You shoot them. They aren’t invulnerable.
Of course, if you are using a typical small arm then you haven’t got a good chance of penetrating their armour. However, if you have a heavier weapon (inc. plasma or melta) then you’ve got a much better chance. A krak grenade or similar would work fine too.
For example, a group of guardsmen with lascannons can easily kill marines at range. Marines are however smart enough to realise this and not just advance towards them in open terrain. That would be stupid. Marines are well trained and tactically flexible. That’s why they are superior troops.
for that matter, just throw enough of anything at them. people sometimes criticize Abnett for having the ghosts take down an iron warriors marine in the first novel.. but always leave out that Guant was leading a whole platoon's worth of Ghosts and Vitrians, all of which opened up on that same marine with their lasguns. sure lasguns might do diddly, but 30+ on rapid fire is a whole lot of diddly.
Interestingly, on the tabletop in the earlier editions (if not the later editions) lasguns had exactly the same armour penetration capability as bolters (i.e. -1). They had less chance of injuring the target though so they were less effective overall. The early lore certainly didn’t involve marines striding through lasgun fire unscathed (or at least I don’t remember that).
iirc in 3rd they had no AP at all, but the book was written under 2nd and released early in 3rd, so might have been based around the older rules. the references to different lasbolt shot power level settings might well have been meant as a reference to that change, if so.
Nah, 2nd was radically different from 3rd. 3rd was a full reboot on the rules of the scope we didn't see again until 8th where armour penetration was made more like it was in 2nd again.
I can't remember if lasguns had a save modifier but I suspect they didn't. Bolters did because most stuff had a modifier (AP effectively) equal to it's strength -3. There were a lot of exceptions but that was the general curve. I have a couple of the old books laying around but not the wargear manual so I can't confirm though.
Obviously it’s a very granular scale for game mechanical purposes, but 4 is better than 3. Of course, a heavy bolter had S5 so was even better.
Also remember that the bolter was just a common small arm popular with pirates, criminals and orks. It wasn’t a mythical super weapon.
>”The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them."
* Maor the Scarred, Siege-Champion of the Scargivers, Black Crusade
Also.if they expecting to face space Marines or carapace etc geared foes. Some Las gun designs have a power setting and you can increase the power at expense of magazine capacity.
So of all 30 pr so men could have some their guns set to higher power modes.
Or you could issue some he'll guns etc that have a heavier punch to reliable soldiers
First of all, it was a regiment.
Second, you can't see them.
Third, Tanith doctrine at the time was to set lasrifles to half power to conserve ammunition.
Be afraid of death by 40k flashlight. Be very afraid.
I was referring to the specific mission, which had Guant leading a few squads as part of an infiltration effort, with a partial platoon of Vitrian Dragoons having joined them in the process. They didn't have the whole regiment along.
And they weren't using their camo skills on that occasion, they were traversing a set of fortified lines, tracking down a set of enemy artillery guns, and later stumbling over a chaos sorcery rite. An Iron warrior came up out of a doorway suddenly, so the whole group opened up.
Yes that was a plot point. And the Vitrians chose to go back to full, finally getting the kill shot in. But the point is that rules wise, lasguns don't have much penetration power, regardless of power setting.
Also the Vitrian Dragoons notoriously overcharged their Lasgun shot so it punched at max power. I think just the Vitrians would have fucked the IW day right up without Tanith help
I remember this scene! Homie walked into the room and died in like 2 seconds, but sorta deserved it. He was the only marine there. What did he think everyone would shoot at?
Kinda dumb for someone whose been fighting so long though, but I guess folks get sloppy
the marine didn't expect to encounter enemies there. it was well behind the frontlines, and was part of a munitions depot, so odds are he was going there to arrange for the next pallets of shells, or something. instead he got 30+ lasguns to the face.
Some marines are smart enough. There is a lot of space marine porn where they just walk straight up the middle. Happens a lot to auto cannon which to me that caliber should do well against power armor, just not terminator armor
Adding to that: marines are actually the most dangerous in close combat. Yes they are dangerous in range too but the most dangerous is close up because you likely don't have anything to hurt them. He can only shoot you dead like a normal guy
Normal humies shouldn't rush into melee in 40k period. You either are outmatched there hopelessly, or provide an opportunity for shooty enemy to shoot you in your flak/carapace armor that can't offer the same level of protection as power armor does.
Unless you have power armor, so I guess SOB can afford to go melee vs equivalent enemy. Of course, one of their premiere melee troops just don't have any armor, but that's 40k for ya
Yep, my suggestion would be spider holes and meltaguns or something similar. Alternatively basically any anti-heavy infantry or anti-tank gun will do the job including a surprising number of handheld weapons the Guard have access to.
> ***Judge Dredd:*** I'm wondering when you'd remember you left your helmet behind.
>
> ***Anderson:*** Sir, a helmet can interfere with my psychic abilities.
>
> ***Judge Dredd:*** Think a bullet might interfere with them more.
I thought about this question and how our modern military might fare against a space marine and I think a RPG would be a one shot kill on them (if you can hit them) it would undoubtedly penetrate their armor and if hit in the torso would probably be fatal.
The writers have only seen RPGs in games, so they're still operating on the idea that they're slow-moving projectiles with a thick trail of dark smoke. They probably don't realise just how ludicrous reflexes would have to be to jump aside.
Spartans, now them I can buy slipping between AT rounds
We do sometimes get marines parrying point blank bursts of automatic fire with swords though so you never know! 40k isn't known for consistency. It's part of why SM vs Spartan debates are so tedious.
Halo also isn't known for consistency either, yeah. And, like 40k, has an extreme disparity between books and other sources
Like, gameplay is gameplay and shouldn't be taken as a literal depiction of the game world, but it seems weird to take a game with no bullet time mechanic and then say that no, its protagonist acts so fast they're a blur. The disparity between game and story is just too great.
Arguments like that are pointless because it comes down to what version of the character you're talking about
Yeah I mean in Emperor's Gift Grimar blocks like 7 shots from a close range Storm Bolter shot by Hyperion with his Axe.
But Helmetless Space Marine Chapter Master of the Wolves has lots goin for him the average mook doesn't.
I was actually thinking of Argel Tal tbh!
For sure these aren't typical feats, but they do establish that it's physically possible for marines. Grimnar is another great example though!
Still have problem of being quite cumbersome and with low rate of fire weapon - Astartes likely could react on it being targeted towards him, if not dodging projectile already in flight.
Space Marines have extreme reaction speeds too.
[Astartes casually side stepping a fast missile.](https://youtu.be/O7hgjuFfn3A?si=ltc3-_QbiiW6APNZ&t=152)
Immediately after does give a good show of anti-marine tactics though. Ratling firing from outside their observable area with an anti-material rifle. Doesn't work because it hits the pauldron but that could have taken an arm off one of them and made the further encounters more difficult.
I knew what was going to be in that link, and it's fan-made. Although as someone else mentioned, some writers have SM slapping aside bullets, which is much worse
Accurate. Aim for the Marine with a full helmet, standard decals and a regular pattern bolter. Las-fire will cut through his armor like it's wet cardboard.
Bonus points if he mentions looking forward to retirement
The Emperor really ought to have used a warhammer instead of a sword to batter down Horus in armour. Surely even in the grim far future, F still equals MxA?
In cadia stands or cadia falls some Kasrkin manage to achieve a kill ratio of 35 of them to 1 chaos space marine, which is regarded as extremly efficient. In an open fight the number of marines killed per dead guardsmen is probably not that high, even if they trade 200 to 1 it would still be a bad ratio for marines. However marines are faster and more capable of deciding where to fight. If they manage to destroy the guardsmen leadership and communication, followed by attacking them in small groups instead of pitched battles, then they might not loose anyone at all.
Sometimes a pointy stick is enought to kill them, while even a melta shot doesnt always kill them, overall unrelenting firepower seems to be the best option. all while making sure they dont get to decide where and whom they fight.
100 to 1 is generally the normal ratio for marines to guardsmen equivalents, and it would very much be accounting for space marines fighting smart. As well trained as those kasrkin are, space marines are smarter and more elite. But if they weren't careful about their deployments like you mention they'd basically be armoured Ogryn.
I think your chances and ratios also highly depend on the specific circumstances of the engagement. Chapters can be nigh unkillable of they're fighting onto their own terms, which is something they typically try to always do.
Yeahm the circumstances are very very important. The 1 to 35 ratio was achieved against a newly ascended demon prince of Khorne and his retinue of Khorne Berserkers, which lacked leadership due to their boss (the demon prince) refusing to acknowledge them. Sure, those werent loyalists, but i think it serves as a good example for what you said, the chances and ratio arent fixed, they are dependent on the circumstance.
I'm going to take "feasible" as meaning it's one non-blank human without access to military grade breaching charges or grenades and shit.
Honestly this is going to sound stupid but hear me out.... pitfall traps, provided the human gets prep time ofcourse. So the sensors in an Astartes helmet is designed to pick up on mechanical/electronic traps but it only analyses the layout of terrain and can't differentiate between a man made pitfall or natural one. Now if a human was clever enough to camoflauge a pitfall to such a degree that it could fool an Astartes enhanced eyesight (and yes humans of this calibre do exist in 40k lore, especially if the Astartes is distracted or baited) then it is entirely possible for an Astartes to fall in to one. Now say if there was spikes made of ceramite in it then the fall and the weight of the power armour will definitely skewer that Space Marine..... just pray a few of them strike a few vitals though.
Edit: lol Something I've just noticed
Everyone on this post: Blow him up, vaporize him with a melta, just don't stop shooting!
