets. If they'll do that what else will they do?

You can say that about lots of Chapters. Iron Hands kill other humans for being weak, Salamanders and Blood Angels are deviant mutants, some Chapters kill humans just because they dislike that abhuman strain, Raven Guard had demonic gene seed for a bit and so on.

DA aren't really heretics. They're incredibly shady and somewhat unreliable but there are much worse Chapters than the Unforgiven ones.

DA are far from the only chapter to kill other Marines for CYA purposes, or even just for questions of honor.

Regardless, a third of them died on Vraks, and those sorts of losses should cripple a chapter for years if not decades given how long it takes to replace a Marine, but stuff like that is rarely accounted for in 40k fluff, at least not in any meaningful or realistic way.

 Vaktathi wrote:
DA are far from the only chapter to kill other Marines for CYA purposes, or even just for questions of honor.

Regardless, a third of them died on Vraks, and those sorts of losses should cripple a chapter for years if not decades given how long it takes to replace a Marine, but stuff like that is rarely accounted for in 40k fluff, at least not in any meaningful or realistic way.

Well, 40K fluff is also strewn across centuries or millennia, too. So even if it takes a chapter a hundred years to get back to full strength, that doesn't really matter too much in terms of the timescales 40k operates under.

w1zard wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So, 7 Space Marines, out of a full Battle Company + auxiliary forces (lets say 20 Astartes from the 1st and 10th Companies combined): that's what, 120-130 Space Marines? That's a death rate of about 6%.

Even an attrition rate of 6% per battle is unsustainable because marines participate in dozens of battles per year.

That's not 6% per battle though. That's 6% over the course of the entire Black Reach campaign, which featured at least three full scale company/demi-company engagements, against large Ork concentrations, which undoubtedly would increase the risk of said casualties.

If we assume that Space Marines don't engage in full scale conflict as their norm, and that most engagements are on the squad/small taskforce level, as most non-Marine focused fictions indicates (Gaunt's Ghosts and other guardsman fiction, which is less focused on the Marines themselves), then you're looking at situations where Astartes can engage in combat as quickly as they can get there, and the majority of their engagements are done with fewer than 6% deaths, and most likely fewer than 1%.

Put this into perspective... say 12 battles a year at 6% attrition means that for a chapter of 1000 space marines only about 600 would be alive at the end of the year. A chapter of marines are really getting replenished at a rate of ~400 per year? Why did it take the ultramarines a century to replace 800 losses then?

The entire Chapter is rarely deployed all at once on active duty for this reason. Even with their fatality rates of most likely fewer than 1% per engagement, they can replace losses where necessary through the reserve companies, and then from the Scouts. At a 1% casualty rate per mission (depending on how the Chapter fights and what kind of fights they end up in), the Chapter only needs to replenish 100 soldiers - an entire Scout Company, conveniently enough. And of course, should the Chapter suffer inordinarily, the Chapter simply doesn't fight as much, or fights more conservatively.

Again, still no clarification on where the whole "20% of Astartes die per engagement" came from.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think peeps also need to keep in mind that the brutality of The Imperium is nigh on beyond our comprehension. And Marines are a significant part of that.

Consider if Marines attacked us, that we’re actually a lost world of Man, that’s just called itself Earth.

Right now? You could more-or-less utterly cow our planet with precision strikes on The White House/Pentagon, The Kremlin and wherever China has its Army Command (I don’t actually know that myself!). All at once. 5 Marines a piece, so a single drop Pod each, ought to do it.

Over. In. An. Instant. The main military strength of our entire planet ripped out, root and stem. In minutes. The intergalactic RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!

The fear of that keeps systems inline, 40k’s very own Tarkin Doctrine. It ensures Planetary Governers tend to actually do their job. This all helps keep The Imperium ticking. I mean, you could full yourself into genuinely thinking your PDF is strong enough to resist The Astra Militarum. But Astartes? It takes a very special kind of mental to think you could possibly resist them. Sure, that kind of mental does exist. But it’s still comparatively rare.

Yeah, also this. I mean, not quite that simple but in principle that's a typical "internal affairs" mission for marines.

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Service stud can signify any length of time from a single, year, a decade or even just the number of campaign they have won honor on. There is no set meanong for the service stud.

