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 Insectum7 wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Or the "1000 marines" are just the line troops, and there actually is vehicle pilots etc on top of that.

This has always been my belief. The 1k cap is the line strength of the infantry. Once you add up all the command, support, pilots, etc you are going to get 1.5 to 2x that amount. Which is still ludicrously small for actual operations, but GW and numbers, what can you do?

The question though, is how much of the support/pilots are actual Marines? I think pushing to 1.5 k is pretty inflated. Per Company you have 110-115ish with command squad, Captain, Lt, Chaplain, etc. That gives 1150ish.
In the back of the 3rd ed codex there's a roster for Ultramarines which gives some numbers for Techmarines and some sub-ranking staff who may or may not be Marines. I think it's a mix. Either way the implicatiion is that even including supernumaries and a full roster the numbers probably aren't reaching 1.3k.

Which I know sounds light, but the given numbers are what they are when it comes to Marines. I think chapter serfs and servitors abound though.

Kinda reminds me of an argument from that 10,000 Guard vs. one Marine thread.

"One Marine could totally take down 10,000 Guard! Their attendant Strike Cruiser would just Lance them."

If only that was the only argument in favor of the Marine from that thread...

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Or the "1000 marines" are just the line troops, and there actually is vehicle pilots etc on top of that.

This has always been my belief. The 1k cap is the line strength of the infantry. Once you add up all the command, support, pilots, etc you are going to get 1.5 to 2x that amount. Which is still ludicrously small for actual operations, but GW and numbers, what can you do?

The question though, is how much of the support/pilots are actual Marines? I think pushing to 1.5 k is pretty inflated. Per Company you have 110-115ish with command squad, Captain, Lt, Chaplain, etc. That gives 1150ish.
In the back of the 3rd ed codex there's a roster for Ultramarines which gives some numbers for Techmarines and some sub-ranking staff who may or may not be Marines. I think it's a mix. Either way the implicatiion is that even including supernumaries and a full roster the numbers probably aren't reaching 1.3k.

Which I know sounds light, but the given numbers are what they are when it comes to Marines. I think chapter serfs and servitors abound though.

The 1.5 number is stuck in the back of my head from a prior thread debating how many marines in a chapter. The motor pool is pretty deep, and they keep adding more stuff to it. Honor guard, librarians, etc, it adds up.

But I’ll admit to pulling the number out of fuzzy memories.

I think of Honor Guard as just being another type of command squad, not an additional "thing". But I dunno. I never bought the codex for 10th, 9th was my last.

Its one of those things that is going to vary wildly depending on the chapter.

Some chapters basically don't trust their serfs with any weaponry, thus meaning marines would have to do all of the combat and pilot roles that aren't being done be servitors. Others are even willing to use their Serfs as infantry.

1.5k is probably the low end, representing a chapter that utilizes Serfs to a large extent in at least auxiliary combat roles(pilots, etc...). While a chapter that doesn't use Serfs might be closer to the 2x end.

 Grey Templar wrote:

1.5k is probably the low end, representing a chapter that utilizes Serfs to a large extent in at least auxiliary combat roles(pilots, etc...). While a chapter that doesn't use Serfs might be closer to the 2x end.

I mean . . . source? Because we have a source from the 3rd ed codex, and it's nowhere near 1.5. It's kinda hitting 1.1 if all the company squads were full strength.

While I get your reasoning, given the information available I think we just have to assume much of the piloting/driving is done by "line" marines, possibly from reserve companies. For example, the Armory give the UM a total pool of, what looks like 41 Techmarines of various ranks (Master, Suprema, Techmarine, Apprentia). Even if all the 103 Servitors listed were also Marines (A big assumption), that's still not close to 1.5.

Another thing to consider is that, while there will be variations from chapter to chapter, there's precedent to suggest that if a chapter leans heavily into techmarines or apothecaries, the spillover winds up being part of the usual roster. I'm thinking of 4th edition, where you could choose chapter traits, and this made apothecary sergeants or techmarines that replaced commanders.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kinda reminds me of an argument from that 10,000 Guard vs. one Marine thread.

I went and read that entire thread... Oh boy! That was painful. I thought that rampant marine fanboyism was bad in this and the choppa thread, but comparatively it seems pretty mild now!

 Crimson wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kinda reminds me of an argument from that 10,000 Guard vs. one Marine thread.

I went and read that entire thread... Oh boy! That was painful. I thought that rampant marine fanboyism was bad in this and the choppa thread, but comparatively it seems pretty mild now!

It is also immediately belied by the Rogal Dorn quote. I hardly think Rogal Dorn would be an Imperial Army/Guard fanboy too.

 Crimson wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kinda reminds me of an argument from that 10,000 Guard vs. one Marine thread.

