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One thing to consider is that if the Imperium's enemies knew every time they set foot on an Imperila planet the Imperium would nuke it! They would do this systematically and get the Imperium to nuke itself into extinction.

Alos destroying your own home does not stop your enemy living happily in his home, and just coming back a year later to try again.

 Peregrine wrote:
They've constructed a universe in which space power exists and no faction has any moral objection to using it, and then handwaved it away so they can have WWI trench battles in space.

Except that they need no such hand wave. Ground objectives are always valuable, and ground forces are always the most effective, sure-fire method of securing them. Think of our Earth wars. What do we fight over? Land. Wealth, power, etc, etc... but it always comes down to resources. Always. And that means land. All 40K has done is take that land, Terra, and expanded it a thousand fold across the stars. Planets are the new land, they provide all the resources (yes, that includes any and all needed with which to build a super fleet with super lasers and super cannons). Same as always, ground based objectives are the key, therefore ground forces are the key to taking and holding them. There's just simply more (much, much, much more) land to fight over now.

So how exactly do ground armies (which are composed of WWI-era tanks and screaming idiots with chainswords) ever beat ground defenses? If these defenses are capable of engaging starships with a reasonable expectation of winning they would massacre any 40k ground forces effortlessly.

The same way they are/were used in our own Earth wars. The same way WWII paratroopers were used to defeat AA and long distance artillery pieces, yes, those things which could "massacre ground forces effortlessly". The same way SAS were used to take out enemy SCUD missiles, using 4x4s, assault rifles and C4... yes, those missiles which could "massacre ground forces effortlessly". No matter how powerful or sophisticated our own long range delivery systems are for ordnance, be is aircraft, submersible, surface-to-air ICBMs, whatever, there will always be a need for ground forces. 40K is no different.

xruslanx wrote:
I'm pretty sure the bombardment weakens them almost to the point of collapse, doesn't it?

Not as far as I can remember, no.

However, it's only one novel written by one author out of dozens, each with their own variations and creative approaches to the setting. You may well be remembering an instance of void shields being broken by ground artillery from another BL novel. Also, just because Vervunhive could withstand the massed ground based guns of Ferrozoica, who's to say the same could be said to a mass, sustained bombardment from a star fleet?

So, although your example was erroneous, your point still may stand.

 da001 wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 da001 wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

Honestly, I don't think it's enough of an influence. Where is your MI on the table top? However, it does bring up why ground combat isn't pointless.

Just my opinion, of course, but I think it is a big influence.
MI in movies -> Cadian Imperial Guard (and Bugs -> Tyranids).
MI (aka Space Marines) in the book(s) -> Adeptus Astartes (aka Space Marines).

The closest thing to the MI are the Tau Farsight Enclaves. They're the only faction to have a heavily jump infantry based army with high firepower. Space Marines, a whole chapter full, isn't worth 10 MI. 10 MI would smoke 1000 marines like a cheap cigar and never break a sweat.

I've read the book, several times. It's one of my favorite pieces of science fiction. Space Marines suck $$$ in comparison. It is a far better written and thought out take on a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.

Which is a difference: MI are far more powerful than Astares. There are more differences.

For instance, Astartes have heraldic insignias, exactly like knight orders. Knight orders are a clear influence for the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines). Mobile Infantry (also referred as Space Marines) do not use heraldry. And they are jump infantry. And stronger.

However, MI are Space Marines in Power Armour brainwashed by military propaganda and send by Drop Pod to fight aliens and save mankind, in a disturbing Sci-fi setting where humanity has become a facist society engaged in a perpetual war.
There are differences, they are not exactly the same, but they a take on the same concept with very similar results.

Still a matter of interpretation. I am surprised you think Tau are closer to MI than Astartes.

MI are dispersed from high altitude/low orbit ships which 'launch' them at the planet. The pod never makes the ground, it explodes at high altitude so that the detritus will confuse any land based defense weapons (scattering junk over a large radius, allowing the cap trooper to land safely). This is very similar to descriptions for the Tau and a Manta or Orca based suit insertion.