You are wrong: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Service_Studs

The shortest length of time that any service stud represents is 10 years, the longest is 100 years based on material. Marines are regularly depicted having multiple service studs.

epronovost wrote:
The simplest solution would be for you to stop holding the belief Space Marines median age is century old instead of a few decades,

Again, google "average age of a space marine"... if you have contradictory lore that backs up your assertion that the average marine is in his 30s I would be glad to hear it.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
So, 7 Space Marines, out of a full Battle Company + auxiliary forces (lets say 20 Astartes from the 1st and 10th Companies combined): that's what, 120-130 Space Marines? That's a death rate of about 6%.

Even an attrition rate of 6% per battle is unsustainable because marines participate in dozens of battles per year.

Put this into perspective... say 12 battles a year at 6% attrition means that for a chapter of 1000 space marines only about 600 would be alive at the end of the year. A chapter of marines are really getting replenished at a rate of ~400 per year? Why did it take the ultramarines a century to replace 800 losses then?

This is correct:

Insignium Astartes wrote:SERVICE STUDS
These are small metal rivets that are attached directly to the Marines' cranium to record years of service. A single stud records 10, 50 or 100 years of service depending on its design and the Chapter traditions. The awarding of service studs is described in the Codex but is not set out as an official requirment or regulation of the Chapter. In recent centuries the awarding of service studs has been on the decline and fewer Chapters continue the practice.

However, that means a variation of 20 to 200 years for a typical Marine character (most bre Marine heads have 2 service skulls in the model range). Most bare heads also represent Captains and Sergeants- exactly the sort of Marines who might have survived for two centuries. Or maybe just two decades.

However, it is canonical that 400 is exceedingly old for an Ultramarine, but not a Blood Angel or a Space Wolf. That suggests it varies hugely by Chapter. We also know some Chapters seem to have much higher attrition rates than others (notably the Ultramarines and Imperial Fists having high turn-overs), so it is hardly surprising that the average age of a Marine is much lower for some Chapters than others- it clearly depends on activity.

The Ultramarines likely took a century to replace 800 losses because they were still actively engaging in combat missions during that time, and having to replace fresh combat losses alongside those from the First Tyrannic War. The Ultramarines are one of the most active Chapters in the Imperium with an extremely high turn-over rate, as well as having an exceptionally large personal domain to protect. It is not surprising that they continued to partake in campaigns during this period.

For examples, Lexicanum lists the following battles as having occurred within the century following the Battle of Macragge:

M41 — The Battle for Orar's Sepulchre — The first battle fought by the bulk of the Chapter since the First Tyrannic War.

759.M41 — Scouring of Quintarn — Marneus Calgar take personal command of forces driving out Ork scavengers who had captured the Systems of Quintarn, Tarentus, and Masali in the aftermath of Hive Fleet Behemoth.[2b]

790.M41 — The Nimbosa Crusade

797.M41 — The Siege of Zalathras

805.M41 — The Ultramarines and the Imperial Guard defended Jorun's World from Warlord Gorklaw's Waaagh![46]

812.M41 — The Luxor Uprising

822.M41 — The Ironblood Campaign


That is a lot of major combats within that hundred years.


In terms of casualty replacement rates- a Chapter with a notably high attrition rates (Imperial Fists) was able to replace the loss of an entire company within less than a year (the 3rd company, following the defense of Hydra Cordatus). Whilst a Captain and a core of Veterans were pulled from other companies, this probably means about 90% of the Company was reformed in a single year. That is pretty impressive, but shows the kind of recruitment resources some Chapters can bring to bear.

In terms of the number of campaigns a year- it seems pretty typical for a Marine force to have one or two major campaigns a year, so 6% deaths are reasonably tolerable at two campaigns a year- at least for the efficient recruiters.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
DA are far from the only chapter to kill other Marines for CYA purposes, or even just for questions of honor.

Regardless, a third of them died on Vraks, and those sorts of losses should cripple a chapter for years if not decades given how long it takes to replace a Marine, but stuff like that is rarely accounted for in 40k fluff, at least not in any meaningful or realistic way.

Well, 40K fluff is also strewn across centuries or millennia, too. So even if it takes a chapter a hundred years to get back to full strength, that doesn't really matter too much in terms of the timescales 40k operates under.

In some ways that's fair, but then we have the problem of rare marine chapters doing nothing for decades and being even rarer. With the Dark Angels however, we have fluff of them doing all sorts of things relatively soon after (the siege of vraks being late 800's M41), and without any mention of losing a third of the chapter, a mighty blow, in other fluff of theirs.

