# Is 40k too small scale?



## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

So I was reading Siege of Vraks last week, and it was great. I come to the end of the book and see the total number of dead for the campaign-20 million, both sides. And this is supposed to be one of the bloodier conflicts in an epic, futuristic and overblown setting.

So here's the general question-could the setting do with adding a few zeroes to all combatants' numbers? Starting with the Imperial Guard and other massed armies and all the way up to Space Marines, I reckon making fluff numbers ten or a hundred times bigger would be a nice touch.

After all, even 10,000 Astartes is a tiny, tiny number on a galactic scale, but it might avoid galactic conflicts boiling down to a squad of Space Marines chainswording through a slightly larger gaggle of demons or orks.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

Personally i agree and feel that most numerical reports of armies sizes, casualties etc could do with an extra zero. It seems far fetched to me that a 100 Space Marines could conquer a world, planets being as big and populous as they are. 1000 of them though and i'd have no issue. Guard regiments often being described as only 5000 men strong (or there about) seems pathetic and inadequate compared to the scope of what actions they're undertaking (and our own historic armies). Having armies or campaigns of a few hundred thousand or a couple million seems pathetic when we know there are billions or trillions of guardsmen out there and in our own history have had larger conflicts. 

Of course not all armies or wars etc have to be of such scales but at least some of them should. The Sabbat Crusade for example, as detailed by Dan Abnett over the years seems to have an appropriate sense of scale. There a billion guardsmen are marshalled for the war effort, which makes sense when you consider that the Imperial forces are having to invade and conquer whole worlds (and a lot of them to boot).


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## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

Thing is, anything demanding a larger force usually either involves nids or orks, or calls for orbital nuking.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

40k is supposed to be a skirmish based game. Your battles represent part of a larger one. 

You can always play Apoc.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

yes the numbers are off, they are way off, a thousand marines couldnt hold a city let alone a country or a world, they fluff is flawed but the numbers that were chucked around in the early days have stuck, not alot of research went in to 40k as it was supposed to be a bit of a laugh and a joke game, "elves and dwarves in space ??? what are we like?" 

But rather than revise the numbers they have stuck with them, personally i think a chapter should be at least a million space marines and guardsmen numbering into the trillions to have any hope of holding the galaxy in check and keeping invaders of the numerous kinds in check for this long.

The world armed forces is close to 20 million active people serving and god knows how many reserves and paramilitary, but i would guess at atleast double that number so our very own world could in theory field 60 million armed men and women at this moment in time and we are not in a general state of war or under thread of invasion from another world (as far as i know) 
So you could argue that worlds in the 41st millenuim would be far more likely to have larger forces and that 1000 marines would be a piss in the ocean in terms of there ability to invade a planet, even a small one like ours.

But you have to read the fluff as though all the numbers are scaled down(like the models) and relative to each campaign because thats how the fluff works, it only makes sense to compare it to its own environment and setting,if you compare it to our numbers and technology etc it will fall down every time.

The fluff works in 40k but not outside of it.

Its a bit like gravity in cartoons,we know if you walk out of a phone box that has been shoved of a cliff at the last second you would die, but we are happy for Bugs bunny to do it if hes escaping from Elma fudd.


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## Iron Angel (Aug 2, 2009)

There's also the fact that not every world is covered in cities. Most just have one or two centers of population, with larger or more developed worlds maybe having more. On such a world, holding one, maybe two, cities is all you need to control the planet.


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

Iron Angel said:


> There's also the fact that not every world is covered in cities. Most just have one or two centers of population, with larger or more developed worlds maybe having more. On such a world, holding one, maybe two, cities is all you need to control the planet.


Still no harm in making fluff units larger-there's no difference between 10 Space Marines fighting 10 traitors in a city and a thousand on both sides.

Ever player the multiplayer computer game Space Marine? That CoD level is literally the battleground for the entire planet.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Sturmovic said:


> So I was reading Siege of Vraks last week, and it was great. I come to the end of the book and see the total number of dead for the campaign-20 million, both sides. And this is supposed to be one of the bloodier conflicts in an epic, futuristic and overblown setting.
> 
> So here's the general question-could the setting do with adding a few zeroes to all combatants' numbers? Starting with the Imperial Guard and other massed armies and all the way up to Space Marines, I reckon making fluff numbers ten or a hundred times bigger would be a nice touch.
> 
> After all, even 10,000 Astartes is a tiny, tiny number on a galactic scale, but it might avoid galactic conflicts boiling down to a squad of Space Marines chainswording through a slightly larger gaggle of demons or orks.


I haven't read the Siege of Vraks in years, so my memory may be bad, but it wasn't so much as conquering a major world, but the taking of a single fortress.

If I recall correctly, the planet of Vraks was simply an arms depot of a planet. It had a small population of administrators, laborers, and some Ecclesiarchy members. Glancing at the Lexi', it says the population was a total of 8 million people.

From what I remember of the actual battle, it wasn't the conquering of an entire planet, but rather the retaking of a single stronghold from the rebels. Considering they were trying to take one fortress (granted the one the size of a city) that took only a couple years of fighting, 20 million men is a lot of dead men.

I think WH40k generally does the number thing pretty okay. I personally think there ought to be more Space Marines for what they do, but do keep in mind they generally fight straight up. That's how they can come out ahead in offensive operations. On the defense, though, particularly against opponents that can be everywhere all at once (like Tyranids and Orks) I don't think I can justify them having so much influence.

Take the Battle for Macragge. The Ultramarines turned out to be a crucial lynchpin in Ultramar's defense. While some spots they could have made the difference (I imagine the First Company's terminators being useful in the northern fortresses), they simply didn't have the numbers to hold the line against millions of Tyranids. I'd rather have had Calgar call for support and had 10-15 Chapters come to his assistance.


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## cegorach (Nov 29, 2010)

What many of us seem to forget is that, yes we can brandish around these numbers like nobodys business, I can easily say the term "four hundred and twenty seven billiion" But to actually imagine that number would be so inconcievable that if I was ever thrust infront of four hundred and twenty seven billion humans (for example) my mind would not be able to even register that amount, even if my eyes could. 

We can always say that we can imagine one million people, but all we really do is just imagine a lot of people, and then call that a million. My laboured point is yes the numbers might not be, to scale, but maybe they kept it scaled down so that we could get more immersed in the story lines, we could get more involved in the books and fluff. So that we could actually imagine what was happening. Besdies, out of everything else done on a galactic scale, 40k seems to be the only thing closely resembling enough to actually be accurate. (What was it in star wars? they prepped one million clones for a galactic republican army? Bitch please  )


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## Giant Fossil Penguin (Apr 11, 2009)

I'll call Godwin here, just in case...
20 million is a shit-load of dead. WW2 left a total of ~8.8 million dead in the 3rd Reich alone. The Soviets lost ~13.5 million, over 50% of all of the deaths during this war. The Vraks conflict, alone, left almost as many dead as the two countries who lost the largest amount of military casualties during WW2.
Rather than 40k thinking too small, I think it is us who have issues with actually imagining what 20 million corpses looks like. Almost 1/3 of the UK's population. This number would leave Australia with only about 2.5 million survivers. Imagine Tokyo and New York with _everyone_ dead, and you're coming close to seeing what 20 million dead is. And not just dead, torn apart by bullet, lasblast and shells. Run over by tanks, mashed to fragments by beserk Ogryns and Astartes.
As for Astartes numbers, you wouldn't need more than a thousand to conquer a planet. To take, say, the UK out of a conflict you would need to destroy its ability to function politically. So, an Astartes drop on the Houses of Parliament, when it's in full session, would wreak havoc. There would be so much trouble trying to get the country working again (who does what, who pays and how, who is now actually in charge?), that the country wouldn't be able to say what its own citizens should do, never mind any Armed Forces. Same with any large country. You don't need to kill every Soldier and occupy all of the landmass to defeat an enemy, just stop it from functioning properly. In what comes after, a Chapter is woefully short on manpower, but that's not what it's used for.
Anyway, I'm rambling now!

