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 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
A single Gladius, with thousands of people, counts as 1 Astartes, but Guardsmen can't even know how to man planetary defenses, which they likely would have training with, since most come from the pdf, and have to know how to use it, since the mechanicus won't always be on hand?

The Astartes can have a ship, but he needs to be on his own, if Guardsmen don't even know how to use their own weapons.

All about not drafting in allies.

Astartes Naval Crew are vassals/allies. A formal part of the wide Chapter.

Planetside defences aren’t the purview of the Imperial Guard, unless it’s their home world. Either way, to get them running you need Techpriests well beyond the rank of Enginseer.

And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

A Single IG soldier comes with a Lasrifle, flak armor, webbing, a bayonet, some extra cells, a ruck sack, maybe a ration kit, and a shovel.

The universal standard kit, the baseline kit for individual guard trooper before their regiment type and combat doctrine alters it, given in Only War is the following:
• One uniform
• One set of poor weather gear
• One laspistol (Main Weapon), and two charge packs
• One knife
• One flak vest
• One rucksack or sling bag
• One set of basic tools
• One mess kit and one water canteen
• One blanket and one sleep bag
• One rechargeable lamp pack
• One grooming kit
• One set of cognomen tags or equivalent identification
• One primer or instructional handbook
• Combat sustenance rations, two weeks’ supply

A standard Line Infantry regiment adds full flak armour, a lasgun, 2 frag grenades and 2 krak grenades to that base kit. However, even for a line infantry regiment there can be further modifications to that kit, depending on the exact nature of the regiment in question. You could have an entire line infantry regiment equipped with chameleoline cloaks or armour, for example.

And, it was not stated in the OP that the 10,000 Guard were Line Infantry. If it were a grenadier regiment, for example, then each guardsman would have a grenade launcher attached to their lasgun, as well as light carapace armour and 2 grenade launchers per squad. If it were a heavy recon regiment then each guardsman has a Sentinel. Rough Riders? Horses and hunting lances.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.

Citation needed. I gave you a citation that the Guard are in charge of the operation of their heavy weapons. Where is yours that they aren't?

If the Imperial Guard are invading a new world, then who mans the planetside orbital defences that they set up?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

All about not drafting in allies.

Astartes Naval Crew are vassals/allies. A formal part of the wide Chapter.

So are Tech-priests attached to Imperial Regiments. They are entirely under the command of the Imperial Guard high command.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.

I think the argument was that it would have been the purview of the PDF, from which the guard is tithed, and thus the guardsmen would have been trained in its use back when they were PDF. Presumably, this is under the assumption that that is some level of standardization amongst planetary defenses, which may or may not be the case (*insert joke drawing parallels to a lot of regiments looking suspiciously cadian due to model limitations* ). Also, I would assume only a fraction of PDFers would have been trained in the use of planetary defenses (even allowing for plenty of cross training). That said, I feel like the space marine being able to rely on chapter assets is like allowing the guardsmen to rely on their chain of command, in which case the issue gets bounced up the chain of command and the planetary defenses get activated (perhaps some judicial use of placing the planet under martial law by the regimental commander would be needed).

Ok... fair enough. I would agree that a single Space Marine with a Gladius Cruiser etc. will most definitly best 10.000 guardsmen standing on a planet with their basic gear.

That's a fair point.
Not really impressive... but fair

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


And no, Guardsman won’t have that training. Because as above, it’s not the purview of the Imperial Guard.

I think the argument was that it would have been the purview of the PDF, from which the guard is tithed, and thus the guardsmen would have been trained in its use back when they were PDF. Presumably, this is under the assumption that that is some level of standardization amongst planetary defenses, which may or may not be the case (*insert joke drawing parallels to a lot of regiments looking suspiciously cadian due to model limitations* ). Also, I would assume only a fraction of PDFers would have been trained in the use of planetary defenses (even allowing for plenty of cross training). That said, I feel like the space marine being able to rely on chapter assets is like allowing the guardsmen to rely on their chain of command, in which case the issue gets bounced up the chain of command and the planetary defenses get activated (perhaps some judicial use of placing the planet under martial law by the regimental commander would be needed).

