Space Marines: They're becoming wimpier with each generation (Now with added ORK!)

[Eldritch Warlord]

EDIT:

How exactly are they "not built" for close combat? They thrive in close combat! If you sent Master Chief into a bollock kicking contest with an Adeptus Astartes, we'd never find his body!

Gravity Hammer, Energy Sword.

He'd stand a chance.

Chainsword, Stormbolter.

No, he really wouldn't.

Plasma on metal beats metal on metal. And doesn't close combat preclude the effective use of a storm bolter?

I'm not saying the Chief would win, I'm saying he has a chance.

 

[stormcaller]

How is Thrall not badass? dude blew up a castle because he was just pissed!

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Thunder Hammer, Lightning Claws, Storm Shield.

Sorry, Chief's fucked sideways. Better just sign on with the Imperial Guard like everyone else. Sure, all we get is flak armour and a laser rifle, but there's a lot more of us and we cannot be stopped.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

EDIT:

How exactly are they "not built" for close combat? They thrive in close combat! If you sent Master Chief into a bollock kicking contest with an Adeptus Astartes, we'd never find his body!

Gravity Hammer, Energy Sword.

He'd stand a chance.

Chainsword, Stormbolter.

No, he really wouldn't.

Plasma on metal beats metal on metal. And doesn't close combat preclude the effective use of a storm bolter?

I'm not saying the Chief would win, I'm saying he has a chance.

Dude, a space marine is about 1.5 times the height of master chief and twice his width. I don't think there's a chance in hell.

In the same way that there's no chance in hell that a lion can kill an elephant?

 

[Lunar Shadow]

EDIT:

How exactly are they "not built" for close combat? They thrive in close combat! If you sent Master Chief into a bollock kicking contest with an Adeptus Astartes, we'd never find his body!

Gravity Hammer, Energy Sword.

He'd stand a chance.

Chainsword, Stormbolter.

No, he really wouldn't.

Plasma on metal beats metal on metal. And doesn't close combat preclude the effective use of a storm bolter?

I'm not saying the Chief would win, I'm saying he has a chance.

Dude, a space marine is about 1.5 times the height of master chief and twice his width. I don't think there's a chance in hell.

In the same way that there's no chance in hell that a lion can kill an elephant?

Doesn't it take multiple lions to take down an elephant?

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

EDIT:

How exactly are they "not built" for close combat? They thrive in close combat! If you sent Master Chief into a bollock kicking contest with an Adeptus Astartes, we'd never find his body!

Gravity Hammer, Energy Sword.

He'd stand a chance.

Chainsword, Stormbolter.

No, he really wouldn't.

Plasma on metal beats metal on metal. And doesn't close combat preclude the effective use of a storm bolter?

I'm not saying the Chief would win, I'm saying he has a chance.

Dude, a space marine is about 1.5 times the height of master chief and twice his width. I don't think there's a chance in hell.

In the same way that there's no chance in hell that a lion can kill an elephant?

When was the last time you saw a steel elephant?

 

[Apocalyptic-Bob]

All these guys are wimps! Fight with what God gave you, not a test tube or a lab that creates powered armour!

For instance, the natives of planet Dune. Much more bad ass.
Now, for my next comparison, I would like to talk about strawberries, pomegranate, and potatoes.
Can we give the circular arguments a rest, please?

 

[gamegod25]

*shrugs* it's called balance. I'd would be kinda boring if your space marines were invincible badasses who could kill entire armies with just one finger. Yeah it might be cool at first but where is the challenge?

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

When was the last time you saw a steel elephant?

My point is that a Space Marine's impressive bulk and anachronistic weaponry doesn't make him automatic victor in a contest of arms.

A Spartan has an advantage in agility and the Halo's melee weapons are arguably more lethal than those of a Space Marine. (you are not going to argue that a sword made of plasma and a hammer that manipulates gravity are worse than a weaponized chainsaw or oversized electric glove, keeping in mind that in both universes the lore and the games are not the same)

 

[Wyatt]

snip

good points all. there is a newish series of books out called, well they have various names. there is 2 sets of 3 books out so far and a third set of 3 is in the works right now with the first book having been written allready, anyhow its by Ian Douglas and its about the plain old US Marines in space, the first series dealt with a USA vrs UN (lead by France) war on Mars the moon and Europa over 'alien tech' that was discovered there from 2 million years ago. the second series deals with us meeting those aliens or their decendants and killing them ....... anyhow i get side tracked but its actualy a pretty good read if your looking for plausable short term realism in 'Space Marines' fiction. i only toss this out there not to plug the books but just to show that there is actualy quite alot of space marine fiction on the market. its just not that popular it seems. and ive read a good chunk of it but i still think the 40K universe is the best. its just a question of taste though.

