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There’s also the positive for your side psychological impact of Great Big Heroes.

The original plan was for the Primarchs to mature on Terra under the Emperor, then lead His Legions out into the stars to bring him His Imperium.

Now. You’re some tu’penny ha’penny Warlord. You’ve got your own version of something akin to Thunder Warriors. You are the big cheese in your little pocket of man’s former domain.

Then…comes a 10’ Tall Demigod of War, clad in the finest plate with weapons that make you look like sticks and stones against the lightning, and they’ve backed by fanatically loyal soldiers all a good 7’ tall and equally well equipped.

You haven’t even got a name tag in galactic terms. Why don’t just lie down? Eh? Just lie down.

Or you’re a downtrodden far flung former colony world, that’s barely survived the darkest to date days of humanity. Then some 10’ tall blah blah descends from the stars bringing you love and the promise of a ludicrously brighter tomorrow. And clearly has the muscle to go out and chin all those beastly bully Xenos that have been preying on you and yours and blah blah.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Wouldn't it just make more sense if the Primarchs were not giants? Those things are obvious retcons from the decision to make the Primarchs massive, because they likely wanted to make really huge models for them at some point and sell them for high prices.

This novel is from six years before the 30k game launched, for what it's worth, and even at that point they didn't launch any Primarch day 1.

I think they just figured big is cool. Same reason why Titans are unrealistically big.

Yeah. Black Library. Before the main studio went nuts and decided to start bringing primarchs back it was the main source of stupid lore. That, or FFG licenced stuff. At some point the writers just decided that all myths and propaganda are literally true and the setting became flatter and stupider for it.

Oh no, you are definitely not blaming Titans on Black Library here. GW in every single department is relentlessly guilty of making things absurdly and unrealistically massive for the rule of cool. Primarchs are in no way a special case.

I blame Epic.

Have you seen the cover for the original Adeptus Titanicus? Have you?

I have! And that's GW main studio stuff!

Where are the sassy comments about this being fanfiction, huh?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Oh no, you are definitely not blaming Titans on Black Library here. GW in every single department is relentlessly guilty of making things absurdly and unrealistically massive for the rule of cool. Primarchs are in no way a special case.

I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

And primarchs being big is not "silly scifi numbers" type of stupid, as it is perfectly undersandable human scale stuff. It is is just embarrassing and puerile. "Important man big; more important man more big!"

 Crimson wrote:
I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

...Listen, I agree titans are cool, but even the most conservative sizes (the ~32m height for a Warlord given by Titanicus, which lines up with the 30k model - this is not even getting into the Warmaster and Imperator) do not make Titans anything I'd remotely call "reasonable", not even by half.

There are physical, structural, chemical, tactical, strategic, logistical (etc etc) reasons for why it is eminently not reasonable.

What is reasonable is doing what the early 2000s Tau did and just killing them with aircraft.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

...Listen, I agree titans are cool, but even the most conservative sizes (the ~32m height for a Warlord given by Titanicus, which lines up with the 30k model - this is not even getting into the Warmaster and Imperator) do not make Titans anything I'd remotely call "reasonable", not even by half.

There are physical, structural, chemical, tactical, strategic, logistical (etc etc) reasons for why it is eminently not reasonable.

What is reasonable is doing what the early 2000s Tau did and just killing them with aircraft.

By "reasonable" I did not mean realistic. Giant walking robots are not realistic to begin with. But they have sizes that make sense with the rest of the ground force assets and are not nearly as ludicrous as in some art. That is unlike the 1,5 km space ships that can carry ten marines, whilst a 25 metre Thunderhawk can carry 30.

Can carry, and usually carries, aren’t the same thing at all.

Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges are intended for carting about and supporting Legion Strength forces, where we might expect the Marines aboard to number in the hundreds (Strike Cruisers) or thousands (Battle Barges).

That modern day Chapters don’t have those sorts of numbers of manpower, but inherited ships intended for said manpower is why they’re so light on numbers.

It’s not a space restriction, it’s a legacy of more glorious and numerous days.

