View Full Version : An inconsistency regarding Sisters...
Melissia
04-14-2010, 12:55 PM
... I dunno why I didn't notice this earlier.
In my copy of the BRB, the fluff section (Dark Millennium: Defenders of the Imperium), it says there are three major orders of Sisters, each numbering in the thousands of members (and then there's many minor orders). However, in C:WH and C:SoB, there are six major orders (and many minor orders) which number anywhere from many hundreds to many tens of thousands or more in terms of the number of members.
I'm fairly certain this is just a typo (I mean they barely had any information about Sisters to begin with, and the Age of Apostasy barely got a single paragraph with no mention of Alicia Dominica at all) but that cuts them more than just in half. It'd be like saying that there are no longer a thousand Marine chapters, but only five hundred... and each one of these chapters is reduced in size to around seven hundred rather than a thousand.
What do y'all think?
Nabterayl
04-14-2010, 01:24 PM
Hmmm ... that, or it's a preface to a major retcon. Which I could see, except that it seems out of character for GW to produce fewer official paint schemes.
Just_Me
04-14-2010, 01:51 PM
Well, technically "thousands" can be synonymous with "tens of thousands," the latter is just at the same time more precise and more dramatic. So on that particular score I don't really see it as that much of a problem, especially as there is a tendency on GW's part to under estimate numbers in the fluff (newly raised IG regiments sometimes consisting of only a few hundred troops? that makes no sense at all...).
The bigger issue is with having 3 rather than 6 major orders, that can't really be handwaved away so easily. Perhaps GW has "demoted" 3 of the original 6 major orders to "minor" status?
Overall I don't think that blurb implies that there are fewer sisters total in the Imperium than we previously believed, but the conflicting number of orders is a bit odd.
Melissia
04-14-2010, 02:00 PM
What makes it even more inconsistent is originally it was four, but then two were added on later in homage to the last two of Alicia Dominica's lieutenants. There were always FOUR major orders from the beginning, and then they added two more later (from C:SoB IIRC).
Fellend
04-14-2010, 02:02 PM
Could be that one refers to the wings, as in ordo millitant, ordo hospitaler and whatever the third was called while the other one speaks of the Orders of Ebon chalice and what nots,
Or they could just be confused in their own fluff.
Melissia
04-14-2010, 02:07 PM
That would make even less sense, Fellend....
They aren't referred to as Ordos, by the way, but by Orders. As in the Order of the Sisters Hospitalier.
Nabterayl
04-14-2010, 02:22 PM
It could be a fluff advancement, I suppose. Our Martyred Lady arguably doesn't deserve to be called a major order militant after Armageddon, for instance. Perhaps when the new book comes out we will find that two of the other orders have suffered major catastrophes?
Melissia
04-14-2010, 02:27 PM
I would think they'd want to EXPAND the Sisterhood rather than diminish them (which is what they did in second and third, and in Dark Heresy). What's the point of playing a faction that's always losing and dying off?
The_Ancient
04-14-2010, 02:32 PM
Have you not heard of the Eldar ha ha
Melissia
04-14-2010, 02:36 PM
the thing is, the Eldar aren't always losing. In fact they win quite frequently. Their birth rate just can't keep up with the death rate, and they no longer have the power they once had, and it takes a long time to gain new soldiers.
The_Ancient
04-14-2010, 02:42 PM
I never hear about the eldar winning owt just getting eaten by chaos gods/tyranids and falling out with there brothers. the only army that loses more than them in the fluff is the guard
Wise Ol Bird
04-14-2010, 02:48 PM
The problem is that major and minor are undefined.
Different grading scales, different grades, different curves
Melissia
04-14-2010, 03:26 PM
They aren't undefined. The major Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas are those founded by Alicia Dominica (Order of the Ebon Chalice) and her five lieutenants; Arabella (Order of the Sacred Rose), Katherine (Order of the Fiery Heart, later Order of Our Martyred Lady), Lucia (Order of the Valorous Heart), Mina (Order of the Bloody Rose), and Silvana (Order of the Argent Shroud). All other orders are minor orders.
Melissia
04-14-2010, 03:37 PM
I never hear about the eldar winning owt just getting eaten by chaos gods/tyranids and falling out with there brothers. the only army that loses more than them in the fluff is the guard
The Guard win more than any other army. If the Guard lost so much then the Imperium would cease to exist.
As far as military might is concerned, the Guard IS the Imperium
Fellend
04-14-2010, 04:15 PM
Why don't the Sisters of Battle get as much attention as Space Marines?
They might be dying off, It might be conflicting facts or we might find out that the new nids have been targeting sisters to make them into one of those Zerg queens ... sorry mean Tyranids.
