Saving the the Imperium of Man

[Alkaloid]

I disagree. On the Grand level, the Loyalist Astartes chapters proved there worth and there loyalty. But in doing so, never disproved the danger that the Astartes represent.

The problem isn't that only some will go renegade, it is when they do go renegade they are a massive threat. The Astartes have a strange relationship between themselves and the rest of the Imperium. Recall in the Badab wars only one chapter truly went renegade, but it pulled three others with it because they owed a debt, or they trusted the chapters they had fought with more than the trusted the administration of the Imperium. There were several moments in the Badab Crusade where one differently made decision would have led to an Imperium wide civil war. The Salamanders second company Captain took the Executions chapter prisoner and because they had behaved honourably was prepared to negotiate with the Inquisitor running the crusade for their surrender and treatment. Another chapter master demanded the execution of them all, and when the captain protested, demanded his execution as well. The inquisitor decided not to execute anyone. Had he executed them, then when the Salamanders heard that a well respected officer and champion of the chapter had been executed, you can damn well be sure they are all going to come over and ask some very pointed questions, and if they don't like the answers they get, shit gets bad. These are the same Salamanders that on on very good terms with the Ad Mach, who are already shitty with you for invading their planets and breaking their stuff and making threats against your forces. The Chapter Masters of the Sallies and the Blood Angels are personal friends and have fought on the same battlefield together, they have a way to contact all sorts of people who owe them or will fight with them, they are a first founding chapter, on of the most well liked and respected. All of a sudden half the first founding chapters and their successors are in open rebellion, because successors normally follow their parent chapters lead, planetary governemnts and guard regiments or navy detachments that have served with them before could be expected to join them, and suddenly its the horus heresy all over again but with less chaos. and more one sided titan fights. Space marines aren't dangerous because they often rebel, they are dangerous because when they do they are much more damaging because they aren't isolated from large segments of the imperium like the guard and navy are.

[Vashon]

Yes? What is the meat of your point?

[Alkaloid]

The Imperium is largely safe from civil war because of the way the guard and the navy are set up. They don't work as well as they could, but they can't effectively rebel. The space marines are more dangerous than that because the interact with more of the imperium. A guard general rebelling has had very limited contact with the Navy, and will be unlikely to get a fleet or ad mech support to support his rebellion. A space marine chapter rebelling has the respect of guard generals, navy admirals and ad mech officials and can potentially influence them into joining the rebellions, that is where the core danger of that revolt lies, and why they seriously need to limit the number of chapters. That they can control, if not the chapters themselves.

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, I think you're grossly overestimating the power of the Marines, Vashon. It's a common mistake- you see the flashiness and big muscles of the superman and assume he must be the most important thing going on.

Frankly, you could make a better case for allowing the existing chapters to increase their numbers to 2000 or 2500 strong, and hand them more of the lighter cruiser and frigate warships so they can deploy to more theaters at once. But then you run into trouble with the Codex and Guilliman's stuff...

[Zinegata]

The problem you're forgetting is that Chapters are still expensive, and requires diversion of huge amount of resources.

And rushing things can lead to stuff like the "Cursed Founding", wherein the vast majority of the chapters created end up dead, insane, or spikey. With the few surviving loyalists being annoyingly emo and angsty.

...dude. I didnt forget that. At all. Re-read my post. Srsly bro.

I think you largely hand-waved the costs, and didn't ever address the risks of a Cursed Founding, which tends to kill of most of the chapters as part of the founding.

[Lord Revan]

aren't space marines more like a speartip or a dagger to the methorical heart of the enemy then a force that could capture and hold hostile planets by themselves.

so basically making them IG lite would be not using them to their best.

if I understood correctly what space marines are best at is a fast shock attack that neutralizes the enemy so that either the imperial guard or local PDF can hold the objective more permanently.

[Zinegata]

Well, back in the Crusade (30K) days they could be deployed in mass numbers and they could generally take planets on their own; albeit they still had substantial regular Army forces supplementing them and serving as garrisons.

The present day limitation to only speartip roles seem to rest more with their limited numbers.

[Vashon]

No, Simon, its just that the Logistical issues with increasing the number of SMs is drastically lower than doing a similar increase in proportion to the Guard.

As for the cost and risk, those are acknowledged implicitly. I was just giving raw numbers and the reasoning behind the Astartes expansion. Namely that even the lowliest "reasonable" showing means that the Astartes throw aroundvmuch more than there numerical and equipment proportion would suggest.


