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Melissia wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:but only Space Marines and some members of the Inquisition have Cyclonic Torps at all.


Necrons are the exception to the Virus, but the Virus still works on Deamon Flesh(they still take organic forms)

The Inquisition refuses to use virus bombs on daemon worlds.

The reason being? They don't want to give Nurgle ideas.

But Virus bombs are to kill all organic life, Cylonics are to wreck the planet and render it useless, possibly even cause it to im/explode.
a virus bombed panet could still be terraformed right????

I'm not making that up, that comes from a direct quote from an Inquisitor, though I forgot where exactly.

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:but only Space Marines and some members of the Inquisition have Cyclonic Torps at all.


Necrons are the exception to the Virus, but the Virus still works on Deamon Flesh(they still take organic forms)

The Inquisition refuses to use virus bombs on daemon worlds.

The reason being? They don't want to give Nurgle ideas.

But Virus bombs are to kill all organic life, Cylonics are to wreck the planet and render it useless, possibly even cause it to im/explode.
a virus bombed panet could still be terraformed right????

in theory, yes.

but it would be very hard as the Planets atmosphere was basically blown away and there isn't anything left aside from dust.

Virus bombs wouldn't blow an atmosphere away. Just its biosphere.

A nova cannon can be used for exterminatus and like one quarter of imperial capital ships carry those. Magna-melta torpedoes can be used for exterminatus. Any ship with a torpedo tube can use them (and a lot of ships have torpedo tubes, even some escorts).

Melissia wrote:
Besides, all they need to do exterminatus is a single ship with a lance battery, it just takes longer. Usually if they went this route they'd use a small fleet-- an Imperial Navy patrol group for example.

That's grossly over-estimating the power of space ships in the 41st millenium.

An imperial patrol would NEVER be able to perform an exterminatus. They might be able to do some orbital strikes, maybe bombard a hive city, but destroying an entire planet? Come on. It goes against every single bit of fluff on exterminatus.

It is possible to destroy a planet via lance strikes, but it would take days, if not weeks, of continuous firing, thus drawing massive amounts of energy from the plasma drive of the ship. Thus, escorts and light cruisers (which form imperial patrols) would simply end up with dead plasma drives long before destroying even a single continent. They are simply too small and their reactors are too weak. And I'm not even mentioning the fact that the guns of the ships would not be able to sustain such an intensive bombardment.

But an entire fleet, with battleships, cruisers, etc would certainly be able to perform an exterminatus via lance strikes.

I'm not sure about performing an exterminatus with a nova cannon. The explosion radius of an average nova cannon shell is roughly 20 kilometers wide IIRC. And each ship probably holds fifty shells in its prow storage bays (this is just my guess, not official fluff). I think it would not be enough to bombard the entire surface of a planet, even with an entire fleet with a dozen different cruisers equipped with nova cannons. But I could be wrong.
But anyway, nova cannons were designed for space combat, not for orbital strikes, so using them for an exterminatus would be unlikely.

Same thing with torpedoes.

They ar not using is to much, only when a planet is lost for sure ( like Tyranid invasion or Chaos taint ). If they over-use it it would be like my friend said when I showed him the exterminatus scene from DoW Retribution: "Someone on this planet just thought about Chaos"
And only the most biggest ships of the Imperium carry exterminatus ammunition. And those with Inquisitors onboard. And I think that they didn't lose the ability to colonize, I read in few books that nobilities to that. Just it's not to common knowledge, they have instructions for that on one of the STC's on Mars.
And are the exterminates worlds settable again? As we have seen in Retribution.

Laodamia wrote:That's grossly over-estimating the power of space ships in the 41st millenium.

No it's not, it's canon. This is the biggest warships, or the combined might of several/many smaller ones.

I quite distinctly remember a GW story where lance barrages cracked a continental plate.

Wiping out all sentient life on a planet is quite easy actually, but rendering it completely lifeless is another matter.

Regardless, this doesn't go against the core fluff of Exterminatus... Exterminatus isn't necessarily hard to do, it's just rarely actually sanctioned because habitable worlds are highly valuable.

Melissia wrote:The Inquisition refuses to use virus bombs on daemon worlds.

The reason being? They don't want to give Nurgle ideas.

Are you referring to actual Daemon Worlds or worlds where Daemons are present?

If it's the latter then I can find a few sources where it does happen.

I always thought that Exterminatus was used to extinguish life on the planet, not necessarily to destroy the planet itself.

Melissia wrote:

Laodamia wrote:That's grossly over-estimating the power of space ships in the 41st millenium.

No it's not, it's canon. This is the biggest warships, or the combined might of several/many smaller ones.

I quite distinctly remember a GW story where lance barrages cracked a continental plate.

In cannon, only the biggest ships were capable of performing an exterminatus (and usually in large groups). We are talking about battleships, or battlecruisers at the very least. That means 10 km long ships with guns the size of the Eiffel Tower! We are not talking about frigates or cruisers. Even an entire battlegroup of cruisers would not be able to perform an exterminatus, unless gifted with armament specialized in exterminatus operations (like cyclonic torpedoes, armageddon cannon and the like).

In Mechanicum, we read about the Bucephalus, the Emperor's own flagship, supposedly the biggest and most powerful ship ever built by the IoM. And IIRC even this monstrous battle-barge was described as only having enough firepower to destroy continents, if she was to engage a planet on her own (that's still impressive actually ).

Lance batteries, torpedoes, nova cannons, all these weapons are impressive and destructive, but they are not designed for planetary bombardment. And they are exactly the weapons used by the Navy's ships. Which leads me to think that exterminatus cannot be performed by any random Imperial Navy captain on-board a small Sword frigate.


