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Eej posted:Personally if there were 50 Transhuman Space Racists skinning people alive at a rate of 50 per 30 minutes in my city of 10M I would immediately get the hell out of Dodge Calling space marines trans-humans might be the only thing that prevents a sizable portion of the population from lining up to lick the ork spores off their boots.
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Jun 9, 2022 05:24
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Eej posted:Personally if there were 50 Transhuman Space Racists skinning people alive at a rate of 50 per 30 minutes in my city of 10M I would immediately get the hell out of Dodge Absolutely, but that's not what I am getting at. In the book they kill millions of colonists with about 50 marines in a short period of time. https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Tsagualsa quote:The population halved in five hundred standard years, and then it was ended entirely when the Night Lords returned to try to reuse the world as a base. They butchered millions of colonists, leaving roughly one in every ten thousand alive, and used their hideous Warp-knowledge to inflict the death-trauma of those millions on the colony's astropaths. Unless I am forgetting something from the book, they did this task with their foot soldiers alone.
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Jun 9, 2022 05:44
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Sure, but the how matters, right? Blowing out dams, killing the power in a near-frozen world, sabotaging the physical infrastructure of a hive city and collapsing it, etc, etc
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Jun 9, 2022 05:49
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the most important thing is would 100 space marine drop shipping into earth be enough to obliterate my balls into a fine paste
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Jun 9, 2022 06:03
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Space marines would lose to real crayon eating USMC marines, hoo-ah
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Jun 9, 2022 06:05
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Business Gorillas posted:the most important thing is would 100 space marine drop shipping into earth be enough to obliterate my balls into a fine paste 
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Jun 9, 2022 07:18
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Space marines would lose to real crayon eating USMC marines, hoo-ah I've seen fanfic like this
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Jun 9, 2022 07:34
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The problem with space marines is that we are told they are the finest, most strategically and tactically effective warriors mankind has ever produced or will ever produce, and within the context of the fiction this appears to be objectively correct, but they are written by people who lack the acumen to accurately write what the most strategically and tactically effective warriors mankind has ever produced or will ever produce would realistically be, which, like, duh, nobody could write that, if they could really imagine objectively optimal tactics they'd probably be taking over the world or something. This leaves three possibilities: 1) The specifics of how Space Marines operate are meant to stand in for the hypothetical realities of the fictional setting -- that is, they don't really look or behave or fight like that; rather, we are meant to interpret them as an artistic representation of something else. Kinda like how in the Lord of the Rings books and movies everyone is speaking English, even though, according to Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien, they're "actually" speaking a different language that is being translated into English for the audience's benefit. In this case, yes, if real Space Marines were to ever land on Earth, we'd all be doomed, but it would also look nothing like how Space Marines look in the fiction, because we'd be experiencing the "reality" of their optimal space future fighting styles, and not the artistic translation we perceive when we consume 40k media. 2) They do literally look and behave and fight like that in the hypothetical fictional setting, but the setting works on different rules than the real world does. In this case, Space Marines who land on Earth would be ineffective, because, uh, those aren't good strats in the real world. 3) Shut up, it's fiction, this doesn't have to be perfectly internally consistent, it's something people made up to play with tiny dolls and complain about Thatcherite politics.
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Jun 9, 2022 09:05
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Stephenls posted:The problem with space marines is that we are told they are the finest, most strategically and tactically effective warriors mankind has ever produced or will ever produce The thing that I like most about this is, in the fiction, space marines are written almost universally as absolute half wits that step on every rake possible. Brilliant strategic mind *falls for baby's first ambush*
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Jun 9, 2022 09:16
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S.J. posted:Sure, but the how matters, right? Blowing out dams, killing the power in a near-frozen world, sabotaging the physical infrastructure of a hive city and collapsing it, etc, etc Considering it's the Night Lords too if you just cause huge panic in the population they will almost certainly start killing each other. Honestly anyine arguing the combined militaries of earth could defeat this fictional faction of transhuman roided out military monsters (or any Sci fi thing on fact) just comes across as some military felatio bullshit. They wouldn't win no matter how someone may wax lyrical about how great the US or UK army is (and its not always someone from one of those two countries) because they are fictional and clearly written to easily beat the snot out of any conventional force. No they can't hold the planet, yes a strike force targeting leaders and commanders would result in a decades or longer insurgency. That's all established. Anyone trying to tell me a 50 cal sniper rifle could easily kill a marine would have to show me how they can possibly know the in detailed specifications of how the ablative ceramite (note: a fictional substance) is made and what alloy is used for the metal frame beneath (note: also fictional). What it normally comes down to is "it wouldn't be possible to make something that is that good!" to which the answer is "it's future tech" which is the Sci fi equivalent of "a wizard did it". The Imperium doesn't have poo poo technology all the time, much of its technology is really good, they just don't understand it. Flak armour and lasguns are better than any modern military equipment we have for example. Just because some writer at GW didn't realise that saying leman Russ tank armour is 100mm thick means its not that thick or whatever doesn't change the intent which is "all these things wage war far more effectively than we do because their entire society is dedicated to war and its all anyone knows".
