how many imperial guard in the whole army

[Scoutmaster477]

Just my take from a humble IG guy. Ummm I trust my guard to win the day.

[Timber-WoIf]

Originally Posted by Perturabo

The Marines would not face the Guard on an open battle field-they would use lightning raids to destroy the ability of the guard to communicate with itself,resupply itself and most importantly destroy its hierarchy, without command the guard cannot think for itself-it is not designed to!

I don't think they even have the numbers to do that. The guard is just that massive, and if it takes the offensive, assaulting the space marine home worlds... the space marines would be forced into open battle.
besides, its not like all the billions of guardsmen are going to stand around on the battlefields and be like "huh... where's all the space marines?" surgical raids work better when the opponent is actively engaged and focused on something else. Of course they would away with any raids they did before the start of this hypothetical war, but once again, numbers.

[Baron Spikey]

Numbers but no transport because if your going to give the Imperial Guard an ally in the form of the Imperial Navy then the Space Marines should get one too- how about Adeptus Mechanicus & Adeptus Astartes Vs. Imperial Guard & Imperial Navy?

[325504503]

Originally Posted by Baron Spikey

Numbers but no transport because if your going to give the Imperial Guard an ally in the form of the Imperial Navy then the Space Marines should get one too- how about Adeptus Mechanicus & Adeptus Astartes Vs. Imperial Guard & Imperial Navy?

I smell a civil war thread! I will start to grow my beard.

[Wakim]

Baron Spikey, they come with ships included.

The ships that the IG use are better because they`re bigger and have more armor and guns because they carry a lot more than a battle barge

If you take away the asigned transportation you won`t have a war because they can`t get to one another making the whole thing null.

[Warmaster Romulas]

hey fishman the point is the IG dont have any ships
the imperial Navy does and Space Marines do
but the ID dont
so they cant have more powerful ones because they dont have ANY

[Baron Spikey]

After all the question wasn't who would win in a fight between the Space Marines and the Imperial Guard/Navy- its just a plus for the Marines that the Guard doesn't have its own ships.

[sion958]

ok unless the imperial guard are in direct control of the navy at the time of the battle then the navy are not part.

And just assume that all the space marines and imperial guard are already on the planet (maybe terra?)

[Wakim]

If you tie the IG to planets, yeah, SM win

They`ll just avoid the ones with titans on them :P

[Baron Spikey]

Well if it was only IG vs. SM then they wouldn't have to avoid Titans as the God-Machines would just be silent, rather intimidating, spectators.

[Warmaster Romulas]

the IG doesnt have Titans either
that the Adeptus mechanicas
the ones that make all the god machines of the imperium
also know as the titan legions they are separate entity
and have tighter ties to the Space Marines than IG

you cant lump all that stuff in with the ig they have tanks
big tanks and bigger tanks
and lots of men
no ships
no titans

[325504503]

If we are going to start saying that the IG have to have the help of the Imperial Navy and the SM get the help of AM and so forth...

The point should be made that the Imperium as a whole probably has closer ties with the IG than the SM. Think about who fills the ranks of the IG? The family members of All the Imperial Citizens. That being said I imagine the SM would eventully grind to halt logistically speaking, if they failed to have the support of the Imperium as a whole. Fuel, Bullets, Food and Spare parts gotta come from somewhere; and unless you plan on enslaving the Imperial worlds you need I can't imagine the SM getting them while you slaughter their family.

IG win after a 10,000 year grinding slaughter.

[Warmaster Romulas]

Originally Posted by 325504503

If we are going to start saying that the IG have to have the help of the Imperial Navy and the SM get the help of AM and so forth...

The point should be made that the Imperium as a whole probably has closer ties with the IG than the SM. Think about who fills the ranks of the IG? The family members of All the Imperial Citizens. That being said I imagine the SM would eventully grind to halt logistically speaking, if they failed to have the support of the Imperium as a whole. Fuel, Bullets, Food and Spare parts gotta come from somewhere; and unless you plan on enslaving the Imperial worlds you need I can't imagine the SM getting them while you slaughter their family.

