How do!

Came up in the Bolter Recoil thread about just how bad the background is with numbers. From a Chapter having an unfeasibly low number of Astartes, to supposedly staggering losses in a single campaign being fewer than in WW2. Which whilst I don’t want to understate the bravery and sacrifice of all WW2 Soldiers, is somewhat silly.

Now, one number I do like is that the attempted census of Hive Trazior gave up when it had barely covered the upper levels at around a billion. Which gives us some idea of just how many people live in Hive Cities.

Everything else just seems really low. Though perhaps not necessarily the headcount of an Imperial Guard Regiment. There I’m happy to write off such an individual combat unit seeming low, because we know it’s but one of innumerable others.

So…where do we begin rescaling and renumbering 40K? What works for you, Dakka? And of course because it makes for more interesting conversation, why?

Gonna repost this here, the thread is more suitable:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Tbf yeah the Vraks bit is a bit outdated now 40k includes the 42nd millenium with more armaggeddons and black crusades.
That's not really the point though, the point is a massive planetary war famous for the attritional meat grinder so profound there's accusations of using cloning to maintain the numbers.
And it's not even that big by 1940s Earth standards.

It's very common in 40k. IIRC on Taros they deployed 8 regiments. 8 regiments to conquer a planet, that's nothing.

Vraks was published _after_ the Armageddon and 13th Black Crusade global campaigns had concluded. Those are very much in the lore prior to Vraks.

To be honest, I think you are overstating the importance and scale of Vraks in the setting, and conflating some of the lore. It was the focus of three IA books because it was interesting for the story they wanted to tell and the models they wanted to sell. The war is objectively smaller than, say, the Badab War in IA 9 and 10 though.

Vraks was a small world only important because it was essentially an Imperial Guard storehouse for the region. It had a low population but warehouses upon warehouses of munitions. The Imperium then does what the Imperium does and engages in a bloody meatgrinder to slowly recapture it in a pyrrhic victory.

_Krieg_ engages in something like cloning. Not because of Vraks specifically, but because it is a world dedicated to producing soldiers for the meatgrinder above all else. It is their primary export. There are Krieg regiments fighting and dying across the galaxy. 5 were deployed to Armageddon in the early phases of the 3rd war.

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time. Most Imperial planets are sparsely populated, and those that aren't are occupied more than integrated.

There are actually some lore examples that go into this "paradox".

I think the best approach for any scifi writer is to just not use actual numbers. Use comparisons or ambiguous numbers.

Like rather than say "this many millions died here" say "untold millions" or "enough to fill a hiveworld with the dead" or, "a billion coffins were issued without making a dent" - you imply a number enough to give the audience the impression you want them to have, without giving them an actual number they can think through and go "hmmm... actually that's not all that dramatic".

I think GW has started to learn this. IIRC in the more recent times they've listed the Leman Russes' armour it's now given as "inches of armour" rather than the previous "three inches of standard steel" or whatever.


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 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time. Most Imperial planets are sparsely populated, and those that aren't are occupied more than integrated.

I don't agree honestly. Even if you take the colonial framing - France lost 3% of its total population during the Napoleonic wars (20% specifically of military aged men).
In WW2 the military deaths only equated to about 1% of global population (although another 2% of the world civilians dying brings the total to 3% again).
The Imperium isn't engaging in small colonial wars pacifying stoneage natives, perhaps you could characterise the Great Crusade like that (but then the Great Crusade was a xenocide not colonial pacification). The Imperium in the 41st millenium is in a stage of constant total war against empires and species very much their equal or even greater in all but expanse.

And we know the Imperium has vast numbers of troops at its disposal. The Imperial Guard is greatly laboured to be in the billions or even trillions. Losing a couple million men would be a rounding error for them. If they mobilised a hive world, even just the accessible bits, you'd expect multiple billion soldiers right there.
So when GW tells us "this campaign was notable because so many people died" a few million just isn't gonna cut it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Came up in the Bolter Recoil thread about just how bad the background is with numbers. From a Chapter having an unfeasibly low number of Astartes, to supposedly staggering losses in a single campaign being fewer than in WW2. Which whilst I don’t want to understate the bravery and sacrifice of all WW2 Soldiers, is somewhat silly.

Now, one number I do like is that the attempted census of Hive Trazior gave up when it had barely covered the upper levels at around a billion. Which gives us some idea of just how many people live in Hive Cities.

Everything else just seems really low. Though perhaps not necessarily the headcount of an Imperial Guard Regiment. There I’m happy to write off such an individual combat unit seeming low, because we know it’s but one of innumerable others.

So…where do we begin rescaling and renumbering 40K? What works for you, Dakka? And of course because it makes for more interesting conversation, why?

In general I agree. GW keeps its numbers too low. Changing it is possible but would have knock-on effects in the background.

The easiest and most straightforward would be to instead of having the Cadian 8th you have the Cadia 80234th regiment. However increased IG army sizes also then impacts Imperial Navy background where cruisers are said to have transport capacity for 1 regiment while individual escort sized transports can do 1 regiment themselves. Warzones would mean a constant stream of ships ferrying troops to the planetary beachhead.

Enlarged IG armies would also diminish the significance of Astartes as there is only so much they could do if the armies are many millions strong. Decapitating the command structure of a regiment would become an insignificant effect. Astartes then should conserve their ammunition except when going for mission objectives as the enemy would have more bodies than they have bolter shells.

It also means Craftworld and Tau armies would also need to upscale and like the Astartes problem above, the effectiveness of their Farseer visions or Fire Caste strategies would have to be greater otherwise again they would pale into insignificance.

On Imperial Navy ships? We know they’re already vast. And being able to carry (number for demo only!) 2,000 soldiers, and being able to carry 2,000 soldiers in comfort aren’t the same thing.

I mean, a Cobra Class, the smallest warp capable warship is 1.5km long and 300m at its widest point.

In length? It rivals an Imperial Class Star Destroyer, but is notable thinner. And that apparently carries 9,700 Stormtroopers. Again, not necessarily in comfort!

We then have dedicated troop ships, like the Universe Class, which can carry a cited 500,000 troops and their equipment.

There's not even a consistent size of what a "regiment" is.
Because that alone is a whole mess with depictions varying from approximately an IRL battalion to an entire IRL Army or larger.

GW certainly has a habit of using very poor military organisational structures, with poor use of terms that slip around. "Regiment" is clearly just thought of as "large cohensive group of Imperial Guard soldiers" that expands and shrinks as the narrative and author's interpretation requires.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Imperial Navy ships? We know they’re already vast. And being able to carry (number for demo only!) 2,000 soldiers, and being able to carry 2,000 soldiers in comfort aren’t the same thing.

I mean, a Cobra Class, the smallest warp capable warship is 1.5km long and 300m at its widest point.

In length? It rivals an Imperial Class Star Destroyer, but is notable thinner. And that apparently carries 9,700 Stormtroopers. Again, not necessarily in comfort!

We then have dedicated troop ships, like the Universe Class, which can carry a cited 500,000 troops and their equipment.

A Cobra class is about 0.5km long. An Imperial cruiser is about 3 km long and battleships are about 6 km long. That was the original BFG scale given by Andy Chambers, its designer.

FFG however went for crazy number inflation for the sake of it of both ship and crew sizes, creating the never before seen and nonsensical situation of troop transports having more crew than their troop transport capacity.

The Taros campaign adhered to the original BFG scale, which is why you see each standard transport in the order of battle carrying only 1 regiment or for the smaller capacity armed transports, only part of an infantry regiment.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
There's not even a consistent size of what a "regiment" is.
Because that alone is a whole mess with depictions varying from approximately an IRL battalion to an entire IRL Army or larger.

GW certainly has a habit of using very poor military organisational structures, with poor use of terms that slip around. "Regiment" is clearly just thought of as "large cohensive group of Imperial Guard soldiers" that expands and shrinks as the narrative and author's interpretation requires.

Indeed. We have Cadian 8th at 8,000 while a Krieg line infantry regiment can be over 10x as big, and in the IA: Taros campaign book it gives the 114th Mech. Cadian at 39k in size. Originally in the 3rd edition IG Codex there was a snippet that said a regiment was a unit of accounting that the Administratum used to denote a group of roughly equal military strength to another regiment and which could be transported in one ship, so that even if ships got scattered or delayed, there would be somewhat cohesive fighting forces deployed. That original purpose seems to no longer hold true as I find it difficult to believe the fighting capability of a Cadian regiment of 8,000 to be equal to that of a Krieg regiment of over 10x as many troops or equal to that of another Cadian regiment 4x as big.

On ship transport numbers:

The closest IRL equivalents we can look is stuff like Operation Magic Carpet, which saw the US transporting their military back as fast as possible after WW2. They used battleships and stuff for transporting the men home.
USS Washington, a 220m long battleship transported 1,500 men home. If a cobra Class destroyer is double the length, it's presumably about 8x the volume as volume is a cube. Which would suggest about 12,000 men.
That's an actual military escort warship transporting very approximately a [perhaps small] regiment.

In Operation Magic Carpet the dedicated cruiseliners and stuff were transporting 10x that for the same size. (And even they were outfitted for transporting civilians in some level of comfort I doubt is afforded the Imperial Guard). Which would suggest our escort-sized troop transport could be transporting 120,000 men. Probably more like 150,000+ if it's built from the ground up to transport sardines-I mean His Emperor's Noble Guardsmen.
So an escort sized dedicated transport vessel really should be transporting multiple regiments (or perhaps one very large regiment). The larger cruiser or even larger sized troop transports... honestly 500,000 is probably a very lowball estimate

Personally, I'd start with Space Marines and put 3 0's whenever their chapter numbers are mentioned.
A chapter is 1 Mio Marines and there is 1 Billion Marines in the galaxy. That way it's less of a stretch that they appear all the time. Sometimes smaller numbers can be kept, like only a couple of squads of SW on Vigilus or what, other times it's far more appropriate to have, like, 20.000 Space Wolves appear on Sanctus Reach to actually have an impact on that battle and be able to hold the line on large fields against Morkanauts.
Also, Abaddon attacking Cadia with 200 Million Black Legionaires, yeah, that's certainly a thread and a number where the actual depiction of Marines works, in that they suffer severe losses all the time (loyalists as well as Chaos).
Right now, with only 1000Marines per chapter you'd either have to portray every single one of them as an Avenger (which is rarely done or only for characters), or you'd have to admit that even the Tau are a much more relevant player in the galaxy than all loyalist and heretic Marines combined...

Other numbers are not as obviously too small as the SM number to me, though there are outliers of course, like only 1 Million Guardsmen on Cadia. Make that 20 Billion or whatever and we're talking...

It is really annoying how FFG messed up the ship scale, and those numbers are now commonly accepted even though they do not make even internal sense (Cobra is 1.5km whilst long-prowed Sword is 1.6km, which would certainly make Cobra more massive than Sword.)

And marine numbers have always been too small. Even if we want to keep them as small cadres of elite warriors, the chapter should still be at least 10 000 strong.

And the both of the above contribute to the absurdity of the marine fleet. They have these fleets of absolutely humongous ships, that apparently can still transport only handful of marines. Over four kilometre ship can transport one company? Over 1.5 km ship can transport one squad? Really? It makes no sense whatsoever. And yes, I'm taking into account their gear and vehicles.

In any engagement the contributions of the actual fighting marines would be totally overshadowed by the firepower of their fleet.

On Astartes Fleets? The ships themselves of course come from the days of the Great Crusade. And following the 2nd Founding, Legion Assets were distributed among the resulting Chapters, with new ships being built throughout the past 10,000 years.

Given the infantry losses during the Heresy, it’s likely they had a really good ship to personnel ratio, hence Strike Cruisers that might once have housed a Legion Company (approx a modern Chapter, give or take) might only be carrying a relative handful of Astartes.

That allows the Chapter to get involved in more warzones, and focus on what they ostensibly do best. Find the core of the enemy war machine and give it a really rapid but thorough kicking, ideally leading to the collapse of its lines and giving the other Imperial Forces a considerably easier time.

So that doesn’t both me so much. And it kind of serves as testament to how wonky things are in the modern Imperium.

@Iracundus - making the Guard bigger doesn’t make decapitation strikes any less effective, they are just happening further up the food chain. Regiments are led by Colonels and Majors. You wouldn’t waste marine strikes at that level anyway. Even Corps level is probably a bit low for true strategic impact. It’s the Army, Army Group and (ideally) Theatre commands that you send the marines after.

Personally, having a Regiment at about 10k troops is fine as that is probably the practical limit for direct command in the field. A set of monoculture regiments of 10k each, split into 2 or 3 chunks to create combined arms field divisions. Regimental command to each unit is maintained, they just have a divisional layer to enable coordination.

Humans can only handle about 5 things at a time, so the GW build up of 5-6 squads in a platoon, 5-6 platoons in a company, 5-6 companies in a regiment also tracks nicely. To push up to 10k per "regiment" the battalion (about 1k troops) and brigade (about 5k troops) layers just need to be added in, and a logical command structure is maintained. Especially if we view the Regimental concept more in the UK model as an organisational designation rather than the US model of a field command.

To me the mismatch comes from having a planet- wide and huge conflict with only half a dozen regiments noted. There should be hundreds.

 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time.

Don't forget that the British soldiers were massively outnumbered by locally recruited troops.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

That original purpose seems to no longer hold true as I find it difficult to believe the fighting capability of a Cadian regiment of 8,000 to be equal to that of a Krieg regiment of over 10x as many troops or equal to that of another Cadian regiment 4x as big.

Well... one could be mech and one infantry with no integral transport.

 Crimson wrote:

And marine numbers have always been too small. Even if we want to keep them as small cadres of elite warrios, the chapter should still be at least 10 000 strong.

Well it kinda works if you imagine those 1000 marines are all the teeth of a fighting formation and behind them the tail is all unseen serfs. Western militaries had 8 enablers for every front line infantryman. So that would give a mobilised force of 9000 for a chapter but only those front line 1000 are Astartes.