Sure, but are they more reasonable than a 3m Primarch?

I am not as fussed about scale as I used to be, but like, if they're gene-engineered to be physical übermenschen (with their neglected weakness being largely in emotion and introspection - very fitting, actually), then sure, them being massive seems like exactly what the Emperor would do. It lines up with someone who already makes everything in his Imperium oversized, with massive tanks, massive buildings, massive cities, massive soldiers, massive guns, and so on.

If Ogryns can be functional and contributing members of the Imperium (which they can - beyond their military use, their are also labourers, bodyguards, and so on), even to the point of being boarding action specialists with augmentation, then Primarchs are fine too, I figure.

I get the puerile angle if you mean people who glorify the Primarchs unironically and want them to be big and awesome because of that.

But to me, they have two aspects; the glorified exterior (which makes for fun models to paint, as a bonus) and the sorely lacking inner existence (as demonstrated by the Heresy), which is an aspect of the lore GW often nowadays find it profitable to de-emphasise, but is still heavily evidenced.

That’s my take on it. And if we want to really read into it with only a modicum of speculation? If The Emperor somehow split his soul into the bodies of his “sons”? Then their emptiness make be baked into them, and be impossible to treat in any way.

Whatever a soul actually is? They’ve not got a whole one, and never will. So whatever part of them the gaping void is actually in? That void is never, ever going to be filled.

So despite their prodigious intelligence and capacity for learning is overall, there are some things they’ll be forever blind to.

Which is why I’m chuffed The Lion returned. He’s a decent foil for Guilliman. The ruthlessly efficient hunter of whatever you’ve got and the near perfect Statesman. You’ve one to lead the Imperium, and one to spearhead its forces where it’s needed most. Bring back Leman Russ? And you’ve your friendly neighbourhood berserker to really cow would be challengers in no uncertain terms.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Sure, but are they more reasonable than a 3m Primarch?

It is not same type of an issue. The problem with 3m primarchs is not that it is implausible or logistically awkward (even though it would be the latter.) It is that is stupid in puerile and embarrassing way. And no, I don't think it looks cool on tabletop, it looks like hero model from a game with different scale is accidentally put on the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can carry, and usually carries, aren’t the same thing at all.

Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges are intended for carting about and supporting Legion Strength forces, where we might expect the Marines aboard to number in the hundreds (Strike Cruisers) or thousands (Battle Barges).

That modern day Chapters don’t have those sorts of numbers of manpower, but inherited ships intended for said manpower is why they’re so light on numbers.

It’s not a space restriction, it’s a legacy of more glorious and numerous days.

But that is not how it is actually presented in the fluff.

 Crimson wrote:


It is not same type of an issue. The problem with 3m primarchs is not that it is implausible or logistically awkward (even though it would be the latter.) It is that is stupid in puerile and embarrassing way. And no, I don't think it looks cool on tabletop, it looks like hero model from a game with different scale is accidentally put on the table.

I can't say I get it, so I think you've lost me.

Might just be a taste thing? I get that varies a lot. I always thought Imperial Guard and its other setting counterparts (like the Empire of WHFB) were the most boring faction in each setting and I don't see the appeal in them at all, they just feel like NPCs to me. You need to add some spice to them that makes seem less just like pseudohistorical soldiers, something like the eccentric diving suit look of the of the Solar Auxilia or the mixed-species military of the Cities of Sigmar, for the "basic human faction" to interest me.

But a bunch of people seem just as lost when I tell them that as you make me feel right now.

The Imperial Guard kick ass! Like, seriously.

They’re pretty much just you or me, in vast numbers, with somewhat varying quality of training. Yet it’s them that hold, and when given the chance, expand an Empire it took innumerable super soldier the like of which had never been seen to take in the first place.

As a side note I always thought most of an Imperium spaceship was the drives, warp drives and shielding of various types. Kinda like Aliens where that big ship can only deliver a small payload of equipment.

Anyway, Invader Zim showed us the biggest are always in charge. GW also follows this logic. As does apparently US presidential elections.

