WH40K: 5th edition Codex: Space Marines

[white_rabbit]

Dunno if I'm allowed to comment on a thread hijack thingy, b ut I suppose painrack replied, so meh.

Normal infantry do CQB with rifles, grenades and the like.

Marines, and most of the guys who use close combat weaponry exclusively aren't "normal" infantry, they are usually exactly the opposite. I'm not sure what the perception you refer to is either, the only thing I can think of is that some CC weapons are bigger and appear to be the primary weapon?

Its not even the concept of running out of ammo. Those equipment draw on power too and would require "ammunition" as well.

Not particularly much in comparison with guns, the "ammunition" for chainswords is some tiny micro-fusion cell in the hilt, compared to large armoured clips for bolt pistols.

At best, these equipment should form the secondary aspect of the Space Marines arsenal, a backup to when pistols jam and you need to reload and etc. Or when you need stealthy firepower.

Given the situations marines routinely find themselves in, i.e. vastly outnumbered, I'd think it fairly sensible to have something that isn't really going to run out of ammo in most situations, a few dozen clips of bolter ammo doesn't last forever, neither do micro-grenade dispensers.

As far as stealthy firepower goes, chainswords, power weapons etc aren't "stealthy", and in most situations marines aren't there for stealth, they are there to fuck over a numerically superior, qualitively inferior force in a short period of time. Even with a knife, an 8ft tall powersuit with a small nuke isn't going to be doing very much quiet work. They have specialised guys for stealth work for a reason.


I'd also comment that virtually everyone in a 40k army has a gun, usually a pretty good one as well, which makes me wonder what the problem is, particularly when the most prominent "offenders", i.e. marines have as an iconic image of themselves a dude with a large gun.

Therefore, the entirety of the 40K universe is retarded from the outset, including the Tau, who happen to be the least offenders (Kroot), followed closely by the Imperial Guard.

You silly fuck, since when are the Kroot a dedicated melee force anyway ? They have spikes on their guns!

[Imperial Overlord]

40K is deliberately designed to have close quarters combat with chainsaws and such. It's a design choice to have guys being able to wield big swords and not be totally useless. Thus the table top rules are intended to make it a practical strategy and the fluff has great personal armour and weapons like chainswords that are much more effective at slicing up a dude in body armour than their firearm equivalents. This is without getting to the inhumanely tough eight foot tall dudes in unobtanium armour, force fields that repel ranged attacks, and psykers deflecting shots with power and force weapons and so on. Even with all that, most of the casualties are usually caused by shooting the other guy dead. Is this particularly realistic? Fuck no. Star Wars does the same thing, giving Jedi weapons and abilities that make getting close to people and slicing them up with a laser sword practical.

[Mr Bean]

Cut the one line spam people, nothing in this thread is out of line except for the simple fact that nothing of importance has been said in the last white rabbit.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Cut the one line spam people, nothing in this thread is out of line except for the simple fact that nothing of importance has been said in the last white rabbit.

So will there be a separate thread on this, or should we all shut up and try to ... follow up before Ryan stepped in?

[Ghost Rider]

Cut the one line spam people, nothing in this thread is out of line except for the simple fact that nothing of importance has been said in the last white rabbit.

So will there be a separate thread on this, or should we all shut up and try to ... follow up before Ryan stepped in?

Keep going. The warning was specfic to Ryan because he was the fucknut who can't gather enough brain cells to make a new topic, but instead tries to incite the crowd. I also wanted to try the new function to keep an eye on retards like him.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Its still doesn't change the fact that a lot of the game fans and even concept design emphasize meelee over ranged combat. Hell, LOOK at the ingame videos from Dawn of War and the like. Dawn of War opening video has to be the most stupid tactical move ever. You had a fortified position, the enemy is charging you, you broke their attack. Fine, you counter-charge to gain momentum and crush them, but what do you do next? You ADVANCE up into open terrain away from cover, up a hill and then get sucked RIGHT into the middle of the Ork hordes which was using dead ground and the terrain intelligently. And of course, despite a Space Marine being valuable and the Imperial Tactica saying that any tactic should have more risk to the enemy than to you, we see the Space Marine carry his flag bearer up the freaking hill against what appears to be autogun fire, ultimately collapsing on top of the hill just so he could plant a freaking banner and await the rest of the Blood Raven drop pods landing.