In any engagement the contributions of the actual fighting marines would be totally overshadowed by the firepower of their fleet.

I think every time we have a fight in 40k you have to handwave away the fleet or its all over.

I’ve always interpreted it as the fleet being more concerned with stopping more enemies making planet fall, so is outward facing to intercept incoming enemy ships and fleets.

Plus, if the ground forces can claim the main objectives? Do you really want to flatten them from orbit, prolonging recovery efforts once inevitable victory is achieved?

I've always felt like actual ground combat should be a rarity in 40k.

Granted, this applies more to *30k* where you have the Great Crusade and their explicit intention is to exterminate a xenos planet, level their cities, and build a anew. Why not achieve all those objectives with a short-sharp orbital bombardment rather than committing to a massive planet wide ground invasion. It must take decades to flush out every basement on a planet! Just to bulldoze and buildover anyway.

But even for 40k, precision-orbital bombardment is definitely a thing in lore. Like a lance strike is accurate enough to hit a bunker perhaps. There's also munitions, such as virus bombs, that can level an army whilst leaving a variety of strategically important assets untouched. Precision and/or low collateral munitions really means there's little reason *not* to bombard stuff. As long as one side as a ship in orbit free enough there should be little ability to confront them in open conflict.

Other excuses for why you can't just bombard enemy positions is void shields. But vessels in 40k are specifically designed to pummel the shields of opposing battleships down before striking the exposed ship. Especially a fleet should definitely be able to pummel down the voids of an enemy fortress-city before glassing the place.
Or - we know voids can be bypassed by slow moving items. That's torpedoes or attack craft in BFG, and often includes droppods and stuff in 40k stories. If you can drop a pod full of Marines you can drop a pod full of virus- or plasma- bomb through to do the job.

Really the only reason ground combat should ever often occur is intense subterreanean combat, such as cleansing the lower-reaches of a critical Hiveworld or Forgeworld perhaps.
For this honestly Marines are the worst possible soldiers. Imagine how useless a Space Marine must feel when the enemy disappears through a narrow hatchway or tunnel. The Marine would be completely unable to follow they would find themselves hopelessly incapable of conducting a war in such conditions.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I've always felt like actual ground combat should be a rarity in 40k.

Granted, this applies more to *30k* where you have the Great Crusade and their explicit intention is to exterminate a xenos planet, level their cities, and build a anew. Why not achieve all those objectives with a short-sharp orbital bombardment rather than committing to a massive planet wide ground invasion. It must take decades to flush out every basement on a planet! Just to bulldoze and buildover anyway.

But even for 40k, precision-orbital bombardment is definitely a thing in lore. Like a lance strike is accurate enough to hit a bunker perhaps. There's also munitions, such as virus bombs, that can level an army whilst leaving a variety of strategically important assets untouched. Precision and/or low collateral munitions really means there's little reason *not* to bombard stuff. As long as one side as a ship in orbit free enough there should be little ability to confront them in open conflict.

Other excuses for why you can't just bombard enemy positions is void shields. But vessels in 40k are specifically designed to pummel the shields of opposing battleships down before striking the exposed ship. Especially a fleet should definitely be able to pummel down the voids of an enemy fortress-city before glassing the place.
Or - we know voids can be bypassed by slow moving items. That's torpedoes or attack craft in BFG, and often includes droppods and stuff in 40k stories. If you can drop a pod full of Marines you can drop a pod full of virus- or plasma- bomb through to do the job.

Really the only reason ground combat should ever often occur is intense subterreanean combat, such as cleansing the lower-reaches of a critical Hiveworld or Forgeworld perhaps.
For this honestly Marines are the worst possible soldiers. Imagine how useless a Space Marine must feel when the enemy disappears through a narrow hatchway or tunnel. The Marine would be completely unable to follow they would find themselves hopelessly incapable of conducting a war in such conditions.

In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.

From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040805101210/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/BFG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

Then we have also multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.

Summary: Static anti-orbital defensive installations can match or exceed the firepower of a typical Imperial ship and major facilities like hive cities can also have void shields. In a pure slugging match, the ship is likely to come out the worse for wear, and a warp capable ship's technology is likely more valuable than that of the laser silo or missile silo.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I think every time we have a fight in 40k you have to handwave away the fleet or its all over.

I am fairly sure there are only three situations where ground battle happens at all.

1. The battle is over something so vital you can't just bomb it from orbit. Say, an archaeotech relic with religious importance. You can't risk destroying it by bombing the thieves.

2. Space superiority is contested. You cannot linger exposed in orbit to bomb strategic targets. You can pass by and risk sending out landing craft which then can themselves take the planetside war from there, but no more.

3. The target is hardened with void shields. Void shields are also why titans don't usually just get nuked from orbit. The way they are presented, they are absurdly efficient at stopping single large attacks (like a ship's lance shot) but more vulnerable up close. Stationary void shield installations, especially if equipped with anti-orbital batteries, benefit from not having to be mobile and can be built with immense power and scale, and often are futile propositions to try to fight head-on, so you have to crack them from the ground. The Siege of Terra is the most notable example of this, the Imperial Palace's void shields could withstand the entire fleet's firepower so the traitors had to physically go through the barriers with aircraft and ground assaults and try to destroy the void shield generators at point blank.

 Ashiraya wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I think every time we have a fight in 40k you have to handwave away the fleet or its all over.

I am fairly sure there are only three situations where ground battle happens at all.

1. The battle is over something so vital you can't just bomb it from orbit. Say, an archaeotech relic with religious importance. You can't risk destroying it by bombing the thieves.

2. Space superiority is contested. You cannot linger exposed in orbit to bomb strategic targets. You can pass by and risk sending out landing craft which then can themselves take the planetside war from there, but no more.

3. The target is hardened with void shields. Void shields are also why titans don't usually just get nuked from orbit. The way they are presented, they are absurdly efficient at stopping single large attacks (like a ship's lance shot) but more vulnerable up close. Stationary void shield installations, especially if equipped with anti-orbital batteries, benefit from not having to be mobile and can be built with immense power and scale, and often are futile propositions to try to fight head-on, so you have to crack them from the ground. The Siege of Terra is the most notable example of this, the Imperial Palace's void shields could withstand the entire fleet's firepower so the traitors had to physically go through the barriers with aircraft and ground assaults and try to destroy the void shield generators at point blank.

I'd actually argue that these things are rarely true.
GW loves a hostile battlefield, so choked with radiation or whatever nothing can survive. That's the battlefields of Armaggedon right now
And something like a titan may have the voidships to survive a single lance-strike, but what about 4 in quick succession? Even a warship like a Destroyer, many times the size of the largest titan, can't withstand such a bombardment and will be destroyed in short order. Titans are demonstrably vulnerable to a couple of Superheavy tank-hunters, again far less firepower than even a small escort ship let alone a capital ship can bring to bear.

They're not always true, but these reasons are absolutely often presented in the novels. Since you mentioned 30k, I can bring up Nuceria in the novel Betrayer, where space superiority was exactly the reason why orbital bombardment was not used earlier than it was.

Iracundus wrote:

In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.

From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040805101210/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/BFG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

Then we have also multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.

Summary: Static anti-orbital defensive installations can match or exceed the firepower of a typical Imperial ship and major facilities like hive cities can also have void shields. In a pure slugging match, the ship is likely to come out the worse for wear, and a warp capable ship's technology is likely more valuable than that of the laser silo or missile silo.

I can kind of see the orbital defences argument, but that shows a major hive has the firepower of approximately two cruisers. But also the major disadvantage of being unable to maneuvre at all. A fleet rocking by, or even performing torpedo-and-run attacks can easily overwhelm that. We saw in WW2 how vulnerable land-based defences were at simply being outnumbered and overwhelmed by fleets of ships despite being ostensibly superior to many of the ships in terms of firepower and protection.
The fact that your ground based defences are beholden to rigid orbital mechanics means they're just incredibly vulnerable to being bombarded from well, well outside the range they can hit back. Hell a torpedo salvo could be launched from the other side of the solar system if the firer has the patience to wait for it to orbit onto the target

I mean at that point you're just running into the issue of "Why are they using a chain-saw melee weapon? Why are they using Space Marines?" which is an issue that 40k just isn't interested in this level of common sense to begin with.

If 40k was "realistic" it would not have the kind of spaceship it does in the first place. 40k may give superficial answers to how things work but you are not expected to really think about it too much.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.

From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040805101210/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/BFG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

Then we have also multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.

Summary: Static anti-orbital defensive installations can match or exceed the firepower of a typical Imperial ship and major facilities like hive cities can also have void shields. In a pure slugging match, the ship is likely to come out the worse for wear, and a warp capable ship's technology is likely more valuable than that of the laser silo or missile silo.

I can kind of see the orbital defences argument, but that shows a major hive has the firepower of approximately two cruisers.

The gap in firepower is more extreme than that. Each laser silo has the equivalent firepower of a Retribution class battleship's dorsal lance turrets. A hive's 8 laser silos would in BFG terms have 24 lance shots at 60cm range. That is about 6 Gothic cruiser broadsides with double the range or the dorsal lance turrets of 8 Retribution battleships. Each missile silo launches the equivalent of a full cruiser's torpedo salvo. Each air base has enough to match a Dictator class cruiser's launch capacity. So each hive city has the launch capacity of 4 cruisers, the torpedo capacity of 8 cruisers, and the lance capacity of the equivalent of the dorsal lances of 8 Retribution battleships. That kind of firepower is enough to shred any single standard ship, including battle barges, again using BFG rules as reference. That also assumes that there are no overlapping arcs of fire into orbit between multiple hive cities. A single hive city's defenses are enough to overwhelm the average fleet and make any larger fleet think twice given how painful it would be. Ship damage and losses are not easily recovered from in 40K as repair of major damage can take weeks to months and require the services of a shipyard or dock, and construction of new capital ships can take many years.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

And something like a titan may have the voidships to survive a single lance-strike, but what about 4 in quick succession? Even a warship like a Destroyer, many times the size of the largest titan, can't withstand such a bombardment and will be destroyed in short order. Titans are demonstrably vulnerable to a couple of Superheavy tank-hunters, again far less firepower than even a small escort ship let alone a capital ship can bring to bear.

Having used lances a lot against ground targets in Epic A I can tell you... Lance strike does D3 unsavable hits on a 2+. Warlord titan has 6 void shields. A salvo of 4 lances would do 6 2/3's points of damage on average. So would slightly damage a fully shielded titan, or mostly kill and give a critical to an unshielded titan and break it. Get into cover though like ruins or a forest and you are hit on a 3+ so taking 5 1/3 hits. You just hope there isn't a second barrage coming your way in that case

Against a battleship 4 lances wouldn't get through its shields. Against a cruiser you are hitting on 4's so probably won't get through the shields, though if you lock on you will get 2 hits so knock down shields and do a point of damage.

A significant fortification might have layered and interlocking Void Shields.

Where that technology rocks is that until the first shield is knocked down? The second and subsequent ones haven’t even been tickled.

And in most cases, but far from all? The shield going down is due to its generator overheating, rather than being destroyed. You can overcharge the generator to strengthen your shields of course, but that raises the risk of the generator being destroyed quite significantly.

So, any fortification or city could have sufficient VSG’s buried within it that you stand barely a chance of knocking them down in sufficient number and for long enough to damage the structure.

Titans are arguably going to have the nominally weakest VSG. Not because of some inherent design flaws, but because compared to a static fortification or a space borne battle ship? Space is at an absolute premium. Which limits your cooling options for them.

So, I don’t think it’s entirely handwavium to argue that using a Titan’s shields as a benchmark is perhaps misleading.

If they’re well maintained, by a staff with at least a decent understanding of their operating principles and why keeping the VSG as cool as possible, then we can likely expect a Fortification’s void shields to provide a greater degree of protection.

Not to the put of absolute invulnerability, no. That would be a silly and baseless argument. But it seems entirely possible, if not outright likely, that such Void Shields could be raised back up more quickly during a battle or assault,

For a Lance Gunnery Crew attacking it? You’re best off staggering your attacks somewhat. If they’re all hit at the same time? You’re only likely to collapse a single shield. Stagger your shots as much as you can? Then you stand to batter down multiple shields, and hope that if you strip them entirely that you’re next volley is swift enough the shields are still down when it hits.

Edited to specify a Lance Gunnery Crew.

The biggest number I want to fix in 40K is the height of space marines and especially primarchs!

Space Marines should be max around 7 feet tall in armour. Primarchs should generally be the same size, perhaps with some exceptions like Magnus who is really big.

Space Marines being physically enormous just makes them too easy to beat by having fortifications and corridors that are too small for them to enter. And Primarchs being really massive has always been supremely silly since it was introduced. The Khan was supposed to lead a culture of horse warriors - did he run along while they rode horses? Did they find him a really massive horse to ride?

And on none of these planets was anyone freaked out that these gigantic men kept growing? All of the background about primarchs is better if they're normal marine sized, and you can still have them being superhumans with super heroic strength and toughness.

And fully agreed on the ridiculous size of 40K space ships. I don't mind some sort of long range colony ship or ancient space habitat being absolutely sprawling and massive, but there's no reason for the warships to be so big. And lots of the stories involve people running to and from different areas of the ships, or walking between them. If the ships are as big as described this would take hours, the ships would be ridiculously unwieldy to manage.

 Da Boss wrote:
The Khan was supposed to lead a culture of horse warriors - did he run along while they rode horses? Did they find him a really massive horse to ride?

Yes, actually. I've not gotten to the Scars novels yet, but Descent of Angels presents Lion El'Jonson as "a little under three metres tall", and mentions that his horse was the largest specimen bred by the horsemasters of Caliban. Given the weird alien fauna of the world, we shouldn't assume that this horse was a biologically unchanged Equus ferus caballus horse.

And on none of these planets was anyone freaked out that these gigantic men kept growing?

