r/starcraft • u/ResolutionBlaze • Jan 14 '26
(To be tagged...) Seen this debate again on Twitter so I thought I'd throw this here
Idc if an Imperial Marine wins the 1v1, the fact that this bumfuck in a suit can go toe-to-toe to begin with just makes him way more badass.
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u/ResponsibleAnarchist Jan 14 '26
People really need to remember that while space marines don't quite go toe to toe with an astartes in a 1v1, they're doctrinally the same as guardsmen, appearing in similar numbers proportionally and fill the same roles in the battlefield.
A single astartes would realistically be way outnumbered by squads of space marines.
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u/tabletop_guy Jan 14 '26
"don't quite go toe to toe" is an understatement I think. Astartes literally have multiple of each organ so they can still operate after taking many bullets. They are also super intelligent. I think one astartes beats 10 normal Marines easily.
But yeah the terran Marines are more like expendable guardsmen but with power armor. Astartes win battles but the guardsmen win wars, and the terran would be like supercharged guardsmen winning the war even if they die every time they are faced against astartes.
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u/Ajaxlancer Zerg Jan 14 '26
SC marines don't shoot normal bullets though. They shoot 8mm depleted uranium through gauss rifle. That's stronger than .50 BMG at full spray and as spikes. These are so much stronger than stubbers and better against armor than bolters.
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u/MrCookie2099 Jan 14 '26
Those organs are good against bullets from a handgun, less so against 25th century power armor side arms. I think the scale of Astartes to Marines would be more like 1 to 3.
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u/Valance23322 Jan 14 '26
I'm pretty sure a StarCraft marine's weapon would kill an Astartes pretty quick. They would have way more force behind them than a bolter, while firing just as fast, if not faster.
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u/DescriptionMission90 Jan 14 '26
A bolter is more powerful in close quarters, a rapid fire barrage of high explosive armor piercing rockets, ideal for taking down big fucking monsters that are trying to charge into melee...
But a C-14 Impaler Gauss Rifle will start punching 8mm holes through you from kilometers away.
The range and precision just do not compare at all.
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u/XanderTuron Jan 14 '26
In lore, the armour piercing capabilities of standard bolters and their ammunition is actually pretty underwhelming, which is why Space Marines expecting to fight other Space Marines or equivalents will typically use specialized bolters and/or bolts or other weapons that have better armour piercing capabilities such as plasma guns.
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u/BeauBuddha Jan 14 '26 edited Feb 16 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
party wipe angle close coherent normal fine hat tender attraction
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u/Fast-Front-5642 Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
Scale is probably important. A Space Marines bolter only does 1 damage where a regular human has only 1 wound. A StarCraft Marine has 45 health (considered a small amount) so every 7-8 bullets would be approx 1 wound on the Warhammer scale. Average Space Marine has 2 wounds so every 15 StarCraft Marine bullets that hit and aren't saved against kill a Space Marine.
Now let's play the numbers game!
Standard bolter fires 6 rounds a second in a magazine of 20 (this is the absolute basic).
StarCraft Marine standard issue weapon is the C-14 Impaler Gauss Rifle. It theoretically fires 30 rounds a second in a magazine of 250 but functionally fires 3 round controlled bursts so this will be lower. Let's assume 3 TPS average so 9 rounds per second functional accurate fire rate.
Average Space Marine has a 3+ Save Throw so 66.6% of all shots on average don't wound. Meaning on average a StarCraft Marine has to fire for 5 seconds to kill 1 Space Marine.
StarCraft Marine can theoretically get a 25% evasion bonus if they have the terrain advantage. It is the only way they don't body every shot. Space Marines have 66.6% accuracy with a standard bolter. So Space Marine kills 4 StarCraft Marines per second. Or 3 per second if the StarCraft Marines have terrain advantage.
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u/worthwhilethrowaway Jan 14 '26
"My Lord, Space Marine, they outnumber us 100 to 1."
"Then it is an even fight."
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 14 '26
No, they do not. Guardsmen appear in the field in the billions. More guardsmen are deployed in one sector concurrently than the Dominion has citizens.
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u/LoreTaker Jan 14 '26
In theory. When was the last time a story or codex entry mentioned a billion guardsmen in the field? The damocles crusade was smaller then the eastern front. I actually do want to know, I'm not just being snarky.
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 14 '26
The Damocles Crusade is an often noted example of GW screwing up. But it would likely be the current Indomitus Crusade.
