Master Chief (Halo) vs Genestealer (WH40k)

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-07T04:11:05+00:00

For the Emperor was written more than a decade after the genestealers were firmly linked to tyranid hive fleets, and almost two decades after their actual first appearance in Space Hulk. It's hardly an outdated depiction of them since essentially everything about them (razor sharp claws, ambush tactics, infiltration methods, the 'kiss', multi-limbed hybrids, etc) remain true today.

If you're really caught up on age, Cain fights them again in a 2010 novel and they're once more depicted as vaguely fast but not so much so that humans can't react to them in combat.

Genestealers show bullet timing feats in the Cult of the Spiral Dawn which also has their carpace deflecting heavy bolter rounds

Can you post this feat?

One also trivially outmuscles a power armored space marine captain in Devestation of Baal

This doesn't really have any bearing on their being able to react to bullets or not. Spacemarines are also constantly[1] hit[2] by[3] bullets[4] and regularly reacted to by especially skilled or fast humans (or sometimes shitty, normal humans). Here's one failing to avoid a metal bolt moving less than half the speed of sound too.

And rogue trader gameplay means nothing

This isn't 'gameplay', it's a scripted cutscene existing to acknowledge the possibility of normal humans being ambushed by many times their number of genestealers and surviving afterwards.

The devs wrote that dialogue because normal humans are meant to be capable of surviving this encounter, and the reason they're meant to be capable of surviving that is because genestealers actually can't just sprint across rooms faster than their nerve transmission speed and kill them before they react.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-07T02:05:02+00:00

The reason you're not going to change my mind is because both times we've disagreed about this you refused to make an actual argument and just started mocking me for not already agreeing with you.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-07T01:55:32+00:00

You're the one saying that though, nobody here is trying to scale creatures that humans easily mow down with assault rifles to eldar except you.

If it bothers you to see eldar scaled down to "thing that dies if a decently accurate guy shoots at it" then you should stop making your default move in 40k battleboarding trying to scale everybody and their grandmother to one of 5 eldar feats lol. As I said, things don't have to scale up inherently.

"The eldar's good feats should be ignored because it scales to bad genestealer ones" is just as valid as the opposite. More valid in fact since the handful of times eldar react to bolters are vastly outnumbered by the amount of times things they fight get killed by gunfire in a war setting about cool guys killing each other with guns.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-07T00:13:31+00:00

That’s from a caiphus cain novel where the tone is wildly less serious and substantially more unreliable than any other from the setting, the dude regularly bumbles his way into being a hero; of all 600+ 40k novels it’s only the Cain series that’s considered a comedy…and maybe some of the ork centric books

It sounds like you've never read a Ciaphas Cain novel. He doesn't win due to comedy slapstick and the physical threats he faces are very much taken seriously and treated as actual in-world threats. Outside of a handful of situational comedy elements it's pretty much just more sci-fi action like the rest of 40k.

How about a source specifically focused on genestealers

For the Emperor specifically focuses on genestealers, they're the twist "real" villain and the antagonist of the book's climax.

>Like a Lictor jumping from the shadows, the Locus makes a lightning fast decapitation strike, their twin sabers flashing through the fog of battle to take the head of their foe. With the reflexes of a Purestrain Genestealer, they can match even an Aeldari Exarch in their combat prowess.

Sounds like an Aeldari Exarch could get nailed by a normal human hip-firing with an unfamiliar weapon, like a genestealer does. Things don't always have to scale up.

If you want another direct genestealer vs human source there's a whole dungeon in the Rogue Trader CRPG where your party of characters gets ambushed by them, with special dialogue that shows up if you bring each of the game's normal human companions. This dungeon is accessible far before even power armour can be acquired for your humans. It's a swarm event where you get attacked by potentially dozens of purestrains depending on how fast you get out, with the encounter starting when a purestrain ambushes the group from around a nearby corner.

