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Void__Dragon wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

(Parts of this post probably sounded hostile or condescending- genuine apology for that; but discrepancies between novels, movies and the actual game is a HUGE pet peeve, so please believe me when I say it's not personal)

Your irrational pet peeves are no concern of anyone's.

Fluff is more important than rules when discussing the setting and the people in it because rules much more readily change for reasons that have nothing to do with the setting or characters inside.

Initiative being removed from the game mechanics doesn't suddenly mean Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, Eldar, Ogryn, Necrons, and Great Unclean Ones are all just as quick, it was done because GW believed it would be better for the game state.

The Codecies and Rules are the ultimate source of fluff.

The novels are notoriously unreliable and all over the place. There's one where a Tau Battlesuit uses S6 AP3 Plasma Rifles to destroy a battleship. There's one where the inside of a Baneblade has a separate "bridge" and command decks.


IIRC there's a semi-official thing from long ago that essentially stated that Marines-on-the-tabletop are how good Marines are compared to the rest of the galaxy, and the depictions of one or two marines wading through armies are propaganda.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Jesusm has no one read the fall of Cadia?

I have, it's just been a while and I didn't remember a number of the things you were claiming - notably the wulfen being created by the church and celestine being a daemon price (aside from looking at her keywords as you suggested).

All I can really say at this point is that the mis-remembered beliefs of a highly paranoid inquisitor who has no point of reference after being dropped in thousands of years out of time... is not really a solid basis for declaring the sisterhood to be 'warp abomination creating mary sues'.

A.T. wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
As for their Mary-sue status, See the same. Also, their logic is completely invalid. They worship the emperor and abhor anything not in keeping with his holy word, but they also directly manifest and create a Warp abomination "Living saint" read her keywords. She's strongly implied to be a daemon host by Grey Fax in the book where she's fighting on Cadia. She believed the church had perverted the will of the emperor and created demons (Living Saints) and Mutants (Wulfen) and other heretical beings (Robute ressurecting with Eldar Consorts)

Quite a lot to unpick with this one.

Firstly - 'mary sues' would suggest that the sisters are portrayed as absurdly hyper-competent and perfect, as opposed to - for example - the last two officially published instances of sisters where (trailer) they are shown as weaker than both the astartes and necrons and (daemonifuge) they are... well lets say quite some distance from being flawless. Then you have saint punching bag, canoness "i'm going for a walk, I may be some time", and... honestly i'm struggling to think of a sisters character that isn't either getting killed, blindly fanatical, or otherwise some way far from perfect. Even the new character Junith reached her rank after the superior she was supposed to be guarding got unceremoniously squashed in a building collapse (alongside literally hundreds of other redshirt sisters - what a bunch of mary sues)

.

to many people misuse the term Mary Sue, the term has become to literature what Nazi/facist is to politcs. There's an actual definition, and there may even be things in the subject that MEET the definition, but it tends to be over used to describe anything the person speaking dislikes. and most people couldn't tell you the actual definition of it if their life depended on it.

 Matt Swain wrote:
One area where space marines would win out over SoBs is experience.

Think about it: Space Marines have far longer lifespans than humans. Hell, Dante' is at least a couple millennia old. At least.

Even spacewolves, known for having short, by SM standards, lifespans have a member who's like over 800, maybe 900 by now..

Actually, if you look at Sisters of Battle, Alicia Dominica was over 600 years old when she was killed in action and she wasn't the last of the founding leaders of the SoB to die in battle. Space Marines can live very old, but they seldom do. Your average Space Marine is probably about as old as your casual Imperial Guard junior officer (between the age 20 and 40 years old) and so would your casual Sister. Dante was supposed to be the eldest Space Marine at around 1000 years old before the rift. Grimnar was the eldest Space Wolf at 750 years old and the eldest Ultramarine was something 350 years old. These are anomalies though as is Dominica or others.

epronovost wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
One area where space marines would win out over SoBs is experience.

Think about it: Space Marines have far longer lifespans than humans. Hell, Dante' is at least a couple millennia old. At least.

Even spacewolves, known for having short, by SM standards, lifespans have a member who's like over 800, maybe 900 by now..

Actually, if you look at Sisters of Battle, Alicia Dominica was over 600 years old when she was killed in action and she wasn't the last of the founding leaders of the SoB to die in battle. Space Marines can live very old, but they seldom do. Your average Space Marine is probably about as old as your casual Imperial Guard junior officer (between the age 20 and 40 years old) and so would your casual Sister. Dante was supposed to be the eldest Space Marine at around 1000 years old before the rift. Grimnar was the eldest Space Wolf at 750 years old and the eldest Ultramarine was something 350 years old. These are anomalies though as is Dominica or others.