I really like the way the little Space Marine models look. I like the way Space Marine armies play. But the "fluff"? Meh. They're boring. They fight, and that's pretty much it. The stuff they're fighting is more interesting than they are. The people they're fighting for are more interesting than they are. Too much macho military wank, too few interesting core themes. Turning them into twelve-foot-tall acid-spitting supermen really doesn't do anything to make them cooler, either.

this is actualy what makes me like themm so much. what you call boring i call an awsome display of single minded determination to win at ANY and all costs. battle itself IS rather boring if you get right down to it, too read about anyhow. i often find myself skipping over battle sceens in books depending on the writer because there is only so many ways to say 'he pulled the trigger and the other guy exploded' tactical combat senarios suck to read about unless your find a good writer that can both develope good tactics and be able to describe them in a good story. its hard to write that with Space Marines because their best (some would say only) tactics is a full on frontal assault and just smash the enemy. thats way i DID kinda snicker when i read a few pages ago about SMs not being good in close combat, from what i understand the SMs are humans close combat specialists they are the guys you call/send in when you just cant loose and there isnt time for anything fancy. the last line of offence/defence for all mankind. if it was a real world id WANT them to be boring to the point of tears, i would WANT them to be about nothing but finding and killing the enemy. i dont want them having moral issues or second thoughts or doubts of any kind. you can leave all that to the polititions or 'normal' people. i want my WARRIORS to be "a minister of death praying for war" to quote Gunny Hartman.

space marines are the 'controll group' that the entire universe is based on. all the various storys and people in that universe are judged based on how close too or far away from the Space Marines they are, what i mean is, when you think of 40K if you could only pick one phrase to describe what its about from a humans point of view than that phrase would HAVE to be Space Marines. since the entire univers is about war, and the Space Marines are humankinds ultimate weapons IN that war than the entier universe revolves around them as the basic unit and all else is created in relation to them. the guards units are only 'tough' if they can fight even slightly up to the level of the Marines, the inquisitors are only 'tough' if they can fight beside Space Marines, or even be forced to fight against just one of them. the enemys are only truly dangerious if they are fighting and wining against Space Marines. the toughest battles and the longest grimmest campaigns have Space Marines at their core. the entire ledgend and history of mankind has been the History of the Space Marines in one way or another. they may seem like plane vanilla but a great story needs a blank piece of paper to be written on, the Space Marines are that sheet of paper and every story or idea in the 40K universe is written overtop of that foundation. your only tough if your space marine tough, your only dediceated of your space marine dedicated, your only brave of your space marine brave see what im getting at?

as i say thouigh its a matter of taste.

now here is my real reason i enjoy them so much as a work of fiction. ive read literaly thousands of books, most of it sci-fie or real world history (and odd combination i know) and in all that reading, in all the movies ive ever watched, in all the video games ive ever played ....... ALL of it, ive never seen an enemy that i wouldnt be totaly comfortable in putting Space Marines up against. yes even Jedi and the Borg, the fremen, or Sauron to say nothing of Morgoth/Melkor himself. there has never been an 'enemy' in any fiction ive ever experianced i wouldnt be comfortable in letting the Space Marines fight for all of humanity even making the adjustments for 'local tech'. take their armor and guns away and dump a force of them into middle earth with plate armor and a sword and the big bad enemy sauron would have been destroyed inside a week. dump a force of Space Marines inside a Borg cube and thats it game over, you cant really 'adapt' to getting your head riped off or your spine broke, and id pit psykers against Jedi/sith any day of the week while storm troopers would fall like stalks of grass.

the idea behind Space Marines is a truly interesting one, they arent fighting any normal enemy they werent created to be JUST an elite human millitary, they are the ultimate human millitary force created to fight the very evil aspects of the universe itself. the are created to fight Chaos in all its forms and they are the ultimate force for order. you can of corse swap chaos for evil and order for good, but no other millitary force ive ever seen in fiction was created to do this. sure there are hundereds if not thousands of works of fiction where they may be individual heros that are born and bread to fight chaos/evil but the Space Marines are an entire millitary made up of those heros. each individual space marine is a belgarion, or a gandalf, or a master chief all himself. they arent just A hero they are an army of heros.

kinda a neat concept if you really think about it. and one ive never seen done outside the 40K universe.

