Poll: Which Space Marine Do you like?

[matnatz]

What about the marines from Aliens? Ah well, you have the marines from Halo and they're basically the same thing. Halo is a fun game but the story and setting is basically a bunch of random stuff taken from various different other sci-fi universes and put in a big blender full of good soundtrack.

Anywho, I voted for the W40k Space Marines, they're more original and much darker.

 

[ffxfriek]

tossup with starcraft and halo

 

[matnatz]

wait i was put on probation for this? "you realize camo is obsolete in a world that has ACTIVE camouflage (invisibility) space marines just dont need it cuz ambushes arent that big a deal to squads of space marines with endless morale and even if a squad is lost its not that big a deal it just means next time they go through that area they bring heavier guns." um why?

The imperial Gaurd (Average soldiers) use camo. Space Marines are like fuedal knights, and the imperial gaurd are just the footmen. They don't send Space Marines to board other ships or anything, all the conventional stuff is handled by the Imperials. Space Marines are like Knightly orders, think Templares during the crusades.

 

[Neosage]

A lot of stuff.

What you say is quite true, but don't forget it isn't just space marines in 40k. There are plenty more races. And not all space marine players think that way the uh, fanboys do, take the Dark Angels for example, way more badass than the Ultrasmurfs or the Black Templars.


Edit: Warhammer Fantasy races are much better aswell, if you are looking for a miniture wargame.

 

[John Funk]

Wall of excellent, excellent text.
-- Alex

Everything you said is absolutely true. And that's why StarCraft is better

Okay, purposeful and not-entirely-serious fan-war-baiting aside, I could not possibly agree with you more about... well, pretty much everything. I think you've hit the nail on the head about what kind of rubs me the wrong way about WH40k. Well done.

 

[Lobsterman]

Warhammer. The source of all spacemarines. And the most badass ones in the bunch aswell.

 

[John Funk]

Warhammer. The source of all spacemarines. And the most badass ones in the bunch aswell.

[blockquote]The first space marine unit, the Galactic Marines, was used in E. E. Smith's Lensman series, published starting in 1937.

The phrase "space marines" first appears in Robert A. Heinlein's "Misfit" (1939) and is again used in "The Long Watch" (1941). Heinlein's Starship Troopers is considered the defining work for the concept, despite the soldiers not being referred to as marines in the novel; for example, the actors playing the Colonial Marines in Aliens were required to read Starship Troopers as part of their training prior to filming.[/blockquote]

The more you know! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marines]

 

[Cowabungaa]

That gun would bounce off of space marine armor or chip it if it was a dead on hit and should it pierce a joint or something the wound would close instantly sorry but thats the way it is. and a nuke would kill only those in the direct blast zone (most of the heavier weapons in the 40k universe are bigger than nukes by far.)

Yes, and that's precisely why the Warhammer 40k Space Marines bore me to tears.

Well that depends. As I sad before, the whole W40K universe is overpowered. W40K space marines may by rediculously overpowered against, say Halo or Starcraft space marines. But set them against Tyranids or a massive army of W40K Orks, or what about Necrons. Well, in the W40K universe, being so huge and strong is a neccesity. You gotta put things in perspective, obviously.

 

[AceDefective]

How bout space marines in Mass effect
PHYCIC POWERS take that master chief
also if you bring up that bullets cant peirse 40k armour then explain the orks
and in comparison Halo-master chief have the most realistic marines
also they will never fightXD diffent Centuries
mass effect i think is the closes to our year

 

[Blastcage]

These threads are consistiently stupid. People have their opinions and no matter how many walls of text you throw at them they won't change their opinion. It's just a cockslapping competition.

 

[Tiamat666]

The Originals are the best.
40k ftw.

The true originals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Infantry_(Starship_Troopers)] aren't even in the poll.

 

[Johnmcl7]

Couple of points, A nuke generates a tremendous blast wave and heat wave, A 40k marine would be as melted as any other trooper, hed just be less dead outside of 600 metres. (Approximately for a tac nuke at battlefield yield.) What heavy weapons in the 40k universe are bigger than nukes exactly ? Given the tabletop numbers for most blast radi are woefully short as are the ranges of the weapons.

