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Sephyr posted:"At a moment's notice" may be pushing it. Those chapters all have protectorates and wars/defenses they are currently pursuing, and many cannot drop everything and book for Ultramar unless they are happy to let whole sectors get eaten by Tyranids, swamped with rowdy orks or socialized by the T'au. I'm just basing that assumption on how many successors Dante was able to muster when it came to the defense of Baal prior to the arrival of Hive Fleet Leviathan.
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Aug 5, 2023 02:34
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Eej posted:I like to imagine the chapter organisation stuff is handwaved away now because it is very very dumb for 1,000 Ultramarines and auxiliaries to resist an entire Black Legion invasion of their homeworld. I've always imagined that the actual "active" number of space marines in a chapter is always way higher than 1000. With the primaris chapters and such I feel pretty comfortable with continuing to ignore that number.
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Aug 5, 2023 02:36
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AndyElusive posted:Like, in the lore? There are so many Ultramarine successor chapters that can come help the Ultramarines at a moment's notice it's ridiculous. Then there's their support fleets and auxiliaries... Even like 10 chapters is 10,000 dudes to defend an entire planet from invasion. Cmon!!
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Aug 5, 2023 02:41
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And the Ultramarines defended Macragge against Leviathan by themselves with the help of a Battle Fleet, a Titan Legion and the Ultramar Auxilia.
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Aug 5, 2023 02:46
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Yeah it was dumb back then too! Hurray for Primaris handwaveyness
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Aug 5, 2023 02:51
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Eej posted:Even like 10 chapters is 10,000 dudes to defend an entire planet from invasion. Cmon!! The badab war was funny for this, engagements across an entire sector fought by like 12,000 guys on both sides combined
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Aug 5, 2023 02:55
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Scale has always been an issue with numerous sci fi properties, and 40k seems to be no exception.
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Aug 5, 2023 03:03
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GW has never had a great ability to balance scales. At the start of the Armageddon war there were supposed to be 1.5m IG deployed across the subsector. That's roughly equivalent to the standing army of the US alone, and just a fraction of what the world mobilized in WWII. Armageddon itself is supposed to have a population in the tens or hundreds of billions.
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Aug 5, 2023 03:15
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IncredibleIgloo posted:If you want to paint it, but don't want to flock it because that is a lot of effort, you can get spray wall texture at the hardware store, like orange peel wall texture and spray that first and then paint to give a bit of visual variation without a lot of effort. That's another great loving idea, though I'll have to travel out of town for it (Chicago has a ban on selling spray paint for stupid reasons) but way simpler than mixing my own texture paint.
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Aug 5, 2023 03:16
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All the above is why they shouldn't have explicitly written the exact size and composition of a Space Marine Chapter, because it don't make sense
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Aug 5, 2023 04:17
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I’ve always assumed the “1000 marine chapter” was driven by the idea that any individual player could then reasonably put together a 100-marine company.
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Aug 5, 2023 04:29
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rantmo posted:It never would have occurred to me to actually paint the boards but that is such a loving great idea, I'm embarrassed that I never would have thought about it. As for the board sizes themselves, I'm trying to strike a balance between stability and ease of storage, which is why I was thinking three panels but that's definitely something to put a lot of thought into. Maybe three with dowels or the like just to prevent any individual one from going off like a rake into Sideshow Bob. I'll have to ponder that but this is a very promising direction. You could put hinges attaching the sections so they’re connected but can still fold up.
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Aug 5, 2023 04:37
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Muir posted:You could put hinges attaching the sections so they’re connected but can still fold up. I'd thought of that but I'd have to put them really close to the edge so it sits flat and I don't know what that would to it structurally.
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Aug 5, 2023 04:59
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Sephyr posted:"At a moment's notice" may be pushing it. Those chapters all have protectorates and wars/defenses they are currently pursuing, and many cannot everything and book for Ultramar unless they are happy to let whole sectors get eaten by Tyranids, swamped with rowdy orks or socialized by the T'au. Space marines are ruled by honour, and the honour they hold most dear is their connection to their primarch if known. When the home world calls for aid, it isn't much of a choice. Sorry about your sector mate, but we have bigger priorities. They would and do literally abandon their own worlds to defend the primarch's world.
