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Can we dial it down a notch and please keep in mind rule 1 as well as arguing the post and not the poster.
Thanks,
ingtaer.

There's the camp that can't buy the bolter porn as serious evidence and the camp who buys it hook line and sinker. I still don't understand the point of the near masturbatory lore and then the cellar-dwelling game experience for marines.

 Insectum7 wrote:

So if we ignore the lore then you are right.

But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.

Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.

What lore? The lore like the Taros campaign that shows a single company of Space Marine being bested and almost wiped by a single Hunter Cadre which numbers at around 200 top? That lore? Because that lore tells the story of a battle that can be recreated from A to Z on the tabletop. It would be a match at around 2000 points per army and would probably go exactly as described with Space Marines being overwhelmed and outgunned, but still capble of bitting back thanks to clever use of the important cover and close combat. According to the same source, there were, later alongst the line, a 100 Hunter Cadre on the planet. That would mean a force comparable to 10 whole Chapter, all of that to conquer a small mining colony populated by 12 million people. Depending on where you get your lore Space Marines are about as viable as they are on the tabletop except that on the galactic scale they are so rare they are more myth and legend then reality. Careful not to fall into the spotlight fallacy and think that because Space Marines have a gak ton of books written about them that they are somehow important or even essential as a fighting force in the lore at the galactic scale. The actions of one hero cop, no matter how spectacular and awesome are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the effort of all police officers worldwide to uphold the law and stop crimes. Space Marines are important to the stories told about the univers because they are the protagonist and the most popular faction, not because they are a powerful and decisive fighting force.

Even the best can lose a battle. Even the best can screw up. Just because there are instances in the lore where Space Marines lose doesn't mean they aren't effective and impcatful. In fact the setting is made better if they aren't uberstomping all the time. In the vast lore of 40k, it shouldn't be at all surprising that they suffer some serious losses. Losses don't matter if they're still turning the tide of other major events, which is also par for the course in the lore.


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epronovost wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

So if we ignore the lore then you are right.

But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.

Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.

What lore? The lore like the Taros campaign that shows a single company of Space Marine being bested and almost wiped by a single Hunter Cadre which numbers at around 200 top? That lore? Because that lore tells the story of a battle that can be recreated from A to Z on the tabletop. It would be a match at around 2000 points per army and would probably go exactly as described with Space Marines being overwhelmed and outgunned, but still capble of bitting back thanks to clever use of the important cover and close combat. According to the same source, there were, later alongst the line, a 100 Hunter Cadre on the planet. That would mean a force comparable to 10 whole Chapter, all of that to conquer a small mining colony populated by 12 million people. Depending on where you get your lore Space Marines are about as viable as they are on the tabletop except that on the galactic scale they are so rare they are more myth and legend then reality. Careful not to fall into the spotlight fallacy and think that because Space Marines have a gak ton of books written about them that they are somehow important or even essential as a fighting force in the lore at the galactic scale. The actions of one hero cop, no matter how spectacular and awesome are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the effort of all police officers worldwide to uphold the law and stop crimes. Space Marines are important to the stories told about the univers because they are the protagonist and the most popular faction, not because they are a powerful and decisive fighting force.

Look at what you're doing here for a second. You're saying that Space Marines performed poorly in one battle, therefore they perform poorly in every battle across the galaxy for over 10 millenia. That's some solid reasoning, man.


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 Peregrine wrote:
The lore says both that space marines are effective and that space marines are too few in number to be relevant when their level of effectiveness is on par with the forces of other factions

You mean you say that.

Conversely, point me to that piece of lore. Not a single battle, but an actual quote , non-in-universe, that says Space Marines are ineffective.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Look at what you're doing here for a second. You're saying that Space Marines performed poorly in one battle, therefore they perform poorly in every battle across the galaxy for over 10 millenia. That's some solid reasoning, man.

They didn't do poorly, they were defeated. Everybody suffers defeat once in a while. What's revealing isn't that they were defeated but that they were defeated by a force that mirror that which can defeat Space Marines on the tabletop, that the fluff matched the tabletop fairly closely. That Space Marines aren't worth a hundred times their number in Tau Fire Warrior, they are barely worth 1.5. Thus, the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes isn't worth even a tenth of the Tau Empire military. The same can be said about your position. Space Marines had an impact in a battle, thus they have an impact on the galactic scale quasi eternal war in which the Imperium is engaged. The Tau Empire itself isn't even the biggest threat to the Imperium in the galaxy. They are too few and too localised.

epronovost wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Look at what you're doing here for a second. You're saying that Space Marines performed poorly in one battle, therefore they perform poorly in every battle across the galaxy for over 10 millenia. That's some solid reasoning, man.