In my bunker complex we only have 5 foot tall doorways and corridors. Yes it sucks bending over everywhere, but we are space marine proof.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Imperial Guard kick ass! Like, seriously.

They’re pretty much just you or me, in vast numbers, with somewhat varying quality of training. Yet it’s them that hold, and when given the chance, expand an Empire it took innumerable super soldier the like of which had never been seen to take in the first place.

Yeah this is what everyone tells me, but I don't find I identify with them all that much. I don't like militaries much in real life either, and the Guard are taken from the best of the PDF, being dedicated, devoted soldiers.

A hapless farmer defending their home from feral Ork raiders? Sure, I can raise my thumbs to that.

Wehrmacht in Space (arguably worse - upholding the "cruellest, most bloody regime imaginable", which says a lot as I can imagine quite a bit) I find altogether less relatable. Which is fine, 40k factions hardly have to be relatable, but then what else do they have?

 Crimson wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Oh no, you are definitely not blaming Titans on Black Library here. GW in every single department is relentlessly guilty of making things absurdly and unrealistically massive for the rule of cool. Primarchs are in no way a special case.

I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

And primarchs being big is not "silly scifi numbers" type of stupid, as it is perfectly undersandable human scale stuff. It is is just embarrassing and puerile. "Important man big; more important man more big!"

This. So much this. Humans became Orks.

I don't bat an eye at Titans. Weapons evolve to suit the environment they're expected to survive in. In the context of 40K I can believe they are a potential solution to the problem of fortified cities/installations defended against orbital or aerial bombardment. Can't fly your spacecraft over that hemisphere to blast it? Fine, land a shielded superweapon and walk over there.

Giant Primarchs/armor can't fit through standard architecture or use the same vehicles that everyone else does.

I’m going to bring up my pet hypothesis on “why so big and shiny”. And it is to do with Orks, and your only possible approach to contain them.

See. In Ork society, we know Might Makes Right. But only if you’re Orky. And it’s not enough (Diggas) to be Orkyish. You have to be Orky, and that necessitates you being an Ork.

Orks also need to fight as a genetic imperative. It’s what they do. The bigger the fight? The more Orks will find their way to it to join in.

Orks do kind of, ish, respect the strength of others. But only insofar it holds the promise of a really really good fight. Ref Ghaz releasing Yarrick and good enemies being hard to find.

The Emperor presumably knew this. And given at the time of the Great Crusade Orkdom was the only pan galactic foe of any real note? They’re likely going to be the most constant thorn in your side.

But you can contain them, after a fashion. It’s a labour of Hercules type affair, but “all” you need to do is create a sufficiently fighty fight to draw in all the very ‘ardest Orks in the galaxy (because they all want to prove they’re the ‘ardest and therefore Orkiest Ork to ever kick a git in the teef), then defeat them. From there? The scale of the threat diminishes, and with sufficient forces you can keep breaking them down, including permanent interdiction of Ork held worlds. You don’t necessarily need to take the worlds. Interdiction and orbital strikes to knacker any ships being built should be enough.

You basically cause a critical mass, defuse it, and then keep grinding them down to the point they can never achieve critical mass ever again.

Hence? The Primarchs being Big, and The Emperor being Ded Shiny. And oh my weren’t they fighty.

Which all leads to Ullanor. A galactic poultice to draw the Orky poison to a single location, and then lance the boil in a one and done barring constant maintenance job.

The strategic equivalent of screaming “OI, YOU SIZEABLE LADY’S CHEMISE. COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH”..

Commissar Yarrik proves that you don't need to be big to impress Orks. Just fighty.

On Titans again: Titans might also just solve the problem of Something big enough to carry multiple Void Shields, but capable of traversing more varied terrain than tracked/wheeled vehicles.

More factions should develop kneeseeker missiles. How hard could it be?

There is no role that a titan can fulfil that could not be done more effectively and efficiently than by any other vehicle form factor, other than “big stompy robot”. And that is why we love them!

