Could 1000 imperial guard grunts of the average McAverageson

Writer conflicts bro we dont really know


but there is this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M-5dAmidhA

>>48436578

>Could 1000 imperial guard grunts of the average McAverageson legion kill a single Space marine?

With sufficient equipment, yes. With just small arms, no. Space Marines can stay awake for days and fight for weeks with just hours of sleep in between. They wear powered armor that lets them shrug off small arms fire with easy. They're faster, stronger and smarter than normal humans. They can also eat almost any organic material for sustenance.

It also depends on the terrain. On the open field, with heavy weapons capable of cracking power armor open, a 1000 soldiers would be a force capable of killing marines. In the jungle or a city vs for example raven guard? Forget it, no chance.

>>48436578
>valuable human assets
I think you made a typo there.

>>48436649
Best answer so far thank you

>>48436578
>Could
it depends

>efficient
Efficient or not, space marines are the only ones capable of performing certain tasks. There would be no imperium without them, period.

Depends on the author desu, sometimes one normal human can take out a Marine and sometimes they hold out against an entire planet

It's the worf-effect, man

>>48436610
Thats a lot of diddly

>>48436703
>Efficient or not, space marines are the only ones capable of performing certain tasks.
Couldn't you just equip 1000 normal men with really good equipment for the same material cost of training and arming a single spess mehreen?

You'd lose some of your men sure, but it makes losing a single marine a huge loss.

>>48436578
For your first question, yes absolutely. Never underestimate the power of a thousand flashlights.

For a more serious answer to your second question: Yes and no. In normal circumstances no, losing 999 of 1000 potential marines in training would be horribly inefficient and slow down recruitment time immeasurably, except for the codex astartes limiting space marine numbers. Since they can ONLY have 1000 marines in their chapter (if they're actually paying attention to the codex, that is) they have incentive to ensure that every recruit they take out of the teeming trillions of humanity is the absolute best of the best.

>>48436578
In the space marine attacks head on, he dies to heavy weapons fire. Most space marines know this, and are smart enough not to attack head on.

It's like Predator, basically.

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>>48436967

GET TO DA VALKYRIE

>>48436578
>Could 1000 imperial guard grunts of the average McAverageson legion kill a single Space marine?
yes, that's not even a real contest.

>So I was wondering if this is really an efficient expenditure of valuable human assets.
If the imperium has a single asset to expend freely, that's human lives.


Space marines are not as an inarrestable and ummovable force as fanboys think they are.
nor are they that tall.

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>>48436578
>1000 guardsman vs a single spess muhreen
not even a fucking contest

>>48436750
They still would be able to survive a drop pod insertion, close combat with... well, most things, ship-to-ship boarding actions, combat in vacuum or extremely hostile environments, and most other shit spuhs muhreens are diesgned to do. Not to mention the logistics of keeping a large military operation in motion to solve a problem a squad of bog standard tactical marines can deal with.

>>48436750
>Couldn't you just
no

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>>48436610
Fuck yeah, Vance Stubbs!

>to be honest Borealum was an idiot.

>>48437924
>Couldn't you just
>no
Games workshop meetings in a nutshell

>>48436610
>Those ogryns

How strong are those fricking mutants?

Depends.
Contrary to tabletop logic a single power armored marine would basically be able to hold out against and infinite number of dudes with lasguns simply because a lasgun will never ever actually penetrate power armor. If they have one heavy bolter though, things change.

>>48436750
No. Marines' superiority to other Imperial military branches hinges on factors other than raw damage output, the only thing 1000 Guardsmen have up on a single Space Marine. Space Marines can hunt and kill targets deep behind enemy lines for weeks or months with little or no supply line/chain of command, they are mentally and physically more robust than even the hardiest human that has ever lived. Space Marines are also extremely flexible; deploying in massed formations as much as sending a single Kill Team, allowing a plethora of tactics. Imperial Guard has little more than massed infantry and tank columns, and though there are special ops (eg Catachans), they still aren't stopping entire armed Chaos Cults on their own. A team of Space Marines could probably raze the Cult, the city it's based in, and the surrounding countryside by tomorrow.

Absolutely! Yes, the lore is inconsistent and tend to make marines absolute juggernaut but if one take a more nuanced look at the fluff, a lone marine can easily get swarmed by weaker foes, especially if he is alone.

>>48438108
Crazy fucking strong. They're canonically one of the few things that can solo a Space Marine (if they're both unarmed and unarmored) because they're just that good at killing shit.

They just can't do anything else, which is great, because if they were smart as well they'd likely have been wiped out long ago by the Imperium. Their retardation is their salvation.

>>48436578
>Could 1000 imperial guard grunts of the average McAverageson legion kill a single Space marine?

Yes. In the more realistic and older fluff, marines were said to be 10 to 100 times better than a normal soldier. Even though famous marines can fight off an entire ork waaagh in a choke point, I'm sure 1000 guardsmen against a nobody marine with no plot armor would steamroll him after the first few hundred soldiers or the first couple of tanks.

>I read that of the ultra badass recruits space marines find they typically lose 999 out of 1000 men just in the training alone.

They lose 999 out of 1000 from the surgeries. The training is not as lethal otherwise they'd have no way to replace losses. Although there are many chapters who are struggling to do so and have gone extinct because of it.

>>48439098
>Their retardation is their salvation.
Thank you for describing SJWs in a nutshell

>>48439127
>Although there are many chapters who are struggling to do so and have gone extinct because of it.
And I'm assuming that lessening the requirements or getting help from other chapters is out of the question?