The MI is also all about mobile warfare, it's in their name 'Mobile Infantry'. Space Marines are generally a more static force. You can 'get mobility' with bikes, skimmers, and the like, but it's move and sit. Crisis suits are move, shoot, move again, which is how the MI tend to operate, hence the phrase 'on the bounce'. IF you could slap jump packs on Tactical Marines, Devestators, and Stern Guard plus let them move again in the assault phase, you might be getting closer.

The Tau, of course, have no psykers, but are more dynamic, willing to change and adapt, technically savy (maybe not superior tech, but they understand their tech and can alter/change it without worrying about committing heresy).

Neither Force is particularly representative of the social/political commentary of SST. Tau could perhaps be argued to be closer, they have 'pleasure' planets, allow 'freer' travel around their domains, and a few other things. The MI does have chaplains though, albeit they not like the SM chaplains outside of guys meant to be interested in the spiritual/emotional well being of their fellow soldiers and that they fight beside cap troopers.

 Inky wrote:


Good points, but what about races that have no interest in holding land or infrastructure, such as Crons. In IA12 it was shown that they could wipe out large portions of land, yet only used this ability sparingly, despite the fact that it was shown to be nothing out of the ordinary as far as their firepower was concerned.

Again, it's pointless to say "These races would make the Imperium use Exterminatus" in some cases because these races ALREADY make the Imperium use Exterminatus.

IA12 specifically ends with Exterminatus being recommended as the only viable solution. Yes, they didn't use it IMMEDIATELY, but that's because they had yet to realize the extent of the enemy's firepower and impossibility of defending the Imperium's assets. Once they DID realize that, exterminatus became the recommended solution. So basically, your point that necrons would cause the Imperium to use Exterminatus is correct, but becomes irrelevant because in the fluff, that's what the Imperium ALREADY DOES in regards to the necrons (not just IA12, but many other Necron battles that the Imperium loses results in Exterminatus, too). If you actually go through the fluff, it becomes clear that Exterminatus gets called in regarding some races more than others (Daemons, Necrons, and Tyrannids), and the reasons for this are pretty obvious.

Also, again, when you're the defending faction, Exterminatus is a Lose. In IA12's case, even after they got done exterminatus'ing the entire Orpheus sector, that's still a loss for them because now they're down one Orpheus sector that's no longer useable to them. There's a reason why Exterminatus is supposed to be reserved as a last resort (which is what it was for the Orpheus sector).

Meanwhile, exterminatus is usually pretty pointless against Eldar and Dark Eldar (they're probably gonna leave, anyways, whether they win or lose) and all the other races generally don't practice Scorched Earth anyways because they want the resources just as much as the Imperium does (well, Chaos Marines are hit-or-miss, but the Imperium usually calls in Exterminatus vs them too in the cases where they leave nothing salvageable).

Every once in a while you see situations in various stories where you do wonder why the Imperium didn't use Exterminatus, but that can just be chalked up to bad writing. In most cases when you look at it, exterminatus would have been a dumb thing to do (except maybe in hindsight, in some situations, but hindsight is hindsight).

And for another interesting thing to note. The US has been fighting an insurgency in Afghanistan, and while there have been soldiers involved, there have also been a huge amount of unmanned drones, missiles from various sources, as well as a huge pile of bullets and shells.

The end result? It has cost the US approximately $50 MILLION per taliban fighter. From an outside observer standpoint, that's insane.

For example, the US could kill the taliban for $0 per indigenous fighter killed by simply enslaving a portion of its population and sending them forward in human waves with improvised weapons. It turns out, though, for political reasons, the US government can't enslave people. Furthermore, once again for political reasons, the US "can't" sustain the levels of casualties required to make a human wave strategy work.

The only reason why the US bothers to attack things from far away with missiles is because it restrains itself. It places limits on the number of casualties and limits on the way it can raise soldiers. With all these limits in place, the US is "forced" to rely on terrible, ineffective, and grossly expensive ways of fighting its wars.

The Imperium, however, has no such restrictions at all. They can go for the smartest, most effective way of clearing off areas that contain vital resources, and in a way that's so efficient, they can do it over the entire galaxy.

Even moreso because there is exactly one main advantage that the Imperium has - its near limitless supply of manpower. Sending in a bunch of smart missiles is just as stupid for the Imperium as it would be for the US to send in a pile of slaves with pointy sticks against the taliban.