GFP


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

I have for a number of years now drawn attention to the fact that 100 marines would be a compleatly usless war asset. Helll when dealing with entire worlds even a billions soldiers is only a respectable force considering real hive worlds would have populations in the 10 billions mark going by places like india and china. 40k's math problem is a sign of when and how it is designed, and reasonable gamers have long abandoned the idea that 100 space marines could do anything important (Even trying to kill a important leader ect would entail going through around 10000 of the enemy armies most elite forces. Hell considering the rate of replacement most marine chapters would be ground into nothing under the constant military demand for their services. 

When you get to planetary combat armies number in the billions when you get to galactic combat you start looking at armies of trillions. 40k according to its scope should have guard armies in the million to billions, and machine support assets in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Hell going by the nids and orc fluff a planatary conflict with them would number easily in the 10000-100000 mark in a matter of months.


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## thebinman (Jun 18, 2010)

I dont think its ridiculous at all. 

Modern warfare is going down this route too: you dont need mass armies anymore, just highly mobile motivated well armed well trained special forces. Any thing else will just get smashed to bits from the air. 

40k will be like this, but more. 

You want to keep a planet, but don't want to obliterate it? You just need to teleport 100 marines into the enemy base, slaughter the top 1000 of the enemy, and there you go. 

Presume you dont go down the Iraq route of constant insurgency as the tech is so good any revolt is identified almost immediately and taken care off by the Inquisition.


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## Davidicus 40k (Jun 4, 2010)

thebinman said:


> Modern warfare is going down this route too: you dont need mass armies anymore, just highly mobile motivated well armed well trained special forces. Any thing else will just get smashed to bits from the air.


Well put. While Marine Chapters may vary in doctrine and fighting styles, in my mind they've always been rapid response/quick strike forces that jump in, kill everything, then jump out. Drop pods, teleportation, Thunderhawks, they're all designed with this purpose in mind. Then again, Marines are just as viable when on the defensive, so it's kind of a moot point.


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## doofyoofy (Mar 8, 2011)

I second Fossil Penguin and Davidicus and Binman! 
Also, for all the people talking about 100 Marines not holding territory, Marines arent supposed to hold territory by themselves, thats what the Guard is for. The Marines are just there to wreck house and leave. 100 marines is plenty enough to run around wrecking everything in sight that could leave a world capable of defending itself for when the Gaurd come and occupy. 
Something to think on, even if the 100 Marines had to absolutely wreck everything on a plante, jsut by themselves, its not like they usually dont have time to do it. If it takes them a 100 years( which it woudlnt) then they can take 100 years to do the job. Not like they really age or whatnot. ( asuming supplies and no reinforcements, which for a lot of worlds isnt an unlikely scenario)


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## COMPNOR (Apr 21, 2010)

When talking of populations of hive worlds and what not, unless they've been corrupted or something, how many people would really care what's going on and take active interest, versus just getting in the way?

These are people who go to work day after day, pulling a single lever on the minute every minute without ever questioning why. It's a grim dark future.

At the end of the day, I don't think they'd really care what tyrant is ruling over them.


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## thebinman (Jun 18, 2010)

COMPNOR said:


> When talking of populations of hive worlds and what not, unless they've been corrupted or something, how many people would really care what's going on and take active interest, versus just getting in the way?
> 
> These are people who go to work day after day, pulling a single lever on the minute every minute without ever questioning why. It's a grim dark future.
> 
> At the end of the day, I don't think they'd really care what tyrant is ruling over them.


Not sure about this, thinking of the Marines wrecking the HQ and then who is around to clear up the mess got me thinking...you can only do that sort of thing where there is no communication or mobility, and no wide network of people not under your control (for example, in the dark ages there was the state and the church, and mobility was limited) but in 40k I presume there would be a level of global comms...

...but may be China is showing us the way to practice real social control with modern tech! With all the billions of Chinamen around now Chinamen would dominate 40k anyway..


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

The only figure that truly annoys me is in the Chaos Codex. It claims that the 'Zombie Plague has left millions dead, and it's victims will probably number in the billions before the plague runs it's course...' It's killed _millions?_ I thought this thing ravaged planets, not just killed a handful of guys across a sector.

Midnight


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## Buttons (Jan 23, 2012)

cegorach said:


> What many of us seem to forget is that, yes we can brandish around these numbers like nobodys business, I can easily say the term "four hundred and twenty seven billiion" But to actually imagine that number would be so inconcievable that if I was ever thrust infront of four hundred and twenty seven billion humans (for example) my mind would not be able to even register that amount, even if my eyes could.


Still, the casualty rates and overall numbers, even in the aforementioned scenario are paltry compared to what they should be. How many guys died in Vraks again, 20 million? WW2 had almost 3 times that many deaths and that was with armies filled with normal humans that were generally less ruthless than the IG and other parties are claimed to be. Also, Vraks had nearly its entire population wiped out in combat alone. A war over an entire planet that kills most of the population and lasts for over a decade kills fewer total people than the country of Madagascar.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

thebinman said:


> I dont think its ridiculous at all.
> 
> Modern warfare is going down this route too: you dont need mass armies anymore, just highly mobile motivated well armed well trained special forces. Any thing else will just get smashed to bits from the air.


.....Modern war? Do you mean were one vastly superior army shit kicks a bunch of insurgents, or has to conduct a police action? We have no idea how a real modern war would play out because such a thing hasn't really occurred yet. Hell even trying to compare WW2 or Korean war to a modern global conflict is a bit goofy. 

Your conception is based on the small ass skirmishes that are being held through out the world. The fact others agreed with you on this point points to the fact that 40k fans typically have a baseline knowledge of war at best. Hell the only reason for the shift in war at all is the realization of mutually assured destruction and managing losses (Something that doesn't matter in 40k)

We are talking 40k here. If marines make planet fall it generally means every able person on the planet is either fighting or died (How many 40k books end with the bad guys being removed and everything turning up sun shine and rainbows?).

The only reason we can send in small elite forces is because in the last 40-60 years no war has been fought with a equally able forces. The US and other forces would not even be able to make ground fall near most industrialized cities (You know because they tend to have the same level of weaponry and tech)

God damn it, has video games and the like really confused our idea of war this badly. If we had a planetary war right now how many combatants would be involved? How many do you think would be dead in the first day? I can tell you it would be a hell lot more then a few million. 

Also don't believe the crap about special forces they fail to. Small elite forces effectiveness goes down drastically with the intelligence of the enemy. How many such forces do you think ended up dead or imprisoned? Its a lot more then most industrialized countries will admit I can tell you that much (Hell their are still rumors about remaining POW's in Korea).