>>48436578
Fluffwise, yes they could unless some of those 1000 brought a tank
Crunch? Never, guard are surprisingly stronk and SMs have only 1 wound

>>48439155
>lessening the requirements
Manpower is one of the few things the Imperium is not short on. They can always find new recruits somewhere.

>getting help from other chapters is out of the question?

Some do, especially if they're on good relations with their Parent First Founding Chapter. However, replacing losses isn't so easy, and takes a long, long time to get a Space Marine at the level of a Space Marine, with a lot of losses along the way due to the incredibly difficult nature of the surgeries involved as well as live-fire training.

Getting super-soldiers takes time and resources.

>>48436703
There actually would be an Imperium, it would just sell less and GW would focus even more on Knights

>>48439131
Thank you for bringing in an entirely unrelated subject to the thread

>>48439155

This has been done before. Some chapters try to rush the training or use risky geneseed with disastrous results. The Minotaurs have the wealth to pull it off but they use low quality recruits and a close-to-heresy rushed hypno indoctrination to churn out tons of recruits because they always fight as a chapter and their inferior men die in droves. They are backed up by the High Lords of Terra and insane wealth and gear though.

One famous example from 30k is Corax trying to pump out a new legion because his was shattered on Istvaan and it led to horrific Raptor mutants. This is probably why RG and Salamanders just stay at under 1000 strength in M41 and try to slowly rebuild rather than rush.

>>48439155

Blood Angels had to ask for neophytes from all their successors after being wiped out for the second or third time. Gabriel Seth of the Flesh Tearers got in an argument with Dante and said the BA should just be disbanded and the FT would become the new BA, but he eventually helped the BA rebuild.

>>48439334
To be fair Corax also had a visit from Alpha Legion.

>>48436578
>Could 1000 imperial guard grunts of the average McAverageson legion kill a single Space marine?

Of course. 10 guardsmen with lasguns and grenades could do it. Marines are just heavy shock troops, the IG and IN do most of the work.

>>48439629
>outnumber marines trillions to one
>do most of the work

Well I'd fucking hope so. The Imperial Navy is even more important than either.

>>48436578
Survivability is one of the important things to remember. Canonically most Space Marine chapters suffer very low rates of attrition of full marines such that the "average" Space Marine has decades of combat experience, whereas your median Imperial Guardsman is lucky to have survived past a few deployments, and will grow old and infirm in the normal human lifespan. We don't really have hard numbers for the cost of operating guardsmen versus the cost of operating space marines, but when you factor in that an SM is at least an order of magnitude more effective than a guardsman and will last several times longer, it seems likely that the expense is worth it.

>>48436578
A Space Marine would lose to twenty guardsmen. They are more durable, faster and stronger than normal men, but they aren't primarchs. They are relics from the Great Crusade, glorified storm troopers the Emperor used to awe other human cultures into joining him. They can still be useful as a fast response force since they have their own ships and logistics units, but they are largely irrelevant on the galactic scale.

Uh... one guardsman can kill a marine if hes lucky.

More realistically, it would take about 5.

1000 guardsmen to kill one marine? Its like you've never actually played 40k....

>>48440149

I can realistically see a marine fighting off 5 guardsmen unless the guardsmen were the protagonist faction and there was at least one complete hardened badass in that group.

It's five regular jackoffs vs. a walking tank that can rip hatches off vehicles with his bare hands. Normal human action movie heroes have taken out more guys simultaneously.

>>48438113
>a lasgun will never ever actually penetrate power armor

Fluff says that it will penetrate joints, and guardsmen field lascannons, heavy bolters, and grenades.

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>>48436578
Depends on their equipment. A thousand imperial guardsmen with autoguns? They get slaughtered due to lacking the means to destroy his power armor. A thousand Imperial guardsmen with special weapon teams including mortars, heavy bolters, autocannons, lascannons, plasma guns, and meltaguns? Space Marine is facing extremely difficult odds now.

>>48440099
No, Space Marines can easily butcher twenty men with little problem, and the only chance twenty guardsmen would stand if they were spread out and all armed with plasma guns. Space Marines are capable of slaughtering thousands of people in melee in which few mortals alive have a prayer of surviving due to lacking the reaction speeds/simple speed of thought to respond. Astartes are faster, stronger, and vastly more durable than a normal human being (instant stop of bleeding + scar tissue), and this is only enhanced further by power armor. Space Marines are also the only reason why the Imperium of Man still exists, as they are often the only force able to fight threats that threaten mankind with total annihilation. But single Space Marines are capable of slaughtering entire platoons of men, and have done so in the past.

>>48441302

If they were spread out the marine can just snap shot all of them in one bolt round. If he's a bullshit plot armor marine he can dodge plasma too, or fire before the guardsman can fire the gun.

>>48441332
Any Space Marine can dodge plasma fire, but spread out across a field he'd definitely be caught in crossfire unless the Guardsmen broke down from stress. Also depends on whether or not it's a loyalist or a traitor- as traitors tend to suffer from some mild insanity after years spent in the warp and prefer the more retarded "fuck it and charge" option that would probably get them killed, whereas a loyalist is more likely to dig in and pick them all off with his bolter.

>>48441373
>hur dur the guardsmen have him surrounded in an open field

Are you dumb? that just means they auto die to the longer range, superhuman marksman with the carapace piercing, exploding automatic rocket launcher machine gun, and if they circled him like retards, they're just gonna kill each other from crossfire

>>48441538
>longer range

Unless they're so far out they can't even see him, the space marine wouldn't hold the advantage against twenty plasma guns all pointed at him.