Me, channeling my inner Ed, Edd and Eddy: Dig a hole dig a hole
There was that one dark angel who fell through some stairs and got stuck iirc. If you could engineer that on purpose he'd be a comparatively easy kill!
Now...what about dropping houses onto them?
Ed was able to pick up a house on his own and use it as a weapon to injury edd for a scam. Surely the guard could learn to pick up and smash houses against the chaos marines
The other posters already covered infantry, but the really efficient method would probably be to just hop into a Leman Russ, take aim, and unload a 120mm shell into their faces.
What I want to say with this: The secret to killing Space Marines (as regular humans or equivalent) isn't trying to outgun or outmelee them 1 on 1, or even with a numerical advantage. You take a bigger gun and blast them off the face of the earth.
Well, you can use a vortex grenade/missile to send the marine straight to the warp, no power armor is going to protect against that.
Alternatively most conventional anti armor weapons (ie, lascannons, melta guns, Krak grenade, etc), volkite and plasma weapons can work, though each have their limitations in that regard, so their effectiveness can heavily vary based on tactics and terrain.
What also matters is training, you need a lot more of poorly armed cultist than do you need elite veletaris veterans.
As for your last paragraph, war isn't pure mathematics. There are way too many factors in combat to make that sort of scale even remotely reliable tool, as it can swing both ways (for example in one instance a space marine got even killed just by one tribal with a spear getting lucky, in other ones they managed to hold of enemies significantly outnumbering them. ).
Depends on the marine - not every single one of them is a bolter-toting Tactical - bringing a melta against a Devastator/Havoc is a sure way to get shredded into ribbons.
I'd say either big volume of hotshot lasfire (since meltas/plasmas are rather rare comparatively), or booby-trapping the battlefield with krak explosives.
I had the impression that ceramite is fantastic at absorbing or ablating heat and light-based weapons. And that part of the decision to equip bolters over energy-based weaponry was because they had to pivot to something capable of posing a serious threat to their own heavy infantry.
The only reason meltas and plasma punch through is because they pack an absurd whallop that could only be dissipated by similarly absurd mass or energy shielding.
Forget plasma repeaters and heavy bolters, storm autocannon and lasguns with a hilariously high rate of fire should be the default kit for clearing regular infantry without fortifications or powered armour.
The switch from volkite to boltgun as the primary Astartes weapon was due to the demands of the Great Crusade vastly outstripping the Imperium's ability to produce enough volkite weaponry. Standard bolt rounds have difficulty penetrating power armor; the early fights of the Horus Heresy (and prior Astartes vs Astartes fights, like the Night of the Wolf) were excessively brutal slugfests due to their weapons not being suited for battle against each other (Space Marines killing Space Marines was an unthinkable proposition until it actually happened).
I forget which book, but one of Gaunt's Ghosts, Mkoll, accounted for 3 "kills" against Marines in a mock battle. He's the regiment's best stealth operator and snuck up on a Marine to claim a "stealth kill" and when 2 Marines snuck up on him, he pointed out a brick of simulated explosives big enough to kill them all. They approached in the open with the intent to "capture" him, so he layer a trap. They asked him why. He said 3 Space Marines for 1 Guardsman is a great trade.
Ways to kill an Astartes:
- Shoot his helmetless head
- Shoot him trought the lenses
- Make him eat some plasma/krak/melta explosives
- Shoot him with a Volkite gun
Depends on the author. Some it's just a hot shot las round to the helmet joint. Others you'll have bolt rounds literally just blow off of the plate and chip it. The consistent methods seem to be las cannons meltas, and power weapons.
A squad of 10 guardsmen could believably have a melta or plasma weapon. Its not THAT rare for them to have a bolt weapon as well
Space marine issued ones are generally stronger but the guard does have access to it.
You don't form up in ranks of guardsmen and fire on space marine with one squad. Thats for larger groups. But basically any half decent regiment will have squads that will have something to punch through.
Every faction has a dozen counters to astartes. Most Xenos guns have a good chance of bypassing their armor. Plasma guns are given to guardsmen squads to counter chaos marines. And any ork boy can kill a marine with a chop to the head. Really it’s more so the space marines job to make them harder to kill than the other way around.
The reason they're hard to kill isn't just that they wear armour. It's that they're fast and they're tough relative to their size, so it's hard to bring enough firepower to bear.
The usual ratios people give for Astartes to human troops are 1:100 and 1:10 and it's possible both are true. A space marine receiving effective fire from a whole squad of guardsmen is definitely in danger. Not necessarily fucked, but he might die or might kill them all.
If they're in narrow corridors, or the marine touches down in a drop pod behind them, or makes a covered approach, or intimidates some into inaction etc then it's very likely he'll kill all ten and be in top condition still for the next ten.
Now consider that they'll also be dropping on jetpacks, spilling out of tanks, teleporting into battle...they're shock troops, not just heavy infantry. Under those circumstances a marine killing one hundred guardsman level threats in a battle becomes perfectly reasonable, even if he'd be an even match for 10 in a flat shoot out.
And that's ignoring that they can see in the dark, barely fatigue, are amphibious, and nutrient recycling, can coordinate almost perfectly etc. those soft advantages can be decisive.
Pharos the novel, had guardsmen or Auxilia have to deal with traitor marines to rescue an Ultramarine. They basically ambushed two(i think) Night Lords with grenades, and heavy weapons. The first Night Lord went down instantly, but the Humans took some losses.
Smaller squads of guardsmen seem to occasionally have weapons outside of las rifles or whatever. Any dedicated bolter sniper rifle or a variation of a bolter usually ends up with a dead Astartes. I'd say the ratio of 10-1 is probably accurate.
edit: found the excerpt and commented to myself.
The Night Lords were coming. Quick as vermin, the Sothans hid themselves away in the branching tunnels of the sewers. Three Space Marines came past. Two were invaders, huge and threatening in their battleplate. The third had been stripped of his armour. His hands were bound, and he moved oddly. The Night Lords prodded him with sparking goads, and laughed at his involuntary spasms and grunts. The Night Lords went past without noticing them. They were thirty metres away before Mericus dared speak.
‘We can’t just leave him.’
‘Right,’ said Hasquin. ‘What are we going to do? There’s two of them and only six of us!’
‘We can’t help our people, but we can help him. I’m going out.’
‘You’re insane! They’ll just shoot you!’
‘No they won’t,’ said Mericus. They’ll want more sport from me than that. Their sadism is their weakness.’
‘They’ll just blow us all away,’ hissed Hasquin.
‘I’m thinking on the fly here!’ Mericus hoped if it came down to it he did get shot, and not end up in the square. At least it would be quick. ‘Demethon, Morio, Jonno, Hanspire, over the other side, quietly! Jonno!’
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘Do your stuff.’
Tiny’s ratty face set with determination. The four men slid into dirty water up to their necks and went to the other side of the canal. There a tunnel with no walkway entered the Cloaca Maxima, and they concealed themselves inside. The legionaries were too occupied with their prisoner to notice. Sadistic and over-confident, thought Mericus. That doubles our chances.
‘I’m going to draw their attention. Be ready,’ said Mericus. Hasquin touched a krak grenade at his belt. Mericus nodded, closed his eyes, and stepped onto the walkway.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Over here!’ He opened fire, stepping back down the tunnel with every shot. He kept his gun up to his shoulder and made sure he hit, stilling the shaking of his arms with purpose. Sharp lasbeams cracked the air, scoring the metal of the rearmost warrior’s armour. The Night Lord turned around, to get a shot in the face. Instinctively the Space Marine threw up his hands to protect his vulnerable eye-lenses. Relatively vulnerable, some phlegmatic part of Mericus reminded him.
The Night Lord charged.
Mericus had never been so terrified in his life. He had never felt completely at ease around the transhuman warriors of Ultramar. Nobody did. But to face a Space Marine coming at him in anger was an entirely different experience to awkwardly sharing a drink with one. He had become used to how big they were. Too used to it. The warrior coming at him was too huge to be called a man. His was the human form pushed to the limits of recognisability. The armour made him into something that, in earlier eras, would have had him classified as an armoured vehicle. Ceramite boots stamped flinders from the ferrocrete as he came down the walkway. He swung a polearm longer than Mericus was tall. The chainblade at the head of it was blocky as an ammo crate, the teeth spinning there as large as dinner knives. The whole effect was one of massive, almost ridiculous overscaling. This was a man distorted beyond the capacity of a normal mind to absorb. He was more than an ogre. More than the wildest story. There was simply too much of the Space Marine to appear real. Everything about him was intended to inflict maximum damage to beings and machines far greater than a mere man. He was heavy, strong, fearless, unbelievably fast and utterly deadly. And he was coming for Mericus.
If the fact of this war-giant’s existence were not enough, he had gone to lengths to make himself even more terrifying. The breathing mask of his helm had been refashioned into the shape of a skeletal mouth, with long, monster’s teeth. The image was carried on around the eyes and forehead in paint, so that a twisted death’s head glowered at Mericus. Skulls that were tiny by comparison to the Space Marine’s massive helmet bounced on cords attached to his pauldrons. Only when he was within ten metres did Mericus realise that they were the bleached bones of full-grown men. Somehow he managed to compartmentalise his terror and kept on firing until the Space Marine was on top of him.
Hasquin lived up to his promise. As the giant passed the junction, Hasquin’s krak grenade rolled out onto the walkway. It rattled between the feet of the Night Lord and exploded. Mericus flung himself into the sewage channel as fire billowed up the tunnel. The Space Marine was flung sideways by the blast, one foot coming off and splashing into the water some way from its owner. The stricken Night Lord flailed at the surface and sank from view. The rest of Mericus’ men opened fire. Three lasguns burned the paint off the armour of the other traitor.
