"The Size of a Spacial Marine " Topic

They are really huge!.

From main page
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Shame their minis are barely taller than a run of the mill ImpGuard trooper, ain't it? :)

I do like the look of some of the "True Scale" marines that are floating around. They look less squat and fat.

The Marines, though, are almost always in a position with their feet spread, bracing or somesuch. I think. Anyway, human-size Marines don't bother me – I always thought that what made them special was their psychology and their internal alterations.

That said, true-scales are pretty darn cool!

(And look at the source site shows that I'm pretty much wrong about the stance. )

Heh. Funny the blog mentions Tyranids. They're the wrong sizes too! Helion Rain for example specifically states that Termagants are the size of a dog. I doubt dogs in the 40K universe are the size of small ponies.

Basic Ork boyz are also supposed to be bigger and bulkier than Imperial Guardsmen, aren't they?

you are all forgetting the main GW rules – it doesn't matter what we have written in the fluff, we'll do what we want and what is needed to sell it!

Average men are only 5'9" tall? Really? No wonder the rest of the world can't play basketball.

Besides, I thought the Space Marines were biologically engineered for that.

As far as Termagants being dog sized and those being small pony sized, you need to get away from your Yorkie and look more at Great Danes and St. Bernards.

So they all look like Thrud under their armour. It is a pitty you cannot get them in true scale.

You know GW should make the shift to the right size. Means they can tell everyone they have to dump all their old stuff and buy new in the right size.

Yikes…. I prefer the 'large, genetically modified/cyber enhanced/psychologically fanatic variant of the old days.
Say, 6' 6", 300lbs, or so… but 7' 6" 780 lbs…. that is almost an Ogryn! Ditto what nvdoyle said, as well as alien surfer and Tony… but I would pass on models that size. I would like to see ork boys scaled down, however, and proper relative proportions between powered armor and naked troops, etc… then again, I'm not buying GW, so my opinion hardly matters.

Keep in mind that the source site above is a fan and not GW. This guy is cool but he is trying very hard to reconcile the wildly varying fluff, anatomically oddly proportioned miniatures and reality. Something GW does not bother with. :)
I agree with billthecat, I'm happy with bad assed shock troops, they don't have to be comic book super heros to be cool with me. I still love and field original Beakies too. :)
The true scale stuff is remarkable modelling, but they are no more true scaled then the originals. Not because the are fictional mind you, just because they are poorly scaled and proportioned to themselves. Great miniatures mind you. I have hundreds of them and enjoy them, but they are what they are, cartoony.

I always thought the Space marine suit was cyber-enhanced and thus needed to be that big to accommodate all the extra gear, sensors, self-healing gizmos and so on. Inside he's just a normal sized human.

They're supposed to live hundreds of years yet die in droves on the tabletop (and indeed in the fluff). Pretty much like the inexhaustible supply of perpetually dying-out elves and how in 10 000 years a galaxy full of humans can't figure out Hiroshima whilst the Tau Empire went from bone spears to railguns in the same time span.

My favourite Space Marine factoid is that they're all castrated. This has never been retconned so it's still in effect. :)

"The Empra'… has only got one ball!
And poor old Magnus has got none at all!"

- Translated from Shas'La marching song.

My favourite Space Marine factoid is that they're all castrated. This has never been retconned so it's still in effect. :)

Curious. Where was this stated? In all the stuff I've read, this has never come up. However, I'd certainly agree they're probably impotent after all the surgeries, training, psychological indoctrination and other lovely, inhumane stuff done to them to make them super human warriors, but surgical or chemical castration would lower their testosterone immensely, something one of their implanted organs strive to produce greater amounts of to bulk them up during the training phase. So, castrating them in any form doesn't make sense. Then again….. {Insert preferred stab at nonsensical fluff.}

As far as Termagants being dog sized and those being small pony sized, you need to get away from your Yorkie and look more at Great Danes and St. Bernards.

A ripper may be the size of a Yorkie, but going off that argument I'd use a less obnoxious and less rat-like animal and say Rippers are the size of large house cats. We have two black labs, real dogs, large. My friend has a purebred German Shepherd that's around 30% larger than our bigger black lab and about 20 lbs more weight. A termagant model is still oversized, even if you're using a particularly large mastiff as the dog to measure from rather than a large Husky or a German Shepherd.