I definitely think to some extent you lose some of the fun factor when you try too hard to make sense of 40k.

Things like Titans have been in from the start, obviously, but we also have funny lore tidbits like Custodian Allarus armour being able to "stride unharmed from the blast of a macrocannon shell" (lmao) to say nothing of Solitaires who are basically playing Metal Gear Rising while everyone else is playing Planetside 2.

There is a bit in the Warhawk novel where Jaghatai Khan picks up a thirty-ton Leviathan Dreadnought, one-handed, and tosses it like a toy. The battle just paused as everyone else looked up to see the Dreadnought sailing over their heads. I actually cackled outright at first because of how profoundly stupid it was, but then I actually kind of loved it. Warhammer being stupid is part of its DNA, I think. It reminds me of how in old WHFB you might see a story of how the lords Honda and Nissan of Nippon go fighting Tiqtak'to and Kroak. Deeply, deeply unserious.

 Flinty wrote:
More factions should develop kneeseeker missiles. How hard could it be?

There is no role that a titan can fulfil that could not be done more effectively and efficiently than by any other vehicle form factor, other than “big stompy robot”. And that is why we love them!

Is that true? I think of a Titan as a big, moving, gun platform. Other things can do that, like a Collossus or Leviathan, but the Titan can move over terrain that large tracked things cannot.

"Kneeseeker missiles" make sense, but you still have to contend with the Void Shields. And if the kneeseeker missiles are unreliable, expensive or rare, then on balance the Titans still have a place. In fact there are anti-Titan weapons and Missiles anyways, like Warp Missiles and Shadowsword Volcano Cannons. They are, as above, expensive and rare.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

There is a bit in the Warhawk novel where Jaghatai Khan picks up a thirty-ton Leviathan Dreadnought, one-handed, and tosses it like a toy. The battle just paused as everyone else looked up to see the Dreadnought sailing over their heads. I actually cackled outright at first because of how profoundly stupid it was, but then I actually kind of loved it. Warhammer being stupid is part of its DNA, I think. It reminds me of how in old WHFB you might see a story of how the lords Honda and Nissan of Nippon go fighting Tiqtak'to and Kroak. Deeply, deeply unserious.

I'm not going to deny that some of Black Library is incredibly stupid. But I also don't think that we have to tarnish all of 40k because some BL author can't restrain themselves.

Dune is set in the far future with interstellar travel, but much of the fighting is done with knives. Sounds pretty stupid! But in-universe there are reasons for it, and those reasons make the setting more interesting. On the surface Titans seem ridiculous. But if we peer into the reasons why they are there and remain effective, it can give us a more interesting and textured setting.

I’ve always interpreted the background to be a mythical one, rather than historical. Even the Heresy novels.

That leaves plenty room for exaggeration. To use the example above? Perhaps the truth of it is The Khan hacked his way into the Leviathan’s Sarcophagus, and threw the pilot. Doesn’t take many retellings for that to turn into him hoying the whole thing.

Likewise when Angron held up a Warhound Titan’s foot. Did he? Or was he fully stepped on, but due to Primarch resilience and some handily soft or extremely muddy ground, he survived it?

In an empire of untold trillions, just think how few would’ve been eye witnesses at all, let alone eye witnesses paying sufficient attention during battle?

The_Real_Chris wrote:
As a side note I always thought most of an Imperium spaceship was the drives, warp drives and shielding of various types. Kinda like Aliens where that big ship can only deliver a small payload of equipment.

Anyway, Invader Zim showed us the biggest are always in charge. GW also follows this logic. As does apparently US presidential elections.

In my bunker complex we only have 5 foot tall doorways and corridors. Yes it sucks bending over everywhere, but we are space marine proof.

This was my understanding. People take the ship dimensions and calculate internal volume and go "This could fit a million humans, the crew sizes are silly". It could probably fit a billion humans if rendered into homogenised soup and poured into the space...