>>48441605
>twenty plasma guns all pointed at him

I love how you have to stack the odds that far just to even have a chance in your argument. Why the fuck would he be within guaranteed hit plasma range from lesser accurate marskmen, who are apparently holding four plasma guns each in their octopus arms, while they ALREADY HAVE HIM IN HIS SIGHTS before the fight even starts?

Fucking stupid. First, define your fucking battleground and starting positions.

>>48441605
marines can move faster than the human eye can follow

>>48441302
And yet a small team of ace guardsmen iced six chaos marines after the marines tracked them through venomous swamps.

Marines are strong, tough, and deal lots of damage. But they're still human.

>>48441786
Oh, and there was a tiny village of like 40 hill folk with the guardsmen. Still, hardly the one marine vs 1000 you're wanking over

>>48441824
How is he wanking over it?
I mean the outcome of 1 marine vs 1000 guardsmen
is pretty obvious

>>48441786
I love Gaunts Ghosts so much, but that was so much bullshit. Maybe them and the village could take them out, I can believe that, but not a damn member of the Ghosts died in that battle. Or the next battles. Or the next few years on that entire warp infested, chaos ridden, unholy planet.

God I fucking hated the Gereon arc.

>>48436578
Using the 40k rpg's as a reference point.... Yes, but only with the use of specialised anti-armour weapons, such as plasma guns, heavy bolters, melta guns, and the like. Basic lasguns simply don't have the armour penetration and damage necessary to hurt a space marine, but the weapons mentioned above do.

>>48436578
Gaunt and his small team killed 3 on Gereon.

>>48441927
>Gaunt's Ghosts
>average McAverageson

You dumb nigga

>>48438136
>IG
>Imperial Guard has little more than massed infantry and tank columns

The Guard is the most diverse Army in the galaxy, anon.

>IG
> they still aren't stopping entire armed Chaos Cults on their own

That is in the top three of their most common enemies actually.

Marines are deployed in two cases:
When they are close by anyway and have men to spare.
When shit hits the fan so hard, that even the Imperial Guard is looking for ways to minimize losses.

>>48441785

Pretty certain 60km/h isn't faster than the eye can follow, mate.

>>48442008
I think he is talking about reflexes.

I single guardsman with a plasmagun has about a 41% chance of killing a space marine with each shot, of which he gets two every turn.

Even armed with a trusty lasgun, a guardsman has about a 5% chance of killing a space marine on the tabletop. Meaning, at long range it takes about 20 guardsmen to guarantee a marine kill, half that at short range.

>>48442008
>he doesn't know about the passage where terrified guardsmen couldn't see the marine closing the distance across an open field in the blink of an eye

You probably shouldn't be discussing this retarded lore stuff if you don't even know much about it. It's even been mentioned on /tg/ multiple times.

>>48442029

40K isn't the Matrix, friend.

>>48442043
>using tabletop stats

You dumb nigga

>>48439231
>it would just sell less
Space marines are the originals, mate. The guard came later.

There is no warhammer 40,000 without space marines. And in the fluff, there is no Imperium without space marines.

>>48442080

Tabletop stats are the only ones that matter, "nigga".

It is the primary canon.

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>>48441844
100 space marines absolutely could kill 100,000 guardsmen, though.

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>>48442148
>space marines annihilate entire military strength of the planet many of whom are loyalist
>they really could have just stormed the palace and eliminated the leadership
why do space marines have to be so damn dense?

>>48442450
Turn traitor and you'll feel the vindicator

>>48442450
They had to make an example of course.

>>48441892
>God I fucking hated the Gereon arc.
But! Voi Shet Magir!!!

ea Gereon Arc is pretty odd, but then again the six marines hunting them were facing Gaunt, the dude and his regiment beat the fuck out of a Khorne Berzerker attack on an arty battery in the second book.

BL has inconsistent stuff at many a time. Dan Abnett is inconsistent as fuck, Salvation Reach has three SM from three chapters respectively infiltrate a space station with the ghosts and they absolutely rape everyone there.

But CSM hunters on Gereon were really underwhelming, they seemed brutal and antagonistic when they first show up and just start busting caps into the Officers, admonishing the sloppy work of the fuel convoy that was ambushed by the team, then they just spaghetti all over the tree huts of the feral mud people.

>>48442450
posthuman soldiers have posthuman standards of loyalty

"just following orders" isn't an excuse they'll accept

>>48436578
>I read that of the ultra badass recruits space marines find they typically lose 999 out of 1000 men just in the training alone.
The way you can probably look at it, is that they are more like commandos than line infantry. They insert at numerous strategic points across a planet, and take objectives: assassinate an alien VIP, close a chaos portal, secure a holy relic, etc. They would rather do that than fight huge attrition-y numbers games. (Of course, they can do that as well, but it's not ideal).

So for their purposes, it's better to have a few thousand hyper-elite than a big mass of a million average dorks. But that huge mass of average dorks will probably win through attrition if they get into a head-butting competition.

>>48441786
Those Chaos Space Marines were all wounded dumbass by railgun bows, and got caught in an ambush. Although the Gaunt's Ghost series tends to be bullshit anyway.

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>>48442129
No, it's your retarded head canon. Game stats aren't even canon because they're abstractions for a GAME. The Black Library meanwhile is the direct production of GW (BL isn't a third party but GW itself as their publishing arm) and canon. There is no "primary canon" in 40k besides the most recent material if there is a contradiction.

