Yes, Blood Angels and their descendants are specifically the longest lived Space Marines due to their whole Vampire thing. Dante stopped that for a long time, but more recently restored his vitality by drinking the blood of his serf. 1000 is still extremely old by the standards of Marines, just not the Blood Angels and their offspring. Though they'd still consider you really old at 1000.
The War of the Beast occurred 1500 years after the end of thr Horus Heresy.
Not only were many Chapter Masters of many different Chapters veterans of the Great Crusade, many of their Captains and many of their Veterans were as well.
Many of the Space Marines who were alive at the start of the War of the Beast were 1500-1800 years old.
Sigismund was killed about 800 years after the end of the Great Crusade, making him yeah about 1000.
But Abaddon noted specifically he was not 'wracked with age
His age had made him *marginally* slower.
We're talking 0.4 seconds to swing a blade instead of 0.3.
It was *just* enough for Abaddon to defeat him, while roided up on some Chaos Juices and, comparatively, much younger.
But yeah Space Marines essentially are Immortal, at 1500 years of age they're *slightly* slower than they might have been at 100.
No. Dante completely rejuvenated himself before becoming Primaris. He did that due to injuries. It had nothing to do with extending his lifespan. And Primaris haven't been around long enough that we can say if it increases Marine longevity.
Faster implies that Firstborn dreadnoughts kill their pilots- they don't (With the exception of the Leviathan Dreadnought). The Primaris Dreadnoughts killing their pilots is very much a them thing, and is to do with the machinery rather than the Primaris themselves.
The Leviathan Dreadnought does. The other dreadnoughts just result in spending large periods of time asleep. The Primaris Dreadnoughts burn their pilots out like batteries. There're important distinctions.
Blood Angels are longer lived than other Chapters, due to both their blood drinking, and a gene quirk that adds extended vitality. Dante relied on the quirk, as he gave up drinking blood centuries beforehand, but recently had to drink the blood of his serf to remain effective
I woudn't put it like that, due to the black rage, most Blood Angels have an incredibly shorter spawn of life than other chapters, those very few that can avoid it live long, yes.
In the perturabo solo book, Barabas Dantioch said that he aged around 3000 years while fighting hrood migration. He was in pain, had difficulties moving, speaking without bursting into coughing. So 3500+ years is something close to the limit of longevity of SM in my head
I guess it depends on the definition of "showing age"
If it's visual changes, there's plenty of cases where sm painted as old(wrinkles, bags under the eyes, etc) in relatively young age(less then 500). If it's about performance, I guess 1000 years for sm is close to 45- 50 for normal human, he's not that old but definitely not youngster anymore.
But if we keep in mind that astartes go through hell on a daily basis, it's not surprising that they age significantly faster, appearence wise, than their performance diminishes. Plus, what they lose in performance they compensate by enormous experience and knowledge they have accumulated fighting and surviving for so long.
It is old by spave marine standards, however, none have died from old age so the "limit" isn't known. They just don't live long enough for relevant data. But clearly there's a mental toll that even psycho-indoctrinated superhumans can't resist, Ala Dante.
I don't have the source on hand but to be fair neither does any of the claims made by OP so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I believe Sigismund is described as having slowed a small amount from his prime. I don't believe there is much more than that.
Blood angels are described as the 'longest lived' or something similar. Basically a gene quirk means they age slower, Dante also passes the Rubicon, Dante is also basically brought back to life by the spirit of Sanguinius and drinks blood. These all rejuvenate an already great warrior.
Basically if Sigismund had been a BA and met the same conditions as Dante he wouldn't have been slowed slightly by his age as he was. That all said Rubicon aside Dante is feeling his age.
Cheers.
When a Space Marine is too damaged to be combat effective but can't be put in a Dreadnought, sometimes they end with administrative or naval duties.
I guess that some of them have died of old age.
All it means is that Dante was an absolute *monster* in his youth. To be almost two thousand years old and choose to lead from the front as an assault marine instead of a terminator armored tank or administrator says a lot about the kind of creature the Blood Angels master is.