Still requires the Cogboys, who are attached to the Regiment, making them an allied force.

So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?

I don't mind conceding the strike cruiser point.

After all, it's just an admission that Space Marines can't beat the guard on the ground and instead must retreat to orbit.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?

All about the equipment they can command as an individual.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?

All about the equipment they can command as an individual.

Command?

Lord Solar Leonatus is also a single guardsman, and commands all the equipment in the Imperial Guard.

@ Mad Doc: As said, I concede your point it's just... a weird comparison then.

Under that premise one could argue that a Single High Lord of Terra, a more or less baseline human, has a substantial chance of beating a whole chapter of Marines.

Or a single Navy Admiral or Imperial Guard Warmaster like Maccaroth in the Ghost novels.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So, just to be clear, 10,000 Guardsmen get nothing but the gear on their backs.
But 1 Marine gets an entire strike cruiser and all the attendant personnel that come with it?

All about the equipment they can command as an individual.

Command?

Lord Solar Leonatus is also a single guardsman, and commands all the equipment in the Imperial Guard.

And Dante is just a single Space Marine, who commands what essentialy is a legion of Blood Angels Chapters, Sup Chapters, Sub sub Chapters, Auxillary, Naval, and planetary defensive forces, not to mention the entire Nihilus Defense Crusade force which again, is made up of several chapters broken off the Indomitus Crusade Fleet.

So yeah, "commands" is a bad possible wording here.

I would say rather, what that soldier and their like, has basic access to. A Single marine does not have access to a strike Cruiser, or an inquisitor (Unless it's a GK or a DW) so they can't unilaterally order an exterminatus.

Also a single Guard trooper wouldn't be able to just walk into their armory and requisition a personal Melta or a Hydra (Gunner Jurgen is the aide to a Commissar).

So a Basic Space Marine, with just a Bolter, and grenades, vs 10k Imperial Guard with Lasrifles and Grenades. Yeah, the space marine loses. Every Single time.

If a strike cruiser is standard issue for a single Marine, how come it used to be that, in-game, only a Chapter Master could call orbital bombardment?
And even now, it’s once per game, not once per Marine.

Can we stop pretending that anyone was honestly suggesting the "Single" entity was either a Chapter Master, or that the 10k were all Warmasters, or metaverse variants of Sly Marbo and Creed?

Here's an important point: 10k guardsmen will be able to fill out requisition forms FAR faster than 1 space marine.

Granted the space marine's requisition forms (once filled out) will probably be processed FAR faster than the ones filled out by the 10k guardsmen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Still requires the Cogboys, who are attached to the Regiment, making them an allied force.

This raises another consideration. Could a space marine defeat a single cogboy? (yes, yes, I know I'm being silly)

 FoxHybrid wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Screw it, let's change the paramaters.

Can 10.000 guardsmen beat a white scar marine in a race?

Could they construct a fortification faster than a Imperial fist?

Perhaps play hide and seek better than a Dark Angel!

Drink more blood or alcohol than a Blood angel or Space wolf?

Have more cyberenetics than an Iron Hand

And of course, be more generic than an Ultramarine.

There are 2 that I think I can answer here, the Iron Hand question and the Ultramarine question.

For the Iron Hands question there are multiple ground rules we have to lay out before we can answer it in full. The first being how we measure the amount of cybernetics someone has. From my perspective, there are two ways to measure this, percentage of body composed of cybernetics or amount of separate cybernetics. If we go overall percentage, I think it’s very possible that a singular guardsman may be more cybernetic than an Iron Hands Marine, possibly due to losing multiple limbs or something of the sort. The other ground rule is if we are assuming that the Imperium will attempt to “repair” grunt level Imperial Guardsmen through the use of cybernetics or not. If the answer to that is no, then I think the Iron Hands Marine wins handily (ha).

