<![CDATA[Latest posts for the thread "Astartes vs scions/sisters training"]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/31.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net Astartes vs scions/sisters training
Can anyone provide proof of this (I have been unable to)? ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255479.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255479.page GMT Astartes vs scions/sisters training http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255505.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255505.page GMT Astartes vs scions/sisters training The Astartes undergo far more training, taking decades before they get to join as a full battle brother.

Sisters and Scions, while certainly well trained, are mortal, their training takes years, but they only have so long to live, can't train them for decades, or you'd waste soliders. They're likely all in the 20-40 year old range for peak performance, since they get inducted at young ages...is that they get somewhere around a decade of training.

So, they're probably better trained than scouts/neophytes. But Adeptus Astartes (Full Battle Brothers) outstrip them by a mile.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255590.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255590.page GMT Re:Astartes vs scions/sisters training http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255597.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255597.page GMT Astartes vs scions/sisters training
 iGuy91 wrote:
I'd love to see the source on that assertion.
The Astartes undergo far more training, taking decades before they get to join as a full battle brother.

Sisters and Scions, while certainly well trained, are mortal, their training takes years, but they only have so long to live, can't train them for decades, or you'd waste soliders. They're likely all in the 20-40 year old range for peak performance, since they get inducted at young ages...is that they get somewhere around a decade of training.

So, they're probably better trained than scouts/neophytes. But Adeptus Astartes (Full Battle Brothers) outstrip them by a mile.


Agreed - they will begin intensive weapons and other training as young children - think Martial arts monastries.

Marines start later but they do have (IIRC) implants that allow them to quikcly absorb training added to thier other advantaages so i would think they begin less trained but will catch up and surpass by the time they are ready to join the Chapter as a Battle Brother.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255598.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255598.page GMT Astartes vs scions/sisters training

Don't get me wrong, I think that SOB and Scions are a vital part of the imperial bulwark, and I think that Astartes could learn a lot from the SOB about *ahem* not falling to Chaos. Depending on the chapter, SOB and (especially) scions could even be better soldiers, but as warriors the Astartes leave them in the dust, enhancements or no.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255609.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255609.page GMT Astartes vs scions/sisters training
 Danielle Rae wrote:
In-lore, marines are often depicted as able to take whole squads by themselves;


And this is where you need to remember that the lore is a bunch of over blown propaganda written by people who think space marines are demigods. Be it in the in-universe justification or actual representation of the authors beliefs.

Space marines are not that good, they just focus on overwhelming fast response. In a equal fight space marines are not inherently amazing.

That said, yeah, no, they are certainly trained more intensely than Scions or Sisters, and I like both of those. Sisters spend plenty of time on faith, Scions are still human solders, Space Marines are transhuman monstrosities in power armor who live for nothing but the next war. They're damned good at what they do, but they're no demi-gods.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255622.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/767769/10255622.page GMT Re:Astartes vs scions/sisters training OP, it will be a repeat since I sent him a pm a while ago with pretty much the same arguments (sorry if I have bothered you btw, I took a chance). I based my arguments on what I know about Space Marine training from their 3rd, 4th and 5th edition codex. For the Scions and Commissars, I based it on the Militarum Tempestus Codex of the 6th edition (the only one ever produced) that expanded and changed a good portion of the lore surrounding their training and its nature making some BL characters, most obvious being Gaunt and Cain, backstory kind off none canon or, at least atypical, For the Sisters, I used the new information of Militarum Tempestus where they are mentioned a few times and the 3rd edition Witch Hunter codex, being basically the prime source on Sister fluff considering the 6th edition codex didn't bring anything new or different (it had less lore). Now I have to note that nowhere in any of these codex does it state that Space Marines are less well trained than Scions or Sisters. All those codexes say they are the most well trained or amongst the most well trained warriors of humanity. This is purely my opinion based on their fluff, some basic math and logical deduction.

