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So in listening to the entire Gaunt's Ghosts series, I keep asking myself the same question over and over.

What is the point of the Guard fighting when a trio of Astartes could end the battle in under 1 hour?

It's point and case in Warmaster. If the BBEG is on the planet, leading the assault, why commit 12-20 Lord Generals worth of Regiments to hold him on Urdesh, when a single squad of Astartes could do a single planet strike, and kill him in a single strike?

It's the Avenger's dilema? How am I supposed to be taking any villian in the individual Super hero movies, when the Avengers are literally just idling around? Why should I be afraid of the Iron Man or Spider man villian, when Thor could easily end the treat in 10-15 seconds? How powerful is Ironman? Who cares when Captain Marvel can literally punch through planets? How Fast is the Flash? Who cares, Superman can throw planets.

How am I supposed to take these battles in the gaunt books seriously, when a trio of random Astartes, A Snake of ithaca, a White Scar, and third guy, literally broke the home base of the BBEG in a single day? Salvations Reach wasn't ever in any real peril if 3 Astartes can singularly stop 90% of the threats on it just by showing up.

Oh no, the enemy has secretly snuck into palace to kill the Warmaster? Astartes.

Why does Gaunt keep getting thrown into Crusade level treats like Salvations reach, which was a high enough threat mission, that the Inquisitor reviewing it after didn't have appropriate clearance? If it's THAT important, shouldn't it have been an Astartes level threat? If the entire CRUSADE could have ended by killing Urlak Gour, then why hasn't he been killed by the Astartes?

I don't know why I keep trying to read these books. Also, I want a book where Blenner and Cain share a drink and stumble over each other's cowardice.

Are you having a giraffe?

Cutting the head off the serpent, and so largely breaking the morale of the foe is absolutely the job of the Astartes. Everything about them is the very definition of Shock and Awe.

But they’re incredibly, stupendously rare.

The Guard? If you attempt to take an Imperial World? Some form or other of the Guard stand ready to oppose you, to wildly varying degrees of competence.

But, by its mere existence and sheer, mind boggling ‘my brain can’t properly comprehend’ numbers? Anyone. Literally anyone wanting to deal a dolorous blow to The Imperium needs to do multiple.

Man in the setting is a curious mix of the other species. The limitless number of the Ork, the organisation of the Eldar and so on, without being expert in any.

Astartes are the primary strike. The lads that get a job done and tend to keep it done in the short to mid term.

The sheer, unrelenting “we outnumber and out gun you by a significant margin” approach of the Guard bury all future possible resistance for generations. On account unlike the Astartes? They’re just men and women with relatively basic equipment and a whole poo load of resolve.

Also depending on how high one sets the number for a Hive world (technically it should be 100s of Billions but some worlds with less population are called hive worlds) I heard one gets to an imperial population in the ballpark of the lower Pentillions (is this a word?) so something like 4.000.000.000.000.000.000 (note that earth alone has several Quadrillion). Assuming that about 1% are under arms and another 1% of those get drafted into the Guard during each tithe those would be 400.000.000.000.000 Guardsmen recruited EACH TITHE.

The whole Sabbat Worlds Crussade had 1 Billion guardsman, so roughly 0.00025% of a tithe, much less of the whole guard.

3 Marines of the 1.000.000 officially in existence = 0.0003%

So the simple answer is: 1 Billion Guardsmen are a cheaper and more sustainable ressource than 3 Space Marines.

There are (roughly) a thousand chapters of (roughly) a thousand marines each

That's it.

One Million Marines

For the entire milky way galaxy

Even saying there's one marine for every world in the imperium would be a bit of a stretch. Most planets will never see a space marine. Some might tell tales of that one time generations ago some angels from the sky appeared to fight off a horde of Orks.

For every other conflict, there are the guard. An endless tide of men and women willing to lay down their lives to defend the Imperium from threats. there are more guardsmen in some regiments than there are space marines in existence.

So yes, three Space marines can probably pacify a whole planet, but you know what? sometimes you don't have access to three marines, but you do have access to ten thousand guardsmen, so that's what you get.

