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Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

No. In fact, Space Marines at 1,000,000 guys shouldn't really matter at all.

A Tyranid Warrior is at least a match for a Marine. A single Hive Fleet can spawn millions.
A Necron Immortal is at least a match for a Marine. A single Tomb World can have millions.

Quite simply put, at one million Marines, Marines shouldn't matter.

Which is why I'd rather GW just say something along the lines of "Marines make up only a small fraction of the actual bodies of the Imperium's war machine, but have a disproportionately large impact due to their skill, biology, and wargear."

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

beat the xenos? maybe, but it'd still run into the issues with Chaos its currently facing of corruption, defection, etc. the Imperium would likely fracture into several sucessor states, which would start fighting each other instead. One or more might turn to chaos, one or more might then ally with xenos to try and gain an upper hand, etc.

in the grim darkness of the far future, their is ONLY war.

I'd say that's fairly close to what the crusades were like. The legions combined must have had numbers in the upper millions. That being said, half of them fell to chaos and now we're at the current state of things. That's a pretty good example of how numbers might not matter when it comes to the forces of chaos.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

All depends on the author

In any realistic sense, on a galactic scale? No, that's still way too few, by several orders of magnitude. In a "40k awesomesauce" sense, sure, having 100x as many protagonist superbadasses doesn't hurt.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

No. In fact, Space Marines at 1,000,000 guys shouldn't really matter at all.

A Tyranid Warrior is at least a match for a Marine. A single Hive Fleet can spawn millions.
A Necron Immortal is at least a match for a Marine. A single Tomb World can have millions.

Quite simply put, at one million Marines, Marines shouldn't matter.

Which is why I'd rather GW just say something along the lines of "Marines make up only a small fraction of the actual bodies of the Imperium's war machine, but have a disproportionately large impact due to their skill, biology, and wargear."

Gonna have to disagree, because of how Astartes work within the greater Imperial war machine.

In short, they don’t do stand up fights. Not only due to lack of numbers at present, but because their tactics and strategies are based around precision and maximum impact.

Against Orks, it’s Marines best suited to going straight for the Warboss, slaying him and his cadre of best buddies. This is universally shown to have extreme detriment to Waaaghs, as is inevitably falls to infighting whilst they sort out the new pecking order. The larger the Waaagh, the greater the effect, as the individual warbands cease to be unified. Once that’s done and the infighting underway, the IG mop up. All they need to do is keep the pressure on to prevent a new Warboss emerging. And remember, you can’t get ‘Arder if you’ve been all killed to deff.

Tyranids? Yes, the Hivefleets can make millions of Tyranid Warriors. But they don’t. Why? Resources and the appropriate expenditure thereof. If you can defeat a Tyranid invasion, that fleet splinter is starved of resources. It’s less able to replenish its ranks. Pull it off a few times in succession, and it ceases to be a unified threat. With millions of Astartes, that becomes easier. Especially if we assume they have matching resources. See, the best time to strike at a Hive Fleet is when it’s in transit. Boarding actions target critical organs, killing the ship. Sure it’s a lot harder than simply typing it - but it is achievable, and a task Astartes are a match for. The best impact there is again the lack of resource replacement available to the Hive Fleet.

It’s not just the ship organisms lost, but the gribblies contained within. A few successful campaigns of that ilk can seriously reduce a Hive Fleets capacity. Splinter fleets could be rendered incapable of a successful invasion, condemning it to death. Larger Hive Fleets can have cohesion removed by targeting the Hive Node organisms.

Eldar? Say goodbye to your Craftworlds right off the bat.

Chaos? Your veterancy no longer matters, because you’re outnumbered 10 to 1 or more, and they’re every bit as resilient. More so if we’re assuming Primaris. Your fleet size is likewise now laughable. Outdated, possibly poorly maintained. Horribly outnumbered. And every disastrous defeat reduces your access to Geneseed. Less Geneseed, fewer replacement recruits. This might force ultimately counter productive infighting, as you turn on smaller warbands to harvest their Geneseed - further reducing your numbers.

Tau? They go squish now. No ifs. No buts. Just squish. Very very squish.