Space Marine usually recruit boys from a single planet (their Chapter World) which is most often a feudal or feral world thus with a low population and in which the vast majority of the population lives of farming, hunting and foraging. They have no access to steady supplies of high quality food, no efficient medicine and no knowledge of modern ways of life and warfare. Since they recruit only boys, half of their planet population is already impossible to select and its feminine talents unexploited by the Chapter. Those boys are at the eve of puberty and were never educated to become Space Marine in the first place. They can be anyone really. They might even have been selected completely at random and they are very unskilled in pretty much any task let alone combat at the age of 10-13. Even in warrior cultures, they would have started their training proper pretty much at the moment they were whisked away by the Space Marines. Finally, a good portion of those untrained or barely trained boys, no matter their talent will never become Space Marine as the process isn’t prefect, some will be incompatible with the geneseed and that’s not counting the ridiculous pre-selection ritual like bataille royale that aspirant might be submitted to that don’t prove much. That seems very bleak, but again, Space Marines are built as much as they are trained. Geneseed will make you immensely strong no matter what. A whelp can be turned into a giant with geneseed. A clever mind is more important for a Space Marine aspirant than anything else because of that. Scions and Sisters on their side are recruited from murderous and incredibly ruthless military academy they entered between the age of 6 to 12 as orphaned of nobles and heroes and, in some case, children of still living heroes and nobles. They come from all the worlds of the Imperium beside Chapter Worlds, from feudal world to hive world passing by well developed civilised planet and fortress world. Even if they are only orphaned noble children or requisitioned noble children, that represents billions upon billions of people. They are mind wiped then trained and raised there to become absolutely loyal servants of the Imperium and expert killers for about 6 to 8 years and only the very best girls will become Sisters and the rest, the very best boys and the rest of the best girls will become Scions or Commissars. Those, still good, but not quite as much, will become Arbites. While those who have shown little talent for war, but more for intellectual pursuits will become priests, missionaries, non-combatant Sisters like hospitaliers, sages, magos, etc. For those late teenagers, training isn’t over yet. In fact, they still have a few years of it ahead of them as from raw recruits they are transformed in proper Scions, Sisters, etc. That training is very different between Sisters and Scions. The later are trained for a few years in a special academy where they will focus on becoming shock and stealth units. The former will become warrior-mystiques who consider war a prayer; combat, sacred and life a penance. Since it produces soldiers meant to be in different position and with different battlefield roles, it can be hard to compare them meticulously. But what seems evident to me, it that the Sister and Scion recruitment system is simply better then the Space Marine one. It wastes less talents, doesn’t have an arbitrary barrier on which no one can do anything like geneseed compatibility, both have a limit on their recruitment pool (Chapter World vs Scholam) and it actually foster and develop talents in addition to discriminate the best from the rest.


Space Marines are very well trained in combat and their psychological indoctrination is impressive, but it doesn't reach the level of Scions and even less Sisters, but it doesn't need too. Space Marines aren't trained as much as they are built, their bodies are such that training to the level of Sisters and Scions would largely be superfluous. A Sister and a Scion need to spend hours to master their bodies, develop their strength, their endurance, their agility, their speed and their senses through intense physical conditioning. Space Marines are injected with cocktails of hormones and stimulants that build those muscles and endurance. A Space Marine who doesn't train doesn't lose muscle mass or become fat or lose in flexibility; a human does. A Space Marine eye operate like a complex targeting device; learning how to shoot with such an eye is so much easier than without. A Space Marine body is so powerful and fast that in close combat they can triumph through raw power and no skill more often then not. Who needs to learn complex pass of weapons and feints or how to deflect when you can just smack most of your opponents aside like children because you are that much stronger than them. How do you become good at using complex pass of weapons and feints when you can so little chance to actually practice them in a real encounter? To make things “worse” those whom Space Marine can’t overpower, like an Ork or a Necron for example, are frequently much slower and thus about just as vulnerable to simple techniques. Finesse is optional to Space Marine success over its foes on most occasion, for Scions and Sisters, it's the exact opposite.

