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Hey Dakka, I've got a quick question for ya'll.

I'm writing a short-story and I want to get my numbers right (believable).

So, let's say you have a young upstart Inquisitor who has comandeered a small portion of an IG regiment (or two) to go kill some xeno leader or something. They complete their objective, and are heading back to regroup with the rest of the task force when they are diverted to aid a planet involved in an uprising.

Assuming a planetwide uprising, you'd be looking at ~millions of cultists/millions of PDF facing off? (on say, a highly populated Cardinal World).
Okay, to make it believable, would ~20,000 guardsmen be about right for a small portion of a regiment (say a large one)? Would that be enough to just barely be able to contain the uprising (along with the PDF)? Also, assume that the PDF are slightly more competent than normal.

Sorry there's not more details, I gotta leave.

Yeah if they had 20,000 guard and a few million PDF against a few million cultiss they could stop them. Especially with an inquisitor.

Sounds about right.

or you could take a more covert approach and use a highly trained force of stormtroopers and aim for a sort of precision strike at the head of the rebellion, like killing the apostate cardinal, rogue psyker, etc. so as to destabilize the rebellion.

I would say so. Especially if the imperial troops strike at the leadership of said uprising rather than a stand up fight. You could always say that the inquisitor has ulterior motives to being on the planet anyway. Like he is using the confusion to steal a relic or technology whilst the suppression is happening. Depends on how radical you plan him to be I guess.

Lexx wrote:I would say so. Especially if the imperial troops strike at the leadership of said uprising rather than a stand up fight. You could always say that the inquisitor has ulterior motives to being on the planet anyway. Like he is using the confusion to steal a relic or technology whilst the suppression is happening. Depends on how radical you plan him to be I guess.

wait you mean to suggest there's a time when Inquisitors don't have ulterior motives?

Thanks for the reply.

To be perfectly honest, the Guard activity on the planet is really just a backdrop for the main story.

I want it to seem believable that the Guardsmen are stretched thin, but the (obviously) more numerous cultists can't simply overwhelm them.

This is actually all based on a campaign I'm running with some of my buddies, so there's some other, already established limits that I have to work with as well, such as the relative importance of the planet, galactic/sector/subsector events, and various interplanetary disasters that are preventing reinforcements from arriving.

Also, since the campaign involves several factions, I can't have the skies swarming with imperial starships either.

Thanks for all the input, I think I've got a reasonable scale built now!