Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yes. Because all their foes have both numbers and such organisation.

This is 40k. It’s either or.

Hence why Ghaz is such a threat.

I think what we can ALL agree on is that in this hypothetical situation Tau are screwed.

Tau go squish every time.

Stupid Tau. YOU GO SQUISH NOW!

What about 100 billion Space Marines?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What about 100 billion Space Marines?

Mother of God-Emperor what if they were all Grey Knights!?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What about 100 billion Space Marines?

well you'd have marine inflation, over extension in regards to logistics and some serious devaluing of shock tactics...

Otoh, mothballing them on highly important planets as secondary garisons and circling them in and out of combat might lower overall experience but also less taxing upon resuply AND freshness of them...
Imagine the lamenters getting a breather

Not Online!!! wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What about 100 billion Space Marines?

well you'd have marine inflation, over extension in regards to logistics and some serious devaluing of shock tactics...

Otoh, mothballing them on highly important planets as secondary garisons and circling them in and out of combat might lower overall experience but also less taxing upon resuply AND freshness of them...
Imagine the lamenters getting a breather

I was channeling Dr Evil from Austin Powers when he makes his demands of the world's leaders.

But could you imagine the Marine-haters if we did get 100 Billion of them? Mwah hah hah!

It all depends on how you view victory imo.
Short term yes, mankind's enemies are all dead or suppressed to non-threat levels and the Imperium endures.
Long term no, only a matter of time until Horus Heresy/Macharian Heresy 2.0. Nearly every expansion or large scale military campaign by the Imperium has eventually failed due to infighting between politicians/generals/clergy/space marines. Same with any Imperial/Authoritarian/Fascist regime we've seen on Earth. Sure the Imperium might last another 10k years but it won't last forever. Plus Abbadon and the traitor legions being dead doesn't end Chaos as a threat.

TLDR: Short yes cos overwhelming force. Long no cos that's just how the universe works.

I’m not persuaded there would be a second event on the scale of the Heresy, if for no other reason no one person has the authority nor men under arms for it.

Sure, even now whole Chapters go rogue. And it’s often due to the malign influence of the Chaos Gods.

With hundreds of not thousands of additional Chapters in the galaxy, wholesale rebellion becomes problematic, because of your own lack of numbers, and ultimately restricted authority. Try it, and there’s a metaphorical tonne of bricks poised, ready and willing to come down on your head.

The loss of Abaddon would be a significant issue for the forces of Chaos. Even if you just job the man himself, you’ve removed the main lynchpin personality capable of getting your forces all pulling in roughly the same direction.

His death would create a helluva power vacuum. And what happens with power vacuums? People try to fill it. You’d likely get schisms. And all those that made pacts with Abaddon would be chomping at the bit to arrange a better deal - entirely possibly playing the various factions off against each other.

This is again made all the worse for Chaos as it for Orks etc because of the sheer scale of the damage 100,000,000 Astartes can wreak. We’re not just talking Root and Stem, are we? We’re talking Root, Stem, Chickenskin Handbag, your legs, and maybe a judicious selection of ribs. It’s you, your inner circle, outer circle and a significant chunk of your troops.

With many of your Supreme Command or equivalent slain, you’re losing charisma, strength and experience. This leaves the Also Rans - inherently less important and less competent underlings who were underlings for good reason. The sort who might be able to command the loyalty of a few dozen to a few hundred at best.

Then you’ve the Daemon Primarchs to consider. Are they willing or even capable of acting in sufficient unison anymore? How much of their remaining Legions are truly loyal to them?

The other great flaw of Chaos is their ability to replace lost troops. A series of catastrophic defeats brought about by ridiculous numbers of Primaris (faster, stronger, better, whether you like it or not) could see the Traitor Legions teetering on the brink of extinction.

Sure, over time, they could rebuild. Except, given how horrifically they’d be outnumbered, the Imperium would be coming through such an action surprisingly unscathed (the more Astartes you throw at a problem, the swifter it’s resolved. The swifter it’s resolved, the lesser the attrition suffered). They’re.....they’re not going to give you the luxury of that time.

