# Space Marine casualties



## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Playing a Space Wolves army, I killed 20 Marines, a Rhino APC and a Landspeeder. I myself lost about 30 men but that's quite a good result for the Guard.

I was thinking, if a Chapter were to lose a full fifth of one of its companies, one of its APCs, and a Landspeeder, wouldn't that be a devastating?


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## rgw (Jan 29, 2008)

Well, it is a very small percentage of the whole chapter. Plus Rhino's are hardy so it would most likely be salvaged. As for the Land Speeder I'm not sure, I doubt if one of those crashed into a a hill you could salvage it.

Just means 20 scouts get the call to join the reserve companies I guess.


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Ah. Coolio. Thanks.


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

well, look at the actual definition of the word

from dictionary.com

a.	a member of the armed forces lost to service through death, wounds, sickness, capture, or because his or her whereabouts or condition cannot be determined.
b.	casualties, loss in numerical strength through any cause, as death, wounds, sickness, capture, or desertion.


just because they are a casualty and removed from the table, doesn't mean they are dead. they simply can no longer fight, maybe they were so severly knocked about the head that they are unconsious, or they lost so much blood before the larramans cells caught up and they cannot continue the fight, maybe they lost a leg, or thier bolter arm, maybe one unlucky marine got his powerplant so badly damaged that hes too slugginsh in his armor to keep up with his comrades, who knows. theres many reasons they cannot fight anymore. but that doesnt mean they are dead.


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## Red Orc (Jun 14, 2007)

I'd absolutely go with Engelus here - a battle is about half an hour of 40k time, and all that happens if you're "dead" is that you can't fight for that half an hour. Maybe you're unconscious, or your power-armour has failed, or your ammo has exploded, your gun has jammed, your comms-link has failed or any number of other things that mean you can't continue foghting. Who's to say that in "turn 7" you haven't repaired what went wrong, regained consciousness or whatever?

For campaign purposes, I'd figure probably 80% of battlefield casualties would be "fixable" - say 1:6 actually dead/permanently disabled, 2:6 out for 1-3 games (wounded but recoverable) and 3:6 ready for the next battle (ammo replaced, comm-links repaired, power-failure rectified, stimulants administered, that sort of thing).

Just a guess. But "dead" on the tabletop really doesn't mean "permanently dead".

laying the long game cyclops:


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## Cato Sicarius (Feb 21, 2008)

Engelus and Red Orc, no offense, but I think the enemy would make sure they were dead i.e. blow the guys head of. This is demonstrated on Dawn of War by sync-kills.

And Space Marines don't bleed that much as they have an advanced bloodsteam. They would only bleed a little bit even if a leg was blown of.


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## Red Orc (Jun 14, 2007)

None taken Cato.

I've never played DoW, but that doesn't matter, it's completely irrelevant.

Casualties are inflicted all over the board - how can the enemy possibly ensure that every single one of them is toast? What if the casulaty is in your deployment zone and the enemy never reaches it - what are you gonna do, take your injured over so they can be shot in the head, saying, "well, you 'killed' them, you'd best make sure, it wouldn't be fair/like DoW otherwise"?

In campaigns I run, who 'wins' (ie controls the battlefield at the end of the game) affects the rate of return of casualties. If you chase the enemy off, you can find your injured or incapacitated soldiers and administer first aid, help them back to base etc. You can also round up injured enemy and shoot them/eat them. On the other hand, if the enemy controls the battlefield, they get to do the same.

But that does not change the basic point that "dead" in game terms merely means "incapacitated". Some of them _will_ be dead. Most won't be. Engelus already mentioned blood loss - whether you think losing a leg is just a 'flesh wound' to a marine is irrelevant. There must be a point between 'minor wound' and 'dead', that's the point Engelus was making. Arguing that what Engelus sees as a 'major wound' isn't a major wound doesn't disprove the _existence_ of major wounds. And major wounds are one of the things we're talking about - situations that produce incapacity rather than death.