Because the guys who did the Dawn of War games were in some ways idiots? There were similar situations in the novels but the Space Marines didn't go all gungho and charge up on the enemy, until the enemy had closed in so close, or they ran out of ammunition, they had to fight knife to knife.

And we only see once instance of the Space Marine charging into battle against the Eldar in the face of enemy firepower....One wonders why his bolt pistol wouldn't have sufficed.

Because... the damn Eldar were either waving off their bolts or were dodging them?

Fingolfin. Don't be an ass. If meelee combat makes Space Marines more vulnerable, then by right, they should be LEANING away from meelee combat and using their other physical capabilities! After all, why go up close and risk hurting yourself against a Goff vibroaxe or even a guard monobladed knife, when their guns have lesser chance of hurting you? And given your speed and reflexes, you can actually dump out more firepower than your opponents?

Space Marines already carry heavier weapons than the Imperial Guard can cart around, so what exactly is the beef? Again, as others have said, Assault Marines engage in very specialised missions, and hardly do Space Marines engaged in close combat unless pushed to it. And Assault Marines come equipped with bloody bolters themselves. Standard Marine Squads themselves come only equipped with Combat knives and not swords. Even typical tactics involve using the Terminator Squads, armed with flamethrower and heavy bolter, going in front, while other Squads follow closely behind.

Connor. You essentially just quoted what is our modern day military. Heavy long range firepower and high mobility. An intelligent use of that configuration would give HUGE flexibility.

And yet even in World War II, were there plenty of instances on the Eastern Front where fighting devolved into knife fests after soldiers on both sides run out of ammunition, at Kursk or at Stalingrad.

And it's not like the Space Marines solely charge in and gut the enemy through hand to hand combat. There's plenty of armour and artillery vehicles. The only Space Marines that do that are the World Eaters.

Thank you, Painrack.

Alright, folks, I feel compelled to point out that you've done nothing but strawman my arguments and try to nitpick them to death up until this point. The l east you could do is try.

Really now, you are the one who has been carefully ignoring the fact that Space Marines are extensively equipped with ranged weapons, that are heavier than what the Imperial Guard has. So I'm not sure who's strawmanning who.

1. Any weapon can be made more effective by extending its range. Melee weapons, in fact, shorten the effective killing range of a soldier.

Unfortunately, you again ignore the whole armour paradigm and choose to cling to that stupid idea. Lasguns carried by Imperial Guards are quite useless against Space Marine Armour. Tau have slightly better luck, but again, by no means are melee weapons the first option until the fight has devolved into close quarters. Neither does it change the fact that extremely tough monomolecular blades have proven to be extremely effective against armour. There was even one instance of traitor PDF militia, using a power fist, cracked open the armour of a Leman Russ tank that was in a very tight situation.

2. A soldier must be heavily armoured and/or ludicrously agile in order to effectively field a melee weapon. A soldier armed with little more than a rifle needs to be neither. Therefore, a soldier, given an arbitrary amount of armour and handed a melee weapon is less effective than a similarly armoured soldier armed with a ranged weapon of similar or even lesser power.

Which a bloody Space Marine fulfills all the above without sweating it.

Since a soldier has the express purpose of killing as many of the enemy as possible before he himself is killed, this must mean that a ranged weapon will make a soldier more efficient.

From this, we can conclude that ranged weapons are better than melee weapons.

Therefore, an army that fields dedicated melee troops when they have access to powerful ranged weaponry is retarded. QED

Did you fail at logic, or is everything all black and white? Or has your obsession with ranged weapons led you to forget that ammo is limited, while a blade works so long as it doesn't break? How then do you plan to rationalise off the multitude of situations when the Space Marines are out of ammo, far from logistical lines etc. ? Bearing in mind that as elite forces, going behind enemy lines is part and parcel of Space Marine missions, along with leading at the front.

[Ryan Thunder]

Because we have a warning system, congratulations to Ryan!

BTW, next time instead of derailing a thread to spout off, start a new one if you have problems with a universe.

Right, sorry about that. It won't happen again.

[PainRack]

Marines, and most of the guys who use close combat weaponry exclusively aren't "normal" infantry, they are usually exactly the opposite. I'm not sure what the perception you refer to is either, the only thing I can think of is that some CC weapons are bigger and appear to be the primary weapon?