Space marines are the big genetically engineered superhumans wearing tank armour and firing small rockets, people like them, they're popular
So books about them are popular
So they show up in a lot of stories

but the number of stories they appear in is in no way proportional to the amount of times they will actually show up in a conflict.
You can't police a planet with just three guys, you can't defend the Imperium with just a million

Also, Marines aren't THAT much better than any given Guard.

Ten Marines with Bolters is at least a dozen times better than ten Guard with Lasguns.
But are they better than two or three tanks? They can certainly operate in areas tanks would struggle with, yeah, but in terms of raw firepower, I'll tank the tanks.

Marines are a scalpel-and they're a good scalpel! But when you need a hammer, a scalpel won't do.

I also think the bigger problem with novels were the big bad guy is "somewhere on the planet": If they find out where he is, can the evil guys really guarantee that not a single Navy ship can break through and fire a lance at the place just vaporizing everything there? Space is huge and even simple destroyers should pack enough punch to turn a fortification into rubble.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Also, Marines aren't THAT much better than any given Guard.

Ten Marines with Bolters is at least a dozen times better than ten Guard with Lasguns.
But are they better than two or three tanks? They can certainly operate in areas tanks would struggle with, yeah, but in terms of raw firepower, I'll tank the tanks.

Marines are a scalpel-and they're a good scalpel! But when you need a hammer, a scalpel won't do.

Here I’m absolutely going to disagree. Background wise? In terms of relentless, near as dammit invincible foes? A single Astartes somewhat exceeds a T-800.

Never mind every single standard issue weapon is a weapon of terror? You can blast an arm off an Astartes, and barely dent his combat effectiveness.

But for all those vaunted, near as dammit to most of the Galaxy invincible warriors? You have thousands, ten of thousands if not hundreds of thousands pretty regular Joes holding you off. And doing such a magnificent job of it, a mere million Astartes can still be the deciding factor in certain theatres of war.

That they’re Just Human is the true heroism of the setting. They’re you or me (much less better fed and educated) given for all military intents and purposes a miracle weapon of killing and logistics, against the Galaxy.

Once again Fezz you show a remarkable lack of reading comprehension.

Did you completely miss the bit where the book says how rare it is for one Astartes to be present for a given mission let alone three?

I have concluded the power of Astartes is greatly exaggerated. My head canon is that in the books we read and the stories we hear; the Astartes are hyped up for propaganda. The stories of Astartes being heroic and taking on a whole planet with a squad of guys are usually told by the Imperium's standpoint. I have read many stories of a regular single dude killing an Astarte...

They are good, and better by the average human, but they aren't that good. Most of Imperial citizens will never see an Astarte so they are riddled with superstition and awe.

Because of this, the Imperium needs its regular army guys. They are good. They are trained better and use superior tactics than one would imagine. So they are usually the backbone of the Imperium's military. They keep the monsters at bay.

Another point to consider is the size of a planet, or even just one battlefield on a planet. They are big.


A handful of Space Marines can destroy powerful targets and take on armies, but only if those armies are funnelled into a chokepoint like how the famous 300 Spartans held off a whole army.

If instead you've got a huge battlefield with long front lines, you are going to need way more troops to secure that. Otherwise a smart commander would just run around and away from the Marines.



Then you've occupation and defence. You can't just destroy and army and that's it, you've got to secure and manage key infrastructure points; manage the remaining population; protect key points and more. Long term you also have to defend huge areas.


The guard are essential for so much of the war machine to function.

As said above the Space Marines are a surgical tool. They are fantastic at what they do, but they have their limits and where those limits are is where the guard steps in.



Not to mention, again as noted above, many worlds and wars will never see a Space Marine. We see them a lot in stories and on the table; but in the reality of the setting just seeing a Marine would be an amazing thing for most people; let alone seeing a company of them in battle.

Its because there are simply not enough super soldiers to do the job. The Avengers solution is that the other heroes are doing other stuff. Dealing with other enemies.

There are only ~1 million space marines. If we assume say 10% are involved in chapter sized operations, 20% are in company sized groups, and the rest are doing 10 man squad deployments, this would mean a distribution roughly like the following, 100 deployments involving 1000 Space Marines. 2000 deployments involving 100 Space Marines. 70,000 deployments of 10 man squads

The Imperium consists of "a million worlds" give or take. Lets assume that a mere 30% have an active conflict brewing. 300,000 potential warzones to deploy to.