Scions and Sisters or their side, must fight against alien and monsters who are all at least as performant then them physically and most of them actually surpass them easily. They need to fight monstrous Nobz, orks, Necrons, eldars, Kroots and Tyranids, daemons and Space Marines all of which surpass even exceptional athletes like them in pure physical performances and they, unlike soldiers of the Imperial Guard, can’t simply drown them in number for they aren’t that numerous to begin with, neither can the Imperium afford to waste them like so as their equipment is rare and valuable. To defeat them with equal numbers and often less, they need to possess a level of skill and mastery far more sophisticated than that of a newly minted Space Marine. To be performant, even at an elite level, a Space Marine only need a good quality military training. To be performant at a comparable level, a Scion and a Sister needs to be a master in combat from the get go. They don’t have raw power as a crutch if things go bad. That’s why Astartes training is shorter. That’s why it last only about 6 to 8 years, including Scout training, while that of Sisters and Scions last closer to 10-12 years even before their first deployment. Scions and Sisters are human in bodies, but they are stripped of everything else. Their memories are wiped, their spirit crushed by training and war, indoctrinated in a warrior-cult. For a Scions nothing matters but orders, the rest is accessory. For a Sister, nothing matters but faith. Many suffer permanent brain damage due to the special food there are fed in combat zones to keep them going without rests for days or by the mind wiping drugs or by the training and reality of war itself. They are permanently missadapted to anything else, but what they do.

There is no doubt in the fluff that Sisters and Space Marine can fight shoulder to shoulder against the same threats and with similar level of success and skills. After all, 4 full Chapters of Space Marines, amongst them the Black Templars, and an entire army of the Mechanicus were defeated and forced to retreat by the 10 000 Sisters of Battle, then known as the Brides of the Emperor, during the assault of the Imperial Palace during the Reign of Blood. Strike Forces of Celestians numbering about a 1000 strong are also used to purge rebellious Space Marine Chapters and that’s just to name a few. Scions have been known to fight and even come to the rescue of Space Marines. A Scion regiment numbering around 125 individual defeated a Thousand Sons warband that attempted to destroy their training and recruitment facility. Another one destroyed a Lord of Skull and its accompanying berserkers, etc. The only way a human could come close to be capable of doing any sort of feat like that or pause such a real challenge to a Space Marine is if that human is better trained then the Marine or much better equipped, they have can’t have any other potential advantage. Sisters and Space Marine are basically equipped with the same tools, thus only training and experience makes the difference there. For Scions, one can estimate that the hot-shot lasgun does offer them an edge against Space Marines, but a lesser armor is a malus. For non superhuman people to be capable of such things, their skills and their commanding officers must be absolutely incredible. They can stand up to Space Marines, superhuman being trained and equipped for war with a comparable equipment. I’m not even arguing that Sisters and Scions are the equal on one on one to Space Marines, they are not. I think a Space Marine is worth about 2 or 3 Sisters and about 3 or 4 Scions. Neither am I arguing that Space Marines are devoid of skills and finesse, they are obviously capable of great feats in that domain, but when we are talking about skills and finesse alone, I think Sisters and Scions surpass them a little bit.

If you start to take into account combat experience, the disadvantage of Space Marines in terms of training quality disappear very fast. Space Marines can operate for centuries. They refine their skills and improve their mastery over time. An experimented and blooded Space Marine in a tactical squad within a combat Company (one of the first five) probably has a few decades of combat under his belt and training during his down time, more than enough, to develop a great mastery of combat. Experience will teach him the ins and outs of combat skill mastery and finesse. Being Space Marines gives them a high chance of surviving battles and make “mistakes”. They are much harder to kill and cripple than humans and heal much faster and better. Their equivalent in Scions and Sisters, on their parts, can’t really get much better with time even if they to can live and fight for centuries thanks to rejuvenat drugs and bionics that their status as nobles and elite soldiers can afford them. When they were first deployed they were nearly at their peek. Those who do have several decades of combat under their belts are exceptionally talented individuals who have survived a worse attrition rate than Space Marines. What they have is this raw talent that others didn’t. Space Marine peek is also higher, nothing really comes close to a Space Marine Captain or Chapter Master. Only Living Saints of the Sisterhood can match them in combat and even then, it might be due more to strange arcane power then anything else.
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