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There's a HH novel where a Chaplain gets killed by a random dude with a spear. Just rips his throat clean out and the Chaplain bleeds to death before the apothecary can get to him.

There's another novel where another marine (I want to say it's a Grey Knight, but googling it I can't find the passage anywhere) gets killed by a crowd through sheer weight of numbers just bearing down on them.

(Chaos) Marines are killed pretty regularly in the Gaunts Ghosts books, whether with squad-carried explosives, high powered long las fire, or even just drowning them in lasfire until the armour fails.


Marines are only worth X amount of Guardsmen because they are a surgical tool as opposed to a hammer. The Guardsmen hold the monster at bay while the Marine goes for it's throat.

This does not mean that the Marine is taking thousands of Guardsmen in a straight fight.


How this thread has lasted 11 pages is beyond me.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, I feel like this is why we don't use tabletop rules in fluff discussions. Because it's not representative of the actual lore. How many Primaris captains are needed to kill a single Custodian Captain? By fluff standards, likely at least 4+. By table standards, a single BA Captain with a Relic blade can kill one. Table top is not accurate.

Unless you want to say the tabletop is COMPLETELY unmoored from the fluff, it's useful.

A Primaris Captain can't even take Relic Blades (unless you mean an ACTUAL Relic, and not the wargear called Relic Blade) so we're looking at an MC Power Sword or a Power Fist.
With 5 attacks (6 on the charge), hitting on a 2+/3+, wounding on a 4+/3+ (Sword/Fist), saving on a 4+, and doing 2 damage a pop... A single Captain does one and a fourth failed Sword saves, or one and a third with the Fist. On the first round of combat only-drops on later rounds.
Since you need four failed saves to kill a Shield-Captain, you'd need three Primaris Captains armed with Fists to kill one in a single round. Slightly less than your off-the-cuff estimate... But not by much.

So I thought BA captains could take some "Relic blade" that is a 3 damage power sword.

Plus they get +1 to wound, and then +1 to hit, and then they have the charge bonuses, point is; they CAN easily take down a Custodian Captain, and on the table top, it's an even trade points wise. Both are around 120-150 if you count the relic.

If we were to go by the books, Valarian takes down silly numbers of Primaris Minotaurs without even taking a wound.

Table top does not account for Plot Armor, which is essentially a 1+1++1+++.

Tabletop cannot reflect fluff, nor vice versa. Else the game would be a bunch of crap. As would the books. Cain would EASILY lose most of his fights, Gaunt's mob would have been dead after the first book, and the Blood Angels would have lost in Dev of Baal.

Do you think that the tabletop game and the lore of 40k are completely unrelated?

Because I can certainly agree that they aren't one-to-one accurate. But to say that they have nothing to do with one another... That's a bridge too far.

Also, BA don't get +1 to-hit. They only get +1 to-wound.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If we were to go by the books, Valarian takes down silly numbers of Primaris Minotaurs without even taking a wound.

Table top does not account for Plot Armor, which is essentially a 1+1++1+++.

Tabletop cannot reflect fluff, nor vice versa. Else the game would be a bunch of crap. As would the books. Cain would EASILY lose most of his fights, Gaunt's mob would have been dead after the first book, and the Blood Angels would have lost in Dev of Baal.

They tabletop *can* reflect fluff if the game is designed well. And the fluff can be gak in a vacuum, like a lot of the Custodes fluff that jerks them off too much is.

I noticed you avoided talking about the time the Harlequins clowned on the Custodes in the palace, or one Khorne berserker punched a custodian to death.

Harlequins didn't actually do that. The Harlequins did slaughter many Lucifer Blacks (Guardsmen btw) and took a few casualties but as soon as they got too close to the Throne Room, they were in turn butchered by the Custodes with only the Shadowseer and Death Jester actually managing to kill any Custodes in return. The Death Jester gets killed and the Shadowseer is captured.
Have you actually read Throneworld?