I think you'll need to provide a source for the average age of a Space Marine. The bulk of a Chapter is made up of Tactical Marines, and Tactical Marines have been through periods fighting as both Devastators and Assault Marines.

Also, as far as I know, Space Marines will be far more likely to return to the fighting ranks after serious injury. They will also routinely survive injuries that Sisters won't. All else being equal*, Space Marines will be more experienced because they don't die as easily.

*It's highly likely not equal. I'd bet Space Marines are also sent on more dangerous deployments.

Also, experience can have less to do with age and more to do with frequency of deployment.

epronovost wrote:
Your average Space Marine is probably about as old as your casual Imperial Guard junior officer (between the age 20 and 40 years old) and so would your casual Sister.

Sister Helena, in the 2nd edition SoB codex, is said to have first reached the ranks of canoness after 30 years in service. Unfortunately that is the only reference to age I remember seeing on the sisters, and doesn't indicate when her service started. Also she had a notably rapid rise and was a member of a famulous rather than a militant order.

As soon as I hear the term Mary Sue I stop trying to debate or discuss with the user. The term mary sue is a sexist one created to mock the idea of a competent fermale character in a storyline.

It's usually connected to star trek, and FFS the enterprise is technically the USS Mary Sue, the characters on board are all Mary Sues, etc. But they've got the magical Y chromosome so they're OK.

I remember seeing a youtube video titles :"Why Rey is a mary sue but luck skywalker wasn't a marty stu."

Luke was a mary sue, first time in a fighter cockpit and he survives a battle lots of obvious veterans don't and nukes the most powerful war machine in the galaxy,t, but hey, he's got the force so he's OK.

But rey was a mary sue.

I don't bother with people who toss the term mary sue around. There's no point.

 Matt Swain wrote:
But they've got the magical Y chromosome so they're OK.

It's not a gender thing unless you make it one. People called out Will Weatons character on it after all, Mary Sue is just the trope namer.

Star wars is all about mary sues, most of whom are related to someone named skywalker.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Star wars is all about mary sues, most of whom are related to someone named skywalker.

I refer you to BrianDavion's sentiments on the subject.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I think you'll need to provide a source for the average age of a Space Marine. The bulk of a Chapter is made up of Tactical Marines, and Tactical Marines have been through periods fighting as both Devastators and Assault Marines.

A Space Marines starts to see active combat at age 15 or 16 as a scout. At 18 he receives his Black Carapace and becomes a devastator. If devastator and assault squad training is about as long as scout training (fairly logical assumption). You average Space Marine Tactical Marine has 6 to 9 years of experince and is in his early 20's. A Sister of Battle passes through a similar gauntlet, except she starts as a Novice at age 16 or so, graduates a couple of years later as a Sister of Battle and as she gains experience and shows some talent becomes a Dominion, Seraphim,Retributor, etc. Cadians used to start their service as whiteshield at age 14 and graduated to full soliders at age 18, etc. All elite soldiers of the Imperium follow a similar journey. They all start their training and military careers as children and, when they reach the ranks to be a "core unit", they are young adults with about 5-10 years of military experience.

quote]Also, experience can have less to do with age and more to do with frequency of deployment.

 Matt Swain wrote:
As soon as I hear the term Mary Sue I stop trying to debate or discuss with the user. The term mary sue is a sexist one created to mock the idea of a competent fermale character in a storyline.

It's usually connected to star trek, and FFS the enterprise is technically the USS Mary Sue, the characters on board are all Mary Sues, etc. But they've got the magical Y chromosome so they're OK.

I remember seeing a youtube video titles :"Why Rey is a mary sue but luck skywalker wasn't a marty stu."

Luke was a mary sue, first time in a fighter cockpit and he survives a battle lots of obvious veterans don't and nukes the most powerful war machine in the galaxy,t, but hey, he's got the force so he's OK.

But rey was a mary sue.

I don't bother with people who toss the term mary sue around. There's no point.

Akchually... It's called Mary Sue because the protagonist in the star trek fanfic that spawned the term was called Mary Sue. And it wasn't about her being a woman, but rather about mocking fan-made characters achieving/being capable of everything without any effort (mostly because they're wish-fulfillment self-inserts by their authors). It's not related to gender at all, although you're free to use Marty Stu for male characters if you feel the need to differentiate.

