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.

True or false? I hear it a lot at Game Stores.

True and false. It depends on the scenario, the writer, and if it's propaganda or not. I tend to go with "Lasguns have a very hard time penetrating Power Armor, but Anti Vehicle/Anti Marine weapons tend to get through, and Anti Tank splatters them." So a Guardsman with a Plasma Gun wins if he gets a good hit. But 100 Guardsmen can lose if their resolve breaks, due to seeing their friends explode from Bolter shots as most of their Lasguns basically bounce off.

Personally, though, I'd put my bet at about 20 to 50 Guardsmen per Marine depending on the quality of either force. Maybe 100 if the Marine is hyper qualified and is in extremely favorable situations.

Yes and no. Not in a straight fight, but because if you have a company versus a million guard, most of those million will never get to fight: the marines will drop on army command posts, ammo dumps, bridges and the like and cripple and decapitate the army rather than fighting it fairly.

In a straight up fight, equally don't forget that a space marine only carries about 100 bolt shells and half a dozen or so grenades in their standard load out. Taking out a regiment with just a combat knife is a big ask.

To many unknown factors.
Is the marine armed and armoured?
What state are the guardsmen in? Do they have all gear, morale and intel they require?

The situation on a naked arena, a hive city underground or in a space station would all lead to very different encounters.

Are we talking game or lore? In that case wich game and wich lore?

40K lore can go strange places

Maugan Ra, after all, held an entire planet against a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan on his own, lonesome. Solo.

As with all things it depends on the setting and rules of engagement.

A single guardsman with a plasmagun or meltagun can happily kill a marine if they hit him.

100 guardsmen with knives fighting a single marine with a knife in a pit could likely bring him down with just psysical weight of numbers.

1000 guardsmen in a row in a corridor would likely all die to that same marine.

Its all about context.

I think the quote about is more about 1 marine being worth the same as 10000 guardsmen - they are an elite resource that can accomplish things that many normal troops cannot.

I love these answers.

depends if the space marine can play poker and the IG can't

hey never said beat them at what

As others said it's about context and Marines, by virtue of strike cruisers and battle barges and drop pods and drop ships, get to decide where and when to fight.

100 marines vs Nazi Germany would not have to storm the beaches of Normandy and fight their way across France, Belgium and Germany. They would locate Hitler and other leaders, drop on them in the dead of night and kill them.

And then go up to orbit and do it again and again until German surrenders or is unable to fight.

I like the idea of one marine vs 10,000 humans in a knife fight in a narrow corridor. Yeah that one I could believe.

In fluff a Marine is (almost) Wolverine, with Captain America's skills, in Iron Man's Armor carrying Thor's Hammer.

On that tabletop, not quite, mostly because GW would like to sell more than 1 marine per player.

There's a Gaunt's Ghosts short story where 1 guardsman 'kills' 3 marines (although it's a training exercise).

In a Zone Mortalis or similar cramped environs, such as boarding actions? Yeah. Quite possibly - because at no point is it going to be All On One All At Once.

Sure, the Marine won’t be carrying anything like enough ammo to shoot them all. But…being Astartes they really don’t have to. Their speed, skill, strength and combat blade will get much of the job done. And if you’ve set up kill zones with heavy weapons on tripods? There’s….really very little preventing the Astartes using those very weapons against you, because they’re strong and skilled enough to carry one, and fire from the hip.

Always keep in mind that there is a gulf between injuring an Astartes, incapacitating an Astartes, and killing an Astartes.

Plus…how many of their comrades exploding into bloody mist do you think it’d be before the remaining troopers are Brown Trouser O’Clock and thus become gibbering wrecks as the seemingly invincible walking tank draws ever nearer?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Plus…how many of their comrades exploding into bloody mist do you think it’d be before the remaining troopers are Brown Trouser O’Clock and thus become gibbering wrecks as the seemingly invincible walking tank draws ever nearer?

That was a point made in some of the HH books. Marines use explosive high calibre ammo (even if they maybe don't need to) and chainswords. So your mate standing next to you doesn't just "die" by your side, you and your squad are splattered with the remnants of him.

The real question is if 10,000 space marines can beat one guardsman, and the answer in most cases is no. Maybe a Cadian conscript would go down, but a Krieg or Catachan veteran? Or, god help them, Marbo? RIP marines.