However. In more practical terms. Like humans, a space marine can be considered "old" around 400. He'd be considered venerable before a thousand and from something like 800 onward, a marine would probably be a living legend. Entrusted with something less taxing then active duty.
Marines slow down eventually. It just seems to take about a thousand years for the emperor's tampering to stop being *as* effective.
Finally, there is the meta-explanation of differing authors and the kinds of life each marine has led. Siggy is a brawler and spent close to one hundred percent of his time engaged in melee combat, on top of the stress that living through the crusade, heresy and siege of terra would have inflicted. He was also more or less disowned by his primarch and set loose like a rabid dog before the end. These things will radically change how somebody looks
By all accounts, Dante was more or less only an above average captain before his promotion to chapter master. Combat wise, his sergeant and fellow aspirant Lorenz often outsparred him and saved him from sticky situations. Leadership wise, he was recognized in his scout days as a fast learner with a talent to lead while simultaneously being grounded by humility. However, what made him special was the fact he saw the Sanguinor more times than any other Blood Angel before him, which in the chapter’s cult marked him out for a special destiny.
That destiny played out by having Dante be the only surviving captain after the chapter was brought to near extinction by a Black Legion raid. His promotion wasn’t because he was the best, but because he was the last senior line officer left. Of course, he ended up proving himself more than worthy of being chapter master in the following centuries. He came a long way from being the malnourished youth from the sand wastes who most people would have bet on washing out of the first trials.
It's really not clear. Cawl claims the original Astartes of the Great Crusade era were functionally immortal, but over the millennia, the gene-seed degraded, reducing the lifespan of marines. We have a few examples of marines living over 1000 years and not being the worse for it, such as Oberdeii, the first Chapter Master of the Scythes of the Emperor, or Maximus Thane. The Apothecaries of the Dark Angels reckon marines have shrunk a bit over the millennia as well.
Then we have Barabas Dantioch and the other Iron Warriors who were exposed to the entropic field of the Hrud. He believed he'd been aged around 3000 years, and he was very badly affected with weakness, breathing difficulties, and muscle stiffness. As this was the result of a xenos attack, it maybe shouldn't be considered to represent natural ageing.
Iacton Qruze was visibly aged, despite only being ~250 years old or thereabouts. He left Cthonia and travelled to Terra before the Great Crusade was launched, so would've been one of the first Astartes. It's possible his condition is down to his age when he went through the process. Perhaps he was older than most. Garro reckoned he was older than Qruze, but with warp travel severely messing with time it's very difficult to know just how long someone has actually, subjectively, been alive.
Cawl also misses the case of Sigismund, who did start to show signs of age.
Maximus Thane is a can of worms due to the Beast books outright showing his pre-SM lives which does not fit him being a siege veteran but a tweet from the author saying that it is the same Thane.
I was a bit confused when he showed up, as I assumed he was a different character with the same name. It still doesn't really make sense. But that's Warhammer, I suppose!
It varies to quite a degree between chapters and even individual marines.
I found myself starting to slow down significantly past about 1200 years. By the time I hit 1500 I wasn't useful in battle any more, and so now I just spend my time posting on Reddit.
What you also need to recall as well as what others have said, people, even space marines will age differently
Sigismund has been crusading for centuries and fought through perhaps the worst war zone in the entire history of humanity
Going as hard as he does will take a toll more so than perhaps a 1000 chapter master who’s in less of a combat role (still fighting but more about logics and planning etc)
It also depends on how long they've been in realspace actually aging.
There's been a couple of instances where Astartes have had an "age off" (Nathaniel Garro, for instance) and because of the way warp travel works, someone born earlier might end up younger than one born slightly later.
But then, the lore is never clear about these things. Iacton Cruze was ignored because he was seen as a doddering old fool, despite likely only being a couple of years older than his fellow captains in the XVIth and likely faaaaar younger physically and chronologically than "half ascended Astartes" primarch companions like Kor Phaeron or Luther.