Then we also realize that not all of the Imperium's wars are taking place on Imperial owned planets from that total. Lets be generous and say that its the same number where the Imperium is on the offense.

600,000 warzones of varying sizes. Only 72,100 Astartes deployments, so less than 1/6 of conflict zones can have Space Marines even if you randomly assigned them without regard for importance. Sure, you could get more deployments if you only sent 1-5 marines, but at that point is it really worth it?

And to make it even worse, you don't have perfect information. You're not going to know ahead of time if you're going to need Marines most of the time. They've got a hundred other problems to deal with, so unless you know you need them you send in the Guard first.


TL: DR. You need regular human soldiers to just hold the line or fight the slightly less important battles. Fortunately, the Imperium has the most important resource in practically infinite amounts. Manpower. So the only limiting factor is how much equipment you can crank out and how many ships you can make to carry them to conflict zones.

Guarding the Warmaster? Marines are too valuable to be wasted on guard duty. Just have a few thousand guardsmen do it. Its useful as a reward incentive or just something for troops on rotation to do. The Marines need to be out there hot dropping onto important stuff, after all there is so much to blow up and not enough marines.

This also presumes 100% efficiency in Marine distribution. This is unlikely. Some chapters might be in an area where its relatively quiet, so they're dropping into warzones where their presence is overkill much of the time because better to deal with the war on this planet than the huge war that is 2 sectors and a 3 year warp jump away. Meanwhile the chapter in that other sector is stretched so thin they can't cover everything properly.

I realize that above when I roughly estimated the size of a Tithe I was of by one dezimal point as 10%, not 1% of a PDF are drafted. So the 1 Billion Guardsmen are approximatly 0.000025% of a common Guard Tithe, so 12x less investment for the Imperium than 3 Space Marines. And on Top of that not all of those 1 billion Guardsmen in the Sabbat Worlds Crussade were on Salvations Reach.


Regarding Space Marines Power: I do believe they are excellent for high value missions, especially due to... how should I put it... logistic and area reasons? Lets say a heavily fortified command bunker behind enemy lines, maned by a 1000 elite soldiers has to be stormed. Dropping 10-20 Space Marines with Equipment back there seems more doable than the 10.000-20.000 Guardsmen you would at least need to storm that, especially since the later need some heavier equipment to fully function. And inside the bunker the 10-20 Marines can reasonably all be put in action, while all those Guardsmen are clogging the tunnels and maybe 100 can engage the enemy at any given time.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its because there are simply not enough super soldiers to do the job. The Avengers solution is that the other heroes are doing other stuff. Dealing with other enemies.

There are only ~1 million space marines. If we assume say 10% are involved in chapter sized operations, 20% are in company sized groups, and the rest are doing 10 man squad deployments, this would mean a distribution roughly like the following, 100 deployments involving 1000 Space Marines. 2000 deployments involving 100 Space Marines. 70,000 deployments of 10 man squads

The Imperium consists of "a million worlds" give or take. Lets assume that a mere 30% have an active conflict brewing. 300,000 potential warzones to deploy to.

Then we also realize that not all of the Imperium's wars are taking place on Imperial owned planets from that total. Lets be generous and say that its the same number where the Imperium is on the offense.

600,000 warzones of varying sizes. Only 72,100 Astartes deployments, so less than 1/6 of conflict zones can have Space Marines even if you randomly assigned them without regard for importance. Sure, you could get more deployments if you only sent 1-5 marines, but at that point is it really worth it?

And to make it even worse, you don't have perfect information. You're not going to know ahead of time if you're going to need Marines most of the time. They've got a hundred other problems to deal with, so unless you know you need them you send in the Guard first.


TL: DR. You need regular human soldiers to just hold the line or fight the slightly less important battles. Fortunately, the Imperium has the most important resource in practically infinite amounts. Manpower. So the only limiting factor is how much equipment you can crank out and how many ships you can make to carry them to conflict zones.

Guarding the Warmaster? Marines are too valuable to be wasted on guard duty. Just have a few thousand guardsmen do it. Its useful as a reward incentive or just something for troops on rotation to do. The Marines need to be out there hot dropping onto important stuff, after all there is so much to blow up and not enough marines.

