Re: [Epic] marine chapters (was: Orks with LandRaiders)

From: J. Michael Looney <mlooney_at_...>
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 10:17:42 -0500

Colen McAlister wrote:
>
> Chris White <chris_at_...> has carefully scribed:
>
> > IIRC, the fluff says that there are over 1000 existing Chapters, which
> >really isn't all that many, when you consider the immensity of space.
> >That's only a million or Space Marines. The US armed forces numbers
> >several hundred thousand, and that's one country on one planet...
>
> Yes, but if the US armed forces went up against the space marines, there
> wouldn't be manyof them left afterwards. As long as they weren't allowed
> to use all the cool stuff that humanity seems to have forgotten about
> (e.g. nuclear weapons, smart fighter jets, you get the idea).

<rant>
Going purely by GW rules, some of the things that are forgotten seem to
be things like rifles that can shoot more than 50 meters or so, artillry
with a range that out ranges small arms and auto fire weapons that don't
jam after about 30 rounds. Assuming that the WH40K rules are correct on
the weapon systems in use your average Space Marine Chapter (1000 men)
would be killed to the man by a 1914 era World War One British Infantry
Company (about 100 men) in about 10 minutes, much less vs. any thing
with any "good" weapons like, say a US Army force from Desert Storm,
never mind the USAF.

Yeah, Space Marines are brave to the point of stupid, but so where the
French in WWI or Iran in the first Gulf War. They both charged machine
guns. They died. Given how SM are normally played and that they can't
seem to spread out (That got to stay within 2" rule in WH40K, 4" if your
real lucky) they would have problems in any war fought on Earth after
1860 or so and would be totaly useless in any thing after 1914.

All of this is of course because GW writes rules to re fight Waterloo,
regardless of the back ground fluff in question.
</rant>
Received on Sun Aug 31 1997 - 15:17:42 UTC