Maybe if all those Guardsmen are unarmed and lining up in a hallway to be punched to death one by one, or if the marine is sat in a control room with a button that bombs the daylights out of said Guardsmen.

There's plenty of stories where Guardsmen or cultists or even primitive natives best marines.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Plus…how many of their comrades exploding into bloody mist do you think it’d be before the remaining troopers are Brown Trouser O’Clock and thus become gibbering wrecks as the seemingly invincible walking tank draws ever nearer?

That was a point made in some of the HH books. Marines use explosive high calibre ammo (even if they maybe don't need to) and chainswords. So your mate standing next to you doesn't just "die" by your side, you and your squad are splattered with the remnants of him.

Also reflected in the originally intended Standard Issue weapon of choice, the Volkite Range. So nasty, your mate burns alive, explodes into ash, and then more of your mates break Rule 0 (don’t be on fire), shortly before breaking Rule 1 (don’t get ded).

Replace Space Marine with Wraithlord.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
True and false. It depends on the scenario, the writer, and if it's propaganda or not. I tend to go with "Lasguns have a very hard time penetrating Power Armor, but Anti Vehicle/Anti Marine weapons tend to get through, and Anti Tank splatters them." So a Guardsman with a Plasma Gun wins if he gets a good hit. But 100 Guardsmen can lose if their resolve breaks, due to seeing their friends explode from Bolter shots as most of their Lasguns basically bounce off.

Personally, though, I'd put my bet at about 20 to 50 Guardsmen per Marine depending on the quality of either force. Maybe 100 if the Marine is hyper qualified and is in extremely favorable situations.

Tyfus deep struck on to a full regiment of Cadians. Alone with no men, tank or demon support and killed every guardsmen, all the officers. And it was a full strenght Cadian regiment with its own tank sections artilery etc

 Afrodactyl wrote:
There's plenty of stories where Guardsmen or cultists or even primitive natives best marines.

One of the Deathwatch comics has a feral Ork with a spear kill a Terminator.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
Maybe if all those Guardsmen are unarmed and lining up in a hallway to be punched to death one by one, or if the marine is sat in a control room with a button that bombs the daylights out of said Guardsmen.

There's plenty of stories where Guardsmen or cultists or even primitive natives best marines.

Yeah but what you don't know is the marine had already killed 9999 norms before that. Once their Kill Kounter reaches 10,000 the armor becomes tissue paper.

Slaaneshi Marine would do it...

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Slaaneshi Marine would do it...

With his spanking paddle

What if one of the Guardsmen is Sly Marbo?

If you are a Bolter Porn aficionado? Yes

If you have any kind of common sense? No

If you base it on the game play? No

GW/Black Library Writers failed History class...horrifically, they also failed Math, but luckily their straight A's in Literature and creative writing carried them through public education.

3rd War for Armageddon, the largest battle since the Horus Heresy (Fluff). What were the forces involved? Imperial Guard brought about 1.5 Million and the Marines had 50,000.

In WW1, the allied forces along the Western Front had more than 15 MILLION men. The US alone contributed 2.1 Million troops to the Western Front.

So again, GW sucks at history and math

SemperMortis wrote:
If you are a Bolter Porn aficionado? Yes

If you have any kind of common sense? No

If you base it on the game play? No

GW/Black Library Writers failed History class...horrifically, they also failed Math, but luckily their straight A's in Literature and creative writing carried them through public education.

3rd War for Armageddon, the largest battle since the Horus Heresy (Fluff). What were the forces involved? Imperial Guard brought about 1.5 Million and the Marines had 50,000.

In WW1, the allied forces along the Western Front had more than 15 MILLION men. The US alone contributed 2.1 Million troops to the Western Front.

So again, GW sucks at history and math

What's funny is that those marines represent 5% of the total marine population in the imperium. 1 in every 20 marines was present at that war

 Hellebore wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
If you are a Bolter Porn aficionado? Yes
If you have any kind of common sense? No
If you base it on the game play? No
GW/Black Library Writers failed History class...horrifically, they also failed Math, but luckily their straight A's in Literature and creative writing carried them through public education.
3rd War for Armageddon, the largest battle since the Horus Heresy (Fluff). What were the forces involved? Imperial Guard brought about 1.5 Million and the Marines had 50,000.
In WW1, the allied forces along the Western Front had more than 15 MILLION men. The US alone contributed 2.1 Million troops to the Western Front.
So again, GW sucks at history and math

What's funny is that those marines represent 5% of the total marine population in the imperium. 1 in every 20 marines was present at that war

The other Math failure for GW is that there are 1,000 SM Chapters, which means there are roughly 1 Million Space Marines in existence. Put that in perspective, the Imperium has 1 Million Worlds, that does not include moons, space stations or space ships, just inhabited worlds. Assuming Modern Earth is roughly average, that means there are roughly 7.7 Quadrillion Humans. The math basically works out to 1 Marine per 7.7 Billion people.