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Jun 9, 2022 09:29
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Kitchner posted:Anyone trying to tell me a 50 cal sniper rifle could easily kill a marine would have to show me how they can possibly know the in detailed specifications of how the ablative ceramite (note: a fictional substance) is made and what alloy is used for the metal frame beneath (note: also fictional). Just shoot the sergeants. They don't wear helmets. Eventually the space marines will run out of new sergeant promotions.
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Jun 9, 2022 09:44
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Stephenls posted:Just shoot the sergeants. They don't wear helmets. Eventually the space marines will run out of new sergeant promotions. That's fair, everyone assumes those metal studies are to denote seniority and stuff but I reckon they are just bullets lodged in their heads. (primaris marines are increasing wearing helmets though, so the Imperium does eventually learn).
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Jun 9, 2022 09:58
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Geisladisk posted:I know it's not intentional but I really like this. Yeah this is how I figure it, especially given that a lot of military stuff is like repurposed tractor blueprints or whatever. In Saturnine Perturabo is using straight-up trebuchets throwing big rocks to attack a continent-sized fortress in the sci-fi space war, things are messy and decrepit in the Imperium.
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Jun 9, 2022 10:31
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Ech looking at rpg supplements civilian equipment is fairly decent if ugly to look at. Also charging with swords is also done by two species that are perfectly capable of throwing black holes at one another, so I'm not sure this is an argument in the context of 40k.
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Jun 9, 2022 10:42
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In I think Betrayer Kharn reflects on the real advantage of the Astartes is really endurance. Its not their strength or speed, though they have those, it's their ability to fight for days and days in end relentlessly. That with the technology available in the future basically every battle and every war descends quickly into a war of attrition and by having a soldier who continues to be deadly up close and personal for days after they have run out of ammunition, food, and other supplies as well as having suffered wounds that would kill a man is how you won wars. The Guard of course are the masters of attritional warfare, but where a space marine achieves being able to fight relentlessly through arcane bioengineering and future technological marvels, the Guard do it through logistics and having a lot more men. One of my favourite books GW ever wrote was a book full of faction specific missions written to really lean into whatever the faction's preferred style of warfare was. Space marine missions were things like strikes from above and stuff like that. The Guard had a mission called escalation, and the whole point was the Guard often deliberately seeks to escalate minor outbreaks of fighting into large engagements because they know they can outlast their opponents, so by draining both sides' resources faster it speeds up the eventual victory. As such they find a small patrol skirmish and just send a small batch of reinforcements, wait for the enemy to do the same, and then send a little more. Before you know it the enemy has committed to a full engagement. The mission itself was mediocre, it was one of those "start with X on the board and new stuff arrives each turn" missions. The fluff behind it was good though. Before picking a mission you both rolled off to see who's mission list you picked from.
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Jun 9, 2022 11:17
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Kitchner posted:Anyone trying to tell me a 50 cal sniper rifle could easily kill a marine would have to show me how they can possibly know the in detailed specifications of how the ablative ceramite (note: a fictional substance) is made and what alloy is used for the metal frame beneath (note: also fictional). I actually don't need to show that because I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.  It just amuses me to think of 40k military technology as really, really bad. It also neatly explains all the nonsensical aspects of the setting, i.e how "run at them with swords" is a viable tactic in a world of machine guns, tanks, laser guns, plasma dohickies and such, and how giant walking robots that present a huge target that would, in any sensible world, immediately eat a anti-tank missile or cannon round from kilometers away because they are unable to hide themselves in any way. If you don't like that, that's fine, actually! This is a fictional world and we can all use the power of our imagination to make of it what we want.