Well, except the Imperium would be stupider here. At least an endless pile of slaves will eventually achieve its objective. Definitely not so for long-range strikes.

TiamatRoar wrote:

 Inky wrote:


Good points, but what about races that have no interest in holding land or infrastructure, such as Crons. In IA12 it was shown that they could wipe out large portions of land, yet only used this ability sparingly, despite the fact that it was shown to be nothing out of the ordinary as far as their firepower was concerned.

Again, it's pointless to say "These races would make the Imperium use Exterminatus" in some cases because these races ALREADY make the Imperium use Exterminatus.

IA12 specifically ends with Exterminatus being recommended as the only viable solution. Yes, they didn't use it IMMEDIATELY, but that's because they had yet to realize the extent of the enemy's firepower and impossibility of defending the Imperium's assets. Once they DID realize that, exterminatus became the recommended solution. So basically, your point that necrons would cause the Imperium to use Exterminatus is correct, but becomes irrelevant because in the fluff, that's what the Imperium ALREADY DOES in regards to the necrons (not just IA12, but many other Necron battles that the Imperium loses results in Exterminatus, too). If you actually go through the fluff, it becomes clear that Exterminatus gets called in regarding some races more than others (Daemons, Necrons, and Tyrannids), and the reasons for this are pretty obvious.

Also, again, when you're the defending faction, Exterminatus is a Lose. In IA12's case, even after they got done exterminatus'ing the entire Orpheus sector, that's still a loss for them because now they're down one Orpheus sector that's no longer useable to them. There's a reason why Exterminatus is supposed to be reserved as a last resort (which is what it was for the Orpheus sector).

Meanwhile, exterminatus is usually pretty pointless against Eldar and Dark Eldar (they're probably gonna leave, anyways, whether they win or lose) and all the other races generally don't practice Scorched Earth anyways because they want the resources just as much as the Imperium does (well, Chaos Marines are hit-or-miss, but the Imperium usually calls in Exterminatus vs them too in the cases where they leave nothing salvageable).

Every once in a while you see situations in various stories where you do wonder why the Imperium didn't use Exterminatus, but that can just be chalked up to bad writing. In most cases when you look at it, exterminatus would have been a dumb thing to do (except maybe in hindsight, in some situations, but hindsight is hindsight).

But I'm not talking about the Imperium, I'm talking about races who have no interest in holding land or consolidating their power planet side. Like Crons. Hence why I used then in my OP.
In fact, scrolling through replies, i'm not sure than many people actually read the first post.

Then you are mistaken because Necrons do have an interest in planets. They have tomb complexes and outposts on planets. They are interested in rebuilding their individual dynasty's empire and subjecting other races. So they cannot just destroy planets where they may have tomb facilities or still slumbering Necrons, nor can they just blithely wipe out entire planets from orbit if they want slave populations.

Finally as I had mentioned earlier, the ground to space defense facilities in the 40K paradigm pose a significant threat to any starship, Necrons included. While Necron ships may fare better against ground defense installations than Imperial ships due to their superior capabilities, they are also worth more and even less replaceable than Imperial ships.

I would rage quit 40k so hard if IG possessed this kind of power in the game.

Its called a Deathstrike Missile.

To try to argue that ground troops are pointless is ignorant about how warfare actually works. War is about resources and logistics. You're either wanting to capture something or go destroy something the enemy doesn't want destroyed. Can you get enough beans, bullets and bodies to where you need them to capture/destroy the objective. Some objectives, sure, you can nuke from orbit. But some are protected against such shenanigans or is hidden underground. If you want to hold territory that means boots on the ground. A fleet in orbit only means you control the skies. It can't weed out insurgencies, hidden troops or clear out facilities you want captured. There's simply no other way to do it. No matter how high tech, there will always be ground troops. The troops maybe high tech thinking robots or superhuman marines or thousands of screaming peasants. No military has infinite resources and using what you have wisely is how you win. So, no. You can't go around razing every planet and city that has trouble because you'd soon run out of planets and cities.
"You can't win a battle by artillery alone, but you can't win a battle without it." You absolutely need troops on the ground but they absolutely need support from on high.