Oh they absolutely were. Again, to use Caliban as an example, the Lion struck awe into all around him. No one could explain what exactly he was, but his unnatural charisma carried him through just about all suspicion.

Wouldn't it just make more sense if the Primarchs were not giants? Those things are obvious retcons from the decision to make the Primarchs massive, because they likely wanted to make really huge models for them at some point and sell them for high prices.

I allow a certain poetic license there. I mean, it’s not uncommon for physical stature to be exaggerated in tales or art. Either to paint them as quite incredibly ‘ard, or in more formal art to show who the boss is.

I mean yeah, the giant primarchs are stupid. Apparently the Imperium is now orks, and you can tell who's in charge by their height.

 Da Boss wrote:
Wouldn't it just make more sense if the Primarchs were not giants? Those things are obvious retcons from the decision to make the Primarchs massive, because they likely wanted to make really huge models for them at some point and sell them for high prices.

This novel is from six years before the 30k game launched, for what it's worth, and even at that point they didn't launch any Primarch day 1.

I think they just figured big is cool. Same reason why Titans are unrealistically big.

There’s also the positive for your side psychological impact of Great Big Heroes.

The original plan was for the Primarchs to mature on Terra under the Emperor, then lead His Legions out into the stars to bring him His Imperium.

Now. You’re some tu’penny ha’penny Warlord. You’ve got your own version of something akin to Thunder Warriors. You are the big cheese in your little pocket of man’s former domain.

Then…comes a 10’ Tall Demigod of War, clad in the finest plate with weapons that make you look like sticks and stones against the lightning, and they’ve backed by fanatically loyal soldiers all a good 7’ tall and equally well equipped.

You haven’t even got a name tag in galactic terms. Why don’t just lie down? Eh? Just lie down.

Or you’re a downtrodden far flung former colony world, that’s barely survived the darkest to date days of humanity. Then some 10’ tall blah blah descends from the stars bringing you love and the promise of a ludicrously brighter tomorrow. And clearly has the muscle to go out and chin all those beastly bully Xenos that have been preying on you and yours and blah blah.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Wouldn't it just make more sense if the Primarchs were not giants? Those things are obvious retcons from the decision to make the Primarchs massive, because they likely wanted to make really huge models for them at some point and sell them for high prices.

This novel is from six years before the 30k game launched, for what it's worth, and even at that point they didn't launch any Primarch day 1.

I think they just figured big is cool. Same reason why Titans are unrealistically big.

Yeah. Black Library. Before the main studio went nuts and decided to start bringing primarchs back it was the main source of stupid lore. That, or FFG licenced stuff. At some point the writers just decided that all myths and propaganda are literally true and the setting became flatter and stupider for it.

Oh no, you are definitely not blaming Titans on Black Library here. GW in every single department is relentlessly guilty of making things absurdly and unrealistically massive for the rule of cool. Primarchs are in no way a special case.

I blame Epic.

Have you seen the cover for the original Adeptus Titanicus? Have you?

I have! And that's GW main studio stuff!

Where are the sassy comments about this being fanfiction, huh?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Oh no, you are definitely not blaming Titans on Black Library here. GW in every single department is relentlessly guilty of making things absurdly and unrealistically massive for the rule of cool. Primarchs are in no way a special case.

I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

And primarchs being big is not "silly scifi numbers" type of stupid, as it is perfectly undersandable human scale stuff. It is is just embarrassing and puerile. "Important man big; more important man more big!"

 Crimson wrote:
I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

...Listen, I agree titans are cool, but even the most conservative sizes (the ~32m height for a Warlord given by Titanicus, which lines up with the 30k model - this is not even getting into the Warmaster and Imperator) do not make Titans anything I'd remotely call "reasonable", not even by half.

There are physical, structural, chemical, tactical, strategic, logistical (etc etc) reasons for why it is eminently not reasonable.

What is reasonable is doing what the early 2000s Tau did and just killing them with aircraft.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

...Listen, I agree titans are cool, but even the most conservative sizes (the ~32m height for a Warlord given by Titanicus, which lines up with the 30k model - this is not even getting into the Warmaster and Imperator) do not make Titans anything I'd remotely call "reasonable", not even by half.

There are physical, structural, chemical, tactical, strategic, logistical (etc etc) reasons for why it is eminently not reasonable.

What is reasonable is doing what the early 2000s Tau did and just killing them with aircraft.

By "reasonable" I did not mean realistic. Giant walking robots are not realistic to begin with. But they have sizes that make sense with the rest of the ground force assets and are not nearly as ludicrous as in some art. That is unlike the 1,5 km space ships that can carry ten marines, whilst a 25 metre Thunderhawk can carry 30.

Can carry, and usually carries, aren’t the same thing at all.

Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges are intended for carting about and supporting Legion Strength forces, where we might expect the Marines aboard to number in the hundreds (Strike Cruisers) or thousands (Battle Barges).

That modern day Chapters don’t have those sorts of numbers of manpower, but inherited ships intended for said manpower is why they’re so light on numbers.

It’s not a space restriction, it’s a legacy of more glorious and numerous days.

Sure, but are they more reasonable than a 3m Primarch?

I am not as fussed about scale as I used to be, but like, if they're gene-engineered to be physical übermenschen (with their neglected weakness being largely in emotion and introspection - very fitting, actually), then sure, them being massive seems like exactly what the Emperor would do. It lines up with someone who already makes everything in his Imperium oversized, with massive tanks, massive buildings, massive cities, massive soldiers, massive guns, and so on.

If Ogryns can be functional and contributing members of the Imperium (which they can - beyond their military use, their are also labourers, bodyguards, and so on), even to the point of being boarding action specialists with augmentation, then Primarchs are fine too, I figure.

I get the puerile angle if you mean people who glorify the Primarchs unironically and want them to be big and awesome because of that.

But to me, they have two aspects; the glorified exterior (which makes for fun models to paint, as a bonus) and the sorely lacking inner existence (as demonstrated by the Heresy), which is an aspect of the lore GW often nowadays find it profitable to de-emphasise, but is still heavily evidenced.

That’s my take on it. And if we want to really read into it with only a modicum of speculation? If The Emperor somehow split his soul into the bodies of his “sons”? Then their emptiness make be baked into them, and be impossible to treat in any way.

Whatever a soul actually is? They’ve not got a whole one, and never will. So whatever part of them the gaping void is actually in? That void is never, ever going to be filled.

So despite their prodigious intelligence and capacity for learning is overall, there are some things they’ll be forever blind to.

Which is why I’m chuffed The Lion returned. He’s a decent foil for Guilliman. The ruthlessly efficient hunter of whatever you’ve got and the near perfect Statesman. You’ve one to lead the Imperium, and one to spearhead its forces where it’s needed most. Bring back Leman Russ? And you’ve your friendly neighbourhood berserker to really cow would be challengers in no uncertain terms.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Sure, but are they more reasonable than a 3m Primarch?

It is not same type of an issue. The problem with 3m primarchs is not that it is implausible or logistically awkward (even though it would be the latter.) It is that is stupid in puerile and embarrassing way. And no, I don't think it looks cool on tabletop, it looks like hero model from a game with different scale is accidentally put on the table.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can carry, and usually carries, aren’t the same thing at all.

Strike Cruisers and Battle Barges are intended for carting about and supporting Legion Strength forces, where we might expect the Marines aboard to number in the hundreds (Strike Cruisers) or thousands (Battle Barges).

That modern day Chapters don’t have those sorts of numbers of manpower, but inherited ships intended for said manpower is why they’re so light on numbers.

It’s not a space restriction, it’s a legacy of more glorious and numerous days.

But that is not how it is actually presented in the fluff.

 Crimson wrote:


It is not same type of an issue. The problem with 3m primarchs is not that it is implausible or logistically awkward (even though it would be the latter.) It is that is stupid in puerile and embarrassing way. And no, I don't think it looks cool on tabletop, it looks like hero model from a game with different scale is accidentally put on the table.

I can't say I get it, so I think you've lost me.

Might just be a taste thing? I get that varies a lot. I always thought Imperial Guard and its other setting counterparts (like the Empire of WHFB) were the most boring faction in each setting and I don't see the appeal in them at all, they just feel like NPCs to me. You need to add some spice to them that makes seem less just like pseudohistorical soldiers, something like the eccentric diving suit look of the of the Solar Auxilia or the mixed-species military of the Cities of Sigmar, for the "basic human faction" to interest me.

But a bunch of people seem just as lost when I tell them that as you make me feel right now.

The Imperial Guard kick ass! Like, seriously.

They’re pretty much just you or me, in vast numbers, with somewhat varying quality of training. Yet it’s them that hold, and when given the chance, expand an Empire it took innumerable super soldier the like of which had never been seen to take in the first place.

As a side note I always thought most of an Imperium spaceship was the drives, warp drives and shielding of various types. Kinda like Aliens where that big ship can only deliver a small payload of equipment.

Anyway, Invader Zim showed us the biggest are always in charge. GW also follows this logic. As does apparently US presidential elections.

In my bunker complex we only have 5 foot tall doorways and corridors. Yes it sucks bending over everywhere, but we are space marine proof.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Imperial Guard kick ass! Like, seriously.

They’re pretty much just you or me, in vast numbers, with somewhat varying quality of training. Yet it’s them that hold, and when given the chance, expand an Empire it took innumerable super soldier the like of which had never been seen to take in the first place.

Yeah this is what everyone tells me, but I don't find I identify with them all that much. I don't like militaries much in real life either, and the Guard are taken from the best of the PDF, being dedicated, devoted soldiers.

A hapless farmer defending their home from feral Ork raiders? Sure, I can raise my thumbs to that.

Wehrmacht in Space (arguably worse - upholding the "cruellest, most bloody regime imaginable", which says a lot as I can imagine quite a bit) I find altogether less relatable. Which is fine, 40k factions hardly have to be relatable, but then what else do they have?

 Crimson wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Oh no, you are definitely not blaming Titans on Black Library here. GW in every single department is relentlessly guilty of making things absurdly and unrealistically massive for the rule of cool. Primarchs are in no way a special case.

I am not blaming them on the titans, which have official sizes by the studio, and which are actually pretty reasonable.

And primarchs being big is not "silly scifi numbers" type of stupid, as it is perfectly undersandable human scale stuff. It is is just embarrassing and puerile. "Important man big; more important man more big!"

This. So much this. Humans became Orks.

I don't bat an eye at Titans. Weapons evolve to suit the environment they're expected to survive in. In the context of 40K I can believe they are a potential solution to the problem of fortified cities/installations defended against orbital or aerial bombardment. Can't fly your spacecraft over that hemisphere to blast it? Fine, land a shielded superweapon and walk over there.

Giant Primarchs/armor can't fit through standard architecture or use the same vehicles that everyone else does.

I’m going to bring up my pet hypothesis on “why so big and shiny”. And it is to do with Orks, and your only possible approach to contain them.

See. In Ork society, we know Might Makes Right. But only if you’re Orky. And it’s not enough (Diggas) to be Orkyish. You have to be Orky, and that necessitates you being an Ork.

Orks also need to fight as a genetic imperative. It’s what they do. The bigger the fight? The more Orks will find their way to it to join in.

Orks do kind of, ish, respect the strength of others. But only insofar it holds the promise of a really really good fight. Ref Ghaz releasing Yarrick and good enemies being hard to find.

The Emperor presumably knew this. And given at the time of the Great Crusade Orkdom was the only pan galactic foe of any real note? They’re likely going to be the most constant thorn in your side.

But you can contain them, after a fashion. It’s a labour of Hercules type affair, but “all” you need to do is create a sufficiently fighty fight to draw in all the very ‘ardest Orks in the galaxy (because they all want to prove they’re the ‘ardest and therefore Orkiest Ork to ever kick a git in the teef), then defeat them. From there? The scale of the threat diminishes, and with sufficient forces you can keep breaking them down, including permanent interdiction of Ork held worlds. You don’t necessarily need to take the worlds. Interdiction and orbital strikes to knacker any ships being built should be enough.

You basically cause a critical mass, defuse it, and then keep grinding them down to the point they can never achieve critical mass ever again.

Hence? The Primarchs being Big, and The Emperor being Ded Shiny. And oh my weren’t they fighty.

Which all leads to Ullanor. A galactic poultice to draw the Orky poison to a single location, and then lance the boil in a one and done barring constant maintenance job.

The strategic equivalent of screaming “OI, YOU SIZEABLE LADY’S CHEMISE. COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH”..

Commissar Yarrik proves that you don't need to be big to impress Orks. Just fighty.

On Titans again: Titans might also just solve the problem of Something big enough to carry multiple Void Shields, but capable of traversing more varied terrain than tracked/wheeled vehicles.

More factions should develop kneeseeker missiles. How hard could it be?

There is no role that a titan can fulfil that could not be done more effectively and efficiently than by any other vehicle form factor, other than “big stompy robot”. And that is why we love them!

I definitely think to some extent you lose some of the fun factor when you try too hard to make sense of 40k.

Things like Titans have been in from the start, obviously, but we also have funny lore tidbits like Custodian Allarus armour being able to "stride unharmed from the blast of a macrocannon shell" (lmao) to say nothing of Solitaires who are basically playing Metal Gear Rising while everyone else is playing Planetside 2.

There is a bit in the Warhawk novel where Jaghatai Khan picks up a thirty-ton Leviathan Dreadnought, one-handed, and tosses it like a toy. The battle just paused as everyone else looked up to see the Dreadnought sailing over their heads. I actually cackled outright at first because of how profoundly stupid it was, but then I actually kind of loved it. Warhammer being stupid is part of its DNA, I think. It reminds me of how in old WHFB you might see a story of how the lords Honda and Nissan of Nippon go fighting Tiqtak'to and Kroak. Deeply, deeply unserious.

 Flinty wrote:
More factions should develop kneeseeker missiles. How hard could it be?