They didn't do poorly, they were defeated. Everybody suffers defeat once in a while. What's revealing isn't that they were defeated but that they were defeated by a force that mirror that which can defeat Space Marines on the tabletop, that the fluff matched the tabletop fairly closely. That Space Marines aren't worth a hundred times their number in Tau Fire Warrior, they are barely worth 1.5. Thus, the entirety of the Adeptus Astartes isn't worth even a tenth of the Tau Empire military. The same can be said about your position. Space Marines had an impact in a battle, thus they have an impact on the galactic scale quasi eternal war in which the Imperium is engaged. The Tau Empire itself isn't even the biggest threat to the Imperium in the galaxy. They are too few and too localised.

There's a big difference between your extrapolating into the universe the results of one battle, and my reiteration of a literal statement of lore.

To be honest as I said earlier, those books were the equivalent of bolter-porn but for tau.

The Tau Empire winning the Damocles Crusade felt way too cheap because Farsight was so fething awesome and the Imperial Army and Space Marines were just so useless, stupid and powerless.


One would ask how even did they won the Great Crusade wipping xenos empire left and right (I know they where much more marines, with primarchs back there, but they whipped hundreds of small xenos empires and not in every waryou had the full space marine legion and the primarch) when they couldn't do anything agaisnt the Tau.

But thats what happen when you have all the fluff painting their own faction as the most awesome thing ever.

I have an Eldar-fan friend that nearly ragequited for two months when he read the fluff of that piece were the ultramarines fight Eldars and Marneus Calgar punchs a Avatar of Kaine into dust and one Space Marine Sargeants kills single handely 12 Howling Banshees. Alone.

 Galas wrote:
To be honest as I said earlier, those books were the equivalent of bolter-porn but for tau.

The Tau Empire winning the Damocles Crusade felt way too cheap because Farsight was so fething awesome and the Imperial Army and Space Marines were just so useless, stupid and powerless.


One would ask how even did they won the Great Crusade wipping xenos empire left and right (I know they where much more marines, with primarchs back there, but they whipped hundreds of small xenos empires and not in every waryou had the full space marine legion and the primarch) when they couldn't do anything agaisnt the Tau.

But thats what happen when you have all the fluff painting their own faction as the most awesome thing ever.

I have an Eldar-fan friend that nearly ragequited for two months when he read the fluff of that piece were the ultramarines fight Eldars and Marneus Calgar punchs a Avatar of Kaine into dust and one Space Marine Sargeants kills single handely 12 Howling Banshees. Alone.

That's just it. I don't think the great crusade would have worked with the in-lore numbers given. All you need is a couple of xenos with WMDs.

I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.

epronovost wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

So if we ignore the lore then you are right.

But if we don't ignore the lore, because the lore is the lore and you're just some anonymous schmoe on the internet, then you're wrong.

Ergo, Space Marines are viable and effective in the 40k universe.

What lore? The lore like the Taros campaign that shows a single company of Space Marine being bested and almost wiped by a single Hunter Cadre which numbers at around 200 top? That lore? Because that lore tells the story of a battle that can be recreated from A to Z on the tabletop. It would be a match at around 2000 points per army and would probably go exactly as described with Space Marines being overwhelmed and outgunned, but still capble of bitting back thanks to clever use of the important cover and close combat. According to the same source, there were, later alongst the line, a 100 Hunter Cadre on the planet. That would mean a force comparable to 10 whole Chapter, all of that to conquer a small mining colony populated by 12 million people. Depending on where you get your lore Space Marines are about as viable as they are on the tabletop except that on the galactic scale they are so rare they are more myth and legend then reality. Careful not to fall into the spotlight fallacy and think that because Space Marines have a gak ton of books written about them that they are somehow important or even essential as a fighting force in the lore at the galactic scale. The actions of one hero cop, no matter how spectacular and awesome are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the effort of all police officers worldwide to uphold the law and stop crimes. Space Marines are important to the stories told about the univers because they are the protagonist and the most popular faction, not because they are a powerful and decisive fighting force.