>>48436649
Actually they dont need to sleep at all really.
I remember in one of the older codex's the record given was over 300 years i think.
The chapter swore never to reat untill the campaign was over by memory

>>48436578

I don't remember which book it's in, but there's a three way fight between two Chaos factions and the Imperium. And the Slaneshi are trying to summon a demon, and a bunch of Khornates are trying to stop it, eventually sending 5 CSM's.

Massed fire from the cultists eventually downs two of those CSMs and severely wounds a third who gets finished off by the Imperials, and one of the guardsmen narrating the Imperium in the battle notes that these guys are even worse than an underhive gang in terms of things like accuracy and discipline. But eventually they wear them down and one guy charges in with a suicide bomb.

>>48443530
So space marines lose to unarmed civilians? Because that's in a BL book.

>>48443684
Actually that was from the 6th Edition Codex Space Marines, when Marneus Calgar killed several hundred Night Lords with only medieval peasants with pitchforks as backup.

>>48443631
Traitor's Hand, Ciaphas Cain.

It's BS because Guardsmen cannot defeat a Space Marine no matter how hard they try with their lasguns. The Space Marine can just dodge the lasers.

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>>48443824
>The Space Marine can just dodge the lasers.
>just dodge lasers
>dodge lasers

>>48443898
>implying regular guardsmen are crack shots

yeah bruh IG 100% accuracy especially on moving targets thanks to dat speed of light right

dumbass

>>48444026
A Space Marine cannot "dodge lasers" because that is physically fucking impossible unless they are moving at FTL speeds, which they obviously are not because doing so would mean a shitload of fun stuff kicks into effect, such as them being capable of generating infinite energy, should simply dissolve while moving, and generating the mother-of-all-shockwaves. Nobody but Barry Allen dodges lasers.

And as for Guardsmen, we only have Cadians to go off of, but they maintain a 90% accuracy rating from endlessly drilling from childhood.

>>48444026
Nigga what? A spacem arine is a huge fucking target and we're not talking about PDF here, but the Imperial Guard. These guys are no fucking slouches

>>48436578
More than able. Stop sucking the propaganda dick.

>>48436649
>>48443621
They have half their brain sleep at a time. (Left/Right)

>>48442991
To be fair, not all Space Marines are created equal. If Lorgar can send his Legion's retards to die at Calth, maybe modern Chaos Lords can send their incompetent morons to Gereon.

>>48436578
>Could 1000 imperial guard grunts of the average McAverageson legion kill a single Space marine

1000 lasgun shots dumped into a single Space Marine. Pretty obvious that would kill the marine. A few Guardsmen will die to bolter fire I'm sure; if half three-quarters of the Guardsmen miss entirely, thats still 250 lasgun hits onto Power Armor. The Marine gets vaporized.

>>48444094
Well they wouldn't have to be moving faster than light, just fast enough to move out of the path of the beam before it reaches them... which is still a relativistic speed at any reasonable range, but could actually be a fair bit slower than light

>>48444730
>If Lorgar can send his Legion's retards to die at Calth

I'm about halfway through Know No Fear, is that what Lorgar did there? I thought Kor Phaeron and Erebus masterminded that whole thing since Lorgar is a huge joke

>>48444923
ADB made it an "I was pretending to be retarded" move, instead of them getting hopped up on chaos juice and taking their butthurt out on the smurfs.

Does anyone have the screenshot where the player does exactly this? He uses a gazillion guardsman versus marines just so you have to roll a million dice nonstop.

>>48444862
Not that anon but...

A laser is concentrated light. It moves at the speed of light.

You cannot dodge a laser. If you're thinking of plasma, perhaps? But still unlikely.

>>48445370
Not the guy you're talking to either, but you misunderstand him. If someone 100 meters away shoots you with a laser and you only need to move 1 meter to the side to dodge it, you will be moving significantly slower than c. Still faster than possible as he pointed out, but not light speed.

>>48444923
this is explained in a few short stories. WARNING, SOME SPOILERS

1. lorgar walked in the warp after the serrated sun experiment. in the end, he is approached by fateweaver who is bound to tell two truths. one of the truths are that he can crush the ultramarines at calth and kill guilliman, but terra will be too reinforced for horus to win (presumably by the dark angels, blood angels and ultramarines remnants). however, if lorgar doesn't stick around calth, instead creating the ruinstorm and wages the shadow crusade, the gods promise him victory.

2. in the other story, a gal vorbak fights in the underworld war on calth but this is eventually proven to be a vision. the attack on calth is years away, and said word bearer is not yet a gal vorbak and rejected by the daemon. argel tal, who is supervising the procedure, notes that there are many failures (but still within acceptable rates), and lorgar comes in and tells him instead to use those whose hatred of the ultramarines has overtaken their sensibilities.

so what can be concluded is that lorgar needs his cold blooded, rational killers to prosecute the shadow war,and the ranting zealots among the word bearers were sent to calth instead.

and yeah, lorgar was a joke until corax nearly killed him at istvaan. after that, he pretty quickly becomes a schemer on the level of kor phaeron and erebus and even one-ups erebus in Betrayer with some help from Kharn.

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>>48443789
Please tell me your memeing me

>>48445498
I know, the spiritual liege probably could have done it himself, but he's gracious enough to help out the common folk with their dreams.

>>48444094
>>48444026
>>48445370
Lasers aren't light-speed. How do you think the Imperial Guard are able to miss so often? Even in Guardwank like Gaunt's Ghosts, Guardsmen cannot just point and shoot their lasers and expect to hit anything moving. Hell, even in the 40k Space Marine video game you can dodge lasgun shots fired by cultists.