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Jun 9, 2022 11:19
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I mean you can imagine whatever you want, I've not yet mastered mind control and if I had I don't think I'd waste it on warhammer. Just saying I think the problem is you're say looking at an Imperial Knight and thinking "lol irl that would just get destroyed by 5 guys with javelin missiles" assuming it's made with the same materials and technologies we have today. I mean a guardsman with a krak missile launcher is the equivalent of a dude with an anti-tank missile launcher today and there's no indication there are any worse than what we have available to us today in terms of direct fire missiles. The reason assault marines exist isnt because guns are rubbish, but because when you're almost impossible to kill with small arms fire, wearing a jet pack, and have a chainsword you can kill way faster in melee than by shooting a gun at someone ducking behind cover. If you want to pretend they are spud guns though instead of the fact the reason giant walking robots work is because they are insanely tough then that's fine, but I do genuinely think one of the common themes of the setting is warfare is like the only area (other than medical tech) where the Imperium has advanced technology. Fits the whole "only war" vibe. Imagine if cawl had spent 10,000 years inventing better agriculture or some poo poo instead.
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Jun 9, 2022 11:47
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Covermeinsunshine posted:Ech looking at rpg supplements civilian equipment is fairly decent if ugly to look at. Also charging with swords is also done by two species that are perfectly capable of throwing black holes at one another, so I'm not sure this is an argument in the context of 40k. Ultimately, this setting being fiction and tied into a game means that it will always be inconsistent and "unrealistic" to some degree. Trying to make sure ever single number and statistic makes sense wouldn't really make the narratives better or anything.
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Jun 9, 2022 11:48
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Kitchner posted:I mean you can imagine whatever you want, I've not yet mastered mind control and if I had I don't think I'd waste it on warhammer. This fits the themes of the setting much more than "lol sniper rifles and javelins"
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Jun 9, 2022 11:54
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Kitchner posted:Just saying I think the problem is you're say looking at an Imperial Knight and thinking "lol irl that would just get destroyed by 5 guys with javelin missiles" assuming it's made with the same materials and technologies we have today. I was being a bit facetious with the "marines getting owned by .50 cals" comment, but part of the appeal of the setting is the mix of horribly outdated stuff with space-age tech, because so much of technology has been lost - So you end up with amalgamations like world war 2 era tanks, but armed with sci-fi plasma weapons. It's not unreasonable that things like marine power armor are made up of sci-fi stuff and that they really would be impervious to small arms, but that is the best of the best. For instance, other than stuff like lascannons and plasma and melta weapons, the stuff the Imperial Guard uses seems to be like, world war 2 grade at best. The picture from Imperial Armor posted earlier states that the armor of a Land Raider is equal to approximately 300mm of "conventional steel". Not space-age ultra-steel, just regular-rear end steel. There is also the fact that the Leman Russ supposedly has a top speed of 28 km/h on road, and weighs 62 tons. That means that it's engine is actually pretty pathetic. For comparison, WW2 era heavy tanks weighed about as much but would get up to ~40km/h on roads. The engine on a Leman Russ, using the data we have available, sucks rear end and would have been considered bad eighty years ago. There's also a bit in the Imperial Guardsman's Uplifting Primer on how the standard autocannon fires 30mm rounds, but that in the old days autocannons were better because their rounds had explosive filler, like bolters - But this technology has been "lost". So a typical Guard-issue autocannon would be extremely poor by modern standards, because it's just firing solid slugs. And you might say, "well, it's still a future space autocannon", but absolutely nothing about how these weapons are depicted aesthetically or how they are described in the fiction indicates that they are anything more than exactly what they seem to be. Autoguns are just assault rifles, and Lasguns have the same stats - So lasguns aren't actually any better than modern rifles, other than that the ammo they use is much more dense. So I'm not saying I think 40k is just dumb, but the fact that most of the stuff in the setting is poor and obsolete even by modern standards, with little bits of sci-fi stuff sprinkled in is absolutely part of the appeal of the setting's aesthetic to me.
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Jun 9, 2022 12:11
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Lasguns aren't too bad. If you shoot a human with one they're dead and they pack a heap of ammo along with the easy maintenance. They're mass production weapons for mass production soldiers. Giving them better guns would probably be a waste of time considering guardsmen don't make it through day one. Like if you want to be a nerd about it lol
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Jun 9, 2022 12:20
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God forbid we get nerdy in the Warhammer 40k thread.
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Jun 9, 2022 13:04
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I enjoyed that short story of that one space marine who got ordered to just hang out on an ork infested world by himself for ten years and just gently caress their poo poo up, and he did with just like his knife and probably acid spit after his bolter ran dry after i guess five minutes. And once the time's up he's all like "yeah cool what's next?" 40k is the best at realism, and it would take at most two marines to gently caress up the present day russian military; maybe up to five for the us military. It depends who the writer is really.
