Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

For reference, the space marines that were allowed/lured into Commoragh were large contingents from three chapters, with a battle barge and a dozen strike cruisers. They suffered in excess of 75% casualties, and lost every ship apart from the battle barge and the cruiser they came to recover, in the span of a few minutes, facing only a disorganized resistance from those who happened to be close enough to react before they fled, further complicated by the campaign of sabotage and assassination Vect's servants carried out against the nobles leading the defense.These were Space Marines, the Mary Sues lugging around several metric tons of plot armor each, and they were slaughtered

Fascinating.
Not what codex Dark Eldar states.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:
Hard to really tell how many Eldar there really are.

A friend brought up a good point to me, he thought it would be plausible that they have the current population of Earth spread out among the stars.

roughly 5-7 billion could actually exist throughout the galaxy.

Good point but I think he is wrong...
The medium Eldar Craftworld is a size of Earth, and in each Craftworld there are enough Eldar to fill the entire center of Craftworld ( witch is about 2 billions according to BFG ).
So Eldar have 5 major Craftworlds ( size of Jupiter ) with population more than 2 billion, others are medium and minor ( sizes of Earth and Pluto ). There are around 18 of them, + Exodite worlds ( and we know nothing about their numbers ).

Seems more larger than 7 billion people...

Codex Dark Eldar does state that of the almost 500 marines that landed on the streets of Commorragh, half of them were killed within a short time of landing.

And the guns of every Space Marine ship was silenced very quickly after entering Commorragh. Since it's obvious Asdrubael Vect had planned the whole thing, and had no intention of killing every single space marine, they were able to escape. Had Vect's intention been to just destroy them all none would have escaped alive. That's obvious from reading the fluff in the Dark Eldar book about it.

But in the Podcast from the making of the Dark Eldar, Jes Goodwin and Phil Kelly did talk a bit about the total population of Commorragh, and IIRC they said something about it being pretty huge but not as big as a craftworld population.

There's loads. It's just that there are few in comparison to everyone else. Trillions of Eldar, septillions of humans (look up the number septillion).

The usual assumption is that the IoM has one million worlds (a round number.)

Modern science estimates two billion Earthlike worlds in our galaxy, not to mention worlds for species like the Vespid, and terraformed planets.

If that is the case, the IoM, although spread out over a large area, only occupies a small percentage of the available planets.

The rest of them could harbour any number of Exodites, Orks, Tau, Hrud, Demiurg, and other species. If they were unfriendly, the size of the IG would be utterly irrelevant. The other factions could afford to obliterate all the IoM Star systems entirely, and barely notice the loss of living space.

(But, as always with 40K fluff, GW have no grip on reality so the whole thing will dissolve easily when looked at in any detail. Best to leave it alone and make up some nice sounding numbers.)

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

For reference, the space marines that were allowed/lured into Commoragh were large contingents from three chapters, with a battle barge and a dozen strike cruisers. They suffered in excess of 75% casualties, and lost every ship apart from the battle barge and the cruiser they came to recover, in the span of a few minutes, facing only a disorganized resistance from those who happened to be close enough to react before they fled, further complicated by the campaign of sabotage and assassination Vect's servants carried out against the nobles leading the defense.These were Space Marines, the Mary Sues lugging around several metric tons of plot armor each, and they were slaughtered

Fascinating.
Not what codex Dark Eldar states.

By which you mean, taken directly from the codex? From page 14: three chapters (the Salamanders, Howling Griffons, and Silver Skulls) committed two dozen strike cruisers (okay, so I got the number of strike cruisers wrong, meaning they actually had more forces there) and a battle barge; these were met by a few hundred small craft, the only types mentioned being those usable in game (voidravens, razorwings, and ravagers), which are notably each less than a hundredth the size of the smallest Imperial escort (I know there's a picture of one someone built to scale, that came out somewhere on the order of twelve feet long... there's also a picture of Imperial ships as compared to actual objects and other sci-fi ships, let's see if I can find it... well, it's not anywhere on my hard drive, as far as I can tell), which is itself diminutive compared to a cruiser (which, converted to the same scale as tabletop models, would come out to roughly the size of an eighteen wheeler), and disabled by them, at which point they jettison the space marines on board and are promptly not mentioned again, aside from the battle barge. From page 15: by the time the nearby wych cults have reacted, there are around 500 marines in the city, and they've already suffered 50% casualties (so, three chapters each committed more than three companies to the fight, averaged out; the Salamanders probably sent more, meaning the others sent less); several leaders of the defense are assassinated by other Dark Eldar, one with a dark lance and another by Lelith; the machines holding the captured cruiser in place are sabotaged, freeing it, and about half the surviving marines teleport away, with those unable to teleport away for whatever reason being slaughtered or captured; the remaining ships flee as the forces attacking them are set upon by other Dark Eldar ships.