We are talking about real life militaries here, right? Or Wh40k still? I'm just pointing out that in similar tactics here on Earth, we don't automatically devolve to pistols and swords. We're still using rifles, SMGs and of course, the same good dose of grenades and rocket launchers. We don't devolve into meelee just simply because its CQB.

Not particularly much in comparison with guns, the "ammunition" for chainswords is some tiny micro-fusion cell in the hilt, compared to large armoured clips for bolt pistols.

Which is still an argument against chainswords and power lines. Given the Space Marines fitness, strength and reflexes, he could just as easily dual weild bolt pistols and deal out more damage.

Given the situations marines routinely find themselves in, i.e. vastly outnumbered, I'd think it fairly sensible to have something that isn't really going to run out of ammo in most situations, a few dozen clips of bolter ammo doesn't last forever, neither do micro-grenade dispensers.

Except that more heavier firepower= enemy breaking faster. I also find this assessment that Space Marines must ALWAYS be part of the Thin Red line another brainbug from Wh40k fans. These guys are supposed to be masters of tactics. Getting stuck in one bad situation after another is not part of tactics.

As far as stealthy firepower goes, chainswords, power weapons etc aren't "stealthy",

Its certainly more stealthy than a gun.

and in most situations marines aren't there for stealth, they are there to fuck over a numerically superior, qualitively inferior force in a short period of time. Even with a knife, an 8ft tall powersuit with a small nuke isn't going to be doing very much quiet work. They have specialised guys for stealth work for a reason.

And that's the whole point Why not dual weild bolt pistols, or the deployment of more stormbolters? Alternatively, why not have an increased deployment of melta and plasma weapons for the Assault Space Marines? Are such exotic weaponery now too expensive for the 1 million elite of the Imperium?(Yes, I know that's no longer canon).

To drag this back on topic, I'm willing to bet that the Fifth Edition Space Marines doesn't even endorse this viewpoint that Space Marines are
1. Supposed to value meelee combat over ranged/tactics.
2. Are not supposed to be constantly be stuck in situations where they're part of the Thin Red Line and yet cut off from resupply.

[Connor MacLeod]

One should note something Connor. What you say is absolutely true, but CQB is not knives and sword work. It involves pistols, but a military force would very well use more devastating SMGs, using machinepistols more as a last resort. Normal infantry do CQB with rifles, grenades and the like.

as noted by WR, Assault marrines do carry pistols of some kind (usually bolt pistols) as well as a close combat weapon. Partly because some targets will be more vulnerable to that sort of attack (again, citing the difference between weapon types, ,and the mechanisms by which they do damage) as well as the sheer psychological impact.

The problem comes from the artwork and the fan perception, namely, the use of chainswords, power fists and etc as the primary element in close combat. That's moronic.

From the artwork I've seen (such as the SM and IG codexes) you usually only see either the assault marines or officers with a dedicated melee weapon, and many will also have a ranged weapon of some kind. But you also see Marines wielding their bolters (Tactical marines) rather than having any melee weapon (Tactical marines and devastators only have a knife as a Close combat weapon ussually)

Same for the Guard. I haven't seen the Guard actually being depicted doing bayonet charges - they're usually depicted firing their lasguns (though they may have bayonets attached)

Connor. You essentially just quoted what is our modern day military. Heavy long range firepower and high mobility. An intelligent use of that configuration would give HUGE flexibility.

Did you miss the "no flexibility" partt? Tau tactics literally ARE inflexible even if they are based on mobility and heavy firepower. Things like "elaborate attacks" and "perfect planning" are attributed to Tau, and as noted on the Codex, they seem to have an extreme aversion to any real static facilities (they'll evacuate cities rather than defend them from attack.. whihc while good for sparing civilian lives, can be a problem in terms of infrastructure and material value.) I won't even comment on their caution.

comparatively speaking, the Imperium has demonstarted greater flexibility than the TAu have (the sheer variety of regiments and forces they can call on demands it if nothing else.)

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Same for the Guard. I haven't seen the Guard actually being depicted doing bayonet charges - they're usually depicted firing their lasguns (though they may have bayonets attached)

The Jantine Patricians did a bayonet charge on 10 or so Ghosts in the The Founding Omnibus. But that was bloody costly in terms of men, and quite downright stupid.