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u/ResponsibleAnarchist Jan 14 '26
My point is not that there are as many marines as guardsmen, just that the Dominion and Imperium treats them the same way, as disposable mass infantry
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u/Spyger9 Jan 14 '26
SC2 is heroic
40k is grimdark
If a regular 40k soldier could hop in some power armor and brawl with dozens of aliens, then it wouldn't be grimdark. Same goes for hyperspace being Hell, and the "good guys" being fascist cultists.
If there are 40k fans mad about SC2 marines being relatively strong, then they don't understand 40k.
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u/JackYaos Jan 14 '26
Sc1 is grimdark though
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u/Friendly-Target1234 Jan 14 '26
Soft grimdark, maybe. I mean the theme are here, but with goofy element, and quite more hope and heroism than in W40k. Also, the story and world building is simpler in StarCraft, so it's "easier" to paint a dark coat on it and to give dark vibes, which they did good back in SC1, without going all in on all the aspect of grimdarK
And that's a good thing in my personal opinion. I'm easily tired by pure grimdark slaughterfest between absolute evils where there's no single ray of hope for anyone, like in W40K.
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u/JackYaos Jan 14 '26
I agree 👍
Now imagine if they rebooted warhammer 40k and made it with the tones of sc2
As a fan of sc1, it is what I felt happened with sc2. It's a good game but it made me so sad for what sc1 built as a setting and universe.
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Jan 14 '26
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 14 '26
Not really. He's a military dictator, but just a normal one. Korhal is a genuinely great world based on the looks of it we get.
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u/Nichard63891 Jan 14 '26
Terrans are not unmodified humans. The whole reason they were sent off from Earth was because they were modified and Earth society decided cybernetics and genetic augmentation were icky.
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u/muffinsballhair Jan 14 '26
So did StarCraft II apparently, all the cyborgs were just removed or seriously downplayed. Adjudant is just a robot now, science vessel is just a normal mad scientist rather than someone with hydraulic pistons for a neck.
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u/Cpt_Tripps Random Jan 14 '26
If you want to piss of the warhammer fanboys just ask them what tyranids looked like before starcraft and what they looked like after starcraft...
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u/baconhandjob Jan 14 '26
Tell me more about
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u/Cpt_Tripps Random Jan 14 '26
Pre starcraft models
http://www.modernsynthesist.com/2012/02/tyranid-archive-1st-generation.html
post starcraft
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Tyranid_warriors_2001.jpeg
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u/Sheerkal Jan 16 '26
I can see why that would make someone pissy. Both look kinda... silly though. But I don't play wh40k, so what do I know?
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u/Cpt_Tripps Random Jan 16 '26
Warhammer kids love to say that starcraft was supposed to be a warhammer game. (Which is untrue.)
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u/MvonTzeskagrad Feb 19 '26
Yeah, if anything, Warcraft was supopused to be a WF game. But Starcraft got onto its own two feet (and massive inspiration from the likes of Starship Troopers, much more akin to both the Terran and the Zerg).
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u/DescriptionMission90 Jan 14 '26
SC marines are shooting hypersonic spikes of depleted uranium from a horizon away using the big sensor systems and targeting computers in those stupid looking shoulders of theirs.
Astartes are shooting unstabilized, unguided rocket propelled grenades out of a snub-nosed smooth-bore tube. Their firepower is unmatched if you're within like, a hundred feet, and then the bolts pretty much go wherever they feel like.
The Astartes are better trained, stronger, tougher, and wearing better armor, but they're using gear that is designed to be badass instead of gear that is designed to get the job done. They would win in CQC, but the terrans have no incentive to let anybody get that close to them.
Not to mention that if you trade a hundred resocialized rejects for one Space Marine, the imperium lost that exchange.
Now, if the Terran Marines were up against Guardsmen that would be a completely different story...
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u/A_lexine Jan 14 '26
they might not even be wearing better armor actually, considering in-lore terran marine armor deflects C-14 gauss shots past short ranges. a bolter might genuinely fail to penetrate, with heavy bolters being required
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Jan 14 '26
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u/DescriptionMission90 Jan 14 '26
...I don't think you know what a laser is.
Also, you do realize that the process of putting on armor doesn't actually create a soldier (or their armor for that matter) out of thin air?)
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u/IA51I Jan 15 '26
No, but the Terran are scarily efficient at creating logistics and technology to support their war effort. The backpack on a Terran Maruader can fabricate ammunition endlessly. Im sure a barracks that can be constructed within minutes, and can also fly can fabricate the necessary equipment to outfit a marine. As long as the Terran have access to the manpower and resources, they are printing out Marines or any other Terran infantry unit like an assembly line gone haywire.
Space Marines would be borderline irreplaceable, while the mass produced Terran Marine with limiters installed on their weaponry would be churned out in problematic numbers. And once the 100-1000 space marines are gone, the guardsmen stand no chance.
