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 Red Marine wrote:
Back in the 1980's some geeks thought an army was a pack of soccer hooligans handing out wedgies. The idea that modern armys numbered in the hundreds of thousands would have blown their minds, let alone military's with millions of soldiers. The men who created 40k had degrees in art. At most one of the guys participated in ECW reenactments. They thought one thousand marines would have been enough to conquer the WORRLLLDDDD!

In fairness they very much can conquer things, they just can't hold on for long.

 John Prins wrote:
Anybody important can have a 400+ year life in 40k, there's tech for that.

There’s an app for that.

 Argive wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
The Mentors chapter are used in the way you suggest, they are spread throughout the galaxy seconded to Imperial Guard regiments and other Space Marine chapters to provide guidance, training and support rather than fighting as a unified whole.

It makes for a pretty cool modelling opportunity, for example you can have a squad of mentors in your Blood Angel army if you get bored of painting red

Just read the recent novel with them - cool and enjoyed their combat-ready Thralls as well.

I'm very interested in this things you speak of.

What's the book called ?

Spear of the Emperor, by ADB.

pm713 wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
Back in the 1980's some geeks thought an army was a pack of soccer hooligans handing out wedgies. The idea that modern armys numbered in the hundreds of thousands would have blown their minds, let alone military's with millions of soldiers. The men who created 40k had degrees in art. At most one of the guys participated in ECW reenactments. They thought one thousand marines would have been enough to conquer the WORRLLLDDDD!

In fairness they very much can conquer things, they just can't hold on for long.

The standard marine expeditionary force of about 300, definitely can take an objective. However they cant take a large city fast enough. Marine punch above their weight and knock things out quickly. Swiftly redeploying they can hit 2 or 3 targets in a city per day, but some enemies can recover from that too quickly. Or with orks and 'nids are so amorphous a force that it may well be suicidal to leap into the middle of them. I think marines should deploy by the whole chapter. That way they could launch 4 strikes at once with hundreds of marines each time.

As it is multiple expeditionary forces from different chapters have to work together to achieve a decisive strike on a large target. Then again, maybe that's the point.

To beat Orks you just need to kill their warboss and leave. Tyranids are the exception to the rule.

More common targets like traitor guard you just drop pod in, shoot up their commanders, leave, bombard things while they pick a new leader then repeat.

 Red Marine wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
Back in the 1980's some geeks thought an army was a pack of soccer hooligans handing out wedgies. The idea that modern armys numbered in the hundreds of thousands would have blown their minds, let alone military's with millions of soldiers. The men who created 40k had degrees in art. At most one of the guys participated in ECW reenactments. They thought one thousand marines would have been enough to conquer the WORRLLLDDDD!

In fairness they very much can conquer things, they just can't hold on for long.

The standard marine expeditionary force of about 300, definitely can take an objective. However they cant take a large city fast enough. Marine punch above their weight and knock things out quickly. Swiftly redeploying they can hit 2 or 3 targets in a city per day, but some enemies can recover from that too quickly. Or with orks and 'nids are so amorphous a force that it may well be suicidal to leap into the middle of them. I think marines should deploy by the whole chapter. That way they could launch 4 strikes at once with hundreds of marines each time.

As it is multiple expeditionary forces from different chapters have to work together to achieve a decisive strike on a large target. Then again, maybe that's the point.

300 marines is a LARGE expeditionary force, you'll often see marines deploy in a force less then company sized. Faith and Fury details forces fighting in the Talledus system and it's worth considering the forces in play.


on the planet of Benidiction, the defending forces consisted of
-3 perceptories of sisters of Battle (a perceptory is 1000 sisters each)
-13 regiments of Imperial Guard Armor
- 9 regiments of Imperial Guard Artillery
-40 regiments of Imperial Guard infantry
- an undetirmined number of Milita
- 1 Salamanders Demi-Company
invading this world was
- 1 Company of Word Bearers
- 13 war parties of Bloodhounds (whatever that is, presumably some sort of traitor guard unit since they're not mentioned beyond the TO&E)
-1 Host of the Gore Legion of Khoros (yet again whatever this is but likely some sort of traitor guard unit)
- and an unknown number of cultists

So, the focus is pretty heavily on the salmanders and word bearers in this conflict. with the sisters getting a decnt amount of attention as the force leading the "mortal defenders" but on both sides,

but despite the focus being on the super soldiers, whom are VERY MUCH making a big differance, the majority of the combatants are mere mortals.

 Red Marine wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:
Back in the 1980's some geeks thought an army was a pack of soccer hooligans handing out wedgies. The idea that modern armys numbered in the hundreds of thousands would have blown their minds, let alone military's with millions of soldiers. The men who created 40k had degrees in art. At most one of the guys participated in ECW reenactments. They thought one thousand marines would have been enough to conquer the WORRLLLDDDD!

In fairness they very much can conquer things, they just can't hold on for long.

The standard marine expeditionary force of about 300, definitely can take an objective.

That isn't 'standard.' Even an entire company deploying together is treated as rare.

I've no idea how that is supposed to work in any capacity, but a lot of the background fiction and novels has marines deploying in squad strength or less and that gets treated as utterly reasonable. See Ventris in Nightbringer, the Chaplain and handful of Black Templars in Lords/Priests/Gods of Mars, etc. The latter handful had their own Strike Cruiser, just for the six or so marines.

It allows for the hero (or heroine) narrative.
Lets face it if you enjoy a John Wick film you know a normal human can defeat hundreds of and well armed trained enemies without issue, imagine if he was a Marine in Power Armour with marine weapons, nothing could stanf against him on screen - and siilar other movie characters.