For the Ultramarines question, I dug into some of the definitions of generic and found that one is not specific, and that one of generic’s synonyms is common. As I understand it, the term Imperial Guard is a lot less specific than the term Ultramarine and the Imperial Guard are also far more common than Ultramarines. So I would have to give the generic category to the Imperial Guard.

Admittedly I was just trying to think of something each of the legions excelled at. And the joke goes that the blue boys are very bland.

Also, people seem to be adding the things a marine could requisition to the marines toolkit. That feels unfair as then the entire equipment of the imperial guard should be at the 10,000s application.

I don't care what the marine is equipped with, if the guard have a superheavy detachment they have the upper hand. Outside of orbital bombardment of course.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can we stop pretending that anyone was honestly suggesting the "Single" entity was either a Chapter Master, or that the 10k were all Warmasters, or metaverse variants of Sly Marbo and Creed?

MDG was honestly suggesting that the “Single” space marine comes with a Strike Cruiser and all attendant crew.

All the other comparisons are reductio ad absurdum on the justifications for that point.

Everyone else would probably just be talking about more reasonable comparisons if the Strike Cruiser point didn’t keep getting pressed.

Actually, it started off with people saying that the Guard would get all the trimmings, including tanks and artillery. Here is the post:

Asenion wrote:
Yeah I was kind of thinking that. And the fact is the Guard WILL be bringing vehicles and artillery. Guardsmen are the real power behind the Throne.

The point that was made by both Fezzik, myself, and MDG was that with just explicit arsenals, the Astartes do command their own naval assets whereas the Guard does not. So if the Guard force is getting tanks, artillery, and whatnot, then the Astartes gets access to its arsenal in the same way which includes escort class starships.
MDG never said anything about a Strike Cruiser.

The difference is that Guardsmen can drive the tanks on their own. A single Astartes cannot drive the ships on their own.

But, I'd be fine with giving the Astartes their own vehicle, with extra equipment and medical stuff. As well, I'd be fine restricting the Guardsmen to what they'd have on foot, rather than Baneblades and such.

But the difference is that Guardsmen can operate their vehicles, but a single Astartes cannot drive their ship on their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saying that people can command those lower than them means that we can have the Guardsmen overseeing the PDF, which gives orbital defenses. So we're back to square one.

I don't particularly care who gets what extra assets but at this point, people need reminding of what was actually said earlier in the discussion.

I'm honestly most interested in 10k Guardsmen with Lasguns versus 10 Astartes with Bolters and Knives, and seeing if guerilla warfare would win with such huge differences in numbers.

 Gert wrote:
Actually, it started off with people saying that the Guard would get all the trimmings, including tanks and artillery. Here is the post:

Asenion wrote:
Yeah I was kind of thinking that. And the fact is the Guard WILL be bringing vehicles and artillery. Guardsmen are the real power behind the Throne.

The point that was made by both Fezzik, myself, and MDG was that with just explicit arsenals, the Astartes do command their own naval assets whereas the Guard does not. So if the Guard force is getting tanks, artillery, and whatnot, then the Astartes gets access to its arsenal in the same way which includes escort class starships.
MDG never said anything about a Strike Cruiser.

My mistake, it was a Gladius, which is an escort, not a Strike Cruiser. But the point still stands, it’s a ridiculous comparison given the premise.

Even an escort comes with hundreds of crew so it’s no longer a single marine. The comparison is 1 marine vs 10,000 guard, not a few hundred Gladius crew vs 10,000 guard or indeed war zone level combat between opposing marine and guard forces (where marines would obviously have their ships).

Once you’ve got a force of 10,000 people looking at what their organisational structure is a reasonable point of discussion.

Is it 10,000 basic guardsmen with lasguns plucked from 10,000 different regiments?
A 10,000 strong infantry force with attendant special and heavy weapons (and probably some chimeras)?
A 10,000 strong combined arms force as per normal guard SOPs (probably multiple regiments) which will include armour (but the crew drawn from the 10,000)?