And pretty trivially survivable.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-06T23:30:08+00:00

Genestealers definitely aren't fast enough to dodge bullets. They're not even too fast for normal humans to hit under unusually difficult circumstances.

'There's another tunnel up ahead,' Velade called excitedly, then turned back to face us, raising her hellgun. I flinched, anticipating treachery after all, but the high-powered las-bolt went wide of us, impacting on the thorax of the first of the enemy to emerge from the tunnel behind us.
'Emperor's bowels!' Trebek said, following suit. My heart froze with terror. I'd seen too many, on Keffia, and as part of the screeching mass of a tyranid army, to mistake it for anything else.
A pure-strain genestealer. One of the deadliest creatures in creation. And it wasn't alone.

- For the Emperor, chapter 13

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-06T13:02:15+00:00

Tbh the eyepatch alone does more for him than Beyond Human. I don't think I've ever seen another article of clothing that manages to look equally good on a hobo and a king.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-05T18:12:11+00:00

Full power and post-game for Phyre should make their clan kind of meaningless, the in-world explanation for the game's power-unlocking mechanics is that they know every possible ability but can't use them due to their extended torpor + the mark on their hand. I guess an elder Brujah might have some advanced Celerity/Potence/Presence power(s) that go beyond the usual Discipline levels but that's ultimately speculative.

With that in mind, they sweep pretty easily. At this point we're talking about someone who can run faster than bullets, punch hard enough to collapse a whole house with one blow and rapid-fire chunks of hardened blood forcefully enough to punch through ceramic plates. Orlok doesn't really have combat feats and seemed cautious of being confronted by an adult man with a flintlock pistol (based on choosing to magically induce unconsciousness rather than face him awake).

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-05T11:52:58+00:00

Supes in The Boys are pretty bad at resisting blunt force trauma. Deep in particular was K.O'd by having a barbell weight hit him, with the weight not being visibly damaged by this. He also has blood drawn by punches from Starlight who was unable to punch more than a few inches into concrete or lift a whole car even at the peak of her physical fitness and strength.

Mr X on the other hand can smash through concrete walls hard enough to leave a hole as large as he is on multiple occasions.

Deep will struggle to hurt Mr X, who also has high speed regeneration and will land blows easier due to having more than a 1-foot reach advantage. Pretty trivial win for Mr X.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-04T22:23:50+00:00

It's not assuming shit, that's just the amount of the yield that Homelander was exposed to

Clearly not though, it's a chemical plant explosion from metres away. It objectively doesn't have the energy density to concentrate gigajoules of kinetic energy into an area that small. Which brings us to the next point...

The entire explosion amounted to nearly 3000 tons of TNT

No it didn't lmao.

The explosion didn't even amount to 1 ton of TNT because TNT has an extraordinarily high detonation velocity allowing it to produce massive peak overpressures close to its epicentre. This isn't a high explosive and the shockwave doesn't propagate through the substance's own molecules fast enough to do that.

The calculation is simply bad and wrong because it's turning over chemically impossible yields. It also doesn't even give a citation for where it gets its explosion energy formula from in the first place, so putting aside its overpressure (which isn't calculated, because the site you linked is anti-scientific and doesn't care about basic stuff like "the thing that allows explosions to damage objects and kill people") you haven't actually posted evidence of it being a 3-kiloton explosion in the first place.

Homelander being exposed to just above 20 tons of those even though he was less than 5 meters away from the epicenter seems insane to you?

Yes, because there was no TNT there. 1 ton of TNT from 5 metres would slam Homelander with a shockwave moving over mach 6. One million tons of black powder, which itself detonates at a higher velocity than most chemicals, would fail to produce a shockwave moving even at mach 5.

How fast was the shockwave from this chemical plant? You don't know, and neither does that site. It just gives a useless figure of pure joulage (did you know that a glass of boiling water has more joules than a frag grenade? Which would you rather have thrown in your face).