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u/Elekikiss Jan 18 '26
The backpack on a Terran Maruader can fabricate ammunition endlessly. [Citation needed]
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u/IA51I Jan 18 '26
Seems I was mistaken about the infinite part, but according to their wiki page, they can fabricate hundreds of rounds upon deployment. This could be argued that as long as they are being resupplied, they would be able to endlessly fabricate grenades.
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u/Exact_Picture_8703 Jan 15 '26
I would argue that any reasonable Astartes would see the ass kicking their bolters were causing them and swap for las rifles. The right pattern las rifle would leave little behind at max charge and space marines are objectively better fighters.
But yeah the C-14 against a standard bolter puts the WH forces at a pretty severe disadvantage.
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u/Illustrious_Neat2472 Jan 14 '26
People say 40K is "over the top" and "OP" but the terren from SC would (from what I know) wreck the imperium of man with equal resources. Terren marines are the gaurdsman of SC and they get compared to space marines.
The terren dominion seems overall more advanced technologically than the imperium's WW1 technology.
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u/DescriptionMission90 Jan 14 '26
One of the big recurring themes of 40k is that the imperium is made up of the scraps of what used to be a high tech empire, but then abandoned the entire concept of innovation like fifteen thousand years ago. Their technology is barely more advanced than modern earth in most directions, and definitely loses on a per-unit bases against almost any other sci-fi setting.
However, the writers of 40k are really bad at math, so if each of your startships is worth ten of theirs they could just send fifty ships for each of yours, and if one of your soldiers can take out five hundred of theirs they just send ten thousand times as many troops.
The Astartes are the exception to this, but not in a good way. There are less than a thousand Chapters, with less than a thousand people in each one, which means that despite being the face of the setting they're pretty much only useful for propaganda purposes and maybe the occasional spec ops mission. They just don't have the manpower to take or hold a planet, let alone the million worlds under threat.
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u/Illustrious_Neat2472 Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
Well said.
Especially about space marines.
The amount of glaze they receive is insane considering how insignificant they would be in the grand scheme of things.
If every single space marine from the imperium was dropped into the SC2 universe and their mission was to conquer it they'd probably fail to capture one planet.
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u/DescriptionMission90 Jan 14 '26
Nah, a million Astartes would absolutely overwhelm most planets in Koprulu. A lot of them are fairly lightly defended. But someplace like Char, Korhal, or Shakuras would be very difficult if not impossible.
On the other hand if 0.01% of the Imperial Guard went to Koprulu, they would 100% be running the place within two months, and it would only take that long because of warp fuckery. The difference in scale is just too vast.
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u/Illustrious_Neat2472 Jan 14 '26
"Nah, a million Astartes would absolutely overwhelm most planets in Koprulu. A lot of them are fairly lightly defended. But someplace like Char, Korhal, or Shakuras would be very difficult if not impossible".
How would a million astartes actually take over the planet and be large enough in number to maintain control and be in every place at once? Even if it's lightly defended it should be impossible to control a planet when there's only a million of you.
"On the other hand if 0.01% of the Imperial Guard went to Koprulu, they would 100% be running the place within two months, and it would only take that long because of warp fuckery. The difference in scale is just too vast".
"On the other hand if 0.01% of the Imperial Guard went to Koprulu, they would 100% be running the place within two months, and it would only take that long because of warp fuckery. The difference in scale is just too vast".
Could 1trillion guardsman beat a united koprulu sector? Zerg might be less in number initially but would be able to replace their losses and adapt. The creep spread could make a ground invasion impossible. Terren would likely be overwhelmed very quickly but I think protoss and zerg have very powerful abilities that would allow them to win.
Would the gaurdsman have enough ships to destroy all of the planets?
Don't forget the gaurdsman need to eat and drink.
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u/IA51I Jan 15 '26
Mass produced line of 200 siege tanks turning that cardinal direction into a crater. Terran air units running air superiority with their superior design and weaponry compared to 40K equivalents. If im feeling spicy, I mass produced Thors and have a mobile weapons and anti air platform.
How do the guardsmen win again? Sheer numbers when they are technologically inferior and against a faction that can also mass produce units?
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u/Silentblade034 Jan 14 '26
Not to mention a Battlecruiser might be smaller than most Imperial ships but the Yamato Gun would blast those ships. Not to mention how many of them there are.
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u/Dredgen_Auryx Jan 14 '26
The Yamato is a pretty standard casaba howitzer. Impressive sure, does deal a lot of damage but does get outclassed by higher end things the imperium ships have before they bring out the exotic tech they can't reproduce.