IMO the 2nd one is the most reasonable comparison based on the premise.

Similarly it’s reasonable to discuss the different ways the single marine is equipped within the premise.
Is it a single average tactical marine or intercessor? (the most fair comparison if you insist on 10,000 basic guardsmen)
A RG stealth specialist?
A terminator?
A dreadnaught even? (Though that’s rather stretching the premise).

But once you add a few hundred spaceship crew on the justification that the ship could be ‘commanded’ by a single marine, you’ve well and truly broken the premise and invite comparisons to whatever forces could feasibly be combined by a ‘single guardsman’.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

TheBestBucketHead wrote:The difference is that Guardsmen can drive the tanks on their own. A single Astartes cannot drive the ships on their own.

But, I'd be fine with giving the Astartes their own vehicle, with extra equipment and medical stuff. As well, I'd be fine restricting the Guardsmen to what they'd have on foot, rather than Baneblades and such.

But the difference is that Guardsmen can operate their vehicles, but a single Astartes cannot drive their ship on their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saying that people can command those lower than them means that we can have the Guardsmen overseeing the PDF, which gives orbital defenses. So we're back to square one.

See both of these are reasonable an interesting comparisons given the premise. A tactical squad vs a 10,000 strong infantry force is something that could actually happen.

A single marine stealthing it out to whittle down a force of guardsmen is also an interesting story.

A single tac marine vs 10,000 guardsmen with lasguns is also a valid, if unrealistic, reading of the premise.

Not ‘oh but they can command a few hundred people operating a space ship’ and ‘it’s only an escort not a cruiser so it and its few hundred attendant crew is totally a reasonable comparison that still counts as a ‘single marine’ next to vehicles crewed out of the 10,000 in the premise that guardsmen routinely personally operate’.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
The difference is that Guardsmen can drive the tanks on their own. A single Astartes cannot drive the ships on their own.

But, I'd be fine with giving the Astartes their own vehicle, with extra equipment and medical stuff. As well, I'd be fine restricting the Guardsmen to what they'd have on foot, rather than Baneblades and such.

But the difference is that Guardsmen can operate their vehicles, but a single Astartes cannot drive their ship on their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saying that people can command those lower than them means that we can have the Guardsmen overseeing the PDF, which gives orbital defenses. So we're back to square one.

The Techmarine of the Black Templars who literally piloted an ordinatus SOLO until it literally killed him. That's what nueral links are for. It's also how base humans can be "upgraded" to pilot ships.

I think 1 guardsman in charge of a gladius could take out 10.000 marines.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I'm honestly most interested in 10k Guardsmen with Lasguns versus 10 Astartes with Bolters and Knives, and seeing if guerilla warfare would win with such huge differences in numbers.

That is an interesting scenario. If the guard is in the form of a coherent regiment (and we assume they lost the keys to the special/heavy weapons locker) and the space marines are being all sneaky I think it'll come down to how many lasgun shots it takes to remove a marine from combat (different from killing the marine) and how the marines approach things.

If the marines just sneak in and kill the regimental command, they're now in the situation where everyone knows where they are (presumably someone has managed to raise the alarm) and the company commanders should be sufficiently competent to take command of the situation and pin the marines down. If the guard get their infantry special and heavy weapons, the marines are screwed in this scenario imho as the guard just have to occupy them until they can get the special/heavy stuff into position. In the all lasguns scenario you suggest though w/ 10 marines with bolters and knives, I'm not sure. If it was just knives, I think the guard would win via attrition. With the bolters though, they could hose down any groups of guardsmen that are not being supported by other guardsmen. Presumably the marines have an ammo stash to go and replenish from as well, otherwise it'll probably be back to favoring the guard again in my mind due to attrition.

Alternatively, the marines could just pick off the outlying or isolated (in terms of fire support) blobs of guardmen to whittle down the 10k. They'd probably take losses though over time. That's where the "how many lasgun shots" come in to play. If the number of las shots to reliably down a marine is comparable to a guard squad or two firing on full auto, attrition will rapidly favor the guard.