It was not a single hunter cadre, we are just told about a single hunter cadre moving in to retake the governors palace, they were clearly reinforced as time went on especially as they directly stated it, also you all keep ignoring the MANTA that was there too.


"The first the Avenging Sons knew of any Tau forces on Taros was the arrival of the Manta over the night-darkened city. Soon, Hammerhead gunships followed by XV8 Crisis Battlesuits and Devilfish-mounted Fire Warriors would be closing in on blocking position three. An entire Hunter Cadre was bearing down on the Space Mannes, moving at speed to reinforce the Governor's Palace."

" Barracudas raced low over Tarokeen to launch missiles in the Governor’s palace."


"The Tau had used the night-time full to reinforce their mauled Hunter Cadre"


So the attack was a Manta carrying a hunter cadre backed by baracudas, later reinforced with an unknown number of hunter cadres and forces against a company of marines with no heavy support elements in a reinforced position, the marines were ambushed and faced overwhelming firepower and were heavily outnumbered and still mauled the Tau....


Everything I stated is right there in the book and for some reason people are either not going to read the story or are just trusting what others are saying when they argue, the map of the palace is there, the estimated forces of the Tau are there, the overarching story of the battle is there.

anyway, for everyone to read for themselves.

From the first Taros intervention.

 Shadenuat wrote:
I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.

1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.

Martel732 wrote:

 Shadenuat wrote:
I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.

1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.

I am willing to be there is more to it that just a thousand marines taking the craftworld, circumstances likely matter, any other forces present etc.

Bobthehero wrote:Because they're still part of the universe and I can give my opinion on them.

But didn't you literally just say that you want to ignore them? If you want to ignore their sheer existence (which is possible, if you shrink down your perspective of 40k - quite a lot of the Gaunt's Ghosts books take place with very little in the way of Space Marines, mostly the first three arcs), then again, why do you keep talking about them? I thought you wanted to forget they existed.

Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I'd say common sense, but okay: can you cite a source from GW that says the rules for their game is treated in the same way as their Black Library and fluff publications?

That's not how this works. You're the one claiming that this hierarchy of sources exists and the rules are intended to be ignored in trying to understand the fluff, you have the burden of proof and need to provide something to back up your claims. You don't get to make a claim about GW's policies and then demand that I prove you wrong.

You're the one claiming they're both as valid. I gave my evidence as to why that was incorrect (different writing teams). That's absolutely how this works, so please, give me your source. If you have one, of course, and it's not just trying to pass opinion as fact.

From that, we can see that being shot in the head is more fatal than being shot in other places, but that people can also walk off some headshots in certain circumstances.

Really? How do we know any of that based only on 40k logic? How do we know that being shot in the head is fatal, and the people being shot in the head aren't simultaneously experiencing a psychic event that kills them when the bullet would have only given them a minor headache?

Easy, because there's nothing that indicates a localised psychic event that occurs when someone gets shot in the head. Instead, it's very heavily, almost obviously implied, that the shot is what kills them.

But even IF it were a small localised psychic explosion, even IF it wasn't the actual bullet causing the damage, we still see that those "small localised psychic explosions" occur after being shot in the head. So yeah, maybe you're right, and those headshot kills ARE because of psychic events - but those psychic events are being triggered by being shot in the head. Therefore, if you care so much about your "psychic events" theory, you can have it! It's not mutually exclusive to "getting shot in the head kills you".

Don't you dare use real-world ideas about causality or simplest explanations or anything like that, because you said we have to ignore real-world logic.

There's a big difference between fundamental causality and simple things like gravity, thermodynamics, and physics. 40k uses a different physics model, so to speak, but still obeys causality - at least, according to the 40k universe itself.

There ARE acausal beings in 40k (daemons, psykers, and the Primarchs, to a limited extent), but even their acausality has a cause - their manifestation of psychic powers.

Martel732 wrote:Still the best answer in the whole thread. And probably the most accurate.

Not wrong there.

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.

The only reason I'm not outraged is because the game and the lore are two different things. I like to do my best to recreate the lore via the game in terms of what units I take, their organisation, their weapons XYZ, but I know fundamentally that the game isn't a perfect recreation of the lore, much like how it's also not a perfect example of balance. I work with what I'm given, and if I don't like that, then I don't play, and just enjoy the lore.

The lore and game are two very different things. That's how I reconcile the obvious disconnect of the two.

Bobthehero wrote:Seems to be case, I've rarely seen the line ''fluff =/= rules'' coming from anyone else than Marines.