Fellend
04-14-2010, 04:16 PM
The Guard win more than any other army. If the Guard lost so much then the Imperium would cease to exist.
As far as military might is concerned, the Guard IS the Imperium
They also LOSE more than any other army. Not to mention if SM is nearby they automatically gets credited with the win. I swear one Space Marine and they owe their victory to the SMs
Melissia
04-14-2010, 04:25 PM
They also LOSE more than any other armyThat's stupid.
Let's say you're playing an FPS game, and you have 7 kills and 5 deaths. The highest scoring player on the server has 3000+ kills and ~1000 deaths. With this situation in mind, you're basically trying to claim that you aren't losing as much as the best player.
The Guard only "loses" more because they FIGHT more than any other faction. But they also WIN more than any other faction, too.
addamsfamily36
04-14-2010, 04:51 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_of_Battle
i know its a wikipedia entry, but if you scroll down it gives a nice break down of each order and its structure including sizes.
im unsure whether these facts are true or not though
Nabterayl
04-14-2010, 04:55 PM
It's a thread to speculate as to which of these:
They might be dying off, It might be conflicting facts or we might find out that the new nids have been targeting sisters to make them into one of those Zerg queens ... sorry mean Tyranids.
if any, the discrepancy represents.
Melissia
04-14-2010, 05:50 PM
Personally I'm viewing it as a typographical error at the moment. The vast majority of fluff contradicts this single paragraph.
Faultie
04-14-2010, 09:32 PM
In my copy of the BRB, the fluff section (Dark Millennium: Defenders of the Imperium), it says there are three major orders of Sisters, each numbering in the thousands of members (and then there's many minor orders). However, in C:WH and C:SoB, there are six major orders (and many minor orders) which number anywhere from many hundreds to many tens of thousands or more in terms of the number of members.Hmmm..I never noticed that. I'll check my BRB to see if mine has the error in it.
Aenir
04-14-2010, 10:11 PM
but doesnt new trump old?
Perhaps they are rollign them into mega-orders and then breaking those down into regular orders and so forth?
More of a Re-org type thing as opposed to a retcon
addamsfamily36
04-14-2010, 10:27 PM
I have done a bit of background research and come up with a possible theory as to why the Rule book lists the sisters as having 3 orders.
from what i understand(please correct me if im wrong), there where 4 founding orders with an additional two added later.
so if we ignore the two that were added later, we are left with the 4 founding orders. reading some information on armageddon, the Order of Our Martyred Lady largely represented the sisters of battle in this sector and they were the sole protectors of the Ecclesiarchy.
during the 3rd war, a suprise assault by and ork green tide caught the order off guard and the chain of command quickly faltered and troops were sent to defend positions already overun. the sisters were pushed back and back until they stood at there last defence in front of armageddons most holy site. apparently the Order of Our Martyred Lady was devastated and left with less than three companies upon Armageddon.
Now im unsure as to whether the whole order was there or not but its does seem to suggest a crippling blow to the oder, which might explain its lack of inclusion in the rulebooks founding 4.
Just an idea
Melissia
04-14-2010, 11:26 PM
No, the whole order wasn't htere, and in fact not every member on the planet died. And they were rescued by one of hte two newer orders.
Fellend
04-15-2010, 02:44 AM
That's stupid.
Let's say you're playing an FPS game, and you have 7 kills and 5 deaths. The highest scoring player on the server has 3000+ kills and ~1000 deaths. With this situation in mind, you're basically trying to claim that you aren't losing as much as the best player.
The Guard only "loses" more because they FIGHT more than any other faction. But they also WIN more than any other faction, too.
Yes that's my entire point you they fight more battles than anyone so they lose more than anyone as well. Also notice that if they engage say once CSM force they might sends 4 IG armies of which three dies to accomplish the goal so they don't actually have a KD ratio of 1-0 they have a KDR of 1-3.
I think it's quite clearly hinted through the entire warhammer 40k universe that no one loses as much as the Imperial guard, the only reason as to why they keep fighting is because their numbers are nearly endless and more can always be recruited elsewhere.
In pretty much every book i've read at least one IG regiment gets wiped out. That does not speak of a good winning score. Compared that to any SM fluff where if they mention a loss at all it's always refered to "that one time where things went really bad so now let's never repeat it".
In conclusion, you're argument is stupid. The IG wins by losing so much that the enemy eventually gets tired. Also mention any other faction that falls so often to the dark side, which I'd say surely counts as a loss.
addamsfamily36
04-15-2010, 04:29 AM
Yeh i knew that three companies survived on the planet but was unsure about the starting strength of the force. but cheers for the info.
well thats that theory out the window then lol
eldargal
04-15-2010, 05:12 AM
A victory through attrition is still victory. Look at Vraks, the Death Korps of Krieg lost more men in taking Vraks than the population of the planet was to begin with. Does the Imperium care? No they just ship in colonists from overpopulated hive worlds and call it a win. They did the same with Armageddon.