>>48436578
Son, there ain't a problem in the universe that can't be solved with a sufficient amount of explosives.

>>48436578
IIRC, not all of the 1000 applicants end up dead. Quite a few, sure, but a good portion live on as servants to the chapter, doing menial work. In some cases, I believe there applicants may still even become guardsmen.

>>48445983
Serfs perform self-defense roles, too. I doubt chapters send any to the guard.

>>48436578
Also, Loose doesn't mean dies. For example, the Space Wolves, regarded as some of the most stringent entrance processes, with a week long hike through a mountain range in mid-winter, with nothing but a small amount of mutation at the end, washes people out far more than them actually dying. And those who wash out often become vassal soldiers/engineers/pilots for the Space wolves anyway.
only using space wolves because I know the most about their 40k entrance procedure

>>48436750

No. There are humans that are as physcially strong as Space Marines (ogryns), but they are not intelligent enough to conduct their roles effectively. There are humans that are as smart as space marines like the Sisters of Battle, but they do not possess the physical strength and abilities required to do the things marines do like landing in the remaining non-chaos models of drop pod.

Marines aren't just "Guardsmen 2.0", they're a specialist force for specific duties, and there are things that the Guard do that the SM cannot.

>>48446669

Ogryns are actually stronger and tougher than marines by a good amount.

They are also however, really really fucking stupid.

>>48440149
Lore doesn't equal gameplay, there are so many factors, whats the environment, equipment, starting distance, space marine chapter etc

>>48438113
Also you don't have to kill a marine by penetrating his armor, you could cause power armor malfunction with enough shots that would gimp marine. Out of 1000+ shots , at least ten will keep pressuring vulnerable spot like joints, helmet.

I remember reading somewhere that few straight pointblank shot from a lasgun to marine's helmet would heat the helmet so much it'd boil marine's brain. Probably a bunch of anons arguing.

>>48448885

De-activating a marine's power armor just makes him slower.

>>48443789
>>48445498
>>48445638
Oh fucking hell, I want to see that passage with my very eyes. Could you tell me the page/part of the book I have to search?

>>48445498

Calgar fought off an entire Waaagh single handedly for one day and one night in the 5E codex, why are you surprised. His nickname is literally the god of war, and his main power is being a force multiplier.

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>>48442524

>>48448984
But what if you'd heat power armor so much that a marine would actually start boiling inside of it?

>>48446702
Why not remote control lobotimized ogryns? 1 joystick per every 1000 guardsmen

>>48449306
It's covered in ceramite, so it'd be rather hard to accomplish.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ceramite

>>48449315

The logistics of such a feat make it rather uneconomical.

>>48438108
They are the Human equivalent of a ork-nob.

A few thousand years on a death world make you robust.

This ,together with their simplicity are the reason Orks like them so much.

>>48449315
waste of tech and bodies

Bone 'eads already do roughly that for the guard. And if you want bigass tech-enhanced dudes the admech already has praetorian combat servitors.

>>48446500
Fuck yeah, William King's first SW book was awesome.

>>48448885
>Point blank.
>Surviving a nano second within 10 meters of a marine, let alone point blank.
Marines were made for close range combat as that is where their armor is most effective. Coupled with their god-like reflexes and strength (for a human) I don't see there being any way that would happen.

>>48445498
Nope, it's just a short blurb, but it has Calgar BTFO'ing Night Lords with just feudal world peasants as backup.

Poor Night Lords got shat on harder than the French at Agincourt.

>>48445653
Lasguns are literally lasers anon. It's how they're described in codex, along with all other las-weapons. They're lightspeed.

>>48436578
A thousand to one? Probably. Massed firepower is a big deal. In WWII the Germans were famous for shooting down tons of allied aircraft in Africa because whenever they saw them every man would just start shooting into the air with rifles and SMGs. Sheer volume of fire meant that sooner or later someone would land a 7.92 round on something important.

Same thing is probably true of Sphess Marines. Their role isn't as a massed infantry force meant to advance, take and hold ground, absorb losses and then keep going, they're a surgical strikeforce that hits high-value targets quickly. In a scenario where you can only send one drop-pod in, would you want it to have a squad of guardsmen (even stormtroopers) or a squad of Space Marines?

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>>48449014
Here you go anons, here's a pic. Source is 6th Edition Marine Codex.

>>48440183
you should read the novel "Ice Guard" it's about a squad of 10 Valhallen troops that have to fight a chaos invasion. they end up meeting a single chaos marine who chases them through the sewers. In the sewers there is a monster which rips his arm off, but it does little if anything to slow him down, they end up with having to pin him to a wall with a garbage truck to get away.

the entire seen is actually pretty entertaining to read.

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>>48449507
>several hundred chaos space marines attack the planet, but Calgar rallies the feudal population to defeat them

>>48449507
Alright, its not as silly as medieval peasants with pitchforks, since they might have had access to heavy weaponry, but still
>local feudal population
>fights off a few hunderds of chaos marines

Just what the flying fuck. Thank you Chaplain, now I can finally use peasants with pitchforks to "counts as" imperial guardsmen if I have Calgar in play.