I went and read that entire thread... Oh boy! That was painful. I thought that rampant marine fanboyism was bad in this and the choppa thread, but comparatively it seems pretty mild now!

What's so bad in this thread?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Kinda reminds me of an argument from that 10,000 Guard vs. one Marine thread.

I went and read that entire thread... Oh boy! That was painful. I thought that rampant marine fanboyism was bad in this and the choppa thread, but comparatively it seems pretty mild now!

What's so bad in this thread?

"Marines have super bolters that have such recoil that no normal human can fire them and survive!" etc.

^To be fair I don't think anyone here was actually advocating that position, but it was a reference to how nuts things can get when left unchecked. I think it was from 40K Wiki.

Also, while the lore is super inconsistent about this sort of thing (some novels claim Astartes boltguns are too heavy for humans to even lift, much less fire) it's hard to resent people for taking the lore at face value.

Like, meme lore (grimdank, 1d4chan, TTS...) is a real scourge, but the actual lore text? It's not a sin if someone reads that and rolls with it. They're not really to blame for reading 40k narrative material with the official logo on it and treating it as official lore, even though if you did that to everything you'd end up with irreconcilable canon conflicts.

Just my take on it, anyway.

Oh I won't resent the readers, but I will call out Black Library for being a lousy source to rely on.

Meh. I don't think we can excuse any particular source here. As I mentioned elsewhere, it's not like the codex books are free of sin.

Allrighty. Give me your worst example of codex lore!

 Insectum7 wrote:
Allrighty. Give me your worst example of codex lore!

Thankfully I cannot recall the specifics, but Matt Ward's Ultramarine lore certainly was massively cringe fanboy stuff.

But BL certainly is more prone to this, and it party due the protagonism. When you write a novel about supersoldiers, it is easy to get distracted by the super part. And to be fair, a lot of the audience seems to be there for it. It is same with superhero fandom, where a lot of people just care about power rankings and who could beat whom rather than any message or a story.

But generally I feel this is missing the point of 40K, then again, I think the official lore has seriously been missing the point for a while now. And of course Guilliman's return is studio lore originally and that's literally the worst thing to ever happen to 40K. These days instead of being a satirical take on machismo and authoritarianism, 40K now just is a story about how superpowered space fascists are actually pretty great.

I mean, I hate a lot of the new stuff too, but in general I think it's often sorta light on specifics. I do think there's a difference between vaguaries like "these guys are the best of the best", and then specific feats being described which break from what's typical.

But oh yeah. . . the Ward era. Draigo carving his name on the heart of Mortarion or whatever. Blech. You're right I forgot about some of that stuff.

In the UM book I never had too much of an issue with Guilliman killing an Avatar because that was something that could actually happen in the game. It definitely read as lousy fanwank, but if you got past the tone the actual details described were not that far off a potential tabletop experience, especially if we're talking some of the earlier editions of 40k.

The thing is that the codexes also have the game stats to check against. Like, you can write a cool story of a marine killing a bunch of dudes, but you also have in the same book the stats that tell you one cultist Autocannon round can splat him.

Background wise? Avatars have long been the Worf. The big scary that is nevertheless soundly beaten to show how Big Scary the other is.

The Waaagh! field from the 3rd edition Ork codex. Not terrible in context, but people never take it in its original context, and it's spawned more memelore than Krieg Shovels

15 Hours and it's consequences have been a disaster for the Imperial Guard, as good as the book is.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Background wise? Avatars have long been the Worf. The big scary that is nevertheless soundly beaten to show how Big Scary the other is.

Avatars have the problem that they're basically the biggest baddest generic nameless/respawning opponent.

Charax wrote:
The Waaagh! field from the 3rd edition Ork codex. Not terrible in context, but people never take it in its original context, and it's spawned more memelore than Krieg Shovels

I think people not examining the original context is at fault for many, many things. . . in 40K and out. Human nature I suppose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Background wise? Avatars have long been the Worf. The big scary that is nevertheless soundly beaten to show how Big Scary the other is.

When was the earliest, I wonder? The 5th ed Ward book is what comes to mind. There's an ancient story of an Avatar on the battlefield, but it's fighting a Keeper of Secrets, which should be it's equal, more or less, and thematically appropriate. I think the Avatar wins that one.

Edit: Avatar wins, seemingly growing in power and breaking the back of the Keeper of Secrets over its knee.

Oh I have another one! The 3rd ed. Tau codex implying that Spyrer suits were Tau technology despite:
- Being other the other side of the galaxy
- Already having an established origin.
- Having superior technology to Tau suits
- Being almost entirely melee-focused

god 3rd has a lot to answer for.
Anyway the "Terrible codex lore" should probably be spun off into its own thread

 Insectum7 wrote:
Allrighty. Give me your worst example of codex lore!