Still my favorite:

castrated marines is pure rogue trooper right back at the begining.

Robert

Basketball players are 7'-6"???? (what, 2 in history, and neither were any good?)

If memory serves, the 'castration' was more along the lines of 'sterilization'. They had so many modifications that they were no longer capable of direct reproduction – thus the progenoid glands, and the geneseed. Their devotion to a monastic existence took care of the rest.

Now, that said, apparently by the fluff (maybe…) Space Wolves are capable of reproduction, and do so, enthusiastically…

I've got a feeling that the 'sterilization' was, originally, a method of control and establishing a monastic order and the structure of passing on inheritance, rather than a side effect.

"in 10 000 years a galaxy full of humans can't figure out Hiroshima whilst the Tau Empire went from bone spears to railguns in the same time span."

Ah, yes. The assumption that everywhere, always, forever and ever amen, is just like the last 800 years in Europe and the United States.

Not even 40K is that silly.

Ah, I've not read much into the old Rogue Trader stuff.

I've got a feeling that the 'sterilization' was, originally, a method of control and establishing a monastic order and the structure of passing on inheritance, rather than a side effect.

This would make much more sense than any other possibility. IIRC all marine chapters pretty much forbid everything except sleep, prayer and training. Some have 15-30 minutes of free time. Tis why I love the Space Wolves personally. They're that normal Astartes bad-ass minus the stick. They're almost as fun as Orks.

Basketball players are 7'-6"???? (what, 2 in history, and neither were any good?)

And one of them is known better as an actor than a Basketball player! : link

Hm.

Lampyridae, on reflection, the tone of my response to one of your statements was sharp and uncharitable. While I still disagree with the assumption that technology is always improving/developing, I didn't need to express it like that, and I apologize.

Wolfprophet, same here. While I do love me some monastic Battle Brothers, the crazy humanity of the Space Wolves makes them appealing.

Yours is a valid point too… the advancement of human technology was built on the back of a number of enormously serendipitous events. My point was that there are plenty of feral worlds, and Imperial record keeping not the best. There are probably a couple of planets out there that went all the way up to Tau technology levels (and beyond, with a head start?).

Admittedly, some of the WH40K stagnant tech fluff makes sense. The entire galactic economy and political system consists of feeding millions of psychers to a corpse and doing what the corpse tells you otherwise your nav is blown to hell and bye bye galactic empire. Adeptus Mechanicus started worshiping AIs, then forgot how to write code (presumably AIs didn't want their personalities tweaked, so arranged for the tech to get "lost" (my interpretation). Any other tech research is plain and simple heresy.

Farstar:

Still my favorite:

Just what I have in mind when I picture Space Marines. Makes you wonder even more how they can possibly squeeze 10 of those monsters into a Rhino. I'll point this out next time someone objects when I pack two Krootox into the back of my Devilfish…

Curious. Where was this stated?

Nowhere. It's a popular myth, one that people like to chuckle about but for which they can never cite a source. To my knowledge, Games Workshop has never printed anything to the effect that marines are castrated (or even sterile, for that matter) – certainly never during the Rogue Trader era.

The last time I challenged this myth I was accused of being in denial. The truth is I don't give a whether marines are castrated or not – what I care about is correctness. A futile aim with regards to 40k fluff, perhaps, but like many wargamers I'm a stickler for accuracy.

Yours is a valid point too… the advancement of human technology was built on the back of a number of enormously serendipitous events. My point was that there are plenty of feral worlds, and Imperial record keeping not the best. There are probably a couple of planets out there that went all the way up to Tau technology levels (and beyond, with a head start?).

Actually…relevent to this. It was mentioned through some of the pre-Heresy/Crusade era stuff that a lot of human worlds seem to be higher tech than either the humans, or even the tau at the current age 40K is going on.

The Quietude for one, which acts as the main opposing force for a large portion of Prospero Burns had things like gravity rifles that could take off an Astarte's arm in a single shot, a larger crew served version that turned at least one into a pile of meat and metal fragments and some had adaptable personal energy shields as well. They had also pretty much turned themselves almost entirely into bionics. Hell, I'd outright say they were just 40K's version of the Cybermen. Except that unlike the cybermen, they were actually permanently destroyed.