Once your forces are driven back, you’ll need to hole up somewhere to lick your wounds, yeah?

Whilst you’re doing that, a truly resurgent Imperium is attacking, attacking, attacking. Fallen Forge Worlds, gone. The Maelstrom and Eye of Terror besieged. Any significant foot or toe hold assaulted. Pressure, pressure and more pressure piling upon you.

This lessens your influence upon the Galaxy. That in turn prevents your agents formenting Cult uprisings on Imperial Worlds, so on and so forth.

The trick would be to deal Chaos and Orks crippling losses in relative unison. And those blows need to be significant enough that the inevitable splintering is so severe that they ceases to be a cohesive threat for a period.

Realistically, an increase in Astartes in those numbers would likely be the death of the Imperium as a whole.

What I think a lot of people fail to take into account is the amount of damage that the Imperium's enemies are doing to each other. If the Imperium was to become this big a threat, it would see all of their enemies unifying, at least haphazardly, in an attempt to demolish them. Orks would have a proper, worthwhile enemy, and we'd see the emergence of functional WAAAGHS! of sizes we've never seen before. The Tyranid's would continue coming in huge swarms, with the Necrons really unifying against this massive threat. Hell, the Necrons could end this threat alone. They have the power to extinguish stars, they'd simply destroy Sol and bring Terra to an end, destroying the Astronomicon and letting the Imperium collapse overnight, if the Dark Eldar didn't do it by dropping a black hole on Terra since the the Imperium no longer benefits them, and they have a true enemy to destroy.

All that would leave the Space Marines without a single hope, and we'd likely see them splintering almost immediately, even without the Dark Gods. Of course, the Dark Gods don't disappear. With the new wars this would fuel, we'd be seeing the Horus Heresy, but again. Probably on a different level, involving less individuals falling and having them focus more on converting massive numbers, but very quickly, you've gone from a force of 100 million to a force of 50 million, with a threat of 50 million emerging.

Honestly, the Imperium would require far, far more than just a big boost in numbers to survive. It's been slowly dying for a while now, and it would require serious reforms, a rebirth of the Emperor or something else entirely to survive. More men just leads to their world dying far quicker than we could imagine, likely becoming a broken empire, returning to the days of endless war among the techno-barbarians.

I do agree with a lot of this but I feel like the Beast Arises and then the Black Legion books by ADB help to show what happens when the Imperium goes into a lull after thinking it was secure.
Fighting Chaos Astartes is all fine and well in the material realm, but the Great Rift and the Warp both still exist. There were 700 odd years between the retreat from Terra and the 1st Black Crusade but for the chaos legions, it had been both a longer and shorter period than in realspace. Daemons are infinite as are the Chaos Gods. Plus killing Abbadon proves to be a difficult task for warriors even of Marneus Calgar's caliber.
As for the daemon primarchs:
Mortarion controls most of if not all of the Death Guard and legions of Nurgle daemons. Angron commands daemon legions and khorne marines kind of just tag along. Lorgar is awake and seeding cults everywhere. Magnus brought a whole Daemon World out of the Warp and nearly ended the Space Wolves. Fulgrim kind of just vibes on his pleasure planet tbh. Perturabo has been active for quite a while even before the Rift. Despite all the memes, the Alpha Legion is still a threat. Night Lords just like skinning folk.
I do want to expand on my point about the Imperial infighting, however. We already know that the various branches of the Imperium only work together begrudgingly. Since the Horus Heresy there have been multiple large scale conflicts between Imperial factions such as Badab, the Macharian Heresy, the Reign of Blood and that time the Inquisition decided to fight the Space Wolves for some reason. Add into that the fears many hold about the return of Guilliman, his use of Cawl and the Primaris, plus the events already seen in the Regents Shadow novel and you have a fertile ground for civil war already.
Again its all based on if we're talking long or short term cos I agree with you on the short term for the most part. The threats would be dealt with but at a huge cost in soldiers, ships, planets and supplies possibly to the point where it could be worse than the current state of affairs.