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So as we all know (and endlessly debate), The Black Legion controls the majority of ground across Cadia. The Guard have pulled back to the far side of the planet to hold out against a major assault. In the skies, the Imperial Navy has the upper hand, preventing Abaddon from receiving any more reinforcements from his fleet.

If the Imperial Navy has air superiority however, what is stopping them from providing new reinforcements to the defenders, or bombing Abaddon from above? Getting new ships to Cadia seems tricky with the Warp storms isolating planets throughout the sector, but that shouldn't stop ships already there from providing fire support or landing actions.

Because that would advance the plot forward. And you know how Gee Dubs feels about that.

Normal Logic fails in the land of Chaos and GW

Because solving the problem quickly and easily by bombing or blasting the chaos troops back to wence they came via space craft or aircraft or air dropping troops and supplies to the defenders would mean that something would actually get done....

And solving problems is not grimdark.

Well im no expert and have no idea what this is about but!... Does it say they dont provide fire support? Chances are they do. But in reality fire support doesnt win wars, nor does it defeat armies.

While they certainly can take their toll on the enemy ground forces give the imperium an advantage it wont defeat an army. Thats why we still have infantry and tanks etc because its not enough to just try blow em up from a distance.

You said something about them being cut off? Maybe ammo conservation is something have in mind as they still need to hold the enemy fleet at bay.

Another way to look at it is if the navy where to conduct a landing operation then thats less ships holding the orbit. Its hard to miss ships of that size landing troops (judging by the imperial guard codex cover) so if the enemy where committing a portion of their navy to land id strike during that time.

Look at the war in the pacific for example, the navies would spend a lot of time and resources bombarding islands to hell, but they had limited success. Why? because its easy to protect yourself from artillery. Unless your in the open your pretty safe ish, battle of somme for example. Everyone has heard about the great bombardment before the battle but it had seemingly little effect.

But thats just my guess as to why the navy may be having limited success in aiding the ground forces. Logistics is the big thing and the fact that artillery is best used as support during a battle so when the fighting starts then the navy will be of more use.

Yet again im not really a nut at 40k fluff as most of it is a bit odd So if what i said contradicts what fluff says well assume everything i just said was wrong haha.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Well im no expert and have no idea what this is about but!... Does it say they dont provide fire support? Chances are they do. But in reality fire support doesnt win wars, nor does it defeat armies.

While they certainly can take their toll on the enemy ground forces give the imperium an advantage it wont defeat an army. Thats why we still have infantry and tanks etc because its not enough to just try blow em up from a distance.

You said something about them being cut off? Maybe ammo conservation is something have in mind as they still need to hold the enemy fleet at bay.

Another way to look at it is if the navy where to conduct a landing operation then thats less ships holding the orbit. Its hard to miss ships of that size landing troops (judging by the imperial guard codex cover) so if the enemy where committing a portion of their navy to land id strike during that time.

Look at the war in the pacific for example, the navies would spend a lot of time and resources bombarding islands to hell, but they had limited success. Why? because its easy to protect yourself from artillery. Unless your in the open your pretty safe ish, battle of somme for example. Everyone has heard about the great bombardment before the battle but it had seemingly little effect.

But thats just my guess as to why the navy may be having limited success in aiding the ground forces. Logistics is the big thing and the fact that artillery is best used as support during a battle so when the fighting starts then the navy will be of more use.

Yet again im not really a nut at 40k fluff as most of it is a bit odd So if what i said contradicts what fluff says well assume everything i just said was wrong haha.

For not being an expert and having no idea, you sure hit close to home. XD I agree with a bit of this and could expand.

There are a couple ways you can dominate the lanes without dominating the land, and this gets exaggerated when we look at the level of technology available to both sides at any given time and more-so than that when we look at the history of these two factions and how they've conducted themselves in similar situations; Abbadon specifically. I don't have my codex in front of my right this second, but in nearly every earlier Black Crusade led by Abbadon has pretty much ended with 1 out of 20 of Abbadons strike force surviving, and by some unholy way, managing to accomplish their objectives. Why? Because they're Space Marines, albiet Chaos ones, which, in a lot of ways, is probably worse than your standard smurf. Worse than that, they are Black Legion. They are THE Long War Incarnate.

So what you have is a very well trained Abbadon and pals sitting on strategically important strong-points, weathering the bombardments and using Cadian facilities to feed their armies while they also drive up the body count, which, for those who don't know, is the real objective here, along with taking down the Obelisks'.