On the flipside of stupid, apparently the Imperial Guard has 500 Trillion service members, that doesn't include the Navy, Sisters of battle or anything else. that also means that there is 1 Guardsmen per 14 people In the US the US Army/Marines are about 2x bigger than the US Navy and airforce, assuming that holds true that means there are 1 Quadrillion members of the Imperial Guard/Navy. So about 1/8th of humanity is fighting...btw, that doesn't include PDF

GW will one day standardize things but until then I'll keep making fun of things like this

Sunny Side Up wrote:
40K lore can go strange places

Maugan Ra, after all, held an entire planet against a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan on his own, lonesome. Solo.

in defense of Ra, sentient armor with combat experience longer than the human race has existed inate psychic abilities and literal reality bending tech built into the suit. Ra is one of the biggets badasses in universe from a holy gak they did what (also in running for an authors favorite character so they get plenty of mary sue moments) The pheonix lords should be larger than life and primarch tier on the battlefield imo (with points to match)

On the OP extremely unlikely. those people who would argue that a marine could take 1k guardsmen with just a chainsword or thier fists are the people whose lore knowledge only contains the space marine video game and they insist 1 marine could take 10k ork boyz barehanded. It is said throughout the books by smart marines that a single lasgun represents very little threat to a space marine, but dozens can hurt them and even kill them. a single plasma or melta gun in the squad could take care of the problem. A commissar or squad leader with a plasma pistol and judicious accuracy could also pull it off solo if they had the gumption and training (Also prayers to the emperor and some level of luck)

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:
Maybe if all those Guardsmen are unarmed and lining up in a hallway to be punched to death one by one, or if the marine is sat in a control room with a button that bombs the daylights out of said Guardsmen.

There's plenty of stories where Guardsmen or cultists or even primitive natives best marines.

Yeah but what you don't know is the marine had already killed 9999 norms before that. Once their Kill Kounter reaches 10,000 the armor becomes tissue paper.

They hit their predetermined kill limit and shut down, as any good killbot should.

Depends on the context.

If it is a marine who specializes in guerilla warfare like the Raven Guard then I could see it. Avoiding direct combat, taking out supply lines and commanders, just generally making a nuisance of themselves over a prolonged period of time.

If it is just standard marines and it was a melee fight? Honestly I could still see it. The guard are brave, but they can break and flee, and after seeing several dozen people in a few seconds being torn to pieces by a chainsword by a hulking brute who moves much faster than you do how long will they really want to commit? A Marine is unironically stronger than a rampaging elephant, is more skilled than almost every guardsman alive, and in heavy enough armour even marines can have trouble penetrating it with superior melee weapons. Melee is the Marines' game, so I could see it. Especially with smart use of the terrain to force them to fight him in small groups at once. Obviously mix in some melee specialists like Bullgryn or make it a bulky melee chapter like Catachans and it could be quite different.

In a gunfight or more direct and standard engagement? The Marine loses. To quote a Chaos Marine:

"The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them."
— Maor the Scarred, Siege-Champion of the Scargivers, Warhammer 40,000: Black Crusade

The Marine will run out of ammo first, and will be forced to try to engage in melee if he ever survives that long. And even when armed only with lasguns he will be brought down.

Now, make it a Marine hero like Calgar or whatever? Then he just wins. Straight out. Cry all you want but Marine heroes and the big badasses of other armies as well like Ghaz or whatever regularly crush entire armies and fight thousands of opponents directly and win.

40k is not a military sci-fi world ala Starship Troopers. It is in fact a heroic fantasy setting (just in space) more akin to the Iliad and just like it features incredibly powerful protagonists who can rout entire armies through strength of arms.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Depends on the context.

If it is a marine who specializes in guerilla warfare like the Raven Guard then I could see it. Avoiding direct combat, taking out supply lines and commanders, just generally making a nuisance of themselves over a prolonged period of time.