This also presumes 100% efficiency in Marine distribution. This is unlikely. Some chapters might be in an area where its relatively quiet, so they're dropping into warzones where their presence is overkill much of the time because better to deal with the war on this planet than the huge war that is 2 sectors and a 3 year warp jump away. Meanwhile the chapter in that other sector is stretched so thin they can't cover everything properly.

Further to this, due to the time pressures on Marines they often don't hang around for an entire conflict, but instead carry out a key mission to enable the Guardsmen to win easier then jump off to the next crisis point to do the same there.

Ultimately, Marines don't have the numbers to hold ground without support from other troops or automated defenses. Therefore they will always be a supplement to those lesser forces who actually keep control of things.

Yup. Marines are massive force multipliers. Against Orks? Marines have the skill, power and deployment ability to jump the Warboss and his cronies, taking them out.

That does short term damage to the cohesion of a Waaagh!, but sooner or later the Orks can and will sort out their new pecking order.

That is where the Guard comes in. Once the Marines have shattered Orky cohesion, it’s the Guard that keep grinding the remainder down into ever smaller and more manageable chunks.

But the Guard don’t need the Astartes. At all. Sure having a strike force turn up to help massively reduces the time of a given war, but the Guard are still perfectly capable of grinding down any foe.

I think the Guard 100% need the marines.

The ability to hold a line or grind down a foe is good, but when you've nothing that can actually take out the Warboss save using bio-bombs and obliterating the world; then you've got problems.

The Guard need the elite power of the Marines and its no surprise that every expansion of the Imperium has come with a big wave of Marines leading the way.

The guard are not weak, but they lack the shock-awe and ability to really hit hard that Marines bring to the battlefield.
Especially when their enemies start unleashing their elite leaders and units.

Every expansion of the imperium has had Marines in the vanguard, because GW like to have marines in the vanguard of such events and writes it that way.

I agree with MDG that the Guard don’t absolutely need Marines. They are a useful tool in general and provide a uniquely concentrated combat capability. However, there are multiple ways to skin a xenos or heretic.

You could use a Marine strike team. Or a division of artillery, or a Deathstrike missile. Not much gets up again after any one of those.

Then the question becomes, well does the force in question actually have any of those resources? What Marines do can also be replicated by other Guard special forces such as scions, stormtroopers, ogryns, drop troops. Just not with so few bodies and with such a messy outcome.

 Overread wrote:


The guard are not weak, but they lack the shock-awe and ability to really hit hard that Marines bring to the battlefield.
Especially when their enemies start unleashing their elite leaders and units.

I mean... they have at least billions, more likely trillions of tanks. They definitly have more Leman Russ Tanks then Marines BY FAR. I wouldn't even be surprised if the Guard had more Baneblades then there are Marines. I don't know if they have, but looking at the sheer monstrosity of the Guard any mention of "rarity" of Baneblades could still very well mean there are millions of those things.

Marines are great, but do they really bring more "hitting hard" power then a Vendetta-Valkyrie? More then a whole Squad of Leman Russ Executionors with Plasmasponsons? More then a freaking Basilisk Battalion? I very much doubt it. They lack the "scalpell" ability the Marines excell at, but in my opinion the sheer stupid amount of firepower the Guard can throw up does make a lot of shock and awe. And we haven't even tapped into what the Navy can pull of.

Marines aren't really Shock and Awe, they are surgical strike. Not to say the Guard don't have that too, they have Stormtroopers. And marines can do Shock and Awe in large numbers, but its not really their main purpose. That is only for targets you need massive overkill on.

The niche for marines is uber elite surgical strike/rapid reaction forces. They live for hundreds of years so they will accumulate valuable experience in each single soldier. They have the ability to deploy in areas and manners which a normal human cannot. And since Marines act independently, they can avoid the red tape that the Imperial Guard is forced to deal with.

So while the guard has troops that do the same job as marines, marines can do the job better or in situations where the guard version cannot. A target might be in a well defended fortress with a lot of AA cover that prevents a storm trooper regiment from dropping in via grav chute or Valk landing. But marines can go in with drop pods that can't be shot down nearly as easily, disable the AA, then cause chaos while waiting for the stormtroopers to arrive.