 MWHistorian wrote:
To try to argue that ground troops are pointless is ignorant about how warfare actually works. War is about resources and logistics. You're either wanting to capture something or go destroy something the enemy doesn't want destroyed. Can you get enough beans, bullets and bodies to where you need them to capture/destroy the objective. Some objectives, sure, you can nuke from orbit. But some are protected against such shenanigans or is hidden underground. If you want to hold territory that means boots on the ground. A fleet in orbit only means you control the skies. It can't weed out insurgencies, hidden troops or clear out facilities you want captured. There's simply no other way to do it. No matter how high tech, there will always be ground troops. The troops maybe high tech thinking robots or superhuman marines or thousands of screaming peasants. No military has infinite resources and using what you have wisely is how you win. So, no. You can't go around razing every planet and city that has trouble because you'd soon run out of planets and cities.
"You can't win a battle by artillery alone, but you can't win a battle without it." You absolutely need troops on the ground but they absolutely need support from on high.

aaAAAAaaaAAAaaargh
I was never trying to say that. Ever. I just wanted to know how continent destroying warships would interact with battles on the ground. I know perfectly well why the IG don't nuke every planet, but I DON'T know why necrons and other xenos who don't care about that sort of thing don't.
and in reply to an earlier poster, half of the fall of orpheus was necrons wiping out entire populations for no other reason than they were there, so they DO do that sort of thing.

 Inky wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
To try to argue that ground troops are pointless is ignorant about how warfare actually works. War is about resources and logistics. You're either wanting to capture something or go destroy something the enemy doesn't want destroyed. Can you get enough beans, bullets and bodies to where you need them to capture/destroy the objective. Some objectives, sure, you can nuke from orbit. But some are protected against such shenanigans or is hidden underground. If you want to hold territory that means boots on the ground. A fleet in orbit only means you control the skies. It can't weed out insurgencies, hidden troops or clear out facilities you want captured. There's simply no other way to do it. No matter how high tech, there will always be ground troops. The troops maybe high tech thinking robots or superhuman marines or thousands of screaming peasants. No military has infinite resources and using what you have wisely is how you win. So, no. You can't go around razing every planet and city that has trouble because you'd soon run out of planets and cities.
"You can't win a battle by artillery alone, but you can't win a battle without it." You absolutely need troops on the ground but they absolutely need support from on high.

aaAAAAaaaAAAaaargh
I was never trying to say that. Ever. I just wanted to know how continent destroying warships would interact with battles on the ground. I know perfectly well why the IG don't nuke every planet, but I DON'T know why necrons and other xenos who don't care about that sort of thing don't.
and in reply to an earlier poster, half of the fall of orpheus was necrons wiping out entire populations for no other reason than they were there, so they DO do that sort of thing.

In that case, look up the use of Battleships during the Vietnam War. Pinpoint artillery strikes from ships is VERY effective.

 IHateNids wrote:
Its called a Deathstrike Missile.

Then they should use them more often.

 Vaerros wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
But it's not a mere matter of politics.

Let's say you're a fleet commander, and you've got a few imperial guard armies tagging along (because they're super cheap to create and maintain. You know what, have three imperial guard armies), and you've also got a giant battlefleet with enough missiles to destroy all life on a planet twice over.

You're in your situation room, and you've got some situations. On Phalax III, your naval base, heretics have risen on the planet and taken over your ports drydocks, and battleship parts factories. On Wargram IV, orks have invaded, and a fierce fight is roiling over your planet-killing missile factories, and there are sketchy reports and rumors of a huge tyranid fleet approaching.

What do you do?

The stupid answer is to say "I've got enough missiles to kill two planets" and completely annihilate Wargram and Phalax. Oops, looks like you don't have any battleships or missiles anymore. Hope the tyranid don't invade.

The smart answer is to send in your guardsmen to kill the orks and heretics without doing any damage to your drydocks and missile factories and save the missiles in case the tyranid show up, and you need to shoot them with a huge quantity of firepower.

Completely ignoring politics, there's plenty of reason why you use infantry to do stuff, rather than NUKE EVARYTHING FROM ORBITZ!!!!!1!!!!eleven!!

While doing nothing but shooting stuff with missiles doesn't work in the real world of 2013, only one, small reason is because of politics. If you could achieve your goals with nothing but missile strikes, then everyone would damn the politics and just use missiles. It turns out, though, that long range support weapons alone are ineffective at achieving your strategic objectives.