Remember. The greatest adversity the Imperium faces is being engaged on all fronts. Soon as your done in Theatre A, Theatres B, C and D are crying out for support against the next foe. If you could free up even one sector, let alone a Segmentum? Those forces can be brought to bear in other dicey situations. Astartes, Sisters, Guard, Ad-Mech, Knights, Collegia Titanicus. All of it. From there, ever greater areas are pacified to a level local forces can handle it. More and more resources are freed up, and the next enemy is in for an even bigger kicking.

The greater the force you bring to bear, the faster that theatre can be secured. The faster that happens, the fewer the replacements you’ll need in terms of men and materials, beyond standard supply issues. This could lead to those forces becoming ever better equipped. The better equipped, the more impressive second line units left with PDFs etc become. Not to mention your Guard regiments would contain ever greater numbers of Veteran troops. They’d be more reliable and more efficient. Again, all force multipliers.

So on and so forth. Increasing Astartes numbers 100 fold would certainly help in those regards. There’s no pretending it wouldn’t. The same is true of a 100 fold increase in any Imperium asset. Knights, Titans, Sisters, Guard, Ad-Mech. Take any. Multiply its head and equipment count 100 fold. And the enemies of the Imperium are in for a really, really, really bad time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes, the same is absolutely true for any force in 40k. Give them a 100 fold increase in their armies, and their foes will go Squish.

This is why Necrons are such a threat, because right now, they have the potential to do that very thing. If the Silent King has his way, untold billions of currently slumbering Necrons will be up and about.

Likewise Tyranids, as signs point to far more coming in to the Galaxy.

Everything in 40k is precarious. The various parties are finely balanced. And all face their own pending absolute disaster.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Gonna have to disagree, because of how Astartes work within the greater Imperial war machine.

In short, they don’t do stand up fights. Not only due to lack of numbers at present, but because their tactics and strategies are based around precision and maximum impact.

Against Orks, it’s Marines best suited to going straight for the Warboss, slaying him and his cadre of best buddies. This is universally shown to have extreme detriment to Waaaghs, as is inevitably falls to infighting whilst they sort out the new pecking order. The larger the Waaagh, the greater the effect, as the individual warbands cease to be unified. Once that’s done and the infighting underway, the IG mop up. All they need to do is keep the pressure on to prevent a new Warboss emerging. And remember, you can’t get ‘Arder if you’ve been all killed to deff.

Tyranids? Yes, the Hivefleets can make millions of Tyranid Warriors. But they don’t. Why? Resources and the appropriate expenditure thereof. If you can defeat a Tyranid invasion, that fleet splinter is starved of resources. It’s less able to replenish its ranks. Pull it off a few times in succession, and it ceases to be a unified threat. With millions of Astartes, that becomes easier. Especially if we assume they have matching resources. See, the best time to strike at a Hive Fleet is when it’s in transit. Boarding actions target critical organs, killing the ship. Sure it’s a lot harder than simply typing it - but it is achievable, and a task Astartes are a match for. The best impact there is again the lack of resource replacement available to the Hive Fleet.

It’s not just the ship organisms lost, but the gribblies contained within. A few successful campaigns of that ilk can seriously reduce a Hive Fleets capacity. Splinter fleets could be rendered incapable of a successful invasion, condemning it to death. Larger Hive Fleets can have cohesion removed by targeting the Hive Node organisms.

Eldar? Say goodbye to your Craftworlds right off the bat.

Chaos? Your veterancy no longer matters, because you’re outnumbered 10 to 1 or more, and they’re every bit as resilient. More so if we’re assuming Primaris. Your fleet size is likewise now laughable. Outdated, possibly poorly maintained. Horribly outnumbered. And every disastrous defeat reduces your access to Geneseed. Less Geneseed, fewer replacement recruits. This might force ultimately counter productive infighting, as you turn on smaller warbands to harvest their Geneseed - further reducing your numbers.

Tau? They go squish now. No ifs. No buts. Just squish. Very very squish.

