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 Peregrine wrote:

pm713 wrote:
So basically it takes 10 cadres to be in one place to match the Marines number.

No, it takes 10 cadres to overwhelm the marines with both quality and quantity and mercilessly gun them down.

In other words in most engagements Marines will have the numbers advantage because surprisingly the army that does almost solely drop pod assaults, ambushes and similar attacks can dictate when to attack.

So yes, apparently you are going to just handwave it and declare that space marines magically get to dictate the terms of engagement, have perfect intelligence on their targets, and never find their drop pod assault/ambush/etc counter-ambushed by a prepared enemy.

The Tau aren't going to destroy 90% of a Drop Pod assault, they take minutes at most and are canonically hard to target so they do make it to the ground most of the time.

{citation needed}

We could shoot down incoming ICBMs with direct contact hits using 1950s SAMs, and demonstrated that capability in live-fire testing. I find it extremely hard to believe that a much larger and slower drop pod is an impossible target for a faction with technology way beyond what we have 60+ years later. The reputation drop pods have as being "impossible to shoot down" is entirely the result of them being used against much less sophisticated enemies armed with WWII-era manually aimed AA guns. But the Tau are not that enemy.

So what will normally happen is that a cadre will find their base/isolated element/recent victim of bombardment is being attacked by 100 Marines and in the time it takes for the other cadres that aren't there to mobilise the Marines will be in the thick of it, leaving or already gone.

Because, again, we're just going to handwave away the possibility of the space marines being wrong and dropping against an "isolated element" that is actually a strong target ready to deliver a fatal counter-attack. It must be so easy to win when your side magically only has to fight the weakest possible targets. But that just raises the question of why space marines exist at all, if they're only used to overwhelm the weakest targets that can't fight back effectively?

You understand the term MOST right?

"The ultimate weapon of terror and surprise, when a Drop Pod lands directly in the midst of an enemy line or formation and its occupants disembark and start wreaking havoc, there is little escape for the foe. Drop Pods are fired with colossal acceleration from an orbiting Strike Cruiser or Battle Barge, after which it screams through a planet's atmosphere with oversized rocket thrusters boosting it even further beyond terminal velocity; even the most advanced air defence systems have difficulty locking on to a Drop Pod travelling at up to 12,000 kilometres per hour."
Kay. Nice real world stuff there. I'm talking about 40k which is not the real world. Or is there a bunch of emotion demons messing the universe up right now?

Glass houses Peregrine. Why are the enemy always in position to counter attack things? The Guard would be great at Drop Pods, they could traumatise the enemy with pods of mashed human. Or they can use their frail little bodies to die everywhere!

epronovost wrote:

pm713 wrote:

That isn't inconsistent. You have to strike a balance between power and numbers and Marines do that. They're better than almost all the enemies they'll fight that aren't part of a situation so rare it shouldn't be counted as part of the planning.

Actually every single faction outside of the Imperium (and even then, Custodians are superior while Sisters of Battle and Scions aren't that outclassed by them) has infantry units that are either superior or equivalent to Space Marines in terms of quality. Furthermore, each of these individual infantry units outnumber Space Marines who are, by far, the least numerous faction in the 40K univers with the exception of Custodes and maybe assassins. This makes the entire premise of Space Marines inconsistent. They can't be the elite of the elite; the game changer for the Imperium if they aren't better then their equivalent in other factions all the while being much less numerous then each and every single one of them.

Actually no, that's not the logical way to size things up at all. It may not matter if the other factions have large groups of individual soldiers equivalent or better than space marines. The use of those soldiers is what matters, not their individual capabilities.

But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?

pm713 wrote:

Most Marine fights are going to be Company level and such but if they're fighting a Tyranid Swarm, mass Necron uprising or a massive WAAAGGH where they lose their number/skill advantage they won't be stupidly charging alone at things, they'll join an Imperial Guard army, harass the enemy or something similar.