Take the highest "consistent" average Fluff Marine and good god do they back there talk up. Its still usually regarded that a full chapter of Astartes can annhilate entire traitors regiments wholesale and do it again and again. Remember, most guardsmen are only good for a few decades before there performance begins to drastically decay. An Astartes performance never decays with age and the accumulated battle experience just builds up and up. Soon ot isnt like deploying a perfectly coordinated set of fifty men in there prime, its more like deploying a full battalion in their prime . Thing is, that battalion will be slowly whittled away to nothing by both combat losses and old age. Assuming a devastating killing blow isnt delivered, that Marine can take any number of injuries and be tip top in a few months. But this is just a single marine operating. Increasing the numbers makes Astartes start to really smash above there weight when deployed and equipped properly. The enemies die much faster and in greater numbers from all sides and not just from one direction. Facing a single Squad of Veterans on ground even vaguely favorable or familiar to them is like facing a full regiment if not worse. Except it is way mor mobile and more quickly deployed than the IG regiment. This means any and all death casualties do a much greater damage proportionally but by the end of the Astartes service, they have done their duty for centuries. Astartes who last a mere two hundred years have usually paid for themselves.

But yes, simply removing numerical restrictions from being so strict and simply splitting up a chapter that has hit 5000 into 4-5 new Chapter with Fleet assets divied up between them would be a much more effecrive way to expand the Adeptus Astartes.

[Lord Revan]

Well, back in the Crusade (30K) days they could be deployed in mass numbers and they could generally take planets on their own; albeit they still had substantial regular Army forces supplementing them and serving as garrisons.

The present day limitation to only speartip roles seem to rest more with their limited numbers.

the Horus Heresy books(at least the early luna wolves ones) seems to imply that even during the crusade/heresy the space marines themselves were the speartip with attached imperial army units working as integral parts of the fighting force (as the hammer so to speak).

[bilateralrope]

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses. Then within hours or days, they are conquering another world. In a single year, these Astartes could single handedly conquer 20 modern day Earths. By themselves. By the time Horus was found, he had at the very minimum 500,000 times that. 2000 modern Earths. In a single year

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.

[Zinegata]

Well, back in the Crusade (30K) days they could be deployed in mass numbers and they could generally take planets on their own; albeit they still had substantial regular Army forces supplementing them and serving as garrisons.

The present day limitation to only speartip roles seem to rest more with their limited numbers.

the Horus Heresy books(at least the early luna wolves ones) seems to imply that even during the crusade/heresy the space marines themselves were the speartip with attached imperial army units working as integral parts of the fighting force (as the hammer so to speak).

Yeah, I'm not saying they can't be a speartip back in 30K (and the Luna Wolves even use that exact same term).

But there were also instances wherein the Luna Wolves deployed as a massive world-conquering force; notably during the Aurelian war. Also in Know No Fear we see 200,000 Ultramarines massing to take just one system - without counting the Imperial Army units yet.

I think the Ultramarines even had a rule of thumb on the number of Marines needed to conquer something. One Marine for a town, a squad for a city, a company for a planet.

[Vashon]

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses. Then within hours or days, they are conquering another world. In a single year, these Astartes could single handedly conquer 20 modern day Earths. By themselves. By the time Horus was found, he had at the very minimum 500,000 times that. 2000 modern Earths. In a single year

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.

Attendant assets include ships. And fluffier descriptions of Astartes capabilities. Basically, think of every military base on the planet with a present troop number of ten thousand and above. Land one or two squads of Astartes on them and by the time they can fully rwact, most everybody is dead and the Astartes in question are moving on to the next objective via Storm Burds and Thunderhawks. Remember, superhuman accuracy and precision, total lack of mercy, and inhuman speed.


Here, imagine what Normandy would have been like if just ten Germans per landing zone could make sure that 80% of the bullets fired from an MG-34/42 was a lethal headshot. While firing burst of automatic. Now apply this to Bolter. And remember the ThunderHammers are credible antitank weapons.

Of course, also whenever Sanguinius, Angron or Leman Russ personally take to the field but that goes without saying:D

[Vashon]

Well, back in the Crusade (30K) days they could be deployed in mass numbers and they could generally take planets on their own; albeit they still had substantial regular Army forces supplementing them and serving as garrisons.

The present day limitation to only speartip roles seem to rest more with their limited numbers.

the Horus Heresy books(at least the early luna wolves ones) seems to imply that even during the crusade/heresy the space marines themselves were the speartip with attached imperial army units working as integral parts of the fighting force (as the hammer so to speak).