[dragon]

Do they cover slection of the people that will become marines. Are there limits on whom they can take and the age of the people. Ragnar for instance was a young adult when selected.

Also why do they take from under developed societies?

[Connor MacLeod]

Same for the Guard. I haven't seen the Guard actually being depicted doing bayonet charges - they're usually depicted firing their lasguns (though they may have bayonets attached)

The Jantine Patricians did a bayonet charge on 10 or so Ghosts in the The Founding Omnibus. But that was bloody costly in terms of men, and quite downright stupid.

First, it was fifty men, not ten.

Second, they didn't do the bayonet charge til the end. Up until then it was more likea pincer movement, and they were actually firing when they did that. And they were actually moving from cover to cover. (They had mortars making craters for them to take cover in.) And heavy weapons. And they had heavier armour. Hell they were dug in for like half an hour before the chargge even occured, and by then it was pretty close up (less than a hundred metres.)

And hell it was noted they "had more options" but they decided to charge anyhow. Given the hatred of the Jantine for the Ghosts up to that point, they probably were out for blood, rather than thinking like soldiers.

And rather more importantly, their commander (and their gEneral) were dicks.

[Peptuck]

Same for the Guard. I haven't seen the Guard actually being depicted doing bayonet charges - they're usually depicted firing their lasguns (though they may have bayonets attached)

End of Sabbat Martyr, when Inok Innoketti is charging up the giant concourse staircase. Though in that case, the Guardsmen actually hold cover and mow down the Chaos forces until Sabbat fights Innoketti, and then Gaunt orders a bayonet charge to support her.

Though for the most part, in the Ghost books, melee charges are definitely depicted as suicidal. I can think of two off the top of my head - First and Only, the tunnel charge, and Honour Guard, where the Infardi charge a Ghost fireteam. Both cases the Chaos troops get slaughtered.

[andrewgpaul]

Do they cover slection of the people that will become marines. Are there limits on whom they can take and the age of the people. Ragnar for instance was a young adult when selected.

Also why do they take from under developed societies?

I doubt Ragnar was even a young adult. pubescent at best. Any older than that and the implants don't work.

less-civilised societies tend to teach children how to fight at a younger age, as well as fostering a more brutal style of fighting - melee, taking trophies, etc. Remember, Space Marines are terror troops, as well as assault troops.

Having said that, the Ultramarines recruit from Ultramar, which is fairly well civilised, and I'm sure there are others. In addition, it depends what you mean by "underdeveloped"; the Imperial Fists recruit from Necromunda, which is pretty highlu civilised. However, the society and way of life can be, like the Sontarans, "nasty, brutal and short".

[Connor MacLeod]

End of Sabbat Martyr, when Inok Innoketti is charging up the giant concourse staircase. Though in that case, the Guardsmen actually hold cover and mow down the Chaos forces until Sabbat fights Innoketti, and then Gaunt orders a bayonet charge to support her.

That was hardly a planned thing, and even then as I recall they were still mainly using their guns (again.) In fact I'd say that a.) the unplanned nature of it only highlights how unusual it was, and b.) it probably had some supernatural element to it (a "miracle" or some such, ,given Sabbat's psyker presecne there.) - she pretty much baited them into charging to support her, and IIRC the whole point was to kill Innoketti was it not?

Though for the most part, in the Ghost books, melee charges are definitely depicted as suicidal. I can think of two off the top of my head - First and Only, the tunnel charge, and Honour Guard, where the Infardi charge a Ghost fireteam. Both cases the Chaos troops get slaughtered.

They're generally depicted as suicidal in general. The idea of siege warfare (WW1/WW2 trench warfare that is) isn't always embraced by the guard, in fact its more of a specialist occupation (Krieg is well known for it, its one of their "qualities" in fact.) The only reason we see other Guardsmen doing it is because a Guardsman is supposed to be versatile - ie able to take on any task/situation even if they're not optimised for it (Because they can't always wait for ideal or optimal troops for a location, they have to sometimes make do with what they have. Even if it can lead to grerater losses among troops. Such as taking on a tank with infantry and heavy weapons.)

Napoleonic tactics are even more laughed at (one of the soul drinkers novels had a force that was biascally ripped out of Napoleonic era stuff, and the other Guardsmen - more experienced ones - laughed at them.)