The ships contain things other than crew, assuming the areas of the ship that are capable of supporting life are in any way proportional to modern ships is silly. Especially given the disparity in crew to displacement between, say, a super tanker, a modern guided-missile destroyer, an aircraft carrier, and a WW2 battleship.

Once factoring in armour, engines (both conventional and warp), shielding, structural members, weaponry, power conduits, sensors, cooling etc, even for the crew there needs to be vast amounts of space dedicated to things like oxygen and water regeneration or food storage. Imperial warships are supposed to patrol for months or even years without resupply, in a way essentially no modern vessels are expected to operate. Plus maintaining human-safe areas is going to be hard and energy intensive, these are going to be kept as small as possible.

On door and corridor sizes? The inspiration is of course rather grand churches, cathedrals and other buildings built in the Gothic style.

Note they too have larger than necessary doors and high ceilings, the better to awe the congregants and just generally impress.

Within The Imperium? They’re also large to accommodate all sorts of vehicles and Servitors. So even staff areas, which tend to be of more practical size, will be larger than the real world to allow the passage of goods and bulky things.

Will there be much narrower corridors here and there? Yes. Absolutely. But the heavy traffic areas are big for a reason.

 Crimson wrote:
It is really annoying how FFG messed up the ship scale, and those numbers are now commonly accepted even though they do not make even internal sense (Cobra is 1.5km whilst long-prowed Sword is 1.6km, which would certainly make Cobra more massive than Sword.)

And marine numbers have always been too small. Even if we want to keep them as small cadres of elite warriors, the chapter should still be at least 10 000 strong.

And the both of the above contribute to the absurdity of the marine fleet. They have these fleets of absolutely humongous ships, that apparently can still transport only handful of marines. Over four kilometre ship can transport one company? Over 1.5 km ship can transport one squad? Really? It makes no sense whatsoever. And yes, I'm taking into account their gear and vehicles.

In any engagement the contributions of the actual fighting marines would be totally overshadowed by the firepower of their fleet.

To be fair, I always assumed those numbers meant the number of Marines they could comfortably support. As The_Real_Chris points out, there is a huge logistical chain supporting each Astartes soldier, a company of 100 will have hundreds of serfs keeping them operating in the field, repairing damaged gear and restocking ammunition. It isn't that a strike cruiser couldn't physically carry more than 100 Marines, it is that it doesn't have the resources to sustain more than that in continuous combat operations.

Bear in mind that one of the key strengths of Marines is that they can sustain a constant, enormous tempo of combat operations where they repeatedly engage on strike after strike with minimal rest between sorties. That kind of intensity will require a massive amount of support to maintain.

Marines have always been overshadowed by their fleets really. Marine chapters are better thought of as fleet assets that carry specialised munitions dedicated to breaking open orbital defenses (the Marines) that would be too costly for the fleet to engage otherwise. That is why they are Space Marines and not Space Soldiers or something. It has long been in lore that the mere arrival of a Space Marine strike cruiser in orbit is enough to end many rebellions.

And not just because “oh blimey, Astartes”.

Rather that if any size of Astartes force has arrived to put you back in your box? It means The Imperium is not giving up.

If you’re a world in rebellion? You’ve limited back up and reinforcement options. And it’s possible (if not necessarily common) you’re the only unruly world in a system.

Your best hope is that no word of your rebellion gets off planet, or that any distress call is simply stuck on a pile and never attended to. Both of which are possible. Though what you do when the Tithe is to be collected is a significant issue. That will definitely be noticed, even if a response is years in coming.

But once the Imperium decides you need to have your head kicked in? It’s all but over. Astartes attendance can only be interpreted that they’re particularly serious this time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve always interpreted the background to be a mythical one, rather than historical. Even the Heresy novels.

That leaves plenty room for exaggeration. To use the example above? Perhaps the truth of it is The Khan hacked his way into the Leviathan’s Sarcophagus, and threw the pilot. Doesn’t take many retellings for that to turn into him hoying the whole thing.

Likewise when Angron held up a Warhound Titan’s foot. Did he? Or was he fully stepped on, but due to Primarch resilience and some handily soft or extremely muddy ground, he survived it?