Remember. The greatest adversity the Imperium faces is being engaged on all fronts. Soon as your done in Theatre A, Theatres B, C and D are crying out for support against the next foe. If you could free up even one sector, let alone a Segmentum? Those forces can be brought to bear in other dicey situations. Astartes, Sisters, Guard, Ad-Mech, Knights, Collegia Titanicus. All of it. From there, ever greater areas are pacified to a level local forces can handle it. More and more resources are freed up, and the next enemy is in for an even bigger kicking.

The greater the force you bring to bear, the faster that theatre can be secured. The faster that happens, the fewer the replacements you’ll need in terms of men and materials, beyond standard supply issues. This could lead to those forces becoming ever better equipped. The better equipped, the more impressive second line units left with PDFs etc become. Not to mention your Guard regiments would contain ever greater numbers of Veteran troops. They’d be more reliable and more efficient. Again, all force multipliers.

So on and so forth. Increasing Astartes numbers 100 fold would certainly help in those regards. There’s no pretending it wouldn’t. The same is true of a 100 fold increase in any Imperium asset. Knights, Titans, Sisters, Guard, Ad-Mech. Take any. Multiply its head and equipment count 100 fold. And the enemies of the Imperium are in for a really, really, really bad time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes, the same is absolutely true for any force in 40k. Give them a 100 fold increase in their armies, and their foes will go Squish.

This is why Necrons are such a threat, because right now, they have the potential to do that very thing. If the Silent King has his way, untold billions of currently slumbering Necrons will be up and about.

Likewise Tyranids, as signs point to far more coming in to the Galaxy.

Everything in 40k is precarious. The various parties are finely balanced. And all face their own pending absolute disaster.

I think I agree and disagree on a few of these.

Orks; absolutely. This is Astartes bread and butter. Killing the chain of command and watching it all break down. The major spanner in the works is Ghazghkull turning into another Beast and becoming a threat only Roboute or The Lion are going to be able to deal with.

Eldar: They're a dying race, they're not a galactic threat in the same way Tyranids / Orks / Chaos and Necrons are drummed up to be.

Tau: Lol.

Chaos: This is the most volatile of the bunch. The last time there were millions of Astartes rolling around, a fair few of them joined Chaos. What's to say it won't happen again.

Necrons: Silent King is bad news, Necrons are smarter, more advanced and more organised than the IoM. They feel like the protagonist of this universe. They're the oldest race still around, their leader is succeeding in unifying them (Immotehk may not be fan but most are) and he's a leader that understands the two true threats 'his' universe faces; Tyranids and Chaos.

Tyranids: If the Necrons are the protagonist, these guys are the antagonist. The Silent King returned due to what he saw on the edge of the galaxy and that was countless Tyranids approaching. The only times Astartes have beaten Hive Fleets it's been at an enormous cost (like literally their home worlds getting destroyed) and they've had a vast amount of help. Kraken attacked too many fronts at once and was pushed back not just by Astartes, but also by Eldar & Tau. Behemoth made the opposite mistake, it attacked too few fronts and was able to be virus bombed after it assaulted Macragge, the Eldar also helped immensely with this Hive Fleet too. Lastly Leviathan was about to wipe out the Blood Angels, not making the same mistakes that Kraken and Behemoth made, this Hive Fleet was actually succeeding in wiping out almost everything in its path. Leviathan was under assault from Eldar & Orks (Octavius sector anyone?) and still smoked the pants of the Blood Angels. It took a giant plot device of the Eye of Terror exploding and tearing the Hive Fleet apart to even make what happened next seem plausible, the remnants being sucked into the warp and defeated by a Khorne Daemon legion and even after all that it took the Indomitus Crusade arriving to save what was left of Baal.

IoM and Chaos are played up as the protag and antag because human models sell well and it's easier to put yourself in the IoM shoes but for me personally, this universe is Necrons vs Tyranids vs Orks. Chaos can't sustain itself on any of them and all 3 are stronger than the IoM.

100,000,000 would make a difference, Terra for example wouldn't fall anytime soon. But I don't think it'd be enough to stop the big 3 Xenos factions at the trajectory they're going.

I guess it depends on how one deploys them.

