Re: [Epic] Space Marine Chapters

From: Miller, Chris <CMiller_at_...>
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 11:05:00 -0500

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F
> > Actually, if you get a chance to play the boardgame "Battle for
Armagedon",
> > you can get a feel for the fluff of the SMs. At the height of the battle,
> > the IG may have about 30 regiment sized units representing militia,
> > regular, and armor units as well as a few specialized units, such as a
> > titan legion and assault regiment. During the game, 3 legions of SMs
> > arrive,
>
> 30 regiments?! That would be about 180000 men to fight all the Orks from
> Ghazgull's planet. Very reallistic! 180000 against a few hundred million!
> I'm talking of fluff only. Armageddon would have an army of a few
> millions against those infinite ork warbands and would be getting kicked
> on their asses. Suddenly 3000 marines appear and help win the war.
> Nope! Doesn't seem very reallistic.

 ----> How did you determine that an IG regiment is 6000 men ? In the
fluff, everyone raised from a planet at one time is one "regiment"? Iif
you want to get into numbers, 1% of 1 million is 10,000, so depending on
what % of a planet's pop. is used, you can get some pretty large
numbers.There are plenty of examples in both books and reality of a
small, higher-tech high-mobility force beating or holding off a larger,
clumsier lower-tech force.
        Personally, I don't care about the numbers (millions of Orks ? how did
they get there?): It's a whole buncha orks attacking a whole buncha IG,
and the marines come in to help. Like is said below, it's a heroic type
game, and trying to slap "realism" on it is a mistake. "Realism" goes
out the door about the time the titans walk on and the psykers start
frying each others brains.

        Chris Miller

Well... really, the Marines won't win the war for you. Either the IG
are slowly winning the war, and the Marines provide an extra bit of push
where it's needed to speed that up, or the Orks are winning the war, and
the Marines try to provide some last-ditch defence to stop 'em... but
good luck.

In the games of BfA that I've played and watched, that's really been the
sum of what the Marines do. They certainly can't turn the tide on their
own, but they do provide some very useful shock troops, though they need
some Rough riders moving with them to take hits. ^_-

As for just 1000 Marines doing that... well, maybe. I'd liken it to
Beorn showing up at the battle of 5 armies in _The Hobbit_, basically
they provide one heck of an attack force, heading for the enemy leader.
Or even the 13 Dwarfs, coming out of the mountain: their numbers were
few, but their equipment was d*mn good, and it's heroic fantasy.

What more do you want?

                    Aaron Teske
                    Mithramuse+_at_...
Received on Tue May 06 1997 - 16:05:00 UTC