Space Marines: Surprisingly Cost-Effective

April 7, 2012 in Editorial

“Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops”Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists

In WarHammer 40,000 the main advantage of having a Space Marine on your side is that all of your enemies die a swift death. The main disadvantage is of course that no-one knows how much they cost in 2012.

But we can try.

One way to estimate the cost of a Space Marine would be to assume that one Marine = 10 contemporary troops and do the maths that way; we’d be interested to hear from people who have done this and how they have calculated the value of one soldier. We’re using the points approach.

Warhammer uses ‘points’ as a means of creating balanced armies. The idea is that if every model in an army has an assigned points value proportional to its worth, then a battle where each opponent has say 1,000 points worth of models should be an even fight.

Futuristic weapons like plasma pistols and shuriken cannons might be difficult to find a price for. But happily, we have the Imperial Guard. The footslogging, hard done by PBI’s of the 41st Millenium are really just 21st century troops trying to take on all the aliens in the universe.

Centives compared Imperial Guard weapons and equipment with modern equivalents. The slides below show the Imperial version first, followed by the modern day counterpart, calculating the points to money ratio. Click through the slideshow below to see them all:

So depending on the comparison weapon, we get different values of between £3,111 and £28,113 per point. Which, whilst not great, gives us something to work with. Now a Space Marine costs 15 points, meaning that the defenders of humanity are worth between £46,665 and £421,695. Taking the middle ground that will set you back £234,180 or $372,127. Which, we here at Centives would argue is excellent value for money for a genetically-engineered superhuman to help you out in that all important skirmish against your foe.

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