How the fuck does a handfull of Astartes conquer an entire planet?

They don't. They're the scalpel, the Guard is the hammer. Muhreens take out high priority targets via shock and awe tactics, they're not an occupation force by any measure of the word.

>They don't. They're the scalpel, the Guard is the hammer.
Fuck off.

By decapitating the leadership and replacing it efficiently and thoroughly

Kill the leadership, over and over again, eventually the planet will fall into anarchy or a leader will negotiate, either way the planet is now ripe for the Guard to come in and occupy the planet.

Not even that guy, but top argument friend.

A single terminator teleports into the white house and one shots the president. Simultaneously, all globally important countries are having the same thing happen to their leader.

You're stupid if you think conquering a planet means completely colonizing and manning it. A single Inquisitor can DESTROY an entire planet.

I don't understand

...

Bullshit, that's super dumb.

It doesn't matter how good ten dudes are at killing. To occupy a planet they need to be in more than ten places at once. Even the 'kill the leaders' thing is dumb because if you have no way to project your power effectively you haven't taken control over anything. It doesn't matter how much if a planet's government they kill, that achieves nothing. Thy can't establish a leadership of their own as they have to keep moving to avoid being cornered and shelled to nothing, and they can't be equipped to continue this dumb game for more than a few months.

A guy with a rifle could kill a country's leader. That doesn't put him in charge.

>A single terminator teleports into the white house and one shots the president. Simultaneously, all globally important countries are having the same thing happen to their leader.

The Marines will run out of bolter shells before a planet runs out of potential leaders. Shit, power armour only functions for so long.

An astartes' operational time is not nearly long enough to achieve what you're proposing.

>occupy
You're correct, marines are shit are occupying on their own, we've seen this loads.
But they can effectively conquer a planet just by killing leaders in shocking or gruesome ways and then backing that up with threats. They just need to do that long enough for the actual occupation force to arrive.

>power armour only functions for so long
>An astartes' operational time is not nearly long enough to achieve what you're proposing.

Well, you clearly have hard numbers to share with the rest of the class.

Power armor is nuclear powered you dumbfuck. Melee weapons have infinite ammo. The Raven Guard were stuck on a planet fighting for 2 years.

You don't know shit, that's why you're asking stupid questions.

Come in, fire a few warning shots from orbit and demand unconditional surrender. Planet naturally fires back, so bomb them some more and deploy Marines for surgical strikes against military and government. Once they've had enough, leave a garrison force to watch over the planet until Imperial relief arrives. If resistance rises, nuke a few cities. It's easy to fight a guerrilla war when the enemy can be demoralized. It's harder when each action you take leads to a city getting nuked from orbit.

God forbid he'd say something backed by the lore.

>if you have no way to project your power effectively you haven't taken control over anything
orbital supremacy
thunderhawks
drop pods

It takes them very little time to relocate, basically across an entire planet. And because they're space marines and not humans, they can fight for days without rest, constantly killing.

Holding large spaces of ground isn't their forte, but as far as just murdering planetary defense forces goes, they're about as well equipped as you can get.

Not that guy, but almost all sources put Aquila pattern armour at working for a standard month at peak efficiency with its power backpack. When that runs out or if the Marine loses his backpack, the backup generator lasts for 'a short time', which is as far as I know not specified anywhere.

>It doesn't matter how good ten dudes are at killing.

It really, really does. If they're good enough at war to functionally render entire planetary garrisons moot, then you scoff at them at your own peril. Your inability to understand decapitating strikes, surgical precision, and shock and awe as massive force multipliers applied to an already-formidable fighting force is your own failure, not that of the doctrine.

>almost all sources

Well, then you have no trouble sharing them with the rest of the class, now would you?

>When that runs out
They're actually solar/radiation/heat powered, in the same way lasguns are. I don't think this has been retconned yet.

In a world of perpetual darkness, where they have no method of resupply via thunderhawk/strike cruiser they might eventually run into trouble, but otherwise they're pretty much good to go indefinitely.

How big were the forces colonialist nations left in their colonies? How many Brits were needed to control India or China?

Marines are meant to work without any supply lines, they have no need for food as the armor will recycle feces and they can eat anything they find, they are strong enough to rip a tank apart so ammo isnt an issue, sleeping isnt a problem as their brains work like sharks, power for their armor is nuclear so it can last years before giving up and they can gather intel by eating the brains of their enemies. All of this is taking worse case scenario but marines will have fleet support that can throw a drop pod every regularly to supply them.