Yeah, I'm not saying they can't be a speartip back in 30K (and the Luna Wolves even use that exact same term).

But there were also instances wherein the Luna Wolves deployed as a massive world-conquering force; notably during the Aurelian war. Also in Know No Fear we see 200,000 Ultramarines massing to take just one system - without counting the Imperial Army units yet.

I think the Ultramarines even had a rule of thumb on the number of Marines needed to conquer something. One Marine for a town, a squad for a city, a company for a planet.

Remember, I was referring to Modern Earth equivalent both in Tech and current readiness. Most worlds were less well of while a relative handful were much more difficult to crack. Also remember that you can deploy and redeploy a thousand Marins across a planet far faster than a million men. So using a hundred here or there for mop ups and simple lightning strike slaughter operations and redeploying to concentrate on harder places is perfectly easy.

Also note that I did mild guestimational calcs on using chapter sized forces as crippling tools that would also establish beachheads for the oncoming Imperial Army.

Just to lowball SM lethality for you, think of this: fluff marines not only can fire there Bolters on the move but can do so with deathly precision and intent on fully automatic. If microsecond reactions times are true as a baseline, then they can also take into account the rounds already fired by there brethren so as to not kill the same guy twice. All while running at thirty to forty MPH and attempting to move out of the way of fire that could kill them while prioritizing that which could hurt then most and they can immediately kill. Thats at range. With a sword, Astartes are actually more dangerous, because they waste no thought to aiming but instead focus on sprinting towards you while using occasional blips of cover and generally jumping around and moving around nigh-constantly forcing you to change aim again and again while entire squads of your allies are being wiped out in a blink of an eye.


Fluff Marines are straight up terrifying. They are like Counter-Strike players who move twice as fast and rarely if ever miss while firing at full automatic and making the most out of every single bullet. Think about it. Even the best modern day soldier uses his rifle more to suppres an enemy than to kill him.

[Talk738kno]

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses. Then within hours or days, they are conquering another world. In a single year, these Astartes could single handedly conquer 20 modern day Earths. By themselves. By the time Horus was found, he had at the very minimum 500,000 times that. 2000 modern Earths. In a single year

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.

Attendant assets include ships. And fluffier descriptions of Astartes capabilities. Basically, think of every military base on the planet with a present troop number of ten thousand and above. Land one or two squads of Astartes on them and by the time they can fully rwact, most everybody is dead and the Astartes in question are moving on to the next objective via Storm Burds and Thunderhawks. Remember, superhuman accuracy and precision, total lack of mercy, and inhuman speed.

Problem with that, you still need to rely on the Imperial Navy to provide escorts for Thunderhawks to extract Space Marines.

[bilateralrope]

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses. Then within hours or days, they are conquering another world. In a single year, these Astartes could single handedly conquer 20 modern day Earths. By themselves. By the time Horus was found, he had at the very minimum 500,000 times that. 2000 modern Earths. In a single year

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.

Attendant assets include ships. And fluffier descriptions of Astartes capabilities. Basically, think of every military base on the planet with a present troop number of ten thousand and above. Land one or two squads of Astartes on them and by the time they can fully rwact, most everybody is dead and the Astartes in question are moving on to the next objective via Storm Burds and Thunderhawks. Remember, superhuman accuracy and precision, total lack of mercy, and inhuman speed.

So they can kill any military personal they can identify. Now how do they hold the planet against insurgents ?

Are the Storm Birds and Thunderhawks invisible to radar ?

If not, after they hit a few bases the next bases will know they are coming. And if they realize that they still have no chance to fight off the Astartes, they take what equipment they can and hide until the Astartes leave, then help the insurgency.

Maybe rig some traps for the Astartes if they do show up (I'm thinking a big fucking bomb, remote detonator set to explode if the guy holding it dies).

[Lord Revan]

btw something we might have forgotten in this talk about how much this or that costs, escalation, remember that your typical ork or CSM wouldn't consider your typical imperial guardsman to be something worth his time, as a result alot of dark crusades or waagghhs(or how ever you spelt it again) tend to fall to in fighting. However if you had more space marines and thus more worthy foes you might get bigger and nastier (and thus more destructive) dark crusades and ork waaghs as the leaders could keep their forces unified for a longer time, so more space marine chapters might end up alot more costlier then it might appear by simply comparing what it takes to make and supply one.

[Zinegata]

Remember, I was referring to Modern Earth equivalent both in Tech and current readiness. Most worlds were less well of while a relative handful were much more difficult to crack. Also remember that you can deploy and redeploy a thousand Marins across a planet far faster than a million men. So using a hundred here or there for mop ups and simple lightning strike slaughter operations and redeploying to concentrate on harder places is perfectly easy.