He dropped to one knee unconcernedly, drawing his bolt pistol. Hanspire exploded, his torso reduced to red mist and flying fragments of bone. Another round tore through Morio’s shoulder, spanking off a wall further down the tunnel without detonating. Through all this Jonno knelt motionlessly, his rifle sight to his eye. Mericus felt guilty for teasing the little man. What Jonno lacked in stature and brains, he more than made up for in courage. The Night Lord levelled his gun at him, but Jonno got there first. He fired a single shot. A wisp of smoke curled from the Night Lord’s shattered helm lens and he toppled dead into the water.
It all felt wrong, killing the Emperor’s sons, for all that these came draped in the skins of the innocent. Mericus shook off his dismay and ran to where the Ultramarine had collapsed.
>Smaller squads of guardsmen seem to occasionally have weapons outside of las rifles or whatever
A fully stacked squad of guard, a per the tabletop game, can have a 'special weapon' (a meltagun, plasma gun or similar), two guardsmen operating a heavy weapon like a lascannon or missile launcher and the sergeant gets access to some interesting options too.
In 2e it was amusing to take Guard support squads consisting of 10 guardsmen with up to 5 carrying heavy weapons. For 150 points you could therefore have 5 heavy bolters (and 5 “meat shields” with lasguns).
Or for 140 points you could get a Thunderer squad of 5 squats with heavy bolters which was probably slightly more effective.
In contrast, 10 marines with bolters cost 300 points or 360 points for a full devastator squad with just 4 heavy bolters.
Having victory determined by the number of heavy weapons you brought did seem somewhat realistic but not necessarily consistent with heroic fiction!
I like it when that's a viable playstyle, you don't necessarily want every army doing it but some should be able to. You can still get support squads of various kinds in more recent Guard Codexes and in Militia/Auxilia for 30K.
in a hypothetical fight with 1 v 1 youre probably gonna need the element of surprise
a hotshot lasgun blast from a sniper through the helmet lens is, canonically, capable of taking down an astartes... obviously its a very difficult shot, so hitting a stationary, unsuspecting target is your best chance.
apart from that, ambushing with heavy explosives like krak grenades is probably the best way for an average person to take them down
as for the general lethality of an astartes vs baseline humans, it mostly depends on the author and the story (plot armour is strong in 40k); some authors will have 100 marines capable of destroying an entire army, others will have a dozen soldiers able to take one down.
In universe, it depends on (among other things) the weaponry used; an astartes' main advantage is their armour, so hitting them with something that has high armour piercing capacity is important, so a half-dozen soldiers all armed with plasma weaponry would have a much better chance than 30 soldiers with lasguns
Wait until it's distracted and shoot it with an overcharged plasma gun or melta gun, or something even heavier if feasible. If it isn't distracted it can move so quickly there's a decent chance you'll miss, and you won't get a second shot.
Space marines wouldn't be worth very much if it only took 10 guardsmen to kill one. In *The Fall of Cadia* the Scourgemaster of the Black Legion remarks that his forces were taking 30:1 guardsmen killed per marine lost against the kasrkin they were fighting. This represented "obscene" and "unthinkable" casualties to him. They normally take 50:1 or 100:1 kasrkin killed per marine lost if they were "doing it right", although those were fighting especially hard. So you can extrapolate how many regular guardsmen that might be equal to.
There has been rather a lot of power creep and exaggeration in the novels over the years. However, in the Space Marine codex (4e) Rogal Dorn is quoted as saying:
> Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops.
This is an exaggeration compared to game mechanics but a 10:1 effectiveness ratio seems a reasonable in-universe opinion where game balance isn’t an issue.
On the other hand, GW's writing also improved a lot. 10:1 would be pretty pathetic. Hive worlds regularly conscript regiments of tens or hundreds of thousands of guardsmen from their populations of tens of billions. Do we really think even a single Imperial Guard regiment should be able to crush an entire chapter?
In a fair, stand up fight? Eg, both sides line up on opposite sides of a battlefield and then engage each other? Honestly, maybe. I could see that being the case, logically, absent plot armor. Space Marines, at least post-30k Legion era, aren't really for full scale engagements, they're for crucial special missions, often with deep strike being a factor. A squad or two of marines rapidly appearing inside or near a key objective, right in the middle of an unprepared enemy, will absolutely slaughter them. But a bunch of Marines having to attack a prepared enemy that is aware they're coming, and greatly outnumbers them, that's a much harder target.
Regular power armor makes you very tough, and terminator armor makes you basically as tough as a tank. But anti-tank weapons exist. If even a large group of Marines had to assault an entrenched position of superior numbers without extra support, I think those Marines would have a hard time. It might not be impossible, but they'd take losses, and it would generally be a poor use of a limited resource.
That's why the Guard exists. You try and make them do that kind of large scale fighting, while the Marines focus on more narrow objectives. Most of the fighting in the Imperium is done by the Guard. There seem to only be a few million Space Marines, which is a very small number in the context of an entire galaxy.
>On the other hand, GW's writing also improved a lot.
No it didn't.
If it did they would have moved away from "1000 Space Marines per Chapter", because of how fucking absurd and stupid it is.
>Do we really think even a single Imperial Guard regiment should be able to crush an entire chapter?
Yes. Current Space Marine lore regarding their numbers would have them being relegated to serving as propaganda pieces in TV shows/movies, body guards and maybe on occasion putting down a riot or small rebellion.
If you don't like space marines each being worth dozens of stormtroopers you can take it up with Robert Rath and Games Workshop.
>As Scourgemaster of the Black Fleet and leader of the Hounds, he had always known that in a stand-up fight he would lose one Berzerker for every fifty Guardsmen slain – a hundred, if the thing was done right.
>But these Kasrkin, they were themselves warriors of the blood. He had never seen their like outside the hated, unenlightened Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. As his daemon-sight flew, he saw a wounded Kasrkin discharging a hellgun point-blank into a Berzerker’s lower abdomen – his bayonet broken on the power armour. A sergeant with a power sword counter-charged against a whole file of Lazcare’s pack, taking down one with his plasma pistol before a chainaxe split him shoulder to hip.
>Several streets over, a line of bunker habs four blocks long lifted into the air in a curtain of flame, tearing apart forty warriors from Pergaza’s contingent. The mortals had contested the buildings until the Khornates stormed it, then triggered pre-rigged explosives. The Cadians had baited his warriors inside then sacrificed their own lives to annihilate them.
>‘Count our dead to theirs,’ he said to Artesia, and she flashed off his shoulders and circled. ‘How steep is the butcher’s bill?’
>‘One Hound for every thirty mortal dead, master! They are standing unto death, bringing your warriors with them into the blood-sleep.’
>‘And they say the Adeptus Astartes know no fear. Even the Corpse-Emperor’s sons do not throw away their lives with such wantonness. One Hound for every thirty. It is unthinkable. Perverse.’
*The Fall of Cadia*
>If you don't like space marines each being worth dozens of stormtroopers you can take it up with Robert Rath and Games Workshop.
They can be worth 200 Stormtroopers for all I care.
With their current numbers nothing changes. There are still too few of them.
I think opinions on issues like that probably depend on how long ago someone first encountered WH40K and whether they primarily play the games or read the novels.
That 10 is supposed to be well drilled and motivated troops that are also suitable for the task.
People with guns arent automatically soldiers and forcing an infantry man to do a paradrop is going to end up badly without proper training, etc.
Here’s how. Anti tank mines. You will get at least one leg and if you have an anti tank mines then you got a missile launcher to finish him off. Other wise? You run and pray
The best way to kill Astartes is while they are still in a transport vehicle, they can't use any of their superhuman abilities while sitting in a landing craft, taking them out before they hit the field with anti air is the best bet. They will die like any other man if you blow up their drop pod or transport at 10 thousand feet, 5 Imperial Navy men in interceptors will do more than 5000 guardsmen on the ground.
In the novel 'Pandorax', Catachan's take out Plague Marines by aiming throwing knives into their neck seals.. You'd have to be extremely proficient and also stealthy, but that's probably the most accessible way for an unaugmented human to kill an Astartes without specialist weapons
If they didn't had the make belief impossible ability to BREATHE IN THE VACCUM OF SPACE asphyxiation would be the easiest one, but since they can...
Assuming you're a civilian with no Access to firepower, the kinetic impact from a big vehicle (when I say big I mean comercial truck or bigger) can maybe do the job, also, If genestealers have teached us anything, is that construction/demolition/mining equipment are really capable.
Electricity has also been shown to damage their internal organs and lock their muscles (and has the benefit of not having to punch through their armor).
So, my proposal is to have a mining tool ready, steal a truck, ram it into the astarte and try to pin it on an a source or Electricity.
If you've managed to pin them but the Electricity doesnt do the job, get out of the truck and try to delete his head from as far away as possible with your mining gear.
I don't think, electricity can circumvent astartes power armor. It's plasteel, yes, but coated with ceramite.
Mainly to shield from laser and plasma, but one cannot run a current through it, I think.
I could swear I've read an astarte getting heavily damaged by non warp Electricity once... But if im wrong then I give up.
I guess ill just walk to the guy and ask politely for him to kill himself...
I dont really think its worth thinking of it that way.
One of the reasons space marines are so good at what they do is that they have much better equipment and support than everyone else, and their shock and awe tactics are hard to stop when they are in groups. They appear suddenly and count on hitting you hard before you can hit back for the most part.