Marines are living weapons, they never run out of ammo.

1. They do it the way their Primarch did it.
2. If they lack a Primarch to look up to, they do it according to Ultramarines tradition i.e. decapitation strike.

/thread

Actually, just the backup generator is solar powered, able to store a small charge. The main pack is a fusion generator.

You can go to basically any repository of GW fluff on this.

More than ten.

If British troops were equals to Space Marines, they would have just needed 1 man for Zulu.

Because the authors say so. 40k is not meant to be realistic.

3-5 Drop Pods worth of Marines could pacify modern day Earth in like a week.

Just send them directly in the centers of power, slaughter everyone important (and bystanders) then make a viral propaganda speech vid. Done.

THEN HOW COME CHAOS IS WINNING?

CHECKMATE LOYALIST SCUM!

you are that guy because this is headcanon bs, as we have codex accounts of various units being cut off from supply for -years- and still achieving their mission. RG with shrike for one example.

Power shifts into a bunch of military junta and the next time the Marines land they get buried under missiles.

I've actually been trying to find info on it, but haven't found anything yet. All I remember is the world "atomic-stack". I seem to recall people talking about it being a TEG, which would make sense, since I don't remember marines going nuclear. It still leaves a nasty fact of radioactive fallout if a Marine is proper fucked, as the heat source is jettisoned from the plant, probably in pieces.

It seems like the Imperium is not big on nuclear power, fusion is limited to larger things, and lasgun power packs demonstrate how good their TEG technology is, so it would stand to reason that Marine backpacks could work on that same principle.

Which dont hurt them at all so they go kill everyone who shot at them.

That just means they are relying on short bursts of activity within the limit of their solar generators or have looted the materials needed to recharge their packs.

One death at a time

Please, Marines get killed by much less potent stuff all the time. There's a canon novel where a GK gets literally crushed under feudal knights.

An anti-tank warhead will wreck a Marine.

Pop quiz: what happens when an Ultramarine gets buried under a demonic invasion and left for dead? He fights underground.

i thibk the best way of looking at this is conquistadors, technologically superior shock troops who shatter enemy armies head on and then use support forces to provide the overwhelming bulk of their back up. look at this way, a modern armoured or infantry division generally has about a third of its numbers as trigger pullers, shatter them and the remaining two thirds are unlikely to stick with the fight, repeat until the enemy runs out of spearhead units and use the inevitable defectors to garrison behind you.

Nah mate your fucked cause one of the 10 marines is bound to be a named character. Nothing can stop them.

Mortarion was kind of a loon tho.

And neither he nor his sons were as tough as they thought they were, as they discovered when Nurgle came for them.

>the next time the Marines land

They're already in your city. They wrecked your power grid. Now they've annihilated an armored column, mostly by wading through it. Now the first guy stupid enough to pop up and declare himself ruler has been turned into a fine red paste by a man in armor that moves impossibly fast. The broadcast recording is causing one person in ten to be overcome by abject fear. Your men are deserting. Other units go silent, whether by death or by refusing to acknowledge command. Now the first line of defense to your impenetrable bunker blew away like tissue paper, and you have a matter of moments before they'll be upon you.

You don't understand how Astartes conduct war. Two small teams could make sport of a continental power with ease.

Now this, this is true.

If Uriel lands you fucked. Or, god help you, Alaric "smelling of roses" Sue.

There once was a man named Titus...

>bound to be a named character*

*Unless those named characters are Chaos Space marines

Then they'll be laughable fucked three ways till Sunday after being propped up as an ultimate villian. kek

Chapter size has always bothered me, it should be 10000 at least

He was only a loon towards the end though (unless you count that time he rammed a hive)

He did some very credible campaigning, and was Horus's right-hand man for most of the Heresy (I admit, this isn't saying much, the only other options were Peturabo and Fulgrim, both of whom were even loonier)

Losing to direct application of Nurgle, in the warp, with no protection (courtesy of douchebag Typhus) isn't exactly being weak - it's even said that their toughness (especially Mort's) worked against them - it meant they just suffered more, instead of dying

It should be 10k, but you forget that its 1k because everyone who wasn't a Space Marine was fucking terrified of another civil war between Space Marine legions. The Imperium is dying because its handicapping itself, after all.