So, 75% casualties, in just over the amount of time it takes for a wych cult to react. By the time even the nearest houses realized they were even there, and had some troops marching on their position, they'd fled.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
You're underestimating the Eldar and possibly the Tau as well. The Tau have... seven, isn't it? main populated worlds, and a few dozen small colonies. We don't know how populous their main colonies are; they could have smaller populations than Modern Earth, making the entirety of the Tau less than the population of a single craftworld, or they could have populations in line with the average hiveworld, leaving them with a total population roughly equivalent to that of a single craftworld.

IIRC correctly, there is fluff confirming that the population of a hive world like Armageddon or Terra has more inhabitants of the entire Tau Empire. The key Tau septs probably have populations equivalent to the modern Earth, for a total population of a little over 50 billion or so in my estimate.

Significant, but tiny compated to the population of the Imperium of Man.

Kilkrazy wrote:The usual assumption is that the IoM has one million worlds (a round number.)

Modern science estimates two billion Earthlike worlds in our galaxy, not to mention worlds for species like the Vespid, and terraformed planets.

If that is the case, the IoM, although spread out over a large area, only occupies a small percentage of the available planets.

The rest of them could harbour any number of Exodites, Orks, Tau, Hrud, Demiurg, and other species. If they were unfriendly, the size of the IG would be utterly irrelevant. The other factions could afford to obliterate all the IoM Star systems entirely, and barely notice the loss of living space.

(But, as always with 40K fluff, GW have no grip on reality so the whole thing will dissolve easily when looked at in any detail. Best to leave it alone and make up some nice sounding numbers.)

Modern science? 10 years ago they didn't know that there are planets around other suns ( until HABL shot one black dot on a star ). Our galaxy has 500-600 billions stars, 2/3 of them have planets. Avrage of 10 planets per star, 3-5 of them can always be terraformed. And on every 2'nd or 3'rd star there is a planet like Eart ( atmosphere, wather in liquid state, continents... ). Did you get the numbers?

Imperium surly have more than 1 million worlds, I read somewhere that "Imperial lose on a dally basis 10 worlds and settle 100 more". And don't forget Human lost colonies still left to be discovered by Imperium. And some of them surely have Human level of technology from DaoT. And all aliens are already unfriendly toward Humanity, but they are also unfriendly to themselves ( Orks for example ), so Imperium will never be crushed by them - neither he will ever be able to crush them giving the number of enemies they already have.

And as always, GW fluff is rather strange when it comes to reality . But Imperium will never lose when it comes to GW, because the center of 40k IS IoM and it's warriors - The Space Marines and their battle for Humanity's survival.

The rulebook has always said the Imperium has been around 1 million worlds. Page 103 in the current 5th ed rulebook.

Ermm...where are you getting this from? It reads more like some kind of sick Fan fiction that WH40K "fact".....so far, given how sqeamish GW are of anything remotely sexual, the only hints about the "Eldar" reproduction are given in the DE Codex, and that's a very top level sexual education at best....I've never read anything along the lines stated above.

Dude......What was so gross about it? What he said was not even close to sick. He just explained some info he knew, besides we need to understand at least a bit of how the races are made to study them better. Stop being a sissy because somebody was talking about how two space elves come together and have intercourse.

Daba wrote:The rulebook has always said the Imperium has been around 1 million worlds. Page 103 in the current 5th ed rulebook.

"Around" is not same as "exactly". On a daily basis they lose a LOT of worlds, but claims to regain or colonize more than they lose...?

And you have mistaken, it's on page 103. Page 105 is picture of the Golden Throne.

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The usual assumption is that the IoM has one million worlds (a round number.)

Modern science estimates two billion Earthlike worlds in our galaxy, not to mention worlds for species like the Vespid, and terraformed planets.

If that is the case, the IoM, although spread out over a large area, only occupies a small percentage of the available planets.