Yes that's my entire point you they fight more battles than anyone so they lose more than anyone as well. Also notice that if they engage say once CSM force they might sends 4 IG armies of which three dies to accomplish the goal so they don't actually have a KD ratio of 1-0 they have a KDR of 1-3.
I think it's quite clearly hinted through the entire warhammer 40k universe that no one loses as much as the Imperial guard, the only reason as to why they keep fighting is because their numbers are nearly endless and more can always be recruited elsewhere.
In pretty much every book i've read at least one IG regiment gets wiped out. That does not speak of a good winning score. Compared that to any SM fluff where if they mention a loss at all it's always refered to "that one time where things went really bad so now let's never repeat it".
In conclusion, you're argument is stupid. The IG wins by losing so much that the enemy eventually gets tired. Also mention any other faction that falls so often to the dark side, which I'd say surely counts as a loss.
Forhekset
04-15-2010, 07:37 AM
I believe it's just either a retcon or just not important enough in their view to really be accurate. There's thousands of little inconsistancies like that in 40k documents, it usually lends credence to the 'historical' nature of it all, as nothing written can really be taken as fact, but as someone in-universe researching and reporting on their findings. Maybe you could consider the main rule book an exception to that rule, I'm not sure, but in the historical documentation sense, if one opposing fact is repeated more than another on a specific subject, I would take that as true.
At least that's how I see it. The 'living history' nature of 40k is what I find so alluring about it.
Even though in your eyes it's a travesty on par with all of a sudden saying there are only half as many space marine chapters, and if I were as Sister crazy as you appear to be I would be right behind you hehe but as it stands SM lore accounts for such a huge percentage of total lore and so much information is given and repeated ad nauseam and much importance is placed upon it, that they just would never make such a mistake as that with them. Sisters on the other hand are pretty fringe in comparison so I'm not surprised they get mixed up or whatever. When so many writers contribute to such a grand tapestry they're bound to make mistakes eventually. Some times even one person can't keep their own stuff in check.
Melissia
04-15-2010, 08:46 AM
And it's still stupid, Fellend. If you fight billions of battles and win ninety percent of htem, you're still kicking *** an dtaking names even if that means you've lost millions of battles. It doesn't matter how many losses, but rather the amount of losses compared to the amount of wins. The Guard is the only reason the Imperium doesn't just instantly fall apart, and indeed the Guard have done the most work during offensive crusades as well.
Fellend
04-15-2010, 08:47 AM
Yes it's a victory for the Imperium, not for the individual armies. The IG still loses, infact, pretty much every planet lost anywhere is a loss for the Imperial Guard. And to Illustrate my point, Arghast the Pillager, conqueror of a thousand worlds. That would be one thousand CSM victories right there. and that's one chaos lord who quite frankly died without me losing a single marine, wuss.
Count the number of IG turned traitor, each a loss, Count the number of a IG joined tau (have you heard of anyone else doing it?) each a loss, In fact pick up the rulebook and read the timeline, pretty much the entire thing is filled with IG getting beaten. And if it takes three losses to win it's still 1-3. A war of attrittion is just ALOT of losses before they manage one win.
In conclusion. If it takes 15 destroyed IG armies to conquer one world I'd say that they've lost more than they've won. But I see your point that if you think of IG as a single entity then sure they never lose because eventually they win. But I still think the SM or especially if you view that way the Tyranids would be the clear winner as if seen that way the Hive mind has never lost.
eldargal
04-15-2010, 09:03 AM
Its winning wars that matter.:)
As to the SoB issue, I think it most likely just a simple mistake.
Melissia
04-15-2010, 09:05 AM
Yes it's a victory for the Imperium, not for the individual armies.
The Imperial Guard IS the Imperium, as far as military goes. If the Imperial Guard wins, the Imperium wins. If the Imperial Guard loses, the Imperium loses.
Fellend
04-15-2010, 11:13 AM
The Imperial Guard isn't the Imperium. The Imperium is the Imperial Navy, The PDF, The Space Marines, the Sisters of Battle, I could go on but I'm sure you see my point. If the Imperial guard loses a battle someone else comes and win it for them.
When all else fails, they declare exterminatus and call it even.