Precisely, they will count on the Imperial Guard to do the heavy lifting. Lock the enemy in combat, evaluate their forces, distract their best assets, destroy their anti-air and rapid deployment artillery to finally allow the Space Marine to launch their assault and deliver le coup de grâce. The meme of the Imperial Guarddoing all the fighting and Space Marines getting all the glory just became real. At best, Marines can claim to have saved the lives of some Imperial Guardsmen by ending an alredy pretty much won battle quicker. The Imperium supreme assets is its gigantic armies of fanatical guardsmen lead by competant officers and ferried by an equally large navy.

I'm thinking of an army that will only attack when there's appropriate forces around. I'm aware that sometimes that won't be the case and in those cases things will go poorly but they can dictate the terms of their fight enough of the time that that makes them better than their enemy.
For example the Nobz, there might be more Nobz than Marines in a single fight but Marines can use bombardments, snipers, ambushes and such in most of their engagements to deal with them in advance and when they can't they can deal with the overall army with increased damage that Marines heal from because they are insanely durable overall.

This is true enough for Orks who aren't particularly savvy when it comes to strategy, especially when compared to Marines who are supposed to be awesome (except the crazy ones and the "too stubborn" oneswho are basically "one trick poney" Chapters). Yet, Eldars don't only have warriors more numerous and similarly deadly as Space Marines, they are also just as tactically astute if not even more. Tau have also proven to be a fair match to Space Marines when it comes to tactics. Chaos Space Marines are bit more savage, but certainly not much less astute. Tyranids have proven that their best Hive Tyrant can surpass the very best Chapter Master in the domain of strategy so did the Necrons. In fact, the Space Marines are almost uterly dependant on the Imperial Guard and the local PDF to dictate the flow of the battle since they are the one's doing the dirty work and Space Marines can't directly take command of those troops to avoid all this heresy thing. At best they can advise and request.

@Insectum7

Space Marines are used in a wide variety of ways, but are mostly known as some sort of shock troopers. Nobz are either low level commanders, shock troopers or bodyguards. The same goes for Tyranid Warriors and Triarch Praetorian. Aspect Warriors, Incubi, Bloodbrides and Harlequins are used pretty much just like them. Crisis Battlesuits are either bodyguards or shock troopers. The use of these units seems fairly similar in my opinion. Hell, the Tyranids even have their own "drop pods" and can completely copycat the Space Marine most iconic strategy except with better and more numerous troops.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Actually no, that's not the logical way to size things up at all. It may not matter if the other factions have large groups of individual soldiers equivalent or better than space marines. The use of those soldiers is what matters, not their individual capabilities.

imo, it does matter, because space marines don't have exclusive rights to tactics.

The Tau, for example, have more crisis suits than the imperium has space marines, and each crisis suit has the mobility of assault marines and more firepower than a devastator marine. And while these suits are typically incorporated into infantry cadres, they can also form battlesuit-only cadres which can then be used exactly like drop-pod marines: drop in, secure objective then leave. This essentially means that for every target the marines hit, the Tau can hit 10+ with just their suits and redeploy them faster, while still supporting their frontline troops with other battlesuits.

pm713 wrote:
Kay. Nice real world stuff there. I'm talking about 40k which is not the real world. Or is there a bunch of emotion demons messing the universe up right now?

I see, so we're back to complaining about "real world" when it makes marines look good but arguing based on real world understanding when that's the option that benefits space marines.

Glass houses Peregrine. Why are the enemy always in position to counter attack things?

I never said they were, only that space marines aren't always perfect.

Crisis Suits are the terminators of the Tau, the elite of the elite and relatively rare compared to the main force.

Also lets not forget the Taros campaign and the Damocles book (IIRC) even when the Tau had the upper hand, ambushed the marines from a prepared position with overwhelming firepower the Tau took a massive beating every single time or still lost, the thing here I think some of you are still not getting is the sheer power of marines, there is nothing else like them in the setting, some equal them in speed, some strength and others speed and tactics but none have the whole package.

Tau are good with the tech, the speed and the tactics, but they are just "human" they fear, they run and they panic and a marine is a terrifying foe to them, they respect the power and skill of marines and do not underestimate them like other races do.

 JNAProductions wrote:
But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?

Well, that get's pretty ephemeral. But it could just be that they are used better, for whatever reason. Possibly because of their focus, possibly their experience, their independence, their ritualistic training regimen. It would be hard to say, but it is a possibility.

