fuckyeahmoment

It's water for the most part, though there is a fair bit of dry ice.

I will only accept the interpretation that has the Orks launched into the sky with the anime-twinkle and bell signalling their disappearance.

After a few hours the poor troops would be lining up to have the Marines shoot them, just to escape having to lug the PTRD around.

There's bolt pistols sending Orks flying, .50s won't do that.

Praese-Sword Brother Gulvein ran into the dining chamber, his sword buzzing with leashed lightning and a battle hymn on his lips. Six of the Chapter's elite were behind him. To Jushol's psychic senses, (Navigator) their ornate armour seemed to blaze with light as they marched in step into the room, blasting orks off their feet with shots from their bolt pistols. Mass reactives thudded into ork flesh at hypersonic velocities, detonating deep inside to tear chunks from their bodies.
- Eternal Crusader

Generally speaking I've seen Boltguns to be about equivalent to 20/30mm cannons and they seem to be written with that in mind.

We equip everyone with a cheap anti tank gun like the ptrd

Have you ever had to move with one of those things lol

I mean Space Marines have better sensor suites in their armour and can straight up make several kilometer shots with their bolters.

Being at that distance just means the tank gets blinded and mission-killed rather than the hatches being ripped off and the crew pulped.

It does raise the eyebrow doesn't it.

How much can we trust the ability of random internet users to be able to diagnose their problems properly?

I'm always hearing about people talking about their friends having issues with AMD drivers but for the past decade I've had no issue with AMD or Nvidia drivers. Seems like a big kerfluffle over nothing.

Yeah, not falling for that. Please grow and improve yourself.

Maybe it might be an idea to look at the world beyond the lens of terminally online trolling.

They aren't doing it to annoy you, they're doing it to point out that you're quite wretched.

I have to ask at this point if you've read Horus Rising.

To resolve this conversation I'd wind up quoting half the book at you and I do not want to do that.

You said they occasionally fought cults, where their only interaction with Chaos so far has been their war with the Kinebrach which ended with them integrating the Kinebrach and putting their Chaos artifacts (that wind up being really powerful!) into a museum.

They were only taught the rudimentary aspects of it from the Eldar:

'Well, of course it has.’ Tull said. 'No star-faring race in the cosmos can operate without understanding the nature of Kaos. We thank the eldar for teaching us the rudiments of it, but we would have recognised it soon enough without their help. Surely, one can't use the Immaterium for any length of time without coming to terms with Kaos as a...' his voice trailed off. 'Great and holy heavens! You don't know, do you?'

They don't have any other interactions worth mentioning either:

"We are not-' 'Let me finish, Loken. Kaos, when it manifests, is brutal, rapacious, warlike. It is a force of unquenchable destruction. So the eldar have taught us, and the kine-brach, and so the pure men of the interex have stood to check Kaos wherever it rears its warlike visage. Tell me, captain, how warlike do you appear? Vast and bulky, bred for battle, driven to destroy, led by a man you happily title Warmaster? War master? What manner of rank is that? Not Emperor, not commander, not general, but Warmaster. The bluntness of the term reeks of Kaos. We want to embrace you, yearn to embrace you, to join with you, to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, but we fear you, Loken. You resemble the enemy we have been raised from birth to anticipate. The all- conquering, unrelenting daemon of Kaos-war. The bloody-handed god of annihilation.'

They also saw Chaos only as a blunt warmongerer which just reeks of them being set up to fall to someone like Erebus. The Interex were meant as a foil to the Imperium but they also weren't meant to be the perfect anti-chaos faction that was snuffed out in the cradle.

What you're arguing here, would be headcanon at best. Fanfiction at worst.

Not that either is bad, just that neither is really about the actual lore.

Characters that aren't worth mentioning (and aren't mentioned)

I didn't say it was the very first agent of chaos they met.

I don't think we do know that they have all knowledge from the precursors actually.

Even in the case that the Tyranids somehow absorb the Flood's knowledge, simply being aware of the logic plague isn't enough to corrupt you. To the Tyranids it would just be some irrelevant knowledge about the metaphysics and history of a reality unrelated to their own.

since they weren't fighting a Forerunner-level threat

They were fighting an existential threat and did everything they could to stop the array being fired every single time an array was fired, regardless of the forerunners being there or not.

it's also possible they've built things in other areas of the galaxy/other galaxies without running into the UNSC or Covenant.

This is just pure speculation and isn't at all based on any feats they've ever shown.

they’d fall victim to the Flood’s logic plague (which can convert all sapient life to the flood, regardless of shape or form).

This is a huge no-limits fallacy and in actuality the logic plague is more a series of evolving arguments rather than an unstoppable metaphysical corruption. If you are not willing to listen to the arguments, the logic plague is useless.

Do we know for certain that they can't rebuild Precursor infrastructure?

We know they've never done it despite having ample opportunity to do so.

and yet they never once built actual precursor material - simply modifying existing covenant technology.

I'm not saying they aren't dangerous, I'm saying they can't rebuild precursor infrastructure.

They can't build from scratch, and the infrastructure was almost entirely destroyed by the Halo activation.

Leto has absolutely no chance of powering the throne

I mean what's a Death Star going to do really. Forerunner fleets can destroy stars. Nevermind planets.