And the Guard also has its "close combat" specializations in the Ogyrn and in certain feral tribe regiments (like the Kanak Skull takers.) I suppose the Catachans also apply (but they're more ambush specialists, that just can include hand weapons.)

[Connor MacLeod]

I doubt Ragnar was even a young adult. pubescent at best. Any older than that and the implants don't work.

He had to have been well into puberty. As I recall he was growing facial hair and at least hinted at being sexually active. At least thirteen or fourteen, which is late, but not impossible.

The whole thing about "taking them at an early" age seems to be a twofold reason: 1.) its easier to brainwash them with propoganda and b.) the implants respond better the younger the patient is. ITs not a "either/or" thing, but rather a sliding scale. In theory an older initiate (young adult) can do it, but its extremely risky/dangerous so you wouldnt do it unless you have no other choice (esp since it risks loss of precious gene seed and implants.)

A Guardsman in the DoW novels is clearly in his late teens/early twenties (He was a sergeant) and he was successfully implanted, as I recall.

[Lord Relvenous]

CS Goto has an odd habit of ripping the fluff a new one in his books. It's why he draws a lot of hate from the fanbase that didn't start playing hte game because of a computer game. The DoW books are no different. So while it has been published in a 40K book, I personally take elements which break significantly from the fluff (the Index Astartes gives a good timeline of the development of a Space Marine, and I believe it has a cut off date) with a grain of salt. Or a handful.

Note: Didn't that section form the Index Astartes make it into the new Space Marine codex? I haven't purchased it yet, but I remember a mention being made of it.

[NecronLord]

Even the Great Crusade Era Legio I couldn't make an adult a true space marine, even at the behest of their primarch. They could enhance them. But they weren't space marines.

So I find that notion about making guardsmen in their twenties into marines rather dubious. Goto at least gets it right in Ascension, with youths and children.

[white_rabbit]

I've used bold for some quotes because there was some "can't use more than 3 quotes embedded" fuckup I couldn't fix in the 30 seconds of pissing around I was willing to do.


We are talking about real life militaries here, right? Or Wh40k still? I'm just pointing out that in similar tactics here on Earth, we don't automatically devolve to pistols and swords. We're still using rifles, SMGs and of course, the same good dose of grenades and rocket launchers. We don't devolve into meelee just simply because its CQB.

We aren't superhuman, we don't have equivalent technologies, we don't have the logistics issues of a galactic empire. I would also say that you aren't describing anything that doesn't happen in 40k. Even the Eldar, the masters of over-specialisation, don't have Aspects devoted solely to hand to hand, everyone has got a ranged weapon.

Which is still an argument against chainswords and power lines. Given the Space Marines fitness, strength and reflexes, he could just as easily dual weild bolt pistols and deal out more damage.

Having a nice sword to hit someone with is pretty useful when you are hard enough to use it effectively, They don't HAVE to use a single bolt pistol, indeed, I can think of some examples where they use two, but the fact remains. Bolters run out of ammo, a chainsword is unlikely to, and takes advantage of the marines physical abilities. If he doesn't need to use his expensive bolter on someone, but can simply bash them, why shouldn't he ?

I'd also point out that powerweapons at least offer a tremendous increase in damage potential, there is no equivalent weapon easily available in gun form.

Except that more heavier firepower= enemy breaking faster

Unless they don't break, because thats not something that is likely to happen in 40k. Or any other situation in which you aren't going to prevail due to simply having another gun


. I also find this assessment that Space Marines must ALWAYS be part of the Thin Red line another brainbug from Wh40k fans. .

There are approximately a million of them, in a galaxy where the effective opposition is numbered in the bloody squillions, its not a brainbug, its an unavoidable fact that whenever the marines deploy, they are usually going to be outnumbered.

I'd also reply with a hearty Fuck You to the assertion that I'm claiming that the must always be in some cliche last stand/thin red line situation, I'm not talking drama, I'm talking basic logistics, you may very well have a T-Hawk or rhino with extra ammo nearby, but that doesn't mean it isn't really handy to have a functional weapon to hand that doesn't need it, particularly when it doesn't slow you down or encumber you!

These guys are supposed to be masters of tactics. Getting stuck in one bad situation after another is not part of tactics

Getting stuck in a bad situation is exactly what these guys are supposed to do. How on earth did you miss that ?

Your little skit reminds me of when you were wibbling about Orks being "humanoid monsters" Its like you are talking about a different setting from me.