Given the technologies that are common place, like personal universal translators and efficient replacement limbs, amongst many many other bits and pieces (And this is after the original downfall of an empire spanning most of the galaxy) who knows what sort of tech was lost before, or even lost during the crusades when a world refused "Enlightenment" and had to be forced into submission, regardless of how much more advanced they may be.

Farster, that is an awesome picture. Definitely one of my favourites too.

I also like this one. Ahahaha.

Who's gonna be first to convert a Kegnaught?

Heh heh. I saw that pic yestreday, and that was my first thought as well!

Nowhere. It's a popular myth, one that people like to chuckle about but for which they can never cite a source. To my knowledge, Games Workshop has never printed anything to the effect that marines are castrated (or even sterile, for that matter) – certainly never during the Rogue Trader era.

The Ultramarines novels seem to indicate that they are essentially sterile due to their organic "upgrades." Somebody cited a specific White Dwarf issue as containing the reference to their physical castration.

Up until their major upgrade, Space Shuttles were running something like a 286 as their central processor system. Plus, a lot of avionics hardware no longer exists… and to emulate them (say if you want to re-use the plans for an OOP rocket engine) is extremely difficult as the systems are defined around the particular characteristics of that hardware set… precise voltages, frequencies, and other analog frustrations! One of the reasons the shuttle successor is re-using shuttle technology is because skills become lost. Today, we simply *cannot* rebuild a Saturn V, not just because we lost the tooling (jigs, blueprints etc) but because the people who know how to use this stuff are retired (after going into selling second hand cars after the Apollo program was canceled).

The Ultramarines novels seem to indicate that they are essentially sterile due to their organic "upgrades."

I didn't know that, thanks for the info. On the other hand, I'm not sure to what extent Black Library novels constitute official background.

It does make sense though that marines may end up incompatible for breeding with unaltered humans. It's just this apparently unfounded claim of castration that irritates me.

Somebody cited a specific White Dwarf issue as containing the reference to their physical castration.

I'd be interested to know who, or where, or which issue. I've been with 40k from the start and have never seen any such reference, from the detailed biological breakdown of marine implants and physiology in White Dwarf 98 onwards. You'll forgive me if I don't take "somebody cited" as proof positive.

GW fluff is very "flexible" …

GW fluff is very "flexible" …

No way, really?

You're right of course, 40k canon is already malleable and contradictory enough without adding any fan-made 'facts'. Hence my attempt to get to the bottom of this one.

In the earliest days of 40K Leman Russ was a regular non-genetically modified dude with artificial lungs who as part ofhis long service record personally founded the 4th Astartes Legion known as the Space Wolves. There were no primarchs and no progenoids and no gene seed then. A Space Marine was a just a well trained tough guy in armor. A dreadnought was just a guy in a mech who could pop out any time he wanted to if someone would just lend him a towel. There were five kinds of robot on the battlefield, imperial guardsman had grave bikes, and best of all the Necron's were still just Chaos Androids. There were squats n' zoats in them days n' slan and ambulls, which were rip offs of an umber hulk. And all the cops looked like Judge Dredd.

A Space Marine was a just a well trained tough guy in armor.

That was one of the first bits to be replaced. The article that started the extensively modified version of the Space Marine was within the first year or so, if memory serves. Right about the same time they increased the Marines Toughness.

A Space Marine was a just a well trained tough guy in armor.

Another myth, I'm afraid.

Rogue Trader rulebook p153, "The Legiones Astartes":

Their bodies are toughened by bio-chem, and their resolve is hardened by psycho-surgery. A special black carapace is merged with their natural flesh, forming a sort of identity tag as well as permanent protection.

Then on p160, under "Apothecarion":

It is here that the warriors are surgically altered into super-human warriors using sophisticated bio-chem and psycho-surgery.

And in the marine player's briefing for the battle at the farm, marines are described as:

surgically altered to be stronger and faster than any normal man

This was, as Farstar alluded to, expanded on in great detail within about 6 months of the release of Rogue Trader, in the article in White Dwarf 98 I mentioned above. However, marine toughness wasn't increased to T4 until WD129, 3 years after RT. That's also when they introduced the 'shaken' morale rule for marines, and their improved abilities in close combat and carrying heavy items. All of these changes were described as being in response to the power escalation of other armies (in particular, Eldar and Orks had received major updates and improvements since the release of RT and the early marine army lists).