 Gert wrote:
Harlequins didn't actually do that. The Harlequins did slaughter many Lucifer Blacks (Guardsmen btw) and took a few casualties but as soon as they got too close to the Throne Room, they were in turn butchered by the Custodes with only the Shadowseer and Death Jester actually managing to kill any Custodes in return. The Death Jester gets killed and the Shadowseer is captured.
Have you actually read Throneworld?

I've read the segments in question, and I've also noticed a lot of Custodes players being very frustrated by it.

So I actually can't see who you are responding to Gert, but yeah, the Custodes did hold their own in that situation. I haven't read that book, but I do know it wasn't a major slaughter of Custodes.

I'm honestly sick of defending Custodes. We know what they are and are not by now. If you are arguing they are not the max of imperial gene science and technology, that's on you (royal).

If you think a GK in their armor can be "crushed by human bodies" I don't know what to tell you. Physics in 40k literally disproves that. A GK wears heavily modified Terminator armor. Terminators have been shown to literally survive being stepped on by a titan. But a few hundred scrawny human bodies can "kill" a GK in weight?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So I actually can't see who you are responding to Gert, but yeah, the Custodes did hold their own in that situation. I haven't read that book, but I do know it wasn't a major slaughter of Custodes.

I'm honestly sick of defending Custodes. We know what they are and are not by now. If you are arguing they are not the max of imperial gene science and technology, that's on you (royal).

If you think a GK in their armor can be "crushed by human bodies" I don't know what to tell you. Physics in 40k literally disproves that. A GK wears heavily modified Terminator armor. Terminators have been shown to literally survive being stepped on by a titan. But a few hundred scrawny human bodies can "kill" a GK in weight?

Almost like the fluff is inconsistent, and therefore any extremes should be taken with a grain of salt.

Edit: Also, best of transhuman doesn’t mean the best of the best.
Necrons are more advanced.
Eldar are more advanced.
Orks are, in some areas, more advanced. (Force Fields and Teleportation mostly.)
Tau are, in some areas, more advanced.

So what is more likely to give way first? The earth/dirt, or Terminator Armor?

If we assume the Terminator in question just got squished into the dirt about 3 yards down, I can see that being possible. If this happened on something like rockcrete or a ship hull, yeah, he's paste. But I don't think it's an "extreme" example.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So I actually can't see who you are responding to Gert, but yeah, the Custodes did hold their own in that situation. I haven't read that book, but I do know it wasn't a major slaughter of Custodes.

I'm honestly sick of defending Custodes. We know what they are and are not by now. If you are arguing they are not the max of imperial gene science and technology, that's on you (royal).

If you think a GK in their armor can be "crushed by human bodies" I don't know what to tell you. Physics in 40k literally disproves that. A GK wears heavily modified Terminator armor. Terminators have been shown to literally survive being stepped on by a titan. But a few hundred scrawny human bodies can "kill" a GK in weight?

If you can't handle discussing things with people who can easily disprove whatever masturbatory fluff theory you have about Custodes, you probably aren't mature enough to participate in this forum.

Hecaton wrote:
I've read the segments in question, and I've also noticed a lot of Custodes players being very frustrated by it.

Cool, so you should know that your version of events is wrong then. As for Custodes players, were they mad because they'd read the book or mad because someone told them what they thought happened in the book? Because with War of the Beast a solid 70% of the nerd rage was because people were reading summaries rather than the actual book.

 Gert wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
I've read the segments in question, and I've also noticed a lot of Custodes players being very frustrated by it.

Cool, so you should know that your version of events is wrong then. As for Custodes players, were they mad because they'd read the book or mad because someone told them what they thought happened in the book?

I don't think it matters; they were mad because their enjoyment of their faction is predicated on them being shown to defeat/be better than other factions.

Hecaton wrote:
I don't think it matters; they were mad because their enjoyment of their faction is predicated on them being shown to defeat/be better than other factions.