I cannot for the life of me see how you claim that in a battle, anything more than a minor wound would necessarily be fatal.

:not getting it cyclops:


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

Well I imagine that the victorious platoon/company would actually survey the field for any enemy dead. So I'd have to say the 'Marines would well and truly have died. That's not to say that _some_ 'Marines were not _incapacitated_, they were just killed as they were found. 

That or it may be a training mission and the Space Wolves were 'tagged' by various surveying squads of Guardsmen.

I also didn't mean to say that any deaths on the board equates to fluff-deaths, fully appreciating that the 'Marine could be knocked unconscious/lost limb (or limbs) or whatever. I was thinking that in the aftermath surely the Guardsmen would have killed any fatally wounded/unconscious 'Marine they came across.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Red Orc and Engulus have the right of it - Trauma and shock is more of an ender to fighting that actually dying. You assume that there is a medical field hospital not too far behind (Guard, Tau), the guys are just too tough (Chaos Marines, Marines, Necrons, Orks - incidentally, you hear in fluff of Orks just getting up hours after a battle, with their head caved in), can take care of themselves (Eldar, Dark Eldar), or are banished (Daemons).

From experience, when attacking, you take stock, and leave your trooper behind you, if you plan to return, or you send him back to the field hospital. If falling back, you'll bring him with you.


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## Red Orc (Jun 14, 2007)

KellysGrenadier said:


> ... I was thinking that in the aftermath surely the Guardsmen would have killed any fatally wounded/unconscious 'Marine they came across.


Absolutely, and I'm not trying to imply this wouldn't happen, this is why in the example I gave from campaigns I've run, I said that who controls the battlefield would affect the casualty-return rate.

On the other hand, a marine that is incapacitated - injured, blinded, suffers suit-failure or whatever - might easily between turn 2, when he is involved in a mortar-blast, let's say, and theoretical "turn 7", when the guard come to shoot him in the head, have crawled back to his own lines or otherwise been "rescued". 

For all we know, there are 6 rhinos parked just off the table ready to rush on as ambulances, or even, a host of Thunderhawk gunships that bomb your IGs off the park, so the marines can come and rescue the guys they abandonned in no-man's-land!

In the end it doesn't matter. If you're in a campaign, there'll be rules about casualties or re-inforcements. If it's a one off game, you just claim massive bragging rights. I think, in the original question, you ask 'wouldn't that rate of loss be a catastrophe' and yes it would - _if_ all those losses were fatalities, or otherwise unrecoverable losses. I just can't see that they would be.

:logical cyclops:


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

What about shots from plasma guns and battle cannon ordnance? And multi lasers.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

We're not saying that theres a Cut and dry, when all people who are casualties in game survive, we're saying that not all are.

You get hit by a D-Cannon, you're sucked into the warp. You get hit by a powerfist, you've got a hole in your chest, right in your vitals. I'm guessing that people are going to try and grab their insides, then pull out for more damage. So yes, those are cases when you die. But when hit by Lasgun fire, you get like 3rd Degree burns at worst. So apinful and debilitating, but not always lifethreatening.


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## Zorenthewise (Aug 7, 2008)

Well, casualties still can mean death, you know. I'm sure a guardsmen that took a plasmagun to the face will have a worse time than the one that took a lasgun to the leg.

Also, I would imagine the fate of non-dead casualties would depend on who the winner is, where the battle happened, and how solid of a victory it is. For instance, if the tyranids won, I don't imagine many enemy soldiers waking up an hour afterwards and wandering off. Also, if the battle is on a place like Catachan where the slightest cut will be infected with horrendously deadly bacteria, then your wounded aren't likely to make it.

Also, if a squad breaks and flees the board, whats to say they didn't pick up and carry their wounded comrades as they ran? I'm sure the bonds between soldiers are close in some armies like the Tau, SM, and certain IG regiments.


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## Red Orc (Jun 14, 2007)

What about them? The principle still holds good. If a result of "dead" means "incapacitated, up to and including dead", then that's what it means. 