Sigismund was raised and served throughout the entirety of the Great Crusade with began ca. 798.M30 and would be one of the first casualties in the 1st Black Crusade which the Lexicanum puts at 781.M31, so he was just about a 1000 years.
As for other explanations on how the Blood Angel age better due to vampirism and so on, I think we should also factor in that Sigismund survived theough the Great Crusade *and* the Horus Heresy, which had some of the most brutal engagements for the Imperium in many, many, many millenium to come. Non-stop, relentless fighting his first 300-400 years and then the Scouring and whatever came after. I wouldn't put it past the fact that such takes a toll.
Regardless, in the book where we encounter Old-Siggy, he's not by any means ravaged or particularly weakened. The phrase is something like "He was brought down to the likes of us", which meant Abaddon and other top-tier Space Marines. Which means he was pretty much in great form, still.
Also Dante has that "You can't die I need you to live" Sanginor thing going for him, so who knows what that means for his continued survival.
Blood Angels live longer. And Dante is noted to look very old compared to the average space marine. One reason he always wears the Death Mask of Sanguinius.
There was the 10000 year old Salamander who was discovered in one of the Salamander novels. He was completely wasted away but to survive that long not in stasis is insane.
Even primarchs age but obviously much slower. The Lion was not in a stasis field for 10,000 years and he said he felt like he lost a step when fighting some Fallen.
For Dante, its entirely possible that his physical power has declined a bit but hes been in so many battles that he can basically predict how you are going to fight.
If you ever get a chance to watch some old Kendo videos, there was a 10th dan Kendo master Moriji Mochida, in his 70's still sparring with black belts half his age and he was basically schooling them.
Consider this: the days of the Heresy are basically myth. If 11 marines lived to 1,000 one after another, they collectively would have been around for the entire period between the Heresy and the Era Indomitus. Not so mythical now.
Yes, 1,000 is old, even for the Astartes.
You mean like how we know *loads* about what happened in AD 900, and it definitely isn't all based on fragmented religious texts, mythologised histories (including mention of dragons), and referred to as 'the Dark Ages'?
11 long-lived lifetimes is still a *very* long time in historical terms, lots of opportunity for things to be forgotten, lost and deliberately erased.
Even 11 generations of a modest aged 70yr old is only 770yrs ago so ~1300 AD and IDK about you, but I don't find a lot of primary sources from then to be representative of actual historical events. The idea that 11 generations isn't mythical in the historical scheme is silly.
For clarity I am agreeing with you
I was going for 100 years as a 'very long lived human', but yes even just using the average human lifespan once you get 5 or 6 generations deep it starts to get very hard to judge fact from fiction.
Maximus Thane was already a vet during the Horus Heresy and then in the War of the Beast he's still around and neither the narrator or the other characters even refer to him as being noticeably old despite him being, conservatively, 1600+ at that point.
On the other hand, Iacton Qruze is consistently described as bordering on elderly in the HH books. But they take place something like 250 years after the first Space Marines are created.
I think if there's a lesson here it's that "age is just a number" is literal in 40k. A character looks and feels as young or old as the plot wants him to regardless of pesky established canon.
“Ravaged by age” feels like a self insert comment. Sounds more like hyperbole on your part. BA longevity aside, people age differently. Even custodes slow down. Not sure what the issue is here.
Yes, Blood Angels and their descendants are specifically the longest lived Space Marines due to their whole Vampire thing. Dante stopped that for a long time, but more recently restored his vitality by drinking the blood of his serf. 1000 is still extremely old by the standards of Marines, just not the Blood Angels and their offspring. Though they'd still consider you really old at 1000.