>Space Marine foolishly charges a lone Guardsman who gets a lucky shot right through the eyes and vaporizes the Marines brains
>a force of 1000 Guardsmen are defending a big outpost, but a single Marine uses covert tactics to destroy their communications, ambushes supply convoys, picks off lone Guardsmen and displays their brutalized remains, after a week of this the Guardsmen are so paranoid and weak that the Marine easily kills all of them

>a Marine lands among 50 closely dug in Guardsmen using his jump pack and effortlesly slaughters them all in the ensuing confusion due to his superhuman agility, the only casualty is the chipped and melted paint on his armor
>a Marine lands among 50 closely dug in Guardsmen using his jetpack and starts killing them, but the Guardsmen quickly redeploy to best utilize their numbers and the Marine is slown down by concentrated fire until a few well placed shots kill him, with the Guardsmen suffering little casualties after the swift redeployment

40k is all over the place, but it's not that random if you put some thought into it

>>48440149
>>48442129
The tabletop is balanced for fun. If the lore had to be truly converted to crunch, you would see a 1200 point marine army as 2, 5 men squads including sargeants. I never played dark heresy/death watch but I heard the stats are closer to the fluff.

>>48449575
Feudal World has the technology of High Medieval Europe. At best they'll have crude siege cannons.

>>48449560
Night lords shouldn't be considered real space marines. They've regressed to techno-barbarian pirate levels.

>>48436578
Such a battle in a avenue not particularly benefiting either would be mostly equal but with bias towards guards.
If the imps get to chose battlefield, we are talking very bad odds for the space marine.
If the space marine get to choose the battle and manages to keep initiative, then i really hope y'all have seen the predator movies.

>>48449675
It's 40k so skitzo-tech is always a thing. Like it could be power swords for nobility, but they can't weaponise gunpowder meaningfully. We don't know how many died, the size of the Night Lord group involved, etc.

It's dumb, but it could be less dumb.

>>48442072
‘Sire, I believe we should save them for–’ The human said nothing more. The front of his face came free with a sickly crack, the flesh and jagged bone crunching in the Night Lord’s fist. Talos ignored the body as it toppled, spilling the insides of its halved skull onto the decking. No one had even seen him move, such was the prophet’s speed, clearing ten meters and vaulting a console table in the time it took a human heart to beat once

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>>48442524
What if the Vindicator turns traitor?

>>48450007
Then he gets the Melt..or..!

Fuck you fucking traitor fuck

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>>48450007

Exterminator the traitor vindicator

"Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops."

I take this as my guide; a Space Marine is worth roughly ten guardsmen in pitched combat. Of course, he takes up less space than 10 guardsmen, can be deployed more rapidly than 10 guardsmen, can fight like 10 guardsmen, force-march through the night, then fight like 10 guardsmen again. You can shoot space marines from orbit in a drop pod, you can have them delivered in a ship accelerating at 10Gs, you can have then fight in space, in a desert, in arctic conditions. There is a whole spectrum of reasons to prefer a force of space marines over ten times as many Guardsmen.

But, pound-for-pound, in a pitched battle, I think it's accurate to assume a marine is worth about 10 Guardsmen.

>>48441892

Gaunt's ghosts has the potential to be the "black company" of 40k but some of the writing is so cringey and filled with bullshit that it ruins any immersion.
Reg guardsmen taking out fucking chaos dreadnoughts and Khornate Berzerkers left and right, plot armor as thicc as a sororitas' butt and some outright retarded shit especially in the short stories completely kill the series for me.

Depends. Like, to mass-conquer a planet? Your marines are probably being wasted compared to a full guard invasion.

But stuff like the scenario in Dawn of War 2, where like 60 marines on a strike cruiser ran around, solving problems, assassinating enemy commanders then doing the commando raid into a weak point in the tyranid fleet? No amount of guardsmen would be able to do those, because they relied on small numbers being applied specifically.

>>48436578
Space Marines are a useful tool, but not nearly worth 1000 guardsmen, equipped as a regiment would be... At least if they IG were halfway competent and used combined arms, rather than making each regiment stupidly specialised.

In a straight fight, I'd probably compare the one space marine vs 900-1000 guardsmen as more akin to a dozen special forces against a thousand soldiers; capable of serious damage, but worthless in a stand-up fight and if well-handled, little true threat.

The space marine's biggest use is as propaganda, distractions and really fast, hard strikes. They're the tip of a sword, but they're not the blade, edge, guard, or hilt and without them, the Imerpium would still be perfectly serviceable, just inconvenienced.

At least, that's how I'd write it, because I have half a brain and apparently the GW writers don't.

>>48436578
Well, I would say yes since a 1000 model IG army would handily beat a 1 Space Marine model...

>>48449322
>http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ceramite
I read that combined with ludicrous active heat sinking abilities allows them to fight inside volcanoes

In the Ultramarines omnibus novels, there are several Ultramarines who die to stupid shit like getting shot in the foot with an autogun by traitor PDF. The space marines in those books always avoid walking directly into enemy fire, even pea shooters like 10 dudes with autoguns, which sort of makes you wonder what's the fucking point of power armor in that case.

tl;dr the fluff isn't consistent as usual, next

Depending on the system/lore.

Take for example the Only War RP I partook in.
I was able to rip the arm off a khornite berserker and then beat him to death with it before he even got to react (It wasn't an ambush, I was just faster).

That being said I was more machine than guardsman at that point, but whatever.

>>48446669
That there are things the Guard can do that Marines can't is often overlooked.

Marines are not a occupational force
Marines don't being the big guns in big numbers.
Marines aren't the army you want when you get bogged down in a battle of attrition.

The Marines are there to kick in the door and make a hole for the Guard to come flooding in. After that, they become problem solvers for specific targets.