It's emblematic of the problem with 40k fluff in that it really doesn't make sense when looked at critically, and kinda just needs to be accepted as "because the author says so" in general as opposed to there being any rationality behind the relevance of Space Marines in the larger universe

Same way it makes no sense to have chapters or legions that do lots of attritional warfare/sieges/frontal assaults/etc. I play Iron Warriors and the idea of them being attritional siege specialists able to battle across entire systems with a Grand Company is ridiculous once you look at what that would entail, despite how cool it can look on paper

 Haighus wrote:
In terms of the number of campaigns a year- it seems pretty typical for a Marine force to have one or two major campaigns a year, so 6% deaths are reasonably tolerable at two campaigns a year- at least for the efficient recruiters.

I didn't mean 6% deaths per campaign, I meant 6% deaths per battle... of which there are many battles in a campaign. Space marines are regularly shown in the lore losing upwards of a quarter to a half of their numbers in routine battles/skirmishes, I was only giving them 6% to be generous.

But let's go your way and say a space marine chapter only loses 6% of their number over a campaign and they have two campaigns a year. That means they need to replace over 115 marines every single year, which is ~20% more than what even the Imperial Fists' benchmark of a company per year. The numbers still don't match up.

On top of that, I fail to see how space marines reach 100 years of age regularly when even the low rate of 6% deaths per campaign is considered the norm. Running the numbers, and (using your assumption that marines fight two campaigns per year with a death rate of 6% per campaign) the average marine has only a .0004% chance of being alive after 100 years of fighting (plug (940/1000)^200 into wolfram alpha) which means that those 100 year service studs are pretty freaking pointless. The numbers get even worse if we consider more realistic death rates.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
The entire Chapter is rarely deployed all at once on active duty for this reason.

So, the majority of space marines sit around on their asses for years at a time doing nothing? From my understanding, they are all almost always fighting... maybe broken up and spread out over countless light years, but fighting all the same.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Even with their fatality rates of most likely fewer than 1% per engagement, they can replace losses where necessary through the reserve companies, and then from the Scouts. At a 1% casualty rate per mission (depending on how the Chapter fights and what kind of fights they end up in), the Chapter only needs to replenish 100 soldiers - an entire Scout Company, conveniently enough. And of course, should the Chapter suffer inordinarily, the Chapter simply doesn't fight as much, or fights more conservatively.

Ok, I'm tired of people moving the goalposts... so let's do this. Say collectively, a chapter (that may be spread out over a large number of planets) suffers only 3% deaths per YEAR due to fighting, for 100 years straight. This means no heavy losses, no getting mauled, no losing a battle, just losing a single marine here or there collectively. I think we all agree that this is an absolutely tiny number and in no way indicative of how space marine losses are usually portrayed in the lore but let's go down this path for arguments sake. At this rate, the average space marine would only have a 4% chance of being alive after 100 years of fighting... Again this should show you how utterly unrealistic and impossible these numbers are. Especially when we have lore stating that the average age of a space marine is 300-350 years, and many battles being portrayed with high marine casualties.

 Gael Knight wrote:
Lots of seething guard players in here unable to know their role of holding the line while Astartes do the heavy lifting. Space Marine Legions retook the Empire you are serving. You're welcome.

Yep, pure butthurt from Guard players. That's all it is.

w1zard wrote:

Again, google "average age of a space marine"... if you have contradictory lore that backs up your assertion that the average marine is in his 30s I would be glad to hear it.

Actually, the answer on google comes from a post made on a forum that doesn't link to any lore beside the mention of Dante's age and Blood Angel's logevity. It's a bald assertion and not authoritative at all. Illustrations of Space Marines are illustration of noteworthy, veteran and heroic Space Marines so can hardly be used to draw an average unless you want the average of the exceptional.



This Space Marine is a Captain. According to the color of his service stud, he is around 50 years old (maybe, maybe he's around 170 at most, I find it to grey to be silver, but I might be wrong). Since he is quite literaly in the top 1% of his Chapter in terms of experience and excellence, it's probable he is also in the top 1% in terms of age and experience. Pretty much all the Space Marines in this Chapter should thus be younger then him.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Gael Knight wrote:
Lots of seething guard players in here unable to know their role of holding the line while Astartes do the heavy lifting. Space Marine Legions retook the Empire you are serving. You're welcome.

Yep, pure butthurt from Guard players. That's all it is.

Pure fanboying from space marine players, you mean.