The rest of them could harbour any number of Exodites, Orks, Tau, Hrud, Demiurg, and other species. If they were unfriendly, the size of the IG would be utterly irrelevant. The other factions could afford to obliterate all the IoM Star systems entirely, and barely notice the loss of living space.

(But, as always with 40K fluff, GW have no grip on reality so the whole thing will dissolve easily when looked at in any detail. Best to leave it alone and make up some nice sounding numbers.)

Modern science? 10 years ago they didn't know that there are planets around other suns ( until HABL shot one black dot on a star ). Our galaxy has 500-600 billions stars, 2/3 of them have planets. Avrage of 10 planets per star, 3-5 of them can always be terraformed. And on every 2'nd or 3'rd star there is a planet like Eart ( atmosphere, wather in liquid state, continents... ). Did you get the numbers?

Imperium surly have more than 1 million worlds, I read somewhere that "Imperial lose on a dally basis 10 worlds and settle 100 more". And don't forget Human lost colonies still left to be discovered by Imperium. And some of them surely have Human level of technology from DaoT. And all aliens are already unfriendly toward Humanity, but they are also unfriendly to themselves ( Orks for example ), so Imperium will never be crushed by them - neither he will ever be able to crush them giving the number of enemies they already have.

And as always, GW fluff is rather strange when it comes to reality . But Imperium will never lose when it comes to GW, because the center of 40k IS IoM and it's warriors - The Space Marines and their battle for Humanity's survival.

100-400 billion stars and an estimated 50 billion planets, with 500 million within the habitable zone of their star. The number of habitable worlds, or those that could be/happened to be terraformed is unknown, but it's not unreasonable to assume it's less than one percent of those 500 million, since "habitable zone" means exactly nothing as to the composition or size of the planets, only their distance from a star. The "one million worlds" in the Imperium figure is the only number that ever shows up, and as far as I know "thousands of trillions of humans" is the only figure on human numbers.

A thousand billion Eldar? Just seems too much.

Then again we're talking the galaxy here.

As far as the Tau, well, 100 billion? 10 billion or more per world? Hard to tell.

We don't know how many humans there are on the earth right now, estimates are between 6-10 billion I believe.

Projected human population in May 2011 is: 6,915,542,770

Have to repeat?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
By which you mean, taken directly from the codex?

You should have.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
From page 14: three chapters (the Salamanders, Howling Griffons, and Silver Skulls) committed two dozen strike cruisers and a battle barge; these were met by hundreds of small craft, the only types mentioned being those usable in game (voidravens, razorwings, and ravagers), and disabled by them, at which point they jettison the space marines on board and are promptly not mentioned again, aside from the battle barge.

Such a surprise GW mentions units they may plan to realease someday...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
From page 15: by the time the nearby wych cults have reacted, there are around 500 marines in the city, and they've already suffered 50% casualties. the machines holding the captured cruiser in place are sabotaged, freeing it,

Sabotaged? Nice name for Termies destroying what held the battlebarge whilst fending off the DE.
Did these DE succed in destroying the space marine vessel? NO? Got shotdown all of them?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
and about half the surviving marines teleport away,

You dislike correct numbers it seems. How about improving this and next time we see unaltered GW fluff?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
So, 75% casualties, in just over the amount of time it takes for a wych cult to react. By the time even the nearest houses realized they were even there, and had some troops marching on their position, they'd fled.

Not sure where you get your ideas from.
Deepstriking 500 and losing 50% never amounts to 75% casualties.
Taking your objective and leave is a tactical retreat.

Now, the fleet fred of the entangling fields left and additionally the 2 named ships are mentioned.
Multiple vessel said to be disabled and said to have left. Doesn't support your claim of destroyed.

To settle things, looking at the codex now....

Two dozen strike cruisers come through Webway....hundreds of VoidRavens and Razorwings swarm out of nearby Port Shard to meet them....Despite many of them being shot out of the sky, one by one, Imperial guns are 'silenced'(this is often used in literary expression to mean 'killed').....Space Marines drop pod in....Space Marines establish perimeter quickly, but take heavy fire from Kabalites and Scourges overhead....Hellions and Reavers attack, and are rebuffed by flamers....then Mandrakes and Raiders join the fray, battle is joined 'from one side of High Commoragh to another'....

....Space Marines hold their own, whole things descends into vicious melee fighting.....word of the invasion gets out, Wuch cults begin to mobilise for war....High Archon Kraillach butchering space marines until obliterated by 'a stray Dark lance' (assassinated by an underling maybe?).....Wyches of the Cult of strife get stuck in, Space Marines have to fall back, having 'lost half of their number already'....Lelith assassinates another Archon for Vect mid-battle....