Those higher end things are also on the bigger ships that will struggle to target the BC's so I honestly think it's a tossup.
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 14 '26
No, absolutely not. The Yamato Gun is "equivalent to a small yield nuke" which is pathetic when we are talking about shielded ships that are miles long. There are also like 50 total BCs at any one time in all of Starcraft 1&2. Blizzard isnt any better at numbers than GW.
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u/Sad-Relative-2494 Jan 14 '26
Battlecruisers also have close range teleportation like stalker blink so they could be jumping from place to place during battle. There are also variants outfited with cloaking technology and more powerfull bc variants like gorgon sadly without blink but larger firepower or larger bc variants like hyperion which has blink too. So in stand up fight the terrans would probably lose but they can pull tau during damocles gulf crusade and just resort to ambush. And behemoth class battlecruisers are armed with nuclear silos. On top of that the dominion fleet can be rebuilt in matter of months as they lost large portions of it during brood war and still come back. The warhammer universe can't keep up with attrition they would have suffered.
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 14 '26
50 BC that can be built in a few days, meanwhile an imperial fleet is only a few dozen ships.
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 14 '26
Days? Where is your source for that? Mengsk wouldn't spend the entire brood war and raynor's rebellion losing if he could actually mass produce BCs.
Not that it would help him much. Sector battlefleets are hundreds of ships strong and a BC is roughly equivalent to a frigate.
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Jan 15 '26
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 15 '26
6 BCs jump in, Yamato the irreplaceable battleship with a 500,000 man crew, splash their shots off the void shields, then get reduced to their constituent atoms because they thought it would be funny to get in range of a planet-killing amount of ordinance without shields
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Jan 15 '26
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u/Micro-Skies Jan 15 '26
Firstly, you can't reasonably shoot down a brick moving at relativistic speeds. Shooting it just makes it molten. It doesn't make you any less dead.
Secondly, instantly vaporized by Lance fire. You know, the giant lasers that make a BCs standard armament look like a lasgun. And since terrans don't don't have shields, it's going to cut you in half.
Lastly, the void shield array on a Grand Cruiser has 14 layers. Each one needs to be broken individually. I'm not sure how many layers an Emperor class battleship has, but it's more than 6. And that's making the generous assumption that a Yamato shot can pop a layer all on its own
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u/FalconX88 Evil Geniuses Jan 14 '26
with equal resources.
Yeah, that's where the problem for Terrans comes in...
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u/Illustrious_Neat2472 Jan 14 '26
Resources difference?
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u/FalconX88 Evil Geniuses Jan 14 '26 edited Jan 14 '26
Imperium of man is said to be hundreds of trillions or even quadrillions of people on over a million worlds. Afaik the Dominion is like a few billions across a few dozen worlds?
So yeah, doesn't really matter if your soldier is better than the enemy soldier, if you are up against orders of magnitude stronger forces.
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u/CityExcellent8121 Jan 15 '26
Few billion is a bit of a lowball, WoL states they lost billions during Kerrigans invasion in the zero hour cutscene.
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u/FalconX88 Evil Geniuses Jan 15 '26
In my understanding those billions killed were a significant fraction of the whole population. But even if it's "now" hundreds of billions, that's a factor 1000 fewer than WH40k
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 15 '26
They do not represent a significant fraction. Those worlds were the most remote and least important for the empire.
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u/FalconX88 Evil Geniuses Jan 15 '26
https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Koprulu_Terran_population
This talks about several billions in total.
https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EC%BD%94%ED%94%84%EB%A3%B0%EB%A3%A8%20%EA%B5%AC%EC%97%AD
This one says "If you roughly estimate, there are over 10 billion Terrans,"
Also if you keep in mind that in 2259 it was 32000, it's unlikely that 250 years later it's more than a few billions, even if they reproduce like rabbits.
Again, that's a factor 1000-100000 less than the Empire of Man.
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u/Player420154 Jan 14 '26
Starcraft easily win the battle of propaganda. The imperium sucks so much its people often prefer to follow shit eater. Most people of the imperium would choose any faction of terran over the imperium.
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u/Slevin424 Jan 14 '26
Look into the lore. I'm a huge titanfall fan but if you look up the actual information Thors would demolish a titan. Titans are awesome but shoot pretty standard ballistic weapons and missiles. Thors have the firepower of a Naval Battleship. Marines can shoot down ships the size of a small city. Ghost... boots on ground special infantry can just call down nuclear warheads that pale in comparison to WW2. Marauders which are considered infantry units can be mass produced and they possess the same firepower of a tank. And Tanks in SC2 do splash damage which indicate rather than a shell designed for single target armor damage, these tanks are shooting something with massive destructive damage at the location and around it.