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Jun 9, 2022 13:09
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Business Gorillas posted:the most important thing is would 100 space marine drop shipping into earth be enough to obliterate my balls into a fine paste It would take at most half of an astramilitaruminian to achieve this.
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Jun 9, 2022 13:11
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Yeah in terms of "ballistic performance" a lasgun is basically equivalent to an assault rifle but, as the shift to electric cars has shown us, poo poo gets a LOT MORE reliable when it's all non moving electronic parts that don't have to worry bout pieces of metal reciprocating at high speed and low tolerance. As was said, I'm also a big believer in IG having a lot of WW2 tech, and tech being unevenly distributed generally. Your hive city can only make AK pattern autgouns? That's going to have to be good enough, sorry.
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Jun 9, 2022 13:13
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Yeah! They also give the legit good lasgun variants like hellguns to competent soldiers. The Leman Russ is a hilarious piece of poo poo that's just the cheapest way to get a battle cannon into position. They're basically tractors. Once again they also field a shitload of them. I really like the low tech elements that play up the entire everyone is expendable so who cares aspect of the imperium. The whole thing is such a rickety house of cards it's probably of value to the imperium that billions of dudes do get killed in battle just to prevent internal problems and friction at this point. Like there are whole societies geared around breeding assholes that carry lasguns and die. E: I've always found the Sicarian cool because the style of it and functionality makes it feel like the sportscar of imperial armour compared to everything else and the legions had absolute shitloads of them. 30k guard also had proper MBTs like the Malcador rip. JBP fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Jun 9, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2022 13:17
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The 'hit them with a sword' thing is partly just because of the scale that we play the game at. The 40k universe does conduct a lot of fighting at more reasonable ranges, but you can't put that on a table at 28mm, so it's reflected in either Battlefleet Gothic or Epic. One of the things I like in Epic is that the game equivalent of an 'assault' (which is just called Engage and represents two or more formations getting too close together) is representative of an entire 40k battle, and it's resolved in one round of the Epic game. Those battles don't happen all the time, sometimes you can afford to just blast away the enemy from a distance instead - but sometimes you need to claim an objective or dislodge an enemy force now, and forcing a bloody confrontation resolves the issue much faster. This also sort of addresses the 'why are all the important people here' problem - Morvenn Vahl isn't out spending her time leading around a few units of Sororitas, there's a whole giant army but we're zoomed in on a pivotal piece of that large battle line where she's decided to lead from the front. In Epic all the basic weapons of 40k (lasgns, autoguns, bolters, etc) are just classed as 'small arms' and have a very limited role, mostly to Engagements, all the real shooting is done with heavy weapons and giant guns. I mean probably the swords are still unnecessary, but at a certain point you either accept that everyone in 40k is bonkers as hell or you play another game that doesn't make the deliberate aesthetic choice of 'fantasy in space'.
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Jun 9, 2022 14:08
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Also using a sword in this setting isn't even that outlandish. People were using shovels, clubs, and all sorts of improvised weapons to beat each other to death in WW1, and there are plenty of confirmed cases of people killing each other in hand to hand fighting in WW2 too. Hell, even today some of the SEAL teams carry around "tactical hatchets" and turned it into a game to see who could kill someone with them. 40k is all about that grinding trench warfare / urban siege aesthetic, not hard to imagine people stabbing each other in an underhive with a population density of like a million people per square mile.
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Jun 9, 2022 14:24
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Its not like hand to hand fighting happens anymore in modern war, right?
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Jun 9, 2022 14:24
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There was enough hand-to-hand combat in Vietnam for the US to rethink their training, and I believe that there was also close-quarter engagements during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter I think is mostly a matter of insurgency and guerrilla fighting, where soldiers are trying to clear buildings or rooms and can't reasonably use firearms because it's too close and the risk of shooting each other and civilians. So it's something that is still anticipated and trained for even when it isn't primary tactics.
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Jun 9, 2022 14:37
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Yeah, plus I imagine that constantly running into situations like "endless swarms of ravenous biomass trying to tear you in half with their claws" and "demons from the hell dimension bursting out of the random space colonist you are in the middle of a conversation with" probably change the calculus on how often you'd find yourself needing to hit something with a sword made of out chainsaws.