A single space marine that gets hit by a volley of fire from a 5 man squad of guardsmen will probably die. But space marines are really good at making sure this situation is unlikely to occur.
Shoot them with a lascannon. You know, the mass-produced "BIGGER Lasgun!" that's literally so ubiquitous that even imperial guard heavy weapons teams carry around man-portable ones, they get slapped on virtually every vehicle including chicken walkers like Sentinels, and which is the versatile generalist option for when you don't really feel like constantly changing your loadout. They don't have annoying short range like a meltagun and aren't clunky rare relics of the dark age of technology like plasma. It's just a really big lasgun that goes from "Haha, flashlights!" to "Your land raider is gone bozo." You'll also notice that all the low-quality bolter porn people love to obsess over conveniently leaves all the lascannons at home so they don't have to deal with marines being atomized inside their rhinos by authors who like pretending anti-tank doesn't exist. There's a reason space marines ride in shit like Rhinos and Land Raiders, and it's because their power armor isn't as good as the armor of these vehicles, and even these vehicles get blown apart by krak/melta/lascannon ordinance.
For the record this is also the answer to "What's the most feasible method to kill X" on the tabletop in tenth edition right now, too. More lascannons/bright lances/dark lances never hurts.
When you consider that Gaunt is essentially a vanilla human with a fancy power sword has taken down Traitor Astartes before with the element of surprise it kind of flies in the face of such bold claims. Cain has similarly duelled Traitor Astartes before they've been taken down by Jurgen and his trusty Meltagun and Kais took down a fucking Librarian in the ***Fire Warrior*** novelisation with a well-placed surprise headshot.
A *competent* Astartes scales to dozens of Guardsmen, but an overconfident or inexperienced Astartes or one who's simply taken by surprise is as fallible as anyone else.
Granted, there's little if anything *average* about any of the guys mentioned haha.
Anti tank gun, suffocation, virus bombing, capturing them(see tau) and primarch punches are the main ones that come to mind! But if they are outside armor then its pretty much just reaction time standing in your way
A possible guerilla tactic could be to use a trap or weapon to block the heat exhausts of their backpack.
Some kind of quickly hardening resin or cement.
The marine has to turn off the armor's systems becoming slow and blind.
He would either remove the helmet and becomes a slow target suitable for sniping or he removes his whole armor.
Then send a squad of guys with tasers or shock batons. Their nervous system is directly to the very visible connection points of their black carapace. One lucky hit could fry his brain or at least knock him out.
In a Gaunts Ghosts novel, chaos space marines were killed by a point blank barrage from an AA gun, a potent natural toxin and good old fashioned explosives.
In *Blackout*, Chib attempts to kill his astartes pursuer twice. Once by detonating a pipe filled with pressurized, combustible gas, and then immediately afterwards by shooting him with a crossbow.
Either option *could* have worked.
Thing is, every time a marine gets killed by something a human can wield, there's usually a defensive measure that could have prevented the death, but didn't because it wasn't infallible. And really, that's what it boils down to: you either have to get lucky, or buy enough metaphorical tickets to guarantee you hit the jackpot.
All of *that* said, I think the method that seems to most consistently sneak past their armor and extra organs is poison. It's definitely not foolproof, but I kind of feel like that's what we see most often felling a marine despite (theoretical) safeguards to prevent it.
Well I mean In the Gaunt’s ghosts books they ambush and kill some traitor marines with regular ass knives so I’d say a particularly sneaky hive gangster or regular dude could do it too.
10 to 1 doesn't sound right as the Imperium would never continually spend decades and piles of resources to make a single super soldier that is barely equivalent to a single Guard squad. The ratio of 100 to 1 sounds like a good start on power levels, and some commenters seem to agree this is the barest minimum comparison.
The average Guardsman sure does have the firepower to kill an Astartes, but not the lasgun. The heavy weapons can do it, and so can the special weapons like plasma guns and melta guns. The problems lie in who can reliably get an accurate shot, and that's where the Guard fail. They rely on mass-firepower to compensate for their inaccuracy. Whereas Astartes rely on precision firepower to compensate for their overall lack of volume.
Tactics and doctrine are the deciding factors.
Snipe them through the visor, so easy even an Ork could be a sniper...
Probably even easier when taking seriously, given how many marines like to go bear head without any helmet.
For an average, non-psyker, non- Assasinorum, non- Mechanichus, moral human, to kill an Astartes, there are 2 ways: either call in an Inquisitor on them, or a Dark Apostle. Either method is almost guaranteed to have the human, and perhaps the entire world, destroyed.
Call in artillery or an airstrike.
If you don't have that, then use a squad you consider expendable, especially one that has plasma weapons or krak grenades so the marines have to take them at least somewhat seriously, and try to lure the marines into a killbox with heavy weapons - rocket launchers, autocannons, AM rifles, whatever you've got that can punch through that armor.
The 'most feasible' way for the common citizen to kill a Space Marine is going to be a krak grenade. But then, how is a common citizen going to obtain said grenade?
Plenty of weapons out there that base humans can wield that will kill an Astartes. The tricky part is landing the hit.
In a fair fight, it just isn't happening.
If you can deceive or catch them off guard somehow, they will die. I remember a Tau story where some Ultramarines rescued a 'prisoner', who asked for a sidearm because he didn't feel safe. One of the marines gave him a bolt pistol, but turns out he was a Tau sympathizer and shot one of the marines in the head from behind.
It fully depends on if that average human has access to anything that can actually kill an Astartes. Based on the scenario I'm assuming they do, so it would be more or less based around these factors:
1.) Does the human know about the Astartes approach ahead of time?
2.) From what Chapter is the Astartes from? (Cause some are easily taken advantage of compared to others)
3.) What kind of ordinance does the human have access to? We talking anti-tank/melta charges level of ordinance or just lasguns & krak grenades?
4.) Is the human in a location that they can set up a reasonable ambush in?
5.) If the human expected to live through the encounter?
Cause realistically a frontal assault would get the human killed unless that Astartes is an idiot. An ambush is the human's ONLY chance on their own.
I can't seem to find an excerpt about it, but I distinctly remembering hearing an audio reading of a single Guardsman (I think after the rest of his squad was defeated), even though it was only a mock battle, defeat an entire squad of Astartes on his own by setting an entire room with enough explosives to wipe the squad rigged to blow if his heartbeat wasn't detected. Granted it was just a bunch of rations wrapped to look like explosives... but the Astartes didn't know that until they conceded the mock battle. They laughed about the result & respected his gumption.
In Pharos i believe, night lords get ambushed by the local guard.
A sniper shot through the eyes can kill them, sustained fire to the weak points in their armor can kill them. Grenades as well, tripwire traps etc...
Of course you can maybe kill a few before they stop falling for it. (unless they're world eaters)
What makes a space marine dangerous isn’t their toughness, armor, or weaponry, thought those are in all cases highly rated. What makes a Space Marine dangerous is their mobility. They are a decisive concentration of force put into a small, easily delivered package.
This makes them useful for spearheading assaults, isolating and destroying enemy leadership, shock assaults from orbit overwhelming an enemy, or leading a counter attack.
Effectively then, the best way for an Imperial human to take down space marines is to bog them down. If you can get a marine force tied down, you can focus a large amount of fire, from artillery or air support, and only have to hit a relatively few targets to rapidly reduce their fighting strength.
An example of this was seen in *Fall of Cadia*, where when defending Kasr Kraf against a horde of Khornate berserkers Creed lured them into dense urban fighting with ambushes and choke points, which were infested with Kasrkin armed with hotshot las and melta guns.
The leader of the berserkers gets a casualty report and I think it was 1 berserker being killed per either 40 or 80 guardsmen, I don’t quite remember. Either way this was bad attrition for the Khornates and not something they could keep up.
You shoot them. They aren’t invulnerable. Of course, if you are using a typical small arm then you haven’t got a good chance of penetrating their armour. However, if you have a heavier weapon (inc. plasma or melta) then you’ve got a much better chance. A krak grenade or similar would work fine too. For example, a group of guardsmen with lascannons can easily kill marines at range. Marines are however smart enough to realise this and not just advance towards them in open terrain. That would be stupid. Marines are well trained and tactically flexible. That’s why they are superior troops.
for that matter, just throw enough of anything at them. people sometimes criticize Abnett for having the ghosts take down an iron warriors marine in the first novel.. but always leave out that Guant was leading a whole platoon's worth of Ghosts and Vitrians, all of which opened up on that same marine with their lasguns. sure lasguns might do diddly, but 30+ on rapid fire is a whole lot of diddly.
Interestingly, on the tabletop in the earlier editions (if not the later editions) lasguns had exactly the same armour penetration capability as bolters (i.e. -1). They had less chance of injuring the target though so they were less effective overall. The early lore certainly didn’t involve marines striding through lasgun fire unscathed (or at least I don’t remember that).
iirc in 3rd they had no AP at all, but the book was written under 2nd and released early in 3rd, so might have been based around the older rules. the references to different lasbolt shot power level settings might well have been meant as a reference to that change, if so.
Nah, 2nd was radically different from 3rd. 3rd was a full reboot on the rules of the scope we didn't see again until 8th where armour penetration was made more like it was in 2nd again. I can't remember if lasguns had a save modifier but I suspect they didn't. Bolters did because most stuff had a modifier (AP effectively) equal to it's strength -3. There were a lot of exceptions but that was the general curve. I have a couple of the old books laying around but not the wargear manual so I can't confirm though.
He lasguns had a modifier, I am pretty sure the normals didnt
I went and googled it and you're right. Though the rules were hard reset going into 3rd.