Maybe there is an ork waaagh which has recently formed, but it will be some months before the Guard arrives in the area to contain it. A few squads of marines are sent to decapitate the warboss in a rapid strike and then leave. If they are lucky, this will entirely break the waaaagh apart as they fight each other to the death. But even if the ork infighting doesn't last long, they'll still buy enough time for the Guard to arrive and fight the weakened ork forces.

While marines can do frontal assaults and attritional fighting, it is a waste of their talents and negates a lot of their advantages. So the Guard is still absolutely necessary to fight those kind of fights.

The other thing is that the Guard has to negotiate with the Navy if they want to move anything to a different rock in space, or prevent enemy ships dominating the rock they are on. Marines generally do not.

So Guard don't really need Marines in a strict sense, but they do need fleet assets that they can never control. Marines are one source of said assets.

Also, whilst Guard can, eventually, defeat any enemy with enough corpses and materiel, in practice the Guard is always stretched too thin and needs the force mutiplier of other factions like Marines to unlock easier strategies.

The takeaway here of course is that when its various armed forces are acting in concert, The Imperium is a truly fearsome foe to take on.

From the numberless hordes of the Imperial Guard to the “10 of us will make a helluva difference” Astartes, via Skitarii, Sisters, the Navy, Knights and Titan Legions, no matter where your combat expertise and preference lies, the Imperium will outdo you in the other areas, and then some. As a coalition engagement, you’re simply faced with too many specialisms to really stand a chance.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The takeaway here of course is that when its various armed forces are acting in concert, The Imperium is a truly fearsome foe to take on.

From the numberless hordes of the Imperial Guard to the “10 of us will make a helluva difference” Astartes, via Skitarii, Sisters, the Navy, Knights and Titan Legions, no matter where your combat expertise and preference lies, the Imperium will outdo you in the other areas, and then some. As a coalition engagement, you’re simply faced with too many specialisms to really stand a chance.

Funnily enough, well demonstrated by 7th edition Imperial Soup lists...

So, on Urdesh, there is the Crusade Warmaster, and between 10-20 Lords Militant. They can't get the Navy to fire one Lance strike into the enemy base? I might also add that the Ithaca Snake Astartes clearly states that a contingent of his brothers are on planet currently, fighting. Same with the White Scar. So it's not out of the question to assume there are at least 2-4 squads, if not a "platoon" of Astartes currently on planetside, fighting for Urdesh against the Sons of Sek.

Your telling me the super tactical geniuses of the Astartes didn't think to shock and awe the leader of the invasion force? It took MKoll and Gaunt to sus out the entire enemy strategy?

I get the Astartes fluff is wildly inconsistent. But one thing that isn't is they're ability to shift battles with just their base gear. they possess the ability to both decapitate an enemy force, and control the friendly forces. Which means, they can order to navy to start blastin. The navy can't tell the Astartes "No".

Hell, Titan Legions are just able to argue with them, but still have to follow their lead.

We're supposed to believe Makaroth (Dottery old fool) and countless Lords Militant are just able to foolishly lead the crusade while there is Astartes involved? Nope, they'd take over and fix it.

Makaroth would have been removed, long before the "council" decided to go rogue, and try to usurp him.

If they are as valuable as everyone always argues, then they surely wouldn't have committed three random marines, because of a "favor" to Gaunt.

1) Can your ships get to an orbital position to do that safely? Ships need to get fairly close to the planet's surface to conduct bombardments and they would be vulnerable to any planetary defense installations while doing that.

You could easily have naval superiority but be unable to conduct bombardments due to ground based defenses in key areas. On the other hand, dropping a strike force in and then retreating is far safer.

2) You don't always know where the enemy leadership is. And if you do, someone is going to discover it. Might as well be the main character of the book you are writing.

3) Astartes will leave the command of the overall war to the anointed Imperial generals and nobility generally speaking unless they are asked or they are extremely influential individuals. It is a waste of a marine's time to be up commanding the logistical side of things.

4) Gaunt is himself a very important person. He is famous and he is the commanding officer of an entire regiment. Sending 3 random marines is about what we could expect of a personal favor involving marines.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
[...] The navy can't tell the Astartes "No".

Hell, Titan Legions are just able to argue with them, but still have to follow their lead.