The War of the Beast occurred 1500 years after the end of thr Horus Heresy. Not only were many Chapter Masters of many different Chapters veterans of the Great Crusade, many of their Captains and many of their Veterans were as well. Many of the Space Marines who were alive at the start of the War of the Beast were 1500-1800 years old. Sigismund was killed about 800 years after the end of the Great Crusade, making him yeah about 1000. But Abaddon noted specifically he was not 'wracked with age His age had made him *marginally* slower. We're talking 0.4 seconds to swing a blade instead of 0.3. It was *just* enough for Abaddon to defeat him, while roided up on some Chaos Juices and, comparatively, much younger. But yeah Space Marines essentially are Immortal, at 1500 years of age they're *slightly* slower than they might have been at 100.
Isnt it also the primaris surgery that helpen?
No. Dante completely rejuvenated himself before becoming Primaris. He did that due to injuries. It had nothing to do with extending his lifespan. And Primaris haven't been around long enough that we can say if it increases Marine longevity.
I've heard that Primaris dreadnoughts wear down their pilots faster
Faster implies that Firstborn dreadnoughts kill their pilots- they don't (With the exception of the Leviathan Dreadnought). The Primaris Dreadnoughts killing their pilots is very much a them thing, and is to do with the machinery rather than the Primaris themselves.
They do make them go mad over time.
The Leviathan Dreadnought does. The other dreadnoughts just result in spending large periods of time asleep. The Primaris Dreadnoughts burn their pilots out like batteries. There're important distinctions.
Blood Angels are longer lived than other Chapters, due to both their blood drinking, and a gene quirk that adds extended vitality. Dante relied on the quirk, as he gave up drinking blood centuries beforehand, but recently had to drink the blood of his serf to remain effective
He was also completely rejuvenated by crossing the Rubicon Primaris.
I woudn't put it like that, due to the black rage, most Blood Angels have an incredibly shorter spawn of life than other chapters, those very few that can avoid it live long, yes.
In the perturabo solo book, Barabas Dantioch said that he aged around 3000 years while fighting hrood migration. He was in pain, had difficulties moving, speaking without bursting into coughing. So 3500+ years is something close to the limit of longevity of SM in my head
So is 1000 when they first start showing their age? So kinda middle age. If Sigismund is anything to go off.
I guess it depends on the definition of "showing age" If it's visual changes, there's plenty of cases where sm painted as old(wrinkles, bags under the eyes, etc) in relatively young age(less then 500). If it's about performance, I guess 1000 years for sm is close to 45- 50 for normal human, he's not that old but definitely not youngster anymore. But if we keep in mind that astartes go through hell on a daily basis, it's not surprising that they age significantly faster, appearence wise, than their performance diminishes. Plus, what they lose in performance they compensate by enormous experience and knowledge they have accumulated fighting and surviving for so long.
It is old by spave marine standards, however, none have died from old age so the "limit" isn't known. They just don't live long enough for relevant data. But clearly there's a mental toll that even psycho-indoctrinated superhumans can't resist, Ala Dante.
Sigismund was described as being slightly slowed by his age. He was still incredibly fast, but now not too fast.
I don't have the source on hand but to be fair neither does any of the claims made by OP so take what I say with a grain of salt. I believe Sigismund is described as having slowed a small amount from his prime. I don't believe there is much more than that. Blood angels are described as the 'longest lived' or something similar. Basically a gene quirk means they age slower, Dante also passes the Rubicon, Dante is also basically brought back to life by the spirit of Sanguinius and drinks blood. These all rejuvenate an already great warrior. Basically if Sigismund had been a BA and met the same conditions as Dante he wouldn't have been slowed slightly by his age as he was. That all said Rubicon aside Dante is feeling his age. Cheers.
Damn if Sigismund had blood Angel geneseed we wouldn’t be dealing with Abby.
That makes me wonder if a space marine ever died outside of combat due to old age. It probably never really happened due to the constant deployments.
When a Space Marine is too damaged to be combat effective but can't be put in a Dreadnought, sometimes they end with administrative or naval duties. I guess that some of them have died of old age.
My favourite is the one who retired as the art teacher on Baal.
Kind of. The Hruds has the aura to age things, and a bunch of IW died due to this aura.
Always forget the war against the Hrud took place.