Ok, well if we are going to bring femanism into the argument we might as well lock the thread, nothing good can come of this discussion now. While we are at it: Why aren't Ogryns considered equal to Primarchs? Why aren't Squiggs considered equal to Warbosses?

I will grant you that the books are wildly inaccurate, but if we are to believe that SoB's are in some inconceivable way equal or close to equal to the literal gene science of the Emperor, then why even bother with discussions of the lore? Because now a lowly base human has to be just as good as the literal gods she likely worships. The funny thing is this idea would be wholy deemed heretical by every faction of humanity available. Even the Cog boys would go to war over this, and they believe themselves to be the pinnacle of design.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I will grant you that the books are wildly inaccurate, but if we are to believe that SoB's are in some inconceivable way equal or close to equal to the literal gene science of the Emperor, then why even bother with discussions of the lore?

Well the lore pretty much describes SoB and Space Marines as being close to equal with the Space Marines being superior due to their genes, but if you look at the lore written for both factions, they mirror each other fairly well. Their respective heroes do similar feats and they fight and sometime win against impossible odds against the same enemies. Is it stupid? Yes, it's rather stupid. A superhuman with super training should be better than a human with super training, but hey it's GW fluff. It doesn't make much sense and doesn't have much internal consistency.

Because now a lowly base human has to be just as good as the literal gods she likely worships.

That's a bit of a reduction to the absurd and then again the God-Emperor is a man or more accurately was a man and for all we know he could be killed like any other man.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, well if we are going to bring femanism into the argument we might as well lock the thread, nothing good can come of this discussion now. While we are at it: Why aren't Ogryns considered equal to Primarchs? Why aren't Squiggs considered equal to Warbosses?

I will grant you that the books are wildly inaccurate, but if we are to believe that SoB's are in some inconceivable way equal or close to equal to the literal gene science of the Emperor, then why even bother with discussions of the lore? Because now a lowly base human has to be just as good as the literal gods she likely worships. The funny thing is this idea would be wholy deemed heretical by every faction of humanity available. Even the Cog boys would go to war over this, and they believe themselves to be the pinnacle of design.

Ok now if the contxt of the 40k universe SoBs have one major thing the SMs don't: Fanatical faith.

In 40k, faith does matter. And faith can be a real power in 40k that tangibly manifests on the battlefield. Sure, amrines have faith but SoBs have it to a high enough level to routinely manifest itself on the battlefield. It may very well be warp based in some way. If the negative aspects of human nature, anger, rage, hate, greed, lust, etc, can manifest in the form of the power of the chaos gods and daemons, maybe somnething positive like faith can manifest too, and these are the acts of of faith and miracles the SoBs can have. Hell, the SoBs lketerally gt miracle dice now.

In the 40k universe there's more than firepower on the battleifled. Faith, courage, hate, etc can have real effects on the field, and the SoBs use this to a high degree. In that aspect they can get some things SMs don't and that can have an effect on the battle.

 Matt Swain wrote:
As soon as I hear the term Mary Sue I stop trying to debate or discuss with the user. The term mary sue is a sexist one created to mock the idea of a competent fermale character in a storyline.

It's usually connected to star trek, and FFS the enterprise is technically the USS Mary Sue, the characters on board are all Mary Sues, etc. But they've got the magical Y chromosome so they're OK.

I remember seeing a youtube video titles :"Why Rey is a mary sue but luck skywalker wasn't a marty stu."

Luke was a mary sue, first time in a fighter cockpit and he survives a battle lots of obvious veterans don't and nukes the most powerful war machine in the galaxy,t, but hey, he's got the force so he's OK.

But rey was a mary sue.

I don't bother with people who toss the term mary sue around. There's no point.

Depending on which video you watched you obviously didn't watch or listen to it. There are plenty of in universe explanations for Luke's fighter ability, he doesn't have automatic acceptance or automatically win every situation.

Rey literally does. She doesn't receive training in anything but is better at it, when she does receive training she's already better than the masters. Everyone loves and accepts her leadership.

A better example of a Mary Sue than Luke is Anakin, but even he falls short of the Mary Sue trope in movies after the 1st.