I mean, 100,000,000 of anything is a significant force, let alone them being Space Marines and all that entails.

I’d say whilst desirable for the same old reason, splitting them into 1,000 strong Chapters would be squandering them due to autonomy.

Of course, putting the excess under one command, even Guilliman’s is a recipe for disaster.

So it would likely be a happy medium.

Let’s turn to the two true threats - Necrons (due to uncertain numbers and their overall unity) and Tyranids (for much the same reasons).

It’s true that Chapter planets have been overrun by the Hive Fleets. Yet, that was against Chapters of roughly 1,000 headcount. How different would the outcome have been if they’d number 10,000, or even 100,000? You’d have a solid number of boots on the ground, and sufficient to spare to board Tyranid ships and start taking them out (this is of course far more dangerous during an invasion than when they’re dormant travelling between systems).

Tyranids are ultimately containable as a threat, even if they’re near impossible to completely eradicate. What you need to do is shatter a tendril, then keep on top of the Splinter Fleets that result. Keep on reducing their cohesion, and you severely limit their ability to obtain the biomass to rebuild.

If you can do that often enough, they become a managed if constant threat. If a Splinter Fleet consist of a mere handful of ships, you need a less organised response to deal with them. Indeed given how Not Very Good they are at space combat (relying on overwhelming numbers rather than sheer individual power), system fleets could hold their own.

Then, the only really become a threat when a random world falls and biomass is harvested. Keep those instances as few as possible, and you’re on top of it (much like Orks, they can only adapt if they survive the fight).

Necrons? Get purging Tomb Worlds that still slumber. Do whatever you can to stymie further forces awakening.

Chaos? Well, Cults form around dissent and dissatisfaction. Of which there is plenty within the Imperium. Yet....the Traitor Legions would have to tread exceptionally carefully, because the Imperium now has the might to squash them once and for all. Chaos aligned Pirates and Raiders would likewise be squashed in pretty short order. This relieves pressure on supply lines, both military and civilian.

If worlds lose less to Raiders, there’s more to go round. Famine becomes lessened, as more shipments get through entirely unscathed.

With Astartes pacifying local systems and systemically eliminating Xenos threats, each world has breathing room to further strengthen its own PDF - this in turn helps root out Cults before they become a substantial threat.

Basically, 100,000,000 Astartes gives the Imperium a chance to stop chasing its tail, and actually, permanently deal with certain threats. The more that are so dealt with, the better the Imperium functions. And it all snowballs from there.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, another “easy” blow against Chaos?

Dark Mechanicum Forge Worlds.

Not all of these are in the Eye of Terror. Target them and take them out, and you’re dealing serious blows to Abaddon’s efforts, as it becomes ever harder to resupply and replace losses.

Strike one or two, and you’ll likely find Chaos forces being bled off to defend any remaining ones. If they’re looking to defence against a couple of million Astartes? Abaddon’s juggernaut comes grinding to a halt, forced instead to defend its resources.

that asumes Abbadon and his cronies / traitor legions are the actual threat and not the population of the imperium falling to chaos / xenos.

It is those, that undermine the legitimacy and therefore capability of the IoM to be ruled efficently.

and their numbers far exceed marines, to the point that 100 mio probably would be a bucket thrown into an ocean which was thrown into a galaxy

Forgot to waffle on about Orkses.

Ghaz could be dealt with, given he’s a hard to miss when present.

Whatever the individual feels about the specific background, he’s been bested by Ragnar Blackmane. Now, I’ve not read the fluff for that fight, but I understand Ragnar didn’t exactly have a huge amount of backup (as ever, very open to becoming better informed)

If Ragnar had rocked up to that job with 1,000 Astartes? Yeah, things look a lot less rosey for Ghaz - chances are Ragnar or one of his dudes would’ve been able to finish the job by turning Ghaz’s temporarily misplaced bonce into tiny little squishy bits.

Plus, given Ghaz (perhaps in poor judgement) keeps his biggest and best lads around him? They’d all be ded too, further compounding the resulting infighting.

From there, you just need to do what you can to monitor the situation, and strike at any Warboss forging cohesion, then rinse and repeat. Because the longer you can keep the Orks fighting amongst themselves the better.