IG win after a 10,000 year grinding slaughter.

the point being that every chapter is self contained they even fix their own armour and make their own bullets
SM can eat anything
so they can fight for countless centuries without ressupply from the imperium
the average guardsman cant feed himself
only SM from feral or death wotlds dont have active family members
people from civilized SM worlds still have family their and i bet its a matter of great pride for them more so than any guard regiment raised from reebok 2
or isotoner 5

[Ichor]

Note that many space marines do come form death worlds. And the marines from ultramar have no ties with families. In fact, the only chapter that DOES have family ties is the Salamanders, and even then, those are just adopted families.

[Night Shadow]

I would half to say the guard just by the sheer force of numbers there are of them vs the Space Marines. BUT answere me this, say Chaos Marines never went to Chaos and stayed loyal. Now what doy you think. How many more Marines do you guys think that is?

[Baron Spikey]

just under another million if they had never turned.

[Ichor]

If they never turned traitor, then we'd never had chpaters. then we'd have only 200,000 marines.

[Warmaster Romulas]

Originally Posted by Ichor

If they never turned traitor, then we'd never had chpaters. then we'd have only 200,000 marines.

how do you figure this number?
there were almost 200,000 ultra marines(they were the biggest legion)
before the heresy
we know this because over 200 chapters were created from them
you got to remember there are as many chapters as people have made over the years.
thats tens of thousands of chapters that are all self contained military forces in their own right
with their own fleets,

[Spartan2154]

I think if the Chaos Marines hadn't gone rouge we would have a very sizable force of Marines. Along with also the divergent chapters that would likely, still have been created later on, I'm sure.

[Astrotrain]

Guys stop saying the Guard has no way to get to the Space marines and therefore lose.Thats like saying the US Army would fall to the US Marine Corps because the Marines have closer ties to the Navy.Thats like saying the marines would end up running out of ammo before their done with the guard.

[Ichor]

Chapters were only created so that a rebellion like the Horus Heresy would never happen on such a large scale. Although the Ultramarines Legion was large, keep in mind that the chapters after the second founding were not the same ones from the legions.

[Warmaster Romulas]

Originally Posted by Ichor

Chapters were only created so that a rebellion like the Horus Heresy would never happen on such a large scale. Although the Ultramarines Legion was large, keep in mind that the chapters after the second founding were not the same ones from the legions.

but they are made from the 9 non traitor geneseeds
that makes them from the legions

[Ichor]

By my previos post, I meant that the chapters were not those ones that were initially part of the legions.

[Word Bearer 81007]

guy's it's safe to say that the marines don't stand a chance. it takes 9 guardsmen in rapid fire range to statically gurantee a dead marine. therefore if the gaurd outnumber the marines 10 to 1, which they do by far. than the marines are toast. looking at it from a simple point of view.

[Warmaster Romulas]

i think you guys are thinking one battle
2 armies of this magnitude would have a campaign that would span years and planets
this would give the marines the advantage plain and simple

[Baron Spikey]

whilst I believe there would be a lot more Marines if the Traitors hadn't rebelled, because there might have been 200,000+ 10,000 yrs ago but they'd have recruited as quickly as they do now I imagine to swell their numbers to more than a million.

The Ultramarines were the biggest Legion but I dont think they reached 200,000, they apparently had 23 second founding chapters created from them so they were obviously ~24,000 strong post heresy but I doubt they were 10 times bigger pre-heresy.

@Astrotrain- what? we're saying the IG would have no way to cross Space because they couldn't without the Imperial Navy's aid and since this scenario involves the Guard versus the Space Marines they would not have that aid.

[Timber-WoIf]

so, i think we can safely agree that the only reason space marines would able to beat guard is because guard don't have boats. otherwise, guard would stomp them. quaff?

[Wakim]

Why do people always forget SM go commando, especially when fighthing humans :/

all they need to take out is the HQ and/or communications/supplies.

Even a Space Wolf knows that. (they still prefer going into the grinder though)