Mary Sue has an unfortunately gendered title but it is in no way a gendered role. There have been plenty of male Mary Sue's. Yes there is an element of Mary Sue-ness in every main character, otherwise they wouldn't be the protagonist but a background character. The Mary Sue-ness comes from the self insert fantasy where the main character is so totally OP that the story is literally boring to watch. Yes in modern Western cinema the protagonist is 99.9% likely to win against the odds bit the story and character development along the way is the attraction. Mary Rey had what character development? On a side note related to your next point, she isn't even a Skywalker, so it isn't a universe full of Mary Skywalkers.

Compare Rey to Jyn. Both strong female characters, both with similar storylines. One is a good character in a good movie, the other is Rey.

WRT the Sisters or Marines being Mary Sues? Doesn't really hold water. While it is easy to write the protagonists off as a Mary Sue because of how unlikely the story is that's part of the fantasy of WH40K. The selection process for Marines is imaginatively hard, but story wise we'd still need to see people passing it otherwise the universe would die. IRL Special Forces selection is rediculously hard but people pass it anyway. For the real Mary Sue's of the WH40K world look at the Primarchs.

They are not the embodiment of the Emperor's will, they are the embodiment of Mary Sues. The in-universe explanations for their pre-recovery period and even for some of their Heresy periods are complete and total trash.

If we want to go off on the tangent of faith, are you honestly comparing the faith of the Sisters (vaunted though it may be) to the faith of essentially the Emperor's own Grand Children? There is no SoB faith that could fluff wise compare to the faith of say, a Grey Knight, or a Black Templar. 666 Trials that Grey knights go through would utterly destroy the strongest sister. No SoB could go on the Crusades the BT's go through. There is a reason the SoBs were left out of Indomitus. They can't keep up.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
There is no SoB faith that could fluff wise compare to the faith of say, a Grey Knight, or a Black Templar. 666 Trials that Grey knights go through would utterly destroy the strongest sister. No SoB could go on the Crusades the BT's go through. There is a reason the SoBs were left out of Indomitus. They can't keep up.

More of your headcannon?
Grey Knights don't have faith in the Emperor as a god.
The sisters are known to have crusaded with the templars - see the Vinculus Crusade for an example
And white dwarf July 2019 features Guilliman seeking the aid of the sisters as well as an example battlegroup (Haephestus, page 45) which includes approximately 1400 sisters supporting two strike forces of marines.

I don't know what you gain from just making this kind of stuff up.

The assault on the Pariah Nexus which is what the Indomitus box/storyline is also a part of was spearheaded by the Sororitas, who are able to defeat the Necrons because friendship faith is magic, essentially.

Personally, I don't take the jib that sisters are as good as marines based upon being able to use faith...

However, for the sake of argument, I will accept it.

BUT, that does not make up for all the avenues of combat marines are capable of that sisters would not be, or at the very least would not be as capable in. I think Marines pip it purely on flexibility, namely boarding actions, effective void capability (not saying sisters don't have a way to do this, but marines are designed for it) amongst other things, such as being able to carry on fighting with grievous wounds etc.

Also, are we talking marines as in classic marines, as I don't think even faith makes sisters on par with primaris nowadays. Personal opinion, I can see arguments against it also.

epronovost wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I think you'll need to provide a source for the average age of a Space Marine. The bulk of a Chapter is made up of Tactical Marines, and Tactical Marines have been through periods fighting as both Devastators and Assault Marines.

A Space Marines starts to see active combat at age 15 or 16 as a scout. At 18 he receives his Black Carapace and becomes a devastator. If devastator and assault squad training is about as long as scout training (fairly logical assumption). You average Space Marine Tactical Marine has 6 to 9 years of experince and is in his early 20's. . . .

Two problems.

First: You skipped over the Marine spending time as an Assault Marine.

Second: Your assumption about the average doesn't take into account how long Space Marines might spend as Tactical Marines. You need data about attrition, veterancy, etc. to fine an actual average. The good book states that the Sergeants of Tactical Squads often have decades if not centuries of experience, so we know that at lest one member of the Tactical squad can be centuries old (that's going to bring your average way up, )

According to the 5th edition codex, a Space Marine must complete several campaigns as part of both Assault and Devastator squads before earning a permanent position in a Tactical Squad, and says that progression can take decades. Also in the 5th ed book, a Marine is usually a Sergeant before moving on to the Veteran company. So we have a progression that is Scout, Devastator, Tactical, Sergeant, Veteran, and Sergeants and Veterans can have centuries of experience. Tactical marines averaging in their early 20's doesn't add up.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Two problems.

