Mark of Calth-some comments and thoughts

[Apothecary Vaddon]

 

If I wanted to draw attention to myself, I'd be using all-caps everywhere. So....

Reread my post, I edited it.

>I mean, these guys haven't been resupplied in a long time. They have very little ammo. How are they going to kill UM? Charge their position?

I thought you said you wanted to agree to disagree on this?

 

As for killing them, their are six hundred of them. They should be able to kill at least one Ultramarine, even with limited ammunition. I would expect no less from that amount of Astartes. And yes, I certainly expect them to charge the position if they need to kill Ultramarines, given the Word Bearers are explicitly described in the fluff as fearless fanatics who won't stop until all of them are dead.

 

The gif doesn't change and my reaction to your claims don't change. And  yes, touche, I did say to agree to disagree on this. So there's that. Let's move on. To the last story, because it's far more interesting than the rest of the anthology put together.

[Wade Garrett]

Comparing the start of Know No Fear to Calth That Was?

 

Funny.

 

Tell me, do you see any difference between the statements "I could beat Mike Tyson if I snuck up behind with a sledgehammer" and "I could take Mike Tyson in a fist fight and he'd never lay a finger on me."

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Comparing the start of Know No Fear to Calth That Was?

 

Funny.

 

Tell me, do you see any difference between the statements "I could beat Mike Tyson if I snuck up behind with a sledgehammer" and "I could take Mike Tyson in a fist fight and he'd never lay a finger on me. gunfight where he has one shot left in his glock and I have a SAW and I also have the jump on him?"

Comparing WB with no ammo to Tyson with no change?

 

Funny.

 

Also, corrected.

[Wade Garrett]

Yes, because fire from ranged weapons is always the deciding factor in 40k combat. Always. The disparity between Astartes armor and the deadlines of man portable firearms in means that in the grim darkness of the far future, melee is extremely rare.

 

What you are telling me is that the Ultramarines, outnumbered three to one, achieved better results (all enemies dead, lost none of ours) than the Traitor Legions did with an eight to three numerical advantage plus the surprise of treachery on Isstvan V.

 

And I am telling you that is the utmost cow manure, and I doubt Graham Mcneil had both hands on the keyboard when he typed it.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Yes, because fire from ranged weapons is always the deciding factor in 40k combat. Always. The disparity between Astartes armor and the deadlines of man portable firearms in means that in the grim darkness of the far future, melee is extremely rare. 

Oh, so Exterminatus is undertaken by getting a giant space hammer and swinging it into a planet? Ah, yes, Chapter Master Bob Vila. How could I have forgotten that honorable Astartes?

 

 

What you are telling me is that the Ultramarines, outnumbered three to one, achieved better results (all enemies dead, lost none of ours) than the Traitor Legions did with an eight to three numerical advantage plus the surprise of treachery on Isstvan V.

No, I'm telling you that the Ultramarines herded the traitors into a killbox and had an orbital gun blow them up. After they got the WB to leave their cover so the aforementioned action could actually happen. Could it have been written better? Sure, I suppose so. It'd have been better if a few UM got killed, would've stopped people from complaining.

 

I might as well throw this in here, but I'm not really pulling for an UM stomp here, or even advocating something to that effect. But when something gets misconstrued as drivel by an author, when it's quite obviously possible and within the realistic limits set by the universe, I have to speak up.

[Legionator]

 

 

Calth That Was is Ultras kicking WB ass left and right, not much else.

To further clarify for anyone interested, it starts with two hundred Ultramarines ambushing six hundred Word Bearers and annihilating them all without a single dead Ultramarine in return.

 

Yes, not a single dead Ultramarine in that skirmish, for six hundred dead Word Bearers. I said I wanted the Ultramarines to do better, but that's just ridiculous.

Let's be fair though, they mounted an ambush, killed off maybe half (or perhaps their own equal share in numbers) of the WB (a large majority if not all who had no ammo) while being on the high ground, then when the rest of the WB ran away Tawren blew them to smithereens with her orbital guns of doom. 

Well, we all know WB was the aunt Sally of battlefields.

[Visitor13]

Doesn't matter if it's realistic or plausible. It sounds like the most boring 'combat' scene I've ever heard of. So yeah, bad writing it is.

