Space Marine Theroy

Okay before reading the idea I want to discuss please listen to me and think about the topic for a bit before posting. Don't just go straight away into posting your surface thoughs.



Okay so according to organization of Space Marines there are 106 marines per company (or close to it). Now the big armies would know how to fight Space Marines like everything else because they would have fought them numerous times. So does it make sense for 106 guys to make a MAJOR major difference against like half a million....oh lets say tyranids? In total a chapter would be about 1078 marines at the max. Now no matter how good a marine is 1078 marines (with support; tanks, vechicles, etc) vs. 500,000 Eldar (with support; tanks, vechicles, etc) they marines would lose.

First, not many armies would know how to fight Marines... they are a far more mythical force in the actual background than they are in the real board game.

They might have fought them before, but they wouldn't have fought them many times, and one space marine chapter can be completely different in fighting style to a different chapter.

Fluff wise marines have a pretty big impact on a tyranid invasion (although not always). Depends on the situation.

Oh and I don't think 500,000 Eldar would ever muster to fight marines, and if they did... they would definitely go up against more than one chapter.

aganist nids, even a group of sister of battle that large would make a dent into them(even if they just tried to kill ever bug they ran into) but most times a space marine chapter(and IG) have been informed how to beat the swarm, kill the big nids the little ones are easy to kill(book wise)

Remember I am talking theories here.....Yeah but Space Marines are undisputeily** valueble no matter what and gene seed is scarce from what I read, so every life lost matters more then every guardsman or fire warrior, etc. No matter how you look at it in GALATIC battles the armies are actually bigger then you think. Maybe if it all took place 1078 or whatever would be a lot but when your talking about a whole galaxy its not much. And you can say "well theres other chapters" but as Matt said they don't work together like an army and are completely different so that defense doesn't work. Also take into factor how long it takes to make an actual marine and how few surive the process. I am just saying 1078 is far to low a number to even be considered much of an army in the galaxy, let alone 106.

FrostWolf wrote:

aganist nids, even a group of sister of battle that large would make a dent into them(even if they just tried to kill ever bug they ran into) but most times a space marine chapter(and IG) have been informed how to beat the swarm, kill the big nids the little ones are easy to kill(book wise)

(Sisters of battle isn't a fair example becuase of their mass flammers which can kill bugs lol)

The IG take the brunt of the majority of the fights in the galaxy, The Marines are used like Knights of old, sparingly.

In reality a marine is far more valuable than any other troop. I've read that a single marine is worth at least ten normal men on the battlefield, but against a single mass of enemies even an entire Chapter would have a hard time with a swarm of half a million 'nids. They would be overrun. The numbers are far too great, but that doesn't make for good marine fluff. GW wouldn't make one of their most popular armies look incapable of defeating the Xenos, it's your basic, everyday propaganda. You wouldn't want you "walking gods" easily defeated by a swarm of bugs, now would you.

I think of space marines as spartanesk. They're completely bred and built for war and thats all they do. Granted that they will be overwhelmed by a massivly superior force they still can take a heavy toll. Think Thermopoylee. Besides that for a empire as vast as the 40k one its hard to believe that different entities of different races actually can decide how best to fight the differnt forces of the marines. Can they be defeated, sure. Will they be defeated....Least they'll bring some down with them.

Your forgetting to look at it on a truly apocalypse scale. The marine would be there to bolster the effectiveness of the million guardsmen on the ground. they would be holding the key positions on the battlefield or spearheading decisive assaults.
As it relates to our battles just imagine that the fight your in is one part of an overall battle / war. As far as the imperium goes there would be guardsmen and titans to back up the marines. There would be battle barges raining death from above while potential planetary defense networks attempted to blow the hell outta "X" army.
When I think of marines I think of Special Forces. They are there to support the war preforming highly specialized / dangerous missions. They are not meant to be and are not a line trooper.

i hear you when you say marines are the specialist soldiers... the elitists..

but what if a hive fleet attacked? i think the question is would those few elite marines even stand a CHANCE against a full army at once?

not in-game.. thats for sure.. but fluff-wise marines are supposed to be crazy good.

Fluff wise, they do. Marines often formulate the plan for the big win. Uriel and the deathwatch in Dead Sky, Black Sun.

Then again, marines don't always know how to curb such an enemy. Like in the old short story with the lamenter marines taking on a hive fleet to help the guard and civilians get away, they fail and perish.

... man that chapter has had a hard run since they helped Huron Blackheart

I need to get on more often, I never have a chance to make a good argument before everyone else jumps on it.

ahhh tyler they still use bolters as their base gun, so no they do count, Ig and other often switch to flamers when they are going up aganist nids so yea your arguement doesnt owrk, on the gene seed thats why the reclaim it after thet battle(or during)

Tyler, you are going off of strict numbers in a theoretical universe. If we went off of strict numbers, everybody would be dead or enslaved to the orks (Emporer forgive me, for I have blasphemed).

Because you can't take into account Chaos Theory or random chance, there is no true way to see the system work. But because the SM do survive and they do work, the entire system works. Its like math and zero. Our math system cannot work without an imaginary number that has no right to exist in the first place.

Nathan wait till precalc you will gain more imagainary numbers(square root of negative numbers have fun) but stop reading all those gaurd books and bad space marine books and get some good books that would show you just how tough a marine is......or a sister of battle in a few cases

Talking theoretical, using cold hard numbers, not the imaginary ones that are used in engineering and such. And who's the later comment drawn to, me or Tyler, or someone else?

its pointed to tyler sorry, you read the real space marine books, so has just about everyone else who has read any 40k book

Right, got it.