Space Marines v. Space Marines

[G36E]

Building on NN's idea here, we present to you the question of who would win in a battle against each other.

Spoiler: Original posts

One is a nine foot tall mutant 400 year old zealot shooting 75 caliber rockets.  The other is a normal convict given a suit of armor and psychotropic drugs, and a gun that shoots 8mm spikes.  You pick.

We have a highly unadaptable Adeptus Astartes (HERESY!), armour geared primarily towards protection against energy weapons (ceramite v. neosteel), smoothbore weapons firing 20mm projectiles stabilized AFTER leaving the barrel (no rifling = accuracy loss) and heavy reliance on melee weapons (force nemesis halberds, power fists etc.)
Then we have the terran marine with armour geared towards ballistic protection, Railgun based weaponry, stimpacks to stay out of melee range and general common sense.

Your pick.

Plus they have actual medics.

I think you just pulled that out of your arse. 

The reliance on melee weaponry isn't all that heavy. The average Tactical Marine totes a bolter, a bolt pistol and a chainsword, all of which could rip multiple new arseholes in a Terran Marine. Power armour laughs at your pissy peashooter, so let's not even speak about Tactical Dreadnaught Armour.

The Astartes are also rather adaptable as a whole. Sure, they have their republicans, but most of them are fairly open towards new ways of killing people. Their religious dogma doesn't make them blind to the effects that improved methods exsanguination have on their battle tactics.

Plus they have actual medics.

Fluff fail?

Oh yeah, and chainswords. CHAINSWORDS. Dear invisible man in the sky, what the hell is it with people and chainsaws!? I mean, of all the ways of killing a guy in close quarters, who wouldn't pack something like a shotgun, a bigger gun(I like guns, why do you ask?) or a plain sword?
*Ahem*
we now go back to your regularly scheduled debate:
The fact that the Imperium has to rely on melee weapons at all makes it a wee bit hard to believe in the effectiveness of the bolt weapons. And if you wish to speak of Tactical Dreadnaught Armour, let us speak of the StarCraft ghost.

The pissy peashooter's current equivalent is the mass driver, which achieved about 30g of acceleration. Scale it down, toss in a few "techy" components, and you've got the C-14 Rifle, which can penetrate two inches of neosteel. Now, I don't know about future ceramic composites, but I'm quite sure two inches of ceramics isn't quite up to par against that sort of force.

If it the Astartes is that flexible, please explain a) The lack of camo. b) Why power weapons haven't been disassembled into protective gear. c) Why they worship machines. d) All the bling o' war on their armor.

Of course, given the status of Imperium Space Marines as Elite Mooks, this isn't a fair comparison, but let's roll with it.

EDIT: Let's move this to The Anachronist's Guild, shall we?

You're right, we're ruining a perfectly logical thread.

a) Camo is for people who need to avoid being shot, seeing as their armour seems to be proof against the  vast majority of weapons in existance I can't see it being a problem.

b) Heard of terminator armour right?

c) You mean the machine spirits? Incredibly knowledable AI that runs their war machines built before the fall of the emperium into it's current dark age?

d) So we're ignoring all the grafitti on the Terrans armour?

Not to mention that the Space Marines armour isn't geared towards energy weapons. What projectile weapons there are, snub guns, crude ork weaponry, etc, don't seem to do crap against them.

Also, wow. This is definately worse than the origonal topic. At least both of them actually existed.

 

[Anarion]

Terran marines are simply fodder, more similar to the 40k Imperial Guard than to their original source of inspiration. Spess Mehreenz on the other hand, are the elite butt****ing superhuman force of a united empire that encompasses countless planets.

 

[Moss]

Now if you were asking me which were cooler, that'd be completely different story.

I mean seriously, everything about them are just cooler. Terrans are bad ass versions of Space Marines, Protoss are bad ass Eldar and Zerg are bad ass Tyranids. We all know this to be true.

Although I probably would take a Dreadnought over a Goliath.

 

[Mage246]

I voted Terran Marines, mostly because I just can't stand WH Space Marine fanboys. Man they're ****ing annoying.

 

[G36E]

I never did get the chance to reply to you Moss.

You're right, we're ruining a perfectly logical thread.

a) Camo is for people who need to avoid being shot, seeing as their armour seems to be proof against the  vast majority of weapons in existance I can't see it being a problem.
b) Heard of terminator armour right?
c) You mean the machine spirits? Incredibly knowledable AI that runs their war machines built before the fall of the emperium into it's current dark age?
d) So we're ignoring all the grafitti on the Terrans armour?
Not to mention that the Space Marines armour isn't geared towards energy weapons. What projectile weapons there are, snub guns, crude ork weaponry, etc, don't seem to do crap against them.