First: You skipped over the Marine spending time as an Assault Marine.

I don't think so from 15 to 18 a Marine is a scout; from 18 to 20 Devastator; from 20 to 23 Assault Marine. Thus the younger Tactical Marines would be 23-24 years old on average. That's what I would call early twenties, but it would indeed be more accurate to say early-mid twenties.

Tactical marines averaging in their early 20's doesn't add up.

You are correct that the average doesn't add up, I should have said the median age more than the average age since indeed some rare Space Marines with centuries of experience could still be operating either as sergeants or simple tactical Marines because they simply don't have the aptitude to rise further in ranks, but are abnormally lucky not to have been killed sooner. The same can be said for Sisters of Battle who can also live century long lives and remain fully operational for combat duty.

Also there are inquisitors in the Eisenhorn series that are well into their second century. The old guy that is like the most powerful psyker in the entire base human universe, he's like 1400 according to Eisenhorn, and lives well into the third book. Eisenhorn himself and his Pariah are both close to 500. So numbers really go out the window on the "Average age" argument. There are obviously SMs that are well over 1k. Bjorn I thought fought alongside Russ and Dorn, which makes him over 10k? The Dark angel that's in stasis in their planet's deepest chapel is a primarch by the rumors, and If we go into the Chaos boys they are Naught's considered living space marines? Because I thought it said most "Venerable Dreadnaughts" earn their status through multiple centuries of service. Hell, isn't Fadix over 1k? He's been there since the Horus heresy according to the Custodes books.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Also there are inquisitors in the Eisenhorn series that are well into their second century. The old guy that is like the most powerful psyker in the entire base human universe, he's like 1400 according to Eisenhorn, and lives well into the third book. Eisenhorn himself and his Pariah are both close to 500. So numbers really go out the window on the "Average age" argument. There are obviously SMs that are well over 1k. Bjorn I thought fought alongside Russ and Dorn, which makes him over 10k? The Dark angel that's in stasis in their planet's deepest chapel is a primarch by the rumors, and If we go into the Chaos boys they are Naught's considered living space marines? Because I thought it said most "Venerable Dreadnaughts" earn their status through multiple centuries of service. Hell, isn't Fadix over 1k? He's been there since the Horus heresy according to the Custodes books.

Oh yes. The numbers are so far “out the window” when we look at the far extremes of humanity with the highest grade resources, post humanity, and mutants.

epronovost wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Two problems.

First: You skipped over the Marine spending time as an Assault Marine.

I don't think so from 15 to 18 a Marine is a scout; from 18 to 20 Devastator; from 20 to 23 Assault Marine. Thus the younger Tactical Marines would be 23-24 years old on average. That's what I would call early twenties, but it would indeed be more accurate to say early-mid twenties.

Tactical marines averaging in their early 20's doesn't add up.

You are correct that the average doesn't add up, I should have said the median age more than the average age since indeed some rare Space Marines with centuries of experience could still be operating either as sergeants or simple tactical Marines because they simply don't have the aptitude to rise further in ranks, but are abnormally lucky not to have been killed sooner. The same can be said for Sisters of Battle who can also live century long lives and remain fully operational for combat duty.

But again, the 5th ed codex says the process to move through Devastator and Assault can take decades.

Imo your conclusion of "median in their 20's" is still heavily based on assumptions and doesn't seem to square with the facts provided. If it can take decades to become a Tac marine, and Centuries to make it to Veteran, a median of early 20's means an extremely skewed disposition. I'll grant you that some might be in their 20s, but enough for median? I don't think so.

The age thing has become less relevant as rejuvenat treatments became more normal in the imperium. Before abnett invented them and their use, the only people explicitly described as being old were admech and marines.


Basically what you have now is:

All marines have built in rejuve, so any one of them can be old.

Any other imperial warrior of sufficient importance can be given rejuve treatments, so any one of them can be old.


It's hard to reconcile some of this stuff with marines because you have to look at attrition rates and recruitment rates and how small their chapters are.

There two extremes:

Marines are indestructible and lose less than a handful in every campaign, thus slow recruitment.

Marines are relatively easily killed and they have fast turn over.

It's hard to reconcile because there are more anti tank weapons in the galaxy than marines, so they shouldn't be that hard to kill. There are more leman Russ than marines, and their battlecannon should be able to kill a squad of marines if it lands on them.


So, imo marines have a modest turn over. Let's say 15-25%* per campaign. That means a company deployed to a warzone would lose 15-25 marines throught out the campaign.

