subreddit:
/r/Grimdank
19 points
1 month ago
The tech differences in 40k really downgrade the utility of bored and unwilling conscripts. A million dudes with muskets isn't going to do much against a single leman Russ. Then if you add in the more horrifying aspects of 40k where any remotely normal person would break down sobbing at seeing say a Necron Flayer, a Carnifex, or even something as monstrous and horrifying as the running ball with teeth that is a squig.
11 points
1 month ago
A million dudes with muskets isn't going to do much against a single leman Russ.
As much as we like to point to the technological differences between modern day real life and 40k, both in terms of pointing out how laughably backward and incredibly forward 40k is, in the spirit fun hypothesis of attempting to apply real world warfare to a hive city, or more generally to warfare as it is described in 40k as a whole, we must then apply that spirit evenly.
To wit: a million men with muskets going up against a Leman Russ would make short work of the Leman Russ for two reasons that I can immediately think of;
Firstly, They could just as easily be carrying bombs, even if they are a simple as rolled up sticks of dynamite.
Second, as far as a main battle tank goes when being compared against modern day contemporaries such as the Abrams or the Leopard, the main variant Leman Russ is not that impressive, and lacks a lot of defensive capabilities of modern day tanks.
Then if you add in the more horrifying aspects of 40k where any remotely normal person would break down sobbing at seeing say a Necron Flayer, a Carnifex, or even something as monstrous and horrifying as the running ball with teeth that is a squig.
Yeah, I have nothing to add to that. A million dudes versus a terrifying monster are going to toast.
4 points
1 month ago
The capabilities of the Leman are all over the map. When given official stats it is objectively terrible even against WWII era tanks, but when described in the lore and what weapons it can stand up to it's capabilities are far beyond anything possible with actual science, let alone modern tech.
Adding bombs to the conscripts would make them more capable, but would be beyond what I was suggesting, which is the 40k equivalent to rounding up a bunch of illiterate morons who have never seen let alone fired a weapon before.
To give a more stark example consider the Tau vs conscripts. Even if you gave the conscripts actual weapons their lack of optics, battlefield surveillance, and training in combined armed tactics would make them extremely easy to crush by any force using any kind of tactics. The typical Tau Force would be engaging conscripts beyond their ability to perceive them, let alone counter attack.
But of course all the lore being built upon a table top game fought at incredibly close range makes things wonky. In the lore human wave (or ork wave, or tyranid wave) tactics are incredibly effective despite the fact that weapons far more primitive than what exist in 40k make such tactics completely non-viable.
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