Really depends
Average guys numbering 1000 with lasguns
1 space marine
For the marine, it depends in how he is deployed.
Is he dropped miles away, and given time to sneak and sabotage?
Is he dropped steel rain style?
If its either, the above the marine has a good chance of winning
For the guard, how dug in are they?
If this is a fortified position, and the marine lands within range but outside the fort, hes probably dead due to sheer numbers.

>>48456015
What really matters is that you found a way to feel superior

>>48436578
Fluff marine or tabletop marine? Fluff marine, probably without too much hassle. Tabletop marine, it'd take like, ten to do it in one shooting phase.

>>48459072
Also to take into consideration. Is the fluff marine from the Imperial Guard codex, or the Space Marines codex? And is it a codex story, or a book? Which series of books? Or is it from that movie? Movie marine would curb stomp the IG grunts, and anything else on the planet that moved. Or didn't move. He'd crush the core of the planet under his boot.

>>48449578
Good post and the only correct answer

>>48459221

Or a SOB book where both of them rumble pointlessly while the SOB is working out what the REAL problem is and solving it.

Both the SOB books are rather heavy on 'God damn fucking idiots, do we have to solve everything ourself?'

>>48441786

You seem to have missed the part a few books later where a squad of 3 space marines holds off a space hulk's worth of soldiers that would have totally overwhelmed those ace guardsmen.

>>48443530

you have that backwards.

The fluff exsists to flesh out the backstory and setting of the tabletop game.

The game came first. The fluff came second.

Game = pimrary canon.

Fluff = fluff.

That's why it's called fluff.

>>48460892

Except this is an argument about fluff. No one would ask the question if it was just about tabletop.

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>>48460892
Are you legitimately retarded? The game stats are obviously not canon unless you happen to be a drooling mongoloid because they're abstractions for a game to exist in the first place. By your troglodyte logic Rogue Trader is the most canon material because it came first, but GW doesn't give a fuck about it because it's irrelevant old drivel.

40k does have a canon policy you straw-eating incompetent, and the Black Library books are equal with everything else. The only thing that matters is what GW itself says is non canon, and that's Heretic Tomes. In fact the the policy of contradicting material favoring what has been protruded most recently would always favor over codex rules as well, because books are produced more often.

Everything is equal in 40k canon, except that which is older or labeled heretic tomes.

>>48461096

Fluff is just background material so you have a milieu in which to have little metal or plastic soldiers fighting each other.

The only reliable, measurable stats come from the tabletop.

Sorry if that hurts your feelings because it makes your space marines only "really tough" as opposed to "ridiculously tough", but maybe when you're an adult you'll grow out of it.

>>48461163
Except your opinion directly contradicts GW's, so it's just more dogshit fanon that means nothing. The only thing that matters in 40k is that which GW declares, which includes the Black Library because it is no different than Forge World or Citadel. You opinion is utterly meaningless, all that matters on the subject of an IP is either the IP owners themselves, or whom the owners hire to speak for them, such as editors. Likewise the Horus Heresy novel series is considered to be a total retcon of all past fluff. There is zero word of GW ever calling the game stats canon.

Not to mention that if you are -seriously- so fucking stupid as to go looking for things like "consistency" or "reliability" in FICTION you are indeed a drooling mental inferior for whom there is no hope because ALL fiction is inconsistent as fuck dipshit. Even series of books written by a single god-damn author manage to be inconsistent as fuck such as Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, and let's not even get into Marvel or DC.

>>48461163

Anon, what are you trying to gain here? The point of this thread is for people to talk about imaginative scenarios in a distant future about how a group of super soldiers would handle lesser infantry, based around a loose set of data spread across dozens of books, games and other mediums. Running in here and pretending you have the answer because of some numbers is ridiculous. We don't care about those numbers. Its not the point of this thread. Now lighten up and have some fun.

>>48461279
>>48461369

OP doesn't mention what he's using as a measuring stick. He doesn't say "only fluff", or "only black library". He doesn't make any qualifications at all.

Given that the fluff varies wildly, the only real indicator of relative power levels is the tabletop.

Even in FFG's rpg, where marines are much more powerful, a squad of guard is going to be dangerous. A typical Only War squad has a sergeant, operator, heavy weapons, two weapon specialists, and 5 flunkies, companions, or whatever they call the squad filler. That means there's at worst two grenade launchers and a missile launcher with krak rounds, and that will whittle a marine down quickly. God help you if the heavy has an autocannon, which are far more efficient marine killers that in the wargame. And the marine could be facing a lascannon and two plasmaguns, in which case he's completely fucked.

>>48461536

>Given that the fluff varies wildly, the only real indicator of relative power levels is the tabletop.

Again, you're missing the point. We're not here to find the objective answer to the question. We're here to bullshit around and have fun.

>>48436578
yes they do it all the time
remember 40k is a game so literally any force can wipe out another force

If we are talking table top rules? Then yes.

Fluff wise? Also yes. Easily. Maybe a couple squads of marines, some support weapons or something.

But the average guard unit comes with Grenades, heavy weapons and all kinds of nasty shit. Never mind that the Marine wouldn't have too many rounds. This doesn't take more specialized troops into account.

>>48461279
>ALL fiction is inconsistent as fuck

This is wrong.

>>48436578
A single full-power shot from a lasgun can take down a fully armoured Space Marine if it hits them in the neck. It's unlikely, but when you have 1000 lasguns engaging a single Marine at once the chances of that happening rise dramatically.

Space Marines aren't supposed to yolo head on into pitched battles because they'd get mauled. They'd probably win, but the cost in Space Marines would be unacceptably high considering they could achieve the same results with a series of lighting strikes on the enemy's command structure and suchlike for very few, if any, Marines lost.