Again this could go back to the "strategy rating" concept of an older edition, where Space Marines had a higher strategy rating simply to represent their superior strategic initiative. They just know what they're doing because it's all that they do, it's all they were created for, and every bit of their fleet is 100% devoted to it.

And there are "shock troops" for every faction with various abities, sure. But there are shock troops, and there are shock troops. And Space Marines might just be on the extreme high end of that spectrum.

This would be not unlike previous versions of ATSKNF. Every faction had their super disciplined troops, etc. But Space Marines were far and away the most disciplined, and had a special rule to represent it.

 Formosa wrote:
Crisis Suits are the terminators of the Tau, the elite of the elite and relatively rare compared to the main force.

Not really. Crisis suits are common, a cadre (roughly equivalent to a 1500-2000 point game) is led by a commander and bodyguards and will have 1-3 squads of crisis suits, plus stealth suits and/or the heavier types. They're much more comparable to IG special weapon squads: not the bulk troops of a force, but still common and part of standard formations.

Also lets not forget the Taros campaign and the Damocles book (IIRC) even when the Tau had the upper hand, ambushed the marines from a prepared position with overwhelming firepower the Tau took a massive beating every single time or still lost

You recall incorrectly. The initial Taros attack is a very good example of what I'm talking about with intelligence failures. The space marines dropped in to do their usual "assassinate the planetary governor, end the rebellion" thing, found that the planetary governor had already been moved elsewhere and Tau forces were closing in, and suffered heavy losses before they could call for evacuation gunships and escape.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?

Well, that get's pretty ephemeral. But it could just be that they are used better, for whatever reason. Possibly because of their focus, possibly their experience, their independence, their ritualistic training regimen. It would be hard to say, but it is a possibility.

Again this could go back to the "strategy rating" concept of an older edition, where Space Marines had a higher strategy rating simply to represent their superior strategic initiative. They just know what they're doing because it's all that they do, it's all they were created for, and every bit of their fleet is 100% devoted to it.

And there are "shock troops" for every faction with various abities, sure. But there are shock troops, and there are shock troops. And Space Marines might just be on the extreme high end of that spectrum.

I bolded the bit that describes Orks to a T.

And you're basically shrugging your shoulders and saying "They're better because," without offering any real explanation.

Not really. Crisis suits are common, a cadre (roughly equivalent to a 1500-2000 point game) is led by a commander and bodyguards and will have 1-3 squads of crisis suits, plus stealth suits and/or the heavier types. They're much more comparable to IG special weapon squads: not the bulk troops of a force, but still common and part of standard formations.

yes really Peregrine and as usual you know this but want to argue the point, they have always been represented as the elite of the elite they are the taus terminators, and again compared to the main force 20-30 crisis suits is RARE compared to the thousands of firewarriors, so rare compared to the main force, this is no different from the plasma gun nonsense from earlier, rare for the tau but common enough to be in most cadres (excepting for loses)

You recall incorrectly. The initial Taros attack is a very good example of what I'm talking about with intelligence failures. The space marines dropped in to do their usual "assassinate the planetary governor, end the rebellion" thing, found that the planetary governor had already been moved elsewhere and Tau forces were closing in, and suffered heavy losses before they could call for evacuation gunships and escape.

No I recalled correctly you are just purposefully ignoring what happened even after they were ambushed, several days of constant fighting with the tau taking heavy loses, they ambushed the marines, had a superior force with superior firepower and still lost a very large portion of their force, it was a failed ambush by any measure. Had the governor been there would have achieved their goal and that battle demonstrates the tau would not have been able to do a damn thing about it, it was not as cut and dry as you claim.

20-30 Crisis Suits for 2,000-3,000 Fire Warriors?

So for every 100 Fire Warriors there's a Crisis suit, more or less?

As compared to an excess of 1,000,000,000,000 Guardsmen and a mere 1,000,000 Marines.

 JNAProductions wrote:
20-30 Crisis Suits for 2,000-3,000 Fire Warriors?

So for every 100 Fire Warriors there's a Crisis suit, more or less?

As compared to an excess of 1,000,000,000,000 Guardsmen and a mere 1,000,000 Marines.