Well, the Ultramarines did qualify that the above rules of thumb were subject to change depending on the type of opponent, and most notably the above ratios didn't work against Ork or Eldar (their only major opponents back in 30K)

Still, the possibility of a Cursed Founding is what makes me not terribly inclined to dramatically increase the number of Marines. We have enough emo survivors from that one.

I would say however, that it wouldn't be a bad idea to regularly build new chapters, as opposed to waiting for a big Founding to get together a whole bunch of them at once.

[Black Admiral]

Well, back in the Crusade (30K) days they could be deployed in mass numbers and they could generally take planets on their own; albeit they still had substantial regular Army forces supplementing them and serving as garrisons.

The present day limitation to only speartip roles seem to rest more with their limited numbers.

the Horus Heresy books(at least the early luna wolves ones) seems to imply that even during the crusade/heresy the space marines themselves were the speartip with attached imperial army units working as integral parts of the fighting force (as the hammer so to speak).

That seems to depend on the Legion. I extremely doubt that the Imperial Army was willing to work with the Night Lords, for instance (or the Alpha Legion most of the time, come to that), whereas the Ultramarines and Raven Guard actually had formations specifically raised to operate alongside them (the various Ultramar Regiments for the Smurfs, and the Therion Cohort for the Raven Guard).

[Irbis]

Not quite true. Navigators sense the flow and structure of the warp. This includes both local warp currents as well as permanent / persistent phenomenon like the Astronomicon and warp storms. The Astronomicon serves as a common point of reference for nearly the entire Imperium, but it's hardly the only usable point of reference, as Navigators in parts of the Ultima Segmentum are far enough out that they can't actually detect the Astronomicon.

Though, I have to point out in a lot of fluff edge of Astronomicon seems to be impenetrable barrier-like border. See failure of Macharian Crusade and loss of what it gained once Astronomicon began to dim and the border receded.

With the exception of the Gaunt series and a handful of others (i.e. Lyon's Fifteen Hours) most IG novels are honestly just not that good.

Um, Cain, anyone? I'll take that over 'Give them Chaos Space Marine Commies Straight Silver!' bayonet porn any day.

And I think that if Fulgrim is redeemed (the current lore is that he's trapped in his own mind by a deamon.) two things can happen. It can be a morale boost (showing that chaos isn't invincible and you gain a powerful warrior).

There are two small issues with that: 1) He has mutated into four-armed serpent, making redemption a bit problematic, 2) Who he is going to command? His Legion is gone, and no remaining loyalist would agree to listen to him.

Lol, everyone is better than Lorgar.

Why?

I didn't read his book, but going by his Legion, his organizational skills were second only to Guilman, and had his daddy wasn't an idiot Word Bearers would prove to be better asset in Heresy than any other Legion but Ultramarines.

And pointing out politics is the main limiting factor, in a manner that implied I didnt know that, is sligtly dishonest, given that I specifically mentioned "suspicions" as the known reason for the DA geneseed not getting as widely used as it could be. Quite frankly, it completely obvious to anybody that the only reason for keeping it at a mere 1000 chapters is both politics and that fact that for the vast majority of the IoM's history, a thousand chapters were plenty and sufficient to slow down and hold the line for the IG and IN to bring the hammerdown.

Is it politics, really? Why wouldn't Imperium build more troops when it was losing? No, to me, a thousand Chapters was always logistical limit, a force than can be fed but expansion of which would dangerously strain resources that are being used to support all other kinds of armed forces for little gain. Perhaps IoM could be reorganized to support more Marines, but doing so would require concerted economical effort no one is in position to really order nowadays.

Sure, while a single Astartes is worth only 50 Guardsmen in a straight up fight, that Astartes will never age and never tire and only get more and more deadly as time goes on. All that experience and tactical acumen built up isnt eroded by age like most Guardsmen, so by the end of the average Astartes life, he has likely killed more than most regiments would be capable of. By the end of his third century, he is likely worth a battalion or company of ordinary men.

That's not exactly true, good Guardsmen get rejuv, too. Plus, look at it in that way - one lucky rookie with a lascannon can wipe out all that experience and acumen with a single shot. Talk about eggs in a basket. And IoM doesn't need winning slow wars of attrition over time, it needs wars won now, pronto, and that's what IG does.

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses.

No. Just... No.