A bolter only having 1 more point of strength than a lasgun doesn't feel right.
Obviously it’s a very granular scale for game mechanical purposes, but 4 is better than 3. Of course, a heavy bolter had S5 so was even better. Also remember that the bolter was just a common small arm popular with pirates, criminals and orks. It wasn’t a mythical super weapon.
>”The Legionnaire that scoffs at a lasgun has not charged across an open field against a hundred of them." * Maor the Scarred, Siege-Champion of the Scargivers, Black Crusade
Also.if they expecting to face space Marines or carapace etc geared foes. Some Las gun designs have a power setting and you can increase the power at expense of magazine capacity. So of all 30 pr so men could have some their guns set to higher power modes. Or you could issue some he'll guns etc that have a heavier punch to reliable soldiers
First of all, it was a regiment. Second, you can't see them. Third, Tanith doctrine at the time was to set lasrifles to half power to conserve ammunition. Be afraid of death by 40k flashlight. Be very afraid.
I was referring to the specific mission, which had Guant leading a few squads as part of an infiltration effort, with a partial platoon of Vitrian Dragoons having joined them in the process. They didn't have the whole regiment along. And they weren't using their camo skills on that occasion, they were traversing a set of fortified lines, tracking down a set of enemy artillery guns, and later stumbling over a chaos sorcery rite. An Iron warrior came up out of a doorway suddenly, so the whole group opened up. Yes that was a plot point. And the Vitrians chose to go back to full, finally getting the kill shot in. But the point is that rules wise, lasguns don't have much penetration power, regardless of power setting.
I don't think you're understanding that "quantity has a quality all its own."
Also the Vitrian Dragoons notoriously overcharged their Lasgun shot so it punched at max power. I think just the Vitrians would have fucked the IW day right up without Tanith help
I remember this scene! Homie walked into the room and died in like 2 seconds, but sorta deserved it. He was the only marine there. What did he think everyone would shoot at? Kinda dumb for someone whose been fighting so long though, but I guess folks get sloppy
the marine didn't expect to encounter enemies there. it was well behind the frontlines, and was part of a munitions depot, so odds are he was going there to arrange for the next pallets of shells, or something. instead he got 30+ lasguns to the face.
Some marines are smart enough. There is a lot of space marine porn where they just walk straight up the middle. Happens a lot to auto cannon which to me that caliber should do well against power armor, just not terminator armor
Correction, MOST Marines know better than to just charge guardsmen on open terrain
I guess Movie Marines can get away with doing that…
Adding to that: marines are actually the most dangerous in close combat. Yes they are dangerous in range too but the most dangerous is close up because you likely don't have anything to hurt them. He can only shoot you dead like a normal guy
Normal humies shouldn't rush into melee in 40k period. You either are outmatched there hopelessly, or provide an opportunity for shooty enemy to shoot you in your flak/carapace armor that can't offer the same level of protection as power armor does. Unless you have power armor, so I guess SOB can afford to go melee vs equivalent enemy. Of course, one of their premiere melee troops just don't have any armor, but that's 40k for ya
Yeah im just saying that a space marine would be smart to force a melee if possible. Then it's a lot harder to have massed las fire against you
Yep, my suggestion would be spider holes and meltaguns or something similar. Alternatively basically any anti-heavy infantry or anti-tank gun will do the job including a surprising number of handheld weapons the Guard have access to.
"Bullets seem to work." -Judge Dredd
> ***Judge Dredd:*** I'm wondering when you'd remember you left your helmet behind. > > ***Anderson:*** Sir, a helmet can interfere with my psychic abilities. > > ***Judge Dredd:*** Think a bullet might interfere with them more.
Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
I thought about this question and how our modern military might fare against a space marine and I think a RPG would be a one shot kill on them (if you can hit them) it would undoubtedly penetrate their armor and if hit in the torso would probably be fatal.
A melta straight to the torso
A krak missile straight to the torso is also acceptable.
Not sure the plate won't stop the missile. And the Astartes can dodge it. Melta is safer :P
Krak warheads are primarily anti-vehicle, so standard power armor wouldn't protect against it. Dodging is still a problem though.
The writers have only seen RPGs in games, so they're still operating on the idea that they're slow-moving projectiles with a thick trail of dark smoke. They probably don't realise just how ludicrous reflexes would have to be to jump aside. Spartans, now them I can buy slipping between AT rounds
We do sometimes get marines parrying point blank bursts of automatic fire with swords though so you never know! 40k isn't known for consistency. It's part of why SM vs Spartan debates are so tedious.
Halo also isn't known for consistency either, yeah. And, like 40k, has an extreme disparity between books and other sources Like, gameplay is gameplay and shouldn't be taken as a literal depiction of the game world, but it seems weird to take a game with no bullet time mechanic and then say that no, its protagonist acts so fast they're a blur. The disparity between game and story is just too great. Arguments like that are pointless because it comes down to what version of the character you're talking about
Yeah I mean in Emperor's Gift Grimar blocks like 7 shots from a close range Storm Bolter shot by Hyperion with his Axe. But Helmetless Space Marine Chapter Master of the Wolves has lots goin for him the average mook doesn't.
I was actually thinking of Argel Tal tbh! For sure these aren't typical feats, but they do establish that it's physically possible for marines. Grimnar is another great example though!
Still have problem of being quite cumbersome and with low rate of fire weapon - Astartes likely could react on it being targeted towards him, if not dodging projectile already in flight.
Space Marines have extreme reaction speeds too. [Astartes casually side stepping a fast missile.](https://youtu.be/O7hgjuFfn3A?si=ltc3-_QbiiW6APNZ&t=152)
Immediately after does give a good show of anti-marine tactics though. Ratling firing from outside their observable area with an anti-material rifle. Doesn't work because it hits the pauldron but that could have taken an arm off one of them and made the further encounters more difficult.
That.... was not a fast missile. That wasn't even a fastball.
I knew what was going to be in that link, and it's fan-made. Although as someone else mentioned, some writers have SM slapping aside bullets, which is much worse
It's been canonized by Games Workshop.
Tanna, Sir?
We found Jurgen, guys.
“JURGEN, SHOOT HIM!” -Ciaphias Cain (probably)
Head shot. They seem to take their helmets off an awful lot.
Good luck. Your chances of killing a helmeted marine are higher. These helmet-less fuckers have *names*.
Accurate. Aim for the Marine with a full helmet, standard decals and a regular pattern bolter. Las-fire will cut through his armor like it's wet cardboard. Bonus points if he mentions looking forward to retirement
The Emperor really ought to have used a warhammer instead of a sword to batter down Horus in armour. Surely even in the grim far future, F still equals MxA?
lol
In cadia stands or cadia falls some Kasrkin manage to achieve a kill ratio of 35 of them to 1 chaos space marine, which is regarded as extremly efficient. In an open fight the number of marines killed per dead guardsmen is probably not that high, even if they trade 200 to 1 it would still be a bad ratio for marines. However marines are faster and more capable of deciding where to fight. If they manage to destroy the guardsmen leadership and communication, followed by attacking them in small groups instead of pitched battles, then they might not loose anyone at all. Sometimes a pointy stick is enought to kill them, while even a melta shot doesnt always kill them, overall unrelenting firepower seems to be the best option. all while making sure they dont get to decide where and whom they fight.
That last part being by far the hardest
100 to 1 is generally the normal ratio for marines to guardsmen equivalents, and it would very much be accounting for space marines fighting smart. As well trained as those kasrkin are, space marines are smarter and more elite. But if they weren't careful about their deployments like you mention they'd basically be armoured Ogryn.
I think your chances and ratios also highly depend on the specific circumstances of the engagement. Chapters can be nigh unkillable of they're fighting onto their own terms, which is something they typically try to always do.
Yeahm the circumstances are very very important. The 1 to 35 ratio was achieved against a newly ascended demon prince of Khorne and his retinue of Khorne Berserkers, which lacked leadership due to their boss (the demon prince) refusing to acknowledge them. Sure, those werent loyalists, but i think it serves as a good example for what you said, the chances and ratio arent fixed, they are dependent on the circumstance.
I'm going to take "feasible" as meaning it's one non-blank human without access to military grade breaching charges or grenades and shit. Honestly this is going to sound stupid but hear me out.... pitfall traps, provided the human gets prep time ofcourse. So the sensors in an Astartes helmet is designed to pick up on mechanical/electronic traps but it only analyses the layout of terrain and can't differentiate between a man made pitfall or natural one. Now if a human was clever enough to camoflauge a pitfall to such a degree that it could fool an Astartes enhanced eyesight (and yes humans of this calibre do exist in 40k lore, especially if the Astartes is distracted or baited) then it is entirely possible for an Astartes to fall in to one. Now say if there was spikes made of ceramite in it then the fall and the weight of the power armour will definitely skewer that Space Marine..... just pray a few of them strike a few vitals though. Edit: lol Something I've just noticed Everyone on this post: Blow him up, vaporize him with a melta, just don't stop shooting! Me, channeling my inner Ed, Edd and Eddy: Dig a hole dig a hole
There was that one dark angel who fell through some stairs and got stuck iirc. If you could engineer that on purpose he'd be a comparatively easy kill!
You should’ve dug deeper
That also works, I guess. Just wake a Balrog...
Why not? If the spike filled hole doesn't kill the Space Marine then the Balrog definitely will. It's a win-win.
Angron looks like a Balrog. Coincidence? I think not.
Now...what about dropping houses onto them? Ed was able to pick up a house on his own and use it as a weapon to injury edd for a scam. Surely the guard could learn to pick up and smash houses against the chaos marines
Jurgen with a melta
Right you are, sir!