I would say thats probably about right, Taros campaign had 100 hunter Cadres and if its consistent with the old description that is around 600 crisis suits including all command suits and bodyguards assuming that they are all present (which we know they were not), so for every 100 cadres we can "assume" that up to 600 suits "may" be present, but that is by no means as concrete as looking at a chapters make up which is very well documented.

 Formosa wrote:
yes really Peregrine and as usual you know this but want to argue the point, they have always been represented as the elite of the elite they are the taus terminators, and again compared to the main force 20-30 crisis suits is RARE compared to the thousands of firewarriors, so rare compared to the main force, this is no different from the plasma gun nonsense from earlier, rare for the tau but common enough to be in most cadres (excepting for loses)

Err, no. A cadre is ~100 Tau, of which ~10 are crisis suits and probably another ~5-10 are other classes of battlesuits. That's a rarity level on par with IG special weapon squads, where a ~50 man platoon would have ~6-18 guardsmen forming special weapon squads. IOW, they are not rare at all.

No I recalled correctly you are just purposefully ignoring what happened even after they were ambushed, several days of constant fighting with the tau taking heavy loses, they ambushed the marines, had a superior force with superior firepower and still lost a very large portion of their force, it was a failed ambush by any measure. Had the governor been there would have achieved their goal and that battle demonstrates the tau would not have been able to do a damn thing about it, it was not as cut and dry as you claim.

This is 100% wrong. The Tau took losses among their standard troops. The Avenging Sons took over 60% losses (including a priceless dreadnought) in a debacle that is explicitly stated to be a "costly defeat for the Imperium", the sort of defeat that is often described as taking years/decades to recover from. And sure, if the governor had been in the palace when the initial attack hit he would have been killed. But the same effect could have been accomplished with a single lance shot from orbit, and even successfully killing the governor would have had negligible value as long as the Tau forces on Taros were intact. By that point the governor's position was entirely a symbolic one and the Tau had all of the real power.

comparing Kastellians to space Marines is stupidty, utter stupidity, yes Kastellians are insanely powerful forces, but they lack any capacity for independant thought. one could NOT replace space marines with Kastelian robots.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
But what about the Imperium and Space Marines allows them to be used better?

Well, that get's pretty ephemeral. But it could just be that they are used better, for whatever reason. Possibly because of their focus, possibly their experience, their independence, their ritualistic training regimen. It would be hard to say, but it is a possibility.

Again this could go back to the "strategy rating" concept of an older edition, where Space Marines had a higher strategy rating simply to represent their superior strategic initiative. They just know what they're doing because it's all that they do, it's all they were created for, and every bit of their fleet is 100% devoted to it.

And there are "shock troops" for every faction with various abities, sure. But there are shock troops, and there are shock troops. And Space Marines might just be on the extreme high end of that spectrum.

I bolded the bit that describes Orks to a T.

And you're basically shrugging your shoulders and saying "They're better because," without offering any real explanation.

It doesn't need an explanation beyond "they're better at it". You can fill it in if it's not provided. I can look back at my books later and see if there's an explicit reason for Space Marines having a strategy rating of 5 and Orks having a strategy rating of 2 or 3.

It's like asking why is the Warlord Titan consistently more effective than a Gargant, even though they are both "heavy battle titans". Onr is just better for some in-universe reason or another.

It could just be what it is.

BrianDavion wrote:
comparing Kastellians to space Marines is stupidty, utter stupidity, yes Kastellians are insanely powerful forces, but they lack any capacity for independant thought. one could NOT replace space marines with Kastelian robots.

Depending on the engagement, they might be much more valuable then Space Marines, but are indeed limited. If you are in a pitch battle or if you are assaulting a fortress of some sort, Kastelan are much more efficient "pound for pound" then Space Marines. If you need a quick reserve and scouting force, they are completely pointless.

Though when we describe the massive force that is the imperial guard how much of that portion are we considering to be conscripts? You hear them being described in the codex here and there but now that I think of it I can only remember conscripts being used in novels once or twice, when fighting against overwhelming threats like tyranids.

The chaos version, cultists and slaves get used much more often as I recall.