Also, wow. This is definately worse than the origonal topic. At least both of them actually existed.

a) Camo is also for people who would like to lower material losses, shoot first, go around without having people staring at the neon lights which happily announce your presence to the world.
b) This? Why yes, I have. Not quite close to "The power fists have fields which disrupt solid matter right? So why not stick the fields on power armour and render yourself impervious to all ballistic and melee attacks? "
c) They all have an off switch.
d) Grafitti is a lot less "bling" than gold. Compare Terran Space Marine and Grey Knight.

Although I probably would take a Dreadnought over a Goliath.

A Goliath is an artillery unit with limited AA, a Dreadnought is a ground-based assault platform.

 

[Moss]

a) I imagine that wouldn't be a problem for space marines for exactly the same reason that medieval Knights didn't feel the need for subtlety.
b) Cool, never knew that. Well I guess that's because it'd be ridiculously expensive to create, making it impractical to make armour out of it (would also explain why power weapons are so rare). Either that or it's for the same reason that the protoss didn't turn the ridiculous amount of energy their ships would have required to travel through space at the speed they did into a weapon and just blow up entire planets?
c) As opposed to real gods, who have no switches at all?
d) Oh come on, you couldn't have at least picked a real space marine instead of one of those Spanish inquisition guys? Also that bright blue Terran armour sure doesn't look camouflaged to me.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

That's probably because they're either fighting in a wasteland (nowhere to hide anyway) or somewhere blue.
Besides: They're expendable.

Quick question: Which of these can be quickly trained in large numbers?

 

[Moss]

Completely beside the topic, like all stupid unanswerable "who would win?" questions this is one on one.

And technically, seeing as the Terrans controlled all of one star system, whilst the Imperium controlled thousands Space Marines would win by numbers anyway.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

I think Spartan II's vs. W40K Space Marines is more sporting...


Btw fyi marines are equipped with gauss guns that are capable of bringing down a freaking battlecruiser.... From the ground even.

 

[Eluqqa]

I think the people who always pop up in these kinds of discussions who try to rationalize their choice by explaining how Mk. V power armour has improved ballistics protection or the pulse rifle has better penetration capability are only veiling "I think this is cooler", because it's impossible to compare fictional technology x directly to fictional technology y, because they don't have real parameters. We only know power armour is "real ****ing durable" and these guns are "real ****ing powerful". It's entirely up to opinion on whether "real ****ing powerful" can penetrate "real ****ing durable".

That said, 40k, because I like it better.

 

[G36E]

a) I imagine that wouldn't be a problem for space marines for exactly the same reason that medieval Knights didn't feel the need for subtlety.
b) Cool, never knew that. Well I guess that's because it'd be ridiculously expensive to create, making it impractical to make armour out of it (would also explain why power weapons are so rare). Either that or it's for the same reason that the protoss didn't turn the ridiculous amount of energy their ships would have required to travel through space at the speed they did into a weapon and just blow up entire planets?
c) As opposed to real gods, who have no switches at all?
d) Oh come on, you couldn't have at least picked a real space marine instead of one of those Spanish inquisition guys? Also that bright blue Terran armour sure doesn't look camouflaged to me.

a) That was before gunpowder came about. Now, in order to penetrate armour, all you need is a bigger gun.
b) Given the ridiculous amount of equipment one puts on the power armours of the Space Marines, it would make a whole lot more sense to go a wee bit further and protect all that training and equipment. Also, There are tons of power weapons.
c) My PC calculates faster than me, I feel no need to worship it. Also, what gods?
d) But, but, but... The defining characteristic of the Imperium is "HERESY!" in capital letters, no? No? Oh well, here you go: http://www.downloadmunkey.net/images/blood-raven-captain.jpg . As for the Terran Space Marines, those are faction colours. Hard to tell in MP when there's a Terran v. Terran match without those.

Completely beside the topic, like all stupid unanswerable "who would win?" questions this is one on one.

And technically, seeing as the Terrans controlled all of one star system, whilst the Imperium controlled thousands Space Marines would win by numbers anyway.

Ahem.

 

[Raz]

It's not about which one you think is cooler or like better, it's about which you think would win. You can't possibly think a Starcraft marine could kill a Space Marine.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

Headshot?

Btw fyi marines are equipped with gauss guns that are capable of bringing down a freaking battlecruiser.... From the ground even.

Battlecruisers have hundreds of marines on board and are probably the size of a small town.

 

[Raz]

They wear helmets too.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

Still.
Battlecruisers.



And they're badass.

 

[G36E]

They wear helmets too.

So did the Americans, Germans, British and just about everyone who pitched in the World Wars.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

But bringing down a SPACE battlecruiser just by shooting at it for a few seconds is....

 

[G36E]

More Dakka.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

But bringing down a SPACE battlecruiser just by shooting at it for a few seconds is....

A battlecruiser that can shrug off a nuke.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

I don't understand what AK47 is trying to point out.

Maybe he's just whining again. He's probably jealous that someone else's guns are more powerful than he is.