Perhaps the marine (or whoever, but I'll stick with a marine for the moment) took a glancing plasma blow to the helmet that shorted the power in his suit - he's blind and deaf, maybe disorientated, and can't fight - but he can still be 'rescued' in the few minutes it takes his squad to assault that gun emplacement up ahead...

Perhaps the ordnance blast left our marine shell-shocked and unconscious, but they revived 10 minutes later and crawled away, back to where their squad was re-grouping.

Perhaps the multi-laser brought down whatever they were hiding behind or under, trapping them for half an hour or so, but they managed to wriggle free just as their mates ran past them in an "advance away from the enemy".

Hell, perhaps it's just incompotence on behalf of the victors - instead of securing the battlefield, maybe they got drunk. Or maybe the marine was under the mud, rubble or bodies in the bottom of a crater and was missed. Perhaps, when the IG came to shoot them in the head as they lay in the crater, they broke the guardsman's neck with their bare hands, and skidadled.

Really; there are loads of possible situations where someone can be incapacitated for a short time, but still escape the inevitable shooting in the head afterwards. It's not hard to come up with possible 'ways out' if you think about it.

But as I say, in the end it's about how you play. In a one-off game, it makes no difference - dead is dead. It's only campaign games that matter for this, and there'll be rules for this sort of thing.

:campaigning cyclops:


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## Cato Sicarius (Feb 21, 2008)

Ok, I'm with Zorenthewise here. It really depends on where you are and what you get hit by. But I'm actually not saying that 10 mins later they get shot in the head - I'm saying the gaurdsmen would try their best to hit vital spots and kill the marines quickly. They would then shoot them again if they tried to get up, but from a distance, so that they can't be over-powered in melee. 

:strategically thinking cat:


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## KellysGrenadier (Jul 13, 2008)

I say 'broken arrow'.


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## Trignama (Jun 29, 2008)

well i'm going to look at it as i would a real combat situation, say you have a squad of marines and you take 3 casualties from shooting, in game terms yeah you make three saving throws and lose three guys, but in reality it could very well have been just one person was critically wounded and needed immediate evac, so two of his squad members grab him up and run him back to friendly lines, hence losing three men to a shooting phase. In actual combat (which i know a thing or two about) its better to wound a man than it is to kill him. mostly because if you kill them you took one guy out of the fight, if you wound him you take 3 because his comrades are going to try to save his life, and get him the hell out of there, and a person in full gear will take two others to either strip him of his gear and get him out of there, or just move him and he will be pretty damn weighed down, not to mention as you are bounding out of the hot zone you will need someone to cover you. So i have to agree that is in a campaign situation, a casualty may not literally mean death, it just means in some way shape or form you have lost a few guys due to shooting


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

You don't shoot or stab to wound in real life. You aim to kill. We're not fighting a war in which people run back with comrades, the ambulances come out to you, or you make your own way back. You will not split half your fighting force.

No point either in wounding something that'll get up, and use its adrenaline to kill you. havign spoken to an Afghanistan Veteran, he said he was shot 4 times during an ambush, which normally would have made him unconcious, due to shock and trauma. But the adrenaline kept him going, and has since been awarded the Military Cross for saving a comrade on fire, while nearly dying. He was not taken back, they Taliban were held off until the Warrior support vehicles came up with transport for the wounded, and as fire support.


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## Morgal (Sep 26, 2007)

A cassualty in 40k that gets shot i woudl assume is dead..it's not as thought they ran away or where pinned.

Also what type of space marine would let a little thing like lossing his legs prevent him from bringing justice the xeno scum..he would bit and claw his way to them and bit there ankles(a space marine bite would hurt, super strong, added bone, and acid....sure it's in there profile)


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## Red Orc (Jun 14, 2007)

No-one that disbelieves in "serious wounds/incapacity" has to do so. It's completely irrelevant. There are some pretty serious reasons why "dead" only means "dead for the purposes of the game" but if you don't accept them, fine, no-ones making you.