It doesn't matter how many conscripts you throw at a marine I doubt they'd do all that much.

epronovost wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
comparing Kastellians to space Marines is stupidty, utter stupidity, yes Kastellians are insanely powerful forces, but they lack any capacity for independant thought. one could NOT replace space marines with Kastelian robots.

Depending on the engagement, they might be much more valuable then Space Marines, but are indeed limited. If you are in a pitch battle or if you are assaulting a fortress of some sort, Kastelan are much more efficient "pound for pound" then Space Marines. If you need a quick reserve and scouting force, they are completely pointless.

they also lack flexability and adaptability. Space Marines can swiftly adapt if the mission demands and context change, Kastellan robots can not. To use a situation that might sounds familer, imagine an enviroment where you deploy units to defend a world from Ork marauders, during the course of the mission you discover a important artifact on the world that had been there for reasons, and that the Ork invasion is being used as a cover for chaos forces to attempt to sieze this artifact. suddenly the new priority objective is to prevent this dangerous artifact from falling into the wrong hands. Kastellians obviously wou;dn't be able to react swiftly and desively to massively changing battlefield conditions the way marines can. they're a fantastic unit as a backstop in a battleline but as a flexable adaptive force? no

Commander Farsight was able to recreate the codex astartes from his observations of the space marines he fought against during his conquests of imperial space in the Damocles Crusade (the mirrorcodex). By doing so he was able to accurately predict how any codex-adherent chapter would react to battlefield situations and counter them with incredible efficiency.

Also, from Lexicanum on the Damocles Crusade:

The third wedge were made up of Space Marines from the Ultramarines, Iron Hands, and Scythes of the Emperor chapters, who found themselves bogged down by the Tau's own elite shock troops: Crisis Battlesuits. All three fronts in the Imperial advance now found themselves stalled in the woods of Gel'bryn.

The Tau were capable of deploying enough Crisis Suits to halt the advance of detachments from 3 space marine chapters.

In all there were 5 companies of Space Marines involved in the Damocles Crusade. They failed to defeat the Tau who had never fought the Space Marines before (ideal circumstances for shock troops), their chances of beating Tau who now have experience with their tactics are even smaller.

Err, no. A cadre is ~100 Tau, of which ~10 are crisis suits and probably another ~5-10 are other classes of battlesuits. That's a rarity level on par with IG special weapon squads, where a ~50 man platoon would have ~6-18 guardsmen forming special weapon squads. IOW, they are not rare at all.

Do you think I just pull this stuff out of my bum, there are 6 crisis battlesuits per hunter cadre unless this has been changed, the forces on Taros were "(defenders)
Tau Fire Caste Army: 100 Hunter Cadres, 8,000-9,000 Fire Warriors,", so 100 hunter Cadres and around 600 battlesuits, thats rare.

This is 100% wrong. The Tau took losses among their standard troops. The Avenging Sons took over 60% losses (including a priceless dreadnought) in a debacle that is explicitly stated to be a "costly defeat for the Imperium", the sort of defeat that is often described as taking years/decades to recover from. And sure, if the governor had been in the palace when the initial attack hit he would have been killed. But the same effect could have been accomplished with a single lance shot from orbit, and even successfully killing the governor would have had negligible value as long as the Tau forces on Taros were intact. By that point the governor's position was entirely a symbolic one and the Tau had all of the real power.

"the First Taros Intervention had been a heavy reverse for the Imperium. The Tau had inflicted serious damage on the Avenging Sons in two days of intense combat. The damage inflicted on the aliens was unknown, but must also have been significant. There had been many confirmed kills and the battlefield was littered with wrecks of Tau grav-tanks and Battlesuits."

So they ambushed the marines, had superior firepower and number and STILL took "significant" casualties, they had all the cards in their hand and still got smashed, as for the rest of your comment, well it just shows a fundamental lack of understanding of why space marines are used and the setting, sure, we get you irrationally hate space marines and from previous posts you seem to hate 40k too, so I am now joining other people and asking, why are you even here if you hate it so much? and no "cos I want to give my opinion" is not a good excuse if it aggravates you so much.

 Galas wrote:
Space Marines matter as much as the Writter wants them to matter.