Melissia
04-15-2010, 11:18 AM
The Space Marines and Sisters participate in fewer than one percent of all Imperial battles. One could make the argument for the Imperial Navy, but even then 40k focuses on groundpounders rather than on the navy. So if the Imperial Guard (I'm including the PDFs in this for ease of reference) loses more battles than it wins, then the Imperium would quite simply fall apart. The Space Marines are so rare that they might as well not exist, and the Sisters of Battle are spread thin throughout the galaxy.
The Imperial Guard is everywhere, and wins wars.
Gooball
04-15-2010, 12:33 PM
The Imperium of Man is the greatest power in a galaxy wracked by endless war.
I have the 4th edition rulebook here and just skimming by some sections and phrases like "inexhaustible armies" come up, Imperial guard may be conquered easily and easily destroyed but they won't stop. The hammer of the emperor means that when the blow falls at last it will destroy you..
How many planets did that chaos guy actually manage to HOLD onto? the imperial guard outnumber every army (Even orks as they spend most of the time fighting each other) in the warhammer universe, Macharius conquered more armies than some space marine legions even.. bringing a huge swathe of space into imperial control...
Though chaos SM are mighty their numbers are finate and eventually there will be none.. but the imperial guard will always be there!
Regardless of HOW they win, they still win
Nabterayl
04-15-2010, 12:56 PM
So if the Imperial Guard (I'm including the PDFs in this for ease of reference) loses more battles than it wins, then the Imperium would quite simply fall apart.
I'm not sure that's a good conflation. The Imperial Guard are the comitatenses of the Imperium - they can lose every single war they fight, and as long as the PDFs have a good win record, the Imperium would persist. I doubt that's the case, mind, but I don't think we have enough data to say how often the Guard wins. All we know for sure is that the Imperium hasn't collapsed, and the Guard doesn't have to have a spectacular win record for that to happen.
Fellend
04-15-2010, 01:48 PM
First of all I'd like to make the point that since when is the Imperium NOT collapsing? It's been doing so since the fall of the Primarchs and increasingly so since the emergance of the bugs and necrons. It's just doing so at a very very slow rate. And including the Guard with the PDF, definitivly not the same thing but okay.
And the fact that Arghast didn't hold on to the worlds is beside the point. He won a thousand wars. that's a thousand wins. The fact that the burnt out worlds were recolanized and brought back into the fold well, That's another possible thousand wins which are just sitting there.
Lets face it, if the Imperial Guard were actually winning the Imperium would be expanding. But they are not, For every battle they win they lose at least one. It doesn't take a mathematician (or strategist) to figure this out.
The Imperium is collapsing, only the might of the Space Marines are keeping it from doing so at a rate that would reduce it to ash within the century. Unless another Marcarius spawns soon I'd say that they are screwed.
Nabterayl
04-15-2010, 02:30 PM
I'm not sure how solid any of that is, Fellend. For one thing, can you cite your source for the Imperium continuously collapsing? How are we even supposed to measure that if nobody even knows how many worlds are in the Imperium at a given point in time? Chronology makes me doubt it, though. The Great Crusade lasted for what, two hundred years? That really isn't enough time to build a state that constitutes millions of planets - I'm not even sure it's enough time to visit millions of planets, given how small the Emperor's armies seem to have been. It seems to me most likely, based on chronology alone, that the Emperor "conquered" worlds in the sense that Alexander the Great "conquered" the Achaemenid Empire.
As for the Guard winning relating to expansion, that doesn't follow either. In order to know how Guard victories correlate with Imperial growth, we'd need to know who the Guard fights what percent of the time, and we don't have that data. If the Guard is called in to deal with an ork uprising on an Imperial world, and the Guard wins, then the Guard has a 1-0 win/loss record but the size of the Imperium has not increased. Similarly, a world can fall to Chaos without the Guard losing a single battle - indeed, without the Guard even being present. If the Guard is detailed to retake the world, and if they do so, then the Guard is 1-0, but the size of the Imperium hasn't grown at all. In fact, that situation, writ large, is exactly what the entire Gaunt's Ghost series is about.
Gooball
04-15-2010, 02:36 PM
The SPACE MARINES?! Do you have any idea of how utterly useless they are? sure they're awesome but the imperial guard outnumber them MILLIONS to one...
The PDF should be considered part of imperial guard since they often fight together and have the same training and equipment as them.
Also interesting thing here, losing 20 or thirty planets every year is as insigificant to the imperium as losing a guardsmen in a squad to a commander.. Page 93 of 4th edition rulebook
When has the imperium ever wanted to expand? already planets go hundreds of years without contact they are so distant so what would be the point of expanding even more?
Chaos will never win, Ever. It will be the orks . . .How do you fight something that gets stronger from combat? they release spores that can live for hundreds of years and even a few of them can create an entire ecosystem of squigs, gretchin, orks.