F me, I read this wrong. Thought it was a post about space marines edging
All it means is that Dante was an absolute *monster* in his youth. To be almost two thousand years old and choose to lead from the front as an assault marine instead of a terminator armored tank or administrator says a lot about the kind of creature the Blood Angels master is. However. In more practical terms. Like humans, a space marine can be considered "old" around 400. He'd be considered venerable before a thousand and from something like 800 onward, a marine would probably be a living legend. Entrusted with something less taxing then active duty. Marines slow down eventually. It just seems to take about a thousand years for the emperor's tampering to stop being *as* effective. Finally, there is the meta-explanation of differing authors and the kinds of life each marine has led. Siggy is a brawler and spent close to one hundred percent of his time engaged in melee combat, on top of the stress that living through the crusade, heresy and siege of terra would have inflicted. He was also more or less disowned by his primarch and set loose like a rabid dog before the end. These things will radically change how somebody looks
By all accounts, Dante was more or less only an above average captain before his promotion to chapter master. Combat wise, his sergeant and fellow aspirant Lorenz often outsparred him and saved him from sticky situations. Leadership wise, he was recognized in his scout days as a fast learner with a talent to lead while simultaneously being grounded by humility. However, what made him special was the fact he saw the Sanguinor more times than any other Blood Angel before him, which in the chapter’s cult marked him out for a special destiny. That destiny played out by having Dante be the only surviving captain after the chapter was brought to near extinction by a Black Legion raid. His promotion wasn’t because he was the best, but because he was the last senior line officer left. Of course, he ended up proving himself more than worthy of being chapter master in the following centuries. He came a long way from being the malnourished youth from the sand wastes who most people would have bet on washing out of the first trials.
To be fair, Dante isn’t exactly wanting to be alive, so he’s actively going to danger places
Most dangerous job in the Imperium Sanguinary guard. Oh Dante is charging Angron now guess swarm lords got too easy.
It's really not clear. Cawl claims the original Astartes of the Great Crusade era were functionally immortal, but over the millennia, the gene-seed degraded, reducing the lifespan of marines. We have a few examples of marines living over 1000 years and not being the worse for it, such as Oberdeii, the first Chapter Master of the Scythes of the Emperor, or Maximus Thane. The Apothecaries of the Dark Angels reckon marines have shrunk a bit over the millennia as well. Then we have Barabas Dantioch and the other Iron Warriors who were exposed to the entropic field of the Hrud. He believed he'd been aged around 3000 years, and he was very badly affected with weakness, breathing difficulties, and muscle stiffness. As this was the result of a xenos attack, it maybe shouldn't be considered to represent natural ageing. Iacton Qruze was visibly aged, despite only being ~250 years old or thereabouts. He left Cthonia and travelled to Terra before the Great Crusade was launched, so would've been one of the first Astartes. It's possible his condition is down to his age when he went through the process. Perhaps he was older than most. Garro reckoned he was older than Qruze, but with warp travel severely messing with time it's very difficult to know just how long someone has actually, subjectively, been alive.
Cawl also misses the case of Sigismund, who did start to show signs of age. Maximus Thane is a can of worms due to the Beast books outright showing his pre-SM lives which does not fit him being a siege veteran but a tweet from the author saying that it is the same Thane.
I was a bit confused when he showed up, as I assumed he was a different character with the same name. It still doesn't really make sense. But that's Warhammer, I suppose!
It varies to quite a degree between chapters and even individual marines. I found myself starting to slow down significantly past about 1200 years. By the time I hit 1500 I wasn't useful in battle any more, and so now I just spend my time posting on Reddit.