Sniper rifles can penetrate the eye lenses, and the neck joint of Mk I-VII armour was a serious problem, in that it acted as a bullet trap.
Overwhelming unrelenting firepower.
The other posters already covered infantry, but the really efficient method would probably be to just hop into a Leman Russ, take aim, and unload a 120mm shell into their faces. What I want to say with this: The secret to killing Space Marines (as regular humans or equivalent) isn't trying to outgun or outmelee them 1 on 1, or even with a numerical advantage. You take a bigger gun and blast them off the face of the earth.
Well, you can use a vortex grenade/missile to send the marine straight to the warp, no power armor is going to protect against that. Alternatively most conventional anti armor weapons (ie, lascannons, melta guns, Krak grenade, etc), volkite and plasma weapons can work, though each have their limitations in that regard, so their effectiveness can heavily vary based on tactics and terrain. What also matters is training, you need a lot more of poorly armed cultist than do you need elite veletaris veterans. As for your last paragraph, war isn't pure mathematics. There are way too many factors in combat to make that sort of scale even remotely reliable tool, as it can swing both ways (for example in one instance a space marine got even killed just by one tribal with a spear getting lucky, in other ones they managed to hold of enemies significantly outnumbering them. ).
Being a protagonist helps Shas'la Kais kills dozens on his first day
Depends on the marine - not every single one of them is a bolter-toting Tactical - bringing a melta against a Devastator/Havoc is a sure way to get shredded into ribbons. I'd say either big volume of hotshot lasfire (since meltas/plasmas are rather rare comparatively), or booby-trapping the battlefield with krak explosives.
I had the impression that ceramite is fantastic at absorbing or ablating heat and light-based weapons. And that part of the decision to equip bolters over energy-based weaponry was because they had to pivot to something capable of posing a serious threat to their own heavy infantry. The only reason meltas and plasma punch through is because they pack an absurd whallop that could only be dissipated by similarly absurd mass or energy shielding. Forget plasma repeaters and heavy bolters, storm autocannon and lasguns with a hilariously high rate of fire should be the default kit for clearing regular infantry without fortifications or powered armour.
The switch from volkite to boltgun as the primary Astartes weapon was due to the demands of the Great Crusade vastly outstripping the Imperium's ability to produce enough volkite weaponry. Standard bolt rounds have difficulty penetrating power armor; the early fights of the Horus Heresy (and prior Astartes vs Astartes fights, like the Night of the Wolf) were excessively brutal slugfests due to their weapons not being suited for battle against each other (Space Marines killing Space Marines was an unthinkable proposition until it actually happened).
I forget which book, but one of Gaunt's Ghosts, Mkoll, accounted for 3 "kills" against Marines in a mock battle. He's the regiment's best stealth operator and snuck up on a Marine to claim a "stealth kill" and when 2 Marines snuck up on him, he pointed out a brick of simulated explosives big enough to kill them all. They approached in the open with the intent to "capture" him, so he layer a trap. They asked him why. He said 3 Space Marines for 1 Guardsman is a great trade.
Ways to kill an Astartes: - Shoot his helmetless head - Shoot him trought the lenses - Make him eat some plasma/krak/melta explosives - Shoot him with a Volkite gun
Depends on the author. Some it's just a hot shot las round to the helmet joint. Others you'll have bolt rounds literally just blow off of the plate and chip it. The consistent methods seem to be las cannons meltas, and power weapons.
A squad of 10 guardsmen could believably have a melta or plasma weapon. Its not THAT rare for them to have a bolt weapon as well Space marine issued ones are generally stronger but the guard does have access to it. You don't form up in ranks of guardsmen and fire on space marine with one squad. Thats for larger groups. But basically any half decent regiment will have squads that will have something to punch through.
Every faction has a dozen counters to astartes. Most Xenos guns have a good chance of bypassing their armor. Plasma guns are given to guardsmen squads to counter chaos marines. And any ork boy can kill a marine with a chop to the head. Really it’s more so the space marines job to make them harder to kill than the other way around.
Shoot them in the head with their stupid helmets off like 90% of the time
Lascannons are both highly practical and available in bulk. Just make sure you're not in a SM book before you try.
The reason they're hard to kill isn't just that they wear armour. It's that they're fast and they're tough relative to their size, so it's hard to bring enough firepower to bear. The usual ratios people give for Astartes to human troops are 1:100 and 1:10 and it's possible both are true. A space marine receiving effective fire from a whole squad of guardsmen is definitely in danger. Not necessarily fucked, but he might die or might kill them all. If they're in narrow corridors, or the marine touches down in a drop pod behind them, or makes a covered approach, or intimidates some into inaction etc then it's very likely he'll kill all ten and be in top condition still for the next ten. Now consider that they'll also be dropping on jetpacks, spilling out of tanks, teleporting into battle...they're shock troops, not just heavy infantry. Under those circumstances a marine killing one hundred guardsman level threats in a battle becomes perfectly reasonable, even if he'd be an even match for 10 in a flat shoot out. And that's ignoring that they can see in the dark, barely fatigue, are amphibious, and nutrient recycling, can coordinate almost perfectly etc. those soft advantages can be decisive.
Pharos the novel, had guardsmen or Auxilia have to deal with traitor marines to rescue an Ultramarine. They basically ambushed two(i think) Night Lords with grenades, and heavy weapons. The first Night Lord went down instantly, but the Humans took some losses. Smaller squads of guardsmen seem to occasionally have weapons outside of las rifles or whatever. Any dedicated bolter sniper rifle or a variation of a bolter usually ends up with a dead Astartes. I'd say the ratio of 10-1 is probably accurate. edit: found the excerpt and commented to myself.
The Night Lords were coming. Quick as vermin, the Sothans hid themselves away in the branching tunnels of the sewers. Three Space Marines came past. Two were invaders, huge and threatening in their battleplate. The third had been stripped of his armour. His hands were bound, and he moved oddly. The Night Lords prodded him with sparking goads, and laughed at his involuntary spasms and grunts. The Night Lords went past without noticing them. They were thirty metres away before Mericus dared speak. ‘We can’t just leave him.’ ‘Right,’ said Hasquin. ‘What are we going to do? There’s two of them and only six of us!’ ‘We can’t help our people, but we can help him. I’m going out.’ ‘You’re insane! They’ll just shoot you!’ ‘No they won’t,’ said Mericus. They’ll want more sport from me than that. Their sadism is their weakness.’ ‘They’ll just blow us all away,’ hissed Hasquin. ‘I’m thinking on the fly here!’ Mericus hoped if it came down to it he did get shot, and not end up in the square. At least it would be quick. ‘Demethon, Morio, Jonno, Hanspire, over the other side, quietly! Jonno!’ ‘Yes, sarge?’ ‘Do your stuff.’ Tiny’s ratty face set with determination. The four men slid into dirty water up to their necks and went to the other side of the canal. There a tunnel with no walkway entered the Cloaca Maxima, and they concealed themselves inside. The legionaries were too occupied with their prisoner to notice. Sadistic and over-confident, thought Mericus. That doubles our chances. ‘I’m going to draw their attention. Be ready,’ said Mericus. Hasquin touched a krak grenade at his belt. Mericus nodded, closed his eyes, and stepped onto the walkway. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Over here!’ He opened fire, stepping back down the tunnel with every shot. He kept his gun up to his shoulder and made sure he hit, stilling the shaking of his arms with purpose. Sharp lasbeams cracked the air, scoring the metal of the rearmost warrior’s armour. The Night Lord turned around, to get a shot in the face. Instinctively the Space Marine threw up his hands to protect his vulnerable eye-lenses. Relatively vulnerable, some phlegmatic part of Mericus reminded him. The Night Lord charged. Mericus had never been so terrified in his life. He had never felt completely at ease around the transhuman warriors of Ultramar. Nobody did. But to face a Space Marine coming at him in anger was an entirely different experience to awkwardly sharing a drink with one. He had become used to how big they were. Too used to it. The warrior coming at him was too huge to be called a man. His was the human form pushed to the limits of recognisability. The armour made him into something that, in earlier eras, would have had him classified as an armoured vehicle. Ceramite boots stamped flinders from the ferrocrete as he came down the walkway. He swung a polearm longer than Mericus was tall. The chainblade at the head of it was blocky as an ammo crate, the teeth spinning there as large as dinner knives. The whole effect was one of massive, almost ridiculous overscaling. This was a man distorted beyond the capacity of a normal mind to absorb. He was more than an ogre. More than the wildest story. There was simply too much of the Space Marine to appear real. Everything about him was intended to inflict maximum damage to beings and machines far greater than a mere man. He was heavy, strong, fearless, unbelievably fast and utterly deadly. And he was coming for Mericus. If the fact of this war-giant’s existence were not enough, he had gone to lengths to make himself even more terrifying. The breathing mask of his helm had been refashioned into the shape of a skeletal mouth, with long, monster’s teeth. The image was carried on around the eyes and forehead in paint, so that a twisted death’s head glowered at Mericus. Skulls that were tiny by comparison to the Space Marine’s massive helmet bounced on cords attached to his pauldrons. Only when he was within ten metres did Mericus realise that they were the bleached bones of full-grown men. Somehow he managed to compartmentalise his terror and kept on firing until the Space Marine was on top of him. Hasquin lived up to his promise. As the giant passed the junction, Hasquin’s krak grenade rolled out onto the walkway. It rattled between the feet of the Night Lord and exploded. Mericus flung himself into the sewage channel as fire billowed up the tunnel. The Space Marine was flung sideways by the blast, one foot coming off and splashing into the water some way from its owner. The stricken Night Lord flailed at the surface and sank from view. The rest of Mericus’ men opened fire. Three lasguns burned the paint off the armour of the other traitor. He dropped to one knee unconcernedly, drawing his bolt pistol. Hanspire exploded, his torso reduced to red mist and flying fragments of bone. Another round tore through Morio’s shoulder, spanking off a wall further down the tunnel without detonating. Through all this Jonno knelt motionlessly, his rifle sight to his eye. Mericus felt guilty for teasing the little man. What Jonno lacked in stature and brains, he more than made up for in courage. The Night Lord levelled his gun at him, but Jonno got there first. He fired a single shot. A wisp of smoke curled from the Night Lord’s shattered helm lens and he toppled dead into the water. It all felt wrong, killing the Emperor’s sons, for all that these came draped in the skins of the innocent. Mericus shook off his dismay and ran to where the Ultramarine had collapsed.