If it is just standard marines and it was a melee fight? Honestly I could still see it. The guard are brave, but they can break and flee, and after seeing several dozen people in a few seconds being torn to pieces by a chainsword by a hulking brute who moves much faster than you do how long will they really want to commit? A Marine is unironically stronger than a rampaging elephant, is more skilled than almost every guardsman alive, and in heavy enough armour even marines can have trouble penetrating it with superior melee weapons. Melee is the Marines' game, so I could see it. Especially with smart use of the terrain to force them to fight him in small groups at once. Obviously mix in some melee specialists like Bullgryn or make it a bulky melee chapter like Catachans and it could be quite different.

In a gunfight or more direct and standard engagement? The Marine loses. To quote a Chaos Marine:

"The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them."
— Maor the Scarred, Siege-Champion of the Scargivers, Warhammer 40,000: Black Crusade

The Marine will run out of ammo first, and will be forced to try to engage in melee if he ever survives that long. And even when armed only with lasguns he will be brought down.

Now, make it a Marine hero like Calgar or whatever? Then he just wins. Straight out. Cry all you want but Marine heroes and the big badasses of other armies as well like Ghaz or whatever regularly crush entire armies and fight thousands of opponents directly and win.

40k is not a military sci-fi world ala Starship Troopers. It is in fact a heroic fantasy setting (just in space) more akin to the Iliad and just like it features incredibly powerful protagonists who can rout entire armies through strength of arms.

I don't know. Just like on TT it doesn't even seem like a Marine can take down 5 Guardsmen tbh and if we go by lore there are Guardsmen who have easily proven themselves equal to or better then Astartes.

Nevermind the Chainsword.

You know The Viper and The Mountain? That, but without the effort, even without Power Armour.

Even a casual backhander is going to stove in ribs or shatter a face - whether or not you’re wearing body armour. If they do martial arts style grabs and blocks? Compound fractures for you, my friend. And count yourself blessed if they don’t just keep twisting your arm.

With the Power Armour, how long until the stories of squaddies being torn limb from limb break all fighting spirit? Is that distant banging just part of the background noise, or the killer battering their way through the security door?

Marines are hyper violent to a truly ludicrous degree. Their sheer weight and bulk (which remember fact fans, doesn’t slow them one iota) means they can body slam standard humans with a near invariably fatal impact.

You don’t just die. You Die Nasty. Shattered in body, any survivors of that assault shattered in soul.

And whilst the scale difference might make it look comical, they’re perfectly capable of using any weapon you bring against them against you.

Trans Human Dread.

Transhuman dread. Aximand had heard iterators talk of the condition. He’d heard descriptions of it from regular Army officers too. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing: taller and broader than a man could ever be, armoured like a demigod. The singularity of purpose was self-evident. An Adeptus Astartes was designed to fight and kill anything that didn’t annihilate it first. If you saw an Adeptus Astartes, you knew you were in trouble. The appearance alone cowed you with fear.
But to see one move. Apparently that was the real thing. Nothing human-shaped should be so fast, so lithe, so powerful, especially not anything in excess of two metres tall and carrying more armour than four normal men could lift. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing, but the moving fact of one was quite another. The psychologists called it transhuman dread. It froze a man, stuck him to the ground, caused his mind to lock up, made him lose control of bladder and bowel. Something huge and warlike gave pause: something huge and warlike and moving with the speed of a striking snake, that was when you knew that gods moved amongst men, and that there existed a scale of strength and speed beyond anything mortal, and that you were about to die and, if you were really lucking, there might be just enough time to piss yourself first.

Astartes aren’t warrior monks. They’re not warriors. They’re not soldiers. They’re Killing Machines. Stronger. Faster. Tougher. Enduring.

Even if you run, you’ll run out of puff long, long before the Marine does. And they can run faster than you to boot.

That would terrify a human. Remember we got where we are by Persistence Hunting. Prey animals were faster, stronger, better equipped. But we were relentless. Catching up to the before their body and metabolism had recovered. Rinse and repeat, and you end up with a Prey Animal too exhausted to defend itself.

It’s kind of the same thing as the Horror Cliche of the relentless killer, such as Jason Voorhees - expect running after you faster than Usain Bolt headed to the cludgey after 12 pints of Nukey Broon and a Prawn Vindaloo.

That’s all entirely by design. That is their sole purpose. The human mind simply cannot truly comprehend what such a being is capable of - even if you witness it. It’s just completely off the charts.