Usually because Marines are one of the worst affected by the difference between fluff and rules. However, I've seen Eldar players expect Eldar to the stronger, Deathstrikes to be stronger and Dark Eldar to be better in combat, and other cases like that. However, the reason Marines are associated with that line most is because the disconnect of the rules-lore is usually far worse, and there's more Marine players than any other faction, maybe even all others combined.

Bobthehero wrote:

 Galas wrote:
They feel Space Marines have an undeserving amount of time on the spotlight but unlike Tyranids, Necrons or Orks players that have accepted their place as the NPCs, they feel that because they are humans they should be much more relevant?

Well it is called the Imperium of Man, and yet the big spotlight is shone on the mutants.

I prefer post-human. Plus, they're called the Imperium of Man, but are led by a supremely powerful and godlike being that is further from a man than the posthuman warriors that fight for mankind. They're called the Imperium of Man because it's an empire that is predominantly made up of humans. Doesn't mean that their best soliders can't be posthuman.

Furthermore, the IG are rarely portrayed as competent in books other than their own, so the more the focus go on the SM, the less likely you'll have good Guard stuff. The other faction can at least be written to be threatening antagonists, but the Guard is almost always the gakky ally that's there to be killed.

IOW, I don't like Space Marines because they make my faction look bad.

Of COURSE in an SM book they'll look good. But at the same time, in plenty of Guard books, SM look weak. Hell, in ANY faction books, they'll make their guys look better. However, Marines are just very popular, and are iconic to 40k. Sorry people like Marines, I guess? You can like your own guys, that's fine, no-one's forcing you to like Marines, but ignoring lore because you don't like the idea of them being strong?

Peregrine wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So if we ignore the lore then you are right.

No, if we interpret the lore and attempt to resolve its contradictions in the only reasonable way.

Let me guess, you're the arbiter of what's reasonable?

The lore says both that space marines are effective and that space marines are too few in number to be relevant when their level of effectiveness is on par with the forces of other factions (as is demonstrated to be the case). So you have three options:

1) Throw out all concept of scale and just mindlessly repeat that space marines are awesome, because who cares about pesky details like an entire space marine chapter being unable to carry enough ammunition to kill a meaningful number of enemies in a planetary-scale conflict even if they get an instantly fatal headshot every time they pull the trigger.

2) Ignore all of the fluff where space marines are roughly as capable as the far more numerous elites of other factions. For example, the Taros example where a space marine force fought a standard Tau cadre equipped with nothing but the standard Tau units and suffered 60% losses in a "costly defeat for the Imperium". Even the elites of other factions can be no better than cultists armed with pointy sticks, no matter how much fluff says otherwise.

3) Acknowledge that the Imperium is a totalitarian theocracy full of lies and myths and interpret the implausible stories of space marine feats as religious doctrine much like the myths of real-world religions. When a real-world myth says that Jesus walked on water we don't ignore how water works because every piece of fluff must be true, we acknowledge that some people believe it happened but it's clearly just a work of fiction.

One of these maintains as much of the fluff as possible, the other two involve throwing out any inconvenient piece of fluff.

I think the 1st option is the best. It's a fictional universe, where rule of cool is priority. The lore states XYZ, we suspend our disbelief to accept it. I've not got a problem with that, no more than I suspend my disbelief when Orks use their gestalt psychic field, or something like the Warp exists, or 40k aircraft violate the laws of aviation.

As a result, my outcome keeps the most fluff intact (almost all of it is valid) - unlike the 3rd option, which makes 1st person and omniscient 3rd person narrator stories in the 40k universe utterly useless and clearly non-canon, aka, throwing out "inconvenient pieces of fluff".

Martel732 wrote:

 Shadenuat wrote:
I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.

1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.

The fighting strength of a Space Marine chapter is far more than 1000 marines, because they get to the battle in a fleet of very capable warships, not to mention ground and air/space attack vehicles.

And where's the eldar navy? There's likely thousands or tens of thousands of vessels protecting a planet.

Also, i still don't understand why its acceptable for the lore and game to diverge so radically. They might as well change all the names. It's like having a wwii game where the us navy is garbage. Marines aren't just toned down. The system is actively hostile towards them.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Shadenuat wrote:
I gotta give it to the Tau, Alaitoc (and a few other Craftworlds wiped by Marines) couldn't even handle a single marine Chapter, not three.