Pretend I just put the entirety of Codex: Grey Knights in this post.

And it's 5e lore, even though it's popular to grump about how it's just "new 40k" that's the problem. The book is fifteen years old. We've people younger than that currently playing 40k and winning Youngbloods prizes in Golden Demon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, the original Codex: Militarum Tempestus also had some truly repulsive writing in it. But yeah, this is getting a bit offtopic, I'll leave it here.

Charax wrote:
Oh I have another one! The 3rd ed. Tau codex implying that Spyrer suits were Tau technology despite:
- Being other the other side of the galaxy
- Already having an established origin.
- Having superior technology to Tau suits
- Being almost entirely melee-focused

I found that bit in my old Tau codex and it's pretty unclear whether or not they're actually of Tau origin. It's also written by an in-universe narrator, so they might be mistaken anyways. The fact that it might be from across the galaxy doesn't seem like an issue, because those wealthy individuals would be doing trade with offworld sources. I'm not even sure it's at odds with the old Spyre lore since the suits were "manufactured offworld" or something like that. Alien technology repurposed and built into a custom batman suit doesn't seem out of place to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Allrighty. Give me your worst example of codex lore!

Pretend I just put the entirety of Codex: Grey Knights in this post.

Fair.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Charax wrote:
The Waaagh! field from the 3rd edition Ork codex. Not terrible in context, but people never take it in its original context, and it's spawned more memelore than Krieg Shovels

I think people not examining the original context is at fault for many, many things. . . in 40K and out. Human nature I suppose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Background wise? Avatars have long been the Worf. The big scary that is nevertheless soundly beaten to show how Big Scary the other is.

When was the earliest, I wonder? The 5th ed Ward book is what comes to mind. There's an ancient story of an Avatar on the battlefield, but it's fighting a Keeper of Secrets, which should be it's equal, more or less, and thematically appropriate. I think the Avatar wins that one.

Edit: Avatar wins, seemingly growing in power and breaking the back of the Keeper of Secrets over its knee.

I would say that it came from the release of 3rd ed and the nerfing of big monster stats, where the avatar was the cheapest and also now the worst of the big bads statwise. He went from the same cost as a bloodthirster and capable of going toe to toe with one in 2nd ed, to an 80 pt W4 A3 wimp.

Chaos got a 3.5 codex which improved GD profiles (but not massively), making him look even worse. His 4th ed incarnation was almost twice the cost but still only W4 A4. He was W5 A5 in 7th ed iirc.

The Wardian era of DBZ style showdowns between marine characters and big monsters started with the Calgar vs Avatar story, which at the time had the 4th ed version of the avatar at 155pts with WS10 BS5 S6 T6 W4 I6 A4 Ld10 Sv3+. He was a lightweight in the MC category.



However it must be said that my favourite BL novel, Shadowpoint, came out in 2003 and had the most positive depiction of an Avatar in GW media for 2 decades...

It's a real shame GW didn't take to Rennie's depiction of the eldar in his BFG novels, they were a lot more alien and interesting than the pointy eared humans they've run with.

The Biel-Tan Avatar had a pretty good showing in Valedor, for what it's worth.

Avatar’s were nasty in 2nd Ed. Far from invincible, but ignored a reasonable number of weapons entirely (flame, Plasma and Melta had no effect whatsoever) and had incredible stats.

Good for duffing up elite units and characters, if it could catch them on their own. Not at all a slouch against most infantry, but kinda wasted if you had a more expensive target.

WS10 and I10 made it damned difficult to swamp, as even if you did get sufficient bonuses, it would still win ties.

2+ Save which couldn’t be modified beyond 4+, married to T8 was incredible.

And of course the Wailing Doom. 12” range for shooting, S8, Dam D3, -4 Save. Armour Pen wasn’t great at D6+D3+8. But it did ignore Daemonic Saves.

It was definitely something you kept away from for as long as you could.

 Bobthehero wrote:
15 Hours and it's consequences have been a disaster for the Imperial Guard, as good as the book is.

What is wrong with 15 Hours?

 Haighus wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
15 Hours and it's consequences have been a disaster for the Imperial Guard, as good as the book is.

What is wrong with 15 Hours?

The very idea that Guard have a life expectancy of just 15 hours, even in the competent regiments.
The whole "Enemy at the Gates, but sci-fi" has always been a part of the Guard, but usually portrayed as being particularly pompous/uncaring commanders rather than the default. 15 Hours portrayed it as the default for Guardsmen.

My personal favourite 40k "thought for the day" is

Life is The Emperor's currency, spend it well

I think this refrain should be foremost in any Imperial Commander's brain and is a call to competent military action.