There is no role that a titan can fulfil that could not be done more effectively and efficiently than by any other vehicle form factor, other than “big stompy robot”. And that is why we love them!

Is that true? I think of a Titan as a big, moving, gun platform. Other things can do that, like a Collossus or Leviathan, but the Titan can move over terrain that large tracked things cannot.

"Kneeseeker missiles" make sense, but you still have to contend with the Void Shields. And if the kneeseeker missiles are unreliable, expensive or rare, then on balance the Titans still have a place. In fact there are anti-Titan weapons and Missiles anyways, like Warp Missiles and Shadowsword Volcano Cannons. They are, as above, expensive and rare.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

There is a bit in the Warhawk novel where Jaghatai Khan picks up a thirty-ton Leviathan Dreadnought, one-handed, and tosses it like a toy. The battle just paused as everyone else looked up to see the Dreadnought sailing over their heads. I actually cackled outright at first because of how profoundly stupid it was, but then I actually kind of loved it. Warhammer being stupid is part of its DNA, I think. It reminds me of how in old WHFB you might see a story of how the lords Honda and Nissan of Nippon go fighting Tiqtak'to and Kroak. Deeply, deeply unserious.

I'm not going to deny that some of Black Library is incredibly stupid. But I also don't think that we have to tarnish all of 40k because some BL author can't restrain themselves.

Dune is set in the far future with interstellar travel, but much of the fighting is done with knives. Sounds pretty stupid! But in-universe there are reasons for it, and those reasons make the setting more interesting. On the surface Titans seem ridiculous. But if we peer into the reasons why they are there and remain effective, it can give us a more interesting and textured setting.

I’ve always interpreted the background to be a mythical one, rather than historical. Even the Heresy novels.

That leaves plenty room for exaggeration. To use the example above? Perhaps the truth of it is The Khan hacked his way into the Leviathan’s Sarcophagus, and threw the pilot. Doesn’t take many retellings for that to turn into him hoying the whole thing.

Likewise when Angron held up a Warhound Titan’s foot. Did he? Or was he fully stepped on, but due to Primarch resilience and some handily soft or extremely muddy ground, he survived it?

In an empire of untold trillions, just think how few would’ve been eye witnesses at all, let alone eye witnesses paying sufficient attention during battle?

The_Real_Chris wrote:
As a side note I always thought most of an Imperium spaceship was the drives, warp drives and shielding of various types. Kinda like Aliens where that big ship can only deliver a small payload of equipment.

Anyway, Invader Zim showed us the biggest are always in charge. GW also follows this logic. As does apparently US presidential elections.

In my bunker complex we only have 5 foot tall doorways and corridors. Yes it sucks bending over everywhere, but we are space marine proof.

This was my understanding. People take the ship dimensions and calculate internal volume and go "This could fit a million humans, the crew sizes are silly". It could probably fit a billion humans if rendered into homogenised soup and poured into the space...

The ships contain things other than crew, assuming the areas of the ship that are capable of supporting life are in any way proportional to modern ships is silly. Especially given the disparity in crew to displacement between, say, a super tanker, a modern guided-missile destroyer, an aircraft carrier, and a WW2 battleship.

Once factoring in armour, engines (both conventional and warp), shielding, structural members, weaponry, power conduits, sensors, cooling etc, even for the crew there needs to be vast amounts of space dedicated to things like oxygen and water regeneration or food storage. Imperial warships are supposed to patrol for months or even years without resupply, in a way essentially no modern vessels are expected to operate. Plus maintaining human-safe areas is going to be hard and energy intensive, these are going to be kept as small as possible.

On door and corridor sizes? The inspiration is of course rather grand churches, cathedrals and other buildings built in the Gothic style.

Note they too have larger than necessary doors and high ceilings, the better to awe the congregants and just generally impress.

Within The Imperium? They’re also large to accommodate all sorts of vehicles and Servitors. So even staff areas, which tend to be of more practical size, will be larger than the real world to allow the passage of goods and bulky things.

Will there be much narrower corridors here and there? Yes. Absolutely. But the heavy traffic areas are big for a reason.

 Crimson wrote:
It is really annoying how FFG messed up the ship scale, and those numbers are now commonly accepted even though they do not make even internal sense (Cobra is 1.5km whilst long-prowed Sword is 1.6km, which would certainly make Cobra more massive than Sword.)

And marine numbers have always been too small. Even if we want to keep them as small cadres of elite warriors, the chapter should still be at least 10 000 strong.

And the both of the above contribute to the absurdity of the marine fleet. They have these fleets of absolutely humongous ships, that apparently can still transport only handful of marines. Over four kilometre ship can transport one company? Over 1.5 km ship can transport one squad? Really? It makes no sense whatsoever. And yes, I'm taking into account their gear and vehicles.

In any engagement the contributions of the actual fighting marines would be totally overshadowed by the firepower of their fleet.

To be fair, I always assumed those numbers meant the number of Marines they could comfortably support. As The_Real_Chris points out, there is a huge logistical chain supporting each Astartes soldier, a company of 100 will have hundreds of serfs keeping them operating in the field, repairing damaged gear and restocking ammunition. It isn't that a strike cruiser couldn't physically carry more than 100 Marines, it is that it doesn't have the resources to sustain more than that in continuous combat operations.

Bear in mind that one of the key strengths of Marines is that they can sustain a constant, enormous tempo of combat operations where they repeatedly engage on strike after strike with minimal rest between sorties. That kind of intensity will require a massive amount of support to maintain.

Marines have always been overshadowed by their fleets really. Marine chapters are better thought of as fleet assets that carry specialised munitions dedicated to breaking open orbital defenses (the Marines) that would be too costly for the fleet to engage otherwise. That is why they are Space Marines and not Space Soldiers or something. It has long been in lore that the mere arrival of a Space Marine strike cruiser in orbit is enough to end many rebellions.

And not just because “oh blimey, Astartes”.

Rather that if any size of Astartes force has arrived to put you back in your box? It means The Imperium is not giving up.

If you’re a world in rebellion? You’ve limited back up and reinforcement options. And it’s possible (if not necessarily common) you’re the only unruly world in a system.

Your best hope is that no word of your rebellion gets off planet, or that any distress call is simply stuck on a pile and never attended to. Both of which are possible. Though what you do when the Tithe is to be collected is a significant issue. That will definitely be noticed, even if a response is years in coming.

But once the Imperium decides you need to have your head kicked in? It’s all but over. Astartes attendance can only be interpreted that they’re particularly serious this time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve always interpreted the background to be a mythical one, rather than historical. Even the Heresy novels.

That leaves plenty room for exaggeration. To use the example above? Perhaps the truth of it is The Khan hacked his way into the Leviathan’s Sarcophagus, and threw the pilot. Doesn’t take many retellings for that to turn into him hoying the whole thing.

Likewise when Angron held up a Warhound Titan’s foot. Did he? Or was he fully stepped on, but due to Primarch resilience and some handily soft or extremely muddy ground, he survived it?

In an empire of untold trillions, just think how few would’ve been eye witnesses at all, let alone eye witnesses paying sufficient attention during battle?

Isn't that a cop out though?
I mean, personally I also like to just ignore fluff that I don't like or rather focus on the stuff I do like, otherwise you have pretty bad cards as a Chaos fan in 40K .
But that doesn’t change the fact that we do have material in 40K that is written unambigously, and it is unambigously silly sometimes.

All about interpretation.

If we look in-universe to stuff like the Uplifting Primer, Necromunda News Screens etc? We see a ludicrous level of naked, unabashed propaganda. Same with the two Xenology books, albeit to quite different degrees there.

So yes, I’m asking for more a tub of salt with my take? But everything should be taken with at least a pinch of salt all the same, and certainly not at absolute face value,

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time.

Don't forget that the British soldiers were massively outnumbered by locally recruited troops.

They were... but the overall troop numbers were still small at any given time.

Going back to WW2- people look at mobilisation rates for places like Germany or the USSR, which reached 20% plus. However, those were modern nation states with strong, centralised governments. It also took years to reach that mobilisation rate.

The UK specifically actually achieved mobilisation rates that were similar, when accounting for things like home guard. Some of the dominions too (IIRC, Canada recruited very high numbers of troops for its population level). But despite how big the British Empire was in terms of population and how dire the situation was at points during the war, the overall mobilisation from the empire was much lower. India is a particularly interesting example. British India had a population of around 300 million going into WW2, dwarfing the likes of the USSR and Germany. The Indian Army during WW2 grew into a force of over a million by war's end, the largest volunteer force in history, with overall several million serving at some point. Big yes, but only ~1% of the population was mobilised despite the Empire forces in Europe crying out for more manpower.

Note how the Indian army was a volunteer force. The UK couldn't afford to conscript Indians, a rebellion would have been catastrophic at that time. They got large numbers of useful troops, but because they were occupying a region that was at least partially hostile to them, pushing it too far could lose the entire region, resulting in a loss of resources.

This is what many Imperial worlds are like, especially hive worlds. A useful resource to the Imperium, but always a potential powder keg that can go off if mishandled. So only a small proportion is mobilised (the PDF) to keep the rest in check and provide a speed bump to any attacks, and then if an external threat appears mobilisation can be ramped up to deal with it. However, mobilising takes time if starting from a fairly low level of military recruitment and instruction. You need people to train the new troops and distribute weapons and build bases etc. That takes time, even in an emergency.

If we look at a war like the 3rd War for Armageddon, you can see this in action. The warning that a new attack was imminent was a few months at best. By the time of the Season of Fire, the war has been going on for maybe a year. Between those two, the number of Armageddon regiments in service jumps massively despite the enormous casualties, but there will be a limit to how quickly new troops can be trained and equipped.

But as much as the game and lore focuses on planetary invasions and major clashes between factions, the greatest threat to the Imperium for most of its 10000 years has been internal rebellion. Suppressing rebellion is why it is set up the way it is, with standing armies held in sector reserves and intentionally-undersized PDFs on many worlds to keep the levels of military readiness low if the planet does rebel, but still sufficient to stop typical pirates and raiders.

Plus most Imperial worlds have very low populations with only a handful of important settlements. The population of the Imperium is highly concentrated on hive worlds. A regiment "taking" a world of just a few million people isn't surprising- they probably just need to capture the one space port and then defend whatever resource gets tithed from the world from whatever disgruntled insurgents remain. Most of the world will functionally not be under their control... but it doesn't need to be to keep the tithes flowing. Given there are no limits on "rules of engagement" and regiments are typically off-worlders with no ties to the local people, they can also be as brutal as they wish in suppressing communities harbouring insurgents.

Some of this is an issue of what is interesting. People want to play the big stuff, rebellion no. 1446543 of that year being swiftly crushed by a Navy warship arriving in orbit and moving on isn't a compelling narrative for a game, but it is a routine occurrence in 40k.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
More factions should develop kneeseeker missiles. How hard could it be?

There is no role that a titan can fulfil that could not be done more effectively and efficiently than by any other vehicle form factor, other than “big stompy robot”. And that is why we love them!

Is that true? I think of a Titan as a big, moving, gun platform. Other things can do that, like a Collossus or Leviathan, but the Titan can move over terrain that large tracked things cannot.

That's only the most surface level of characterisation. In reality a tracked vehicle can go many many places a Titan cannot due to the ground pressure. The ground pressure exerted when a Titan takes a step, forcing all of its immense weight onto a single foot would be enough to smash solid rock beneath and itd sink up to its waist.

Besides, unless you're sending titans on solo missions (which we're repeatedly told is bad news bears for the titans) it doesn't actually matter as they can only go where their supporting elements (whom are tracked) can go anyway.


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The_Real_Chris wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

And something like a titan may have the voidships to survive a single lance-strike, but what about 4 in quick succession? Even a warship like a Destroyer, many times the size of the largest titan, can't withstand such a bombardment and will be destroyed in short order. Titans are demonstrably vulnerable to a couple of Superheavy tank-hunters, again far less firepower than even a small escort ship let alone a capital ship can bring to bear.

Having used lances a lot against ground targets in Epic A I can tell you... Lance strike does D3 unsavable hits on a 2+. Warlord titan has 6 void shields. A salvo of 4 lances would do 6 2/3's points of damage on average. So would slightly damage a fully shielded titan, or mostly kill and give a critical to an unshielded titan and break it. Get into cover though like ruins or a forest and you are hit on a 3+ so taking 5 1/3 hits. You just hope there isn't a second barrage coming your way in that case

Against a battleship 4 lances wouldn't get through its shields. Against a cruiser you are hitting on 4's so probably won't get through the shields, though if you lock on you will get 2 hits so knock down shields and do a point of damage.

Epic clearly massively downscaled bombardment power for the sake of the game.
Orbital Bombardment in 40k was basically the same potency as a single demolisher cannon shell. But I think it's safe to say that a macrocannon with the bore diameter of a city block should, realistically, hit harder than a mere demolisher cannon!

Your typical BFG escort vessel is well over 10x the height of a Titan in length, which is gonna mean it's like 1000x or more the volume and mass. It's gonna have vastly more power for shielding. Yet an escort only as 1 voidshield in BFG - clearly BFG voidshields and Epic/40k voidshields are not the same calibre of voidshields. An escort will evaporate upon coming under fire from a cruiser, which will have enough firepower to destroy *two* such escorts with a single volley on average.
That escort - with mass 1000x a titan has the firepower to threaten peer opponents - it's packing some massive firepower including multiple cannons by themselves that are larger than the titan.

Then, we know titans can be brought low by 'mere' volcano cannons. Volcano cannons that can be carried by something as 'small' as a Baneblade. Compared to the naval guns these weapons would be miniscule. A titan just cannot compare to naval firepower.
Which is pretty realistic historically as well. The last battleships were carrying 18" high velocity guns that fired shells weighing 1.5 tonnes. The largest sort of equivalent land-based guns were a puny 6 inches and fired a featherweight 45kg shell.
Titans may be dramatically exaggerated in beloved 40k fashion, but so is the navy!