Its certainly more stealthy than a gun.

I think that really depends on the gun, I might buy it being stealthier than a boltgun, but not by much, Chainsaws are as noisy as a rock concert according to the Health and Safety Executive, and even the quietest marine powerweapons, the swords, produce a flash of light and crackling energy discharges!

Stealth kills are knives, silenced shells etc by properly equipped blokes. Otherwise its not something you deploy a fully armoured marine for.

And that's the whole point Why not dual weild bolt pistols, or the deployment of more stormbolters?

As I pointed out, you've missed the fact that they can and do use two pistols, or equip their assault troops with rifles. As for the stormbolters, thats like asking why we don't equip more guys with SAWs in the modern military, or in the context of 40k, more guard with hellguns.

"Alternatively, why not have an increased deployment of melta and plasma weapons for the Assault Space Marines? Are such exotic weaponery now too expensive for the 1 million elite of the Imperium?"

Why not give them all lascannons while you are at it?
To drag this back on topic, I'm willing to bet that the Fifth Edition Space Marines doesn't even endorse this viewpoint that Space Marines are 1. Supposed to value meelee combat over ranged/tactics.

Who the fuck says they DO value melee combat over ranged work ?

I fucking haven't, thats for certain.

2. Are not supposed to be constantly be stuck in situations where they're part of the Thin Red Line and yet cut off from resupply.

I do believe you are misrepresenting the opposing viewpoint Painrack, like a silly bastard.

[andrewgpaul]

"I'm willing to bet that the Fifth Edition Space Marines doesn't even endorse this viewpoint that Space Marines are 1. Supposed to value meelee combat over ranged/tactics."

The latest UK White Dwarf (same cover as the Codex) has an interview with the writer, who states that he tried to bring the focus back onto the dudes with bolters.

In the book, Tactical Marines are the most experienced members of a company, second only to Veterans*; New Marines start as Devastators - "stand there, shoot that tank with this lascannon. Got that?", progress to the Assault squads, and then to the Tactical squads, who have to know how do do everything.

*two types now; Vanguard, who are Veteran assault Marines, and Sternguard, who are there to be badass with a boltgun.

I'm going to come out on a limb here, and defend the Dawn of War opening cinematic. Apart from being designed to showcase the main mechanic of the game - take territory, rather than mine resources - that squad were apparently ordered to take that hill; maybe to plant a landing beacon for the drop pods. Plus, they obviously thought the Dreadnought had dealt with the Orks - they didn't see the 'uge mob over the ridge.

[Ryan Thunder]

[...]Goto at least gets it right in Ascension, with youths and children.

C.S. Goto? This is the same guy who seems to think that Terminators can do backflips, and Space Marines carry multilasers.

[Ford Prefect]

C.S. Goto? This is the same guy who seems to think that Terminators can do backflips, and Space Marines carry multilasers.

Whiel Terminators doing backflips is retarded unless they're standing on some sort of mine, there is actually no reason why a Space Marine couldn't carry a multilaser. I mean, if he rocked up to some Guard doing Chimera maintenance and said 'hey guys, can I borrow this multilaser?' who is going to say no?

[Thanatos]

I used to think HTH was useless in modern combat, right up until a triple red stripe MCMAP black belt messed us up in MOUT.

[PainRack]

as noted by WR, Assault marrines do carry pistols of some kind (usually bolt pistols) as well as a close combat weapon. Partly because some targets will be more vulnerable to that sort of attack (again, citing the difference between weapon types, ,and the mechanisms by which they do damage) as well as the sheer psychological impact.

I think I have to repeat myself. I did not say that Assault marines are rar rar meelee specialists without ranged weapons. I used the specific image of Assault marines with dual pistols because I recall that there was an artwork of one SM posing with exactly that.

We aren't superhuman, we don't have equivalent technologies, we don't have the logistics issues of a galactic empire. I would also say that you aren't describing anything that doesn't happen in 40k. Even the Eldar, the masters of over-specialisation, don't have Aspects devoted solely to hand to hand, everyone has got a ranged weapon.

Guess what WR? I didn't claim that Assault marines are overspecialised. I'm specifically commenting on the pro-meelee comments that they would outfit themselves with meelee weapons so as to gain an increased tactical edge..... This even though such an outfit would actually go against Marine tactics and roles. Unless Fifth Edition changed something, Assault Marines were not supposed to be sluggers like Orgyn. They're supposed to be raiders, using their mobility and shock value to destroy pinpoint targets.

