Any evidence that 30K SM were better quality...

[Scribe]

I admit, I'm not even trying to make an argument, I just dont see one that can be made.

 

In no way shape or form, should a stock loyalist, be on par with a Chaos Marine.

 

It makes zero logical sense, but its not a supportable position because GW has never supported CSM to the same degree as loyalist Marines.

 

Regardless, enjoy your discussions.

[Baluc]

I admit, I'm not even trying to make an argument, I just dont see one that can be made.

 

In no way shape or form, should a stock loyalist, be on par with a Chaos Marine.

 

It makes zero logical sense, but its not a supportable position because GW has never supported CSM to the same degree as loyalist Marines.

 

Regardless, enjoy your discussions.

 

Its quiet the opposite. 

 

CSM are the untended garden of militaries. You take the bodies you can get, stuff them with whatever geneseed you can get, by whatever "gene-smiths" you have, supplied by whatever you can get your hands on and their training is attempting to survive in an environment where even those nominally on your side will kill you based on a passing feeling in a fractional moment. You get some rockstars from environments like this but you are much more likely to get (when you do have a survivor) a baseline space marine with over developed aggression, and personal survival instinct. Paired with an underdeveloped understanding of objective reasoning and risk assessment. Especially the later where most kinds risk in unacceptable. And, genetic instability prone to break down under duress, who is likely to be randomly (to him at least) undermined of abetted by any one of millions of warp entities. 

 

This is not the environment in which you build an army, let alone a force to attack on of the most powerful organisations in Human History. People think Abaddon is a failure, but to be honest he is a strategic mastermind to be able to wage a campaign of any meaningful affect against a galaxy wide empire with roots possibly 15 thousand years of foundation, without actually having what could be called by even our modern day definition a military, or military infrastructure. 

[Kasper_Hawser]

Scribe the form of your arguments are poor. Nothing you have presented is causal. It is at best a weak inductive which is basically an opinion presented as fact.

 

Ignoring the underlying reasons that sm sell well, making a leap as to the motivations of contract authors, and making judgements about truthfullness of the universe through the eyes of people in universe you think are inaccurate or mistaken. There are at least two logical fallacies in your argument.

 

@ Scribe - Without meaning to insult or demean you Scribe, just because you think its GW factional bias that Space Marines are always (not really) depicted as triumphing CSM, doesn't mean it's the only fact. Nor does it excuse you trying to shut down this discussion which we are merely exercising our ability to debate. If you do not agree, then just leave it at that and stop shoving your opinion down our throats.

 

And even if you want to argue in that vein, we're all for it, just give some credible arguments rather than ..... "I AM RIGHT. WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL TALKING.",

 

In the words of Breastodes from TTS universe, "citation needed" for whatever opinion you want to voice.

 

@ Baluc - While your hypothesis is probably correct for the old legions recruitment and whatever renegade chapter who have set up shop in the warp, I also believe there is still a corp of veterans of the long war (such as the Deathshroud) who are still relatively disciplined and maintain their training along legionary lines. They must have at least some sort of proper military training program/infratructure especially if their primarch is someone like Mortarion who is an infantryman in his core, even now fighting along his sons.

 

Nevertheless, you paint Abaddon in a new light able to maintain a bunch of whackos and still wreak havoc on, as you say, the greatest military might in fictional human history, its faults not withstanding.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Kasper_Hawser

[Plaguecaster]

I agree with Scribe the fluf can quite oftern be narrowly one sided with loyalist focused novels that oftern show the forces of chaos as little more than bumbling evil doers it's a completely different story when you get proper Traitor focused ones like Clonelord, Shroud of Night etc that actually show how much of a difference there is between chaos Legion troops and their loyalist kin. Edited January 23, 2018 by Plaguecaster

[Kasper_Hawser]

I agree with Scribe the fluf can quite oftern be narrowly one sided with loyalist focused novels that oftern show the forces of chaos as little more than bumbling evil doers it's a completely different story when you get proper Traitor focused ones like Clonelord, Shroud of Night etc that actually show how much of a difference there is between chaos Legion troops and their loyalist kin.