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Aug 5, 2023 05:03
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So when the first 8th edition Codex Adeptus Astartes Space Marines (gotta call 'em Adeptus Astartes for trademarkability purposes, gotta call 'em Space Marines for search engine optimization purposes; can't just call 'em one or the other, I guess) hit, it asserted that Guilliman had revised the codex so that Chapter Masters and potentially Captains had additional flexibility in assigning squads to companies, and that squads could now be either five or ten and therefore a given company could have anywhere between ten and twenty squads, with the assumption that whoever's organizing the companies would just keep about the same ratio of marines in battleline, close support, and fire support roles as they used to back when it was all squads of ten and divided between tacticals, assaults, and devastators. And GW put out a few decal sheets with numbers higher than 10. It also said that for units that come in squads of three or six, that's because the additional members of that squad were being freed up to temporary assignment as vehicle drivers/pilots or gunners. When the second 8th edition Codex Space Marines came out (no "Adeptus Astartes" in the book title this time; never mind, I guess you can just call 'em one or the other), none of that was mentioned and companies were back to being described as ten squads of ten dudes each. They also haven't made any new transfer sheets with squad numbers past 10 beyond the few that came out during the 8th edition launch, so chapters that use roman numerals have transfers for I-XX, but squads that use those gothic script numbers (Dark Angels, Raven Guard) don't have official sources for 1-20 squad numeration. As a fan of the Raven Guard, who use that gothic script for their squad numbers and who are known for small unit guerilla tactics and who it makes a great deal of sense for whom to break up into squads of 5 rather than 10, I have never stopped being annoyed at how all this played out. I suspect it has to do with how small the new non-ultramarine transfer sheets packed into the other chapters' primaries upgrade packs are. No room for 1-20, just 1-10. Stephenls fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Aug 5, 2023 |
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Aug 5, 2023 05:14
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Also (and I'm doubleposting because this is a different topic), I always assumed the "1000 guys per chapter, Badab War fought across multiple solar systems by 16,000 guys total" thing is a lot like "300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae." It's 300 Spartans... and also 7,000 other Greek soldiers who don't get namedropped because the Spartans hog all the recognizeable glory in the legends, but who definitely took up just as much space and probably accomplished about as much as the Spartans did, Spartan military superiority being largely a self-aggrandizing myth. Space Marines are always an extreme minority in any war they fight in, but they're also what everybody talks about. The exploits of the unnumbered forces of the Imperial Guard and various other auxiliary forces get glossed over. Just because it's funny to me to go by the Thermopylae ratio specifically and also it's funny to me to apply absurd numbers in screwily precise ways, I'm going to assume that since the saying goes one space marine is worth 100 regular soldiers, that means that the typical ratio of space marines to non-space marine auxiliaries is like 300 to 700,000, which would put the Badab War at... what, four million non-space marine combatants? Three million, eight hundred thousand or something.
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Aug 5, 2023 05:33
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do Space Marine tankers count towards the 1,000 limit? I feel like I asked this before but now I'm wondering again. Decades of training and precious geneseed to produce a guy who drives a tank around.
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Aug 5, 2023 05:55
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I have a feeling like Naploeonic British infantry battalions were a larger influence, but I never got a chance to ask Rick Priestley if that was the case after I had that realization. Around a thousand men, organized into ten companies, with eight being infantry and two being some combination of Grenadiers/Rifles... huh, that sounds familiar... Eej posted:do Space Marine tankers count towards the 1,000 limit? I feel like I asked this before but now I'm wondering again. Decades of training and precious geneseed to produce a guy who drives a tank around.
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Aug 5, 2023 06:15
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Eej posted:do Space Marine tankers count towards the 1,000 limit? I feel like I asked this before but now I'm wondering again. Decades of training and precious geneseed to produce a guy who drives a tank around. The motor pool guys are often described as extra to the basic 1,000, but then you get stuff that says they're driven by the leftovers from squads who've put on Aggressor armor, so... it's not consistent.
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Aug 5, 2023 06:25
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A contradiction best resolved by running only dreadnoughts
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Aug 5, 2023 06:45
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Play a chapter that's constantly near total ruin and you never have to justify it
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Aug 5, 2023 06:55
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Stephenls posted:Also (and I'm doubleposting because this is a different topic), I always assumed the "1000 guys per chapter, Badab War fought across multiple solar systems by 16,000 guys total" thing is a lot like "300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae." Yeah this is how I picture it. Space Marines are like Special Forces, there are only a couple dozen navy seals despite the US military being like 2m total people.
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Aug 5, 2023 08:59
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Bucnasti posted:Yeah this is how I picture it. there are 2450 active duty Navy Seals I think adding a 0 or 00 to the numbers of Space Marines in the heresy and 40k would go a long way to making the numbers make a bit more sense. I think Star Wars fudged the number of clones from like 200k to actually being 200k squads.
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Aug 5, 2023 09:58
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S.J. posted:Play a chapter that's constantly near total ruin and you never have to justify it It's 40k! That is every chapter!
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Aug 5, 2023 10:08
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Well unless its Ultramarines or Dark Angels. Looking through the synopsis for a Black Library anthology auction I didn't win made me realise that they were really oddly focused on the Dangles early on. Because almost every single space marine related story in that book featured Dark Angels. Except I believe one that was about Ultramarines.  I'd almost compare Space Marines to 75th Ranger more than Seals. But that might also be because I have a dislike for the latter.
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Aug 5, 2023 11:30
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S.J. posted:Play a chapter that's constantly near total ruin and you never have to justify it Or a chapter who doesn't home a poo poo like the Black Templars
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Aug 5, 2023 12:15
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Eej posted:do Space Marine tankers count towards the 1,000 limit? I feel like I asked this before but now I'm wondering again. Decades of training and precious geneseed to produce a guy who drives a tank around. There's been mention of servators piloting the various transports or gunships and being wired directly into the weapon controls of vehicles, it's not too far of a stretch to assume the same thing for the tanks.