I will try to remember however, if we ever get the Heresy campaign up and running, so that you won't be embarrassed by having to turn down your re-inforcements because you don't believe in them. But otherwise, it's not really an issue.

:not actually dead cyclops:


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

Surely this comes down to a matter of wording, a casualty is wounded up to and including dead, a fatality is just plain dead.
In one off games, as Orc has already said, I don't think it really matters but for campaign purposes I would seriously hope not all of my casualties are dead.


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## Syph (Aug 3, 2008)

Despite how detailed the game actually is, it's a very zoomed out, stripped down version of a real battle - more representative than realistic (and I'm aware it's a game about toy soldiers! ) 

I can see that in a battle with Nids or Crons there wouldn't be much left, providing they'd get the time to devour life left. But I certainly wouldn't take casualties to mean fatalities - but as has been said, this matters zilch for the purpose of one game.


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## mellowgoth (May 14, 2009)

*Casulties...*

A couple of thoughts to toss in;

As to shooting to kill, not wound - a good friend of mine in the US Marine Corp mentioned that it was stressed to them in traning that a dead soldier eliminates one enemy from the fight: a wounded one requires seven additional personell to tend to him: a logistical amplification of the effect. Of course, this does not apply if the army you are facing has no regard for the lives or comfort of its members (Tryanid leap to mind...but a lot of the tenants of warefare as we know it would not apply to the 'Niddy Goodness).

As to whether a casualty is dead or recoverable - many many other wargames include some sort of algorithm for the recovery of "dead" troops after a battle. If memory serves, the early Avalon Hill games, covering everyhting from the Thrity Years was to the Battle of the Bulge, assume one third to one half recovery - 3 or 4 of every six casualties was a kill. 

I actually think that this would tilt unfavorably for Marines...some of the lost, recoveable casulties would have been routed - Most marines would, I think, stand and die.

"Its a random, godless, and decaying universe. I'm Ok with that. In fact, I think I like it that way."

mellowgoth


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

I see in many games (and even White Dwarf, Black Library Novels, and Campaigns) where lossing 3 men in a battle does not mean dead. Injured, Took off for med help, KO from a blast, or recovered from the field of battle (some victories attackers take off after they win, raids, ambushes, watever). So I dont see where I lost three men mean they died, if so there be no CSM or SM chapters left. At all.


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## Epic Fail (Jun 23, 2008)

In response to the OP, the first reply covers my view. 20 scouts get the call to step up.

As for the tangental argument, wounding was found to be incredibly effective from a morale and a strategic point of view. Screaming squadmates are worse for squad morale than a corpse, which you can easily come to terms with, and can motivate them to fight harder.

If my mini is off the board, it's off the board. I have never stopped to wonder if it was actually dead. Much of the black library fiction supports the theory (fluff wise) that casualty doesn't mean crispy fried dead in all cases, but the mortality rates in 40k are shockingly high.

If you want to put a filter of realism over the TT game, you need to imagine that there are a bunch of atmospheric effects in place, as well as other firefights/shelling happenning nearby. This would effect the likelihood of a squad walking over a downed opponent, teabagging them and putting a round through their heads. They don't know that it's over, and it's more important to secure the objective than to finish off an oponent that is already out of the equation.


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## Lord of Rebirth (Jun 7, 2008)

In fluff terms a single marine is tougher and better than 50 or 100 guardsmen so you shouldn't think game terms are correct to the fluff.If that were the say a small say 500 point marine army would be as powerful as a good 4000 point guard army or better.

Also you can imagine a marine that supposedly can take hits that would kill a human instantly and keep on fighting will not really die to a single wound and considering the defensive capabilities of power armour and the natural toughness of marines I don't think most in game hits than can kill marines would actually kill them.