So stop trying to justify 40ks absurdity. Its a game made by sci-fi, fantasy fans that had a rudimentary understanding of science and history. The moment you forget this and try to rationalized it is the moment smart people stop taking anything you say seriously. (Really it starting to come of like a argument from a creationist)

However some people like me love the wacky side of 40k, its fun and retardedly grim dark to the point of hilarity. That why I love it so much. I mean in all honesty marines suck compared to half the shit some xeno races have, but damn if I don't love my space knights facing down the equivalent of 20 xenomorphs.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Buttons said:


> Still, the casualty rates and overall numbers, even in the aforementioned scenario are paltry compared to what they should be. How many guys died in Vraks again, 20 million? WW2 had almost 3 times that many deaths and that was with armies filled with normal humans that were generally less ruthless than the IG and other parties are claimed to be. Also, Vraks had nearly its entire population wiped out in combat alone. A war over an entire planet that kills most of the population and lasts for over a decade kills fewer total people than the country of Madagascar.


I'm guessing you haven't actually read the Imperial Armour dealing with the Siege of Vraks?

The population of Vraks numbered less than 10 million. It was a supply depot. Not a major planet by any stretch of the imagination. Also it wasn't conquering a world. It was taking back a single citadel on the planet held by the enemy.

With this in mind, there were 22 million deaths to take back a single city-sized fortress. That's a lot of dead.


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## Deadeye776 (May 26, 2011)

.......seeing as how we are talking about superhuman warriors, some with psychic powers, with technology far beyond anything we can imagine. 300 Grey Knights cleansed Khorion IX. Yeah they all died but you get the point. BL doesn't care about the actual numbers. If they need 1,000 Astartes to hold a planet then guess what? Your going to see a bunch of stories about how a thousand guys kicked ass, probably high mortality, but still held out. Everyone's got that Spartan stand. Besides, don't over nerd this. It's sci/fi, so the limit is what you can imagine or they can. Your essentially arguing why 1,000 post-human warriors in tech armor can't hold off against either daemons or aliens. It loses credibility as a rational argument in the description.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

See you have defeated your own argument. Rationality has no place in 40k. The whole setting is designed to be one giant power fantasy and that why we love it, however in a universe filled with things that could easily kill a hundred marines in a single go no good argument can be made for the pathetically small scale of 40k. Is it awesome? Yes. However no one is dumb enough to think that 1000 super soldiers would mean anything in wars that often involve things even more powerful then said marines. After all how many bloodthirsters can dance on the head of a pin?

And if we give up on rationality then you can't make any argument in favor of the scale or against it (Note I am always as rational as possible hence my problem). Hell entire squad of marines can easily be butchered by a Greater daemon or carnifex, or any other such thing and there are many more of these things in any given conflict then their are marines in a entire chapter. Its not even a stretch of the imagination to think that a average hive fleet would have a brood lord for each marine present. So I will repeat even by its own rationale 40k has a poor rationale at best for the limited scope of intergalactic warfare.

I will say that out of all the fiction the black library, and the siege of vraks does the best at trying to make a 40k conflict seem epic yet reasonable.


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## thebinman (Jun 18, 2010)

Don't think you quite understood my post. 

Do you really think that the next large scale war will be fought with tank divisions rolling over the Russian plains?! Or may be it will be Chinese aircraft carriers in the Philippines? 

Its more likely to be fought with computer code, drones, and a couple of thousand men. In mu opinion. 

Of course I bow to your 'non baseline knowledge' in these matters but thats my opinion. 



LukeValantine said:


> .....Modern war? Do you mean were one vastly superior army shit kicks a bunch of insurgents, or has to conduct a police action? We have no idea how a real modern war would play out because such a thing hasn't really occurred yet. Hell even trying to compare WW2 or Korean war to a modern global conflict is a bit goofy.
> 
> Your conception is based on the small ass skirmishes that are being held through out the world. The fact others agreed with you on this point points to the fact that 40k fans typically have a baseline knowledge of war at best. Hell the only reason for the shift in war at all is the realization of mutually assured destruction and managing losses (Something that doesn't matter in 40k)
> 
> ...


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## COMPNOR (Apr 21, 2010)

> Originally Posted by LukeValantine
> .....Modern war? Do you mean were one vastly superior army shit kicks a bunch of insurgents, or has to conduct a police action? We have no idea how a real modern war would play out because such a thing hasn't really occurred yet. Hell even trying to compare WW2 or Korean war to a modern global conflict is a bit goofy.
> 
> Your conception is based on the small ass skirmishes that are being held through out the world. The fact others agreed with you on this point points to the fact that 40k fans typically have a baseline knowledge of war at best. Hell the only reason for the shift in war at all is the realization of mutually assured destruction and managing losses (Something that doesn't matter in 40k)
> ...


It's a game dude. Chill.


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## kwak76 (Nov 29, 2010)

Are there actually stats counts of casualties in all the major wars in Warhammer 40 K? I don't think there is because just like it's hard to count how many Guardsmen there is it's more or less the same with the casualties of war. 

If you compare to WW2 the total causalities is something in the range of 75 millions this includes military and civilian of all the nations that was involved. 
But it's not uncommon in the 40 K universe where worlds are destroyed. I imagine billions of lives are lost. So I don't think the 40 K is in a small scale. 

Part of 40K lore is the mythical abilities that the space marines can perform. After all this is science fiction we are reading. So if black library wants to write about a full company space marines taking down a planet it's possible.


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## misfratz (Feb 9, 2012)

Hmm, well, we have some examples of where ludicrously outnumbered forces managed to defeat numerically superior foes.

There is the battle of Marathon, where a Greek army outnumbered perhaps ten times or more defeated the Persian army. Even though the Greeks lost at Thermopylae - where they were more severely outnumbered - they did hold out for several days.

You also have the Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Incan empires. Tiny forces of Spanish conquistadors were able to defeat vast empires thanks to superior technology and divisions within those empires.

I'm sure there are also several examples from the history of the British Empire.

So it really is not hard at all to conceive of a company of Adeptus Astartes successfully conquering a planet much like our own, and then leaving it to the Guard to do the mopping up. Perhaps the Guard would face a decades-long guerilla war, but that's the sort of thing they do.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

LukeValantine said:


> See you have defeated your own argument. Rationality has no place in 40k. The whole setting is designed to be one giant power fantasy and that why we love it, however in a universe filled with things that could easily kill a hundred marines in a single go no good argument can be made for the pathetically small scale of 40k. Is it awesome? Yes. However no one is dumb enough to think that 1000 super soldiers would mean anything in wars that often involve things even more powerful then said marines. After all how many bloodthirsters can dance on the head of a pin?
> 
> And if we give up on rationality then you can't make any argument in favor of the scale or against it (Note I am always as rational as possible hence my problem). Hell entire squad of marines can easily be butchered by a Greater daemon or carnifex, or any other such thing and there are many more of these things in any given conflict then their are marines in a entire chapter. Its not even a stretch of the imagination to think that a average hive fleet would have a brood lord for each marine present. So I will repeat even by its own rationale 40k has a poor rationale at best for the limited scope of intergalactic warfare.
> 
> I will say that out of all the fiction the black library, and the siege of vraks does the best at trying to make a 40k conflict seem epic yet reasonable.


For the record, space marine scouts have succeeded in bringing down a trygon in the lore. A lone guardsman has felled a carnifex with a lucky shot. A single brave soldier has destroyed a necron monolith. A small band of ill equipped astartes toppled a fortress from within. A similarly small band has disrupted an entire ork waaagh from within. 


Given these examples, I'd say the scaling isn't so bad.


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

If the scale of 40k games got any larger, I'd have to sell off my family just to afford a single army. I think it'll be okay where it's at in terms of scale and anything larger can be left to your imagination... Or wallet, if it's got the stones for Apocalypse.