>>48441201
Roll 1000 d6 and you're gonna get some 1s and 2s in there.

>>48461762
It's hardly fun when marine kids ignore dissenting opinions and make every marine a Samson ripoff

>nuh uh, marines can totally kill 1000 armed men with just an aquila!

what about all these examples of that not happening?

>omg stop with the guard wank

Rolled 2, 1, 2, 1, 5, 3, 1, 5, 1, 2, 6, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 5, 1, 3, 6, 6, 5, 5 = 81 (25d6)

>>48465308

>>48465780
Woops, doesn't go higher than 25 rolls.

>>48465791
whatever, that's already 10 dead marines. Good job, lads!

>>48440099
>A Space Marine would lose to twenty guardsmen.
Depends on the author, but I distinctly recall reading a fluff piece somewhere with a single Space Marine demolishing an Eldar raiding party, and when they assumed he was some legendary First Company badass he corrected them by saying that he'd only been made a full Marine a month prior.

There are many dimensions to measure the usability and efficacy of a soldier beyond mere survivability and killing power. If that one surviving recruit is not only tougher and a betterr killer, but also:

- sharper-witted
- smarter
- more level-headed and rational
- possesses greater ability to work in a team and lead
- copes better with harsh environments and can survive on mean rations for longer
- adapts better to practical specifics such as riding Drop Pods or enduring intensive surgery

Then once you tote-up the values you can have a solider over 1000 times the worth of a regular Joe-Guardsmen, without him even being twice as good on any one level. You can't afford to waste geneseed implants on average soldiers, and you 999 of them to sift away before you get to that one character with 75% more in every aspect, the optimal choice for ascension.

>>48465807
And I distinctly recall two imperial fists getting shredded by shuriken and the third one losing his arm in a single volley.

I really don't understand why marines have to be hyped up as these invincible gods. It's much more palatable when they're supremely competent and equipped, but still vulnerable. Perfect shit is just immensely dull to hear about.

>>48465829
Yes, that's why I said it depends on the author, noting it as a counterexample to losing to twenty guardsmen.

>>48436750
Partly it's because equipping normal humans with power armour is an insane endeavour. Marine armour is overall less of a burden on the Imperial economy thanks to the black carapcace, which allows its wearer to move in Power Armour like its a second skin. Without that it takes a merciless amount of fine-tuning and adaptation to get a human comfortable and safe in such a suit. The Ecclesiarchy is monstrously rich, hence why it can afford to outfit its personal army of friggin' nuns with suits. Similarly Inquisitors are important enough individuals with enough political pull to recquisition suits of power, and in some cases terminator, armour for themselves. These priviliges could never be extended... probably ANY further in the Imperium. Non-astartes forces in Power Armour are largely a dream.

Combine that with the sheer hardiness factors outlined elsewhere in this thread, which are of enormous utility to war, and the Imperium would severely limit itself by the removal of space marines from its roster. Guardsmen tire out and need supply trains that aliens simply don't.

>>48465842
Fair enough, sorry. It's early and I'm shitposting before coffee.

>>48440099
Relics from the Great Crusade are revered due to the tendency of being really insanely powerful.

>>48442080
>>48442129
There is nothing wrong with regarding tabletop performance for the sake of discussion, but there is everything wrong with using it alone. The sort of blunt calcuation in >>48442043 is misguided, but so is writing off all the tabletop as in >>48443530. Now let's all get along.

>>48443530
Tip your fedora harder, Laurie Golding. The biggest failure of the Black Library is to filter-away men who write like *that*.

>>48444862
You're still proposing that a marine can travel at relativistic speeds, on foot. Every time a marine runs he would trigger a cascade of sonic booms, deafening loud for miles around. A space marine could leave footprints in steel, glowing hot. He wouldn't need weapons because he could just LITERALLY RUN THROUGH YOU.

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>>48465829
>I really don't understand why marines have to be hyped up as these invincible gods
because the Sardaukar did it

Space marines deliberately left their humanity behind. Bringing BACK vulnerability and normality to them is going against the point. When they die, it's on piles of their own corpses in a self-created nuclear wasteland.

>>48445653
Lasguns don't emit a sustain beam of light for any high length of time. That would be insanely taxing energy-wise. Las weapons emite bursts of high-energy photons to blast-sear bits of a target at a time.

>>48449578
Very good examples

>>48466042
Forget sonic booms, if a marine can move that quickly, air won't be able to get out of the way in time. Their armor would slam into the atmospheric molecules and cause fusion. Every time a marine moved to dodge a lasgun, it'd create a massive x-ray shockwave and annihilate everything in the vicinity, including the marine itself.

>>48449675
Almost everywhere in 40K possessing schizo-tech, so you can expect a few plasma guns treat as holye reliques to turn up in the field.

Heck, the Knights of that feudal world may even be giant mech pilots for all you know.

>>48466083
>>48466042
How fast do you actually need to move in order to be faster than the eye can see, at a reasonable distance?

I mean, if you keep your hand fairly close to your face and move it in front of your eyes really fast, that will be all but impossible for your eyes to track as well. As you get further away, though, how much more speed do you need?

>>48466120
I'm sure a quick google would probably resolve that. The number would change depending on your distance from the target. Regardless, it would be a paltry number compared to relativistic speeds.

>>48466083
Kek, now I'm just imagining spaces marines having a dance competetion outside the enemy fortress, confident that the x-ray bursts alone will enough to cook their brains by the time they're done.

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>>48466083
>mfw min-maxing the shit out of movement speed in Deathwatch