It matters that you parroted the rage posts instead of accurately relaying the events to suit your narrative. You were wrong, admit it and move on.

So the book is Throne World, part of the Beast Rises series?

Is it worth wasting an Audible credit on?

 Gert wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
I don't think it matters; they were mad because their enjoyment of their faction is predicated on them being shown to defeat/be better than other factions.

It matters that you parroted the rage posts instead of accurately relaying the events to suit your narrative. You were wrong, admit it and move on.

Nah, I'm not wrong. You missed the greater context of my posts, which is that the Custodes fanbase is uniquely toxic to other elements of the 40k fanbase because their faction's identity is mostly "is better than ither factions."

The Imperium has a thousand chapters of a thousand marines, and a million plus worlds. So about 1 marine per planet.

Every non-Imperial faction has at least something that is a marine equivalent or better (like half of the marines being chaos).

The Imperial Guard do not outnumber all threats to the Imperium combined by over 10,000:1 yet the Imperium still stands as the primary faction whose main defence is non-augmented humans.

A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So the book is Throne World, part of the Beast Rises series?

Is it worth wasting an Audible credit on?

Sure, I enjoyed it. There's a lot of good stuff, some weird stuff and a lot of politics which is shown off really well. You get a really good look at how dysfunctional the Imperium is and how characters with good intentions often end up being monsters in the pursuit of them.
Plus, there's Captain Slaughter.

 Insularum wrote:
A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.

This is an excellent summary of my position on this matter. I will not budge from it, no matter how much canon fluff is quoted at me or how many arguments to the contrary are given.

.

 Insularum wrote:
A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.

Gonna be rough for Fezzik to come to terms with that idea lol

Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I'm not wrong. You missed the greater context of my posts, which is that the Custodes fanbase is uniquely toxic to other elements of the 40k fanbase because their faction's identity is mostly "is better than ither factions."

I thought that was the Eldar schtick?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insularum wrote:
The Imperium has a thousand chapters of a thousand marines, and a million plus worlds. So about 1 marine per planet.

Every non-Imperial faction has at least something that is a marine equivalent or better (like half of the marines being chaos).

The Imperial Guard do not outnumber all threats to the Imperium combined by over 10,000:1 yet the Imperium still stands as the primary faction whose main defence is non-augmented humans.

A Space Marine can be abstractly described as being worth 10,000 Imperial Guard due to the focus of strength into a small area, the ability to perform tasks a normal human cannot, and the sheer fear factor of a squad of armoured supermen ripping apart your heretic scums command centre after drop podding through the roof. In a straight fight the Guard win, as they do daily in the fluff against all the MEQ threats the Imperium faces.

Very well said.

A naked marine with a sharp stick is a deadly threat to a dozen humans, no question. But a marine is worth 10k humans when he has not only his armor and weapons, but his drop pod, his strike cruiser, his network of psychic choruses and orbital augeries and all the other support that allows him and his 9 best buddies to drop through the roof of an enemy bunker and kill everyone.

The straight fights we see on the tabletop should be rare, it's like asking Navy SEALs or SAS to hold a trenchline. If your elite troops are in a fair fight, then you've done something wrong.

I continue to contend that 99% of marine battles do not rate a tabletop game or BL novel, they're literally a few squads of marines taking on cultists, orks or guard or whomever but the other guys have no plasma or power klaws and have to spend 3 turns figuring out what's going on.

The tabletop games and novels are the World Cup/Superbowl battles between two apex forces.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

I thought that was the Eldar schtick?

That's only in terms of gameplay, not fluff :-P

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
How many Guardsmen would it take to kill a Necron Triarch Praetorian? Would it get as many defenders as Space Marines, saying it has a good chance against thousands?

Aha!

Trick question. Even if he gets all shot to ribbons, chances of a kill are vanishingly tiny low, because the Praetorian will phase out.

Double trick question! The Praetorian is already dead for all intents and purposes because he can not truly feel the warm fuzzy fur of a kitten.