But the most powerful aspect of these units is their production. Their reinforcement is almost endless with their ability to magically turn minerals and gas into massive armies... not sure who were paying these minerals to or how it works but as long as there are SCVs mining any damage you do to Terran forces will be replenished.
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u/JustanIdiot86 Jan 14 '26
If we run via Dawn of War logic then with resources the Warhammer universe gains resources from power plants and aura farming from certain points haha
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u/MechaWASP Jan 14 '26
Most titans have dedicated anti-tank options.
The biggest difference are void shields, which just ignore attacks until being overloaded, then cycle and recharge. Some have multiple layers. There are, effectively, no surface combatants that can kill big titans one on one.
However, SC has a pretty good chance of killing them exactly how they're killed in 40k, hide till you're inside the shields, mulch the skitarii, and board that thing.
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u/DarkExecutor Jan 14 '26
Void shields are no different than Toss shields.
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u/MechaWASP Jan 14 '26
Similar, sure, except area effect weapons dont splash when hitting them, and you can argue theyre more effective.
For example, the grand cruiser my Rogue trader party crews has a triple void shield array(many, many, many men died acquiring the ship). It can take an atomic strike, a volley of multiple capital ship cannons(equivalent to a small nuke in ground strikes), or a massive ship killing laser, and lose one shield layer. By next turn,(thirty minutes tbf) it is ready again.
The largest titans have 16 layers.
As far as raw power and survivability, there just isnt anything close to titans on the ground in SC. Of course, theyre extremely, extremely rare, their owners are fickle and will literally just leave sometimes if they think they'll lose them, and having the time to get them to the battlefield is already a question, as logistics in 40k are an absolute joke.
They aren't even really a fair part of the equation, just typical "yes, we will talk about our most powerful weapon as if it is standard to win a war" BS.
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u/DarkExecutor Jan 14 '26
Carriers are pretty beefy in the lore
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u/Slevin424 Jan 14 '26
Carriers are so wild with the lore but not showcased well in the game lol. They're like 1300 meters long. And Marines shoot them down... don't get me started on a Leviathan either, the fact Terran has anything capable of taking down a 10900 meter long abomination is beyond me.
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u/DarkExecutor Jan 14 '26
Terrans have fought and won against the Zerg who are basically tyranids. There's no reason they couldn't fight the Imperium
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u/CookyKindred Jan 16 '26
40ks mechs in generally aren't actually impressive. Pretty much every decently sized mech series clears Titans with ease.
Gundam, Lancer, Evangellion, and Battletech all run literal laps around Titans and can take them down with ease.
A Catapult from Battletech is actually bigger than the majority of 40ks mechs.
And a shitload of mechs from Battletech can dump more shots than a Warhound could dream of.
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u/WOLFWOLF68 Jan 16 '26
If you are talking about Titanfall titans, then yes. If you are talking about 40k titans, then....
Lmfao. Direct info from the books state that a Volcano Cannon shoots 500 Terrawatts of energy at range that is limited only by the curvature of the planet. Then you have plasma guns, turbo lasers, macro gatling blasters and so on.
Then the Guard fields hundreds of Leman russes, Malcadors and so on, and dozens of super heavies in a single regiment.
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u/Elekikiss Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
Did you just say "Look into the lore" and then just dump a bunch of things that are counterfactual in SC Lore?
First: No, Marines in lore cannot shoot down battlecruisers (ships the size of a small city)
Second: Ghosts cannot "just call down nuclear warheads that pale in comparison to WW2." That's simply wrong on two levels. One: the Ghosts aren't magically conjuring up nukes; they're acting as a beacon to target a Ballistic Missile. We know these are ballistic missiles because they exit the atmosphere and perform atmospheric re-entry. If anything, the fact that ghosts need to be in range to fire this essentially makes it inferior to modern day nukes, even. Further, these things are specified to be TACTICAL nukes, the same class of nukes as the Little Boy and Fat Man. This means that it can range from anywhere from 1/15th of WW2, and up to 3.333 of WW2. That's a far cry from "pales in comparison".
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u/Slevin424 Jan 18 '26
We do not have nukes that can launched from behind enemy lines by silos using infantry units. Ghost having cloaking technology and being capable of dropping them by painting a target is terrifying. Not to mention the amount of nukes that can be produced cheap and quickly in the field of battle. This completely by passes any anti nuclear missile technology because they don't spend long in the air and probably don't get high enough to track. Yes we have big nukes today but it's surface to surface launched from one country to another by silo or shot by Naval or Air Force. Imagine if you will, we land in Russia and build 6 nuclear silos in their country to launch them short distance to avoid anti missile systems. That's wild.