For the Imperial Navy, they are not only dealing with maintaining an imposing presence to keep Chaos Navy from shredding them (which is the largest ever seen and also consists of the earlier taken Blackstone Fortress') but they also have to deal with the growing Warp presence in their real space. This affects things like the Machine Spirits in all of their equipment, targeting, diagnostics, logistics, etc. etc. Even worse than that is that Abbadon doesn't need Chaos Navy to bring reinforcments. He has the Warp itself, and the ability to start daemon incursions. This battle isn't like the old battle for Terra. While Abbadon likely isn't trying to prolong this battle, he isn't necessarily pressed for time considering he's been at this game for the last 10,000 years.

So what you are looking at is the patient knife, sliding slowly into the ribs of the Guard and infecting them from within. They have home turf and fleet advantage, but in a considerably deteriorating situation that will only get worse if they can't push Abbadon out of his foxhole. And this is why Cadia will fall. +__+ It must fall. Humanity must be exterminated beneath the flame of Chaos in order to resurrect and restore Goodness to their species. Lest the grimdark future continue without End, stories become repetitious and looping, etc. etc. etc.

At least that's how I see it panning out.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
So as we all know (and endlessly debate), The Black Legion controls the majority of ground across Cadia. The Guard have pulled back to the far side of the planet to hold out against a major assault. In the skies, the Imperial Navy has the upper hand, preventing Abaddon from receiving any more reinforcements from his fleet.

If the Imperial Navy has air superiority however, what is stopping them from providing new reinforcements to the defenders, or bombing Abaddon from above? Getting new ships to Cadia seems tricky with the Warp storms isolating planets throughout the sector, but that shouldn't stop ships already there from providing fire support or landing actions.

Is this still cannon in 6th edition. I Thought the 13th crusade was altered a bit in the last rule book?

The navy elements around Cadia suffered heavily in their last battle to take out the Blackstone fortress. the 13. Black Crusade sourcebook mentions that the majority of Quarren's fleet is gone.
While the Chaos armada suffered even worse it is at least thinkable that no side is currently strong enough to force a decision in space. Abaddon cannot hope to destroy the Imperial fleet in the short run while the Imperal fleet, in it's depleted state, might be unwilling to assault a defended planet.

From the final campaign newsletter from GW:

Final Newsletter

Cadia
The bleak moors of Cadia are reduced to a barren, crater-pocked wasteland, blasted by orbital torpedoes, super-heavy artillery and the footfall of titans. The Vilklas and Andur defence lines have collapsed under the relentless pressure of a million frenzied cultists, traitors and mutants, and the Cadian High Command has been forced to relocate to Kasr Gallan on the far side of the Caducades Sea. Though the Imperial Navy is in control of the inter-system space lanes, Chaos rules the skies above Cadia since the orbital defences fell in the opening days of the Black Crusade. The defenders of Cadia are now deployed around Kasr Gallan and throughout the Wastes, resolute that not a backward step shall be taken. The order is given- ‘stand at Cadia, or damn the Imperium of Mankind to the depredations of Chaos for all eternity’.

The space lanes
The Imperial Navy has fought with courage and vigour throughout the war, ruthlessly taking the battle to the enemy wherever it encountered them. Admiral Quarren has been hailed a true hero of the Imperium, for his masterful defence of the space lanes was all that stood between survival, and utter defeat for the Imperium. Though Cadia is besieged, the Imperial Navy commands space, and is able to offer support to beleaguered forces on the ground. The only question is whether the rapid redeployment of almost the entirety of Battle Fleet Gothic, along with a substantial proportion of Battle Fleet Solar will leave the Navy dangerously overstretched elsewhere and unable to maintain the level of operations required to hold the line at the Cadian Gate.

It says explicitly what the situation is: Chaos has local space superiority, while the Imperial Navy controls the inter-system lanes. The Imperial Navy has this through redeployment of forces from elsewhere and it is unclear how long this can be sustained. In the meantime, the Imperial Navy can offer some support to the forces on the ground but if Chaos has local control, then it would be running a gauntlet to drop off either supplies, reinforcements, or a quick burst of ground support fire. Either way, in the 40K universe, space power is not the be all and end all of combat. So ultimately the issue is still of Cadia being mostly in the hands of Chaos, and the remaining Imperial defenders having pulled a Dunkirk like maneuver back to Kasr Gallan.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Well im no expert and have no idea what this is about but!... Does it say they dont provide fire support? Chances are they do. But in reality fire support doesnt win wars, nor does it defeat armies.

While they certainly can take their toll on the enemy ground forces give the imperium an advantage it wont defeat an army. Thats why we still have infantry and tanks etc because its not enough to just try blow em up from a distance.

I dunno, I think we vastly underestimate the power of orbital artillery.