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Aug 5, 2023 12:30
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Randalor posted:There's been mention of servators piloting the various transports or gunships and being wired directly into the weapon controls of vehicles, it's not too far of a stretch to assume the same thing for the tanks. would've been nice if they used the new primaris motor pool to actually include some of those servitors. like people would love it if the ATV driver or the guy in that speeder turret were lobotomised gimps like the admech strider has
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Aug 5, 2023 13:13
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I've always assumed that like most all things logistical, the Codex very much is simply the 'paper' strength of companies and chapters, and because everything is named by 'strike force' or all the squads are named after their sergeant, everything is secretly a hodgepodge that a poor scribe has added to the records and no one is checking. By last count, the third squad of 4th company of the ultramarines has been marked as completely destroyed with all members KIA no less than 4 times in 3 different battle zones on alternate sides of the galaxy, and comprises the elements in 5 strike forces. It is led by 5 Brother-sergeants, each with a fireteam or combat squad named after them, totals 34 unique marine members, and has 2 landspeeders, 2 razorbacks, and a rhino, with a unit of Primaris Heavy Intercessors and a Dreadnought seconded as support. A Brother-Sergeant Romanus has pointed out that the tactical situation in his mission area involves contact with heavy infantry and has put in a requisition form for a Primaris helblaster squad to be seconded to his command. One of the razorbacks was gifted to the Blood Ravens 300 years ago and is currently in the other half of the galaxy.
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Aug 5, 2023 13:19
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Tbh that would explain why the ultramarines 2nd company is everywhere all the time - it’s made up of 2.8 million space marines
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Aug 5, 2023 13:35
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It’s the reverse of the Russian equipment scam, where instead of moving one tank around and photographing it to pretend you didn’t sell the rest of the squadron, you paint dozens of tanks with the same markings and just avoid having them appear together so 40 tanks are just one on paper. Part of the reason Space Marines are mythologized as being such incredible warriors is that ‘Brother Septimus’ has a service record of dozens of campaigns, thousands of confirmed kills, and numerous incredible feats because it’s actually 108 separate Marines all consolidated for paperwork deception.
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Aug 5, 2023 13:36
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Updated OP, will refine and add more in the coming days.
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Aug 5, 2023 13:40
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Ashcans posted:It’s the reverse of the Russian equipment scam, where instead of moving one tank around and photographing it to pretend you didn’t sell the rest of the squadron, you paint dozens of tanks with the same markings and just avoid having them appear together so 40 tanks are just one on paper. Alpharian Economics.
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Aug 5, 2023 13:40
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Ashcans posted:Part of the reason Space Marines are mythologized as being such incredible warriors is that ‘Brother Septimus’ has a service record of dozens of campaigns, thousands of confirmed kills, and numerous incredible feats because it’s actually 108 separate Marines all consolidated for paperwork deception. Considering Ultramarines naming standards, that is definitely true.
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Aug 5, 2023 13:51
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The problem with numbers is you'll never make them work because a space opera setting doesn't make sense on multiple levels, and any effort to make it make sense will end up with something that isn't a space opera. One big thing for numbers for instance is the defenders advantage. Let's take a work with a ten billion population for a nice round number. The US has about 0.5% of it's population in the military so let's say this world has that as it's pdf. That's already 50 million active duty soldiers to respond when the Orks or whoever shows up. During WW2 the Soviet Union had something like 17% of it's population in the military, if our example planet can manage that as the war goes on that's 1.7 billion. And yeah, not all of these are going to be front line troops but when the giant green aliens come screaming everyone who can would grab a gun.
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Aug 5, 2023 13:59
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Most planets are usually described as having a few million people at most, though. There is a huge gap in the lore where planets either have 100 billion people living in a hive or half a million people spread out in a few population centers. Is it authors continuing to misunderstand scale, or are they trying to explain the small force sizes? Who knows! I've read a lot of recently written 40k books this year, and it's still very apparent that GW relies on the author's familiarity with the setting instead of having some kind of concrete lore documentation that they work off of. It wouldn't surprise me if authors have the 40k wiki open on a second screen while they write.
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Aug 5, 2023 14:28
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i honestly think it's great that decades of laziness, poorly thought-out retcons, and limited understanding of scale have created a universe that makes no sense if you try to understand it from the written record, in almost exactly the same way it wouldn't make sense diegetically
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Aug 5, 2023 14:52
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Also a lot of planets are blasted hell-holes with one or two hive cites, each with the population of a small country.
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Aug 5, 2023 14:57
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Geisladisk posted:
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Aug 5, 2023 15:00
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Paragon8 posted:there are 2450 active duty Navy Seals Holy poo poo, I had no idea there were that many. And that just makes the number of space marines even more ridiculous, we have twice as many navy seals as there are Space Marines in a company.
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Aug 5, 2023 15:02
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