Again, at most you are removing 2000 worlds from an empire of a million+ worlds. Less if they are Fleet based but that runs into the issue of building the Battlebarges. If this were to occur, most of the new chapters would have to make do with a single BattleBarge at first but with the standard number of StrikeCruisers with delivery of later BBs taking place in time.

And who is going to magically produce 1500 Battle Barges and 10.000+ Strike Cruisers? Doing so would cripple Navy shipbuilding capability for generation or two, and, seeing each Battle Barge is more expensive than brand new Battleship, ate the resources of far more than just "1000 feral worlds".

Hell, you could end up with Imperial Navy permanently crippled as generation-long gap causes it to shrink and when shipyards are now free again you have smaller navy with huge number of ships requiring overhaul, tying up more resources and providing a lot smaller base to actually crew new ships.

Such events are where hell would get raised thanks to LoLChaos. Its possible that only 1500 new chapters would survive with more than 500 BattleBrothers 42k. The rest would get folded in with geneseed brethren. So about 1600-1850 Chapters ready for battle from these foundings.

Green, inexperienced Chapters without strong ethos burned in by centuries of tradition.

...

You know, want to hear Marine force expansion idea that would actually work? Go to Codex Astartes and replace every instance of '10' with '12'. There, you now have 1800 men strong Chapters that do not require huge infrastructure upheaval and that can make do mostly with existing wargear languishing inside Chapters pointlessly.

[Elessar]

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.

This isn't true. Dark Apostle shows that a CSM host of 2000 conquering Tanakreg. Now I'm sure you can nitpick the definition of 'conquer', but the Word Bearers there decapitated the planet's leadership and military, then held onto the capital while wiping out all the resistance (and obtaining the remaining infrastructure) that mattered to them. They maintained the planet for months even against an abnormally powerful Imperial relief force (with Elysians and serious Ad-Mech presence, including an Ordinatus)

The same source shows their weakness, as they can't particularly hold ground against a numerous foe due to the lack of numbers. They were also focused on just a small area of the planet. So you're right, they can't hold the planet.

But conquer? Oh yeah.

[Lord Revan]

what good is it to conquer a planet if you cannot hold it (from a reasonbly sane perspective), isn't that a pretty much the defenition of phhyric victory?

now hold it long enough that you can re-enforce it with IG regiments (or cultists for CSM), now that makes sense even from a sane POV then you work only as a head of a larger formation, a speartip of the assault in a sense, not as an independent force.

[Vashon]

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.

This isn't true. Dark Apostle shows that a CSM host of 2000 conquering Tanakreg. Now I'm sure you can nitpick the definition of 'conquer', but the Word Bearers there decapitated the planet's leadership and military, then held onto the capital while wiping out all the resistance (and obtaining the remaining infrastructure) that mattered to them. They maintained the planet for months even against an abnormally powerful Imperial relief force (with Elysians and serious Ad-Mech presence, including an Ordinatus)

The same source shows their weakness, as they can't particularly hold ground against a numerous foe due to the lack of numbers. They were also focused on just a small area of the planet. So you're right, they can't hold the planet.

But conquer? Oh yeah.

About the only Legion who could honestly hold down planets and did so were thr Iron Warriors. The usually left 100 or ao Legionnaires on their conquest. They also had Imperial Army forces directly tied to them for such garrison purposes.

But yeah, holding ground requires warm bodies. Period. But conquering it? Much quote="Vashon"]Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses. Then within hours or days, they are conquering another world. In a single year, these Astartes could single handedly conquer 20 modern day Earths. By themselves. By the time Horus was found, he had at the very minimum 500,000 times that. 2000 modern Earths. In a single year[/quote]

What kind of attendant assets are you talking about ?

Because, as powerful as the Astartes are, there are still only 5,000 of them. And each one can only be in one place at a time.

So unless these attendant assets include a large number of other infantry, I just can't see how they could conquer a planet. Let alone hold it when Astartes move onto the next one.[/quote] Attendant assets include ships. And fluffier descriptions of Astartes capabilities. Basically, think of every military base on the planet with a present troop number of ten thousand and above. Land one or two squads of Astartes on them and by the time they can fully rwact, most everybody is dead and the Astartes in question are moving on to the next objective via Storm Burds and Thunderhawks. Remember, superhuman accuracy and precision, total lack of mercy, and inhuman speed.[/quote]

So they can kill any military personal they can identify. Now how do they hold the planet against insurgents ?

Are the Storm Birds and Thunderhawks invisible to radar ?