>over a hundred trillion people scattered over countless planets
>less than a million space marines in total are suppose to actually matter in the grand scheme of things

BULLSHIT

t. Marneus 'Spiritual Sleeze' Calgar

Imagine 20 Doom-Guys landing with no warning on top of the enemies most heavily fortified, heavily patrolled base and then proceeding to rip and tear everyone within 20 km's guts out of their assholes and shrug off tank shells.

Does quite a lot to cause outright surrender of large swathes of men, and that's just a single tactical squad; now imagine they dropped a metal box and a Rape-Mummy in a box with them.

There's a reason Guardsmen love them, they're badass and make their superhuman enemies feel some fear for once.

(unless they are fighting chaos and those marines happen to be gray knights or something then rip)

IIRC the Imperium's population is more on the order of quadrillions, which makes it even more absurd. That's less "spec ops" and more "exactly one guy policing the entire planet", and that's still off by several orders of magnitude

>*Unless those named characters are Chaos Space marines
Actually with the BL HH series its the other way around. Almost all the important loyalists are dying to make way for the heroes of 40k, but for the traitors all the important guys were already important and will survive the entire heresy untouched.

I think people aren't understanding the absolute massive gulf in power between a Space Marine on the tabletop and a Space Marine in the lore.

In the fluff an Astartes is an absolute rape machine immune to small arms fire, unable to tire, with armor that can go on for decades without maintenance. Even without bullets a Marine can slaughter hundreds of enemies easily with just their bare hands. The rest of the Imperium views them with awe for a good reason - they're fucking gods of the battlefield, nearly indestructible with centuries of experience and weapons that can rip through anything you can throw at them.

Heres 500 Night Lords fighting against the horrors of Old Terra.

Space Marines are ridiculous in the lore. Dont take table top as showing the correct strength of the races.

>Orks have I2

And they fight, among others, a whole race of aliens about as strong as them which are tough enough you can literally chop their head off and they'd be good as new once one of their medics glues it back together, and which usually outnumber them millions-to-one on any given battle

But still an insignificantly small amount compared to those bring conquered. Realistically once you've intimidated your foe enough a single representative would be enough to remind the populace of your presence.

> space marines are homoeopathic soldiers.

I just imagine that Iron Warrior being the most high tech and heaviest pillbox ever while always having his finger ready to press the nuke button. Only a Iron Warrior could build a fortification so formidable that it can rule over an entire planet while having a garrison of just one.

India's a bad example m8, it was conquered primarily by trade and turncoats inside the subcontinent.
They only needed a small garrison because they already had loyal turncoat Rajas and Nawabs to enforce their rule.
And even then they still stationed a lot.

And they went full-scale war with China, not just a boatload of dudes like OP is suggesting.

I don't think that was the actual situation, though. As far as I know the British Empire itself just nationalized the East India Company after it became clear it couldn't keep its shit together, but the "conquest" of India itself was less dependent on sheer military power and more on the East India Company waiting for the government to show any openings over decades and then throwing mountains of money to all the right people until they were the de facto government

Most the colonial examples require local allies, use of local political divisions and more generally knowledge of the local political landscape. You can't dominate a country without at least a minority working for you.
Even with the massive technological advantage European had, expeditions failed occasionally.
Unfortunately 40k isn't generally willing to dive into fictional politics.

About SM, well, it's just another "can't into scale" thing. People tend to forget how big even our world is, and 40k world can be much much more populated.

Yeah, but the talk was about occupying, not taking over. You don't need a massive force of your own if you can get locals to do that shit for you. I bet you that after you nuke a few cities and make it clear any retaliation will be answered tend fold, people themselves start policing their own rebels in fear of reprisal. And at that point you don't have to do the policing on your own, merely keep them under your ceramite boot until relief comes.

Wouldn't some of these world's be self sufficient engough to nuke back?

If it was a just a "nuke a few cities" situation the marines wouldn't be called, the imperial guard and navy can do that by themselves. The space marines most often are called when for whatever reason you need an actual space marine to go down and punch someone in the ass

The fluff excuse is that they only strike at key targets while other Imperial forces mopped up

In the Crusade-era they operated in the tens of thousands (sometime hundreds of thousands) and given each is a super soldier in their own right and they utilized shit like orbital bombardment and countless auxiliaries it makes more sense.