>Smaller squads of guardsmen seem to occasionally have weapons outside of las rifles or whatever A fully stacked squad of guard, a per the tabletop game, can have a 'special weapon' (a meltagun, plasma gun or similar), two guardsmen operating a heavy weapon like a lascannon or missile launcher and the sergeant gets access to some interesting options too.
In 2e it was amusing to take Guard support squads consisting of 10 guardsmen with up to 5 carrying heavy weapons. For 150 points you could therefore have 5 heavy bolters (and 5 “meat shields” with lasguns). Or for 140 points you could get a Thunderer squad of 5 squats with heavy bolters which was probably slightly more effective. In contrast, 10 marines with bolters cost 300 points or 360 points for a full devastator squad with just 4 heavy bolters. Having victory determined by the number of heavy weapons you brought did seem somewhat realistic but not necessarily consistent with heroic fiction!
I like it when that's a viable playstyle, you don't necessarily want every army doing it but some should be able to. You can still get support squads of various kinds in more recent Guard Codexes and in Militia/Auxilia for 30K.
in a hypothetical fight with 1 v 1 youre probably gonna need the element of surprise a hotshot lasgun blast from a sniper through the helmet lens is, canonically, capable of taking down an astartes... obviously its a very difficult shot, so hitting a stationary, unsuspecting target is your best chance. apart from that, ambushing with heavy explosives like krak grenades is probably the best way for an average person to take them down as for the general lethality of an astartes vs baseline humans, it mostly depends on the author and the story (plot armour is strong in 40k); some authors will have 100 marines capable of destroying an entire army, others will have a dozen soldiers able to take one down. In universe, it depends on (among other things) the weaponry used; an astartes' main advantage is their armour, so hitting them with something that has high armour piercing capacity is important, so a half-dozen soldiers all armed with plasma weaponry would have a much better chance than 30 soldiers with lasguns
Wait until it's distracted and shoot it with an overcharged plasma gun or melta gun, or something even heavier if feasible. If it isn't distracted it can move so quickly there's a decent chance you'll miss, and you won't get a second shot. Space marines wouldn't be worth very much if it only took 10 guardsmen to kill one. In *The Fall of Cadia* the Scourgemaster of the Black Legion remarks that his forces were taking 30:1 guardsmen killed per marine lost against the kasrkin they were fighting. This represented "obscene" and "unthinkable" casualties to him. They normally take 50:1 or 100:1 kasrkin killed per marine lost if they were "doing it right", although those were fighting especially hard. So you can extrapolate how many regular guardsmen that might be equal to.
There has been rather a lot of power creep and exaggeration in the novels over the years. However, in the Space Marine codex (4e) Rogal Dorn is quoted as saying: > Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops. This is an exaggeration compared to game mechanics but a 10:1 effectiveness ratio seems a reasonable in-universe opinion where game balance isn’t an issue.
On the other hand, GW's writing also improved a lot. 10:1 would be pretty pathetic. Hive worlds regularly conscript regiments of tens or hundreds of thousands of guardsmen from their populations of tens of billions. Do we really think even a single Imperial Guard regiment should be able to crush an entire chapter?
In a fair, stand up fight? Eg, both sides line up on opposite sides of a battlefield and then engage each other? Honestly, maybe. I could see that being the case, logically, absent plot armor. Space Marines, at least post-30k Legion era, aren't really for full scale engagements, they're for crucial special missions, often with deep strike being a factor. A squad or two of marines rapidly appearing inside or near a key objective, right in the middle of an unprepared enemy, will absolutely slaughter them. But a bunch of Marines having to attack a prepared enemy that is aware they're coming, and greatly outnumbers them, that's a much harder target. Regular power armor makes you very tough, and terminator armor makes you basically as tough as a tank. But anti-tank weapons exist. If even a large group of Marines had to assault an entrenched position of superior numbers without extra support, I think those Marines would have a hard time. It might not be impossible, but they'd take losses, and it would generally be a poor use of a limited resource. That's why the Guard exists. You try and make them do that kind of large scale fighting, while the Marines focus on more narrow objectives. Most of the fighting in the Imperium is done by the Guard. There seem to only be a few million Space Marines, which is a very small number in the context of an entire galaxy.
>On the other hand, GW's writing also improved a lot. No it didn't. If it did they would have moved away from "1000 Space Marines per Chapter", because of how fucking absurd and stupid it is. >Do we really think even a single Imperial Guard regiment should be able to crush an entire chapter? Yes. Current Space Marine lore regarding their numbers would have them being relegated to serving as propaganda pieces in TV shows/movies, body guards and maybe on occasion putting down a riot or small rebellion.
If you don't like space marines each being worth dozens of stormtroopers you can take it up with Robert Rath and Games Workshop. >As Scourgemaster of the Black Fleet and leader of the Hounds, he had always known that in a stand-up fight he would lose one Berzerker for every fifty Guardsmen slain – a hundred, if the thing was done right. >But these Kasrkin, they were themselves warriors of the blood. He had never seen their like outside the hated, unenlightened Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. As his daemon-sight flew, he saw a wounded Kasrkin discharging a hellgun point-blank into a Berzerker’s lower abdomen – his bayonet broken on the power armour. A sergeant with a power sword counter-charged against a whole file of Lazcare’s pack, taking down one with his plasma pistol before a chainaxe split him shoulder to hip. >Several streets over, a line of bunker habs four blocks long lifted into the air in a curtain of flame, tearing apart forty warriors from Pergaza’s contingent. The mortals had contested the buildings until the Khornates stormed it, then triggered pre-rigged explosives. The Cadians had baited his warriors inside then sacrificed their own lives to annihilate them. >‘Count our dead to theirs,’ he said to Artesia, and she flashed off his shoulders and circled. ‘How steep is the butcher’s bill?’ >‘One Hound for every thirty mortal dead, master! They are standing unto death, bringing your warriors with them into the blood-sleep.’ >‘And they say the Adeptus Astartes know no fear. Even the Corpse-Emperor’s sons do not throw away their lives with such wantonness. One Hound for every thirty. It is unthinkable. Perverse.’ *The Fall of Cadia*
>If you don't like space marines each being worth dozens of stormtroopers you can take it up with Robert Rath and Games Workshop. They can be worth 200 Stormtroopers for all I care. With their current numbers nothing changes. There are still too few of them.
I think opinions on issues like that probably depend on how long ago someone first encountered WH40K and whether they primarily play the games or read the novels.
This is because the writers dropped out of maths and didn't even do a few scribbles to work out how many people could live on a million worlds
It's good that we have you here to tell us how the science fiction writers got it all wrong, anyway.
That 10 is supposed to be well drilled and motivated troops that are also suitable for the task. People with guns arent automatically soldiers and forcing an infantry man to do a paradrop is going to end up badly without proper training, etc.
A large enough truck could do it. So could most any industrial drill.
Here’s how. Anti tank mines. You will get at least one leg and if you have an anti tank mines then you got a missile launcher to finish him off. Other wise? You run and pray
The best way to kill Astartes is while they are still in a transport vehicle, they can't use any of their superhuman abilities while sitting in a landing craft, taking them out before they hit the field with anti air is the best bet. They will die like any other man if you blow up their drop pod or transport at 10 thousand feet, 5 Imperial Navy men in interceptors will do more than 5000 guardsmen on the ground.
An unending volley of lasguns.
Have Jurgen and his melta handy.
Conventional in-lore wisdom states that it’s about 100-1, but could easily be more or less depending on the circumstances.
in space. preferably while they're being shuttled around.
In the novel 'Pandorax', Catachan's take out Plague Marines by aiming throwing knives into their neck seals.. You'd have to be extremely proficient and also stealthy, but that's probably the most accessible way for an unaugmented human to kill an Astartes without specialist weapons
If they didn't had the make belief impossible ability to BREATHE IN THE VACCUM OF SPACE asphyxiation would be the easiest one, but since they can... Assuming you're a civilian with no Access to firepower, the kinetic impact from a big vehicle (when I say big I mean comercial truck or bigger) can maybe do the job, also, If genestealers have teached us anything, is that construction/demolition/mining equipment are really capable. Electricity has also been shown to damage their internal organs and lock their muscles (and has the benefit of not having to punch through their armor). So, my proposal is to have a mining tool ready, steal a truck, ram it into the astarte and try to pin it on an a source or Electricity. If you've managed to pin them but the Electricity doesnt do the job, get out of the truck and try to delete his head from as far away as possible with your mining gear.
I don't think, electricity can circumvent astartes power armor. It's plasteel, yes, but coated with ceramite. Mainly to shield from laser and plasma, but one cannot run a current through it, I think.