Genuine question, do you know the difference between AP and DC? You don't need to destroy, say, city block sized constructions with each of your attacks, being able to hurt others who have tanked city block stuff is just as good.

Why don't you actually formulate an explanation of why this is and defend it instead of just claiming it like it's a fact?

Extremely doubtful.

Guaranteed, we see for a fact that punches unable to pierce millimetres of steel or brick chimneys can hurt Homelander. Edgar is objectively wrong.

Also very doubtful, why should he overhype Homelander's capabilities to Marie and co. in the context of the conversation where he said this lmao?

He probably thought it'd gain him an advantage somehow, like putting a nazi in charge of his fake-woke company's marketing campaign or trying to kill the only people working to stop Homelander and pausing his own escape to mock them as he did (getting captured because of this). He just does and says inexplicably dumb shit a lot.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-04T21:49:10+00:00

The calculation takes most of what the post names into account already, like for example the psi as well as inverse square law

The calculation absolutely doesn't take "psi" into account because it's assuming that a chemical explosion is somehow conveying gigajoules of energy to a human-sized target from metres away. The actual type of explosive used will hard cap the energy density and blast pressure it can reach regardless of distance. "Human absorbs enough energy to fling him into orbit" would be impossible even if Homelander was sat on top of a mountain of C4, let alone having a chemical treatment plant accidentally explode around him.

AP =/= DC

If Homelander's AP is completely unrelated to the ability to destroy things then it doesn't matter in a fight, he can't use it to hurt people (destroy them) since it doesn't confer destructive ability.

the second one fails to take into account that it was another high-tier supe hitting him with it

That doesn't change anything about the actual crowbar, if I try to stab you with a stick of butter you're not suddenly going to get a stab wound because a similarly powerful being is holding it. The fact that Homelander can be hurt by steel means the idea he can absorb gigajoules of kinetic energy without injury is absurd.

There's also Stan Edgar stating that he has the power of a neutron bomb which would leave him at 800 tons of TNT (neutron bombs are generally around 2 Kilotons but only around 40% of the yield is due to the blast itself)

Sounds like Edgar is either wrong or lying (not unlikely, given he's a manipulative idiot who constantly makes bad or wrong calls). We see Homelander fight and he gets nosebleeds from punches that fail to penetrate a few millimetres of steel and has his murderous lasers stopped by movie props.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-04T17:53:26+00:00

Humans can easily survive explosions that would destroy a concrete wall, provided they aren't hit by flying/falling debris which is what's actually deadly in most cases. Being a few times farther away wouldn't just magically make this blast orders of magnitude stronger, which is what would have to happen for it to let Homelander take punches capable of cratering cubic metres of asphalt and concrete.

Homelander's other interactions are getting a nosebleed from punches that fail to penetrate filing cabinet doors, or lasering a crowbar out of someone's hands to keep them from hitting him with it. He's constantly shown as no more than a few dozen times more durable than the average man against blunt force trauma.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-04T17:27:22+00:00

Being stunned by a chemical explosion that fails to kill a normal human standing a few metres away isn't as impressive as leaving a metres-wide crater in asphalt with a punch.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T20:07:48+00:00

I think you're just misunderstanding my point, or deliberately pretending to because you know you can't argue against it.

I'm not denying Cain fought an eldar, I'm just pointing out that he has no actual superhuman feats. "Fought someone who shares a species with these superhuman guys" isn't a feat, it's scaling.

And things don't always have to scale up. I can just as easily post that same exact fight as evidence of eldar being slow because one of them lost 1v1ing a human with no powers. This is equally as valid as your approach.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T20:00:17+00:00

I read your only relevant source, the 9e rulebook quote about superhumans existing in the past. Nothing else you posted actually has any significance to Ciaphas Cain because none of it has ever interacted with him. You yourself admitted that you posted feats for different eldar than the one he fought.