How big do you want? The biggest weaponry on the tabletop is probably the vortex technology the Titans yield now that Warhounds and Reavers have been released at 40k scale. Outside of the tabletop the biggest weaponry is the ship mounted torpedoes to destroy planets that are beyond saving.

Personally I don't have an interest in Warhammer because it's a realistic depiction of the future in 40 or so thousand years and I think anyone looking for realism in Warhammer 40K has taken a wrong turn somewhere. My choice in the poll is the Warhammer 40K Space Marines (although I do like the Mk 2 Spartans) and specifically the Grey Knights of the Ordo Malleus/Daemonhunters as they're more than just their armour and physical enhancements.

 

[Alex_P]

This post starts with me bashing 40k again and then segues into my favorite "space marines"...

That gun would bounce off of space marine armor or chip it if it was a dead on hit and should it pierce a joint or something the wound would close instantly sorry but thats the way it is. and a nuke would kill only those in the direct blast zone (most of the heavier weapons in the 40k universe are bigger than nukes by far.)

Yes, and that's precisely why the Warhammer 40k Space Marines bore me to tears.

The Space Marine soldiers in the 40k wargame aren't gods of the battlefields. They're just slightly tougher than the average. They cost a few more points a piece and hit their targets on a 3+ instead of a 4+ on d6 or something. I played a few games of 40k years ago and I recall charging a bunch of Hormagaunts at a group of Space Marines, losing about a third of them to weapons fire, and then getting close to 1:1 kills in melee. Not really all that different from charging Starcraft's Marines with some Zerglings. Two regular Imperial Guard soldiers and a single Space Marine are, roughly speaking, an even match.

But any time I see folks talkin' about them here, they're crazy-powerful supermen who can take an artillery shell to the head and keep on chugging. What gives? Why did the fiction diverge from the game so much? I wish I knew.

...

I tend to like stories about really powerful people with amazing powers -- to talk to spirits or summon demon armies or blow up planets with but the push of a button or butcher fifty guys with just a sword -- and the weird fates and grave responsibility that those impose upon them. The critical element that makes that kind of fiction more than just power fantasy or gore porn is that being the badass isn't about the power or the powers -- it's about the impact of what you do when you have a free hand to work your will upon the world. Fantasy stories like Artesia or Elric come to mind; or, like, maybe Ender's Game if you strip away the stuff about how Ender isn't actually responsible for his actions.

Where this fluffed-up 40k Space Marine really fails to fit in is that he is both a badass and a drone. He gets to kill bajillions of aliens and have bullets bounce off his armor and wrestle giant tusked dinosaurs with his PowerFist, and throughout it all, he's not in charge, he's not responsible, he's not questioning. The setup of his life is that he's very much been taught not to question. The setup of the universe is that questioning won't get him very far anyway, since everything is grim and dark and objective evil is everywhere and your enemies are uncompromising and there's pretty much no choice but to fight-fight-fight forever. For me, there's not much to cling onto there. That fictionally-undeveloped figure on the battlemap, the guy with a bit of extra training and a 3+ instead of a 4+ to hit, seems more sympathetic -- I can project a soldierly story onto him, about how there is a guy under that helmet and there's more to his mind's life than war and hell. The fluffed-up Space Marine has all this baggage about how badass and 'roided-up and zealous he is, and there's less room for that (it doesn't help that under the helmet is a very, very tiny head *rimshot*).

...

So, my favorite space marines are actually a lot like 40k Space Marines.

There's a (light-weight indie pen-and-paper roleplaying) game called 3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars. It draws heavily on 40k, Aliens, and Verhoeven's Starship Troopers for its imagery. The premise is that you're all people who've willingly left the absolute paradise of Earth to go kill shit all over the galaxy. The characters in the game are undoubtedly much more powerful than their opposition. Every time you attack with your weapon, you don't roll "damage" -- you roll "kills" (as in "This is how many aliens I killed in this round"). You can get localized nuclear weapons in easy-to-use tactical grenade form.

Here's the thing, though: 3:16 isn't really a game about war. It's a game about genocide. You can still die at the hands of an alien threat, but, in the big-picture sense, your victory is undeniable. Which is great. 3:16 puts the space marine into a story where war is inevitable not because of some kind of universal determinism but because other people -- the people you serve under (and may eventually replace) and the people you're fighting for back home (who don't want you to ever come back) -- decided to make it that way.