If not, after they hit a few bases the next bases will know they are coming. And if they realize that they still have no chance to fight off the Astartes, they take what equipment they can and hide until the Astartes leave, then help the insurgency.

Maybe rig some traps for the Astartes if they do show up (I'm thinking a big fucking bomb, remote detonator set to explode if the guy holding it dies).[/quote]

An insurgency? In WH30k or WH40k? Are you fucking retarded?

Well, back in the Crusade (30K) days they could be deployed in mass numbers and they could generally take planets on their own; albeit they still had substantial regular Army forces supplementing them and serving as garrisons.

The present day limitation to only speartip roles seem to rest more with their limited numbers.

the Horus Heresy books(at least the early luna wolves ones) seems to imply that even during the crusade/heresy the space marines themselves were the speartip with attached imperial army units working as integral parts of the fighting force (as the hammer so to speak).

That seems to depend on the Legion. I extremely doubt that the Imperial Army was willing to work with the Night Lords, for instance (or the Alpha Legion most of the time, come to that), whereas the Ultramarines and Raven Guard actually had formations specifically raised to operate alongside them (the various Ultramar Regiments for the Smurfs, and the Therion Cohort for the Raven Guard).

True this. However I highly doubt that they knew they were working with Alpha Legionaires.

Oh and remember, the large concentrations of Astartes forces were for either taking down super hard worlds or for smashing aside most meaningful resistance and then letting the Imperial Army come in and mop up.

[quote="Lancer]
There are two small issues with that: 1) He has mutated into four-armed serpent, making redemption a bit problematic, 2) Who he is going to command? His Legion is gone, and no remaining loyalist would agree to listen to him.

And pointing out politics is the main limiting factor, in a manner that implied I didnt know that, is sligtly dishonest, given that I specifically mentioned "suspicions" as the known reason for the DA geneseed not getting as widely used as it could be. Quite frankly, it completely obvious to anybody that the only reason for keeping it at a mere 1000 chapters is both politics and that fact that for the vast majority of the IoM's history, a thousand chapters were plenty and sufficient to slow down and hold the line for the IG and IN to bring the hammerdown.

Is it politics, really? Why wouldn't Imperium build more troops when it was losing? No, to me, a thousand Chapters was always logistical limit, a force than can be fed but expansion of which would dangerously strain resources that are being used to support all other kinds of armed forces for little gain. Perhaps IoM could be reorganized to support more Marines, but doing so would require concerted economical effort no one is in position to really order nowadays.

No, no just no to you. 1000 chapters of Adeptus Astartes is not a Logistical limit. This is just stupid.

Sure, while a single Astartes is worth only 50 Guardsmen in a straight up fight, that Astartes will never age and never tire and only get more and more deadly as time goes on. All that experience and tactical acumen built up isnt eroded by age like most Guardsmen, so by the end of the average Astartes life, he has likely killed more than most regiments would be capable of. By the end of his third century, he is likely worth a battalion or company of ordinary men.

[qutoe]That's not exactly true, good Guardsmen get rejuv, too. Plus, look at it in that way - one lucky rookie with a lascannon can wipe out all that experience and acumen with a single shot. Talk about eggs in a basket. And IoM doesn't need winning slow wars of attrition over time, it needs wars won now, pronto, and that's what IG does.

...you are just a fucking idiot. Slow wars of attrition is exactly how the Guard fights and the rely on the Navy to bring in continuos reenforcements. Its a slugfest with ground taken by armored regiements with support from aerial and infantry regiments. Ground is held by WWI style trench warfare with breakthroughs countered by armor. Thats how the Guard operates. Take this much ground, hold and fortify, unleash shitloads of artillery then through and hope you have enough armor for a full breakthrough.

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses.

No. Just... No.

Yes. Just yes. Fluff Marines are that effective. Period.

Again, at most you are removing 2000 worlds from an empire of a million+ worlds. Less if they are Fleet based but that runs into the issue of building the Battlebarges. If this were to occur, most of the new chapters would have to make do with a single BattleBarge at first but with the standard number of StrikeCruisers with delivery of later BBs taking place in time.

And who is going to magically produce 1500 Battle Barges and 10.000+ Strike Cruisers? Doing so would cripple Navy shipbuilding capability for generation or two, and, seeing each Battle Barge is more expensive than brand new Battleship, ate the resources of far more than just "1000 feral worlds".

Hell, you could end up with Imperial Navy permanently crippled as generation-long gap causes it to shrink and when shipyards are now free again you have smaller navy with huge number of ships requiring overhaul, tying up more resources and providing a lot smaller base to actually crew new ships.