Imo the ground pressure argument isn't so great because the Imperium has suspensors or other antigrav technology that might alleviate it.

Which is why Void Shields in particular are so essential.

As covered earlier? They mean your opponent needs to really concentrate on collapsing them. The odd shot here and there can and will drop a Void Shield. But they’re fairly easily raised back up, and predominantly just need the VSG to cool down and be turned back on.

Now, I daresay that over the course of a battle, the VSG’s will degrade, as they’re repeatedly tripped, reset and raised again, the generator never really getting the chance to full cool down. So each time a shield is raised again? Its generator is a least a little bit closer to overheating, meaning the shield can take less.

You can plink away with relatively small weapons, yes. Each strike incrementally taxing the VSG. But you’re still best off clobbering it with as many of the biggest weapons in rapid succession as you can. Because once the shields are down? The Titan and indeed Battleship is in serious trouble.

And remember. Where there are multiple void shields? You’re only ever hitting one at a time. They don’t share the strain, but shoulder it in sequence.

One thing I love about Titans is just how vulnerable they are to infantry assault. It’s a reckless or stupid, perhaps recklessly stupid Princeps that takes his Titan unsupported into dense urban terrain. You need your own infantry to flush out the enemy, and stop them literally jumping on to and even formally boarding your Titan. If they get right on top of you? They can directly attack your VSGs, stuff grenades into places you really don’t want a grenade etc. It adds a really nice combined arms focus to the various armies.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Imo the ground pressure argument isn't so great because the Imperium has suspensors or other antigrav technology that might alleviate it.

Yeah, this is my suspicion. I think titans were probably created in the DAOT as propaganda vehicles as much as anything. Sure, the same tech could probably make a more efficient vehicle in a grav tank (which also exist, see the Custodes vehicles), but if you have the tech to make a giant humanoid figure that appears to defy physics and crushes all before it, I can see that being more useful in pacifying colonies than the grav tank even if strictly speaking it is less efficient.

But voidshields don't make you immune to naval bombardment, because voidshields are a central part of naval warfare as well and any ships (plus their weapons) are well positioned to deal with voidshields.

If we base in on the BFG models, a typical lance bank (of which a cruiser will have two per broadside and equated to firepower 2 ingame) has two turrets of 3 barrels each.
So we might conclude that something like a Lunar class cruiser (one lance bank and one macrocannon bank per side) can strike with 6 lance shots.
So 6 lance strikes would be half of a single broadside of a typical cruiser (rate of fire unknown, varying greatly)

Using tabletop rules to judge weapon effectiveness is very hard - voidshields work very differently in different editions. Varying from a straight invuln (meaning even the first shot can sail straight through) in 40k 8th, to a simple AV12 'wall' in 40k 7th, to a 'wall' with its own invuln save in AT18.

If we equate 6 lance shots to 6 volcano cannon rounds (which is being very unfavourable to the naval lances as those barrels are like 10m in bore lol) then a Titan in 8th could survive with some hot rolling, would be obliterated in 7th, and probably unfased in AT18 (although probably very vulnerable for strike #2).

but 'realistically' - Titans are said to be vulnerable to weapons orders of magnitude weaker than even naval escorts are carrying in multitudes.

Hell in Taros Campaign a Warhound titan was brought low by a strike-bomber, in a manner which was a very close narrative interpretation of a 7th edition ingame-attack. Brought low by a level of firepower which doesn't even register as being able to harm an escort in BFG.
If a titan can reasonably fight another titan, then it must therefore be highly vulnerable to a warship. It is like an ant to a god.
The only real excuse that might not be the case is if the warship lacked the precision to reasonably target a titan, but unfortunately for the titan precision-lance strikes on ground assets are not an uncommon occurrence in 40k depictions.

To add to the bit about tau - in BFG races launched squadrons of bombers. For the Tau, one Manta was equivalent to a squadron of bombers and was significantly tougher. Forgeworld/Epic had a Manta being roughly Reaver titan equivalent.

Also I assume punching down through all that atmosphere robs a lance strike of a lot of power.

Also in addition to lance strikes Epic A had bombardment options as well, that used the large (5") of the two blast templates, often two or three of them. These were macro weapon strikes and normally removed a targets save.

Do we know if a Manta token specifically represented one aircraft in BFG, or are you just basing that on the FW model token being a single Manta? Basing it on tokens would put a Manta as equivalent to 2-3 other bombers, which I suppose isn't unreasonable.
A single Manta isn't holding much to even an escort though. With probably about a 50-75% chance of getting shot down on the approach and only a 1/3 (for most escorts) chance of doing anything.

I think the comparison rightly shows that the scale of titan warfare is a scale that barely registers in BFG.

40k could benefit with making planetary scale voidshields more common, similarly to how Legends Star Wars had planetary shields everywhere.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Do we know if a Manta token specifically represented one aircraft in BFG, or are you just basing that on the FW model token being a single Manta? Basing it on tokens would put a Manta as equivalent to 2-3 other bombers, which I suppose isn't unreasonable.
A single Manta isn't holding much to even an escort though. With probably about a 50-75% chance of getting shot down on the approach and only a 1/3 (for most escorts) chance of doing anything.

Yes, it stated in their rules a bomber squadron was a single Manta. So if it was pure Manta vs a average escort (1 turret, 5+ armour) you would need 2 if it wasn't braced and 3 if it was. If it has another turret (2 like a sword or its getting help from another ship) you need 3 and if its braced 5, which is more than a cruiser carriers (but you can do fighter turret suppression etc.)

Trying to divine anything more than vague lore inferences from game rules is a fools game.

I think what we can say is that void shields afford titans a degree of protection from orbital bombardment that is not the case for vehicles without void shields. Equally, it is clear they would not be able to withstand sustained bombardment from all but the tiniest of orbital craft in the way the massive shields covering hives and fortresses can, and an enemy having orbital supremacy would be a pretty hard counter to deploying titans. That said, an enemy having orbital supremacy is a hard counter to any conventional army fighting in 40k, unless they are deployed around something the enemy wants to capture intact.

If the enemy does not have orbital supremacy, such as due to functioning ground defences, then the void shields on titans are probably enough to protect them from most passing attack runs made by enemy vessels unless they suffer unlucky hits.

 Tyran wrote:
40k could benefit with making planetary scale voidshields more common, similarly to how Legends Star Wars had planetary shields everywhere.

I don't think this is necessary. Having important orbital defences shielded is enough to deter most enemy fleets given how rare major warships are. A typical Imperial sector has less than 100 cruisers and battleships in service, usually in the region of one per populated planet. Losing one is a big blow. Likewise for most other factions- losing a capital ship is a problem, and for raiders even being damaged could be enough to result in a loss down the line if they can't escape being caught by Imperial retaliation.

So having just the hives void shielded with batteries of defence lasers, missile silos, and defence craft bases makes attacking one very risky, and makes attacking anywhere on the planet outside of the void shield but within range of those defences also risky. We have lore of space craft doing attack runs to limit their exposure to ground fire, but this is still risky and ships take damage. Space Marine vessels are essentially purpose built for this role, and even they will be cautious when trying to target bombardment cannons at and deploy drop pods to heavily-defended worlds.

If a backwater world like Verghast has void shields protecting minor hives like Vervunhive with populations in the millions, not billions, I think it is safe to assume that most worlds of a civilised tech level or higher have at least some installations that have void shields. Forge worlds probably have a majority of installations that are shielded.

Going back to the Siege of Vraks, that happened entirely because the Citadel of Vraks was heavily protected with void shields and defence silos for lasers and missiles. Attacking it from orbit was deemed more costly than sending in millions of guardsmen to die. In essence, a few vast warships were considered more valuable than 14 million guardsmen and the munitions and equipment they expended.


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The_Real_Chris wrote:
Also I assume punching down through all that atmosphere robs a lance strike of a lot of power.

It would, so more conventional munitions would probably be more effective in this role specifically. Probably why Space Marine bombardment cannons are linear accelerators.

A direct Lance strike on a Titan or other Void Shielded ground target could drop multiple shields.

If we look to the Squats? The Cyclops essentially mounted a starship grade laser, which fired a sustained beam. And it could, with a bit of luck, knock down multiple shields, as the beam is continuous, and so keeps applying pressure as each shield drops.

Given the ranges involved in starship combat, I think a sustained beam is likely and indeed advisable for a Lance type weapon. Gives you a chance to slightly modify the angle of your shot to hit the foe. Or at least, and I’m sorry for this poor description, wiggle it around a bit so it hits. Certainly at those ranges you ain’t eyeballing anything, so you rely on sensor suites to confirm location and successful hits.

So, when turned against ground targets, even Titans which are teensy tiny compared to even the most modest warship, a sustained beam lets you cut it up, and with a suitably aimed shot? Batter down a series of void shields. Enough? All depends. And certainly you’re less likely to drop any if the main beam doesn’t quite connect, as the void shield is taxed with shunting all the energy.

Certainly I think a lance strike, hitting a Titan directly, absolutely could take it from pristine with full shields to utterly spiflicated. But such a direct hit seems more luck than judgement against such a tiny target.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm not going to deny that some of Black Library is incredibly stupid. But I also don't think that we have to tarnish all of 40k because some BL author can't restrain themselves.

I don't think we can blame BL for this. On a pure physics level, a Custodian Terminator being able to facetank a macrocannon (a primary starship armament, lest we forget) unharmed is probably far more egregious than the Khan going Dreadnought-tossing, and the former is actual codex lore.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time. Most Imperial planets are sparsely populated, and those that aren't are occupied more than integrated.

I don't agree honestly. Even if you take the colonial framing - France lost 3% of its total population during the Napoleonic wars (20% specifically of military aged men).
In WW2 the military deaths only equated to about 1% of global population (although another 2% of the world civilians dying brings the total to 3% again).
The Imperium isn't engaging in small colonial wars pacifying stoneage natives, perhaps you could characterise the Great Crusade like that (but then the Great Crusade was a xenocide not colonial pacification). The Imperium in the 41st millenium is in a stage of constant total war against empires and species very much their equal or even greater in all but expanse.

And we know the Imperium has vast numbers of troops at its disposal. The Imperial Guard is greatly laboured to be in the billions or even trillions. Losing a couple million men would be a rounding error for them. If they mobilised a hive world, even just the accessible bits, you'd expect multiple billion soldiers right there.
So when GW tells us "this campaign was notable because so many people died" a few million just isn't gonna cut it.

Been meaning to address this.

Firstly, those colonial empires didn't just conquer "stoneage natives". India, for example, was on par with Europe at the time and was mainly conquered by playing off local rivalries and gradually expanding territory. The amount of troops needed to hold India was not particularly large relative to it's population, and it remained the single most populous part of the empire until it gained independence. In WW2, just 1% of India's population was mobilised, a tiny fraction compared to most belligerents. That is precisely because it was an occupied colony that was not automatically on the side of it's overlord. The UK couldn't push India too hard, or it might have rebelled (as it had in the past). Very reasonable fears, given India gained independence shortly after WW2.

India is the metaphorical hive world in our example, a great resource but also a potential liability. Fully utilising that manpower source is too risky.

As I said above, the big campaigns against rival factions are the interesting stuff, but they are not the norm. The single biggest threat to the Imperium for most of its 10000 year existence since the Horus Heresy has been internal rebellion. It is built around suppressing that, it intentionally neuters its military forces to minimise the impact of renegades, it fails to fully utilise its population for fear of them using their knowledge to gain independence.

Seriously, look at a list of the major galactic events between the Great Crusade and the end of the 41st millennium, and most of them are rebellions of some sort- the Horus Heresy and Scouring, the Nova Terra Interregnum (this lasted 9 centuries!), the Age of Apostasy and the Plague of Unbelief, the Macharian Heresy. The War of the Beast stands out as unusual, and even that finished with the Beheading. Many of the threats to the Imperium in the 41st millennium didn't even exist as coherent threats yet, like the Tyranids, Necrons, and Tau.

Re. total numbers. The Imperium has a million worlds. Even just one regiment per world at the default size of around 3000 would equal 3 billion guard troopers. 400 such regiments per world would top a trillion. However, they are also spread thinly, on garrison duties and offensive operations against enemy worlds and concentrated in the few great battles, as well as simply replacing the casualties being expended at huge rates. Accumulating massive forces in a given area is hard, especially as it needs transport from the navy between worlds.

An Allarus being able to tank a macrocannon shell is probably not that egregious. For a start "macrocannon" can refer to anything from "slightly bigger than a Baneblade Cannon" or "immense heavy naval artillery".

Plus explosions are actually quite inefficient and rending through armour, nor are their shockwaves actually very effective at squishing stuff inside heavy sealed containers.

On top of that the Custodes have the ultimate bestest ever most special gene crafting super duper human physiology, so they're going to be very resilient to whatever small shockwaves do propagate through the armour.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm not going to deny that some of Black Library is incredibly stupid. But I also don't think that we have to tarnish all of 40k because some BL author can't restrain themselves.

I don't think we can blame BL for this. On a pure physics level, a Custodian Terminator being able to facetank a macrocannon (a primary starship armament, lest we forget) unharmed is probably far more egregious than the Khan going Dreadnought-tossing, and the former is actual codex lore.

Genuine question, does that bit of lore actually refer to a starship macrocannon specifically, or just a macrocannon in the abstract? The latter encompasses a much wider range of weapons, some of which are far smaller. There were even rules in the 6th edition rulebook for a macrocannon which was essentially a larger autocannon firing blasts.

The Aquila fortress that GW used to sell was armed with a macrocannon. A terminator tanking that is far more reasonable. Not knowing the specific wording of the lore in question, I cannot say more though.

I'd contest that "slightly" bigger. The smallest macrocannon I know of is the Aquila Strongpoint, which was still a Destroyer weapon back when it was part of the core game.

Most macrocannons are Ordinatus/starship weapons that are apocalyptically powerful.