1000 guys took on a craftWORLD? This is why I can't take bolter porn seriously.

The fighting strength of a Space Marine chapter is far more than 1000 marines, because they get to the battle in a fleet of very capable warships, not to mention ground and air/space attack vehicles.

Also how are craft worlds laid out? if the majority of a craft world is narrowish tunnels (well 40k typically presents their space ships with vast corridors I can belive that's the norm, and suspect that most passageways are smaller side passages) I could see a suprise assault on a craftworld that lands marines inside having a good chance at inflicting serious damage, or if they plant explosive charges in the right area even taking one down. Marines are specificly built for brutal tunnel fighting etc they're good at it. meanwhile Eldar are more reliant on mobility etc. so an attack on tight confines I could see potentially inflicting damage vastly disproportioate to the numbers involved.

although yeah my over all gut feeling is "bs" just that if GW tasked me to details how it happened I know the BS angle I'd take


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Martel732 wrote:
And where's the eldar navy? There's likely thousands or tens of thousands of vessels protecting a planet.

tens of thousands? that seems a bit off. hundreds maybe, thousands? for the "rare race of dying eldar"? please

Not for planetary scale. Earth ocean going navies easily added up to that in wwii. Now factor in automation and advanced resource gathering. A star empire might have millions of ships

The dying race probably numbers on hundreds of billions. Space is big. GW is just scientifically illiterate..

Martel732 wrote:
And where's the eldar navy? There's likely thousands or tens of thousands of vessels protecting a planet.

A: Wherever the author needs them to be.

B: Caught with their pants down,. Major victories can be snatched away from superior forces through surprise, intelligence or preparation.

C. Off doing something else.

Martel732 wrote:

Also, i still don't understand why its acceptable for the lore and game to diverge so radically. They might as well change all the names. It's like having a wwii game where the us navy is garbage. Marines aren't just toned down. The system is actively hostile towards them.

Because the intent of the game is ( most of the time) an evenly matched and rewarding affair between two sweet collections of models. Some concessions are made to achieve that.

Most navies have a "home fleet" component. You don't think prescient eldar are smart enough to have a home fleet? Come on now.

Why is the concession from masturbatory levels down to the gutter? There's nothing rewarding about being sheep to the slaughter.

Martel732 wrote:
Not for planetary scale. Earth ocean going navies easily added up to that in wwii. Now factor in automation and advanced resource gathering. A star empire might have millions of ships

The dying race probably numbers on hundreds of billions. Space is big. GW is just scientifically illiterate..

You're dis punting the scale of the ships, of course. The mass of a Battlefleet Gothic ship is like a thousand wwii ships.

And thats just one problem with that argument.

Irrelevant with so many resources in space. Also realize those vessels were fielding by a fraction of the total surface area of a single planet.

Just the territory to cover alone in space requires a tremendous number of vessels. Renegade Legion did a good job of showing this.

It's clear you are a fan boy. I'm never going to get on board because I like more realistic sci-fi settings. But I will never understand GW's schizophrenic handling of the marine faction. Going from bolter porn to the tabletop is too huge of a disparity.

Martel732 wrote:
Going from bolter porn to the tabletop is too huge of a disparity.

It is. That's why arguments using tabletop as a source are incredibly poor, IMO.

Sure, 40k is terrible with scale, but I can make my peace with that. I like 40k lore. I don't think the tabletop is supposed, or expected, to represent it beyond "oh cool, my model approximation of XYZ unit!", in much the same way as Dawn of War.

The closest games I can think of which actually come closest to 40k lore are probably Space Marine, and the FFG 40k RPGs (and as with all RPGs, they were still very abusable).

But the tabletop seems more reasonable than the lore. It's just not the outcome marine fanboys want. It's a more reasonable source than the lore. That's a big driving force for that camp, I suspect.

Martel732 wrote:
But the tabletop seems more reasonable than the lore. It's just not the outcome marine fanboys want. It's a more reasonable source than the lore. That's a big driving force for that camp, I suspect.

I'm a Marine fanboy. I'm also a Guard fanboy. I'm a fanboy of most factions in the setting.

I think the "Marines are super powerful" lore is completely reasonable, because they're still not the ONLY faction, nor could they do what the guard does. They need eachother to function, like the IoM needs all of it's constituent parts and subfactions. I like the Marines for what they do in the lore - that's "be incredibly powerful, turn the tide of campaigns, operate as the tip of the spear in completing tasks that no other faction could". I like Guardsmen for what they do in the lore too.