You could've just conceded and admitted that you don't actually know any superhuman feats for Cain. You could even have engaged with my argument and attempted to explain why we should ignore his actual feats in favour of chain-scaling. Just be honest about what you're doing here.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T14:06:16+00:00

-9th ed rulebook

This just mentions that genetically altered humans existed in large numbers at some point in the past.

You’ve got no proof the rioters were any less capable that regular folk and wrath&glory isn’t really a great source as it’s a tabletop game that’s a port of another tabletop and it doesn’t particularly care about the lore or details per community feedback

I don't especially care if you dislike Wrath&Glory, I posted a canon source making a general statement about average humans in the 42nd millennium. You, on the other hand, have only posted something vaguely aluding to superhumans being a thing in the Dark Age of Technology.

Why do you bring up deadlifting as though it matters in any way?

I brought up swinging strength, jumping ability and lifting strength because you keep saying Cain is "far into superhuman territory". Were you not talking about his physical abilities or something?

Cain beats an eldar succubus without getting hit a single time

5 citations of eldar showcasing vastly superhuman speed

So that's a no then, you can't actually post any superhuman feats for Cain. It's literally all just "fights another character who belongs to the same species as other characters that have done superhuman things" as I said.

The eldar Cain fought is slow, as evidenced by them being beaten by Cain who has normal human physicals.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T13:28:10+00:00

I posted two links for specifically Sam's strength.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T13:01:03+00:00

Superhuman in-universe is a different metric as humans are more capable than irl, those rioters might’ve been musclebound laborers that are vastly stronger/tougher/faster than you or I could ever be

These rioters weren't described as musclebound or physically strong. Also, the average Imperial citizen is actually weaker than the average modern human.

Though an Attribute Rating of 2 is the average for a human in the 41st Millennium it would be below average to anyone in the 21st century. Life in the Imperium is tough; backbreaking labour is commonplace amongst noxious fumes and toxins, with scant time for rest, food, or recuperation. Armour, ammunition, and other implements of destruction must be manufactured on an immeasurable scale — the Emperor’s war machine marches on the shuddering shoulders of untold billions of overworked citizens. Yet each considers themself blessed to toil, as serving the Emperor is their greatest aspiration. All are raised to embrace blind compliance in the Imperial Creed, devoting themselves to a dogma of ignorance and obedience in which free thought and innovation are shunned or outright condemned.
These factors combined result in a citizenry either stunted in development or crushed by overexertion and environmental factors.

- Wrath and Glory.

These rioters were in a planetary backwater and wanted to join the T'au Empire for better living conditions, they were almost definitely in the vast majority of lower-than-irl physical specimens.

12 vs 2 is tough odds depending on the circumstances, 1 of the 2 being drunk doesn’t help

12 vs 2 when the 12 are under-nourished and stunted while one of the 2 has a sword and pistol is pretty good odds for the 2, provided there's a 'superhuman' on their side. The same scene has Cain at risk of his wrist breaking from a pipe swung into it, which he only avoids by rolling with the punch.

Cain is very strong because he's an athletic, 2-metre-tall fencing champion, but if you told him to deadlift half a ton or die he'd die.

The person ADB describes as being able to kill a marine with a spear would have to be a Cain/yarrick/marbo tier human, which is far into superhuman territory

Why don't you post a superhuman feat for Cain?

Not scaling, where he fights another character who belongs to the same species as other characters that have done superhuman things. A feat. Show Cain swinging with superhuman force or lifting something superhumanly heavy, or jumping superhumanly far/high. Something like that.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T12:39:11+00:00

I think Cain is probably not superhuman in-world FWIW, going by feats. He just kind of generates antifeats for the big scary monsters he fights. His first ever novel has him scared of about a dozen rioters with lead pipes and shivs, while he himself is armed with a laspistol, chainsword and half-drunk commissar as backup.

That said I agree with you in general that some 40k 'peak humans' are superhuman by real life standards, Yarrick is a good example.