SM strike cruisers and battle-barges seem to be capble of performing exterminatus with a much greater ease because:

a) they seem to have better access to cyclonic torpedoes and virus bombs

b) strike cruisers and battle-barges are always equipped with a few bombardment cannons (weapons specially designed for planetary bombardment)

Lance batteries may not be designed for planetary bombardment, but they're still used as such and are brutally effective.

In fact, orbital lance strikes are the primary form of orbital bombardment in tabletop-- not a torpedo or other ballistic weapon. And it's the most powerful weapon in non-apocalypse games, being an S10 AP1 ordnance large blast.

In fact, orbital lance strikes are the primary form of orbital bombardment in tabletop-- not a torpedo or other ballistic weapon. And it's the most powerful weapon in non-apocalypse games, being an S10 AP1 ordnance large blast.

I'm pretty sure the rules are an understatement of actual Lance power. S10 AP1 Ordnance 5" Blast sounds more like the laser pointer used to find a target for a REAL Lance - which should be more like S Destroyer AP1 10" Blast Ignore Cover ...for a small Lance.

Yep, it is. Remember, these are non-apoc rules, so they don't have an SD.

Oh, and you forgot to add ordnance and barrage.

Melissia wrote:Virus bombs wouldn't blow an atmosphere away. Just its biosphere.

the Virus bombs themselves, No.


but when the gas is ignited and the atmosphere greatly expands from the burning gas much of it will be blown beyond the planet's gravitational ability to hold onto the gas.

I don't think the virus bombs ignite the gas? A virus can't actually do that, it requires a living host to reproduce and outside of the living host it's effectively just dead organic particles (that's what defines a virus as opposed to bacteria).

the Virus causes all organic matter and living tissue to decompose.


this results in the atmosphere being saturated with flammable gas.


the Fleet above then fires a lance strike or an explosive shell down. the Lance/shell then ignites the gas, causing a planetary firestorm.



see the video i linked above.

In BFG 1 cruiser properly equipped can destroy a planet in 1 turn.
Also recall a story were a planet was killed by 4 or 8 magna-melta. So even an escort properly equipped could kill a planet.

but thats only if the ship has been designated the planet killer.

presumably its been outfitted with the appropriate ordinance before hand.

But at the same time, all they need to do is an extended creeping barrage of lance strikes to glass over a continent...

Grey Templar wrote:but thats only if the ship has been designated the planet killer.

presumably its been outfitted with the appropriate ordinance before hand.

Of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:But at the same time, all they need to do is an extended creeping barrage of lance strikes to glass over a continent...

Yes, but that would take the better part of a month. They'd only do that upon realizing they left all their torpedoes, virus bombs and nova ammo in their other pants at home.

That depends on how many ships there are in the patrol.

even a full fleet would probably take weeks to scour the entire land mass of a Earth Sized planet, even ships the size of the IoM's vessels.

using Virus bombs for the blanket effect and only bombarding key areas like bunker complexs and cities is much easier.

Anyways we actually all agree that exterminatus is something the Imperial Navy is quite capable of not just Inquisitorial and Space Marine vessels.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:In BFG 1 cruiser properly equipped can destroy a planet in 1 turn.
Also recall a story were a planet was killed by 4 or 8 magna-melta. So even an escort properly equipped could kill a planet.

Yes, I talked about that in one of my earlier posts.

It's called an Armageddon Cannon. It must be placed on a capital ship (that means cruiser-level or above), so escorts are out, and it replaces all of the prow armament of the ship(makes me wonder how big the weapon is). Basically, it is said that only capital ships are big enough to handle the recoil of this weapon and have big enough plasma drives to power it.

So escorts definitely can't destroy a planet, unless grouped in a massive fleet with hundreds and hundreds of escort squadrons.

I never said they could destroy a planet, just wipe out all life on it.

The latter is much, MUCH easier.

Like I said magna- melta is a very common method of exterminatus. One Cobra Class Destroyer could perform exterminatus. The life-zone of a world is actually a fragile thing and it doesn't take much to obliterate it.
Now a Cobra would almost never be equipped with magna-melta because they are super-valuable and super-awesome but the point remains they could if needed.

Melissia wrote:I'm not making that up, that comes from a direct quote from an Inquisitor, though I forgot where exactly.

It's from one of the Ciaphas Cain novels, in a footnote.

Grey Templar wrote:the Virus causes all organic matter and living tissue to decompose.


this results in the atmosphere being saturated with flammable gas.


the Fleet above then fires a lance strike or an explosive shell down. the Lance/shell then ignites the gas, causing a planetary firestorm.



see the video i linked above.

The fleet doesn't usually need to fire, I mean lets say daemons infest that world and Tzeench's Flamers are present. But usually attacking some fomr of advamced planet there's going to be fire some where

On paper, the Adeptus Astartes fall under the purview of the Inquisition. Technically, every Imperial Citizen other than the Emperor and the Adeptus Custodes do. Actually accusing a SM of heresy, and getting to prosecute your charge, is incredibly difficult, for a number of reasons... though it is within your legal remit to do so.

The wise Inquisitor knows when to use force, and when to use cooperation, with the other Adeptus of the Imperium.

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:the Virus causes all organic matter and living tissue to decompose.


this results in the atmosphere being saturated with flammable gas.


the Fleet above then fires a lance strike or an explosive shell down. the Lance/shell then ignites the gas, causing a planetary firestorm.



see the video i linked above.

The fleet doesn't usually need to fire, I mean lets say daemons infest that world and Tzeench's Flamers are present. But usually attacking some fomr of advamced planet there's going to be fire some where

usually not enough to spark an entire planet wide firestorm.