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I like to think there are just lots of little threads of canon. Similar but not always identical. This makes 40k Thematically fairly cohesive, but the details may vary a little depending on the story (and the medium used to tell the story). We all take for granted video games can have a slightly different canon, and I extend that onto other forms of media. As such Codex 40k is a slightly different place to novel 40k, which in turn is different to white dwarf 40k or Warhammer community 40k and so on.

Discovering 40k is a little like reading the skean; general trends can be seen, but often the details of the strands can vary.

Regardless of the warbling over fleet size, what we do know of is that The Dark Angels and Space Wolves both have 8 battle barges in their chapters, and the Unforgiven probably follow the same fleet structure as their parent as perfect little clones (barring the Angels of Absolution).

I still really don't see what your point is. GW changes its "canon" all the time when it suits them. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, Ultramarines having eight battle barges isn't actually that big a deal. That puts the Ultramarines as having more resources than most Chapters, but still a mere fraction of the forces the Imperial Navy has in any given segmentum, and really any sector they care enough about to defend for that matter. So... okay? Hasn't "ultramarines have an abundance of resources compared to your average chapter" been canon since at least 3rd or fourth edition, though? And with Guilliman returned, this has only really increased.

 Melissia wrote:
I still really don't see what your point is. GW changes its "canon" all the time when it suits them. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, Ultramarines having eight battle barges isn't actually that big a deal. That puts the Ultramarines as having more resources than most Chapters, but still a mere fraction of the forces the Imperial Navy has in any given segmentum, and really any sector they care enough about to defend for that matter. So... okay? Hasn't "ultramarines have an abundance of resources compared to your average chapter" been canon since at least 3rd or fourth edition, though? And with Guilliman returned, this has only really increased.

I don't eaither, just people are throwing that number out like it's some sort of fact when it isn't.

I listed exactly where they got the idea from and the sources of them. Ultimately, if you aren't interested in even trying to understand the logic behind "these ships were listed without the lore saying they were lost or destroyed, so they must still be functional", there's not really much else to be said to you.

nareik wrote:
I like to think there are just lots of little threads of canon. Similar but not always identical. This makes 40k Thematically fairly cohesive, but the details may vary a little depending on the story (and the medium used to tell the story). We all take for granted video games can have a slightly different canon, and I extend that onto other forms of media. As such Codex 40k is a slightly different place to novel 40k, which in turn is different to white dwarf 40k or Warhammer community 40k and so on.

Discovering 40k is a little like reading the skean; general trends can be seen, but often the details of the strands can vary.

I mean, if you listen to the last Voxcast episode with their IP guy he actually goes into this. It's an entire galaxy based on WW1 level communications 90% of the time. The odds of anyone knowing something for a fact is likely because they witnessed it and that will die with them. Assuming the warp doesn't get involved to make them think the thing happened.

It was pretty funny to me given how seriously people try and take the lore tidbits, mean while the setting is just sitting there wallowing in it's own contradiction simultaneously yelling "World builders go home" and "World builders go nuts".

40k isn't a story, it's barely a setting, it's a grimdark playground. And I'm pretty happy some of their folks are into that still. I will admit, the recent story focus had me worried on that, but in reading the stuff it makes the level of uncertainty perfectly blatant.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

nareik wrote:
I like to think there are just lots of little threads of canon. Similar but not always identical. This makes 40k Thematically fairly cohesive, but the details may vary a little depending on the story (and the medium used to tell the story). We all take for granted video games can have a slightly different canon, and I extend that onto other forms of media. As such Codex 40k is a slightly different place to novel 40k, which in turn is different to white dwarf 40k or Warhammer community 40k and so on.

Discovering 40k is a little like reading the skean; general trends can be seen, but often the details of the strands can vary.

I mean, if you listen to the last Voxcast episode with their IP guy he actually goes into this. It's an entire galaxy based on WW1 level communications 90% of the time. The odds of anyone knowing something for a fact is likely because they witnessed it and that will die with them. Assuming the warp doesn't get involved to make them think the thing happened.

It was pretty funny to me given how seriously people try and take the lore tidbits, mean while the setting is just sitting there wallowing in it's own contradiction simultaneously yelling "World builders go home" and "World builders go nuts".

40k isn't a story, it's barely a setting, it's a grimdark playground. And I'm pretty happy some of their folks are into that still. I will admit, the recent story focus had me worried on that, but in reading the stuff it makes the level of uncertainty perfectly blatant.

the story element is pretty overblown anyway, beyond the gathering storm changes things are more or less about on par with how 40k has typically been. with story rarely being that big a deal and seldom impacting things over all, Vigilus for example is pretty similer to just about every campaign GW's ever run.

My advice: Go watch the youtube series Astartes. It is up to part 4, and it shows an amazing view of how a squad of space marines operates.