Holy hell and actual arguement. 2000 BattleBarges over the cpurse of a full Millenia is nowhere near enoigh to cripple the Navy. Not to mention my strategy requires that both be expanded, so quite a handful of worlds are going to be pressed into service. As far as the Strike Cruiser and other ships smaller than the BattleBarge, those can be built by feral worlds with a small constriution crew in orbit. The BBs just mean that several Forgeworlds and possibly a few Hiveworlds will have to be included in the expansion. By the way, we were counting the worlds that would be permanently exempt from certain Imperial levvies.

So again, your complaints are for nought.

Such events are where hell would get raised thanks to LoLChaos. Its possible that only 1500 new chapters would survive with more than 500 BattleBrothers 42k. The rest would get folded in with geneseed brethren. So about 1600-1850 Chapters ready for battle from these foundings.

Green, inexperienced Chapters without strong ethos burned in by centuries of tradition.

...

You know, want to hear Marine force expansion idea that would actually work? Go to Codex Astartes and replace every instance of '10' with '12'. There, you now have 1800 men strong Chapters that do not require huge
infrastructure upheaval and that can make do mostly with existing wargear languishing inside Chapters pointlessly.

Already discussed but dismissed as politically unviable. Oh and gee I wonder how all the new chapters ever dealt wih being new? Hmmm? Given that a hefty chunk of the current Chapters are neither First or Second founding nor did they simply branch off. Oh I have an idea! One already put forth. Slap them down into known hot zones to augment already present forces and have them assist and learn from Veteran Chapter. Company Leaders and the Chapter Master will have to be drawn from already established chapters. Some of them might not like that, but whrn the High Lords say jump, you either jump or you are in deep fucking shit.


Dear christ had you read the thread this wouldnt even need to be said.

[gamer]

Think about it. 5000 Astartes and their attendant assets could conquer and subdue OUR world in less than a month. Maybe in a week. With possibly no more than 50 losses. Then within hours or days, they are conquering another world. In a single year, these Astartes could single handedly conquer 20 modern day Earths. By themselves. By the time Horus was found, he had at the very minimum 500,000 times that. 2000 modern Earths. In a single year

Nope not seeing it. The only way 5000 Astartes are going to conquer Earth if they use their ships to blast us back to the Stone Age, but a ground war? Hell, no. You give spacemarines too much credit, in the Grey Knights codex they had difficulties fighting just medieval warriors sure there was an entire army of them vs relatively few GKs but even GKs took losses and had to fall back, sure they can cause some damage but our militaries can fight off 5000 men without too many problems, and even if they somehow magically defeat all the armies in the world 5000 men are going to have extreme issues holding any sort of territory, we Earthlings do not give up that easily look at the Middle East and how hellishly difficult it is to take it.

[Irbis]

No, no just no to you. 1000 chapters of Adeptus Astartes is not a Logistical limit. This is just stupid.

Oh? Do you have a proof for that, maybe? Or are you just barking with your arse?

...you are just a fucking idiot. Slow wars of attrition is exactly how the Guard fights and the rely on the Navy to bring in continuos reenforcements.

Read again what I quoted, you cretino. You proposed Space Marines to fight wars of attrition by slooowly killing enemy after enemy over time, saying it somehow translates into efficiency and not them being tied down pointlessly in one place. Are you too stupid to comprehend your own words?

Oh, and I like how you conveniently left out the bit about lascannon vs MARINE WANK, something that brought that whole house of cards you build down. If common support weapon can remove whole 'battalion' in one shot, proposing wars fought entirely by Marines becomes idiotic.

Its a slugfest with ground taken by armored regiements with support from aerial and infantry regiments. Ground is held by WWI style trench warfare with breakthroughs countered by armor. Thats how the Guard operates. Take this much ground, hold and fortify, unleash shitloads of artillery then through and hope you have enough armor for a full breakthrough.

No, it's not. That's how siege regiments or incompetent commanders fight. You will find nothing of this in Cain or Gaunt books. You just proved you have no idea what you're talking about, you idiot.

Yes. Just yes. Fluff Marines are that effective. Period.

Proof, you cretin. Name them conquering non-feral world with population going into billions and our tech level with the numbers you proposed, then we can talk. Oh, and while you're at it, explain how 500 kg bomb, 120 mm sabot, or 155 mm artillery shell, weapons marines have no defence from, will fail to kill them. Heck, one helicopter gunship can tear apart a marine squad caught in the open outside the range of their boltguns.