So, really, I guess the coolest space marines are the ones with flamers and tactical nuclear weapons and the ability to call in planet-searing orbital strikes and lots of kill-happy machismo that have to eventually face the truth of what they do.

...

My favorite example of the broader super-soldier/guys-in-power-armor trope (i.e. counting "space marines" who have never seen space) is We3.

-- Alex

 

[Fenring]

wait i was put on probation for this? "you realize camo is obsolete in a world that has ACTIVE camouflage (invisibility) space marines just dont need it cuz ambushes arent that big a deal to squads of space marines with endless morale and even if a squad is lost its not that big a deal it just means next time they go through that area they bring heavier guns." um why?

I will concede you are right in that active camo would render normal camo obsolete IN SOME RESPECTS. One of the main problems is that of power. I don't play 40K, but unless they have a endless source of energy, the active camo would eventually run out of power, leaving you with nothing at all. I also am assuming that active camo would require a generator for use, and I expect that to be heavy too. Normal camo is light. And I have NEVER (again, I don't have very much experience in 40K) seen a marine using active camo. And as to your last point: if a squad is lost, then the army has less marines. The soldiers themselves are a finite resource. If a sniper is picking squads off whenever they try to go through a pass and the squad isn't firing back because they a) can't see the sniper or b) the sniper is out of range, bringing bigger guns won't help that much.

 

[John Funk]

This post starts with me bashing 40k again and then segues into my favorite "space marines"...

That fictionally-undeveloped figure on the battlemap, the guy with a bit of extra training and a 3+ instead of a 4+ to hit, seems more sympathetic -- I can project a soldierly story onto him, about how there is a guy under that helmet and there's more to his mind's life than war and hell. The fluffed-up Space Marine has all this baggage about how badass and 'roided-up and zealous he is, and there's less room for that (it doesn't help that under the helmet is a very, very tiny head *rimshot*).

Well played, Alex. Well played.

Said game sounds interesting, though. Makes me wish I knew it

 

[soren7550]

Commander Roslyn Shepard (aka, my Shep from Mass Effect.)

(this is the closest I can find to my Shep.)

 

[Johnmcl7]

The Space Marine soldiers in the 40k wargame aren't gods of the battlefields. They're just slightly tougher than the average. They cost a few more points a piece and hit their targets on a 3+ instead of a 4+ on d6 or something. I played a few games of 40k years ago and I recall charging a bunch of Hormagaunts at a group of Space Marines, losing about a third of them to weapons fire, and then getting close to 1:1 kills in melee. Not really all that different from charging Starcraft's Marines with some Zerglings. Two regular Imperial Guard soldiers and a single Space Marine are, roughly speaking, an even match.

But any time I see folks talkin' about them here, they're crazy-powerful supermen who can take an artillery shell to the head and keep on chugging. What gives? Why did the fiction diverge from the game so much? I wish I knew.

The simple answer is that the fiction doesn't diverge from the tabletop game - Space Marines are often deployed in situations where it's unlikely that many of them will be coming back. Their armour doesn't make them invincible, it does make them stronger and their mentality allows them to go on longer with wounds but they do take damage and they do fall. When the Grey Knights were sent to take down a Greater Daemon, 250 of them were sent with three Grand Masters which was pretty much unheard of but needed due to the seriousness of the threat. Despite being the 'crazy-powerful supermen' and in fact the best of the Space Marines with the finest wargear not a single one survived, all were killed in their attempts. Later on when the same Daemon was trying to re-emerge, three squads were sent after it (two power armour, one terminator) and even with the knowledge of how to banish it they still lost their Strike Cruiser (a rare variant which can no longer be built), all their Thunderhawks and most of the Grey Knights themselves were lost even the Terminators. Those remaining were only just by the skin of their teeth and after the next two campaigns only two survived.

It's the same in most cases, by the end of a campaign the squads will have taken serious losses if they've won which isn't always the case although saying any more will spoil some of the fiction. Before the Horus Heresy when effectively journalists tagged along with the legions, one of the Captains comments that he's technically immortal but in reality few Space Marines will live much more a couple of hundred years as they'll get killed at some point. In this universe a normal human can live a few hundred years and the first century or so for a Space Marine is their training and light campaigns.