In an empire of untold trillions, just think how few would’ve been eye witnesses at all, let alone eye witnesses paying sufficient attention during battle?

Isn't that a cop out though?
I mean, personally I also like to just ignore fluff that I don't like or rather focus on the stuff I do like, otherwise you have pretty bad cards as a Chaos fan in 40K .
But that doesn’t change the fact that we do have material in 40K that is written unambigously, and it is unambigously silly sometimes.

All about interpretation.

If we look in-universe to stuff like the Uplifting Primer, Necromunda News Screens etc? We see a ludicrous level of naked, unabashed propaganda. Same with the two Xenology books, albeit to quite different degrees there.

So yes, I’m asking for more a tub of salt with my take? But everything should be taken with at least a pinch of salt all the same, and certainly not at absolute face value,

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time.

Don't forget that the British soldiers were massively outnumbered by locally recruited troops.

They were... but the overall troop numbers were still small at any given time.

Going back to WW2- people look at mobilisation rates for places like Germany or the USSR, which reached 20% plus. However, those were modern nation states with strong, centralised governments. It also took years to reach that mobilisation rate.

The UK specifically actually achieved mobilisation rates that were similar, when accounting for things like home guard. Some of the dominions too (IIRC, Canada recruited very high numbers of troops for its population level). But despite how big the British Empire was in terms of population and how dire the situation was at points during the war, the overall mobilisation from the empire was much lower. India is a particularly interesting example. British India had a population of around 300 million going into WW2, dwarfing the likes of the USSR and Germany. The Indian Army during WW2 grew into a force of over a million by war's end, the largest volunteer force in history, with overall several million serving at some point. Big yes, but only ~1% of the population was mobilised despite the Empire forces in Europe crying out for more manpower.

Note how the Indian army was a volunteer force. The UK couldn't afford to conscript Indians, a rebellion would have been catastrophic at that time. They got large numbers of useful troops, but because they were occupying a region that was at least partially hostile to them, pushing it too far could lose the entire region, resulting in a loss of resources.

This is what many Imperial worlds are like, especially hive worlds. A useful resource to the Imperium, but always a potential powder keg that can go off if mishandled. So only a small proportion is mobilised (the PDF) to keep the rest in check and provide a speed bump to any attacks, and then if an external threat appears mobilisation can be ramped up to deal with it. However, mobilising takes time if starting from a fairly low level of military recruitment and instruction. You need people to train the new troops and distribute weapons and build bases etc. That takes time, even in an emergency.

If we look at a war like the 3rd War for Armageddon, you can see this in action. The warning that a new attack was imminent was a few months at best. By the time of the Season of Fire, the war has been going on for maybe a year. Between those two, the number of Armageddon regiments in service jumps massively despite the enormous casualties, but there will be a limit to how quickly new troops can be trained and equipped.

But as much as the game and lore focuses on planetary invasions and major clashes between factions, the greatest threat to the Imperium for most of its 10000 years has been internal rebellion. Suppressing rebellion is why it is set up the way it is, with standing armies held in sector reserves and intentionally-undersized PDFs on many worlds to keep the levels of military readiness low if the planet does rebel, but still sufficient to stop typical pirates and raiders.

Plus most Imperial worlds have very low populations with only a handful of important settlements. The population of the Imperium is highly concentrated on hive worlds. A regiment "taking" a world of just a few million people isn't surprising- they probably just need to capture the one space port and then defend whatever resource gets tithed from the world from whatever disgruntled insurgents remain. Most of the world will functionally not be under their control... but it doesn't need to be to keep the tithes flowing. Given there are no limits on "rules of engagement" and regiments are typically off-worlders with no ties to the local people, they can also be as brutal as they wish in suppressing communities harbouring insurgents.

Some of this is an issue of what is interesting. People want to play the big stuff, rebellion no. 1446543 of that year being swiftly crushed by a Navy warship arriving in orbit and moving on isn't a compelling narrative for a game, but it is a routine occurrence in 40k.