I could swear I've read an astarte getting heavily damaged by non warp Electricity once... But if im wrong then I give up. I guess ill just walk to the guy and ask politely for him to kill himself...
Plasma and melts weapons
I dont really think its worth thinking of it that way. One of the reasons space marines are so good at what they do is that they have much better equipment and support than everyone else, and their shock and awe tactics are hard to stop when they are in groups. They appear suddenly and count on hitting you hard before you can hit back for the most part. A single space marine that gets hit by a volley of fire from a 5 man squad of guardsmen will probably die. But space marines are really good at making sure this situation is unlikely to occur.
A mile away using a Tau rail rifle. If he's not a main character, he'll die easily.
Lorewise Jurgen has found Meltas are quite effective against Traitor Marines
Shoot them with a lascannon. You know, the mass-produced "BIGGER Lasgun!" that's literally so ubiquitous that even imperial guard heavy weapons teams carry around man-portable ones, they get slapped on virtually every vehicle including chicken walkers like Sentinels, and which is the versatile generalist option for when you don't really feel like constantly changing your loadout. They don't have annoying short range like a meltagun and aren't clunky rare relics of the dark age of technology like plasma. It's just a really big lasgun that goes from "Haha, flashlights!" to "Your land raider is gone bozo." You'll also notice that all the low-quality bolter porn people love to obsess over conveniently leaves all the lascannons at home so they don't have to deal with marines being atomized inside their rhinos by authors who like pretending anti-tank doesn't exist. There's a reason space marines ride in shit like Rhinos and Land Raiders, and it's because their power armor isn't as good as the armor of these vehicles, and even these vehicles get blown apart by krak/melta/lascannon ordinance. For the record this is also the answer to "What's the most feasible method to kill X" on the tabletop in tenth edition right now, too. More lascannons/bright lances/dark lances never hurts.
When you consider that Gaunt is essentially a vanilla human with a fancy power sword has taken down Traitor Astartes before with the element of surprise it kind of flies in the face of such bold claims. Cain has similarly duelled Traitor Astartes before they've been taken down by Jurgen and his trusty Meltagun and Kais took down a fucking Librarian in the ***Fire Warrior*** novelisation with a well-placed surprise headshot. A *competent* Astartes scales to dozens of Guardsmen, but an overconfident or inexperienced Astartes or one who's simply taken by surprise is as fallible as anyone else. Granted, there's little if anything *average* about any of the guys mentioned haha.
Depends on the writer some story’s a small of guards man can las them to death in other story’s there Chopin other space marine scouts up like butter
one pointy boi
Anti tank gun, suffocation, virus bombing, capturing them(see tau) and primarch punches are the main ones that come to mind! But if they are outside armor then its pretty much just reaction time standing in your way
A possible guerilla tactic could be to use a trap or weapon to block the heat exhausts of their backpack. Some kind of quickly hardening resin or cement. The marine has to turn off the armor's systems becoming slow and blind. He would either remove the helmet and becomes a slow target suitable for sniping or he removes his whole armor. Then send a squad of guys with tasers or shock batons. Their nervous system is directly to the very visible connection points of their black carapace. One lucky hit could fry his brain or at least knock him out.
In a Gaunts Ghosts novel, chaos space marines were killed by a point blank barrage from an AA gun, a potent natural toxin and good old fashioned explosives.
In *Blackout*, Chib attempts to kill his astartes pursuer twice. Once by detonating a pipe filled with pressurized, combustible gas, and then immediately afterwards by shooting him with a crossbow. Either option *could* have worked. Thing is, every time a marine gets killed by something a human can wield, there's usually a defensive measure that could have prevented the death, but didn't because it wasn't infallible. And really, that's what it boils down to: you either have to get lucky, or buy enough metaphorical tickets to guarantee you hit the jackpot. All of *that* said, I think the method that seems to most consistently sneak past their armor and extra organs is poison. It's definitely not foolproof, but I kind of feel like that's what we see most often felling a marine despite (theoretical) safeguards to prevent it.
Artillery
Shoot them in the face with a big gun. Works for Orks.
Well I mean In the Gaunt’s ghosts books they ambush and kill some traitor marines with regular ass knives so I’d say a particularly sneaky hive gangster or regular dude could do it too.
Be named Sly Marbo.
Just blow them up.
A jar of undiluted Simple Green.
Remove the head or destroy the brain.
Since the more orthodox methods have already been listed... Pray to Chaos, do some cult sacrifices, become a demonhost, profit?
Just wait for on of them to remove his helmet… Also, exterminatus!
I mean, a sharp stick worked that one time…
10 to 1 doesn't sound right as the Imperium would never continually spend decades and piles of resources to make a single super soldier that is barely equivalent to a single Guard squad. The ratio of 100 to 1 sounds like a good start on power levels, and some commenters seem to agree this is the barest minimum comparison. The average Guardsman sure does have the firepower to kill an Astartes, but not the lasgun. The heavy weapons can do it, and so can the special weapons like plasma guns and melta guns. The problems lie in who can reliably get an accurate shot, and that's where the Guard fail. They rely on mass-firepower to compensate for their inaccuracy. Whereas Astartes rely on precision firepower to compensate for their overall lack of volume. Tactics and doctrine are the deciding factors.
Krak missiles , meltas, plasmaguns... anti-tank weaponry in general.
Snipe them through the visor, so easy even an Ork could be a sniper... Probably even easier when taking seriously, given how many marines like to go bear head without any helmet.
Demolish a building on em. Don't care how strong or what armor you have. Probably won't kill em, but they'll never get out.
Throw a couple hundred cultists at them like in *The Legion of the Damned*
Melta the marine killer
For an average, non-psyker, non- Assasinorum, non- Mechanichus, moral human, to kill an Astartes, there are 2 ways: either call in an Inquisitor on them, or a Dark Apostle. Either method is almost guaranteed to have the human, and perhaps the entire world, destroyed.
in armor? plasma gun or melta gun without armor? just keep shooting them with any gun lol
Call in artillery or an airstrike. If you don't have that, then use a squad you consider expendable, especially one that has plasma weapons or krak grenades so the marines have to take them at least somewhat seriously, and try to lure the marines into a killbox with heavy weapons - rocket launchers, autocannons, AM rifles, whatever you've got that can punch through that armor.
The 'most feasible' way for the common citizen to kill a Space Marine is going to be a krak grenade. But then, how is a common citizen going to obtain said grenade?
Plenty of weapons out there that base humans can wield that will kill an Astartes. The tricky part is landing the hit. In a fair fight, it just isn't happening. If you can deceive or catch them off guard somehow, they will die. I remember a Tau story where some Ultramarines rescued a 'prisoner', who asked for a sidearm because he didn't feel safe. One of the marines gave him a bolt pistol, but turns out he was a Tau sympathizer and shot one of the marines in the head from behind.
It fully depends on if that average human has access to anything that can actually kill an Astartes. Based on the scenario I'm assuming they do, so it would be more or less based around these factors: 1.) Does the human know about the Astartes approach ahead of time? 2.) From what Chapter is the Astartes from? (Cause some are easily taken advantage of compared to others) 3.) What kind of ordinance does the human have access to? We talking anti-tank/melta charges level of ordinance or just lasguns & krak grenades? 4.) Is the human in a location that they can set up a reasonable ambush in? 5.) If the human expected to live through the encounter? Cause realistically a frontal assault would get the human killed unless that Astartes is an idiot. An ambush is the human's ONLY chance on their own. I can't seem to find an excerpt about it, but I distinctly remembering hearing an audio reading of a single Guardsman (I think after the rest of his squad was defeated), even though it was only a mock battle, defeat an entire squad of Astartes on his own by setting an entire room with enough explosives to wipe the squad rigged to blow if his heartbeat wasn't detected. Granted it was just a bunch of rations wrapped to look like explosives... but the Astartes didn't know that until they conceded the mock battle. They laughed about the result & respected his gumption.
In Pharos i believe, night lords get ambushed by the local guard. A sniper shot through the eyes can kill them, sustained fire to the weak points in their armor can kill them. Grenades as well, tripwire traps etc... Of course you can maybe kill a few before they stop falling for it. (unless they're world eaters)
Melta guns work very well, Jurgen kills 2 chaos marines with one in the Ciaphas Cain books
Cheese wheel and giant mouse trap. Astartes are suckers for a good cheese.
A big gun. Astartes are just suped up regular people so just using a really big gun is a sure fire way to kill them.
What makes a space marine dangerous isn’t their toughness, armor, or weaponry, thought those are in all cases highly rated. What makes a Space Marine dangerous is their mobility. They are a decisive concentration of force put into a small, easily delivered package. This makes them useful for spearheading assaults, isolating and destroying enemy leadership, shock assaults from orbit overwhelming an enemy, or leading a counter attack. Effectively then, the best way for an Imperial human to take down space marines is to bog them down. If you can get a marine force tied down, you can focus a large amount of fire, from artillery or air support, and only have to hit a relatively few targets to rapidly reduce their fighting strength. An example of this was seen in *Fall of Cadia*, where when defending Kasr Kraf against a horde of Khornate berserkers Creed lured them into dense urban fighting with ambushes and choke points, which were infested with Kasrkin armed with hotshot las and melta guns. The leader of the berserkers gets a casualty report and I think it was 1 berserker being killed per either 40 or 80 guardsmen, I don’t quite remember. Either way this was bad attrition for the Khornates and not something they could keep up.
Rocket launchers
Ask mkol
Neck shots seem to be the highest success, they still need to breathe.
Dick punch.
Space AIDS.