Plus, with the resultant Astartes Fleets, you could keep up a merry bombardment to keep enemy reinforcements planetside closing in, keeping the scrap between Ghaz and his hunters. Come to it, you could just utterly wreck the Ork fleet. That done, a cheeky Exterminatus, followed by a planetside mop-up. Jobs about as good a good’un as you can good’un.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
that asumes Abbadon and his cronies / traitor legions are the actual threat and not the population of the imperium falling to chaos / xenos.

It is those, that undermine the legitimacy and therefore capability of the IoM to be ruled efficently.

and their numbers far exceed marines, to the point that 100 mio probably would be a bucket thrown into an ocean which was thrown into a galaxy

They’re currently the most pressing and cohesive threat.

Take them out of the equation, and Cults are limited to whatever forces and resources exist in their system. They’d absolutely remain a threat, but become far more manageable when there’s no chance of Traitor Forces from elsewhere assisting them. No Alpha Legion to infiltrate. No Thousand Sons to provide psychic tuition (which needn’t be face to face, because Psychic).

"If the Imperium got 100 million Astartes, would they manage to win for good this time?"

Absolutely not!
Think about this: war means rage, bloodshed, hate, epidemics, starvation (so more illness)… and all of these things are Nurgle's nourishment. I could continue in this way also for Slaneesh and Tzench, only to show that in the end the Imperium, fighting for its own survival, is only feeding its greatest enemies, making them stronger and stronger.

P.S. Anyway, due to the dimension of the Imperium, every chapter should already composed by 1.000.000 astartes circa.

Again, you assume they need to "BE" a cohesive threat. They don't, take a look at the internal strife during Flavius honorius reign and the later collapse of the WRE.

100 mio astartes are too few to pacify all the planets, and the plantes of the Empire ALL have PDF's and fleets due to the highly decentralised fashion the imperium has to be ruled simply through logistical reasons.

Sure AL would stop beeing an issue, except they won't due to their fighting style and their logistical supremacy compared to the IoM (which always begs the question when AL show up as to how can they travel that preciscly where they need to at any given point but that is a whole other debate), considering they have stuck around 10'000 years and have been actively attempted to be hunted down i seriously doubt throwing more "men" at them will solve them as an issue, and even if it would, 1-2 key worlds rebelling, cue vraks which cost important supplies for other warzones to go poof, and you have soon whole sectors that face supply issues. And Vraks was 1 apostate priest influencing a cardinal to go rogue.

And then there's the fact that supply of such a number of astartes would simply put not be something that is handleable for the IoM which allready seems to struggle to supply their actual frontline, (exception to the primaris stuff, but they run on a 10'000 year old stockpile and i seriously doubt the iom can maintain them).

100M Astartes would be a disaster for the Imperium, and Mankind would be enslaved (for its own 'good') to the production of their advanced arms and armour. Look at Forgeworlds and what it takes to produce the Skitarii.

Nurglitch wrote:
100M Astartes would be a disaster for the Imperium, and Mankind would be enslaved (for its own 'good') to the production of their advanced arms and armour. Look at Forgeworlds and what it takes to produce the Skitarii.

That’s business as usual though?

The difference being, with 100,000,000 Astartes to tip the balance, it might not be a permanent arrangement. Certainly you wouldn’t need that many forever.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
100M Astartes would be a disaster for the Imperium, and Mankind would be enslaved (for its own 'good') to the production of their advanced arms and armour. Look at Forgeworlds and what it takes to produce the Skitarii.

That’s business as usual though?

The difference being, with 100,000,000 Astartes to tip the balance, it might not be a permanent arrangement. Certainly you wouldn’t need that many forever.

So you'd need to get rid of them in some sort of civil war. Maybe a heresy or something.

Really, most of the problem is there is no 'winning for good.' It's just not a concept that works.
The rest of the problem is that any numbers are complete nonsense. The major foes are effectively infinite, except eldar, who are always at 'just enough.' Unless they're required o fail at that moment, in which case there are 'not quite enough.' Or withdraw to have enough later, when it really double super duper matters.