Which is why you have infantry. Because you want to actually win wars, not merely throw around a few fireballs and call it a day.

Obviously if you're considering a front on a forge world or similarly valuable location, use of destructive weapons has to be done with caution, but that's not always the case nor can we assume that somehow *all* of the planet is so valuable that deploying super destructive weapons anywhere is unacceptable.

Orks and tyranids come to mind as aggressors these kinds of weapons could be deployed against more often than the background tells of. Certainly that's more logical than facing down hordes of aliens with legions of infantry and tanks.

The first thing an Ork or Tyranid fleet tends to do is attain orbital superiority. Gazghkull's fleet pretty much steamrolled the Imperial Navy at Armageddon and left the Imperium with no methods of safely using WMDs without immediately being dogpiled in an attempt to run the Ork Blockade.

At Macragge, the Tyranid fleet all but destroyed the defensive armada formed against them before ever setting foot on the planet and was about to overwhelm and destroy an entire Segmentum fleet before the Dominus Astra went Kamikaze.

Well, manticore is marvelous piece of engineering who can deliver capital-level bombardment to any point on the planet and even to exchange fire with navy. Even more, if adeptus mechanicus decides to deploy vortex missiles then you can say goodbye to anything in that doomed region. Also, only most advanced races can intercept these ballistic rockets if Mechanicus decides to go all out on those damn xenos. You see, Imperium have missiles (and even bullets) who makes short-range jumps into warp only to come back at minimum distance from their target to make an impact. So practically, only Eldar and maybe necrons can defend themselves against artifacts or jealously guarded secrets of priesthood. It's sad that we always come back to a same bolter/lasgun porn in most novels.


Low usage of capital weaponary strikes in novels are result of simply authors lacking imagination to use more exotic weaponary of Imperium. It's typical for them to ignore all ''larger picture stuff" and go for grunts and situation from their perspective.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yes, infantry units are completely pointless in an age of technology raining death from the skies.

Just ask the Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, and in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. And the French in Algiers and Indochina, and the Dutch in indonesia, and the British in Singapore, and the Germans over Britain. And the soviets in Grozny, and the Germans in Stalingrad.

The best example of this was in 1998. Bill Clinton, from positions the enemy couldn't counterattack, launched tomahawk missiles into the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, which instantly and comprehensively won the war on terrorists, turned Iraq into a peace-loving stabilizer of the region and a paragon of democracy, and solved all of America's problems in the middle east. Without a single infantry soldier.

Yup, the army that can do the most damage from the highest altitude is always the army who wins the war. Infantry units are pointless.

The Battle of Britain doesn't really fit in here, considering that it was a case of Germany not having the required amount of aerial power to destroy the RAF, meaning it couldn't launch a "boots on the ground" invasion in the first place as the transport ships would be blown out of the water as they tried to cross the English Channel.

They did. They just changed their targetting priorities too early. the switch from military to civilian targets allowed the RAF to recover a bit. Also from memory, the process was that the Luftwaffe needed air superiority to threaten the Royal Navy that was set to trounce any attempt at a landing.

 Ernestas wrote:
Well, manticore is marvelous piece of engineering who can deliver capital-level bombardment to any point on the planet and even to exchange fire with navy. Even more, if adeptus mechanicus decides to deploy vortex missiles then you can say goodbye to anything in that doomed region. Also, only most advanced races can intercept these ballistic rockets if Mechanicus decides to go all out on those damn xenos. You see, Imperium have missiles (and even bullets) who makes short-range jumps into warp only to come back at minimum distance from their target to make an impact. So practically, only Eldar and maybe necrons can defend themselves against artifacts or jealously guarded secrets of priesthood. It's sad that we always come back to a same bolter/lasgun porn in most novels.


Low usage of capital weaponary strikes in novels are result of simply authors lacking imagination to use more exotic weaponary of Imperium. It's typical for them to ignore all ''larger picture stuff" and go for grunts and situation from their perspective.

Ork Powerfields should intercept the missiles quite nicely as should a Mekboy given some time to think up something. Also, utilizing the shadow in the warp can help befuddle any sort of warp teleportation such as used by teleportation munitions.