....Ravagers and Scourges up above are dissembling a SM ship...SM using missile launchers break the magnetic fields holding ship in place under cover of a distraction bought by terminators.....Space Marines down below are surrounded, and 'warriors from a dozen houses were converging on their position'....main body of SM teleport away, some left behind to die...SM ships start to leave, DE attackers were met by firepower from both 'friend and foe' (Vect again?)....Remaining Astartes withdraw.


To be honest, it sounds to me like the Space Marines got absolutely kicked there, in the course of what must have been a mere few hours, they lost half their number, and what must have been a sizeable portion of their fleet. They did alright until word of their invasion got out, and then as soon as they met organised resistance, they were being butchered. It probably would have gone even worse for them, if Vect hadn't been knocking off DE commanders left, right and centre.

Never mind, read the post above.

purplefood wrote:If they do number as much as Sir Psuedonymous says they do 250 marines is pathetic to have killed for so many Dark Eldar...

but, but, the Mahreens are uber...

It is very much hinted at that Vect also left the Webway portal open for them to escape. Had he not, ALL of them would have been kiilled or captured and then eventually killed.

Face it, the marines got kicked. The only reason they didn't all die is because Vect was using them to get control of Commorragh.

Next time he should try to get the Ultramarines in their, only this time, not let them go

That is fairly merciful of him...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Uhlan wrote:

purplefood wrote:If they do number as much as Sir Psuedonymous says they do 250 marines is pathetic to have killed for so many Dark Eldar...

but, but, the Mahreens are uber...

I meant that for so many DE to have killed so few marines...
Of course then i read Ketara's post.

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
From page 14: three chapters (the Salamanders, Howling Griffons, and Silver Skulls) committed two dozen strike cruisers and a battle barge; these were met by hundreds of small craft, the only types mentioned being those usable in game (voidravens, razorwings, and ravagers), and disabled by them, at which point they jettison the space marines on board and are promptly not mentioned again, aside from the battle barge.

Such a surprise GW mentions units they may plan to realease someday...

What? My goal was to point out that the only craft mentioned are those that exist on the tabletop, and are geared towards killing infantry and tanks, not strike cruisers. As there was no "and larger warships" or somesuch added, we can only gather that it was a fleet of a few hundred bus sized ships going against twenty four warships that compare to an aircraft carrier as an aircraft carrier does to a bus (and one that similarly dwarfed the others), and at the very least hacking all of their guns off and crippling the battle barge to the extent that it crashes, only to regain power after the strike cruiser they'd come to rescue was freed (wait, rereading it seems the battle barge effectively crashed into some Space Power Lines and fried itself, because whoever was piloting it was an idiot who crashed into some Space Power Lines...). No ship other than the battle barge or the freed strike cruiser is mentioned after "One by one the Imperial guns were silenced."

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
From page 15: by the time the nearby wych cults have reacted, there are around 500 marines in the city, and they've already suffered 50% casualties. the machines holding the captured cruiser in place are sabotaged, freeing it,

Sabotaged? Nice name for Termies destroying what held the battlebarge whilst fending off the DE.
Did these DE succed in destroying the space marine vessel? NO? Got shotdown all of them?

"Miraculously, each missile seemed to trigger a chain explosion, and the burning shards crashed down into the streets below." -> The spars were rigged to go up at the slightest touch, since the whole point of the whole ordeal was to disgrace the Commorite nobility (a krak missile has a hard time doing anything at all the front armor of the light APCs used by the Guard, what exactly is it supposed to do against "giant building able to hold a strike cruiser in place"?); for all we know the missiles didn't even touch the spars, and they were just remotely detonated (educated guess based on the effective range of a missile launcher being less than the width of the ship, let alone enough to hit nine spars surrounding it on all sides).

The page goes on to have all the other haywire fields that had kept the imperial weapons offline mysteriously shutting off, and the first organized aerial resistance to the intruders to be set upon by other Dark Eldar forces, affording the surviving vessels, of which only two are acknowledged as still existing, time to flee.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
and about half the surviving marines teleport away,

You dislike correct numbers it seems. How about improving this and next time we see unaltered GW fluff?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
So, 75% casualties, in just over the amount of time it takes for a wych cult to react. By the time even the nearest houses realized they were even there, and had some troops marching on their position, they'd fled.