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## sadLor (Jan 18, 2012)

On a galactic scale, yes I find the numbers somewhat humorous and unbelievable. Then I remember this is a galaxy where humans are still using chainsaws and warhammers almost 40000 years in the future and I realize this is just a sci-fi/fantasy setting and I should just enjoy the characters and stories.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

misfratz said:


> I'm sure there are also several examples from the history of the British Empire.


well there was this little skirmish 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

misfratz said:


> Hmm, well, we have some examples of where ludicrously outnumbered forces managed to defeat numerically superior foes.
> 
> There is the battle of Marathon, where a Greek army outnumbered perhaps ten times or more defeated the Persian army. Even though the Greeks lost at Thermopylae - where they were more severely outnumbered - they did hold out for several days.
> 
> ...


Yes and that's all fine and good but in 40k every single battle seems to be a case where a ludicrously small force holds off a insanely larger force/scarier force (Typically only when good guys are involved). Just imagine if every single battle had to be a case like 300 and you start to see why 40k breaks down logically. 

Imagine having to explain to a general that the only way they could win is if their super elite special forces had to win 19 hopeless battles in a row with minimum casualties. Generally they will respond by inserting their fist into your stomach.

Now Like I said I love the wackiness of every battle seeming to be a impossible case of either dumb luck or insane heroics, but logically its not a good battle plan. Remember for every instance where a hand full of warriors defeated a small army there is many more that involve a similar group of skilled warriors ending up in a pile of their own raspberry jam. We just don't pay attention to those cases, after all who wants to hear about the time 10000 Russian soldiers overran and utterly murdered a ultra elite German paratrooper unit, or the many times a US special forces team went silent when a Chinese or north Korean infantry platoon swarmed them and left their bullet riddled corpses in the middle of a field somewhere. 

Soldiers win war, spooks and sneaks win battles (not always true, but generally a good rule of thumb).


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## C'Tan Chimera (Aug 16, 2008)

LukeValantine said:


> Yes and that's all fine and good but in 40k every single battle seems to be a case where a ludicrously small force holds off a insanely larger force/scarier force (Typically only when good guys are involved). Just imagine if every single battle had to be a case like 300 and you start to see why 40k breaks down logically.
> 
> Imagine having to explain to a general that the only way they could win is if their super elite special forces had to win 19 hopeless battles in a row with minimum casualties. Generally they will respond by inserting their fist into your stomach.
> 
> ...



Very well said, but here's where it gets even more difficult. The idea that we like to praise those who triumphed despite the odds (you can find roughly half a dozen articles on Cracked about that) but be tight lipped about catastrophic failures is very much a real thing. In that, you could perhaps even consider it almost a type of propaganda- the folks back home aren't gonna want to hear about a general's fiasco that left 500 soldiers on the wrong end of an island while the enemy waltzes right on in the front door.

Now throw in the fact that arguably just about every bit of fluff is seen through one or another faction's propaganda lens (Let alone GW's omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent marketing propaganda) and it gets even_ more_ warped!


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## doofyoofy (Mar 8, 2011)

First off, I wouldnt knock on moder battles. In the initial invasion of Iraq the US had a lot of problems working out supplies, lines of communication, and friendly fire instances because people where too hopped up and not enough expeirence. Now, the US has gone to great lengths to fix these problems and has real combat expeierence and leadership at the squad and platoon level, whereas other countries who havent had anyone in their military fight for last 2 decades will have all the above problems.
Point being the US has worked out a lot of the practical problems involved in moving large amounts of men and materials, and coordinating them. Also a large pool of combat expeirenced grunts. 

Also the difference between modern Spec Ops and Space marines is SM are armoured liek tanks and armed like apcs. And wheres people are correct in stating that tales of the failures of Spec Ops are skewed towards the positive, the SM IMO are going to be more of the succesfull lot. simply because of gear and equipment, and training. Every single one of them is Spartan level warrior times 10 from the tales of 300. SM arent goign to break like normal troops and are so far above them that you cant compare any normal human comat to the likes of an 8 foot tall, tank armored, rabid firing rpg wielding maniac that can run at speeds if some books are to b believed in excess of modern tanks, for short periods. Add that to potentially centuries of expeirence, and end result cannot be compared to modern comabt, the closest now that i think about it is the initial invasion of iraq, where the US tanks outranged and outmanouverd a much numeraclly larger and less trained and equiped force, for the loss of like 2 tanks, which was a thrown track and friendly fire IRRC. The Republican Gaurd couldnt even get into range of the Abrams, and had no means to effectively strike back, this is IMO the closest any modern comparison is going to come.


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

Yes numbers can be deceptive.

Example i have read many Star Wars books, well can't remember which book but Coruscant or Imperial Centre the capitol planet for the old republic and Empire had a population of over 1 trillion ( something like a million people from a million worlds) lived there, in american that is 1,000 billion on a planet about the same size as Earth, and in the star wars universe the amount of folks is in the hundreds and hundreds of quadrillion.

But even this spitball planet, i reckon we could easily defeat on the ground at least a full Space Marines Chapter with 600 million fighting them, i would like to see the Space Marines beat the 600,000 to 1 odds.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Achaylus72 said:


> Yes numbers can be deceptive.
> 
> Example i have read many Star Wars books, well can't remember which book but Coruscant or Imperial Centre the capitol planet for the old republic and Empire had a population of over 1 trillion ( something like a million people from a million worlds) lived there, in american that is 1,000 billion on a planet about the same size as Earth, and in the star wars universe the amount of folks is in the hundreds and hundreds of quadrillion.
> 
> But even this spitball planet, i reckon we could easily defeat on the ground at least a full Space Marines Chapter with 600 million fighting them, i would like to see the Space Marines beat the 600,000 to 1 odds.


All they'd have to do is sink a couple dozen oil tankers and the world crashes to a halt in 3 months.

Blow up some major dams (hit to infrastructure and massive flooding problems). Sabotage some nuclear reactors. 

You don't expect them to stand in an open field and beat every last guy to death with their fists, do you?


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

hailene said:


> You don't expect them to stand in an open field and beat every last guy to death with their fists, do you?


That's exactly what the Iron Hands did to one species of xenos. They exterminated an entire species bare handed.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Sturmovic said:


> That's exactly what the Iron Hands did to one species of xenos. They exterminated an entire species bare handed.


Interesting. I haven't read that, though. I assume it was some minor species that hadn't reached an industrial-revolution level of development?

Where did you read it?


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

hailene said:


> Interesting. I haven't read that, though. I assume it was some minor species that hadn't reached an industrial-revolution level of development?
> 
> Where did you read it?


Badab War p2, selected honours of the Sons of Medusa-

A xeno species riding on the back of "bio mechanical monstrosities" and with technology capable of "flooding space with aetheric fire" stalled an entire Imperial Crusade.

Cue the Space Marine drop podding onto the xenos home planet, running out of ammo, and then being "reduced to pulverising the shrieking, panicked creatures with their bare hands" until the specoes was eradicated.

It was here that the practice of strapping power fists to Space Marine's feet originated, in order to maximise killing potential.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Sturmovic said:


> Badab War p2, selected honours of the Sons of Medusa-
> 
> A xeno species riding on the back of "bio mechanical monstrosities" and with technology capable of "flooding space with aetheric fire" stalled an entire Imperial Crusade.
> 
> ...


You make it sound like the majority of the Chapter beat an entire civilization with their fists.

It was a desperate action done by some of the Chapter when they ran out of supplies.