Either way, I think it ultimately comes down to how well the marines are able to isolate pockets of guardsmen that they can hose down with the ammo on hand before retreating to their ammo stash again. The guard tactics are presumably all about combining forces to take down a much tougher foe, so isolating them will be difficult, especially one they know their in hostile territory.

As speculated earlier, Space Marines have access to a wider range of frequencies than the Imperial Guard.

The Cain novels demonstrate this on at least a couple of occasions, where Astartes can contact any Imperial Force, but the Guard (other than Cain) can’t access the frequencies used by the Astartes, particularly not at the squad level.

That’s a pretty important consideration, as it opens the possibility of the Marines eavesdropping on the Guard, knowing their movements in advance. Naturally that’s one hell of an advantage to the Astartes, and will assist in ambushes and being where the bulk of the enemy aren’t.

Plus the possibility of accessing IG frequencies and issuing threats, or simply broadcasting static. Or my favourite possibility? Piping their Power Armour’s audio recording of a massacre non-stop on Guard frequencies. Not only will that have an impact on Guard morale, but it could tie up their Vox Frequencies entirely.

Keep that up for three or four days? The Marines won’t miss the sleep. The Guard? Far less so.

No I don’t play Nightlords.

Just a thought on the question.
If I recall chapter master Astelan took over an entire planet. So I would say yet a Space Marine could beat 10,000 Gaurdsmen even if he had to instigate a planetary revolt to do it.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I'm honestly most interested in 10k Guardsmen with Lasguns versus 10 Astartes with Bolters and Knives, and seeing if guerilla warfare would win with such huge differences in numbers.

That is an interesting scenario. If the guard is in the form of a coherent regiment (and we assume they lost the keys to the special/heavy weapons locker) and the space marines are being all sneaky I think it'll come down to how many lasgun shots it takes to remove a marine from combat (different from killing the marine) and how the marines approach things.

If the marines just sneak in and kill the regimental command, they're now in the situation where everyone knows where they are (presumably someone has managed to raise the alarm) and the company commanders should be sufficiently competent to take command of the situation and pin the marines down. If the guard get their infantry special and heavy weapons, the marines are screwed in this scenario imho as the guard just have to occupy them until they can get the special/heavy stuff into position. In the all lasguns scenario you suggest though w/ 10 marines with bolters and knives, I'm not sure. If it was just knives, I think the guard would win via attrition. With the bolters though, they could hose down any groups of guardsmen that are not being supported by other guardsmen. Presumably the marines have an ammo stash to go and replenish from as well, otherwise it'll probably be back to favoring the guard again in my mind due to attrition.

Alternatively, the marines could just pick off the outlying or isolated (in terms of fire support) blobs of guardmen to whittle down the 10k. They'd probably take losses though over time. That's where the "how many lasgun shots" come in to play. If the number of las shots to reliably down a marine is comparable to a guard squad or two firing on full auto, attrition will rapidly favor the guard.

Either way, I think it ultimately comes down to how well the marines are able to isolate pockets of guardsmen that they can hose down with the ammo on hand before retreating to their ammo stash again. The guard tactics are presumably all about combining forces to take down a much tougher foe, so isolating them will be difficult, especially one they know their in hostile territory.

This would be quite an interesting scenario tbh, the marines would have to be careful to pick off unsupported squads and conserve ammo, but could potentially do it - particularly if they’re playing vox channel mind games as MDG suggests. Maybe use the vox mind games to spoof orders and the like to draw of squads or individuals out of support.

Terrain would also make a massive difference. Something like a forest or an urban scenario would give the marines more of an major advantage, whereas a large open plain would massively favour the guardsmen.