The_Ancient
04-15-2010, 02:57 PM
I'm sorry for even mentioning it now as it has totally skewed this thread. :confused:
but i was originally talking about was in any fluff You Actually Read IG get ****ed over by everyone and anyone. Although it may still be implied that the IG are winning all over the galaxy as the imperium has not fallen apart quite yet.
but as they say in the rule book we are at the end of times or whatever and the imperium is in a bit of a state
Nabterayl
04-15-2010, 03:06 PM
but i was originally talking about was in any fluff You Actually Read IG get ****ed over by everyone and anyone. Although it may still be implied that the IG are winning all over the galaxy as the imperium has not fallen apart quite yet.
I think that depends on what fluff you read. I mean, honestly, when was the last time the Guard in the Gaunt's Ghosts series lost?
Fellend
04-15-2010, 03:15 PM
I've only read the three first ones but they seem to be losing massive amounts of regiments. Not to mention that they are reclaiming already lost worlds. But besides actualy IG books, (because lets face it them main characters can't lose) when do the IG ever win? They are usually the redshirts on the away team. People to be butchered so the real heroes can do their work (read Space Marines)
Fellend
04-15-2010, 03:25 PM
I'm to lazy to quote the entire thing but to take some headlines from the core rulebook
"An Empire under siege" "A diminishing Empire" "The Alien Menace"
"The End times" "Humanity's darkest hour"
"The Emperor's light is fading yet Mankind shall not pass quietly into damnation"
The latest acts historical mentionings has been Hive fleet Levihaitan, 13th Crusade, Armageddon.
All in all, the Imperium is falling. And think of it, for every world that is reconquered, it must first mean that it's fallen...
Melissia
04-15-2010, 03:42 PM
No, quite a bit of fluff I read has IG winning battles.
But then I don't read marine fanfiction, it bores me. Or Marine-focused Black Library books, they aren't really all that different half the time really except for length.
Nabterayl
04-15-2010, 03:44 PM
Wait ... the 13th Black Crusade? The one that didn't even manage to make it past, let alone conquer, Cadia? And yeah, Armageddon is huge, but the fact remains that the biggest Waaagh! in history was stopped at Armageddon. Leviathan hasn't been stopped yet, but is there any reason to believe it won't be? I mean, look at Behemoth and Kraken ...
And remember that "fallen" doesn't mean "conquered." Vraks "fell" to "Chaos," but there was no fight for it (well, except for the local Arbites and Sororitas). The world simply changed allegiances. So the world falls, the Guard is called in to sweep up the mess, and the Guard has net win on its record. Even if the world is conquered, the odds are very poor that the Guard was defeated during the conquest. The Imperial Guard is not the shield of the emperor; that's the PDF. Garrisoning worlds is not in the Guard's mission statement. So a world is invaded, the PDF is defeated, the Guard is called in to sweep up the mess ... still a net win for the Guard.
I'm not sure I buy the point you make about the Guard in books where they aren't the main characters. The Guard [EDIT: okay, cancel that, the PDF - the second line armies of the Emperor] kicks *** in the Ultramarines books, too, for instance. Yes, guardsmen die in large numbers, but that's, you know, what happens in wars the size of those the Guard is usually depicted as fighting.
addamsfamily36
04-15-2010, 03:57 PM
surely both the imperial guard or any imperial force, navy, space marines all are under the banner of the emperor of mankind and the high lords of terra. They are the same side.
Marines are the strike forces, the spear heads, hit at the command centre, kill the head of any army, like a snakes body without its head. the guard come and fight the gritty trench to trench, prolonged campaigns and warfare. Obviosly this isnt always the case and there are pages of fluff in every codex which have the guard fighting alone as with space marines fighting alone.
All fight to protect the imperium of mankind. but do it in different ways. space marines are used when their specialties are needed. But guard do alot of the day to day fighting.
The general survival rate of a guardsmen is low, but for every guard that falls theres 10 more recruits on another world waiting to be commissioned. they are the conscripts, the everyday man and the Core of the imperium from which campaigns are fought.
Melissia
04-15-2010, 04:24 PM
I dunno, I don't really see Space Marines as truly Imperial anyway.
addamsfamily36
04-15-2010, 04:29 PM
reasons? for curiosity
entendre_entendre
04-15-2010, 04:46 PM
Potential reasons:
1. SM don't worship teh emprah
2. they don't follow anyone except their own, making them independent of all non SM factions in the Imperium
3. Melissia really HATES SM's lol
OT: I'm putting it as a misprint as they have no other reason for the number given.
addamsfamily36
04-15-2010, 04:59 PM
-To be fair the emperor discouraged worship, so could you say the marines were more strict to his ideas of the imperium.
