This Space Marine Combat Patrol is Better than you Think 

Absolutely. 2 months ago I was able to split a Leviathan box with a work friend, and we each paid less than the respective combat patrols, for a lot more models.

@@McFatson I’d honestly think removing the Librarian for the Dreadnought would’ve been an amazing choice. It fixes the lack of a centrepiece model, is a massive anti-heavy unit with its own impressive stat line, and is a joy to paint. And of course the 10 Infernus Marines would’ve been a no brainer in my opinion, thus the joke I made in the video lol. Also…you got any lore on this chapter of yours? Sallies + Blangels sounds like the nicest boys ever lol. And here’s a trick, if you can find the Bayonet sprue from the Horus Heresy Box Set, Age of Darkness, and cut off the blades, you can stick 4 of them on the corners of a Primaris Power Pack, and if you add a stand, I made mine with straight bits of the sprue frame, to give your marine some height, it looks like a jump pack

@@AnotherGuyTheXone I mean…that’s the obvious answer lol, I just seen a lot of discussions on the models chosen, lack of centrepiece, and people feeling like the choice of models was “a random bunch of new scalps” and so this was more what I was addressing, than the actual real world practices of GW. Not going to lie, I agree with buying the Start Collecting whenever you can, I did a breakdown in my Xenomorph video about how if you buy the Elite Version, and sell off one half, you’re getting a combat patrol for roughly half the prince, minus a model or two.

That is honestly a missed opportunity, especially because of the Gravis armour having that high durability as well as looking gorgeous as a model. Honestly more Gravis models overall, I wanna see Gravis Bladeguard, cause that would be perfect for my collection and style of combat.

@@JohnLevi-t1w I’m not too familiar with the Culture Series but this break down definitely makes me want to consider giving it a brief run down on my own time. That being said given what you’ve described and using the Biases from Halo for reference, I can safely say that a race that is able to go toe to toe with something like that, is genuinely impressive. I really think I’d need to delve feeling down the rabbit hole to give a solid answer, so feel free to correct me. So if we assume the Culture Minds are 4th dimensional in the same way the Chaos Gods are 4th dimensional, (dimensional power scaling is weird so I try to make them as similar as possible for my own sake of mind), then you effectively have a race that arguably surpassing the Necrons in terms of technology, being able to punch up to these extra dimensional beings. I’d say if they did arrive in the Galaxy, the Imperium would have a whole other Xeno threat to face that, like most, rivals them in technology and military power. I’d say though, given the state of the galaxy and the forces at play, they’d more than likely slot themselves in fairly nicely as an equally advanced Necron race with the population of the Tau-Aeldar, and have the benefits of the Kin’s near non-Existent warp signature, and the War mongering nature of the Orks. I think they would set up shop in the galaxy, try to expand, and will their immortal lives, and willingness to die to succeed, they’d unleash catastrophic damage onto the galaxy, either to defeat their enemies, or harm Chaos in some way. I think I’m hammering the point a bit too heavily, but I genuinely think the Necrons would adore them, trying to capture and experiment on them to learn to use them for Bio-Resurgence. Whereas the Tau would try to get some of them to join them, and maybe have an alliance form? But I seriously doubt that. Otherwise I actually think they’d be a huge Wild Card, similar to the Tyranids. Let me know how you think it would go? Again no knowledge of the series safe for a brief read through of the wiki entries on them.

@@EVER_PRINCE That is pretty good deduction for the first. There are some sources I am going to try to use from the wiki about the Minds and the Idiran-Culture War itself. Though there is a Culture Respect thread that exist on Spacebattles by a guy call Revenger. It is a very long read though. Here is what the wiki says about the Minds. "Minds were the de facto leaders of the Culture. They were analogous to the brains of spacecraft when embedded." "Structure The real space shell of a Mind built during the Idiran-Culture War was a ten metre long and two metre wide ellipsoid. The interior comprised of millions of components. The computational and memory components were particularly dense and were located in hyperspace. An internal warp unit was used to expand the memory space. Power was provided internally. Several field generators could be used for propulsion. The entire Mind massed 15000 tonnes." "Computation and memory The cognitive functions of a Mind built during the Idiran-Culture War took place in both three-dimensional and four-dimensional space. Three-dimensional operations relied on picocircuitry and photons and resulted in significantly inferior performance. Memory was stored in binary in the form of neutrons and protons. When operating in three-dimensional space the neutrons decayed into protons; memory was preserved but rendered unusable by wrapping it in fields. The memory capacity was in excess of decillion characters stored within a volume of a few cubic metres. As they grew, Minds "wrote their own operating system", such that each Mind's functionality is unique, and hacking/compromising one does not make it any easier to compromise others." "Personality A Mind's personality was influenced by the premise-state used during its creation. The personality may be shaped to better suit the Mind's intended role. For example, Minds intended for warcraft developed a soldierly attitude toward martial action." "Relationships Minds could have quasi-familials relationship with "child" Minds they helped create, with children possibly giving additional weight to the opinion of their parent. One strategy when making requests of difficult Minds was to route the requests through its parents." "Other civilizations The Idiran Empire did not construct Mind-equivalent entities and included purpose-built limitations into systems which might conceivably become one. At the end of the Idiran-Culture War the Culture relieved Idir's non-sentient computer network of these limitations and it subsequently upgraded itself into a Mind. The Morthanveld likewise did not trust their AIs to be fully autonomous, preferring more central control and predictability. This made them easier to compromise, however. The Gzilt had Minds and AIs, but considered them more as tools than people with rights. Their warships were piloted by virtual crews of uploaded human minds, running at very high speeds."