And the Necrons are the most advanced species in the galaxy, what with being able to ignite a sun so fiercely that it completely burns every living thing on a day side of a planet, lob near luminal velocity chunks of degenerate matter, send signals that cause virtually all technology that receives it to crash until galvinically purged, create basketball sized devices that can shut off the warp across an entire solar system have space ships that are more or less unbeatable one on one and ton for ton, and even their simplest of tech is beyond the understanding of the most well versed of the adeptus mechanicus. They're definitely going to outsmart the Mechanicus.

Well, I don't know about orks, but I bet that they will not be prepared. They might have some tech in order to stop those missiles, but extreme rarity of such technology would result in orks simply not being prepared for it. In novel it was said and showed that bullets utilizing such technology bypass shields and go right for the armor. Missiles has more "breathing space" to dive out of the warp to small area of space which isn't protected, making shields useless.


I imagine eldars more predicting future more than countering this technology directly. Necrons indeed are extremely advanced, but as Imperium, their tech are prone to degradation (or at least I heard so). Anyways, their advantage doesn't mean that they have ''insta win'' button against mechanicus, especially then science gets mixed up with warp usage where Imperium is far, far more advanced than necrons. Ah, I forgot that tyranids interfere with the warp, BUT, interferences doesn't mean negation of the warp. It's just harder to use it and thus, missiles can theoretically still work depending on how potent their warp rift creation process is. Anyways, good old Nova cannon is an ultimate counter to tyranids to which you can do little to out evolve it

As far as my opinion on this goes from what I've read there are a few reasons why support form space/air plays such a small role in what we see.

The first and most important is propaganda. Call it what you will but nuking a planet from orbit isn't a very interesting read and from a fluff standpoint is doesn't look very good. The average Joe is probably going to rebel if he hears that if any goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.

The second reason is that the majority of battles do have some strategic importance to them that requires the involvement of infantry. There are exceptions to this but if there's really no strategic reason for the battle, why are you there? While it is obvious that the imperium is on a defensive battle and doesn't want to lose resources it doesn't have to many other faction have their own reasons for not just nuking form orbit. For example the necrons are runs by super egotistical leaders and its hard to fuel your ego with no holdings and no slaves.

The third reason is that bringing planet killing starships to bear requires that the AA on the planet be silenced one way or another. Chances are that the people down on the planet aren't stupid and AA defenses are always cheaper than planes to make. So how do you silence AA when you can't get the required dakka in range? Easy, send in the infantry, afterall it's cheaper.

And the final reason I can think of why these things aren't huge parts of ground battles is tactics. If I want a planet but I know that if I take it, and all seems lost, my opponent is just gonna nuke it, how do I fix that? The easy answer is to send my own ships to tie up and destroy my opponents. We see this solution a lot and an excellent example was put up earlier with Ghazzy taking care of space fleets before he landed.

 laginess wrote:
As far as my opinion on this goes from what I've read there are a few reasons why support form space/air plays such a small role in what we see.

The first and most important is propaganda. Call it what you will but nuking a planet from orbit isn't a very interesting read and from a fluff standpoint is doesn't look very good. The average Joe is probably going to rebel if he hears that if any goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.

The second reason is that the majority of battles do have some strategic importance to them that requires the involvement of infantry. There are exceptions to this but if there's really no strategic reason for the battle, why are you there? While it is obvious that the imperium is on a defensive battle and doesn't want to lose resources it doesn't have to many other faction have their own reasons for not just nuking form orbit. For example the necrons are runs by super egotistical leaders and its hard to fuel your ego with no holdings and no slaves.

The third reason is that bringing planet killing starships to bear requires that the AA on the planet be silenced one way or another. Chances are that the people down on the planet aren't stupid and AA defenses are always cheaper than planes to make. So how do you silence AA when you can't get the required dakka in range? Easy, send in the infantry, afterall it's cheaper.

And the final reason I can think of why these things aren't huge parts of ground battles is tactics. If I want a planet but I know that if I take it, and all seems lost, my opponent is just gonna nuke it, how do I fix that? The easy answer is to send my own ships to tie up and destroy my opponents. We see this solution a lot and an excellent example was put up earlier with Ghazzy taking care of space fleets before he landed.