Hmmm...kinda. 1st edition Rogue Trader (1987) did have mutation and warp entities etc, but the big bad chaos gods didn't appear, although they might have been vaguely alluded to. The storylines developed over the years. Chaos didn't make a proper appearance until the 2 Realm of chaos books (around 1992 I think). Orks and Eldar were there from day 1. They also had Slaan & Squats (dwarves). It was kinda like D&D in space with a bunch of Judge Dredd tacked on.

well im thinking of the 'lore' as its established now. Space marines allready existed in the 1st edition' but they were created ultimalty (it turns out) to fight Chaos right? i mean the Emperor Himself only came to power when the warp became a threat. he didnt come too power to fight orcs or eldar. those wars are just part of the background fabric and to give the Space Marines somethign to do between having epic campaigns with the forces of Chaos. now of corse they have corrupted this pure concept by having to add all kinds of other crap too the basic story. when the very forcs of Chaos itself, the embodyment of universal evil arent tough enough to kill your good guys you need to go to some pretty exotic extreams to come up with a better bad guy.

what would you do to tell an intersting story about real world humans if satan wasnt tought enough to stand up to an army of US Marines?

the original story was about chaos vrs the Emperor/space Marines though right?

 

[Asehujiko]

40k players: whining everytime something remotely similar to theit ip appears and still whining when anything appears that isn't similar enough to their ip.

As all 40k fanbois seem to take the starship troopers movie as canon, i hereby declare that the Dawn of War marines are now the canon 40k marines and they are barely 20% stronger then guardsmen.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

40k players: whining everytime something remotely similar to theit ip appears and still whining when anything appears that isn't similar enough to their ip.

As all 40k fanbois seem to take the starship troopers movie as canon, i hereby declare that the Dawn of War marines are now the canon 40k marines and they are barely 20% stronger then guardsmen.

I'm sure even us non-warhammer people can see that a 40k marine is harder than a Spartan. However, comparing them seems so pointless.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

the original story was about chaos vrs the Emperor/space Marines though right?

TBH I'm not really that familiar with the details of the newer stuff. That is the story as it stands now I guess, but 'originally' it was humanity vs all the dangerous things in the galaxy, however at that time it was all a bit vague anyway, 40K lore ahd yet to be established. It only focused fully on chaos later on in the games development.

IIRC regaring newer fluff the marines etc were created to fight the great crusade, which was about reuniting humanity so that the emporer could fashion humanity into a society able to resist the forces of chaos and the various other horrible things out there, but chaos was the main threat.

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

When was the last time you saw a steel elephant?

My point is that a Space Marine's impressive bulk and anachronistic weaponry doesn't make him automatic victor in a contest of arms.

A Spartan has an advantage in agility and the Halo's melee weapons are arguably more lethal than those of a Space Marine. (you are not going to argue that a sword made of plasma and a hammer that manipulates gravity are worse than a weaponized chainsaw or oversized electric glove, keeping in mind that in both universes the lore and the games are not the same)

You do know what type of caliber a .75 round is?

Compared to say, .357/.5 at best.

When was the last time you saw a steel elephant?

My point is that a Space Marine's impressive bulk and anachronistic weaponry doesn't make him automatic victor in a contest of arms.

A Spartan has an advantage in agility and the Halo's melee weapons are arguably more lethal than those of a Space Marine. (you are not going to argue that a sword made of plasma and a hammer that manipulates gravity are worse than a weaponized chainsaw or oversized electric glove, keeping in mind that in both universes the lore and the games are not the same)

Furthermore, with just a regular master chief punch killing another spartan, a punch from a 12ft tall badarse would kill him instantly.

A hammer would be overkill.

 

[Kadamon]

http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/post-90027-1205171981.jpg
...
http://media.photobucket.com/image/ork/bravest_slann/Or.jpg?o=72

Okay, found the problem:

What you define as "not wimpy" or "awesome", I tend to think of as "absurd" and "ridiculous".

Bulging muscles. Tiny/giant heads. Descriptions of how the characters are ten feet tall because, apparently, the standard trope of six-foot-tall heroes just doesn't cut it anymore. Acid-spitting.

Don't get me wrong, 40k as a setting actually has some interesting stuff in it. But it's not in the bulging muscles and tiny/giant heads. That stuff is -- well, it's downright comical. And, to be honest, I think it was always intended to be that way.

-- Alex

Personally I'm more of a Necron/Daemon/Tyranid kinda man, but hey, whats absurd to you is still the most powerful Space Marine made to this day. Your opinion does count though, and I will admit that they are a bit too "ub3r 1337 ov3rp0w3rdz" but really, thats why a lotta people like them.

 

[Kadamon]

Woah! Nine pages! I am impressed as to how big the flame wars are getting!

*Throws more wimpy space marines into the oven.*