Holy hell and actual arguement. 2000 BattleBarges over the cpurse of a full Millenia is nowhere near enoigh to cripple the Navy.

Millenia? Nice backpedal, shows your stupidity after that 'no logistical limits!' bit begins to recede. Ok, explain then, how many millennia it will take, and how it differs from current process, which is producing Battle Barges at maximum affordable rate and having them atritted by combat?

Not to mention my strategy requires that both be expanded, so quite a handful of worlds are going to be pressed into service.

Read - I'm going to magically pull more supplies out of my arse. Yes, we noticed.

As far as the Strike Cruiser and other ships smaller than the BattleBarge, those can be built by feral worlds with a small constriution crew in orbit.

That was a)Cruiser, not strike cruiser, and c)we know nothing about its combat effectiveness or damage dropping everything and building it did to local economy. For all we know millions starved to produce bucket of bolts that was destroyed in first battle, seeing how uncommon example of building ships that was.

The BBs just mean that several Forgeworlds and possibly a few Hiveworlds will have to be included in the expansion.

Here's a hint for you what you're saying - "Norfolk and Virginia can build 2 battleships at a time. Therefore, if we will add Dallas and Atlanta to that, we can double production rate!"

Already discussed but dismissed as politically unviable.

Oh, and you're apparently not even aware that some Chapters do it all the time. Go and read some actual WH40K fluff, will you?

Oh and gee I wonder how all the new chapters ever dealt wih being new? Hmmm?

By a)being very small % total of Chapters, not half of them, meaning they could have been eased into full combat status over time, c) by taking multiple squads from other Chapters and lending them to new Chapter to train green marines, something that no longer is possible when you're doubling the force overnight. Are you too stupid to comprehend difference between expanding your forces 1%, and 50% at a time?

Ah, yes, I forgot. You'd pull required resources, materiel, and instructors out of your behind.

Given that a hefty chunk of the current Chapters are neither First or Second founding nor did they simply branch off. Oh I have an idea! One already put forth. Slap them down into known hot zones to augment already present forces and have them assist and learn from Veteran Chapter.

Result - one new, horribly expensive Chapter being maimed in combat and ending up colossal waste of expensive resources. You know nothing how new units are formed in RL either, do you?

Some of them might not like that, but whrn the High Lords say jump, you either jump or you are in deep fucking shit.

...you're a fucking idiot, aren't you. What you propose is recipe for Horus Heresy, except maybe 20 Chapters will remain loyal. You're not even aware of such basic concept as Space Marine autonomy? Seriously?

Dear christ had you read the thread this wouldnt even need to be said.

Had you any actual idea how logistics, unit creation/expansion, production and WH40K fluff worked, yes, I wouldn't need to say anything.

[Lord Revan]

Nope not seeing it. The only way 5000 Astartes are going to conquer Earth if they use their ships to blast us back to the Stone Age, but a ground war? Hell, no. You give spacemarines too much credit, in the Grey Knights codex they had difficulties fighting just medieval warriors sure there was an entire army of them vs relatively few GKs but even GKs took losses and had to fall back, sure they can cause some damage but our militaries can fight off 5000 men without too many problems, and even if they somehow magically defeat all the armies in the world 5000 men are going to have extreme issues holding any sort of territory, we Earthlings do not give up that easily look at the Middle East and how hellishly difficult it is to take it.

that's a fairly good point, while the Grey Knights are specialist and thus lack as a rule of thumb alot of the heavy hardware most other chapters have(they might have it but it's not used on field often it's just not the way grey knights operate). After all as powerfull as a space marine is he's still mortal and no armor is 100% effective, also Earth has billions of people on it, spead all over the place while most earth tech lvl planets would be colonies with limited spread and possibly less people as well. as I said before space marines (at least the modern ones) are predominantly shocktroops, they hit hard and fast at specific targets, against a colony this could be devestating but still recorverble.

and as I said conquering something is pointless if you cannot hold it, ok lets take planet will call it Terra Nova (for example ) that's exactly identical to modern (2012 that is) Earth, there's roughly 150 million square kilometres of land on Earth (148 940 000 km2 according to wikipedia) with roughly 7 billion people, now obviously not all of that is soldiers or even potential soldiers but even if only 1% of that would soldiers it's still 70 million soldiers and I'm pretty sure that the combinied number of (potential) military forces on earth is more then 1% of the population, even with the 1% number it's 14 000 times the number of soldiers on the ground then marines on the conquest force. Also if we look it by area it's 1 marine per 30 000 km2

oh and just as a reminder conquest without the ability to hold those conquests is pointless.