Plus the species wasn't eraducated. It was one world amongst an empire of many planets. Beyond that, they didn't even kill everyone (at least it doesn't say so exactly). It says "The onslaught carried on until rubble of the alien of the alien temple-cities was painted with the Helgrammite's pale ichors and half their world had been smashed into ruin. Only then did the Sons of Medusa withdraw."

Still, the point is that they didn't in an open field and beat everyone to death. They had a lot of weapons (assault cannons, thunder hammers, chain swords, and combat blades are mentioned) and it's very unlikely they tried to fight in any "fair" sort of way.

Plus they had power fists back during the HH, I believe, so it was invented in the M38 .


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

At the height of the vietnam war the south has 1.8 million troops. the north has around 461K, you see you don't need a huge army to win a war. You just have to been where they aren't

Let's say for example the US had 5 million men in their military and they were attacked by a force of 50,000. 
We're assuming that they are using 40K tech.
Head to head the 50 thousand doesn't stand a chance. But you have to remember the country is huge you have to find them first to kill them. They could start in new york cripple the harbor and then start moving west immediately. With drop ships capable of spaceflight they can hit anywhere within minutes. 

How long does it take to get a defense force mustered?


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Once again your forgetting that 70% of 40ks battles play out like huge epic one sided fights. Also that 50000 would most likely would never win the war if they were technologically equal the best they would hope to do is fight a drawn out gorilla war that would make the opposing force more sadistic and violent in its attempts to route them out till almost every remnant was found and murdered in the street. In genocidal conflicts gorilla combat never works as the enemy can not be demoralized or forced into surrender when they know they will be murdered to the last man if they give up.

Like I have said before attempts to compare our rule based wars to the species murdering conflict in 40k is silly. The things that work in our war do so primarily do to the fact that both sides don't want to die, but when facing a armies that will literally fight to the last child, or that have no concept of death small tactical strikles are only affective when combined with a primary military force that can monopolized on the effect. Blowing up a harbor or airport is meaningless if you reap no benefit from such action (For instance they have 6 more and will triple security because of the pointless attack). 

Marines and gaurdsman are just average soldeirs by 40k sandards. A ork nob can rip a marine in half, most tyranids can sense them through wall, and chaos can both psychic detect and murder them from a football field away. In all respects most armies are equal in strength and strategy to the imperium so marines are no more effective then regular special forces. Hence their contribution to a war would only be a tactical one not a 300 style stand off as most soldier in the nightmarish universe of 40k are better then regular marines.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

LukeValantine said:


> *Marines* and gaurdsman a*re just average soldeirs by 40k sandards*. A ork nob can rip a marine in half, most tyranids can sense them through wall, and chaos can both psychic detect and murder them from a football field away. In all respects most armies are equal in strength and strategy to the imperium so marines are no more effective then regular special forces. Hence their contribution to a war would only be a tactical one not a 300 style stand off as most soldier in the nightmarish universe of 40k are better then regular marines.


Making some decent post up to that point (or rather restating what you've already said for the third or so time, I think) and was doing okay until you hit this part.

One vs one, not too many things outside of a Space Marine will beat a Space Marine. Usually monstrous creatures and some of the more powerful, elite (often unique) units in an army, like Warbosses.

In a straight up fight, I'd put my money on Space Marine X over Nob X.


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## Deadeye776 (May 26, 2011)

LukeValantine said:


> Once again your forgetting that 70% of 40ks battles play out like huge epic one sided fights. Also that 50000 would most likely would never win the war if they were technologically equal the best they would hope to do is fight a drawn out gorilla war that would make the opposing force more sadistic and violent in its attempts to route them out till almost every remnant was found and murdered in the street. In genocidal conflicts gorilla combat never works as the enemy can not be demoralized or forced into surrender when they know they will be murdered to the last man if they give up.
> 
> Really? Almost every victory the Imperium has had have been pyrrhic victories at best.The battle at Cadia, The Gothic wars, the Battle for Armageddon (all of them,The Horus Heresy. These wars have come at such a high cost that you can literally feel how the other side might still feel proud of their efforts. Guerrilla tactics are exactly what an numerically inferior force is to employ with a larger for no matter what tactics they use.Ask the Viet Cong, American Revolutionaries, Spartacus and his rebels, and many other guerilla forces throughout history. From those of us who've actually been in war I can tell you if the surperior force does commit sadistic and deparved acts it just enforces the populations support and belief in the guerrillas. Any counter insurgency expert will tell you the same. The only way to destroy a guerrilla force is to turn the population against them, either way you'll most likely have a protracted and costly battle that demoralizes your own troops.
> 
> ...


 
This statement in my opinon is just silly. There's notihing average about a space marine. Your talking about a genetically arugmented post human. That's like saying the Spartans in Halo are just normal soldiers. Just because they can be killed is irrelevant. Anything can die obviously, it's what they are capable of. One marine can fight for weeks without sleep, has redundant circulatory and respiratory systems that give them the capacity to take more damage, strength, speed, awareness, and heightened olfactors. You may think they are average because they are utilized so much, but these are literally the tip of the spear. Special mission units like the Deathwatch or Grey Knights reinforce this. Also the term "regular special forces" is an oxymoron. If it was regular then it wouldn't be special by definition. Anything an ork,eldar, daemon, tyranid can accomplish a force of marines can do so and more. That's why the Imperium of Man is still standing......barely.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Argh, quotes within quotes. Can't manage it. I'll try my best to keep it organized. I'll add a number next to each of my responses corresponding to your paragraphs.

1. Plenty of battles have been solid victories, but even considering the larger strategic picture we still have some winners. Lord Solar Mach. being the most notable ones in recent times, the Sabbat World Crusade (presumably) ends up well. The First Battle of Armageddon was most definitely a solid victory for the Imperium, if not for the human survivors, since the manufacturing ability of the planet wasn't particularly hindered and bodies are cheap. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was a definite win, not the strategic knock-out punch that was hoped, but it wasn't merely a Pyrrhic victory.

2. You're missing the point, I think. It's not a matter of individuals being willing to die for a cause, but the percentage of a population willing to give everything. There will always be people willing to risk everything for a cause, but you're almost never going to get a majority to do so. If things look bad people will jump ship.

3. I think you're thinking too...human. Lots of enemies don't fall for the same pattern as us.

Tyranids, Necrons (before their fluff was ruined by the 5th edition Codex), Daemons, the Hrud, the Megaarachnid on Murder, and to a lesser extent, Orks, would not be broken permanently by traditional guerrilla tactics.


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

Pretty interesting thread. 

Good points on both sides. I have to say I am on the side that disagrees with the OP's opinion mostly for reasons already stated by others. Adding extra zero's to the numbers in such cases doesnt make me feel things are any more realistic or interesting. I have certainly never felt that there was a lack of death in the 40k universe.

As for the space marine ability argument, I think we all know that space marines have bene portrayed on many different levels by GW itself. They vary in capability in the novels, they are standard soldiers in the tabletop, always portrayed in codex books as pretty much unstoppable. 

One thing I think can be agreed on though is that despite varying levels of strength, effectiveness, capability they still stand as humanity's _best_ fighters. They can definitely help turn the tide of a battle or war in most cases it seems.

Overall as we all know the 40k universe was made to be manipulated by its fans. You want your space marines to be super pro awesome heros? Cool, go for it. You want your space marines to be a really realisitc tactical force that has to be careful about dieing at every turn? Cool, go for it. You want your chapter to have more marines than the standard? cool go for it, hey look at the black templars they're already doing it.