Ultimately though, yes, GW is bad with numbers and makes the scale too small.

They can certainly try. Though that's why you strike first and try and take out such capabilities.

It's not a "nuke a few cities" it's about how a handful of Marines can hold a planet. They didn't just materialize there, they came on a ship. Ship specifically geared towards ground combat with bombardment cannons. It's what marines are good for. When they started building anti-ship escorts, the Navy objected loudly, claiming the Marines were barging on their territory.

By being power metal album heroes, you sim-sperg. If you have trouble imagining that, watch a few '80 action movies.

I direct you to the NATO airstriking of Serbia. And this is fucking Serbia, a tiny, mostly irrelevant country, and it took over 3 months of constant airstriking and complete display of tactical dominance to get them to back off from bullying Albania, let alone actually destroy the regime.

You're hugely overestimating what fear tactics can do against a modern state, which is actually a pretty robust institution.

Yeah, because NATO was trying to identify military targets and minimize civilian casualties because it doesn't look good.

Now, imagine NATO didn't give a fuck and all they wanted was the people to give up. Nobody was gonna hold the accountable for anything, they had nukes and no qualms about using them. How long before Serbs would put up their hands and go "we can't fight this shit"?

Not even nukes, just blast key military targets, blast any hint of political leadership, blast any kind of patriotic structure, and while you're at it, drop random MOABs into civilian areas every now and then. They will learn.

> a whole race of aliens about as strong as them
m8, orks are my favourite faction, but thats just bullshit.

In the fluff your average ork is nowhere near on par with your average space marine.

Does the IG have any use other than canon fodder and human zerg rush?

Populace control, defensive lines, artillery and air support, and enough massed lasgun fire to vaporize ceramite.

Remember, one guardsman can do diddly, but 50-80 of them? That's a whole LOT of diddly.

It depends on a few things
>Where are they from?
>Is the person in command competent?
>Who are they fighting?

They deploy a company of 100 for a small to medium size planet.

They drop 20 or 30 marines right into your nuke plant, your operations centre, your power grid, your water supply, your armouries.

Then they withdraw, and 30 minutes later they're at the next target.

Then 1 week later 500,000 guardsmen show up to mop up everyone left, and hold the planet.

It's all about morale. A mortal who fights a Marine dies. Ten mortals who fight a Marine die. A hundred mortals who fight a Marine have a chance, but either they die or they win, in which case you now have the rest of the squad on you. It doesn't matter if you can win, all that matters is if you believe you can win, and fighting them, you don't feel like you can.

Generic Penal legion from bum fuck no where dropped onto Sortiarius at the bottom of Magnus's tower.

>Sortiarius at the bottom of Magnus's tower.
Welp. Well they're fucked then aren't they.

Most beings in 40k would be fucked.

Was about to say something about the strength of a demon Primarch on their homeground. Then I remembered Mort vs Draigo lol.

Mort is a lot lower on the proverbial totem pole than Magnus.

Also, Draigo used the power of plot device and macguffins to win that fight.

Does anyone have that comic about the farmer during the Black Templar purge of some orks?

If they have a competent commander, yes.

in older white dwarves (mid 90's? around when third edition dropped), there was a little series of articles they did called "Glorious Battles of the Imperial Guard". It was pretty neat.

>Also, Draigo used the power of plot device and macguffins to win that fight.
no, that's been un-retconned

Daemon primarchs are jobber primarchs to an un-man. Destined to forever be killed by heroes because they can be without fucking up the timeline.

Imagine for a moment, that NATO has a Super Soldier deployed into Serbia. He's the size of Shaq and armor heavy as a car. Then watch as he airdrops into Serbian Military Command, kills everyone there with a autogrenade launcher, shrug off small arms fire. When they start firing the artillery, he sprints faster than Usain Bolt and hits your artillery. And that is only for one Astartes.

They're plot devices user, marines can do whatever the fuck they want to.

What if I deploy a flyrant against them, what then space fags?

Orbital bombardment. That is all.

Is the Magnus a contender for most powerful non deity in the universe at this point?

Magnus meleed Ork titans before he became a daemon prince, daemon Magnus could probably rip a Space Wolves battle barge in half with his bare hands.