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

well, in wh40k they are called WOUNDS not casualties. so they are too wounded to fight. a soldier has one wound for his stats, it means he can only handle one significant wound before he stops fighting, doesn't mean they die. i would assume in the wh40k universe that any surviving wounded of the losing side would probably be killed.

it is a lot of space marines to be killed, as space marines are angered and saddened by the loss of any one marine in their chapter, as they see every soldier as a vital weapon against their enemies. but in such times, they do have scouts or neophytes and other marines in training to promote. and this is why chapters often spend much of their time recruiting from their homeworlds. vehicles i dont think are a big deal, since it is after all the imperium. butt loads of money and materials to go around.


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## Lord Lucius (Sep 18, 2008)

my 2 pence. LOGICALY they dont HAVE to be dead.I mean in a huge, scary ,adrenalie fulled battle,would YOU put a bolt through EVERY casulties head to make shure there dead? hey that rhymes!
any way, a bit off topic, but I thought (now as in today)you had to shoot to kill, as shooting to maim or injure is considerd crule or inhumane ,and there for ilegal (even in war). you have to take some bastard terrorist back to base to treat him/her (well this is what some soldier I was talking to about rules of engagement said any way).


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## admiraldick (Sep 9, 2008)

i'm in agreement with Red Orc and/or Cyclops. i have never thought that when a model was taken out of action in a game it was meant to be dead out-right. that rate of attrition simply would not add up when compared to the Eldar, SM and special character background.

as far as i am concerned it probably does mean death or fatal wounding for weaker races like Humans (though there will still be wounded soldiers who will ultimately recover), but for things like Marines, they would be seldom killed on the battle field, and would live to fight another day.



rgw said:


> Well, it is a very small percentage of the whole chapter.


1% is no small amount, particularly when you consider just how much goes in to making a single SM. for each marine there would have been hundreds if not thousands of aspirants, many of whom will have died in the selection. then there are the huge number of hours (years even) put into growing, developing and training the Marine. and the resources poored into finding and augmenting that one guy are phenomenal. it all adds up, till every marine is worth 100 or more guardsmen.

add to that that the size of the Chapter is none too important when they don't commonly fight as a Chapter. realistically 10 men is more like 10-20% of a Marine army.



Cato Sicarius said:


> Engelus and Red Orc, no offense, but I think the enemy would make sure they were dead i.e. blow the guys head of.


i'm quite sure all combatants in 40k are trained to 'shoot to kill', however, such a thing is not always easy. firstly, real life comparisons about human effectiveness in battle are only so relevant. guardsmen do fall like flies, just like real humans do. however, most other races do not, they are either to difficult to target or to tough to wound. so just because the US army are trained to shoot other humans and kill them doesn't mean that they would have any level of success against significantly tougher opponents like Orks or Marines. secondly, even in real life its not easy to make sure that you kill your opponent when ever you hit them. combat situations are rarely less than chaotic and situations are seldom ideal for applying training.



Syph said:


> Despite how detailed the game actually is,


wow! you actually think this game is detailed!?!


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

well, if you look at it this way, even a close victory, if game dead meant fluff dead, than a close victory would be a horrible happening for a space marine chapter that would take many decades if not hundreds of years to recover from.


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## Warlock in Training (Jun 10, 2008)

I for one want to go off topic real quick about how tough Marines are. If the whole equation of 1 Marine = 100 IG then I think people should read any First and Only books. The IG in there bring many Chaos Marines down with there Las weapons alone. And Eldar are very few in number but have the potential of felling Marines with little loss of life. Then theres stiuations like Inquisitors and Henchmen have felled Marines and there not Super Human. 

Anywho I think some Fluff is very exagerated. If it was true Cadia would be gone 10 times over.


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## Ordo Xeno Commander (Jan 17, 2007)

But then again, they are using their lasguns on full power most of the time in the GG's books. The fluff really doesn't compare to game, and it changes from book to book. There is one book where 2 or 3 marines charge a line of guardsmen who have an autocannon, a Marine takes an autocannon round to the chest, stumbles and keeps running. Remember, the Ghost's are no standard IG trooper either.


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