I will say though that I think they keep the marine chapter numbers where they do because finding perfect candidates who then also pass all the exams and surgeries is incredibly difficult even with untold billions to choose from. This seems to be somethign consistently portrayed by GW material. so going from 1000 marines per chapter to 10,000 might be difficult? I suppose it was done for the legions, but there were only 20 of them, not thousands or whatever.


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## Deadeye776 (May 26, 2011)

hailene said:


> Argh, quotes within quotes. Can't manage it. I'll try my best to keep it organized. I'll add a number next to each of my responses corresponding to your paragraphs.
> 
> 1. Plenty of battles have been solid victories, but even considering the larger strategic picture we still have some winners. Lord Solar Mach. being the most notable ones in recent times, the Sabbat World Crusade (presumably) ends up well. The First Battle of Armageddon was most definitely a solid victory for the Imperium, if not for the human survivors, since the manufacturing ability of the planet wasn't particularly hindered and bodies are cheap. The Damocles Gulf Crusade was a definite win, not the strategic knock-out punch that was hoped, but it wasn't merely a Pyrrhic victory.
> 
> ...


 

As a curtesy I'll answer these with numbers instead of the the in quotes.

1. Marcharius's troops literally told him to go screw himself when he tried to push on past the light of the astronomican. He's based off of Alexander the Great so if he had continued it wouldn't have ended well. Still I'll give you that. The first war for Armageddon your mistaken. The entire population was neutered and taken off planet to live out their lives in labor camps after fighting with the Imperial forces fo rthe planet. The event made the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar develop a lasting sense of enmity towards the Inqusition and Imperial doctrine. Definitely not a definitive victory.


The Damocles Gulf Crusade was successful as well but sadly I can't say it was that pivotal to the survival of the Imperium. Whatsmore it was a negotiation that ended it spurred by the impending arrival of a tyranid Hive Fleet. Sadly I think you've misunderstood a pyrrhic victory. Accomplishing the goals at a crippling cost. Being forced into negotiations, whicle not pyrrhic, is still not a real win as you've described. 

2. I'm sorry but you misunderstood. Every group I've named (obviously the radical muslims are a zealot faction of Islam,but still they have forces) have this belief embedded in their culture. Dying for God or Country or both is seen as the fufillment of the highest ideals of their faith. 

4. I think you're putting these bastards on a pedastal. How do you break a tyranid force? Start killing Carnifex's or the Swarmlord. How did the Emperor turn back the forces at the Siege of Terra? Killing Horus. How do most Ordo Malleus and Grey Knight forces defeat Chaos incursions? By killing the lead daemon or summoner(s). Ork Waagh? Kill the War boss. I can go on. Few of the forces you've named would fight on with the loss of their leader(s). The Megaarchnids I'll give you as they were a force of xenos who were just predatory and violent. No forces that are galactic threats really have their makeup. Everything has a ruling caste, sect, or power. Start at the top and work your way down and the body will collapse on itself.


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## Matheau (Nov 30, 2010)

unxpekted22 said:


> I will say though that I think they keep the marine chapter numbers where they do because finding perfect candidates who then also pass all the exams and surgeries is incredibly difficult even with untold billions to choose from. This seems to be somethign consistently portrayed by GW material. so going from 1000 marines per chapter to 10,000 might be difficult? I suppose it was done for the legions, but there were only 20 of them, not thousands or whatever.


Chapters were ordered to not exceed 1000 marines, though a couple do ignore the restriction. It was done to lower the possibility that a traitor marine chapter could have anywhere near the same level of firepower that the traitor legions possessed, thus allowing them to be contained much more easily.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Deadeye776 said:


> This statement in my opinon is just silly. There's notihing average about a space marine. Your talking about a genetically arugmented post human. That's like saying the Spartans in Halo are just normal soldiers. Just because they can be killed is irrelevant. Anything can die obviously, it's what they are capable of. One marine can fight for weeks without sleep, has redundant circulatory and respiratory systems that give them the capacity to take more damage, strength, speed, awareness, and heightened olfactors. You may think they are average because they are utilized so much, but these are literally the tip of the spear. Special mission units like the Deathwatch or Grey Knights reinforce this. Also the term "regular special forces" is an oxymoron. If it was regular then it wouldn't be special by definition. Anything an ork,eldar, daemon, tyranid can accomplish a force of marines can do so and more. That's why the Imperium of Man is still standing......barely.





Deadeye776 said:


> As a curtesy I'll answer these with numbers instead of the the in quotes.
> 
> 1. Marcharius's troops literally told him to go screw himself when he tried to push on past the light of the astronomican. He's based off of Alexander the Great so if he had continued it wouldn't have ended well. Still I'll give you that. The first war for Armageddon your mistaken. The entire population was neutered and taken off planet to live out their lives in labor camps after fighting with the Imperial forces fo rthe planet. The event made the Great Wolf Logan Grimnar develop a lasting sense of enmity towards the Inqusition and Imperial doctrine. Definitely not a definitive victory.
> 
> ...


More numbers!

1. You're thinking too "Western" civilization again. The entire population (minus some very powerful people) of Armageddon sterilized and sent to work camps? No biggie. The Imperium doesn't care about people, even many tens of billions of people. People they have enough of. The fact that Armgeddon was left largely intact as a crucial manufctoring center is what mattered. The Space Marine Codex states that, "within a month the planet's productivity was back to optimum levels" after replacing the work force. Sounds like a solid victory for the Imperium.

And you need to make a distinction between a Pyrrhic victory and a crushing strategic victory. There is much that falls between the two and the Damocles Crusade is one of them.

2. I may have misinterpreted what you said, but only because you in turn misread what Luke was trying to say, then. He wanted to say that there are forces in Warhammer 40k that will literally fight until the last entity. Humans won't do that. You brought up the example of _some_ people within _some_ societies that are willing to die, but that's not what Luke nor I was trying to say.

4. You can temporarily damage cohesion within a Tyranid force by killing its commanders, but as the Tyanid codex states they can literally bring them back from the dead, memories and all. It's not the same as killing the general of an army of the Imperial Governor of a planet.

As for Daemonic forces (which differ from general Chaos forces) they don't seal away a single Daemon or summoner. Doesn't work that way. What they have to do is seal the means by which the Daemons are arriving and maintaining themselves in the material universe. It's more than simply killing the daemon leader or even summoner.

As for the Orks, I did mention that they are there to a lesser extent. Mostly what I was getting at was they don't have a home you can destroy, civilians you can threaten, invaluable supplies that would force an Ork army to capitulate (though destroying arms depots and manufactoring centers would definitely hinder them, but they're willing to come at you with rocks and fists if need be), and while it's true that sometimes killing their leader works, it's still different than when assassinating human leaders. It's more of a temporary setback for Orks (that could potentially be capitalized) than a crushing loss for a human force.

I think, again, you need to make a distinction between "literally break any force on any planet when applied properly" and temporarily disorienting. Because killing all the synapse creatures in a Tyranid swarm will cause the swarm to lose cohesion, but it's only a matter of time before the swarm spawns new synapse creatures to fill in the gaps.


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## zacktheRipper (Jan 23, 2012)

I think the scale of 40k is generally accurate, despite the Space Marines. A lone Space Marine with his tank like armour and explosive machine gun can kill many people all at once, but really, you only read about their individual feats of kicking ass. They go in, kill a lot of elitists, and blow away the most dangerous looking creatures. Yeah Nobs could rip them in half, but thats saying if they can rip their crazy armour in half too, or survive the "..with the energy of a SMALL SUN" plasma bolts in their face.