In some cases 10 space marines are enough to destroy a full invasion as others have pointed out, Avenger-style. They do all the good thing and destroy the big bad boys that like Dune are inmune to all kind of damage because they have super-special anti deathstrike missile shields that can be penetrated by knives.

In another 100 marines die to a couple of missiles.

Still the best answer in the whole thread. And probably the most accurate.

It's amazing to me that the fluff bunnies aren't more outraged that marines struggle to out-damage guardsmen and are basement dwellers for tournament win rate. That's not even balance for the sake of a game. That's just taking a big old crap on every conceivable lore source.

Martel732 wrote:

It's amazing to me that the fluff bunnies aren't more outraged that marines struggle to out-damage guardsmen and are basement dwellers for tournament win rate. That's not even balance for the sake of a game. That's just taking a big old crap on every conceivable lore source.

I see a few variables going into that, but the most important thing to me is armies represented on the tabletop. I see GEQs on the tabletop all the time now, whereas I may have seen Guardsmen in particular only once or twice in the preceeding decade.

Imo seeing GEQs on the table is a good thing overall, and I'm willing to take a bit of a hit lore-wise for good looking armies on the table.

 Formosa wrote:
Do you think I just pull this stuff out of my bum, there are 6 crisis battlesuits per hunter cadre unless this has been changed, the forces on Taros were "(defenders)
Tau Fire Caste Army: 100 Hunter Cadres, 8,000-9,000 Fire Warriors,", so 100 hunter Cadres and around 600 battlesuits, thats rare.

Seriously? You're really going to nitpick this? I say that a cadre has ~10 crisis suits, the example has 6 and a pair of broadsides. That's 8 battlesuits, so ~10 is a reasonable approximation. Meanwhile other example cadres have more crisis suits than that very old example image. For example, the 8th edition codex on page 31 has an example cadre with the commander + bodyguards and four squads of crisis suits. The example cadre on page 74 has 10 crisis suits plus two broadsides, a riptide, and six stealth suits, next to only a token 12-man squad of infantry. Crisis suits are not rare.

Plus, even by your own example image it's an absurd argument to make. There are only three piranhas vs. six crisis suits, so if crisis suits are rare then piranhas are even rarer. There's only one hammerhead, so hammerheads are extremely rare. In fact, by your argument anything that isn't basic fire warriors counts as "rare" because it's not the most common unit in the cadre. And when everything is "rare" the term becomes meaningless.

"the First Taros Intervention had been a heavy reverse for the Imperium. The Tau had inflicted serious damage on the Avenging Sons in two days of intense combat. The damage inflicted on the aliens was unknown, but must also have been significant. There had been many confirmed kills and the battlefield was littered with wrecks of Tau grav-tanks and Battlesuits."

Nice of you to ignore the statement right after that, that the first attack on Taros was a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Trying to spin this into some kind of victory for the space marines is utter nonsense.

why are you even here if you hate it so much?

Because, as people keep telling you, space marines are not the entire setting.

Is Taros even strictly canonical now? Being Imperial Armour, it may not be - nor ever have been?

Plus, we've seen the Tau race develop over time, as they've come to terms with what it takes to compete in the wider Galaxy.

Taros, if memory serves, was quite early on - hence the first recorded appearance of their Titan killing flier.

It makes sense that their military doctrine has since shifted somewhat, to include more Suits. Not only are they necessary, but likely easier to make as the Spheres expand, and more resources are harvested?

Forgeworld materials are produced by Games Workshop, and are just as canon as stuff from the main Games Workshop site.

Seriously? You're really going to nitpick this? I say that a cadre has ~10 crisis suits, the example has 6 and a pair of broadsides. That's 8 battlesuits, so ~10 is a reasonable approximation. Meanwhile other example cadres have more crisis suits than that very old example image. For example, the 8th edition codex on page 31 has an example cadre with the commander + bodyguards and four squads of crisis suits. The example cadre on page 74 has 10 crisis suits plus two broadsides, a riptide, and six stealth suits, next to only a token 12-man squad of infantry. Crisis suits are not rare

Your the one nitpicking as usual but I will reiterate the point to get through your dense skull, crisis suits are rare RELATIVELY TO THE MAIN FORCE

"and relatively rare compared to the main force. "

"again compared to the main force 20-30 crisis suits is RARE compared to the thousands of firewarriors"

Plus, even by your own example image it's an absurd argument to make. There are only three piranhas vs. six crisis suits, so if crisis suits are rare then piranhas are even rarer. There's only one hammerhead, so hammerheads are extremely rare. In fact, by your argument anything that isn't basic fire warriors counts as "rare" because it's not the most common unit in the cadre. And when everything is "rare" the term becomes meaningless.