- theres alot of fluff that supports and isputes that statement so i would say 50/50 on that one lol
- yeh i can't argue that one so fair enough
Melissia
04-15-2010, 07:54 PM
The Emperor discouraged worship... during the Great Crusade. The Emperor later, however, pretty much openly condoned and blessed the founders of the Sisters of Battle when Alicia Dominica and her lieutenants visited him in person.
addamsfamily36
04-15-2010, 08:02 PM
well he's a bit of a bad boy then :D lol can't make his mind up.
Fellend
04-16-2010, 05:14 AM
Wait ... the 13th Black Crusade? The one that didn't even manage to make it past, let alone conquer, Cadia? And yeah, Armageddon is huge, but the fact remains that the biggest Waaagh! in history was stopped at Armageddon. Leviathan hasn't been stopped yet, but is there any reason to believe it won't be? I mean, look at Behemoth and Kraken ...
And remember that "fallen" doesn't mean "conquered." Vraks "fell" to "Chaos," but there was no fight for it (well, except for the local Arbites and Sororitas). The world simply changed allegiances. So the world falls, the Guard is called in to sweep up the mess, and the Guard has net win on its record. Even if the world is conquered, the odds are very poor that the Guard was defeated during the conquest. The Imperial Guard is not the shield of the emperor; that's the PDF. Garrisoning worlds is not in the Guard's mission statement. So a world is invaded, the PDF is defeated, the Guard is called in to sweep up the mess ... still a net win for the Guard.
I'm not sure I buy the point you make about the Guard in books where they aren't the main characters. The Guard [EDIT: okay, cancel that, the PDF - the second line armies of the Emperor] kicks *** in the Ultramarines books, too, for instance. Yes, guardsmen die in large numbers, but that's, you know, what happens in wars the size of those the Guard is usually depicted as fighting.
Okay so Abbaddon is a bit of a failure. seriously how many crusades has he failed now, But the question how many IG armies were destroyed to make sure that it didn't get pass Cadia. Same thing with Armaggeddon, it took like 50 losses to get one win.
Earlier in the discussion it was decided that apparantly PDF counts as IG "as they are basically the same anyway" so if the PDF fails then so do IG, also if you switch allegiances then you've definitivly lost. Doesn't matter how you lose you still lost since the opponent took control of your forces and territory.
The problem here is whether we define each army regiment as a single unit or as a part of IG as a whole. Because if we count them seperately IG loses like Poland, war they get conquered. But if we count IG as a whole unit then we must count the other armies as whole units and lets face it, then Tyranids win big because they've never lost as the hive mind always lives on.
Old_Paladin
04-16-2010, 06:50 AM
Earlier in the discussion it was decided that apparantly PDF counts as IG "as they are basically the same anyway" so if the PDF fails then so do IG, also if you switch allegiances then you've definitivly lost. Doesn't matter how you lose you still lost since the opponent took control of your forces and territory.
The problem here is whether we define each army regiment as a single unit or as a part of IG as a whole. Because if we count them seperately IG loses like Poland, war they get conquered. But if we count IG as a whole unit then we must count the other armies as whole units and lets face it, then Tyranids win big because they've never lost as the hive mind always lives on.
I wouldn't consider the PDF and IG as the same; similar does not mean equivalent. PDF's are militia's and reservists; they are often under-trained and under-equipped.
If you sank a couple of Coastguard ships, you wouldn't be able to claim you defeated the US Navy.
The problem, of personal loss to battlefield win, it that of scale. The IG can easily grind away 50 army forces to win back a planet, because there is plenty more where that came from. They lose men and women, but they win the battle; they take territory and inflict loses that the enemy cannot replace as fast as they can.
Nabterayl
04-16-2010, 08:46 AM
The problem here is whether we define each army regiment as a single unit or as a part of IG as a whole. Because if we count them seperately IG loses like Poland, war they get conquered. But if we count IG as a whole unit then we must count the other armies as whole units and lets face it, then Tyranids win big because they've never lost as the hive mind always lives on.
I was of the impression that we were talking about campaign wins, since people keep talking about victory and losses being correlated with the Imperium's expansion or collapse, and only campaign wins/losses could only affect the Imperium's expansion or collapse.
In my mind, the loss of a single IG regiment - or even a few hundreds - wouldn't be an actual loss for the Imperium as a whole. If they lose the planet/system/subsector/... those regiments were fighting for, then yes, that would be a loss. But as long as the planet/... is hold/conquered, they probably won't care about how many units had to be sacrificied. Even if you lose a few planets while liberating a system (meaning that they are so utterly annihilated that they are of no use for the Imperium any longer), that would probably be no loss, as long as you conquer the other planets in the system.