This is stuff that can be used to wipe all life off of the surface of a planet, and in some cases, destroy the planet itself. So, obviously you have to scale your level of force to the task at hand. You're not going to use cyclonic torpedoes on a planet you want to keep, for example. But ultimately, if the Imperial Navy controls space completely, they should be able to grind the majority of the Chaos forces into paste and ethereal daemon goo. Then it just falls to the ground forces to mop up. So you're half right. It will always, unless you completely destroy a planet, fall to ground forces to occupy and hold a planet's surface (and sub-surface if we want to get technical). Abaddon's only hope would be to have the planet's intact ground defenses, but if those were intact, how did he get down there in the first place?

The reason why the battle for Cadia continues is Because Games Workshop. Battles happen in a vacuum where outside influences don't matter. And battles happen because they need to. In this case, the battle for Cadia needs to be a perpetual stalemate, and Chaos needs to be a perpetual threat. People need to remember, 40K is a setting, not a storyline.

They should use the life eater virus. That would keep the obelisks intact would it not?

At least until Daemons returned and claimed Cadia. They don't need to breathe. Chaos vessels in orbit open gates, daemons come out, send them down to Cadia now barren of life. Cadia now falls, permanently, to Chaos.

Another question. The Pylon system is holding back the Warp Storm, correct? Does it also stop Abaddon from summoning Daemons on Cadia itself?

Bombarding Cadia from above would probably destroy Pylons, you really don't want that to happen.

As for your Pylon question, latest CSM codex stated that the Pylons are beginning to crack and Abaddon intends to destroy them IIRC.

Of course none of this will ever be resolved.

Theoretically, could the Necrons create so many Pylons that the warp was banished entirely?

Theoretically.

However, just like everything else in M41, the Necrons are falling apart. Their Necrodermis is beginning to show the effects of time. Their Warriors leak oil, shambling forward as actuators mis-fire and balancing gyros fail to compensate in time. We know that the Necrons are a super-science race... but how much of their super-science have they forgotten?

We know they have the Celestial Orrery. Could they build another one?

They have inertialess drives for FTL travel... are they building any new capital ships?

We don't know what the Necrons are actually capable of doing. We have a glimpse of what they have, and a good idea of what they were, but we have no idea what they have lost forever as so many Tomb Worlds have been destroyed in sixty million years.

Did I just read the above right and it said the pylons on Cadia are of Necron descent and are what has been keeping the Eye of Terror from streaking down the Crimson Path?

As an affirmation. I hadn't heard that before and am interested to see how deep the fluff goes.

On a further note there, if Chaos is occupying the space directly above and Cadia can't resort to orbital bombardment, then what is stopping Chaos from orbital bombarding the pylons to pieces? Perversion of Rites?

It's times like these I wish I had a fortune to spend on all things Warhammer, so I could read all this out for myself. lol

Yeah, Cadia's Pylons are Necron in origin.

Of course, the EoT is centered on the remains of the Eldar Empire, not that of the Old Ones, so it doesn't make much narrative sense (since the Necrons would have built them tens of millions of years ago), and the Necrons themselves come from the far galactic north-west, IIRC... so the far opposite end of the EoT's current position.

Though I suppose Orikan the Diviner could have gone forward in time, seen that the EoT would exist, came back and told his fellow Necrons to start building some stuff because there was going to be a thing there...
... and, being Orikan, this action changed future-history so that some other calamity, like the Heresy, resulted.

It may be that the pylons are too small to target from orbit. They aren't described as being particularly monolithic.

Considering this is 40k we're talking about (imo, home of Go Big or Go Die, lol) I'd imagine those pylons are at least big enough to be targeted by orbital bombardment. That said, considering the state of Chaos and how they like to function, it's safe to say Abbadon doesn't want them destroyed outright, for that could (in some crazy, fake-logic theory) force the gates closed even harder.

Like destroying the lock, as it were.

So Abbadon would need to land, pervert the pylons with Chaos ritual, and then invert their energy so that Cadia would be forced open.

Unlikely, because if that were the case, the Imperium might have destroyed the lock for just that reason, but then there is also the very real possibility that Abbadon is playing the War of Atricion now, as stated by the CSM Codex, and he's just trying to drive up the body count as high and as fast as possible to cause the pylons to crumble under the sheer weight of the Warp.

Talking about locations though; gotta remember that this is space and millions of years and all that jazz, just like you illustrated Psienesis; So it's possible that the Cadian Necron Pylons drifted to that region of space over time. A bit more likely than time traveling, because that kicks up all kinds of paradox, though foresight is not out of the question since the Chaos Gods themselves use the prescience to manipulate the stage 10,000+ in advance, or longer (as it is unknown exactly how long Chaos has been at work).