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Jun 9, 2022 14:47
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Finished the initial roster for my Alpha Legion kill-team: It is unknown whether the DEAD COIL callsign refers to a single operative, an honorific, a rank within the XX Legion structure, or is simply a Legion psyop. However, Inquisitorial records connect it with confirmed XX Legion activity though out history, dating back to the Battle of Pluto in 010.M31. What is known is that an Alpha Legion kill-team commander operating under the DEAD COIL callsign has been active in the Nachmund Gauntlet, notably armed with the daemon weapon "Manglemourn", formerly in the possession of XII Legion warlord Arlox Khaw. Twin to the daemon weapon "Goregrieve" still in Khaw's possession, it is speculated that DEAD COIL is using the connection between the two weapons to draw Khaw's World Eater warband into the Nachmund Gauntlet for unknown reasons.     
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Jun 9, 2022 15:01
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the wife and i are getting a pretty sizable bonus + raise in a few weeks and we agreed that outside of home improvement, family vacation and debt repayment funds we would take $250 for each of us to treat ourselves..hoping new CSM comes out soon enough so i can get a combat patrol + codex (i already have a start collecting i've been painting at record slow speed, so i think that plus CP box will be pretty nice selection) but then i could just get the horus box in a few weeks...
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Jun 9, 2022 15:14
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:Finished the initial roster for my Alpha Legion kill-team: Obviously writing isn't your strong suit. Stick to your day job. 
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Jun 9, 2022 16:11
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Ashcans posted:There was enough hand-to-hand combat in Vietnam for the US to rethink their training, and I believe that there was also close-quarter engagements during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter I think is mostly a matter of insurgency and guerrilla fighting, where soldiers are trying to clear buildings or rooms and can't reasonably use firearms because it's too close and the risk of shooting each other and civilians. So it's something that is still anticipated and trained for even when it isn't primary tactics. Eh, we're trained on it for like a day or two in basic, and if you're a combat arms MOS you're given supplementary training for a bit more. It is, however, made abundantly and explicitly clear that the best way to win a knife fight is a buddy with a gun. Modern doctrine is "yeah learn some close quarters stuff maybe it will help and probably won't hurt (until people get stupid and try to one-up each other constantly on training day then people will get injured)" Even for clearing rooms in insurgent warfare, the serious training time is spent on clearing tactics that involve guns and concentrates on managing lines of fire over close quarters fighting.
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Jun 9, 2022 16:19
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bird food bathtub posted:Eh, we're trained on it for like a day or two in basic, and if you're a combat arms MOS you're given supplementary training for a bit more. It is, however, made abundantly and explicitly clear that the best way to win a knife fight is a buddy with a gun. Modern doctrine is "yeah learn some close quarters stuff maybe it will help and probably won't hurt (until people get stupid and try to one-up each other constantly on training day then people will get injured)" Even for clearing rooms in insurgent warfare, the serious training time is spent on clearing tactics that involve guns and concentrates on managing lines of fire over close quarters fighting. I always assumed it was a "just in case" thing
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Jun 9, 2022 16:22
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Beerdeer posted:Obviously writing isn't your strong suit. Stick to your day job. first of all how dare you
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Jun 9, 2022 16:31
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:Finished the initial roster for my Alpha Legion kill-team:
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Jun 9, 2022 16:56
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I believe the actual take away of "hand to hand combat", even in WW1, was that whoever has a loaded and chambered gun wins the "melee". So once you can hand someone an auto loading carbine with a thirty round magazine they're basically done worrying about what someone might do with a trench shovel. But this is 40k and I'm here for the chain sword. Edit: To be clear, yeah they issued lots of knives and things in WW1, and lots of pistols, but this was a time when a service rifle didn't have nearly the sustained close quarters firepower of the later assault rifles or an M1 style semi auto carbine.
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Jun 9, 2022 18:17
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I honestly prefer "The tech and tactics are super bad because this is a satire of how dumb militarism can get," but alas the omniscient narration of a lot of the books directly contradicts this. In particular, that bit about how Space Marines are the finest warriors humanity has or ever will field came from the first Horus Heresy book (which was super funny to read immediately following the initial printing of Dark Imperium, which would not shut up about how the original space marines are now old and busted and it's the Primaris who are the new hotness). Though my favorite compromise is supertech materials, poor design. Like, the Land Raider Proteus is a World War I tank but it's made of future super-steel, and the supertech materials help compensate for the lovely design work and you end up with something that's kinda muddled in terms of how good it actually is. I like to imagine the Leman Russ tank has just the shittiest, most inefficient drive train anyone has ever put into a tank, but made out of adamantium so it doesn't matter. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jun 9, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2022 18:46
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