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hi,

I am busy working on the back-story for my chapter.
Questions:

How long does the AVERAGE marine live? (death in combat withstanding)
How long does the SUPER marine live? (death in combat withstanding)

I ask becaue there are some references to Inquisitors (who from my understanding are not SM and dont have the implants, gene-seed or anything) yet they can live for up to 500 years or more.  Would this mean that some SM - especially guys like Librarians, Force Commanders, Champions, Chapter Masters, Chaplains can live for a couple Millenia?  Also Bro. Capt. Stern (GK) is nearing his 4th century or service...

Acording to the Heresy novels, a SM is essentially immortal. I presume that this is no longer the case, as no SM's from the Crusade/Heresy era have survived 'naturally'.
Logan Grimnar is around 500 years old, and Dante of the Blood Angels is over a thousand.

A Space Marine could potentially live forever, but as you say, they get picked off in combat. The characters you mention above have as much chance at survival as any other SM, it's just that advancement in a Chapter is based on merit, so they are simply the most experienced and able warriors. The oldest member of a Chapter could be a Tactcal trooper, who simply doesn't have the same flair for leadership as others.

sounds reasonable i guess... why i ask is i am trying to figure out if fluff nuts will go crazy if i try and introduce a Chapter Master who has been alive for some 10 000 years or so (say from the time the Emperor was interred in the Golden Throne) but he is kept alive with Necron Technology...

Bjorn the Fell Handed, a venerable dreadnaught, is well over 10,000 years old (he fought alongside Russ AND the Emperor).

So, with proper armor and life support, a Space Marine seems entirely able to live that long.

Minor Clarification Logan Grimnar has been leading the space wolves for over 500 years, and alive for over 700.

As for your fluff. Well it will offend some regardless of how well written it is. Ignore them, its your game too. Personally I'm going to believe your chapter likes to exaggerate the age of its master considerably. But

According to the Horus Heresy Books Marines can live forever, that is they are effectively immortal.

Wasn't there one primarch that died of old age? One of the loyalists - seeing as many of the traitors are still alive and kicking as Deamon Princes. This was back in the Second Edition though and they might have retcon'd now so I don't know.

One of my SM player friends keeps saying that his chapter has the shame of being the only chapter to have a Primach die of old age and not in combat... [Can't remember his phone number now though]

yeah who was that?? It was Lion el johnson or was it one of the unnamed primarchs?/ hmm smell fishy/

Anybody who gets lost in the Warp can pretty much live indefinitely, if they're tough enough to keep killing Daemons. They wrote Russ as pretty much just running off to parts unknown, to return whenever the 40k equivalent of the Apocalypse comes. If you want some kind of a cool justification, rip off Tolkien and say the Master went away on a quest of personal redemption for a misdeed commited early in their history and that its leadership had been taken by a Council of Stewards - say a Librarian, a Chaplain and a Techmarine, or something like that - until the Master's recent return. That gives you an excuse to give him as many wheels of cheese as he can carry in his pockets as well...

on a side note, I think most multicentenarian Inquisitors were O.M. Radicals with Daemonswords - those things suck you soul a little bit, but it's like having a force sword that feeds you energy drinks and vitamins as far as your physical health in old age goes. The miserable old bar stewards just don't die.

According to the Eisenhorn books the reason inquisitors can get to be so old is a regimen of costly "juvenat" drugs which prolong thier lives.

In theory marines can live indefinately, however the situations they're put into makes that hardly likely. The oldest ultramarine is chaplain cassius 400 odd yrs old I think. Dante has been leading the BA for over 1100 years. Its an interesting idea, certainly some might not look to kindly on the idea. "GW fluff from blah blah says that this of that can't happen." LoL. I think the best way to explain that is either prolonged warp exposure, perhaps their fortress monastery is in a turbulent part of space. The other idea, if you want to stick to strictly necron explanations is that he rarely leads from the front and is more of a master strategist. Most marine leader always lead from the front thus explaining their short lives. The thig to impress on those who try to beat you with the "thats wrong fluff" stick is the majority of info the 40k universe is 100s to 1000s of year old legends. Its very mutable, and except for us players outside of it who read the direct dexs and such. Rarely is anything a proven fact since so much is based on superstition and the Inquisition keeps most knowledge under lock and key.

im back... after a year... and i like what you're all saying.

Here's what i was thinking - when the primarch of my chapter was disavowed and cast as a traitor and heretic - his entire chapter was destroyed.
The loyal Chapter Master, heartbroken, fled and found some place to brood... said place was on top of an ancient necron structure... necci's started to reactivate and he sent a good lot of them to their end, in a final desperate gambit to stop the necci's from taking over, he along with a few of his loyal supporters (incl. a tech priest) used necci-tech (similar to the powerful hakki-sak) to prolong their lives... so as to preserve the memory of their primarch and his unjust execution - and to take final revenge on those responsible...

my story goes as follows:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/CommunityForums/tabid/56/forumid/9/postid/100493/view/topic/Default.aspx
http://www.dakkadakka.com/CommunityForums/tabid/56/forumid/9/tpage/1/view/Topic/postid/98900/Default.aspx

If you're inventing a new legion and Primarch out of whole cloth, the implausibility of an SM living for ten millenia is the least of your fluff worries.

Codex: Blood Angels has this to say-
Physically, the Blood Angels are among the longest lived of all Space Marines. One ofthe peculiarities of the Flaw is that it vastly increases the lifespan of those who survive. Thus, it is not uncommon for Blood Angels to live for a thousand years. Indeed, the current Commander of the Chapter, Dante, was born nearly 1,100 years ago.

So it seems they aren't immortal. If you want immortality, turn to chaos, particularly Nurgle.
* beckons with a fiendish grin*

Marines can certainly live an extreeeeemely long time, with the aformentioned use of life support / dreads etc. they can last indefinately if not blown up.

a good case for really long lifespans is centuries of warp travel between warzones - the time dilation means the marines can carry on butt-whoopin' for aeons, similar to Col. Scaeffer.

No Primarch died of old age. However Vulcan was still around about 1000 years after the Horus Heresy and before he disappeared or was killed like the other Primarchs.
Marine aren't definitely immortal, because they all die in battle and few reach extremely old age (1000+ years).
Hope I could help.