BattleTech had planets conquered by a dozen large war machines..... How many warriors did Thanos have in his supership - maybe a thousand plus disposable monster hound things

Some BL authors fill in the gaps in the Codex narratives, some embrace it as total truth - some mix and match.

From SM codex, 3rd Ed.

 Mr Morden wrote:
It allows for the hero (or heroine) narrative.
Lets face it if you enjoy a John Wick film you know a normal human can defeat hundreds of and well armed trained enemies without issue, imagine if he was a Marine in Power Armour with marine weapons, nothing could stanf against him on screen - and siilar other movie characters.

BattleTech had planets conquered by a dozen large war machines.....

Battletech has a standing gentleman's agreement to have Mech proxy fights away from vital areas so they don't continue to bomb each other back to the stone age. They mostly adhere to this out of necessity.

In general, they don't all out 'conquer' worlds in protracted campaigns. A small attack force kicks out a garrison force and lets them withdraw (because space assets are even more rare).

Voss wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
It allows for the hero (or heroine) narrative.
Lets face it if you enjoy a John Wick film you know a normal human can defeat hundreds of and well armed trained enemies without issue, imagine if he was a Marine in Power Armour with marine weapons, nothing could stanf against him on screen - and siilar other movie characters.

BattleTech had planets conquered by a dozen large war machines.....

Battletech has a standing gentleman's agreement to have Mech proxy fights away from vital areas so they don't continue to bomb each other back to the stone age. They mostly adhere to this out of necessity.

In general, they don't all out 'conquer' worlds in protracted campaigns. A small attack force kicks out a garrison force and lets them withdraw (because space assets are even more rare).

Battletech also more importantly emphisised that for the most part the people on planets don't care who their ruler is because for all practical purposes the differances are for your average citizen just a differant flag.

course then they threw this out with the bad writing offensive of '57

 Insectum7 wrote:
From SM codex, 3rd Ed.

Spoiler:

This is the most "natural" way to use marines. Striking at strategic objectives with overwhelming force to shatter an enemy's organization, willpower, supply lines, etc is perfect for them. Manning the walls of Generic City #17924 against an incoming horde of tyranids is not.

The guys at GW/BL seem to be aware of how marines should fight, but they also seem to really like massive battles with armies literally numbering in the millions and want the space marines to participate in these anyway. So they do, even if it doesn't make much sense.
And let's be honest, from a pure "cool factor" point of view, it's not a bad choice

A bit off topic, but man, if the imperium really is made of a milion planets, it's incredibly... small.
I mean, it's theorized that there should be around 100 bilion planets in the milky way. That would mean the imperium occupies like the 0,001% of the galaxy. Shouldn't be larger?

strigops wrote:
A bit off topic, but man, if the imperium really is made of a milion planets, it's incredibly... small.
I mean, it's theorized that there should be around 100 bilion planets in the milky way. That would mean the imperium occupies like the 0,001% of the galaxy. Shouldn't be larger?

Our solar system has eight planets and one worthy of mention because it supports life, we don’t know how many such planets there are in the Galaxy but it might be one planet in a single system in each Galaxy that actually supports life and is worthy of mention.
On top of that the Great Crusade was never completed due to the Horus Heresy so as far as humans might have spread the Imperium of Man never got that far.

strigops wrote:
A bit off topic, but man, if the imperium really is made of a milion planets, it's incredibly... small.
I mean, it's theorized that there should be around 100 bilion planets in the milky way. That would mean the imperium occupies like the 0,001% of the galaxy. Shouldn't be larger?

It's a key part of the setting that The Imperium of Man claims to rule the galaxy despite having an incredibly dilute occupation of the planets. In most editions the BRBs actually call out the Imperium on this explicitly.

nareik wrote:

strigops wrote:
A bit off topic, but man, if the imperium really is made of a milion planets, it's incredibly... small.
I mean, it's theorized that there should be around 100 bilion planets in the milky way. That would mean the imperium occupies like the 0,001% of the galaxy. Shouldn't be larger?

It's a key part of the setting that The Imperium of Man claims to rule the galaxy despite having an incredibly dilute occupation of the planets. In most editions the BRBs actually call out the Imperium on this explicitly.

It also says in the BRBs that the IoM is the largest cohesive empire in the galaxy. The only races with a greater population are the 'nids and the orks. Neither of which could be classed as a civilization.

I'd agree with early posts that marines are mostly obeying The Rule of Cool. Its unrealistic for marines to go charging, shoulder to shoulder against horses of enemies. It does look neato skeeto. Marines were purposely stripped down to a tiny series of spec ops groups after the HH. They work best as a ally of the IG and the Imperial Navy.

Orks are definitely a civilization/s. Just not united.

 Red Marine wrote:

nareik wrote:

strigops wrote:
A bit off topic, but man, if the imperium really is made of a milion planets, it's incredibly... small.
I mean, it's theorized that there should be around 100 bilion planets in the milky way. That would mean the imperium occupies like the 0,001% of the galaxy. Shouldn't be larger?

It's a key part of the setting that The Imperium of Man claims to rule the galaxy despite having an incredibly dilute occupation of the planets. In most editions the BRBs actually call out the Imperium on this explicitly.

It also says in the BRBs that the IoM is the largest cohesive empire in the galaxy. The only races with a greater population are the 'nids and the orks. Neither of which could be classed as a civilization.

I'd agree with early posts that marines are mostly obeying The Rule of Cool. Its unrealistic for marines to go charging, shoulder to shoulder against horses of enemies. It does look neato skeeto. Marines were purposely stripped down to a tiny series of spec ops groups after the HH. They work best as a ally of the IG and the Imperial Navy.

So space marines aren't good against horses? So THAT'S why gw moved rough riders to legends. Got to make sure nobody can threaten the poster boys. I knew it was a conspiracy.