@@EVER_PRINCE Now this will be what the Culture Wiki says for the Idiran-Culture War. "The Idiran-Culture War is a major fictional conflict between the Idiran Empire and the Culture in the midst of which Iain M. Banks' science fiction novel Consider Phlebas is set. His later book, Look to Windward, contains many references to the war: particularly the induced supernovae of two stars, which resulted in the deaths of billions of sentient creatures. References to the war can also be found in Excession, Matter, The Player of Games, Surface Detail, and The Hydrogen Sonata. It has been commented that the Idiran-Culture war, with its juxtaposition of a religiously-fanatical species fighting (and eventually succumbing to) the atheist Culture, shows the author's theme of "antipathy to religious belief, although nominally not to the believers". The commentator also refers to the war as a clash of civilizations in the sense of Samuel P. Huntington." "Overview According to Banks' appendices to Consider Phlebas, the war began in 1327 AD, and continued for 48 years and one month, resulting in an eventual but total victory for the Culture. The conflict was one of principles; the Culture went to war because the Idirans' fanatical imperial expansion, justified on religious grounds, threatened the Culture's "moral right to exist". As the Culture saw it, the Idirans' extending sphere of influence would prevent them from improving the lives of those in less-advanced societies, and thus would greatly curtail the Culture's sense of purpose. As is the case with all major decisions, the decision on the part of the Culture to go to war was through direct vote of the entire population. Academics who have analysed Banks' universe in comparison with real-world political thought have remarked that the decision of the Culture to go to war was a moral choice, rather than one of necessity, as the Culture could have easily avoided war. The Idirans' decision to go to war is described as being founded in their philosophical, moral and religious distaste for the almost symbiotic nature of the Culture and the threat that their artificial intelligences were considered to be posing to the primacy and significance of biological life in the universe. Such fears were also found in many of those who supported the Idiran side during the war, as exemplified by Horza, the protagonist in Consider Phlebas. As Horza, a mercenary for the Idirans observes: "the conflict was inevitable"; the Idirans would not halt their expansion, because their faith wouldn't allow it; the Culture was so ill-defined, having no borders or laws, that it would also have grown ceaselessly. The two cultures would have been unlikely to forge a peaceful co-existence." "Course of the war The initial stages of the war were defined by a hasty withdrawal of the Culture from vast galactic spaces invaded by the Idirans, who tried to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible in the hope of making the Culture sue for peace. However, the Culture was able-often by bodily moving its artificial worlds out of harm's way-to escape into the vastness of space, while it in turn geared up its productive capabilities for war, eventually starting to turn out untold numbers of extremely advanced warships. This transformation provides a story backdrop in which the "soft", hedonistic Culture is suddenly realised as standing up for their convictions. Initial stages of the conflict consisted of encounters in space, with Machine casualties (in the form of Drones and Modules of the Culture, and AI weapons of Idir) being the first losses of the war. During the process of consolidation of territories and volumes by both the Culture and Idir, warfare was initially limited to proxy wars on selected planets, and the employment of mercenaries on both sides in order to use worlds at low levels of development as experimental laboratories for testing ideologies. Most proxy warfare was inconclusive, though it was coupled with the expansion of the Idiran Sphere. The later stages of the war began with Culture strikes deep within the new Idiran zones of influence. As the Idirans were religiously committed to holding on to all of their conquests, these strikes forced them to divide their attentions. They were eventually overwhelmed by the Culture, a civilization they had not considered as having the requisite will to fight. Factors involved in the Culture victory were the vast productive capacities implied in its post-scarcity economy, its advanced technological level, and its superior war planning, all largely due to capabilities of Minds, the artificial sentiences leading the Culture. The final stages of the war involved increasingly desperate attempts by the Idirans to stave off their defeat, the withdrawal of the Homomdan from the Idiran side (after suing for a separate peace with the Culture), and the confinement of the Idirans to limited, carefully watched zones. Its eventual end came about as a result of Culture Minds successfully lifting the sentience constraints on Idiran AIs, which then upgraded themselves to Mind-level, effectively ending the Idiran's ability to continue war efforts without their consent." "Casualties Total casualties amounted to 851.4 ± 2.55 (0.3%) billion sentient creatures, including Medjel (slaves of the Idirans), sentient machines and non-combatants, and wiped out various smaller species, including the Changers. The war resulted in the destruction of 91,215,660 (±200) starships above interplanetary, 14,334 orbitals, 53 planets and major moons, one ring and three spheres, as well as the significant mass-loss or sequence-position alteration of six stars. Despite the relatively small scale, in comparison with the rumoured conflicts of the past as referred to by the sublimed species of the galaxy, the Idiran-Culture war is considered one of the more significant events in the galactic history of the Culture setting." "Analysis Simone Caroti has written that the reader has more in common with the Idirans than the victorious techno-utopian Culture. It is not a conflict of territory, but of morals; the Culture ethically threatened and the Idirans expansionist drive a sort of religious holy war."