If the video doesn't answer the question of "why marines matter" in your mind, then nothing will.

And even if you aren't convinced, at least still watch it for the sheer amazing visual and sound effects.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
My advice: Go watch the youtube series Astartes. It is up to part 4, and it shows an amazing view of how a squad of space marines operates.

If the video doesn't answer the question of "why marines matter" in your mind, then nothing will.

And even if you aren't convinced, at least still watch it for the sheer amazing visual and sound effects.

Assuming they are trying to capture something, or murder someone on board (and assuming their hunter ship wasn't up to the task of destroying the ship) you absolutely could not find humans that could survive the boarding action let alone the take out the on board guards without taking a loss and making such progress through the ship so quickly.

And that's what astartes can do when they drop down to assassinate on planet as well.

Then, if you consider that's how loyal marines operate, it is absolutely terrifying that there are chaos and renegade ones out there as well... You need something that can go toe to toe with them.

Whilst the AM and imperial Navy are evidently the heavy lifters for the imperium, they absolutely cannot act as quickly to situations as marines can with equal effect.

The siege of Vraks explains the logistics required to support an AM army in the battlefield, it takes 12 months to drop all the equipment from orbit and build the infrastructure to support the army to be able to achieve it's first objective of breaking the first defensive line and they also conclude they cannot take the planets space port without too high losses.

The dark angels take that space port within 8 days and demolished it in a further 2 of entering the space system.

Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

Lexnicium says the dark angels lost 200 Battlebrothers. that's not a third of their chapter. And the enemy reinforcements where chaos marines arriving via droppod

BrianDavion wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

Lexnicium says the dark angels lost 200 Battlebrothers. that's not a third of their chapter. And the enemy reinforcements where chaos marines arriving via droppod

One fifth is hardly better than one third in this case.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

Lexnicium says the dark angels lost 200 Battlebrothers. that's not a third of their chapter. And the enemy reinforcements where chaos marines arriving via droppod

One fifth is hardly better than one third in this case.

It's 130 battle brothers better

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

Lexnicium says the dark angels lost 200 Battlebrothers. that's not a third of their chapter. And the enemy reinforcements where chaos marines arriving via droppod

One fifth is hardly better than one third in this case.

500 people attacking a fortified location, and effectiuvely opening an entire new front in a war. that's pretty good all told, but yeah conflcits on this scale certainly can;t be the norm for a space marine chapter

BrianDavion wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

Lexnicium says the dark angels lost 200 Battlebrothers. that's not a third of their chapter. And the enemy reinforcements where chaos marines arriving via droppod

My mistake for the number part.

The Chaos forces recieved a lot more than droppodded Marines as reinforcements. Titans were deployed after the DA were gone.

 Bobthehero wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

Lexnicium says the dark angels lost 200 Battlebrothers. that's not a third of their chapter. And the enemy reinforcements where chaos marines arriving via droppod

My mistake for the number part.

The Chaos forces recieved a lot more than droppodded Marines as reinforcements. Titans were deployed after the DA were gone.

true eneugh, I imagine there where some logistical issues with not having a spaceport, but I suspect the main issues where where their expendable infantry anyway. nobody cares about the logistics being harder for a buncha Tzangors

The titans that deployed were from a freighter that the imperial navy failed to completely destroy, so when it crashed on the planets surface they deployed from it. It wasn’t the Dark Angels job to secure the whole planet and the space supremacy. Still, the point is that the dark angels performed a job in 10 days that no other force in the imperium other than other marines could have in such a time scale (As an individual force at least anyway), sure titans could have done it but the logistics to muster and transport them over, then land far enough away from the defence batteries and then provide on ground logistics support whilst they travelled to the spaceport... but that would have been far more inefficient than deploying 400 marines and their support.

It may have been pointless but that was due to a combination of the administratum, the lord commander of the siege and the imperial navies incompetence. You just can’t help some people.

The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

Isn't Vraks known for being a particularly brutal and costly war? So not exactly the best measure of whether Marines are effective.

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

But if the Navy had done their job then why would they need to take out the space port at all? They'd control orbit.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

If the Navy controlled Space, wether the Space Port is up or not is entirely irrelevant. Its destruction did not prevent chaotic forces from landing troops, either.

 Bobthehero wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

If the Navy controlled Space, wether the Space Port is up or not is entirely irrelevant. Its destruction did not prevent chaotic forces from landing troops, either.

Again. They technically didn't land most of their troops, they survived a crash landing. They also could land chaos marines via drop pod as they didn't have the palaces defence batteries aimed at the carrier ships.

I get that you must defend your narrative and argument, but it is quite ridiculous how you can't see some sense in the ability of the marines to do the job on the space port in a way no other imperial force could.