It is a hunter cadre, 100 of these were on Taros, this is canon, anything else you add on is just headcanon with the caveat that "unless it has changed", I really do doubt your ability to comprehend what you are reading.

Nice of you to ignore the statement right after that, that the first attack on Taros was a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Trying to spin this into some kind of victory for the space marines is utter nonsense.

you mean like you ignored this

" Tau had the upper hand, ambushed the marines from a prepared position with overwhelming firepower the Tau took a massive beating"

and this

"after they were ambushed, several days of constant fighting with the tau taking heavy loses, they ambushed the marines, had a superior force with superior firepower and still lost a very large portion of their force, it was a failed ambush by any measure"

and this

"ambushed the marines, had superior firepower and number and STILL took "significant" casualties, they had all the cards in their hand and still got smashed"

No where did I say the marines won, again comprehension failure on your behalf... as usual, but again to hammer the point into that stubborn brain of yours, they were Ambushed outgunned outnumbered had no heavy support AND STILL MAULED THE TAU

Because, as people keep telling you, space marines are not the entire setting.

Aaaaaaaannnnnd another comprehension failure for you, wow... you are not doing well here are you Pererine, I NEVER said they were.

I really should take my own advice and never engage with peregrine, its always a waste of time.

Bold parts are for Emphasise

Yeah, you can always count on marines to take a ton of enemy forces down with them when they lose. That's hardly a surprise.

@Formosa

I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.

During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casualties vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the very small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's. The Space Marines weren't ambushed, caught by surprise, yes, since they didn't expected the enemy to receive this kind of reinforcement, but did had the time to take defensive postions within a fortified building to avoid being obliterated.

epronovost wrote:
@Formosa

I just read through the battle of Taros, well at least the part where the Marines and Tau scare off. It seems that both forces were relatively tiny. The Space Marines had a battle group composed mostly of their entire 2nd company two squads of Terminators and a few dreadnaughts fighting within the same palace complex. The Tau had a Hunter Cadre, which, while bigger, isn't overwhelmingly bigger. Maybe a few hundred Tau at most.

During the description of the battle, there is a clear mention of Tau being overwhelmingly favored during ranged engagement while the Space Marines had an easy time in close combat which was possible thanks to the fact they were holding a fortified position were close combat became a necessity. That's what caused most of the casualties amongst the Tau. Furthermore, Crisis Suits are described as comparable to Terminators with a slight advantage to the later (4 casulaty vs 3 in their engagement), one of the only time casualties are mentionned in anything else then purely descriptive terms. The end description mentions that the battlefield was littered with Tau grav tanks and battlesuits, yet only two hammerhead were present and destroyed and only five battlesuit (one XV88 and four XV8 were destroyed in the engagement) the littering is thus not due to the number of deaths, but the small size of the battlefield. All in all, only a few hundred people died during that battle at most. Neither force engaged were numbered in the 1000's.

I never said there were thousands on each side, my point was and still is in spite of having the drop on the marines the tau got mauled, in spite of having larger numbers the tau got mauled, in spite of superior firepower and planning the tau got mauled, the tau know how dangerous and effective marines are and respect them as an enemy and do not underestimate them. as for the casualties, a lot happened "off camera" that we are not told about, with only the key points described, the end of the battle had the Tau casualties at significant and the marines having to escape or be destroyed, now to you or I that means that the Marines put up a damn good fight, used the terrain to their advantage and still lost, to Peregrine that means that marines are useless and lost, no nuance, just black or white.

Marines are not perfect, that would be boring, this battle is one of the more realistic battles involving marines because they adapted to a very bad situation that would have seen any other force destroyed and any of them surviving is a testament to the true power of space marines.