You're the first person to have properly answered my question instead of passive aggressive snideness.
I thank you so much, you wonderful star being.

 Ernestas wrote:
Well, I don't know about orks, but I bet that they will not be prepared. They might have some tech in order to stop those missiles, but extreme rarity of such technology would result in orks simply not being prepared for it. In novel it was said and showed that bullets utilizing such technology bypass shields and go right for the armor. Missiles has more "breathing space" to dive out of the warp to small area of space which isn't protected, making shields useless.


I imagine eldars more predicting future more than countering this technology directly. Necrons indeed are extremely advanced, but as Imperium, their tech are prone to degradation (or at least I heard so). Anyways, their advantage doesn't mean that they have ''insta win'' button against mechanicus, especially then science gets mixed up with warp usage where Imperium is far, far more advanced than necrons. Ah, I forgot that tyranids interfere with the warp, BUT, interferences doesn't mean negation of the warp. It's just harder to use it and thus, missiles can theoretically still work depending on how potent their warp rift creation process is. Anyways, good old Nova cannon is an ultimate counter to tyranids to which you can do little to out evolve it

Nope, the Crypteks not only have maintainted Necron technology, they're advancing it and improving it and yet more Necron technology is coming online. The Necrontyr Empire was very, very big, and we've only seen a very, very small amount of what it has to offer.

As for the Nova Cannon, while indeed very powerful, larger hive ships can shrug them off. After all in the word bearers books, a star base took a direct nova cannon hit and still had over half of it's shielding and the Word Bearer fleet wasn't able to get off another shot before the Imperial relief navy overwhelmed it.

The Nova Cannon also did absolutely no damage despite repeated firing on a single Necron Tomb Ship along with the combined fire of thirteen other capital Chaos ships. .

 laginess wrote:
As far as my opinion on this goes from what I've read there are a few reasons why support form space/air plays such a small role in what we see.

The first and most important is propaganda. Call it what you will but nuking a planet from orbit isn't a very interesting read and from a fluff standpoint is doesn't look very good. The average Joe is probably going to rebel if he hears that if any goes down on his homeworld the standing orders are just nuke it.

The second reason is that the majority of battles do have some strategic importance to them that requires the involvement of infantry. There are exceptions to this but if there's really no strategic reason for the battle, why are you there? While it is obvious that the imperium is on a defensive battle and doesn't want to lose resources it doesn't have to many other faction have their own reasons for not just nuking form orbit. For example the necrons are runs by super egotistical leaders and its hard to fuel your ego with no holdings and no slaves.

The third reason is that bringing planet killing starships to bear requires that the AA on the planet be silenced one way or another. Chances are that the people down on the planet aren't stupid and AA defenses are always cheaper than planes to make. So how do you silence AA when you can't get the required dakka in range? Easy, send in the infantry, afterall it's cheaper.

And the final reason I can think of why these things aren't huge parts of ground battles is tactics. If I want a planet but I know that if I take it, and all seems lost, my opponent is just gonna nuke it, how do I fix that? The easy answer is to send my own ships to tie up and destroy my opponents. We see this solution a lot and an excellent example was put up earlier with Ghazzy taking care of space fleets before he landed.

I agree with 2 and 4.

However for 3 IF they have lots of AA that prevents any air/space support, you aren't likely to be able to get troops to the planet.

The Taros Campaign has some interesting bits on this, where the Raptors basically sneak in 'under radar' to hit some 'aa' posts to allow for a fleet to move into space and disgorge troops. IF you have brought it down enough to allow the dropping of lots of troops (because the IM doesn't seem to use stealth ships or ECM a whole lot, they do have it, just not a lot, i.e. we know the Raven Guard has/had it, but no other legions seemed to use it) you could also run limited precision strikes to soften something in particular up.

See the Space Marine Chapter Master's Orbital Bombardment. It doesn't have to be game breaking, but a shot or two here or there would mesh well with a lot of armies.

Re #1, no one seems to care. The Eldar and Tau might care about PR, but the IM seems perfectly happy with 'obey or die'. So I think this one is week/poor. Willingness to raze a planet can also be a weapon. Many militaries in the history of Earth have obliterated towns/people to develop a reputation of fear so that you don't always have to do it because you can't always be doing it. However, the planet/town you are currently assaulting doesn't know this or if you deem them to be the one that you don't want to raze.