Having a nice sword to hit someone with is pretty useful when you are hard enough to use it effectively, They don't HAVE to use a single bolt pistol, indeed, I can think of some examples where they use two, but the fact remains. Bolters run out of ammo, a chainsword is unlikely to, and takes advantage of the marines physical abilities. If he doesn't need to use his expensive bolter on someone, but can simply bash them, why shouldn't he ?

its not a why shouldn't he? Its more of a why should he? He can just as easily take on and kill more opponents with his ranged weapon than his meelee, which requires him to go up close, exposing him to enemy firepower and being swarmed under by numbers. Gun-kata so as to speak.

Unless they don't break, because thats not something that is likely to happen in 40k. Or any other situation in which you aren't going to prevail due to simply having another gun

If so, then simply apply N square law. Or are you going to suggest that doesn't work in WH40k too?

There are approximately a million of them, in a galaxy where the effective opposition is numbered in the bloody squillions, its not a brainbug, its an unavoidable fact that whenever the marines deploy, they are usually going to be outnumbered.

Except that they don't fight alone and they're not going to simply stand in front of something and take punishment just because you wish so. The battle of Armaggadeon is ample proof of this. In the second edition, the Blood Angels didn't simply just stand in line and fight. They used maneveur to secure the bridges, sent out patrols, used fortified positions and when the Orks approached, made a tactical withdrawal and continued.

I'd also reply with a hearty Fuck You to the assertion that I'm claiming that the must always be in some cliche last stand/thin red line situation, I'm not talking drama, I'm talking basic logistics, you may very well have a T-Hawk or rhino with extra ammo nearby, but that doesn't mean it isn't really handy to have a functional weapon to hand that doesn't need it, particularly when it doesn't slow you down or encumber you!

How on earth does holding a chainsword not encumber you? Are we talking about some bizarre human mechanics here?

Getting stuck in a bad situation is exactly what these guys are supposed to do. How on earth did you miss that ?

Being outnumbered and outgunned? Yes. Being stupid enough to get stuck in situations where they run out of ammo or are exposed to more risk than gains? NO. Or do I have to quote the Imperium Tactica back at you from the 2nd edt SM codex?

Your little skit reminds me of when you were wibbling about Orks being "humanoid monsters" Its like you are talking about a different setting from me.

You got the wrong person dude.

As I pointed out, you've missed the fact that they can and do use two pistols, or equip their assault troops with rifles. As for the stormbolters, thats like asking why we don't equip more guys with SAWs in the modern military, or in the context of 40k, more guard with hellguns.

For the last time, no, I didn't. I'm pointing out that the fan depiction that they MUST deploy meelee weapons because it makes tactical sense is nonsense. We don't EVEN see such meelee weapons being used for the reasons mentioned here. Its simply a choice that SM and Imperium armies use.

I do believe you are misrepresenting the opposing viewpoint Painrack, like a silly bastard.

Right. Have you even READ Fingolfin statements?

[The Dark]

I doubt Ragnar was even a young adult. pubescent at best. Any older than that and the implants don't work.

He had to have been well into puberty. As I recall he was growing facial hair and at least hinted at being sexually active. At least thirteen or fourteen, which is late, but not impossible.

The whole thing about "taking them at an early" age seems to be a twofold reason: 1.) its easier to brainwash them with propoganda and b.) the implants respond better the younger the patient is. ITs not a "either/or" thing, but rather a sliding scale. In theory an older initiate (young adult) can do it, but its extremely risky/dangerous so you wouldnt do it unless you have no other choice (esp since it risks loss of precious gene seed and implants.)

A Guardsman in the DoW novels is clearly in his late teens/early twenties (He was a sergeant) and he was successfully implanted, as I recall.

According to Index Astartes I, the ossomodula and biscopea (phases 2 and 3) are supposed to be complete by the age of 12, and the entire process is supposed to be complete by the age of 18. Ragnar would be pushing the outer edges of the envelope for Marine augmentation. The Guardsman would have to have been extremely lucky, since every implant would be outside its optimal implantation window. It's possible the process has been retconned, but I'm not aware of that having occurred.