Fellend
04-16-2010, 09:30 AM
[QUOTE]The Space Marines and Sisters participate in fewer than one percent of all Imperial battles. One could make the argument for the Imperial Navy, but even then 40k focuses on groundpounders rather than on the navy. So if the Imperial Guard (I'm including the PDFs in this for ease of reference) loses more battles than it wins, then the Imperium would quite simply fall apart. The Space Marines are so rare that they might as well not exist, and the Sisters of Battle are spread thin throughout the galaxy.[QUOTE/]
Just to point at the PDF = IG, I don't actually believe it to be that way, but it was mentioned earlier and the discussion took that into account. But what we do know is that Yes the Imperial guard wins. They launch succesful crusades and reconquer the planets. But we rarely hear of the how the planets were lost in the first place. Lets face it, if every Chaos lord conquers a 1000 planets then there's a slight problem with the guard.
I don't see the guard as a winning force. It see it as a slowly dying force. For every planet won 1.5 is lost. The Imperium is diminishing so clearly the Imperial forces aren't winning as much as the propaganda would like to tell you.
And I'm still saying, if we count the percentage and count IG as a single unit, it still loses compared to the Hive mind that has a perfect 100% as no one has done any actual damage to it.It's just lost some troops, same as if individual regiments doesn't count as losses then induvidual strains or even fleets cant' be counted as a loss because they just regrow somewhere else.
Nabterayl
04-16-2010, 03:32 PM
Just to point at the PDF = IG, I don't actually believe it to be that way, but it was mentioned earlier and the discussion took that into account. But what we do know is that Yes the Imperial guard wins. They launch succesful crusades and reconquer the planets. But we rarely hear of the how the planets were lost in the first place. Lets face it, if every Chaos lord conquers a 1000 planets then there's a slight problem with the guard.
I really don't think the PDF and the Imperial Guard can be equated, and if you think that was done early on, let me de-couple them now for purposes at least of my comments. There are two important distinctions to be drawn for purposes of this discussion - one, PDFs don't have the level of standardization that the Guard does (meaning it is totally possible to find PDFs that haven't even invented gunpowder); and two, the Guard is a mobile, offensive force. The Guard is not responsible for defending the Emperor's worlds, and as a consequence, when a world falls, it is no more proper to blame the Guard for that failure than it is to blame the space marines. Neither organization is tasked with preventing worlds from falling in the first place. Both are responsible for making sure that those who conquer Imperial worlds wish they'd never been born.
This is especially true when it comes to fighting Chaos. From the Imperium's perspective, Chaos is essentially a socio-religious, rather than military, threat. (Chaos lords don't conquer thousands of worlds. They don't even conquer hundreds or dozens of worlds, most of the time. Not sure where you got that.) Think of the great Chaotic military powers, such as Chaos space marines. What have they ever actually done? When large numbers of planets fall to Chaos, they tend to do so from the inside - the populations turn to Chaos, voluntarily (and often without recognizing that it is Chaos they are converting to), and occasionally that population will include a great military genius, who might use his pocket empire of rebels to forcibly conquer a couple of worlds before the Imperium flattens him. But the essential nature of the Chaotic threat is that people turn to Chaos voluntarily. That's not a military problem, and there's no military defense against it. It's a failure on the part of the religious and civil authorities that the military is asked to clean up - and when the military gets involved, it generally does what it's asked.
MagosImperator
04-16-2010, 04:11 PM
I think the BRB one just has an error. I would stick to the codex 4+2 orders.
Space Marines and the Mechanicus are two almost-independent factions.
They are Imperial... but not as Imperial as the rest.
Marines do or do not worship the Emperor... that depends on Chapter to Chapter.
Some Chapters worship the Emperor as god, others as a divine grandfather.
They still worship Him, as the divine leader.
As for the Techpriests... they worship him as the Omnissiah.
And laugh at the Eccleshiarchy, because they don't need them, but the priesthoods needs the Techpriests... being the only faction that can keep the Emperor rotting and the technology working is a safe way to live.
The Imperial Guard are usually slightly better than PDF.
And the Imperial Guard is the Hammer of the Emperor. If the first millions die, they send in the next wave. With a LOT of tanks.
The Astartes, Inquisition, Sisterhood or Mechanicus can always lend help if needed (such as Space Marines can quickly destroy the enemy headquarters, while the IG mops up the rest of the planet).
As far the Imperium loosing goes, the 41st millenium is a pretty hard time for the Imperium.
The Tyranids and the Necrons, the two most powerful xenos races just started entering/waking up, which is pretty bad for the Imperium.