To Maniac_nmt: As far as 3 goes I'm operating under the assumption that it's a lot easier and cheaper to get a smaller troop carrier (or a metric butt-ton of them) to a planet than a battleship. Also you've got the possibility of sending a cloud a space/atmo troop carriers (thunderhawks and equiv). I'm not saying all of them are gonna get there but it's very infrequently talked about how ships deploy landing craft in the early stages of the conflict.

Also as far as 1 is concerned it's not only propaganda in the universe but out of as well. Where every faction displays itself to the player in the best light. Though I admit that the idea that the IoM cares about any of it's subjects as more than numbers is admittedly laughable, I would think the imperials on planet would need a slightly more friendly appearance to their masses. Afterall the easiest way to control a mass population may be through fear, but if you take away all hope your control vanishes, you do need that little bit to feed, even if it is a lie.

there woudn't be any loot to rape or wives to steal without ground combat

 laginess wrote:
To Maniac_nmt: As far as 3 goes I'm operating under the assumption that it's a lot easier and cheaper to get a smaller troop carrier (or a metric butt-ton of them) to a planet than a battleship. Also you've got the possibility of sending a cloud a space/atmo troop carriers (thunderhawks and equiv). I'm not saying all of them are gonna get there but it's very infrequently talked about how ships deploy landing craft in the early stages of the conflict.

Also as far as 1 is concerned it's not only propaganda in the universe but out of as well. Where every faction displays itself to the player in the best light. Though I admit that the idea that the IoM cares about any of it's subjects as more than numbers is admittedly laughable, I would think the imperials on planet would need a slightly more friendly appearance to their masses. Afterall the easiest way to control a mass population may be through fear, but if you take away all hope your control vanishes, you do need that little bit to feed, even if it is a lie.

It would all depend on how far the 'aa' reaches vs. how well the 'landing' boats work I suppose. A drop pod is going to have to be close to the planet to work, a Thunderhawk not so much. The other being some way to get smaller boats into orbit without triggering a proper defensive response.

It can be just as damaging to loose 80-90% of your landing force as it is to have a battleship shot up. It takes longer to repair the battleship, but given a high enough casualty rate and you accomplish nothing meaning you wasted all of those men and their equipment. Plus, significant casualty rates can be just as detrimental as nuking from orbit.

Who will want to follow you willingly when they see you waste men's lives like nothing? It cuts both ways (not as heavily, but it still makes folks wonder). Hence, why I believe that isn't the prime motivating factor (#1). A general concerned with a captured populace has to also concern himself with having enough troops to actually capture the populace.

Fair points, I guess it depends on how the landing craft work, whether they employ ECM's, how they're used and a ton of other things I really wish were covered better.

The horrors of being a logistics nerd....

It is mentioned in Titanicus and a few other sources that ECM and ECCM is in constant use by all factions in the setting. This is sometimes referred to as "scrapcode" or "invasion spirits", "malignant tech-spirits" and similar wording applied to tailored software attack protocols.

 laginess wrote:
Fair points, I guess it depends on how the landing craft work, whether they employ ECM's, how they're used and a ton of other things I really wish were covered better.

The horrors of being a logistics nerd....

I don't think it's a horror or unreasonable. I think you brought up some reasonable points.

I know the Man-Kzin Wars and Starship Trooper both talk a little about this, and 40k has a lot more written material then they do (and they were generally written much earlier, well at least SST was). Man-Kzin wars talk about small, inter system craft and the difficulties of hiding even these vessels if you have ships capable of running sensor scans across much of a planetary system. It requires not using your engines much, hiding behind other objects, or making a fast enough run at something to mitigate the risks (and that generally requires something else to help you get near enough to make the run). SST uses a number of counter measures to allow the sling shot boats to hit upper atmosphere and fire their troopers in a hit and run mode. The pods themselves break up scattering material, ecms, etc over something like a mile or more if I remember right.

Halo has the prowlers, which are effectively invisible jump capable ships as well as the 'sling shot boats' for ODSTs.

Nice to have a reasonable discussion on here for a change, thanks!