Or you just stop resupply. Package them up into strike forces, send them into the Ghoul Stars etc.

Because Britain once had a massive army. And we didn’t have to slaughter squaddies to reduce it over time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Or you just stop resupply. Package them up into strike forces, send them into the Ghoul Stars etc.

Because Britain once had a massive army. And we didn’t have to slaughter squaddies to reduce it over time.

Uh, yeah. Difference is they had families and lives to go back to (and frankly combat attrition hit British armies hard at various times, so 'slaughtering squaddies' did play a role, even if it was unnecessary). Space Marines don't have anything else.
Modern and premodern citizen armies are entirely different from fantasy space Knights.

'Just stop resupply' for men whose entire and sole function is war means you're creating raiders and pirates at best. At worst they'll suborn supply and factory worlds and kick off a rebellion. Maybe not all of them, but enough that it will be a major issue.

Not to mention just how well the plan of producing Astartes in bulk worked out in the first place.

Of course not. If the Imperium became a bigger threat a huge swathe of factions would gang up on them rather than fighting each other. CSM alone could up their anti-Imperium game many times over if they stopped stabbing each other in the back for a few centuries, orks would almost certainly get stronger and flock towards the Imperium as the new best fight, Eldar of various stripes could do serious damage if they felt the Imperium was a threat rather than a tool to stick between them and Chaos, etc. Massive free-for-alls have a mechanism for self balance because when one party starts to dominate the others gang up on them. And 40k is nothing if not a galactic free for all.

Nurglitch wrote:
100M Astartes would be a disaster for the Imperium, and Mankind would be enslaved (for its own 'good') to the production of their advanced arms and armour. Look at Forgeworlds and what it takes to produce the Skitarii.

In an Empire in which a lot of planets have hundred if not millions of billions of citizens, I don't think it would be a disaster; on the contrary I always thought the numbers of astartes is ridicously low. In my humble opinion you would be right if there were some billions of astartes, but an hundred of millions of them it seems a plausible number; it would mean the Imperium could have an hundreds of chapters with a millions of astartes each.

@OP: No, because that's not what the setting is about. They could start producing custodes at those levels and it still wouldn't be enough. Because the setting is: 5 minutes to midnight.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

No. In fact, Space Marines at 1,000,000 guys shouldn't really matter at all.
. . .

If it only takes 20 Space Marines to successfully board an orbital defense platform that carries world-ending weapons on it . . .

If it only takes 5 Terminators to teleport into the Governor's palace and remove the corrupt leaders . . .

If it only takes one Librarian guiding forces to eliminate the local daemonic/GSC uprising. . . .

Small numbers can do really big things if effectively used.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Of course not. If the Imperium became a bigger threat a huge swathe of factions would gang up on them rather than fighting each other. CSM alone could up their anti-Imperium game many times over if they stopped stabbing each other in the back for a few centuries, orks would almost certainly get stronger and flock towards the Imperium as the new best fight, Eldar of various stripes could do serious damage if they felt the Imperium was a threat rather than a tool to stick between them and Chaos, etc. Massive free-for-alls have a mechanism for self balance because when one party starts to dominate the others gang up on them. And 40k is nothing if not a galactic free for all.

I see where you’re coming from, but disagree entirely.

Right now, there’s a Galactic Stalemate, and the Imperium is at risk from Death by a Thousand Cuts.

Abaddon, Ghaz, Eldrard et al have to work with what they’ve got. Suddenly increasing the number of Astartes 100 fold creates a colossal problem for them.

See, right now, 1,000,000 Astartes is enough for them to more or less do their job, yes? So maintain that part of the status quo, and instead commit the new 99,000,000 Astartes to going purely on the offensive.

That’s more than enough to shatter the Arch Arsonist’s empire. Abaddon’s forces would be so sorely and comprehensively outnumbered it’s not even funny.

Orks flocking to it? Excellent. Because they’re in for a right kicking against 99,000,000 Astartes. Yes, Orks do get tougher the more they fight - but they have to survive that fight, otherwise they’re just ded and no use to anyone.