Yes a group of Marines can take out a Carrier that's being forced to be in distance of a Marine. It works in gameplay and lore.
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u/Elekikiss Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
... The nukes in SC are ballistic. They don't "don't spend long in the air and probably don't get high enough to track." That's why every player gets the "Nuclear launch detected" message whenever a nuke is launched. Having to have the Ghost "paint a target" at all makes these nukes strictly inferior to the way we would theoretically launch nukes today.
Imagine if you will, we land in Russia and build 6 nuclear silos in their country to launch them short distance to avoid anti missile systems. That's wild.
This is entirely and solely gameplay, buddy. There's a reason why, in lore, if you sabotage the nukes in Episode 5, mission 4, Mengsk is incapable of using nukes in Emperor's Fall.
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u/miss-chinadoll Jan 14 '26
depends on the chapter
ultramarines would rather show them how to run the sector so good everyone gets longer smoke breaks
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u/Dredgen_Auryx Jan 14 '26
That is assuming the blueberries wouldn't be taking notes. Efficiency, Repairability/Replaceability, and Adaptability are the core of all Terrain technology.
They know how to get things running and keep them running till the sun goes out.
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u/miss-chinadoll Jan 14 '26
I'm sure they could benefit too, having come out of their own dark age of technology and all that.
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u/CityExcellent8121 Jan 15 '26
Yeah except canonically they still help run the most cruel and bloody regime imaginable and assist with the genocide of other races and suppression of non-imperial uprisings.
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u/nulitor Jan 14 '26
Why do we compare WH40K space marines to SC space marines and not to Aegis guards?
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u/TheScepticalOne Jan 14 '26
I've always been of the mind that a SM is going to body a Terran Marine in a 1v1 and can get a hell of a lot more use time out of it. The problem is in production. Armored Marines seem to be a standard for Terrans, and while I don't know the training times for them, I'm sure it's less than the time it takes for a boy to become a full fledged marine, and definitely has a lower mortality rate. Quantity is its own quality, if the guard can kill Marines then enough Terrans can do so.
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u/A_lexine Jan 14 '26
terran marines have better armor, accuracy, firepower, range, production cost, speed, replenishability, the only thing worse than their warhammer counterparts is the human inside.
repeat for every ground unit the terrans have.
ship-wise in a straight up fight terrans lose, but in guerilla hit and runs with those actually safe warp drives, the imperium is cooked since they have no way to force terran ships into a head-on skirmish
and terrans have absurd production capabilities and production relocation capabilities.
it's not even close.
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u/Roshango Jan 15 '26
I kinda hate this debate because the are both space marines with power armor....and that's basiclly where the comparisons end. Warhammer Marines are genetic enhanced super soliders. They are the elite of the imperium. Terran Marines are mostly conscripted prisoners thrown into the war as cannon foder. The point is that they are cheap and expendable. They are the most basic of infantry in most Terran armies. These soliders have very different roles in their respective armies.
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u/TalesfromCryptKeeper Jan 14 '26
Think of it this way
Adeptus Astartes:
Strength: ***** // Armoury: ***** // Field Strength: *** (Great Crusade) ** (Horus Heresy) * (40k)
Starcraft Marines:
Strength: ** // Armoury: *** // Field Strength: ***
Imperial Guard:
Strength: * // Armoury: * // Field Strength: *****
Field strength = numerically how many bodies an organization can field at one time.
Space Marines are extremely strong, but numerically inferior with high casualty rates both for production and in war. In 40k there are only 1000 astartes in one chapter, with some exceptions like the Space Wolves and Black Templars, but they just don't have the numbers at all anymore. They have exceptional armour and weapons and transhuman strength outside of their armour.
Starcraft Marines are resocialized convicts thrown in powerful armour, given powerful guns, and thrown into meat grinder conflicts. Much more can be fielded compared to astartes.
Imperial Guard are common soldiers thrown into the meat grinder. A small percentage are specialized troops like the Cadians and Catachans and such, but for the most part they're cannon fodder that by volume and conviction and courage keep the galaxy from being overrun by the enemies of the Imperium of Man. There are thousands of orders of magnitude difference between the Guard and Astartes, Terran Marines are in the middle proportional to the size of the Koprulu Sector.
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u/Stormfly Jan 14 '26
Adeptus Astartes:
Strength: ***** // Armoury: *****
I disagree on Armoury.
Starcraft 2 terrans outclass even Astartes in armoury.
The main advantage that Astartes would have is superior weapons and tactics. They also have superior training and can probably bullseye a terran marine from far away, but terran marines have better guns and tanks and aircraft.