Edit: Ninja'd by Haighus, but answering both. It was definitely not just a larger autocannon. The Aquila gun was a titan-killer and the only example of a macrocannon I know of that wasn't absolutely colossal. And the Custodian Terminator could "stride unharmed" from it, which is when you think about it even more absurd than merely surviving it.

I disagree,

Allarus Terminator Armour isn’t just thicker than a whale omelette in a remedial classroom. It likely contains some kind of field defence, like the Cataphractii. I can’t find a source which says either way, only that some Terminator Armours do contain some kind of force field. And whilst not exactly common? Refractor, Conversion and even Displacer Fields are more or less understood tech. And if anyone is gonna have it? It’s got to be the Custards, surely.

If it’s the field that lets you survive? It’s absorbing the energy of the blast. Oh I’m sure you’ll still be knocked over, if not lifted clean off your feet by the sheer oomph. But reducing it to a particularly nasty tumble for the person within the suit.

Even if it doesn’t?

Lexicanum wrote: stride unharmed from the blast of a macro-cannon shell.

isn’t the same as stride away from a direct hit by a macro-cannon shell. Or indeed stride away from the epicentre of a macro-cannon shell.

Also also? Macro-Cannons are again more a catch-all family name, with differently scaled applications. So to interpret the claim as “Allarus Custodians can tank a war ship scaled Macro-cannon shell to the face” is incorrect. Because it’s by no means saying that at all.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If it’s the field that lets you survive? It’s absorbing the energy of the blast. Oh I’m sure you’ll still be knocked over, if not lifted clean off your feet by the sheer oomph. But reducing it to a particularly nasty tumble for the person within the suit.

But this is not exactly "striding unharmed", is it?

Landing forces to attack a heavily void-defended stronghold does raise its own questions though. What're the logistics of that?

How much of a planet can a single stronghold cover? Can they only defend a very narrow space, or can a stronghold cover most of a hemisphere?
BFG lore mentions guided missiles in use by ground base stations which even opens up the possibility of a single station being able to cover more than they have LoS to in a hemisphere. Although in BFG iirc planetary defences have only a 90* upwards arc, allowing each battery to protect I guess about an eighth the sky (half a hemisphere in 3d).

So like you set your transports down in Russia and march all the way across Europe to launch a ground assault on the UK?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If it’s the field that lets you survive? It’s absorbing the energy of the blast. Oh I’m sure you’ll still be knocked over, if not lifted clean off your feet by the sheer oomph. But reducing it to a particularly nasty tumble for the person within the suit.

But this is not exactly "striding unharmed", is it?

You’ve still got all your bits and pieces where your bits and pieces ought to be. And it’s by no means guaranteed you’d be knocked off your feet. Really depends on the internal cushioning, if any, of the Terminator Armours suit.

I’d argue there has to be some or the fancy tech equivalent, lest the wearer survive a hit, only to be winded or knocked out by rattling around in their suit.

I think you are pushing it. If I came over to your house and gave you a "nasty tumbling" I don't think the police would agree I'd left you unharmed!

I also think people reading that text and leaping to assume that "macrocannon" refers to the smallest outlier in size (which is still a titan killer mind you), instead of the generally established class, are being more charitable than the text is due.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
There's not even a consistent size of what a "regiment" is.
Because that alone is a whole mess with depictions varying from approximately an IRL battalion to an entire IRL Army or larger.

GW certainly has a habit of using very poor military organisational structures, with poor use of terms that slip around. "Regiment" is clearly just thought of as "large cohensive group of Imperial Guard soldiers" that expands and shrinks as the narrative and author's interpretation requires.

This goes into a bit of a side note about the meaning of the term regiment.

GW seems to follow essentially the British Army meaning of regiment, which is an administrative ceremonial unit, not a tactical unit. British Army regiments have no fixed size and can contain any number of battalions (the actual tactical unit that is deployed in force organisations). The Royal Tank Regiment at its peak in WW2, for example, had over 20 battalions. 2-4 was more typical. The brief exception to this was the period of the Carden Reforms, where most regiments had a set structure.

However, the Administratum treats regiments as broadly interchangeable, which I always took as an example of the Administratum being the inefficient mess it is supposed to be and taking shortcuts. Imperial commanders don't actually deploy regiments except at the highest levels or if given no other choice, they deploy battlegroups composed of elements of several regiments to give a combined armed force. It is actually quite flexible, but hampered by the Administratum sending them reinforcements and supplies as if everything fits in the same box.

Regiments do vary massively. Krieg has at least one example of a siege regiment being 200000 strong at mustering, and Valhalla one at 120000. The 50th Gudrun rifles were 500000 strong, although apparently divided into battalions. At the other end, elite armoured and particularly super heavy units can be very small, often 1000 men. Typical is apparently around 3000 strong, with Cadian regiments are generally supposed to be ~4000-8000 (the difference might depend on whether they have units in training and garrison rotations or not). How much regiments are formally divided into battalions is an open question, they are occasionally mentioned (some fo the FW force orgs for the regiments deployed to Taros have subdivisions called "brigades" that are broadly battalion strength, I think this might be a bit of an error).

I think it is probably a reasonable rule of thumb to average out at 10000 per regiment, as that accommodates the larger regiments skewing the numbers.

I have never found good numbers for PDF regiments, they probably vary even more.

Dunno, I’m surprisingly bouncy for a middle age podgy lad

Also entirely unharmed and unharmed are again not quite the same thing. If you can get back up and keep fighting? You’re unharmed enough and your big spangly armour, power field of some description or not, has done its job.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I'd contest that "slightly" bigger. The smallest macrocannon I know of is the Aquila Strongpoint, which was still a Destroyer weapon back when it was part of the core game.

Most macrocannons are Ordinatus/starship weapons that are apocalyptically powerful.

Edit: Ninja'd by Haighus, but answering both. It was definitely not just a larger autocannon. The Aquila gun was a titan-killer and the only example of a macrocannon I know of that wasn't absolutely colossal. And the Custodian Terminator could "stride unharmed" from it, which is when you think about it even more absurd than merely surviving it.

The example I am referring to is in the "ranged weapons" section of the 6th edition rulebook (image behind spoiler tags for size):


This is the smallest example of a weapons referred to as "macrocannon" that I am aware of. I don't think any model was ever produced attached to this. I reckon it would look something like a Conqueror cannon with an auto-feed.

Even the Aquila strongpoint could be reasonable though. In some editions D weapons could still be stopped by invulnerable saves.


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 kirotheavenger wrote:
Landing forces to attack a heavily void-defended stronghold does raise its own questions though. What're the logistics of that?

How much of a planet can a single stronghold cover? Can they only defend a very narrow space, or can a stronghold cover most of a hemisphere?
BFG lore mentions guided missiles in use by ground base stations which even opens up the possibility of a single station being able to cover more than they have LoS to in a hemisphere. Although in BFG iirc planetary defences have only a 90* upwards arc, allowing each battery to protect I guess about an eighth the sky (half a hemisphere in 3d).

So like you set your transports down in Russia and march all the way across Europe to launch a ground assault on the UK?

That is pretty much what the Imperium tries on Vraks and Taros, to varying degrees of success. Can also risk direct assaults, but obviously that is a far more bloody affair into AA fire.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I think you are pushing it. If I came over to your house and gave you a "nasty tumbling" I don't think the police would agree I'd left you unharmed!

I also think people reading that text and leaping to assume that "macrocannon" refers to the smallest outlier in size (which is still a titan killer mind you), instead of the generally established class, are being more charitable than the text is due.

On the contrary I think you're reading it an overly pedantic and far less chartable than the text is due.

We usually say things like "bullet proof vest" when they're only actually capable of stopping a small pistol bullet and leaving you badly winded. Whereas you seem to be doing the equivalent to insisting anything less than stopping a .50 caliber round without breaking stride is ridiculous and disingenuous use of the term.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I think you are pushing it. If I came over to your house and gave you a "nasty tumbling" I don't think the police would agree I'd left you unharmed!

I also think people reading that text and leaping to assume that "macrocannon" refers to the smallest outlier in size (which is still a titan killer mind you), instead of the generally established class, are being more charitable than the text is due.

On the contrary I think you're reading it an overly pedantic and far less chartable than the text is due.

We usually say things like "bullet proof vest" when they're only actually capable of stopping a small pistol bullet and leaving you badly winded. Whereas you seem to be doing the equivalent to insisting anything less than stopping a .50 caliber round without breaking stride is ridiculous and disingenuous use of the term.

Agreed. I think it is far more likely GW was referring to the macrocannon they sold a model for at the time than the macrocannons that only featured in lore at the time and hadn't seen a model since BFG was discontinued a decade earlier.

That rulebook profile reads like a mistake. We've seen or heard of no macrocannon that weak. It reminds me of how a multi-melta is a bunker-buster, but last I played Necromunda a cargo hauler could take 20 point blank MM shots from the best shooter in the game (Van Saar leader) and would usually be fine because rules writers don't understand numbers.

 Haighus wrote:

That is pretty much what the Imperium tries on Vraks and Taros, to varying degrees of success. Can also risk direct assaults, but obviously that is a far more bloody affair into AA fire.

Taros I feel is a poor example actually.
The book introduces us to the planetary defences on Taros and it's like a single missile silo. Enough to feth up a cruiser so they neutralise it with an infiltration force prior to the strike on the governor's palace (all in the prelude). Surely not enough even if repaired to materially hold up to the naval group they later turn up with.

But then when the Imperials show up for the proper war they don't even utilise their fleet at all.
In fact even in the empty deserts they're heavily harassed by Tau and don't even think to just scan the desert ahead and bombard Tau concentrations, nor to call upon a cruiser when they're pinned down under fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
That rulebook profile reads like a mistake. We've seen or heard of no macrocannon that weak. It reminds me of how a multi-melta is a bunker-buster, but last I played Necromunda a cargo hauler could take 20 point blank MM shots from the best shooter in the game (Van Saar leader) and would usually be fine because rules writers don't understand numbers.

When GW dropped the separate armourpen system and basically turned vehicles into cuboid monstrous creatures they really failed to adequately translate melta/armourbane to the new system and it's left melta in a weird space where it's actually not that good at killing tanks and is mostly just good at killing elite infantry.
They mostly translated melta to extra damage, when it used to be extra *strength* which is why melta has a relatively mediocre strength compared to other AT weapons. Which leaves melta really struggling to wound the high toughness of vehicles lol.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

That is pretty much what the Imperium tries on Vraks and Taros, to varying degrees of success. Can also risk direct assaults, but obviously that is a far more bloody affair into AA fire.

Taros I feel is a poor example actually.
The book introduces us to the planetary defences on Taros and it's like a single missile silo. Enough to feth up a cruiser so they neutralise it with an infiltration force prior to the strike on the governor's palace (all in the prelude). Surely not enough even if repaired to materially hold up to the naval group they later turn up with.

But then when the Imperials show up for the proper war they don't even utilise their fleet at all.
In fact even in the empty deserts they're heavily harassed by Tau and don't even think to just scan the desert ahead and bombard Tau concentrations, nor to call upon a cruiser when they're pinned down under fire.

The Tau had maintained a fleet in being in the star system, led by a Custodian class carrier. The Imperial Navy commander wanted the glory of a victory against the enemy flagship and also to eliminate decisively the threat to the water convoys shipping water to the Imperial ground troops. Rather than keeping his ships in orbit and potentially vulnerable to attack, or having them all escort the convoy, he took his flagship to chase the carrier. Unfortunately the Tau were using the carrier as bait to lure the heaviest Imperial flagship away from the convoy, which was then hit and destroyed by the other Tau ships. Even though the Custodian carrier was destroyed, this was a pyrrhic victory as the Imperial ground forces ran out of water.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


So…where do we begin rescaling and renumbering 40K? What works for you, Dakka? And of course because it makes for more interesting conversation, why?

I've always just mentally added a 0 to the end of any number GW provides, and it at least gets us in the ballpark.

Iracundus wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

That is pretty much what the Imperium tries on Vraks and Taros, to varying degrees of success. Can also risk direct assaults, but obviously that is a far more bloody affair into AA fire.

Taros I feel is a poor example actually.
The book introduces us to the planetary defences on Taros and it's like a single missile silo. Enough to feth up a cruiser so they neutralise it with an infiltration force prior to the strike on the governor's palace (all in the prelude). Surely not enough even if repaired to materially hold up to the naval group they later turn up with.

But then when the Imperials show up for the proper war they don't even utilise their fleet at all.
In fact even in the empty deserts they're heavily harassed by Tau and don't even think to just scan the desert ahead and bombard Tau concentrations, nor to call upon a cruiser when they're pinned down under fire.

The Tau had maintained a fleet in being in the star system, led by a Custodian class carrier. The Imperial Navy commander wanted the glory of a victory against the enemy flagship and also to eliminate decisively the threat to the water convoys shipping water to the Imperial ground troops. Rather than keeping his ships in orbit and potentially vulnerable to attack, or having them all escort the convoy, he took his flagship to chase the carrier. Unfortunately the Tau were using the carrier as bait to lure the heaviest Imperial flagship away from the convoy, which was then hit and destroyed by the other Tau ships. Even though the Custodian carrier was destroyed, this was a pyrrhic victory as the Imperial ground forces ran out of water.

That's just the macro view of the battle. We're also told that the Raptors chapter have a battlebarge and gladius escort that spend the battle literally stationed in orbit over Taros awaiting planetary deployment. There's no reason they should decide to stand there and watch the Guard struggle. Although perhaps one would dismiss it as interservice rivalry, the Space Marines not caring for the Guard.

Could be Taros was a chance to observe this still relatively new and highly dynamic foe in action. Something to take notes over for future reference, given they didn’t seem to be going away as a wider threat any time soon.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

That is pretty much what the Imperium tries on Vraks and Taros, to varying degrees of success. Can also risk direct assaults, but obviously that is a far more bloody affair into AA fire.