SMs aside, the actual casualties Guardsmen face against the likes of Orks and such is much more accurate. Millions of Guard casualties, and who knows how many dead Orks. The Tyranids are the same, but the scary thing about them is that they use the crazy amount of dead to fill up whatever 'Nids are missing. 

Its a really depressing thought, thinking about the wars in 40k. Civilians would just burn up within a day or two.If something like that happend on Earth well...read Stephen King's the Stand, and convert it from viral to war. 6 930 000 000 out of 7 billion dead..X). If it was Chaos related, well, you better believe whoever is left would be executed to keep things under wraps! If it was any of the Xenos [excluding the Tau in some circumstances] the civilians would die. If it was ANYTHING they'd die! XD So my friends, if we see 'Nid spores falling out of the sky one day, I bid you all a fond and warm fare well.


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## Creator of Chaos (Feb 8, 2012)

Firstly people have to reliese this is just a game and that its not meant to be compleltly realistic it is a fantasy universe, just chill and have fun. 

But for the seriouness of the discusiion At the same time tho we must reliese that the space marines or any other elites almost never win conflicts alone and while there are clear example's realistically such a task is nigh impossible and even with examples that are successful it takes years off work. Most time's marines so called victories are done through multiple chapters or with guard/Sisters of battle assisitance. Space marines are just a hit and run elite force or an elite defence force depending on the circumstances and while there are clear case's in history of force's holding off enemies against insurmountable odds or even winning (the 300, Kokoda, Hill 61, Leningrad Etc) they never won the war. 

Yes they played a major part towards winning the war. the 300 gave the greeks the time they needed to get there act togethor to fight the Half Million persions that survived and Australia's victory in kokoda all but ended Japanese plans for the invasion of the continent and sent them running the opposite way. In nearly every case in history its always the grunts who win and finish up the war. The elite or the desperate stand heros merely make the Job easier and give the public back at home reason to hope. In 40k this is what we read and this is what we play on the tabletop. The Space marines or the Nobs or the Harlequins entering the battle when its most pivotal or hitting an enemy weakspot, turning the conflict for the army and sending them the enemy into disarry

And for those giving examples of Inferior numbers or a crack unit killing leaders to end wars or prevent them yes those examples do to happen but usualy the enemy are either heavily disorganised, on the verge of breaking, lack genuine populus support or are already losing. As for the Inferior numbers over the course of the war. This usally involves years of work and defensive effort draining the enemies resource's, Morale and breaking there leadership before making your own move against the superior enemy with eleites once again hitting the enemy where it hurts while denying them the same privilege. 

Now that the seriousness is done once again we must remember that this is 40k and most of the above need not apply. For emperers sake we live in a universe where a man on the throne fights 4 Gods, where a race of 65 million year old Impeccable machines ignore the effects of time and have devices that can suck up stars, Where a single Gene stealer can corrupt a planet and where a 200 Billion people can somehow live on a industrial world where the sole source of Oxygen and water is a thin layer of Jungle/Ocean around the equater. Just enjoy the game


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## BloodAngelZeros (Jul 1, 2008)

One thing with the space marines I'd like to point out is that normally they're used as a precision strikeforce. They're not meant to be a massed horde that overwhelms the enemy through numbers. They're the elite that humanity has to offer. In virtually any book, space marines win by attacking hard and fast at one very particular, very important target. Against orks and tyranids, it's usually the warboss or hive tyrant (or whatever nid is leading) respectively. They kill it and leave the cleanup of the lesser aliens to the mortal humans. Tough defense to break? Space marines go in, smash a hole in the defense and allow the grunts to pour in to finish it off. The horde armies in 40k are represented well for their numbers. Thing to keep in mind is when playing, it's just one battle. Could be a roaming group of orks that some SM ambushed. It's not meant to represent a planetary war. If you want that feeling, play a campaign where the result of each battle effects the next. Besides, would you really want to assemble and paint 50,000 termagants? Granted, I'm sure that GW would love that, cause that would be $120,833.33 in their pockets.


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

BloodAngelZeros said:


> One thing with the space marines I'd like to point out is that normally they're used as a precision strikeforce. They're not meant to be a massed horde that overwhelms the enemy through numbers. They're the elite that humanity has to offer. In virtually any book, space marines win by attacking hard and fast at one very particular, very important target. Against orks and tyranids, it's usually the warboss or hive tyrant (or whatever nid is leading) respectively. They kill it and leave the cleanup of the lesser aliens to the mortal humans. Tough defense to break? Space marines go in, smash a hole in the defense and allow the grunts to pour in to finish it off. The horde armies in 40k are represented well for their numbers. Thing to keep in mind is when playing, it's just one battle. Could be a roaming group of orks that some SM ambushed. It's not meant to represent a planetary war. If you want that feeling, play a campaign where the result of each battle effects the next. Besides, would you really want to assemble and paint 50,000 termagants? Granted, I'm sure that GW would love that, cause that would be $120,833.33 in their pockets.


Firstly, the problem is fluff only-your 10 space marines and 30 gaunts can be part of a wider battle on the table.
Second, I realize that space marines are elite troops, hence why I suggested scaling all races the same way-they're still elite and everything even if there's 10,000 of them and a billion of the enemy.


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## turel2 (Mar 2, 2009)

Remember, if in doubt Exterminatus.


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## Deus Mortis (Jun 20, 2009)

Also, you need to remember timescale too. Whilst a standard 1500pts tabletop game will take 2-3 hours (or that's how long mine tend to take), the whole conflict will be happening in a matter of minutes, maybe just one minute. 

I mean, your space marine is firing between 1 and 2 bolts every round. That means, if he has fired twice every turn for 5-6 turns, he had fired 10-12 shots; maybe just enough to empty a clip of ammo? And then a bolter can be a fully automatic weapon, so that could occur in a couple of seconds if the marine so chose.

Warhammer was only ever supposed to be a skirmish game. Even most Apoc games are only skirmishes really. "Oh, you are leading 100 Space marines against a hoard of Orks to kill a Warboss/take an object/etc and destroy some stuff? That should take about an hour." Whereas in reality, it takes you about 2 days, or something crazy like that  

Really what you are doing is taking a skirmish which would have lasted maybe a couple of minutes and imagining "If this result was repeated in 90% of all the skirmishes that happened in this battle (maybe 10/20/30 more?) over X time, the (insert victor here) would have won the battle."


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## dtq (Feb 19, 2009)

One of the plus points of Epic 40k - Being able to field an entire chapter of marines on a reasonable size table top.


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## Harriticus (Nov 10, 2010)

GW screws around with numbers, but the scale of the universe is fine.

Keep in mind that if you do the math, the maximum size of the Ork horde on Armageddon is only about 3 million. That's smaller then the Axis Army that invaded the USSR, 1 country by an army not known to employ horde tactics. 

Really Chapters should be 10,000 strong, A Sisters Order should be 100,000, and so on. Even Imperial Guard regiments are often stated to be about 5,000 strong, which is an absurdity and smaller then most modern military Brigades.


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## COMPNOR (Apr 21, 2010)

5,000 is actually about right for a single Brigade. If you look it up on Wikipedia, you see:



> The typical NATO standard brigade consists of approximately 3,200 to 5,500 troops. However, in Switzerland and Austria, the numbers could go as high as 11,000 troops. The Soviet Union, its forerunners and successors, mostly use "regiment" instead of brigade, and this was common (e.g. Germany) in much of Europe until after World War II.


And if you scroll down, you'll find for the US:



> In the United States Army, a brigade is smaller than a division and roughly equal to or a little larger than a regiment. Strength typically ranges from 2,500 to 4,000 personnel.