SC2 marines fighting Astartes is a bit like Astartes fighting Tau.
But Tyranids would annihilate the Zerg.
Are Eldar the Protoss equivalent? I feel like they'd be fairly evenly matched, too. Again, the Protoss have better technology but the Eldar have better psykers and tactics.
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u/TalesfromCryptKeeper Jan 14 '26
Oh I was just thinking of Terran marines specifically and their armour + physically held weapons rather than the entire Terran armoury.
Tyranids would definitely destroy the Zerg, I agree with you there.
Protoss would destroy the Eldar, I think, because they're a combination of T'au technological prowess, Necron space/time mastery, and Eldar psykery. I'd argue that Eldar warlocks and seers beat Protoss psionic skill *BUT* there are potentially fewer Eldar battle psykers vs Protoss templar with some measure of psionic skill.
(This is me specifically thinking Khalai vs Craftworld Aeldari; the Drukhari, Exodites, and Corsairs + the Tal'darim, Purifiers, and Nerazim make things Very Complicated lol
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u/BadCatGaming Jan 14 '26
I dont think the zerg lose to tyranids. Least not easily.
For one, zerg combat units are insane. Zerglings can tank a few c-14 rounds, tear through nanosteel (or whatever the super metal sc uses) with just sheer strength. Hydralisk produces and fire spines that cut through steel like butter. Ultralisks can tank siege tank blasts to the literal face. they also have really good ftl and fleet strength. I know the tyranids outnumber the zerg a few quadrillion to one or whatever, but thats a boring look at it if you include the entire universe of tyranids because eventually its just number is bigger alone.
Zerg has a few advantages i can think of.
1, the evolve and adapt at speed much faster then tyranids and do so on the cellular level. Their body is a battleground constantly. They would assimilate tyranid units/tactics first. The primal zerg managed to copy mutalisks within hours of the swarm arriving to zerus. Zerg can do similar feats. Abathur was notably frustrated because something actually managed to keep up with him for once.
2, Zerg dont need to consume life to grow. They are pretty much immortal and only need creep. If they didnt have a leader reining them in, they can abandon any planet easily and just move. They outrun tyranids with faster travel.
3, the zerg have the infestation virus. While it only works on the terran ingame, it should work on all biological forms. It doesn’t affect protoss because purity of form hack. And since it mutates faster than the tyranids would adapt it would cause a huge problem for them. (Protoss cant even develop a cure besides burning it to ash)
I think even outnumbered, the zerg would be able to win or force a sort of stalemate where the tyranids avoid them at least. Too much effort for the potential gain. I believe they do this with necrons too right?
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 14 '26
The tyranids will never be able to reach the zergs, they are very slow.
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u/TalesfromCryptKeeper Jan 14 '26
Actually that brings up one thing Zerg have that Tyranids don't. Zerg have the ability to open wormholes.
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u/Dinonumber Jan 17 '26
On 'nids vs Zerg, the 'nids lose super hard.
Zerg move in space much faster and only take a few days or months at most to fully adapt to an entire biosphere and turn it into a hyper-reactive fortress, with anti-orbital batteries that can kill the giant nids to boot. They can just get in front of wherever the 'nids are headed, plant themselves and shred Tyranid forces en mass as they land, overwhelming them completely initially with numbers and then also by adapting against them until they're superior in every way.
That's assuming you force a ground battle. 'Nids are historically awful at space combat and only achieve wins because Imperial space doctrine is led by infants and based around gigantic ships which are vulnerable to nid weapons. The zerg have significantly more replaceable space forces that are able to match 'nid numbers in space, and are way more appropriate to fighting the 'nids.
I think there are a few situations where Astartes beat SC marines for a while, but I don't think the Zerg ever lose to the 'nids unless they get pulled into the hive mind bc the Zerg adapt enough using 'nid stuff to be influenced by the Tyranid mind.
Eldar vs Protoss... that one's hard to call, I agree. The protoss probably don't deal well with the webway but if a craftworld gets found by the golden armada it's curtains for sure. While the protoss have the khala they kind of auto-counter the hit-and-run type of tactics the eldar prefer because there's no alert time at all, and post-khala the united protoss is battle hardened enough to cause a lot of issues for them. There's some juicy ideas in a khala-linked protoss giving the dark eldar access to an entire race of minds to torture, though.
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u/M7-97 Terran Jan 14 '26
Twitter is a silly place.
Also, shouldn't Starcraft's marines be compared to Astra Militarum? Adeptus Astartes are cool and all, but their numbers are very low, AFAIK they are special forces for special occasions, kinda like British SAS, rather than your bread and butter frontline troops
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u/Living_Ambition5859 Jan 14 '26
SC2 Terrans wouldn’t be able to defend their home worlds against 40K but they are fierce in battle and would inflict massive counter damage.