 

EDIT: Thinking about it more, 600 battle weary Word Bearers vs 200 Ultras sounds like an awesome scenario. Vicious fighting, with the WBs having to resort to melee and dying to a man - cause they're fanatical like that. And the Ultras left with about a quarter of their initial force, with most of their dead mutilated by the hands of the Word Bearers now lying dead around them. That would have been quite a read.

 

But instead we get this piece of crap. 

[Pavement Artist]

 

If I wanted to draw attention to myself, I'd be using all-caps everywhere. So....

Reread my post, I edited it.

>I mean, these guys haven't been resupplied in a long time. They have very little ammo. How are they going to kill UM? Charge their position?

I thought you said you wanted to agree to disagree on this?

 

EDIT: Never mind. I've already explained myself several times over and it's obvious that nothing I say will make your change your position. I'm done with this.

 

 

In his defense, you stated that your opinion of Lotara in Betrayer wasn't going to be changed by other people's views so why would your oratory be any more sparkling as to influence Vaddon?

[Gree]

In his defense, you stated that your opinion of Lotara in Betrayer wasn't going to be changed by other people's views so why would your oratory be any more sparkling as to influence Vaddon?

 

....Yes and? That's kinda why I went back and edited that in. After a few posts it became obvious that he was not going to agree with me regardless of what I said, even though he is wrong on the subject. So I decided to respect his view and rewrote my post to reflect that. Is there some sort of problem?

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Wrong, right, whatever. I think you're wrong, you think I'm wrong, we both think the other is wrong, etc. Moving on! What do you think about Oll Pious?

[Veteran Sergeant]

 

Let's be fair though, they mounted an ambush, killed off maybe half (or perhaps their own equal share in numbers) of the WB (a large majority if not all who had no ammo) while being on the high ground, then when the rest of the WB ran away Tawren blew them to smithereens with her orbital guns of doom.

>Well from a military standpoint the purpose of a properly executed ambush is to take little or no casualties.... And if your legion is supposed to be the most tactically flexible and sound I can see that happening. Especially since ambushing a few companies of word bearer fanatics doesn't seem like a stretch.

Their still Astartes and all that implies. For them to succeed in not killing a single Ultramarine is utterly disgraceful and simply bad writing. Of course that's when I dismissed that novella as trash.

I haven't read the story, but ambushing an enemy with little to no ammunition, while you control the high ground and have artillery support, that's a lot of force multipliers.  

 

Then again, this is a Graham McNeill story about Space Marines, lol.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

 

 

Let's be fair though, they mounted an ambush, killed off maybe half (or perhaps their own equal share in numbers) of the WB (a large majority if not all who had no ammo) while being on the high ground, then when the rest of the WB ran away Tawren blew them to smithereens with her orbital guns of doom.

>Well from a military standpoint the purpose of a properly executed ambush is to take little or no casualties.... And if your legion is supposed to be the most tactically flexible and sound I can see that happening. Especially since ambushing a few companies of word bearer fanatics doesn't seem like a stretch.

Their still Astartes and all that implies. For them to succeed in not killing a single Ultramarine is utterly disgraceful and simply bad writing. Of course that's when I dismissed that novella as trash.

 

 

I haven't read the story, but ambushing an enemy with little to no ammunition, while you control the high ground and have artillery support, that's a lot of force multipliers.  

 

Then again, this is a Graham McNeill story about Space Marines, lol.

 

 

Don't forget the ofbital bombardment that killed the majority of the Word Bearers. And that the 600 Word Bearers were a disorganized rabble while the 200 Ultramarines were well-coordinated. If history has taught one thing, it's that numbers only mean a small prtion of the picture when it comes to warfare.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I was counting the orbital bombardment as the artillery support, lol.

[Kol Saresk]

Apologies, missed that little tidbit

[Carach]

 

$15.99

 

it just us brits that get utterly ripped off then? 

cos its only available at black library and thats 20 bloody quid.

[Gree]

 

 

 

 

Let's be fair though, they mounted an ambush, killed off maybe half (or perhaps their own equal share in numbers) of the WB (a large majority if not all who had no ammo) while being on the high ground, then when the rest of the WB ran away Tawren blew them to smithereens with her orbital guns of doom.

>Well from a military standpoint the purpose of a properly executed ambush is to take little or no casualties.... And if your legion is supposed to be the most tactically flexible and sound I can see that happening. Especially since ambushing a few companies of word bearer fanatics doesn't seem like a stretch.