Eldar? With their numbers? No chance. At all. Dark Eldar are raiders. Hit and fade. Craftworld are so pitifully few, they’d struggle mightily against a resurgent Imperium (because this isn’t “swap all the Imperial forces for just 100,000,000 Astartes”)

You want to save Armageddon (sector lynchpin), go create an even bigger fight over the Arch Arsonist’s turf. Strategically that stuff is lost anyway, so bleed off Orks from all other war zones there. The more there are, the greater the fallout when you take out Ghaz and his best lads, not to mention the untold number of subordinate Warbosses.

None of this is instant win of course. But you can’t deny that reinforcements of that scale and scope puts the Imperium’s foes squarely on the backfoot, because other than Necrons and Nids, nobody else has a way to get such reinforcement for themself.

Orchestrate it well, and Abaddon’s forces in particular would be overrun before they truly realise “hey, there’s a lot more of the Emperor’s Lapdogs than last time”. Alpha strike it. Abaddon won’t have a plan to deal with say, 2,000,000 (just 2% of the new hypothetical resource), because there’s never been 2,000,000 Astartes, let alone 100,000,000.

If there were that many astartes that could be organised the. The ultimate result would be another civil war. They are war dogs and will fight each other if they don’t have anyone else to fight.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

No. In fact, Space Marines at 1,000,000 guys shouldn't really matter at all.
. . .

If it only takes 20 Space Marines to successfully board an orbital defense platform that carries world-ending weapons on it . . .

If it only takes 5 Terminators to teleport into the Governor's palace and remove the corrupt leaders . . .

If it only takes one Librarian guiding forces to eliminate the local daemonic/GSC uprising. . . .

Small numbers can do really big things if effectively used.

Yes-but why do you need Space Marines specifically for that?

Stormtroopers can apply similar force in small areas, and Custodes can do so far better than Marines.

They already have dominance, they already have control. Imperium has won as far as it is possible to win.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically assume that for one reason or another producing Astartes becomes much more easier and the Imperium is able to swell each Chapter in size to a 100000 Astartes.

With this sort of manpower in Adeptus Astartes, will the Imperium be able to roll over the Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, etc... and establish dominance in the galaxy?

No. In fact, Space Marines at 1,000,000 guys shouldn't really matter at all.
. . .

If it only takes 20 Space Marines to successfully board an orbital defense platform that carries world-ending weapons on it . . .

If it only takes 5 Terminators to teleport into the Governor's palace and remove the corrupt leaders . . .

If it only takes one Librarian guiding forces to eliminate the local daemonic/GSC uprising. . . .

Small numbers can do really big things if effectively used.

Yes-but why do you need Space Marines specifically for that?

Stormtroopers can apply similar force in small areas, and Custodes can do so far better than Marines.

I don't believe either of those forces can function at nearly the tempo that marines can.

Surely, wars can be fought in other ways. It just so happens that Space Marines are capable of having a big effect even though their numbers are small.

Are they necessary? Possibly not. Do they make a difference? Yes, obviously.

I mean are we talking about Marines from the position of Black Library writers and Marine fanboys? Because if so, then they roflstomp the entire universe and then split into two halves over really stupid reasons and start fighting each other.
We had that before, it was called the Great Crusade.

 Da Boss wrote:
I mean are we talking about Marines from the position of Black Library writers and Marine fanboys? Because if so, then they roflstomp the entire universe and then split into two halves over really stupid reasons and start fighting each other.
We had that before, it was called the Great Crusade.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. Because it’s impossible to separate the two entirely.

Sure, many novels are Puff Pieces, where Astartes are completely untouchable.

Yet we still remain entirely reliant on the background to inform us.

Regardless of which bits we embrace or discard, 100,000,000 (I keep using the number, because it’s relevant) can do pretty much anything. The only question is how many might survive from one action to the next.

Abaddon has maybe a few hundred thousand Traitor Astartes to call on, plus unnumbered Cultists and assorted tosspots.

Craftworld Eldar probably cannot commit 100,000,000 warriors. They may number more, but attrition is not their ally.