(Yes, I know I'm jumping back a page or two...but I felt a strong urge to share this insight)

Aha! Triple trick question!

It’s not a soft kitty it’s a Canoptek Scarab but due to faulty personality engrams software it is a soft kitty to the Praetorian, and how it’s otherwise maintained sanity over its millions of years of existence.

It’s also very likely a Praetorian’s undying body would have quite accurate tactile sensors, as they didn’t get the crappy ones Warriors did, and certainly superior models to the ones Immortals wound up in.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aha! Triple trick question!

It’s not a soft kitty it’s a Canoptek Scarab but due to faulty personality engrams software it is a soft kitty to the Praetorian, and how it’s otherwise maintained sanity over its millions of years of existence.

It’s also very likely a Praetorian’s undying body would have quite accurate tactile sensors, as they didn’t get the crappy ones Warriors did, and certainly superior models to the ones Immortals wound up in.

Well I think that nicely wraps up all the open questions in this thread.

All it takes is one guardsman with a meltagun who gets a clean shot and the marine is dead. There are a lot of guardsmen with meltaguns amongst 10,000.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Infiltrators have additional suites of sneaky sneak sneak equipment. And can most certainly jam or be invisible to Auspex. Certainly the low rent Auspex Guard would have.

Suits of armour that glow like a christmas tree when viewed in infrared because you cannot mask the excess heat put out by a nuclear reactor.

Any regiment trained in covert strike doctrines is equipped with synskin and preysense goggles (Only War, Hammer of the Emperor, page 43). Synskin masks the wearer to infrared and eyesight that is not dependent on the visible spectrum and preysense goggles will have the marine visible like a shining beacon thanks to the laws of thermodynamics.

Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.

I mean no, becsuse it's not defined that clearly, but based on the 2e stats lasguns can penetrate through thinner plates of power armor (in that they were ap -1).

Hecaton wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.

I mean no, becsuse it's not defined that clearly, but based on the 2e stats lasguns can penetrate through thinner plates of power armor (in that they were ap -1).

But based on fluff we have an idea of what a lasbolt can do to unprotected flesh (there's a wide range, but we can take the low end of energy and work from there). Shooting a pig carcass with a laser seems like something mythbusters would have done at some point lol

Sometimes, you gotta sauce where you can sauce.

These are the dice tins from a previous edition (no I don’t have them anymore). And they’re modelled as Lasgun power packs. Note each offers a Megathule range.

Is that a genuine measure? Buggered if I know. But it’s something.

Though rather helpfully, it does show 135 discharges to be the norm, based on a sample of three.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
Speaking of the laws of thermodynamics, has anyone ever figured out how much energy is in a lasbolt? I suspect the marine will be baked alive if even a relatively small percentage of the lasgun shots hit and zero of them make it through the armor, but I'm willing to be surprised.

I'm assuming that they are at least comparable to or better than a slightly larger calibre modern firearm, but I obviously don't have exact numbers and the fluff is all over the place. I also don't know how much distance or airborne debris like dust or smoke would affect a lasbolt.

Taking some info from Wikipedia for a 7.62 NATO round;
147 gr (10 g) M80 FMJ - 2,800 ft/s (850 m/s) - 2,559 ft⋅lbf (3,470 J)
175 gr (11 g) M118 long range BTHP - 2,600 ft/s (790 m/s) - 2,627 ft⋅lbf (3,562 J)

Please bear in mind that have the bare minimum of knowledge about firearms. If anyone can translate that info into something my smooth brain can understand I would be very grateful.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Sometimes, you gotta sauce where you can sauce.

These are the dice tins from a previous edition (no I don’t have them anymore). And they’re modelled as Lasgun power packs. Note each offers a Megathule range.

Is that a genuine measure? Buggered if I know. But it’s something.

Though rather helpfully, it does show 135 discharges to be the norm, based on a sample of three.

The rpg books (also made by GW) had 60 shots be the standard Cadian-pattern lasgun's power pack.