So 5k for a single Regiment is pretty normal, and for a single Regiment I don't see that as being that abnormal.

Personally I think the numbers are just fine. I mean looking at Gaunt's Ghosts, you have thousands dying within seconds, falling off bridges because they simply have nowhere to go. Or civies at Vervuhive, who spend like almost an hour was it being pushed off a pier because it took that long for the message to be passed back to turn around.


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

You kinda prove my point- a galaxy in all our war shouldn't have battles and units smaller than what we have now. Harriticus is right with his idea.


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## COMPNOR (Apr 21, 2010)

Sturmovic said:


> You kinda prove my point- a galaxy in all our war shouldn't have battles and units smaller than what we have now. Harriticus is right with his idea.


It's one unit. *One*. I don't see why a regiment needs to be uber-big when a world might raise a dozen of them, and battles might feature hundreds. 

On Lexicanum I counted 26 Notable Shock Troop Regiments. And that wouldn't be all of them. 

5k seems like a good number, and gives you flexibility. Even on Verghast they were wondering how Zoica could muster so many troops. 

So for me personally, no I think the scale is just fine.

In any battle, you're only seeing a very small part of it.

Going back to your OP, I haven't been able to read Vraks yet, so anything I can get is from Lexicanum. It says 14 million for the guard, the 8 million planet population wiped out, and untold number of enemies. I also personally don't equate bloody conflict with high death toll, unless that's how it was referenced in the book. 

Orbital bombarding a world and causing billions of death isn't a bloody conflict in my mind. Slogging through trenches, street by street, level by level, where you're up in front and the dead just pile on, that is bloody.

So perhaps the bloody conflict isn't in reference to the body count, but how brutal the fighting was.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Harriticus said:


> Keep in mind that if you do the math, the maximum size of the Ork horde on Armageddon is only about 3 million. That's smaller then the Axis Army that invaded the USSR, 1 country by an army not known to employ horde tactics.


Where do you get the idea that there are only 3 million Orks on Armageddon? 

The annual tithes for Armageddon number 100 million men a and million vehicles--and that's only so low because they're stuck in an all-consuming war.

With a population in the "hundreds of billions" 3 million Orks would get farted on and die.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Armageddon entire population is also dedicated to the war effort so not many civs in the mix.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

LukeValantine said:


> Armageddon entire population is also dedicated to the war effort so not many civs in the mix.


You could be dedicated towards a war effort and not be a soldier.

In fact, the great majority of the population are probably involved in either manufacturing goods or in a job that aids in manufacturing (dock workers, maintenance staff, bureaucracy members, ect).


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Actually in the case of Armageddon that is not the case at all. In fact most novels mention that the vast majority of the population is comprised of imported soldiers that die in the constant military action on the planet. In fact a huge proportion of the population isn't even from Armageddon at any given time. Remember its not so much a planet anymore as one giant ass battleground. 

In other cases yes its probably true that a large section of the population is dedicated to supporting the war industry, but in this specific instance your comment is competently wrong.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

LukeValantine said:


> Actually in the case of Armageddon that is not the case at all. In fact most novels mention that the vast majority of the population is comprised of imported soldiers that die in the constant military action on the planet. In fact a huge proportion of the population isn't even from Armageddon at any given time. Remember its not so much a planet anymore as one giant ass battleground.
> 
> In other cases yes its probably true that a large section of the population is dedicated to supporting the war industry, but in this specific instance your comment is competently wrong.


First of all, the Imperial Guard codex mentions that Armgeddon has a population of 100s of billions. You're saying that the majority (say, 100 billion and one person at the minimum) are off-world troops?

In _Helsreach_ we know that that the Helsreach hive contains "several millions" of frightened souls.

Yet at the beginning of the siege a statement by one of the Space Marines says that there are only "hundreds of thousands of soldiers".

Even a city bolstered and reinforced by additional troops from other hives can't boast a majority of its population of troops. Maybe 10-15% of the total population is made up of troops, potentially less.

So where's your proof that the majority of the population is made up of soldiers?


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## Harriticus (Nov 10, 2010)

COMPNOR said:


> 5,000 is actually about right for a single Brigade. If you look it up on Wikipedia, you see:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Meh, active-duty IDF brigades (which don't follow the NATO standard) are usually above 6,000. 

Still, you wouldn't trust 1 Brigade with operations in 1 small country. It isn't nearly enough. A Regiment is far too small. It at least needs to be Army Group or so level (~100,000).



> Where do you get the idea that there are only 3 million Orks on Armageddon?
> 
> The annual tithes for Armageddon number 100 million men a and million vehicles--and that's only so low because they're stuck in an all-consuming war.
> 
> With a population in the "hundreds of billions" 3 million Orks would get farted on and die.


Codex: Armageddon gives an Order of Battle for all forces in the Third Armageddon war. Lexicanum has it up:



hailene said:


> Note: Warband sizes are estimated to be between 300 to 3,000 Orks each, with associated war machines and artillery typically equal to 20-25% of total strength. [URL="http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Speed_Kult"]Speed Kult and "artillery" warbands are estimated to have war machines and artillery equal to 50-100% of total strength.[/url]



Do the math and you see that at the *very most* you get about 3 million. It makes absolutely no sense and shows how bad with numbers GW is.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Harriticus said:


> Do the math and you see that at the *very most* you get about 3 million. It makes absolutely no sense and shows how bad with numbers GW is.


Yeah, numbers seem pretty odd. Even the numbers given in the novel _Helsreach_ (where millions of live in the hive and hundreds of thousands are defending the hive with "millions" of Orks landing around the hive on the first day) don't really jive with the hundreds of billions of humans on Armageddon. Considering Helsreach is supposed to be the largest hive with only millions of occupants. 

It doesn't jive with the "hundreds of billions" from the IG codex.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

No, Armageddon's numbers never really made much sense. 

The rulebook gives us the example of a Hiveworld which has a population of 154 billion, a planetary garrison (pdf) of 2 million and an annual tithe of over a million men for the guard. It stands to reason that this is fairly average/representative for a Hiveworld (otherwise it wouldn't be an example) and there are thousands of Hiveworlds in the Imperium. Armageddon's listed number of combatants makes no sense at all. 

As i mention at the start of this thread the Sabbat Crusade fluff actually seems to have a much better scale. The Crusade is comprised of a billion guardsmen with Navy, Astartes and Titan support. This seems like a much more sensible force to conquer multiple planets and systems. It's also impressively huge from a thematic standpoint (i mean can you really imagine a billion men underarms, and just in one conflict?)

In regards to Armageddon again though in no way is the majority of the population imported soldiers. It's still a vital (and incredibly productive) manufacturing world, even whilst the war wages on. There is a massive military presence for sure (though that's not really reflected very well) but it's still a bustle of industrial activity, the manufactorums in the intact hives work on (indeed so do the one's in active warzones, producing vehicles directly for the front lines raging in the same cities).


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## Sturmovic (Jun 18, 2011)

Rems said:


> N
> As i mention at the start of this thread the Sabbat Crusade fluff actually seems to have a much better scale. The Crusade is comprised of a billion guardsmen with Navy, Astartes and Titan support. This seems like a much more sensible force to conquer multiple planets and systems. It's also impressively huge from a thematic standpoint (i mean can you really imagine a billion men underarms, and just in one conflict?)
> ).


 
Precisely my good man-it's fine to focus on squad/individual action as long as there's the sense that it's part of a bigger war.


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