Their still Astartes and all that implies. For them to succeed in not killing a single Ultramarine is utterly disgraceful and simply bad writing. Of course that's when I dismissed that novella as trash.

 

 

I haven't read the story, but ambushing an enemy with little to no ammunition, while you control the high ground and have artillery support, that's a lot of force multipliers.  

 

Then again, this is a Graham McNeill story about Space Marines, lol.

 

 

I don't really have any issue with them defeating the Word Bearers by a well-executed ambush. But to do so without a single dead Ultramarine in return for six hundred dead Word Bearers? That just heads into bad fan fiction territory for me.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

$15.99

it just us brits that get utterly ripped off then?

cos its only available at black library and thats 20 bloody quid.

Are you referring to the e-book or the Hardcover?

 

The e-book is US$15.99 while the hardback is US$30.00. If it follows everything else, the prices should roughly reflect the exchange rate so unless the US Dollar has magically gone up in value, it should be proportionate, even if it is still costly.

[Wade Garrett]

Concur with Gree.

 

Hellfire, Know No Fear is the story of the Ultramarines getting hit with the combined Pearl Harbor, September 11, and Hulk Hogan turning bad guy in the 90s AND THEY STILL WIN!

 

But it's okay, because they work their tailfeathers off for it. Guilliman didn't solo the entire Word Bearer army with fire from his eyes and lightning from his (redacted ).

[Kol Saresk]

Why is it so unbelievable though? In an RTS I can pull off using two or three character units to defeat an enemy with bombing runs and orbital bombardments(Star Wars Empire at War). Heck, twelve other people and myself once played paintball against one sergeant from the 10th Mountain and he slaughtered us.

 

Alexander once faced an army of thousands with a few hundred and won.

 

But a couple hundred with a superior firing position and ammo facing a few hundred who are disorganized, shell-shocked and are only thinking of reaching safe haven, losing only a handful to bolter fire while the rest are bombed out of existence is unbelievable. I get agreeing to disagree, but its kind of hard to say something is impossible when history says the odds are good that it would actually happen when things that are even more unbelievable have happened.

[Gree]

Alexander once faced an army of thousands with a few hundred and won.

And what battle was that? I don't recall Alexander ever winning a bloodless victory.

 

It's not a numerically smaller force winning a great victory that I take such issue with. It's a force winning without a single loss that stretches disbelief for me. If they had mentioned that ''We took a few losses'' I would have been fine with it, but taking it seemingly effortlessly without a single loss presses my berserk button hard.

[Kol Saresk]

I never said he led a bloodless battle. But even then, probability says he should have lost at least one battle. But history says he didn't.

 

Still, why is it so unbelievable? If the Word Bearers had ammunition and say, a tank, I'd be with you. But that wasn't the case.

 

Going with Wade Garret's Mike Tyson analogy, it would be like I surprised Mike Tyson in an alley and when he tried to punch me, I shot him in the face with a sawed-off shotgun.

[Gree]

I never said he led a bloodless battle. But even then, probability says he should have lost at least one battle. But history says he didn't.

Alexander certainly lost battles. His men refused to go further with India. His military record was hardly perfect.

Still, why is it so unbelievable? If the Word Bearers had ammunition and say, a tank, I'd be with you. But that wasn't the case.

They're still Astartes. One would expect six hundred Astartes, even low on ammunition and surprised, to be able to kill even a single ambushing Astartes.

Going with Wade Garret's Mike Tyson analogy, it would be like I surprised Mike Tyson in an alley and when he tried to punch me, I shot him in the face with a sawed-off shotgun.

No, it's more like you ambushing Mike Tyson in an ally with a half-loaded pistol. Sure he's at a disadvantage, but one would expect him to at least hit you in a limb or something.

[Kol Saresk]

Oh, that makes it easier. Instead of surprising Mike Tyson, I can put a bullet in each of his knees and then the rest in his head while he can't walk and keep a nice, safe distance out of reach.

 

Expectations don't always equal reality.

[Gree]

Oh, that makes it easier. Instead of surprising Mike Tyson, I can put a bullet in each of his knees and then the rest in his head while he can't walk and keep a nice, safe distance out of reach.

 

Expectations don't always equal reality.

 

If he has a pistol, even low on ammo, he still has a chance to kill or hurt you. Even at a disadvantage he can still do some damage, hence my point.

[Kol Saresk]

And again, expectation does not equal reality. Just because he can do something, doesn't mean he will.