Not sure where you get your ideas from.
Deepstriking 500 and losing 50% never amounts to 75% casualties.
Taking your objective and leave is a tactical retreat.

By the time the closest wych cults responded there were 500 living marines in the city, and they'd already suffered 50% casualties ("The Space Marines in the city were now almost five hundred strong... The Space Marines fell back; they had lost half their number already, and badly needed to regroup."). This is roughly halfway through the battle. Once the strike cruiser is set free, "the bulk" of the survivors teleport away, leaving those unable to to die. 75% casualties is a lowball estimate, when they'd suffered 50% within minutes of landing, facing only what was already beneath them, and then later still some number greater than 50% but less than ~80% of what was left at alive that point managed to escape. So, losing somewhere in excess of half a chapter, to rescue a single, heavily damaged strike cruiser, at the very least losing every single gun on a battle barge and twenty four strike cruisers, potentially losing any number of those strike cruisers, all to those forces that they actively landed on top, in the time it took for the next closest houses to realize something was going on and rush to get in on the action, while Vect's servants took the opportunity to cripple the defense effort.

The Imperial invasion of Commoragh was really a civil war with marines being used as a proxy army by one side. It's not really a good gauge of a straight up invasion to the death.

Kroothawk wrote:There are more Dark Eldar than Craftworld Eldar, DE numbers are unknown but growing, sort of

Where is this stated?

Brother Coa wrote:

"Around" is not same as "exactly". On a daily basis they lose a LOT of worlds, but claims to regain or colonize more than they lose...?

The rulebook just states it is a million; nothing indicates they claim more than they lose.

I said 'around' because exactly 1 million is hard to keep track of knowing the bureaucracy of the Imperium.

Daba wrote: nothing indicates they claim more than they lose.

Just look at DoW games, they lost Tartarus, but regain control over Lorn V, Kronus and Kaurava system.
BL books are full of those examples. There is one quote from some book, ( forgotten the name ) the man said: "hundreds worlds perish, but thousands more prosper".
I only don't know what he meant by prosper: recaptured, defend, discovered... My guess is that they regain the same amount they lose since it is everywhere stated that Imperium always have 1 million worlds...

The majority of Imperial planets are at 'peace'. Peace in that they are not being invaded, hereticla activities are at a minimum, and things are generally going fine. Sure thousands of worlds may be warzones, but hundreds of thousands more are doing just fine without having to fight wars.

Brother Coa wrote:

Daba wrote: nothing indicates they claim more than they lose.

Just look at DoW games, they lost Tartarus, but regain control over Lorn V, Kronus and Kaurava system.
BL books are full of those examples. There is one quote from some book, ( forgotten the name ) the man said: "hundreds worlds perish, but thousands more prosper".
I only don't know what he meant by prosper: recaptured, defend, discovered... My guess is that they regain the same amount they lose since it is everywhere stated that Imperium always have 1 million worlds...

"A million" is a nice round, poetic number. What it means is that the IoM at any one time has about 1 million worlds, give or take a couple of percent either way depending on recent new conquests or losses. Given the state of Imperial bureaucracy, it is impossible for the IoM to know its precise number of planets.

There may well be lots of undiscovered ancient human colonies in areas of the galaxy where the IoM is weak. It seems unlikely there would be lots of undiscovered human worlds in areas where the IoM is strong.

Smitty0305 wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:There are more Dark Eldar than Craftworld Eldar, DE numbers are unknown but growing, sort of

Where is this stated?

Cronicles of the Fall indicate 95% of the Eldar race was killed.

1% fled aboard what were to become the Craftworlds. these also formed the Exodite populations.

the other 4% actually survived Slannesh's mind rape and fled to the Webway.

Could someone explain to me how Eldar souls work? IIRC isn't there supposed to be a finite number? But they are no longer able to reincarnate and thus reproduction is stunted?

Where do the 'new' souls that the odd lucky baby gets come from? I know that there are supposed to be a lot of stillbirths as a result of said soul shortage.

Smitty0305 wrote:

Kroothawk wrote:There are more Dark Eldar than Craftworld Eldar, DE numbers are unknown but growing, sort of

Where is this stated?

It isn't the DE dex insinuates there are more Craftworld Eldar than DE. It's true though that DE numbers are increasing while craftworld are dwindling.