Orks? Predominantly bog standard Boyz (going on game unit sizes, 30-1 Boyz to Nobz). Their command structure is demonstrably vulnerable to successful precision Alpha Strikes. The great concentration of Orks, the worse the fall out from the loss of the Warboss (biggest and hardest start scrapping it out. Only one can survive. If they don’t win comprehensively, the next tier chance their hand. Rinse and repeat, and keep up those precision strikes. Minimum effort, maximum impact).

Nids? As I’ve said a few times above, hit them en-route to the next prey world and you can render them a manageable threat.

Whether those 100,000,000 Astartes have Plot Armour or not, the background is clear they will indeed, very literally, roflstomp and steamroller any foe. Because they’re Astartes. You can be tougher than them. You can be faster than them. You can have better weapons than them. But whatever your weakness is, you’ll find they excel in it. That’s why they’re effective even in tiny numbers.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Spoiler:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Of course not. If the Imperium became a bigger threat a huge swathe of factions would gang up on them rather than fighting each other. CSM alone could up their anti-Imperium game many times over if they stopped stabbing each other in the back for a few centuries, orks would almost certainly get stronger and flock towards the Imperium as the new best fight, Eldar of various stripes could do serious damage if they felt the Imperium was a threat rather than a tool to stick between them and Chaos, etc. Massive free-for-alls have a mechanism for self balance because when one party starts to dominate the others gang up on them. And 40k is nothing if not a galactic free for all.

I see where you’re coming from, but disagree entirely.

Right now, there’s a Galactic Stalemate, and the Imperium is at risk from Death by a Thousand Cuts.

Abaddon, Ghaz, Eldrard et al have to work with what they’ve got. Suddenly increasing the number of Astartes 100 fold creates a colossal problem for them.

See, right now, 1,000,000 Astartes is enough for them to more or less do their job, yes? So maintain that part of the status quo, and instead commit the new 99,000,000 Astartes to going purely on the offensive.

That’s more than enough to shatter the Arch Arsonist’s empire. Abaddon’s forces would be so sorely and comprehensively outnumbered it’s not even funny.

Orks flocking to it? Excellent. Because they’re in for a right kicking against 99,000,000 Astartes. Yes, Orks do get tougher the more they fight - but they have to survive that fight, otherwise they’re just ded and no use to anyone.

Eldar? With their numbers? No chance. At all. Dark Eldar are raiders. Hit and fade. Craftworld are so pitifully few, they’d struggle mightily against a resurgent Imperium (because this isn’t “swap all the Imperial forces for just 100,000,000 Astartes”)

You want to save Armageddon (sector lynchpin), go create an even bigger fight over the Arch Arsonist’s turf. Strategically that stuff is lost anyway, so bleed off Orks from all other war zones there. The more there are, the greater the fallout when you take out Ghaz and his best lads, not to mention the untold number of subordinate Warbosses.

None of this is instant win of course. But you can’t deny that reinforcements of that scale and scope puts the Imperium’s foes squarely on the backfoot, because other than Necrons and Nids, nobody else has a way to get such reinforcement for themself.

Orchestrate it well, and Abaddon’s forces in particular would be overrun before they truly realise “hey, there’s a lot more of the Emperor’s Lapdogs than last time”. Alpha strike it. Abaddon won’t have a plan to deal with say, 2,000,000 (just 2% of the new hypothetical resource), because there’s never been 2,000,000 Astartes, let alone 100,000,000.

You nailed the problem in four words: "Orchestrate it well, and..."

Sidenote: Hit Nids on their way to the next world? How, exactly? It is reasonably possible to extrapolate their route from point A to B but where are they on that route? Only FTL sensors would be of use in pinpointing their location and even a minuscule error in location or, more importantly, exit time from the warp would render the mid fleet light years away. The Imperium does not have the technology to intercept Nid fleets with any degree of consistency.

And this whole matter is still ignoring the actual holding of Imperial territory. How many marines are sticking around to fend off local threats? Eldar, GSC, Orks, Chaos, Necrons, all are easily capable of popping up out of nowhere and overwhelming the defenses of an established Imperial world in short order.

And how exactly are these millions of marines capturing worlds inside the great rift anyways?