All lasguns vs normal distribution of weapons is the major factor I think. In favourable terrain our squad of marines should be able to give it a good shot vs lasguns, but add 1,000 special and 1,000 heavy weapons that infantry squads would have (more if there are heavy & special weapons squads) and then the guardsmen have a much higher chance of picking them off with a lucky shot (though they might have to be careful with the heavies not to hit each other). Even if it’s mostly grenade launchers, flamers and mortars. Let alone 1,000 plasma guns and lascannons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As speculated earlier, Space Marines have access to a wider range of frequencies than the Imperial Guard.

The Cain novels demonstrate this on at least a couple of occasions, where Astartes can contact any Imperial Force, but the Guard (other than Cain) can’t access the frequencies used by the Astartes, particularly not at the squad level.

That’s a pretty important consideration, as it opens the possibility of the Marines eavesdropping on the Guard, knowing their movements in advance. Naturally that’s one hell of an advantage to the Astartes, and will assist in ambushes and being where the bulk of the enemy aren’t.

Plus the possibility of accessing IG frequencies and issuing threats, or simply broadcasting static. Or my favourite possibility? Piping their Power Armour’s audio recording of a massacre non-stop on Guard frequencies. Not only will that have an impact on Guard morale, but it could tie up their Vox Frequencies entirely.

Keep that up for three or four days? The Marines won’t miss the sleep. The Guard? Far less so.

No I don’t play Nightlords.

Seems plausible, although I'm not very familiar with the technology knowledge of the average marine, but I assume they'd be able to do anything a guard vox operator would be capable of. The solution to the eaves dropping is to speak in code and cycle frequencies. As far as jamming (with static or recordings) over the entirety of the guard frequency bands, do 10 marines actually have that capability? I assume that'd take some pretty serious comms gear. Then again, far flung future power armor might very well have sufficient power to transmit on all those frequencies at once. I'm not super knowledgeable on what that would require though even for modern day.

On the topic of communication warfare: In the 10 marine scenario and assuming the guard have vox operators at a typical number for 10k guardsmen, both sides would presumably be able to get the direction of transmissions and thus be able to triangulate positions from that. This would favor the guard since the marines are the ones relying on stealth. Combatting that would come down to radio discipline and keeping any communication very short, which seems to be standard practice (presumably on both sides). If the marines are broadcasting jamming signals though, they're also broadcasting their location. While this could be used as a distraction, it would mean the marines would have to divide their forces (unless the marine squad has deployable comms gear, but I'm not sure if that's standard issue for a 10 marine squad).

This is why I stuck to the word possibility.

We know Power Armour does far more than protect flesh and boost strength, and comes with sophisticated gear 40K doesn’t really encompass.

But even cycling frequencies? The Marines have better gear, so presumably access to more bandwidth. A squad of 10 each doing their own cycle would, I imagine, cover a multitude of possibilities in quite a short time. And I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that can be done passively.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
This is why I stuck to the word possibility.

We know Power Armour does far more than protect flesh and boost strength, and comes with sophisticated gear 40K doesn’t really encompass.

But even cycling frequencies? The Marines have better gear, so presumably access to more bandwidth. A squad of 10 each doing their own cycle would, I imagine, cover a multitude of possibilities in quite a short time. And I don’t think it’s too much to suggest that can be done passively.

I wouldn't think it would be too hard to find the new frequency once the listener knew the frequency cycled. I think current two way radios can come with a scan function, so it would absolutely be possible to passively scan through the frequencies. The benefit of the cycling is that the listener wouldn't know if the frequency had cycled or if simply nothing was being said at the moment. If we don't assume the 10k guardsmen include any specialist training above what would appear in a typical guard squad (i.e., no communications warfare advisor-type specialists), then it becomes a game of radio cat and mouse. If the 10k guardsmen come in the form of a regiment, then I would assume they'd have communication warfare specialists that might even start strategically spoofing communications. That said, even if the marines are catching a fair chunk of communications, I would imagine decoding the communications would be problematic at the marine squad level. I would think a code system would be implemented as soon as the guardsmen realized they were up against someone with access to their secure channels.