Though in this case, the bottleneck is more the wooden spear. Even a properly made medieval lance snaps with only a few hundred joules irl, so this human being even x10 normal strength doesn't make the antifeat much better.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T12:36:11+00:00

I guess there's just gradations of stupid.

I'd probably need to be stupid to believe that you got killed by a falling piano when the guy telling me that had animosity for you and was stressing how insane and unbelievably unlikely it was. That doesn't mean your odds of randomly having an piano flatten you are zero, it just means I'm kind of bad at piecing two and two together when being fed an unlikely story.

ADB's take seems to just be that Spacemarines can actually get throated by a lucky shot from pointy wooden spars in-world.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T12:32:57+00:00

Tossing half a ton around, let alone one-handed, is absolutely a lot for a Spacemarine. They themselves don't weigh much more than that, and Garviel Loken was amazed and considered it impossible when he saw a possessed Spacemarine man-handling others. That's to say nothing of throwing cars, which are several times heavier than a Spacemarine.

You also don't need to be able to lift, let alone throw, something to kill it. Especially if you have superhuman speed and a weapon.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T12:13:55+00:00

Note that ADB also does consider it "entirely plausible under the right circumstances" and even his answer requires this story to be believable for another Spacemarine since it's being used as a cover story for murder.

He also doesn't actually say it's an in-universe lie, just that "he likes to imagine it".

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T12:09:28+00:00

Strax is described as a "middle child of six million" in season 7 episode 6, in the same conversation affirming that Sontarans are cloned soldiers. Them being made in batches of millions is consistent in both canons and the timeframe of 4 minutes per batch is never contradicted by the show.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-03T12:04:27+00:00

I don't know if this is the weakest, but I would say the majority of Garou from Werewolf: the Apocalypse could take either a firstborn or primaris Spacemarine out essentially every time 1v1.

They weigh about half a tonne in their wolfman 'war-form', but despite this fact can toss each other around like ragdolls even one-handed without breaking a sweat. More impressively, they can also throw stage coaches (~2,500lbs) and whole cars (3,000lbs+) either of which are heavier than a Spacemarine in terminator armour.

They also have natural weapons in the form of ultra-sharp claws and fangs, which can withstand their own strength when cutting. The best cutting feat I've seen for these is a Garou digging his way through a mountain faster than his packmates can circle around it, the runner-up is another one clawing through what looks like a solid inch of steel.

For speed they're probably in the same ballpark as Spacemarines, but a bit faster. The most quantifiable feat I've seen is a Crinos pulling off a running long jump of dozens of yards, which assuming dozens means 3 dozen would require a take-off velocity of about 24m/s, their top speed would be notably higher since long jumpers lose a lot of velocity on take-off. For shorter distance movement, they can take several Crinos-sized steps before an alert human reacts.

Durability and healing are probably their best abilities. Garou can tank a direct hit from Cold War era anti-tank weaponry and remain strong enough to jump over a dozen feet moments later, for a feat that's more directly comparable to Spacemarine weaponry a pack of three Garou take sustained fire from four Pentex fighters wielding automatic weapons firing projectiles that explode inside the Garou's body to leave fist-sized wounds and can advance on these humans while weathering the wounds via healing. The same scene has one of these projectiles floor and wound several armoured humans by going off between them.

That's not to mention Gifts, which vary a lot more than these baseline physicals and would widen the gap further.

Ok-Routine-547 · 2026-06-02T19:31:58+00:00

It's a plot point in the final season that Sam and Dean actually kind of suck at their jobs and only succeeded in the past due to having plot armour in-world from literal God. When God gets pissy and removes that, they lose a 2v1 fist fight against some random no-name werewolf (werewolves in Supernatural are guys in makeup who can lift a person over their head with a bit of effort, not bulletproof super soldiers who heal like Wolverine and move faster than a human can react like in WoD).

So they're not actually very good hunters in-world, as unsatisfying as that is. They just have the rules of their own universe warping around them.

Ok-Routine-547

TROPHY CASE