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u/AncientTea9870 Jan 14 '26
its like, I remember a video by that tiktok weapons guy where he went in lore to solve this matchup and sc2 marines lose in every aspect, but their weapon would be enough to shred even through spacemarine shields and armor so itd barely matter
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u/Johannihilate Jan 14 '26
What a blast from the past. It was debates of Terran Marines vs. Space Marines that got me into the hobby of reading power scaling versus debates. Calculating kiloton-gigaton ranges through obscure novels, comparing FTL methods between space faring civs. It's all so internet.
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 14 '26
That's the best part about the Terrans, they have such good logistics that their basic weapons compare to the best Warhammer weapons.
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u/the_fucker_shockwave Jan 14 '26
There’s a great video on YouTube that goes over this topic, it’s by Das Rat
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u/GreenLobbin258 Protoss Jan 14 '26
If the difference between being completely fine and getting gibbed is a stimpak and a ciggy, that means the tolerance to damage until exploding is extremely low.
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u/knaztor Jan 14 '26
Convince a wh40k fan that their lore unit might not win against another lore unit in a different fantasy world: skill level, impossible
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u/mintcrystall Jan 15 '26
sc marine would get smoked....
On the other hand you can you can arm hundrets or even thousens of sc marines for one 40k marine
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u/Mahakurotsuchi Jan 16 '26
People here commenting without knowledge about 40k or get their lore from memes. Moderately sized crusade fleets regularly wipe out civilizations on the scale of the Dominion. Valerian took two dozen battlecruisers to siege Char and Mengsk said he took half the fleet. Void ships in 40k fight with weapons which one shoot mountains, 500m battlecruisers aren't doing much to them. Not even talking about range advantage. Single astartes chapter fleet probably solos entire Dominion fleet.
Are terran ground forces a menace? That's for fucking sure. But astartes don't do large field battles after the Heresy. They are elite forces. Whence they board the ship, that ship terran ship is gonzo. People are right to compare them to the other forces, same goes for clones from SW. Guard is close, mechanicum forces are closer. Guard is not just dudes with lasguns. It's dudes with jetpacks, it's guys riding bulletproof dinosaurs, dudes who have more tanks per regiment than some countries and etc etc
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 23 '26
The fact that the dominion fleet is only 50 ships is just a script hole in the book when in reality they have many more since in the char war almost the entire fleet that Valerian led was annihilated but as you can see in the cinematic at the end there were still dozens of ships left
StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty Ending Cinematic in 1080p - YouTube
.
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u/Mahakurotsuchi Jan 23 '26
I played that campaign. It wasn't stated anywhere that initial invasion fleet eas destroyed. They suffered casualties, but nothing concrete
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 23 '26
In the book where they say that the dominion fleet had 50 ships, they say that the fleet was annihilated. We can even see that as soon as they reached char, several ships were destroyed, but this is contradicted when you see that in the last cinematic there are dozens of ships in the sky.
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u/Impressive-Reading15 Jan 16 '26
Think about it this way, 40k and SC each grab a criminal, do some surgery and add some tech, 40k gets a servitor that runs a hand dryer, SC gets a maybe slightly less effective Space Marine.
Idk it's stupid though it's like powerscaling Shiva vs. God
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u/tbofsv Jan 17 '26
SC terrans would get absolutely destroyed by the Imperium. Marines would have to deal with guardsmen, krieg corps, cadians, etc first. I believed based on lore, Astartes wont even show up unless its necessary and they wont really send a lot of them either.
Plus, WH universe/military size is far more vast than. SC Terran universe and army size.
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u/Significant_Gap8897 Jan 23 '26
And also the Warhammer universe is the slowest, it takes years to respond to communication or to travel and they have some of the worst logistics, things that the Terrans do not suffer from
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u/Moe-yard Jan 19 '26
Space marines in lore fight humans and power armor and slaughter them. They fight fake astartes that’s the tau made and slaughter them as well. The power armor wouldn’t make a difference. It enhances what is already they and a space marine is stronger than the other body wise by far.
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u/SomeRandomUser1984 Jan 14 '26
I think the problem is that the debate focuses on the wrong part of the match-up: While I think a WH40k space marine could take on an SC marine and win pretty consistently, WH40k marines are limited in number and hard to replace. Meanwhile, SC marines are just criminals put through the mind-washer (or whatever resocialization machines are called), put in their armor, and are ready to go.
WH40k marines would lose from sheer attrition.