Before it the only serious threat was from Chaos, but now the Aliens became a grave danger too (almost still not half as big as Chaos).
So the Imperium suddenly found its military lacking as the enemy threats vastly increased.
Of course now the Imperium needs to readjust to the new threats.
Chaos Marines can conquer worlds... but those worlds can sometimes be retaken.
Nabterayl
04-16-2010, 04:37 PM
Let's remember too that the Imperial Guard does not die in its millions every time a single trooper fires his lasgun in anger. If you look at the size of the battles the Imperial Guard fights, you'll see that it generally operates at a pretty recognizable scale, and incurs pretty recognizable losses. To take an example from the Gaunt's Ghosts series, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade included over a billion combatants at the time of the attack on the Cabal system which begins in Honour Guard and continues into Guns of Tanith. But that's a billion combatants to wage war over over 100 inhabited star systems, many of which had multiple inhabited worlds. When the Guard attacks the critical city of Ouranberg in Guns, it does so with only four regiments, at least one of which is one of the itty bitty Guard regiments of only a few thousand soldiers. Similarly in Guns, total losses of less than 2,000 men in a three-regiment attack force are considered heavy.
In other words, yes, millions of Guardsmen can die in a theater. But generally speaking (barring some horrific, World War I-style local conflict such as Vraks) that's over a much larger "theater" than we fight in nowadays. When was the last time any modern army conducted major offensive operations simultaneously over multiple planets, let alone multiple star systems? Of course millions of soldiers are going to die if you widen the scope of your analysis large enough. If you look only at Guard losses in battles that are small enough that we can compare them to modern operations (e.g., a scheduled assault against a major city defended by motivated well-prepared troops), the Guard's casualty rates look pretty good.
It cost what, about 840,000 casualties to not permanently take Stalingrad? The Heer would have killed to be able to take a major city defended by hardened professional soldiers with only a loss of a few thousand men.
Fellend
04-16-2010, 04:45 PM
This is quickly turning into a stalemate, because if you count every skirmish as a win or lose situation. The Guard loses by so much it's not funny. But if you only count entire crusades well... They pretty much never lose (has there ever been a failed crusade?)
So I'm dropping out of this. I'm still saying that IG is the (playable) faction that loses them most. If nothing else because they fight the most battles.
Nabterayl
04-16-2010, 04:55 PM
This is quickly turning into a stalemate, because if you count every skirmish as a win or lose situation. The Guard loses by so much it's not funny. But if you only count entire crusades well... They pretty much never lose (has there ever been a failed crusade?)
I don't know that there's ever been a failed crusade that was defeated through force of arms. The Damocles Gulf Crusade failed to achieve its objective, though, in that it was recalled to fight Hive Fleet Behemoth.
So I'm dropping out of this. I'm still saying that IG is the (playable) faction that loses them most. If nothing else because they fight the most battles.
I have to agree with you that the Guard has the greatest numerical number of losses by any scale of measurement, precisely because, as you say, they fight the most battles. But by the same token, they have the greatest numerical number of wins, don't they?
eldargal
04-17-2010, 02:21 AM
Its winning wars that matters. It is also possiblle to lose wars even if you win more battles. Napoleon won the overwhelming majority of his battles, but lost the ones which mattered
The population of the Imperium could be in the tens to hundreds of trillions, on a million worlds. Of all the resources they have manpower is the most abundant. Who cares if they expend a billion lives conquering even one world, if the resources of that world can then be utilised by the Imperium.
As to the decline of the Imperium, I think of it more of an institutional and technological decline than a temporal one. While the Imperium is under siege, there is no indication that they are actively losing. From memory they are stalemated against the Tau, the Traitor Legions and Hive Fleet Leviathan has been halted if not destroyed (yet). The Eldar aren't at total war with Imperium, the Dark Eldar aren't a serious strategic threat and the Necrons don't seem particularly coordinated. The Imperium also seems to be becoming quite adept at managing the Ork threat, keeping the mfighting amongst themselves through 'targated eliminations'.:rolleyes:
Remember that the Stark Report mentioned in Codex: Tyranids indicated the Imperium had the capacity to raise military conscription by 500%, though admittedly it would involve conscripting practically every human of fighting age in three segmentums, but still.
Space Marines and Adepta Sororitas operate surgical strikes to elminate key elements of enemy military infrastructure, Imperial Guard fight wars of attrition.
joescalise
04-17-2010, 08:10 AM
I think that is a lot of pissed off women, can't wait for the new book. Just hope they don't get rid of my dominion squads. Sisters was my second army I collected and it will be great to get some new plastic models and so up to date rules.
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