Well he is every Guardsman's spiritual liege after all.
Warhammer 40k -
- Thread starter Great Unclean Chris
- Start date
Space Marines are the John Cena of 40k.
And by that I mean a specific thing. I believe most fandoms have a John Cena. An element to the game that is especially marketable, but to a wider audience that is less invested. The people really involved get tired of the popular, profitable character being pushed all the time, not because they hate that character, but because they are so invested in the media that they get tired of it, because it is repeated very frequently to them.
Broly is Dragon Ball's John Cena. Jace is Magic the Gathering's John Cena. Space Marines are 40k's.
I know all don't match my description (case could be made Goku is DB's John Cena), but that's what I call it when there is a quiet majority that likes a character, that they very invested fandom loathes for it's over usage.
And by that I mean a specific thing. I believe most fandoms have a John Cena. An element to the game that is especially marketable, but to a wider audience that is less invested. The people really involved get tired of the popular, profitable character being pushed all the time, not because they hate that character, but because they are so invested in the media that they get tired of it, because it is repeated very frequently to them.
Broly is Dragon Ball's John Cena. Jace is Magic the Gathering's John Cena. Space Marines are 40k's.
I know all don't match my description (case could be made Goku is DB's John Cena), but that's what I call it when there is a quiet majority that likes a character, that they very invested fandom loathes for it's over usage.
I could see Guilliman standardizing the IG like he tried to do with Space Marines. You take all the homeless Cadians and turn them into drill sergeants and set up training planets and take some guardsmen from Catachan, Tallarn, and Valhalla for environmental survivalist training. That way when the Munitorum comes looking for the nearest meat to shove into the grinder it isn't taking a bunch of guys from Catachan who don't know what snow or sleeves are and throwing them on to an ice world.
Guilliman is a Mary Sue of the highest order on top of that though and Ultramarines have been writers' pets for ages.
Ultramarines appear to be involved in every ongoing struggle in the 40k universe, which should be physically impossible. It would blow my mind if they made a boxed set with Carcharodons or Novamarines, they're out risking their asses just as much as the UM, but you'd never know it.
There's only 1,000 of them, right?
Remember when a lot of the promotions were focused on the player making their own army and they'd pick out different obscure ones in the fluff just for examples and ideas? Like when the face of Chaos for the product catalog was the Red Corsairs instead of the Black Legion?
I almost commented the same thing, but I just knew some ass would be able to provide something like, "Well actually in Volume 3 of Guilliman's Bogus Journey on audiobook, voice actor Terrance Stamp clearly states that current recruiting methods have temporarily placed Ultramarine numbers at 1280, so it makes sense they're everywhere at once."
Looks like Armless the Harmless finally has his new lease on life.
Which is damn irritating, because they're not the Black Templars or Space Wolves (who canonically have thumbed their noses at the chapter-size restrictions for a long time).
Heck, bring in the Iron Snakes, those were interesting (Greek rather than Roman themes, and a chapter structure built along small-unit tactics; instead of 'ten companies' you had the 'hundred squads').
I'm not usually one to complain about realism, but that seems like the most impractical armor and weapon combination I've ever seen.
I would absolutely stab a bitch for a Carcharodons box set. They're one of my favorite chapters.
I think the Codex Astartes ideal of 1,000 Marines per chapter has always been kind of an "in theory" thing rather than an "in practice" thing. As you pointed out, some chapters just don't give a fuck about the Codex, while other chapters are chronically understrength because of heavy casualties or issues with their gene-seed (Carcharodons, Lamenters, Raven Guard, Flesh Tearers, etc). Moreover, I think that most of the Codex-compliant chapters are technically overstrength anyway, since they usually have extra specialist Marines on hand to maintain their fleets and motor pools and archives and so forth. Even the Smurfs aren't strictly Codex-compliant, since they have the Tyrannic War Veterans operating as a separate unit, the Genesis Chapter effectively acting as a reserve pool, and now an 11th Company formed by Rowboat himself.
I seem to also recall that Guilliman wasn't exactly thrilled with the Marines treating the Codex as holy writ as opposed to a primer on operations. I suspect if he gets the chance to revise the Codex, the frontispiece will look something like the saying from the U.S. Army's Ranger School: 'Here lie the bones of Ranger Jones, a graduate of this institution. He died last night in his first firefight using the school solution.'
He was indeed kind of annoyed by that, which is why he's been rewriting and reworking it since he woke up, and generally encouraging his sons to think for themselves and not be slaves to his writing. He's not wrong, either, considering the Ultramarines got righteously fucked up by Hive Fleet Behemoth specifically because the Codex didn't have any tactical advice regarding "giant hordes of eaty space bugs". They were so reliant on it that they had no idea what to do until after the 1st Company had been obliterated and Calgar had lost all his limbs fighting the Swarmlord.
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Realistically (lol) almost any unit is going to be under its on paper strength so you'd probably be looking at 700-800 Ultramarines spread across the entire galaxy even with the non-Codex compliant units.
Yeah cool let's keep taking away the only things that make the Imperium of Man different from every other generic scifi dystopian government.
Just a heads up. Humble Bundle is offering the Horus Heresy series as part of their book Bundles. Not to sound like a shill, but for just a dollar you get the first three books, a book about Guilliman by Annandale, an audiobook and a short story.
I won with a Hive Fleet Gorgon build tonight, Tau beware! The shittiest Hive Fleet still has claws.
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