I just started playing this game and reading the forums and it seem the order in terms of what is considered OP is: Eldar (very few in the galaxy) Space Marines = Chaos Marines (about an equal number) Orkz (vast hoardes) But this fits perfectly with the lore of the game. this is exactly as it should be, no one ork could stand up to a space marine, and no one space marine could take down an eldar... Its simply a matter of team building. It should be an ork hoarde converging on a few desperate Space Marines. A few Eldar should be able to wipe a squad of space marines. it's in the match making. Edit: People seem to be missing my main point here which is: Who said each side needs an equal number of players?
Unfortunately this is going to change, there is one mistake that people keep making. Their trying to bring balance to a universe where balance doesn't exist and its been that way since it launched in the 1980's.
Actually according to the lore. (and the author) one space marine can take down anywhere from a handful to dozens of eldar by themselves. In fact one of the space marine codices. A single chapter destroys an entire craftworld. So while it claims they took tremendous casualties themselves, craftworlds are literally entire planets full of eldar. That means roughly 1k marines wiped out what I would assume to be hundreds of thousands to millions of eldar.
Did he really just say a few Eldar can wipe out a squad of Space Marines? That's a cute joke. The only way a few Eldar will wipe out a whole squad of Space Marines are if said Eldar pulled said Space Marines into a position where not only did the Eldar have the advantage, but the Space Marines had a disadvantage. And even then...it's iffy. Don't know what lore you're reading, but Space Marines are pound for pound the best units in this universe (lineman wise at least). The only way a single Eldar is going to take out a single Space Marine is if said Eldar have their advantages in place. There's a reason Eldar always hit and run, use shady tactics, etc etc. It's because in a straight head on collision style fight a Space Marine would likely wipe the floor with them. The best way to think about it is this.... A Space Marine is as good, if not better than an Eldar in everything except 2 things. One would be speed, an Eldar is faster on foot, and just generally. Two would be whatever aspect/specialty that Eldar does specifically. In everything else the Space Marine is as good if not better than an Eldar.
I think the argument of which race is better is voided by the VAST variety of elites and heros of each race. There are elite space marines who can take on opponents who could kill dozens of space marines easily. There are elite Eldar who can make mincemeat of space marines There are elite Orks who are massive and strong as hell and could kill many space marines There are elite chaos way beyond the strength of a standard space marine This feels like a pointless topic. Every race has very close equivalents to each other. Everyone like to believe that their faction is some unkillable fighting machine but the honest truth is every race is made that way. Theyre all crazy strong. Even if you compare basic humans to basic eldar to basic orks they arent that far off from each other. And once you start comparing space marines to stronger orks and stronger eldar then it all balances out.
Thier are many of these types of stories throughout the universe. A chaos lord of Khorne and his warband wiped out an entire hive fleet, The Doom of Malan'tai was a single Zoanthrope that destroyed an entire craft world by consuming their souls. Marneus Calgar held off an entire ork horde by himself at the Siege of Zalathras for an entire night. The Self styled deamon killa and his waagh destroyed a half dozen deamon worlds before meeting his end at the hand of a khorne deamon prince(khorne really liked them him so now him and his waagh live on forever in khornes domain fighting an eternal wave of deamons.) Basically every race has its hero's and mighty tales to tell.
Books are hardly objective source of accurate strength as factions there have something more powerful then emperor himself-the plot armor. Had any author chosen to, we'd see a trio of scorpion exarchs purging whole chapter of SM.
This pretty much. The lore is so convoluted with super plot-armor characters, and mindless fodder characters you can't really ever make a "what's the matchup" comparison without some assumptions. For example, like I said, for basic lineman Space Marines are best pound for pound, that's just how it is. On the flip side, Imperial Guard can field a shit ton of vehicles, Eldar have the best specialized troops and their armor is pretty topps, Orks can bring numbers like nids, chaos has daemons, Tau got the pew pew, etc etc. When you start adding in enemy squad leader archetypes, or their specialties, or their gear, and the setting, and the terrain, and the possible plot armor they may have, and blah blah blah. Shit can go any way you could imagine.