Explaining that last paragraph; after reading the Daemons Codex, I am of the mind that this battle is so far out of scope and thoroughly planned (just by Tzeentch alone) that the End Game is written in the blood of the Imperium, and here is what I mean.

The Chaos Gods are so convoluted and eternally unknowable that they stole the Primarchs from the Emperor in order to sew Heresy in Man's Greatest Champions, in order for Man to reject their Champions, which leads to the Heresy of Horus, who was only given the title Warmaster so that his conceit would see the Emperors-Corpse on the Golden Throne, where the Emperor's immortal soul would languish, incapable and unable to do anything about the plots that rend his society limb from bloody limb, ALL JUST SO Abbadon himself can come back, tear the tortured and crushed Corpse-God from his imposed Life Support, which would also deal an even more crushing blow to Man, and would see Real Space turned into Warp Space.

THAT'S how convoluted the scheming of thirsting Gods is. That 10,000 years ago before the Heresy even began, they planned for Abbadon the Despoiler to bring about the end of Real Space. And THAT is a conspiracy of true Gods. So out of scope that Man has no possible chance gleaming this pre-planned history without the use of Madmen and Psychotics.

Hopefully, I didn't detract too far from whatever point I was trying to make in illustrating just how Great the Game of the Chaos Gods really is and in also describing how this door-kicker can end.

While the galaxy does drift... it doesn't drift *that* much, at least, not that quickly. The galaxy today looks pretty much like it did 100 million years ago.

Time-travel is just a thing Orikan the Diviner does. It's one of his tricks. The Necron super-science has made linear time-travel a thing.

And while the Gods of Chaos are schemey, GW has (stupidly) given them birthdates (all but one tied to humanity for some reason) and none of the Great Four are as old as Necrons. This is, and remains, a boneheaded move on GW's part, but it is what it is.

Pylons are more than big enough to be the target of Orbital Bombardments.

Model-wise, they are between a Warhound and Reaver Titan in height. And everyone knows that Titans exchange fire with low-orbit ships,

Fluff-wise, they frequently punch holes through Cruisers, so they hit pretty hard.

If the IoM could fire them up, as weapons, Abaddon would loose almost all of his fleet ridiculously fast, because as you said, he doesn't want them gone outright.

 IHateNids wrote:
Pylons are more than big enough to be the target of Orbital Bombardments.

Model-wise, they are between a Warhound and Reaver Titan in height. And everyone knows that Titans exchange fire with low-orbit ships,

Fluff-wise, they frequently punch holes through Cruisers, so they hit pretty hard.

If the IoM could fire them up, as weapons, Abaddon would loose almost all of his fleet ridiculously fast, because as you said, he doesn't want them gone outright.

The Necron Pylons on Cadia aren't weapon-pylons. They don't shoot anything. They're just big rock sticks with weird, possibly non-Euclidian, holes winding through them.

A Reaver Titan is also only 22 meters tall. That's smaller than many buildings. A stone post without a nuclear reactor powering it probably can't be seen from orbit, given the Imperium's (and, remember, Chaos ships almost all used to be Imperial ships... the tech hasnt changed that much) rather lackluster scanning technologies.

So can we establish here that Abbadon is actually winning? I mean of course he won't ever win but surely he must be winning.

Oh, Lordy, yes, yes indeed.

If you read the actual reports from the 13th Black Crusade world-wide campaign, the Imperium got its ass kicked soundly. GW, in fact, had to change the outcome of the campaign otherwise they were facing some extinction-level events in the near future as Chaos had basically wtfspanked the Imperium at every turn...


... because, ironically, the Chaos players were better organized than the Imperial players, got their gak together faster, and didn't suffer as much internal politicking or in-fighting.

I thought they were these things:

I'm thinking more like this:

Well, since we generally know that Imperial ships (both loyal and Chaotic) typically fire projectile weapons from space...

Perhaps they are out of ammo?

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Cadian_Pylon

Bloody hell that says there's a network of them across the whole planet! ... I thought there were only a few of them.

Doesn't anyone find it weird how all the new 6th edition codexes are now written with the 13th black crusade just starting, mainly the CSM and SM books?

I don't find it "weird" so much as "disappointing", as GW had stated that the results of the WW Campaign would direct the setting of the game...

... and then when Chaos whooped unholy amounts of ass, GW backtracked and somewhat invalidated a lot of their victories, as otherwise it would mean revamping large sections of several armies.

I wish GW had had the guts to just take what the campaign results had handed them and gone with it. Would people bitch that Cadia was lost? Yes. Does that mean that all Cadian figs are now useless? No.