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So tell me forum, how often does this happen? I mean, there are many various different ways to carry out an exterminatus, but how often does this terrible act happen? Is there a record log I can find? I mean I've heard of the Imperium doing things like leaving plants to die because of a greater threat (Which is why the Tau expanded so quickly in the eastern fringe).

But seriously? Anyone know?

Avrik_Shasla wrote:I mean I've heard of the Imperium doing things like leaving plants to die

New race - Space Triffids!

Moving thread to 40K Background.

Not very often, the Imperium likes it's planets it just doesn't like all the people on them

generally its at the VERY extreme end of the "how fd are we if this spread to another planet" scale

I think it really for if the world REALLY falls and can't be reclaimed,say a whole healthy population falls to Chaos and a fully armed and functioning traitor PDF are putting up a nasty defense,maybe if they have CSM with them and are summoning Daemons,maybe then it's exterminatus.

Exterminatus has meny diffrent forms, from Virual bomes talored to acttack spcific type of genom, to the burning off an atmosphire with mass carpet bombing high yeld plasma bombs, to whole scale planetary destuction with cyclonic torpedoes.
Depending on the problem depends on the type used really, that and if you wish to repopulate after.

Honestly I don't think it's all that common. The Imperium fights will fight viciously for decades on end to keep a world when it would have been far simpler to simply annihilate it with cyclonic torpedoes. On Vraks they wanted to secure the rebellious planets status as a armaments world, but in the end it was all basically destroyed during the actual fighting. In Fifteen Hours the Imperium has been fighting over some frozen backwater against possibly a million Orks for a century.

It has to be a truly dire situation for an Exterminatus I think, and it's not very frequent.

It used to be fairly common but the inquisition started to stop it as they thought it wasn't encomniacal anymore (form the death watch sereis if i recall (may be a bit wrong be years since i read it)) but now i thinks it like only the most F****d lilke in the nid codex when theres a planet with both deamons and tyranids going at it. Just a qusetion how many types are there of Exterminatus?

oldone wrote:Just a qusetion how many types are there of Exterminatus?

I've heard of 3 main methods:
1.) Cyclonic Torpedo. Apparently the most common.
2.) Atmosphere Incinerator Bomb.
3.) Virus bomb. Probably the most well known mean but I've heard it's becoming less common as Cyclonic and Incinerator torpedoes are more efficient.

There's also nuclear weapons I guess.

Virus bombs - melt you to flamable goo then sets the goo on fire
Orbital bombarment - carpet bomb style
Cyclonic torpedo - blast can be seen from space, destabalises crust, used on habitable worlds
Two stage torpedo - melta to get through crust, then cyclonic explosion, used on barren worlds such as tomb worlds
Atmospheric Incinerator torpedo - sets atmosphere on fire, used in extreme cases of exterminatus

Exterminatus can only be autorised by the Inqusition, the nearest Space marines are then called in to actually bomb the planet

Considering it takes cooperation between the Inquisition and Space Marines, it is a rare occurrence.

And the previous two posts aren't describing different kinds of Exterminatus. Those things combined make up the Exterminatus.

I always thought it's something they can't use offensively. Like it's too impractical and difficult to use as a tactic of warfare, otherwise surely you would have them trying to rock Exterminatus on Chaos home worlds or Ork planets.

Instead I always gathered it was used only on Imperial Planets that were too corrupt and infested (either with Chaos, Genestealers, or something similar), but wouldn't be able to pose a threat to an orbiting navy.

This is just my perception from reading fluff in the rulebooks and such, though

Chaos homeworlds are usually Daemon worlds where the law of physics don't really aplly there so it's probably better not to try it and end up giving them ideas.
Orks held planets can usually be cleansed. The IoM will only exterminatus a planet if they are really doomed due to something on the planet (Tomb world) or the defenders are really dug in. If there is something important like factories or relics then they will try to take it.