 

Am tempted to pick up Shroud of Night to see the so called saner side of CSM that isn't incompetent as you say in their own book.

 

Still I can't remember too many stories of the CSM bumbling as you say. Its more accurate to say the space marine characters commonly have abnormal plot armour, but that doesn't take away the evil genius of the villains. and even that can backfire on the space marine.

 

Update: Sorry, was forgetting the horrible days of Matt Ward. Still, apart from him pushing GK, BA and UM to horrible marty stu levels, most other authors I think balance the evil genius of CSM with plot armour of loyalist SM.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Kasper_Hawser

[Baluc]

Honestly I find SM in general are too killable in most fiction. Astartes combat should be a grinding arduous a fair won by simple luck good or bad, a moment of vision, or genius. Its like watching two world class football teams play, a moment of luck can change the game, and the final score is almost irrelevant as its just about winning, or getting back in the game. Going 1-0 is a huge deal in that situation, Marine combat 1v1 and force v force should be the same, Marines are capable of absorbing damage that would kill almost any other organism and continuing the fight. They might die afterwards, but it won't stop them fighting and possibly winning the fight. I'm frankly tired of marines in full armour dying or being made inoperable to spec bolter fire. 

[M@verik115]

Honestly I find SM in general are too killable in most fiction. Astartes combat should be a grinding arduous a fair won by simple luck good or bad, a moment of vision, or genius. Its like watching two world class football teams play, a moment of luck can change the game, and the final score is almost irrelevant as its just about winning, or getting back in the game. Going 1-0 is a huge deal in that situation, Marine combat 1v1 and force v force should be the same, Marines are capable of absorbing damage that would kill almost any other organism and continuing the fight. They might die afterwards, but it won't stop them fighting and possibly winning the fight. I'm frankly tired of marines in full armour dying or being made inoperable to spec bolter fire. 

It depends where. Marines in 30K die in droves, but that is down to the tactics and weaponry used. 

Marines in 40K can take down entire worlds and 500 chaos marines, because they are the good guys. 

[Baluc]

 

Honestly I find SM in general are too killable in most fiction. Astartes combat should be a grinding arduous a fair won by simple luck good or bad, a moment of vision, or genius. Its like watching two world class football teams play, a moment of luck can change the game, and the final score is almost irrelevant as its just about winning, or getting back in the game. Going 1-0 is a huge deal in that situation, Marine combat 1v1 and force v force should be the same, Marines are capable of absorbing damage that would kill almost any other organism and continuing the fight. They might die afterwards, but it won't stop them fighting and possibly winning the fight. I'm frankly tired of marines in full armour dying or being made inoperable to spec bolter fire. 

It depends where. Marines in 30K die in droves, but that is down to the tactics and weaponry used. 

Marines in 40K can take down entire worlds and 500 chaos marines, because they are the good guys. 

 

 

In the fiction maybe. But if you follow the stuff in the codex, and rule books, you quite often see SM chapters losing, dying, being made inoperable, and usually it makes sense because they are being used to do things SM Chapters shouldn't be used to do. People need to realise part of what makes fiction fiction is that it is an unusual case for the universe. If it wasn't, it wouldn't make a very interesting story would it?

[Kasper_Hawser]

@ Baluc - True enough, also depending on whose book the protagonists are. Even if its a Space Marine loyalist novel, there's no guarantee that the Space Marine characters or chapters "win". One very interest short story from the Victory of the Space Marine, was actually the utter trolling of an entire space marine chapter by a cell of Alpha legionaires.

 

I believe its called the Long Games at Carachras. An entire Space Marine chapter brought down. And its from an anthology called "Victories of the Space Marines".

 

So yes, CSM can be extremely masterful in the long war.