Tabletop is more reasonable for a gaming perspective, but for lore? Not for me.

I mean a physics and realistic perspective.

If marines were really like the top power portrayal, they would be handled by WMDs by the other factions rather than facing them. That would fix the problem real fast.

It doesn't seem reasonable that marines could do anything like they do in the lore, which is why the tabletop seems like a better source.

I'm pretty sure guardsmen in human-style power armor could do most of what marines do with no problem. And they'd still be throwaway, too.

Martel732 wrote:
I mean a physics and realistic perspective.

Exactly, which is why I don't use "realistic" physics, because 40k isn't our universe. I don't care about if 40k follows our physics.

If marines were really like the top power portrayal, they would be handled by WMDs by the other factions rather than facing them. That would fix the problem real fast.

But they don't, and that's my whole point - it's not a realistic world, by our standards.

It doesn't seem reasonable that marines could do anything like they do in the lore, which is why the tabletop seems like a better source.

Whereas it's completely reasonable to me, within the context of the 40k universe as presented.

I'm pretty sure guardsmen in human-style power armor could do most of what marines do with no problem. And they'd still be throwaway, too.

If only guardsman-tier power armour was affordable to do. Again, most of what Space Marines do is done by their biology, not their armour. Their armour just enhances their already prodigious abilities. A Guardsman wearing human-grade power armour would lose to an unarmoured Astartes.

"A Guardsman wearing human-grade power armour would lose to an unarmoured Astartes."

Doesn't matter if they scale better.

"If only guardsman-tier power armour was affordable to do"

There's no reason it wouldn't be. Forgeworlds make production of anything trivial, whether the fluff understand this or not. Again, they don't understand their own scale.

I absolutely care about real physics. Or at least, kind-of real. I just don't accept what they present as sufficiently plausible.

Martel732 wrote:
There's no reason it wouldn't be. Forgeworlds make production of anything trivial, whether the fluff understand this or not. Again, they don't understand their own scale.

Again, it's their universe. If they say it's not feasible on a mass production scale, it isn't feasible on a mass production scale, and that's enough for me.

If their scale is inconsistent with what our IRL scale says, maybe we shouldn't be judging it from our IRL scale.

I absolutely care about real physics. Or at least, kind-of real. I just don't accept what they present as sufficiently plausible.

Well, that's just a difference of our opinions then, and what we value more - congruency with our terms of our "reality", or congruency with it's own "reality".

I can't help it. They don't get to redefine every aspect of reality. Scale is scale. Stars have the mass they have as do their satellites. Uninhabitable rocky worlds would be completely converted to refined product. Especially on their time scale. There would be the capacity to create trillions of suits of powee armor, regardless of their opinion.

Martel732 wrote:
Irrelevant with so many resources in space. Also realize those vessels were fielding by a fraction of the total surface area of a single planet.

Just the territory to cover alone in space requires a tremendous number of vessels. Renegade Legion did a good job of showing this.

It's clear you are a fan boy. I'm never going to get on board because I like more realistic sci-fi settings. But I will never understand GW's schizophrenic handling of the marine faction. Going from bolter porn to the tabletop is too huge of a disparity.

*Shrug. If you don't like the setting what are you doing here?

I like realistic sci-fi settings too, 40K is not one of them. But the lore of it is the lore of it, and it functions on it's own principles.

Space fleets may be huge, but they're often spread out over large areas, because space. Maybe Eldar have a home-fleet for each Craftworld, makes sense, but maybe it wasn't well deployed or ready at the time and the Space Marines were concentrated and able to "Pearl Harbor" them. The locations of Craftworlds iirc are a closely guarded secret of the Eldar anyways, so they weren't expecting an attack. Or maybe the whims of the warp conspired to give the Farseers bad projections. There's enough in-universe reasons available to make those events possible.

You can call me a fan-boy all you want, but the lore is the lore. "Thing X" happened. There are a thousand conflicts the Imperium is involved in on any given day, and it's been going on for ten millenia, so sometimes certain extraordinary events happen. A single Chapter wreaking havoc on a Craftworld (I don't know the story being referred to, perhaps you can point me to it) is a thing that occurred. that doesn't mean it happens all the time, that doesn't mean that a similar event might end in total disaster for the marines (and probably has). You're falling victim to the same fallacy of others by conflating a single event into a galaxy-wide precedent or trend.