This would require a pretty continual supply of scout initiates being inducted into squads - ie every company deploys with 30-40 scouts as support and also slot fillers. They suffer casualties but generally less because they're not front line troops so over a campaign your scouts move into squads to shore up numbers as attrition takes hold.

This means a marine force on deployment wouldn't necessarily appear to suffer losses visually, but would suffer them in experience.


*I would say that the imperial guard probably suffers 50-60% casualties in the same timeframe....
..

 Hellebore wrote:

It's hard to reconcile because there are more anti tank weapons in the galaxy than marines, so they shouldn't be that hard to kill. There are more leman Russ than marines, and their battlecannon should be able to kill a squad of marines if it lands on them.

There are more AK-47s than there are Navy Seals (or SAS or whatever), so they shouldn't be hard to kill. . . There's really a logical disconnect with that sort of statement. These troops aren't(shouldn't) be deployed in a way that sets them up for being mere bullet sponges for effective counter fire.

That aside, one of the major benefits of marines is that they are able to return to battle after suffering injuries that would preclude further service of a normal human. Those anti-tank weapons might knock them out of the fight, but Marines are far more likely to survive the trauma and serve again. If Marines and Sisters suffered the same casualty rate in action, marines would wind up with a much higher rate of survival and redeployment, and thus wind up with a more experienced group of soldiers.

Technically space marines are not supposed to think of the emperor as a god. I remember reading that somewhere years ago. They revere the emperor as the savior and lord of humanity and the greatest of humanity, but still not a god.

They were forbidden to view the emperor as a god because they themselves carried the emperor's own DNA in them and if they were to view the emperor as god they could come to see themselves as gods and become arrogant as the CSM did.

So the sisters can believe the emperor is a god, but space marines are not supposed to as it could lead them to hubris and falling to chaos.

So sisters can have their miracles and acts of faith, perhaps even created by their deep belief the emperor is a god, but marines can't.

Keep remembering: In the 40k universe belief and faith are actual powers, they can make things happen that can't normally happen.

 Matt Swain wrote:
So sisters can have their miracles and acts of faith, perhaps even created by their deep belief the emperor is a god, but marines can't.

It is followed through in the fluff as well - sisters aren't the only ones capable of miracles.

Saint Sabbat is probably the most extreme example but you can go all the way back to the horus heresy books with daemons being driven off by faith.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

It's hard to reconcile because there are more anti tank weapons in the galaxy than marines, so they shouldn't be that hard to kill. There are more leman Russ than marines, and their battlecannon should be able to kill a squad of marines if it lands on them.

There are more AK-47s than there are Navy Seals (or SAS or whatever), so they shouldn't be hard to kill. . . There's really a logical disconnect with that sort of statement. These troops aren't(shouldn't) be deployed in a way that sets them up for being mere bullet sponges for effective counter fire.

That aside, one of the major benefits of marines is that they are able to return to battle after suffering injuries that would preclude further service of a normal human. Those anti-tank weapons might knock them out of the fight, but Marines are far more likely to survive the trauma and serve again. If Marines and Sisters suffered the same casualty rate in action, marines would wind up with a much higher rate of survival and redeployment, and thus wind up with a more experienced group of soldiers.

In the context of 40k it's pretty different though. Marines are going into existing battlefields, not populations of civilians with insurgents peppered throughout.

Virtually every deployment is against forces already armed for war, often in the middle of prosecuting one. They aren't depicted as attacking barracks and shooting people in their sleep (although I imagine they do do that). Their special missions are against heavily armed Orks to kill a mekboss, or lightning strike on a tau depot defended by battlesuits.

Every guard squad they face has up to 2 anti tank weapons equipped.

The mind of assymetrical warfare seals do well is hard to replicate in the total war environment of 40k. It would happen far more often inside the imperium with arbitrators or inquisitorial storm troopers. Bit the total war battlefields into which marines are deployed are not going to be anything like the same.


As to recovery, I'm sceptical that marines are more resistant to missiles than tanks. It seems a bit ridiculous that marines are more capable of surviving an anti tank round than a normal human is a bullet. Marines aren't bullet proof. They're very likely to survive being shot with small arms, even when pelted with them. But a plasma blast to the chest, or a metal gun is going to melt a hole all the way through them just as it would an actual tank.

I mean you then run into the issue that if a melta gun can't one shot a marine, the bolters are completely useless at killing marines which we know is not true.