@@JohnLevi-t1w that’s an insanely impressive break down of the war from both a play by play, and thematic perspective. It makes me think of the Orks and Tau in that the Tau view eliminating the Orks as a necessity, rather than something they actively want or aspire for. I think I’m more confident in my break down and placement of the Idrian’s personally.

@@EVER_PRINCE Something you'll notice too is that population size demographics in the Culture series is a a lot smaller then the population culture size of the Warhammer 40k setting. While the Imperium have a total population ranging in the quadrillions likely in between 30 quadrillion - 80 quadrillion across over one million worlds with hive worlds and forge worlds having the largest concentration being smaller in Star Wars Expanded Universe 100 quadrillion sentient humanoid estimate due to long time tables of infrastructure and colony development, the mortality rate, quality of life, supply chains of resources being passed around between independent bodies, and intensity of wars can The communal bonds the Imperium have and their marshal nature do allow many of their worlds militia forces and pdf garrisons to arm them very quickly. According to what I seen so far from the demographics of the Culture from people like lore channels and thread on other discussion sites, the Culture have a total population over 18 trillion. Which is very small when compared to the Imperium let alone the Dark Age of Technology Human Federation which was said to be bigger then the Imperium in territory. It seems like the Culture traded population potential for population controls with their hyper advance technology utopia. Even if we pretend the Idrians had a population ranging over 10 trillion or 20 trillion or a 50 trillion I don't think they are going to be realistically able to conquer the entire 40k galaxy and the Imperium of Man. While their warfleets will be deadly and their relative tech to the Culture and seemingly effective leadership abilities to go toe to toe with the Minds for over 40 years and their use of warmachines and hyperspace technology without the Warp can take them to galactic regions much easier there is a problem. To hold unto tens thousands of planets across tens of thousands of solar systems that is logistically going to be difficult developing situation. Especially if everyone decides to dog pile on them at the same time in response some elements of their aggression. I don't think the Idrians will die off or be beaten too badly but the manpower that can be deployed will be a issue for the long run while the Idrains will have their attention drawn to forces like the various Tyranid Hivefleets entering the galaxy which I have no doubt the Idrians can beat easily with their weaponry and tech tree level they can just take out billions of Hive ships from a significant solar distance which I don't know how the Hivemind will adapt to something like. I can see the Idrians entering into a sort of slowing static warring theater holding frontlines while they develop specialize fleets to rage espionage and infiltrate behind enemy line techniques destroy valuable critical infrastructure. No doubt they can take over and hold entire sectors in regions of the Warhammer 40k galaxy and probably make even the Terra Sol defense fleet and defensive lines tighten security measures.

Everything GW produces is overpriced and overrated. 3D printing is the future.

@@akumaking1 100% I can’t agree more that 3d printing is the future. However I think currently the scalps and quality of prints, while phenomenal, aren’t quite at the level of current GW plastic crack. I’d say another 5 years or so before we reach that point. Also care to suggest any sites or products in particular you enjoy using? I mostly use it to give my units some unique bits, rather than wholesale replace the units