That is... new to me. Since when do the Astartes, let alone single Astartes that are not Chaptermasters have the authority to command around the Navy or Titan Legions? That would make the whole "split them into chapters so they don't get too powerful" thing pretty pointless, wouldn't it?

Lots of stuff going on in this one, so apologies for the muti-quote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, on Urdesh, there is the Crusade Warmaster, and between 10-20 Lords Militant. They can't get the Navy to fire one Lance strike into the enemy base? I might also add that the Ithaca Snake Astartes clearly states that a contingent of his brothers are on planet currently, fighting. Same with the White Scar. So it's not out of the question to assume there are at least 2-4 squads, if not a "platoon" of Astartes currently on planetside, fighting for Urdesh against the Sons of Sek.

Noted. I haven't read the book, but the fluff has lots of examples of why lance strikes aren't used to take out high value targets. Shields, hostages, useful infrastructure, weird relics that may not take kindly to being kaboomed, etc.

Your telling me the super tactical geniuses of the Astartes didn't think to shock and awe the leader of the invasion force? It took MKoll and Gaunt to sus out the entire enemy strategy?

This is fiction. Whatever happened comes from the author's mind. In this case, it appears that, yes, it required MKoll and Gaunt to figure it out. Given this is fiction its possible to hand wave an infinite number of excuses as to why this is the case, but it can be boiled down to "because the plot requires it".

I get the Astartes fluff is wildly inconsistent. But one thing that isn't is they're ability to shift battles with just their base gear. they possess the ability to both decapitate an enemy force, and control the friendly forces. Which means, they can order to navy to start blastin. The navy can't tell the Astartes "No".

Pretty sure the Imperial Nave can tell Marines "no". They are not in the same chain of command. Strategic or tactical advice, or fire-support requests, from a senior Marine is likely to be taken extremely seriously by any naval commander, but I don't think they are required to provide that support. Enter inter-service politics into the fray! Indeed, its conceivable that if the Marines are operating without full coordination that following their requests could be considered breach of current standing orders, and the commander could be executed out of hand by a local Commissar.

Hell, Titan Legions are just able to argue with them, but still have to follow their lead.

Pretty sure this is not the case. ADmech are barely part of the Imperium, let alone beholden to orders from a small sub-set of the Imperial armed forces.

We're supposed to believe Makaroth (Dottery old fool) and countless Lords Militant are just able to foolishly lead the crusade while there is Astartes involved? Nope, they'd take over and fix it.

Makaroth would have been removed, long before the "council" decided to go rogue, and try to usurp him.

This is pure politics. Astartes are not authorised to take control of whole crusades out of hand. This kind of behaviour could lead to Inquisitorial intervention and annihilation of the Chapter for heresy against the duly appointed commander of the God Emperor's crusade forces. This is even more important in crusades that by definition have a religious aspect to them.

If they are as valuable as everyone always argues, then they surely wouldn't have committed three random marines, because of a "favor" to Gaunt.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, on Urdesh, there is the Crusade Warmaster, and between 10-20 Lords Militant. They can't get the Navy to fire one Lance strike into the enemy base? I might also add that the Ithaca Snake Astartes clearly states that a contingent of his brothers are on planet currently, fighting. Same with the White Scar. So it's not out of the question to assume there are at least 2-4 squads, if not a "platoon" of Astartes currently on planetside, fighting for Urdesh against the Sons of Sek.

The base they don't have info on and don't know where it is? Yes makes perfect sense to randomly glass parts of a very important Forge World.
Also, the Snakes were looking for Sek but funnily enough Sek was in hiding and all the fighting in the world couldn't find him.

Your telling me the super tactical geniuses of the Astartes didn't think to shock and awe the leader of the invasion force? It took MKoll and Gaunt to sus out the entire enemy strategy?

They didn't know where Sek was. You can't kill something if you don't know where it is.
Sek only got found and killed because Mkoll got captured.

I get the Astartes fluff is wildly inconsistent. But one thing that isn't is they're ability to shift battles with just their base gear. they possess the ability to both decapitate an enemy force, and control the friendly forces. Which means, they can order to navy to start blastin. The navy can't tell the Astartes "No".

Nope, objectively incorrect. Astartes forces cannot assume command of any local forces that's how Horus did a Heresy and is a big No-No.