Where this fluffed-up 40k Space Marine really fails to fit in is that he is both a badass and a drone. He gets to kill bajillions of aliens and have bullets bounce off his armor and wrestle giant tusked dinosaurs with his PowerFist, and throughout it all, he's not in charge, he's not responsible, he's not questioning. The setup of his life is that he's very much been taught not to question. The setup of the universe is that questioning won't get him very far anyway, since everything is grim and dark and objective evil is everywhere and your enemies are uncompromising and there's pretty much no choice but to fight-fight-fight forever. For me, there's not much to cling onto there. That fictionally-undeveloped figure on the battlemap, the guy with a bit of extra training and a 3+ instead of a 4+ to hit, seems more sympathetic -- I can project a soldierly story onto him, about how there is a guy under that helmet and there's more to his mind's life than war and hell. The fluffed-up Space Marine has all this baggage about how badass and 'roided-up and zealous he is, and there's less room for that (it doesn't help that under the helmet is a very, very tiny head *rimshot*).

You seem to spend an awful lot of time bashing WH40K yet you don't seem to be that familiar with it - the Imperial Guard have to do as they're told but the Space Marines less so, within the Imperium they can't be touched by most elements which means chapters basically do as they please. Each chapter has their various quirks and grudges for which they will abandon any current assignment if they see something else they think is more worthwhile regardless of what any Imperium objectives are that they've been given. If you're in any of the more conventional armies you have to do as you're told as there's little you can to stand your ground and you have to follow the Imperium. Few people want to mess with the Adeptus Astartes as they are tough opponents on the ground and their strike cruisers/battle barges are pretty outgun or at least outpace any of the Imperium naval vessels.

There's plenty of room for the individual aspects of the Space Marine mainly because there's a lot to each chapter that's different from the rest. The non-Codex Astartes chapters tend to have the most character but even those who are more conventional have enough of a story to keep them interesting. The odd part I find about your comments is that one of the main problems with the Space Marines is that they question too much which ends up with big headaches...such as the Horus Heresy when a large chunk of them decided to question the Imperium rather too much and broke the place in half. Even then within the Traitor legions there were loyalist and some of the murkier loyalist descedent chapters are rumoured to have their origins in traitor legions. In the current day WH40K universe there are still Space Marines who decided against the Imperium and go to Chaos, go mercenary or simply decide they know better and go their own way but still following what they believe to be the way of the Emperor.

Up above you wonder why people always talk about Space Marines in generic 'superpower' terms then you do exactly the same yourself - your post gives a very wrong impression of the WH40K Space Marines which I see people already agreeing with you. So now you know why the fiction diverges so much, it's because people like you post incorrect information about it. I'd actually try reading the fiction you're busy criticising, the first few books of the Horus Heresy are a good start although as a self contained collection I think the Space Wolves trilogy is a good read - they're a very non-Codex Astartes chapter and prefer doing things their own way in most scenarious.

Just avoid the Ultramarines trilogy, those boring idiots sadly fit the exact image you paint of Space Marines and the author doesn't do anything to change that. It's the only Space Marine book where I really hoped the lead whiny character was going to get shot to pieces somewhere along the line but sadly not.

 

[US Crash Fire]

Fuck master chief!
i like the original space marines!
the ones from the movie ALIENS!

 

[CJ1145]

I've really got no interest in them.

Some of them are interesting. In the new DoW game, the Scout Sergeant Cyrus is over 9,000 kinds of badass, not the least of which is that he wears a weaker class of armor because he FEELS LIKE IT.

My vote's for Space Marines. Blood Ravens were my favorite chapter before Dawn of War was even around. Although I had a Dark Angels affair for a while... then an Ork... then a Dwarf in Fantasy Battles... but I always come running back.

 

[sharidar]

40K, totaly bionicaly altered space marines XD I heard or read that they can't take off their armor orsomethign.. i forget must look through codex again, but coem on they can beat down allt he rest any time, loyal servants to their leader or the Chaos owns, the blasphemous followers of the demons... ooo and tyranid hunter veteraisn are kick ass looking, they also are a good example of human pride and enfluence onr eligion *nods*