Taros I feel is a poor example actually.
The book introduces us to the planetary defences on Taros and it's like a single missile silo. Enough to feth up a cruiser so they neutralise it with an infiltration force prior to the strike on the governor's palace (all in the prelude). Surely not enough even if repaired to materially hold up to the naval group they later turn up with.

But then when the Imperials show up for the proper war they don't even utilise their fleet at all.
In fact even in the empty deserts they're heavily harassed by Tau and don't even think to just scan the desert ahead and bombard Tau concentrations, nor to call upon a cruiser when they're pinned down under fire.

The Tau had maintained a fleet in being in the star system, led by a Custodian class carrier. The Imperial Navy commander wanted the glory of a victory against the enemy flagship and also to eliminate decisively the threat to the water convoys shipping water to the Imperial ground troops. Rather than keeping his ships in orbit and potentially vulnerable to attack, or having them all escort the convoy, he took his flagship to chase the carrier. Unfortunately the Tau were using the carrier as bait to lure the heaviest Imperial flagship away from the convoy, which was then hit and destroyed by the other Tau ships. Even though the Custodian carrier was destroyed, this was a pyrrhic victory as the Imperial ground forces ran out of water.

That's just the macro view of the battle. We're also told that the Raptors chapter have a battlebarge and gladius escort that spend the battle literally stationed in orbit over Taros awaiting planetary deployment. There's no reason they should decide to stand there and watch the Guard struggle. Although perhaps one would dismiss it as interservice rivalry, the Space Marines not caring for the Guard.

I agree that Taros is a poor example of Imperial leadership, and features much squabbling between Imperial branches leading to a poor outcome for the Imperium. However, it is a good example of the Imperium deploying at a distance to have a safe landing zone. I personally think that was the wrong choice, but it is what they did. I reckon a full planetstrike assault directly onto the capital and other important zones like the water plant would have been more effective, albeit with some risk.

That said, as MDG points out, the Tau were a fairly new foe. Their particular aptitude for hit-and-run combat wasn't appreciated and therefore the Imperium choose a "safe" strategy that in hindsight played into Tau strengths.

I doubt the Tau observably concentrated in enough forces to warrant an orbital strike from the battle barge. They deliberately dispersed their forces and engaged in hit-and-run warfare. Dropping an entire bombardment cannon volley into a grid square for a sighting of a couple of Hammerheads probably didn't seem worth it, especially given the risk of hitting Guard formations instead.

I suspect any larger concentrations in the rear areas for logistics were cloaked in some way.

Except not every bombardment needs to be a massed broadside from a battlebarge.
We *know* that orbiting ships are capable of providing precise and measured orbital support to relatively precise targets. Because it does happen in stories, but usually only as a sidepiece to some other narrative.

Furthermore a foe engaging in more traditional tactics is even more a reason to engage in bombardment.
I can accept that small packets of highly mobile Tau forces are one of the least efficient targets for orbital strikes, but what were they expecting?
Dug in defensive positions? Concentrated military formations? Anything like that would be extremely efficiently simply just removed by even a naval frigate on 'overwatch' the second the front echelon troops became pinned down and reached for the radio.

This is also clearly something that they do - Space Marine ships are specifically outfitted with purpose designed guns, reflecting their primary role as transport and assault ships.
It also forms a prominent role in the BFG Armada videogame where planetary bombardment (whilst holding off an enemy fleet) is a common mission you play.

But this doesn't occur, almost at all, in 40k narratives because 40k is inherently a ground combat game and "we encountered resistance, 30 seconds later we continued past the crater" wouldn't be a good read for someone expecting bolter porn.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Except not every bombardment needs to be a massed broadside from a battlebarge.
We *know* that orbiting ships are capable of providing precise and measured orbital support to relatively precise targets. Because it does happen in stories, but usually only as a sidepiece to some other narrative.

Furthermore a foe engaging in more traditional tactics is even more a reason to engage in bombardment.
I can accept that small packets of highly mobile Tau forces are one of the least efficient targets for orbital strikes, but what were they expecting?
Dug in defensive positions? Concentrated military formations? Anything like that would be extremely efficiently simply just removed by even a naval frigate on 'overwatch' the second the front echelon troops became pinned down and reached for the radio.

This is also clearly something that they do - Space Marine ships are specifically outfitted with purpose designed guns, reflecting their primary role as transport and assault ships.
It also forms a prominent role in the BFG Armada videogame where planetary bombardment (whilst holding off an enemy fleet) is a common mission you play.

But this doesn't occur, almost at all, in 40k narratives because 40k is inherently a ground combat game and "we encountered resistance, 30 seconds later we continued past the crater" wouldn't be a good read for someone expecting bolter porn.

From what I recall, I think the Imperial commanders were constantly expecting to get the big decisive battle any moment now, just as soon as they could pin the Tau down. But they never managed it and ran out of supplies before they could reach the population centres. They had effectively zero frame of reference for how the Tau fought and had failed to infiltrate any spies onto the world. So yeah, breaking siege lines was more-or-less what they expected.

Worth noting the Marshal leading the Imperial Guard forces on the ground was noted for being overly cautious. I think this is ultimately what doomed the campaign with an overly-cautious plan.

In fairness, we do get the "rebellion was ended by orbiting ship" in lore. It just isn't the focus of narratives because it is boring. All the ground battles happen when orbital bombardment isn't the answer for whatever reason. That's fine, so long as people recognise it is only a portion of how conflicts are resolved in 40k.

You're missing my point.
They were expecting to encounter and break a siege line... but didn't plan on using naval support to do so?
The commander was overly cautious but didn't want to use assets he had sitting around anyway to basically remove any and all risk from his plan?

Landing on the other side of the planet and marching over I can understand, although that was specifically because they were worried about a rapid enemy counterattack mid-landing, *not* because they feared planetary defences anywhere.

Interestingly actually this problem also applies to the "first intervention" on Taros. When the Space Marines become pinned down in the palace by Tau forces they could have utilised their awaiting Battlebarge to smash the area surrounding and assaulting position. They lost a *dreadnought* in that engagement as a battlebarge watched silently overhead. Dispatching only Thunderhawks to facilitate a withdrawal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess my point is most authors don't actually bother to set up engagements in situations were naval support *isn't* available.

It's all well and good to say a major hive world is too heavily defended for naval ships, or that orbit is too contested to take any time for an orbital strike. But that's really not where most narratives focus.
In fact I'd argue the attacker usually does have naval superiority which is how they get to deploy ships in the first place and GW loves to set a battle in a strategically unimportant location so they can have massed formations of tanks and titans duking it out.

 Ashiraya wrote:
That rulebook profile reads like a mistake. We've seen or heard of no macrocannon that weak. It reminds me of how a multi-melta is a bunker-buster, but last I played Necromunda a cargo hauler could take 20 point blank MM shots from the best shooter in the game (Van Saar leader) and would usually be fine because rules writers don't understand numbers.

I think it is less a mistake and more that the term "macrocannon" is not defined and just means "big cannon" and therefore whatever a given writer wishes. Macrocannons are mentioned far more rarely than more tangible weapon "categories" like battle cannon or autocannon.

Clearly whatever GW was thinking about when they made the 6th edition rulebook did not come to pass though, that profile faded into obscurity and no model ever appeared to use it. There is some precedent for macrocannons on that scale- the original Rogue Trader rulebook also features macrocannons as "the largest and heaviest version of the autocannon" in the "very heavy weapons" section.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're missing my point.
They were expecting to encounter and break a siege line... but didn't plan on using naval support to do so?
The commander was overly cautious but didn't want to use assets he had sitting around anyway to basically remove any and all risk from his plan?

Landing on the other side of the planet and marching over I can understand, although that was specifically because they were worried about a rapid enemy counterattack mid-landing, *not* because they feared planetary defences anywhere.

Interestingly actually this problem also applies to the "first intervention" on Taros. When the Space Marines become pinned down in the palace by Tau forces they could have utilised their awaiting Battlebarge to smash the area surrounding and assaulting position. They lost a *dreadnought* in that engagement as a battlebarge watched silently overhead. Dispatching only Thunderhawks to facilitate a withdrawal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I guess my point is most authors don't actually bother to set up engagements in situations were naval support *isn't* available.

It's all well and good to say a major hive world is too heavily defended for naval ships, or that orbit is too contested to take any time for an orbital strike. But that's really not where most narratives focus.
In fact I'd argue the attacker usually does have naval superiority which is how they get to deploy ships in the first place and GW loves to set a battle in a strategically unimportant location so they can have massed formations of tanks and titans duking it out.

Given how frequently "orbital bombardment" is some kind of ability or strategem in in 40k, I think it is the case that some degree of orbital bombardment can be commonly available, but there is a difference between orbital superiority and orbital supremacy. The former might allow an attacking force to deploy reasonably safely to some parts of the planet, or to deploy under fire to others, and it might allow them to do attack runs but not sustained bombardments. Attack runs are still huge sources of firepower, but they aren't a threat in the same manner as a ship that can just sit there and proceed to delete enemy field armies as they manoeuvre. A ship sitting in orbit is vulnerable to attack from enemy space vessels too, I would think most ship commanders would need to feel very secure before they are willing to park their vessel around a world.

I suspect how happy a given Marine force would be to bombard an Imperial city depends on the Chapter and how callous they are. The Raptors did lose a dreadnought, but bombarding the city would not give any guarantee of getting it back (indeed it might be hit by the bombardment) and it would also ruin the city. There would be little left to recapture at a later date. Some Marine chapters would do it anyway, collateral be damned, but clearly the Raptors preferred to come back as part of a larger force to retake the city.

I agree that orbital support was underutilised at Taros though, but that was more the failings of the Imperial commanders and Imperial politicking than anything. The Guard commander had no jurisdiction over the Raptors, for example, who in their turn were cautious to commit given their casualties in the first intervention.

Again, I think the Imperium went in with a bad plan. That isn't particularly unrealistic though, human commanders are known to lose wars because they chose bad strategy or made other stupid errors. Add that to the Imperium having a dysfunctional bureaucracy and command structure and it breeds these kinds of situations and outcomes. That said, I reckon they probably would've bombarded a siege line if they'd encountered it.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're missing my point.
They were expecting to encounter and break a siege line... but didn't plan on using naval support to do so?
The commander was overly cautious but didn't want to use assets he had sitting around anyway to basically remove any and all risk from his plan?

There was a lot of interservice rivalry/lack of communication. The Space Marines had an attitude of "Nobody tells us what to do" and probably figured there was no target on that planet worthy of a bombardment cannon shell. The Imperial Navy as I mentioned was either chasing the Tau carrier or escorting the water convoy, and was not at the beck and call of the ground forces.

Iracundus wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're missing my point.
They were expecting to encounter and break a siege line... but didn't plan on using naval support to do so?
The commander was overly cautious but didn't want to use assets he had sitting around anyway to basically remove any and all risk from his plan?

There was a lot of interservice rivalry/lack of communication. The Space Marines had an attitude of "Nobody tells us what to do" and probably figured there was no target on that planet worthy of a bombardment cannon shell. The Imperial Navy as I mentioned was either chasing the Tau carrier or escorting the water convoy, and was not at the beck and call of the ground forces.

Yeah, there is a difference between "this thing is implausible" and "this person/these people did a stupid thing". Unfortunately, the latter is always plausible based on human history.

 Haighus wrote:

Agreed. I think it is far more likely GW was referring to the macrocannon they sold a model for at the time than the macrocannons that only featured in lore at the time and hadn't seen a model since BFG was discontinued a decade earlier.

...I don't see the logic in this at all. If a story presented a machine "twice the strength of a Barghesi" I'd assume they refer to an average or median Barghesi, the most common type specimen, rather than the single Barghesi model they've actually made (the one in Masters of the Maelstrom, a small adolescent).

For macrocannons, those are fairly obviously the massive versions that appear pretty much every time any meaningful ship appears anywhere, rather than a single throwaway terrain piece that is a blip on the scale in comparison.

Like are we for real here, for a moment? Compare how often starship-grade macrocannons appear in any GW written or visual media, overall, to the number of times the Aquila Strongpoint appears. They're orders of magnitude apart!

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Agreed. I think it is far more likely GW was referring to the macrocannon they sold a model for at the time than the macrocannons that only featured in lore at the time and hadn't seen a model since BFG was discontinued a decade earlier.

...I don't see the logic in this at all. If a story presented a machine "twice the strength of a Barghesi" I'd assume they refer to an average or median Barghesi, the most common type specimen, rather than the single Barghesi model they've actually made (the one in Masters of the Maelstrom, a small adolescent).

Then again, if someone was trying to sell me on how awesome his new armour is and he said "it could survive the hit of a macrocannon" I'd assume he was being generous with his definition of macrocannon to make it sound cooler. Or at the very least accept that as a plausible possibility and ask for further clarification before standing there and flipping the bird to a battlecruiser.

I also suspect that, for the context of a ground trooper, "macrocannon" probably more refers to the ground based versions. When 40k the groundwarefare based game has used the term "macrocannon" it usually refers to one of the smaller ones.
Whereas you normally hear "macro cannon" spoken about in regards to the navy.
As an IRL counterpart - when a Navyman says "rifle" he means an 18 inch caliber naval gun. When an infantryman says "rifle" he means a 5-8mm hand held weapon.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Certainly I think a lance strike, hitting a Titan directly, absolutely could take it from pristine with full shields to utterly spiflicated. But such a direct hit seems more luck than judgement against such a tiny target.

In AT 1st edition it does mention orbital threats and the need for camo. Hence my beetlebacks having urban camo from above blending into space marine buildings. Very good for obscuring from eye level. To the extent in several games I forgot about a couple...

(A similar problem occurred with my tundra camo epic guard on my tundra board. Camo sucks...)

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Agreed. I think it is far more likely GW was referring to the macrocannon they sold a model for at the time than the macrocannons that only featured in lore at the time and hadn't seen a model since BFG was discontinued a decade earlier.