Hell, Titan Legions are just able to argue with them, but still have to follow their lead.

Also no. You are using Helsreach as your baseline and that was an exceptional circumstance where Astartes command was agreed upon by the entire Armageddon command echelon.

We're supposed to believe Makaroth (Dottery old fool) and countless Lords Militant are just able to foolishly lead the crusade while there is Astartes involved? Nope, they'd take over and fix it.

Makaroth would have been removed, long before the "council" decided to go rogue, and try to usurp him.

Nope. Once again, Horus Heresy. Space Marines don't do that or they get died. Macaroth was also very aware of what he was doing as the book very very clearly explains.

If they are as valuable as everyone always argues, then they surely wouldn't have committed three random marines, because of a "favor" to Gaunt.

Wasn't a favour to Gaunt. It was a high value mission and came as a direct request from Macaroth himself for their aid.

Fezz, please take some time and actually read these books because you clearly aren't understanding them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
That is... new to me. Since when do the Astartes, let alone single Astartes that are not Chaptermasters have the authority to command around the Navy or Titan Legions? That would make the whole "split them into chapters so they don't get too powerful" thing pretty pointless, wouldn't it?

They don't, Fezz is incapable of reading the books and understanding them.

 Pyroalchi wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
[...] The navy can't tell the Astartes "No".

Hell, Titan Legions are just able to argue with them, but still have to follow their lead.

That is... new to me. Since when do the Astartes, let alone single Astartes that are not Chaptermasters have the authority to command around the Navy or Titan Legions? That would make the whole "split them into chapters so they don't get too powerful" thing pretty pointless, wouldn't it?

They don’t.

The Astartes stand apart from the general chain of command. Whilst it seems unlikely any Captain or Admiral would deny a Chapter’s request, they’re still completely free to do so. Why unlikely? Bragging rights, and general awe that His Angels asked you for assistance.

In an ongoing campaign, an Astartes leader will be able to catch up on reports and debriefings etc - but still has to acknowledge the Commanders of the other forces know their capabilities best. Yes they’ll overrule any incompetent commanders, no problem there. But when it comes to say, Valhallans fighting on an Ice World? You pay heed to their skills and abilities, because that’s where they truly excel. They’ve no particular right to just take overall command.

What I think you’re likely to see is a formal meeting where the Leader of the available Astartes decides where his Marines can have the most impact. And that may include telling or persuading the Guard Command how best to support that effort. But if in turn it’s pointed out “well, we can do better, because we have expertise in this or that terrain”, then that would be taken on board during the planning.

Collaboration, that’s the key to lasting success,

Another Fezzik "banger". The Navy can't just simply lance strike every HQ unopposed and call it a day, even if they have the intelligence or if the HQ isn't hardened against orbital strike. That's not how war works.

Just pondering this a bit more.

The Guard, being the bulwark force are also an exceptional source of intel for Astartes. Because the Guard are so numerous, and their planetary deployments typically pretty widespread, their contacts with the enemy can provide a wealth of information, from which the Astartes can pinpoint, extrapolate or least discount locations of maximum impact.

This is particularly important against foes like Cults and Orks, where taking out the hierarchy pays dividends. But first? You gotta find them High Heedyins. After all, it’s all fine and well being able to teleport in a bunch of Terminators - but you still need at least a rough idea of where to teleport to. It’s all fine and well being a scalpel, but if you’re just stabbing wildly with said precision tool, you’re not gonna get terribly far.

And as I said earlier, I think in this thread? For the most part, the Guard are more than enough to give even the most fearsome of foes a proper kicking. And for the majority of Imperial Worlds, the PDF and SDF (System Defence Fleet) are numerous enough to keep away opportunistic invaders. If this wasn’t the case, The Imperium simply would not exist.

Whatever. The entire series is an example of how stupidly inefficient the entire Imperial Guard is, from the bottom to the top. The entire crusade is just basically a dotty old man who's gone insane, playing with his toys. And at no point does the Inquisition, or the Astartes, which know this to be the case, intervene. It's an extremely dumb end to the entire series, which I thought was leading....somewhere. But nope. Just this whole time, it's been a pointless stupid trip. Thank god Dodden was dead and didn't have to see this.