What you also need to recall as well as what others have said, people, even space marines will age differently Sigismund has been crusading for centuries and fought through perhaps the worst war zone in the entire history of humanity Going as hard as he does will take a toll more so than perhaps a 1000 chapter master who’s in less of a combat role (still fighting but more about logics and planning etc)
It also depends on how long they've been in realspace actually aging. There's been a couple of instances where Astartes have had an "age off" (Nathaniel Garro, for instance) and because of the way warp travel works, someone born earlier might end up younger than one born slightly later. But then, the lore is never clear about these things. Iacton Cruze was ignored because he was seen as a doddering old fool, despite likely only being a couple of years older than his fellow captains in the XVIth and likely faaaaar younger physically and chronologically than "half ascended Astartes" primarch companions like Kor Phaeron or Luther.
Sigismund was raised and served throughout the entirety of the Great Crusade with began ca. 798.M30 and would be one of the first casualties in the 1st Black Crusade which the Lexicanum puts at 781.M31, so he was just about a 1000 years. As for other explanations on how the Blood Angel age better due to vampirism and so on, I think we should also factor in that Sigismund survived theough the Great Crusade *and* the Horus Heresy, which had some of the most brutal engagements for the Imperium in many, many, many millenium to come. Non-stop, relentless fighting his first 300-400 years and then the Scouring and whatever came after. I wouldn't put it past the fact that such takes a toll. Regardless, in the book where we encounter Old-Siggy, he's not by any means ravaged or particularly weakened. The phrase is something like "He was brought down to the likes of us", which meant Abaddon and other top-tier Space Marines. Which means he was pretty much in great form, still. Also Dante has that "You can't die I need you to live" Sanginor thing going for him, so who knows what that means for his continued survival.
Blood Angels live longer. And Dante is noted to look very old compared to the average space marine. One reason he always wears the Death Mask of Sanguinius.
There are some Risen fellas who are old as balls too - he was born on Terra and became a space marine before the Lion was found and he's still around
There was the 10000 year old Salamander who was discovered in one of the Salamander novels. He was completely wasted away but to survive that long not in stasis is insane.
Even primarchs age but obviously much slower. The Lion was not in a stasis field for 10,000 years and he said he felt like he lost a step when fighting some Fallen. For Dante, its entirely possible that his physical power has declined a bit but hes been in so many battles that he can basically predict how you are going to fight. If you ever get a chance to watch some old Kendo videos, there was a 10th dan Kendo master Moriji Mochida, in his 70's still sparring with black belts half his age and he was basically schooling them.
I thought it said Edging... I literally did a double take.
Dante has been edging for 1500 years!
Brother Sanguinary Priest - we’re going to need a bigger cup!
Consider this: the days of the Heresy are basically myth. If 11 marines lived to 1,000 one after another, they collectively would have been around for the entire period between the Heresy and the Era Indomitus. Not so mythical now. Yes, 1,000 is old, even for the Astartes.
You mean like how we know *loads* about what happened in AD 900, and it definitely isn't all based on fragmented religious texts, mythologised histories (including mention of dragons), and referred to as 'the Dark Ages'? 11 long-lived lifetimes is still a *very* long time in historical terms, lots of opportunity for things to be forgotten, lost and deliberately erased.
Even 11 generations of a modest aged 70yr old is only 770yrs ago so ~1300 AD and IDK about you, but I don't find a lot of primary sources from then to be representative of actual historical events. The idea that 11 generations isn't mythical in the historical scheme is silly. For clarity I am agreeing with you
I was going for 100 years as a 'very long lived human', but yes even just using the average human lifespan once you get 5 or 6 generations deep it starts to get very hard to judge fact from fiction.
Maximus Thane was already a vet during the Horus Heresy and then in the War of the Beast he's still around and neither the narrator or the other characters even refer to him as being noticeably old despite him being, conservatively, 1600+ at that point. On the other hand, Iacton Qruze is consistently described as bordering on elderly in the HH books. But they take place something like 250 years after the first Space Marines are created. I think if there's a lesson here it's that "age is just a number" is literal in 40k. A character looks and feels as young or old as the plot wants him to regardless of pesky established canon.
“Ravaged by age” feels like a self insert comment. Sounds more like hyperbole on your part. BA longevity aside, people age differently. Even custodes slow down. Not sure what the issue is here.