...I don't see the logic in this at all. If a story presented a machine "twice the strength of a Barghesi" I'd assume they refer to an average or median Barghesi, the most common type specimen, rather than the single Barghesi model they've actually made (the one in Masters of the Maelstrom, a small adolescent).

For macrocannons, those are fairly obviously the massive versions that appear pretty much every time any meaningful ship appears anywhere, rather than a single throwaway terrain piece that is a blip on the scale in comparison.

Like are we for real here, for a moment? Compare how often starship-grade macrocannons appear in any GW written or visual media, overall, to the number of times the Aquila Strongpoint appears. They're orders of magnitude apart!

We are lore people. We encounter macrocannon batteries in lore. We are also something of a minority in the community, especially if the prevalence of meme lore is anything to go by.

The average player is far more likely to encounter the literal plastic model GW sold at the time, which also had rules. GW has favoured extant models over lore references for... at least 2 decades? Aquila strongpoints were commonly featured in miniature sections in rulebooks and codices in 8th edition, when GW released Allarus Terminators.

I don't think that is a stretch at all. Especially given how compartmentalised GW sections can be.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
When 40k the groundwarefare based game has used the term "macrocannon" it usually refers to one of the smaller ones.

Does it? Can you remember other examples than the Aquila Strongpoint, the seemingly mistake-written 6e rulebook one, and the Rogue Trader one?

 Haighus wrote:

We are lore people. We encounter macrocannon batteries in lore. We are also something of a minority in the community, especially if the prevalence of meme lore is anything to go by.

The average player is far more likely to encounter the literal plastic model GW sold at the time, which also had rules. GW has favoured extant models over lore references for... at least 2 decades? Aquila strongpoints were commonly featured in miniature sections in rulebooks and codices in 8th edition, when GW released Allarus Terminators.

I don't think that is a stretch at all. Especially given how compartmentalised GW sections can be.

The average player would not have been that likely to encounter such a niche model at all, and you make starship macro cannons sound much more obscure than they are. They appear in basically every video game and novel where meaningful battle spaceships themselves appear.

I go to Lexicanum, and on the list of battlecannon types the literally single type that isn't starship-grade is the Aquila Strongpoint. That's it, that's the one.

I almost feel like you guys are just yanking my leg at this point. This is like if you get offered a room able to house ten people and the seller goes "Oh, well, you know, Jyoti Amge is a person!".

 kirotheavenger wrote:
But voidshields don't make you immune to naval bombardment, because voidshields are a central part of naval warfare as well and any ships (plus their weapons) are well positioned to deal with voidshields.

If we base in on the BFG models, a typical lance bank (of which a cruiser will have two per broadside and equated to firepower 2 ingame) has two turrets of 3 barrels each.
So we might conclude that something like a Lunar class cruiser (one lance bank and one macrocannon bank per side) can strike with 6 lance shots.
So 6 lance strikes would be half of a single broadside of a typical cruiser (rate of fire unknown, varying greatly)

Using tabletop rules to judge weapon effectiveness is very hard - voidshields work very differently in different editions. Varying from a straight invuln (meaning even the first shot can sail straight through) in 40k 8th, to a simple AV12 'wall' in 40k 7th, to a 'wall' with its own invuln save in AT18.

If we equate 6 lance shots to 6 volcano cannon rounds (which is being very unfavourable to the naval lances as those barrels are like 10m in bore lol) then a Titan in 8th could survive with some hot rolling, would be obliterated in 7th, and probably unfased in AT18 (although probably very vulnerable for strike #2).

but 'realistically' - Titans are said to be vulnerable to weapons orders of magnitude weaker than even naval escorts are carrying in multitudes.

Hell in Taros Campaign a Warhound titan was brought low by a strike-bomber, in a manner which was a very close narrative interpretation of a 7th edition ingame-attack. Brought low by a level of firepower which doesn't even register as being able to harm an escort in BFG.
If a titan can reasonably fight another titan, then it must therefore be highly vulnerable to a warship. It is like an ant to a god.
The only real excuse that might not be the case is if the warship lacked the precision to reasonably target a titan, but unfortunately for the titan precision-lance strikes on ground assets are not an uncommon occurrence in 40k depictions.

I think all your reasoning, while sound, is still not enough to say that Titans are "useless/illogical in universe". Why? Because even if there are anti-Titan weapons available, the real world tells us that weapon systems with even a wide array of counters can still serve important and even irreplaceable roles on the battlefield. The existence of precision artillery, drones, and Hellfire and Javelin missiles haven't made tanks a non-option in todays modern warfare. In the early years of the Ukraine war some were saying it was the end of the tank, but here we are still, with tanks continuing to be fielded effectively, and new ones continuing to be designed and built for eventual deployment. The tactics and usaage of equipment just changes depending on context of the environment.

Sometimes Titans will make sense and be useful, and sometimes they will not. As long as they have at least some niche where they're valuable it's not unreasonable for the resource-rich Imperium to have and field them.

They also outrange most threats to themselves. Sure, chewing through a tank company is going to take time. But you still have the range on them, and can potentially target the biggest threats first.

For instance, the classic Leman Russ Company where the Command Tank is a Vanquisher. Take your time (you’ve got some of that), place your shot, and remove that highest threat level.

If your opponent has no hard counter? You’re about as safe as can be in the hubbub of battle.

Even if they do? You know you’re gonna be a target and can take that into account. Indeed, you’re going to draw so much enemy firepower, your supporting allies are going to have an easier time. And it’s not like your opponent can casually ignore you as a target.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
When 40k the groundwarefare based game has used the term "macrocannon" it usually refers to one of the smaller ones.

Does it? Can you remember other examples than the Aquila Strongpoint, the seemingly mistake-written 6e rulebook one, and the Rogue Trader one?

The Astreus superheavy tank mounts a pair of "Macro Accelerator Cannons". The old Rogue Trader description says Macro Cannons are the heaviest versions of the autocannon. they fire explosive shells of considerable size and potency." So there's multiple versions of them, presumably some bigger and some smaller. They are explosive, so being hit by a blast isn't the same as taking a shell directly to the face. They can be fitted to large vehicles, so the Astreus version can still count. Terminator Armor is based on armor used to work inside of plasma reactors, so should be reasonably protective against big blasts, and historically it has sometimes been equipped with protective fields. Also, just because the armor can do something, doesn't mean that they always will. In the given example the model rolled a 6 to save, for example. It seems like there are definitely ways to make the passage make sense.

Macro- is a prefix that is used for many things. A macro-cannon is a specific class of weapon, of which the macro-accelerator cannon is not part.

It's like how the Primaris-Lightning Strike Fighter is not part of Cawl's Primaris Space Marine armies, or how the Contemptor Dreadnought's Gravis Plasma Cannon is not related to the Gravis Armour also worn by certain Space Marines.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Macro- is a prefix that is used for many things. A macro-cannon is a specific class of weapon, of which the macro-accelerator cannon is not part.

It's like how the Primaris-Lightning Strike Fighter is not part of Cawl's Primaris Space Marine armies, or how the Contemptor Dreadnought's Gravis Plasma Cannon is not related to the Gravis Armour also worn by certain Space Marines.

Possibly. Still, according to Rogue Trader the term Macro Cannon refers to versions of Autocannons larger than a typical autocannon, some of which can be mounted on vehicles. That's still enough wiggle room to not be in the same arena as space-navy weapons. Even with the Rogue Trader version being S10 with a -6 save modifier (rather than the silly 6th ed S7 AP4), Terminator Armor (before adding a Refractor Field) still saved it on a 6+.

According to Rogue Trader, the Ultramarines Chief Librarian Astropath is a half-Eldar. RT has -some- interesting and useful stuff and I respect it for its place in history, but at this point Warhammer's changed so much I would not use 1e as a load-bearing argument.

(This is aside from the issue of using gameplay stats in a lore argument. I refer you again to my Multi-Melta example of why this is a problem, but there are many, many more cases, such as Guardsmen in some editions being able to outrun supposedly supersonic jetbikes...)

Macro-Cannon used to be Titan Weapons, later renamed to Quake Cannons.

But they’ve remained constant as a broad term for any massive projectile weapon that lobs high explosive shells.

 Ashiraya wrote:
According to Rogue Trader, the Ultramarines Chief Librarian Astropath is a half-Eldar. RT has -some- interesting and useful stuff and I respect it for its place in history, but at this point Warhammer's changed so much I would not use 1e as a load-bearing argument.

(This is aside from the issue of using gameplay stats in a lore argument. I refer you again to my Multi-Melta example of why this is a problem, but there are many, many more cases, such as Guardsmen in some editions being able to outrun supposedly supersonic jetbikes...)

You look for consistencies through the editions before choosing to disregard any one example. The description of "Large Autocannons" appears to be consistent, and even the Macro Cannon on the Aquilla Strongpoint left a Terminator a save. The example of a half-Eldar Librarian is rather less consistent.

It sounds like you should toss out the Multimelta rules from Necromunda as a source. The Multimelta could kill bunkers and vehicles well enough in 40K from 1st through 7th before GW dropped damage charts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Macro-Cannon used to be Titan Weapons, later renamed to Quake Cannons.

But they’ve remained constant as a broad term for any massive projectile weapon that lobs high explosive shells.

Thank you! I was looking for that, but I only have the Titan Legions books, not any of the earlier ones.

I do just want to clarify that it was the model of the Macro Cannon that was renamed to Quake Cannons.

That doesn’t meant the Quake Cannon is therefore a class of Macro Cannon.

Though, given it is indeed a massive projectile weapon that lobs specialised explosive shells? It could still be, though I can’t find confirmation either way.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I do just want to clarify that it was the model of the Macro Cannon that was renamed to Quake Cannons.

That doesn’t meant the Quake Cannon is therefore a class of Macro Cannon.

Though, given it is indeed a massive projectile weapon that lobs specialised explosive shells? It could still be, though I can’t find confirmation either way.

Sorry, having touble parsing that. The "model" as in the piece of a figure being renamed to a new weapon? Because your statement also reads like a Quake Cannon is just one model of Macro Cannon, like a model of car.

Out of curiosity, when it was named Macro Cannon, what were the stats/description?

Ah, yes. I see where I’ve caused confusion.

The part originally called a Macro Cannon was later renamed as a Quake Cannon.

Macro Cannon was Adeptus Titanicus. Will grab a pic if my books are close to hand. Which they should be, but I’ve not read them since the move so might be in the attic.

I’m too good to you lot, I really am! Including bonus piccie of a really smart bit of old background.

The "Plasma Cannon" being a Titanicus "very heavy weapon" definitely is telling about how much has changed since, unless my Heavy Support Squad is toting ten Titan strategic-level guns without telling me.

Rogue Trader did t have Macro-cannon. It very clearly had Marco-cannon

Is that saying "Exist for the Emporer?" LOL.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The "Plasma Cannon" being a Titanicus "very heavy weapon" definitely is telling about how much has changed since, unless my Heavy Support Squad is toting ten Titan strategic-level guns without telling me.

Ah, they’re toting what were once Heavy Plasma Guns!

Also note that (not pictured, might get round to it soon but I just realised how awfully I’d filed my books, and so have sent myself to bed like a Dirty Boy) in AT? It was really the number of barrels that counted. So yes, the Plasma Gun might look weedy and misnamed? But could be packing multiple barrels for extra mayhem.

I do have the full rules and Codex Titanicus and I think a complete set of Titan Cards. But the cards are in the box. And the box is safe in the airing cupboard. And I can’t be bothered to dig it out,


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What I can say is that the original AT wasn’t far from Battletech in some respects.

I forget and will need to make time to refresh, but each sub-class of Warlord had different hard points. The use of which were consumed in different ways by different weapons and their number of barrels.

I may be confusing myself with 2nd Ed, but I’m pretty sure due to the drain on the Plasma Reactor, you could only pack a single Plasma Cannon. And some vague memory of once you fired it, it had a turn to cool down and you couldn’t move in your next turn?

Also, in my 2nd Ed Space Marine box, where the rulebook wasn’t (see putting myself to bed for being a Dirty Boy)? I found an original plastic Warlord Titan! Sadly the weapons are glued. But I’ve got one! In damned good condition all things considered.

@Doc: cool pics! Interesting that there's both an Autocannon and a Macro Cannon, which makes it seem like the Macro was a "Quake" from the start rather than a second "Auto" The labels for the bits are great too, I just magneted and primed three of those OG Warlords to paint them soon. Now I know what all the bits are supposed to be!

@Ashiraya: The Titans still have a Plasma Cannon, at least in Epic Armageddon/Net EA. In this case it's the man-portable one that changed from Heavy Plasma Gun. But hey, we could also use it as a sign that multiple sizes of weapons can exist with the same name.


@Flinty: Lol I never noticed that.

Oh no. I’ve given myself an idea.

See that bonus pic? I’m pretty sure it’s now easier than it’s ever been to pose a Warlord in such a position. For both of them…

Smee.

Stop me Smee.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I found an original plastic Warlord Titan! Sadly the weapons are glued. But I’ve got one! In damned good condition all things considered.

I happened to grab a pic of mine before primer-ing the unpainted 3 yesterday. It's an ancient model but I love the character of it. The painted one on the right is awaiting flags, and I may wait until the other three are ready for the same treatment.

Ooh, nice Corvus Assault Head!

Nothing says “eff you and your building” like a 60’ Warmachine head butting your base, then vomiting out some Terminators!

 Ashiraya wrote:
Is that saying "Exist for the Emporer?" LOL.

Maaaaaaybe… it was the land before quality control…

 Flinty wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Is that saying "Exist for the Emporer?" LOL.

Maaaaaaybe… it was the land before quality control…

A place GW have only occasionally visited since...

Took the time to put all my ancient books in the right release order, based on product number and for 2nd Ed Codexes, a list found on Lexicanum. Though I note Lexicanum didn’t include Codex Assassins!