Whether it was deemed irrelevant in the end is a mute point, it was something that needed to be handled at that time and the marines did that in a way and time frame now other imperial force could.

I'm not suggesting marines could have done the trench fighting on vraks and the attrition war, they would exhaust their ability super fast. That's why the AM are needed.

Also, the Navy could not control the space above due to the defensive guns on planet which also covered the space port. If the space port would not have been taken out of action, the chaos forces could and would have landed far far far more troops and heavy support than they ended up doing so in the end.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

That's because they slammed right into an entire Alpha Legion warband. Previously casualties had been light but Astartes v Astartes combat is always horrendous when it comes to casualties due to neither side retreating due to ignoring morale.

 Bobthehero wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

If the Navy controlled Space, wether the Space Port is up or not is entirely irrelevant. Its destruction did not prevent chaotic forces from landing troops, either.

"D-Day was irrelevant because the British Navy already controlled the straight and had sunk most of the German assets"

Good to know you're a brilliant tactician.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

That's because they slammed right into an entire Alpha Legion warband. Previously casualties had been light but Astartes v Astartes combat is always horrendous when it comes to casualties due to neither side retreating due to ignoring morale.

in fairness they'd arrived in part because of reports of the Alpha legion presence but yeah. space marines holding an entrnched position is going to be BLOODY

 Insectum7 wrote:


But much of the time probably what happens is the first option. Space Marines show up and take control of major strategic assets, and most of the local PDF probably realize the seriousness of the situation, and give themselves/their commanders/their planetary governors up.

Remember, the Space Marines are the angels of the Lord. I would think that when the mythical warriors of the God-Emperor turn up, any rebel forces who are simply misled rather than actively traitorous are quite likely to surrender if given the opportunity. It's hard to think your commanders are still loyal servants of the Imperium when the God-Emperor has dispatched his holy warriors to tell you no, they're traitors.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:


But much of the time probably what happens is the first option. Space Marines show up and take control of major strategic assets, and most of the local PDF probably realize the seriousness of the situation, and give themselves/their commanders/their planetary governors up.

Remember, the Space Marines are the angels of the Lord. I would think that when the mythical warriors of the God-Emperor turn up, any rebel forces who are simply misled rather than actively traitorous are quite likely to surrender if given the opportunity. It's hard to think your commanders are still loyal servants of the Imperium when the God-Emperor has dispatched his holy warriors to tell you no, they're traitors.

They can just be told that the Marines in question are traitors. One of the Grey Knight novels has exactly that happen.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

That's because they slammed right into an entire Alpha Legion warband. Previously casualties had been light but Astartes v Astartes combat is always horrendous when it comes to casualties due to neither side retreating due to ignoring morale.

 Bobthehero wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

If the Navy controlled Space, wether the Space Port is up or not is entirely irrelevant. Its destruction did not prevent chaotic forces from landing troops, either.

"D-Day was irrelevant because the British Navy already controlled the straight and had sunk most of the German assets"

Good to know you're a brilliant tactician.

That's not at all a good comparison, the fall of the port barely comes up as having prevent chaos forces from getting reinforcements. Especially at the cost of 200 Dark Angels

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Which ultimately proved to be of little use, as the enemy still recieved massive reinforcements and the DA lost a whole third of their chapter.

That's because they slammed right into an entire Alpha Legion warband. Previously casualties had been light but Astartes v Astartes combat is always horrendous when it comes to casualties due to neither side retreating due to ignoring morale.

 Bobthehero wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
The performed a job that changed little to nothing on the grand scale of things, and lost a fifth of their chapter for it.

It would have had a huge impact, however the Imperial Navy failed to uphold their side of the bargain.

You must also analyse the potential cost of not taking out the space port. The war would surely have been lost.

If the Navy controlled Space, wether the Space Port is up or not is entirely irrelevant. Its destruction did not prevent chaotic forces from landing troops, either.

"D-Day was irrelevant because the British Navy already controlled the straight and had sunk most of the German assets"

Good to know you're a brilliant tactician.

That's not at all a good comparison, the fall of the port barely comes up as having prevent chaos forces from getting reinforcements. Especially at the cost of 200 Dark Angels

It's not about just securing the spaceport from Chaos to deny it from them, but also claiming the Spaceport to allow more landings. 200 casualties also isn't surprising when getting ambushed by the Alpha Legion - normally you're lucky for anybody to make it out alive.

 Wyzilla wrote:

It's not about just securing the spaceport from Chaos to deny it from them, but also claiming the Spaceport to allow more landings. 200 casualties also isn't surprising when getting ambushed by the Alpha Legion - normally you're lucky for anybody to make it out alive.

If it was about securing the port for more landings then they failed, didn't they? They destroyed the port.

Also, their action was ultimately futile as Vraks is now a dead planet. So they lost one fifth of their chapter and accomplished nothing.