While it seems I was wrong about the castration, it's equally interesting that certain Chapters, such as the Ultramarines, had concubines with which to sire sons?

I think Marines in general had a lot of "scale creep" though. They went from being just rather tough to being raging gods of the battlefield and living for centuries. Which is totally out of whack with the game, where they seem to do swift and ugly deaths at a rate of knots. (ATSKNF makes this especially bad :) )

While it seems I was wrong about the castration, it's equally interesting that certain Chapters, such as the Ultramarines, had concubines with which to sire sons?

That's a bit of a grey area, if you're going by the Rogue Trader fluff. It was said that one of their officers was born to one of the Chapter's slaves, but didn't say whether his father was a marine or even if the marines used their slaves in that way.

They went from being just rather tough to being raging gods of the battlefield and living for centuries. Which is totally out of whack with the game, where they seem to do swift and ugly deaths at a rate of knots.

True, it's difficult to reconcile the fluff version with the way marines drop like flies in the actual game – or, for example, the way that precious and irreplacable terminator armour is regularly shredded in 40k or Space Hulk.

The fluff and rules have always diverged on this point though. All of a space marine's enhancements, longevity, strength of armour, etc. were inventions of the Rogue Trader era, yet for much of that period they were only Toughness 3 with a 4+ save – usually modified to 5+ or worse!

Myself, I prefer the version found in novels, even as far back as Ian Watson's "Space Marine" (1993) – a few marines taking on large numbers of hostiles and coming out victorious, though not necessarily unharmed. I try to use alternative games to 40k that allow me to emulate that, such as Blasters & Bulkheads.

Parmenion~ I have noticed the same discrepancy in the rules & fluff, had some issues with it, as well as the mechanics of the 40K rules. Started doing the same thing as you are doing in my games. After a lengthy search for a ruleset that would work for this I chose FUBAR. Been having a bunch of games with small unit actions; squads of marines going up against various opponents which usually outnumber them.

That's interesting, do you use the published 40k add-on for FUBAR or your own home-brewed profiles & rules?

I have to say that although I'm familiar with FUBAR I've never actually got a game in. I have issues with the way a couple of aspects of it seem to work, though I suppose they're nothing I couldn't house-rule my way around.

If anything, I think FUBAR might be a bit too realistic for my tastes. Blasters & Bulkheads is very much in the 'cinematic' style of gaming – for example, it limits the effectiveness of attacks by groups of grunts so that they could injure a hero but not kill him outright with a single attack, yet allows that hero to gun down several grunts at a stroke.

As a particularly extreme example, I plan to run a game sometime of about 4 or 5 marines against around 100 tyranids – though I think this would push the system to its limits, and in any case I have a lot of painting to do before then!

This cinematic style of gaming is one I prefer when dealing with larger-than-life heroes, such as with Star Wars or my preferred version of space marines. For gaming between other 40k races, say eldar vs orks, I'd probably still use Rogue Trader.

The fluff and rules have always diverged on this point though

Which is where the "Movie Marines" article came from.

Parmenion~ I use the standard FUBAR rules and I use the weapon stats from the 40K add-on. As to the actual game, If I want to make the hero's more "heroic" I just tweak the ability stats and upgrade them to elite status.

FUBAR is a one page ruleset so it is very easy to use, and it gives a nice reproduceable game that we can finish in about 90 minutes. Works perfect for us in our gaming group, we can usually get in 2 games in a night.

I think 4-5 marines against 100 tyranids might be a bit of a stretch using these rules though though. In our games marines have usually handled 10-1 odds pretty well. I don't think they would do too well when the odds where 20-1.

While it seems I was wrong about the castration, it's equally interesting that certain Chapters, such as the Ultramarines, had concubines with which to sire sons?

Hadn't heard this before. Do you have a specific reference?

My understanding was that new Space Marines are "recruited" from human stock on Imperial planets (often from "feral" or relatively primitive populations) and later undergo therapy/surgery to become Marines.

Cheers

w.