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How do?

Spinning off from the Fall of Cadia thread, I'd like to delve into your collective brainmeats to discuss something not especially well covered in the existing background.

Namely, the supply lines and resources of The Imperium compared to those of Chaos Renegades.

Now, I'll make it clear from the off - I am not expecting this to become any kind of definitive treatise on the matter. It's just a discussion topic to stretch our background knowledge. I'll start you all off with a couple of very broad assumptions about The Imperium's positives and negatives in comparison to each other. As I'm not that up on my Chaos knowledge at present (haven't read many or any Chaos books from BL for yonks, last one was that Iron Warriors one?)

Ready?

The Imperium

Pros - The sheer scale of it. Remember, whilst Forgeworld's produce the most and best toys, many planets, particularly Hive Worlds, are capable of producing small arms (such as the not-so-humble-Lasgun), and even limited Tanks (Armageddon for instance produces unique tank varieties). It also has truly mind boggling man power. Functionally, this is all free at point of use (well, more or less). Your Imperial Guard Regiment will be equipped before it's first campaigns (in theory), and continually reinforced with arms and armaments throughout it's tour of duty, without the overall command having to worry about how much it costs in Imperial Credits.

Astartes Chapters? Said to be largely self-sufficient, but never adverse to requisitioning new stuff from allied Forgeworlds.

In short, the Imperium has a mutually supporting supply line.

Cons - The Administratum. Bless it's little cottons, it tries, but stuff goes awry all the time. Now, much of this is mitigated with the highly standardised patterns used, but not entirely avoided. Shipping is also at the mercy of The Warp, and the competence of the supply fleet's Navigators. There's a depressingly reasonably high chance that your requisition order will be lost on it's way to the suppliers too.

Your manufacturing is highly ritualised, which likely prevents full capacity - too many needless prayers etc.

Yeah the interesting thing to think about would be how it compares to the manufacturing and logistics of the other major factions.

I'd imagine the Tau's ultimate industrial capacity is well below the Imperium's simply due to scale, but because they've got proper computers and reliable (if slow) travel combined with a small sphere of influence they're probably a lot more efficient. I'd imagine they've also got a similar sort of state-sponsored manufacturing effort that means they side-step the cost aspect as well.

Judging from the depiction of the Craftworld Eldar in the Path novels they have something approaching a post-scarcity economy (although they do go on trading missions so it's not true post-scarcity). Their main limiting factor is manpower. You can make all the guns in the world, but if you've only got 10 blokes to shoot them then that's hardly an army.

The Dark Eldar, interestingly, categorically do not have a manpower problem. Their cloning tech has essentially cured the elven birthrate problem, and presumably they have a similar industrial capacity to the Craftworlds. Not sure really what's holding them back, given that in 10,000 years they've completely altered their technology tree (previously psychic-based tech like craftworlders, now mechanical but still mroe advanced than any race bar the Necrons).

Chaos is where it gets interesting. There's definitely daemon forgeworlds, although presumably a lot fewer than the Imperium simply due to the amount of space each faction occupies. That's probably made up by the fact that CSM looting loyalist equipment is a healthy pass-time, whereas loyalists looting chaotic equipment will net you a very final visit from an Inquisitor.

Necrons would be an odd one. Do they even have manufacturing capabilities any more? I can see them producing more Tomb Spiders and other AI robotic gribblies. Can they produce new Necron Warriors anymore? If they were originally made by biotransferring Necrontyr and there's no Necrontyr left, are their numbers limited? Makes sense as to why they're harvesting the living though, to try and find a way of making them compatible with biotransference.

Tyranids' industrial capacity is pretty much their sole trait as a species so that's sorted

Am I missing anyone?

Oh yeah, Orks. Lord knows with them. Seems like there's a pervasive low-level tinkering going on through the entire race which keeps all the Orks armed and dangerous. Suits their origins as an Old One weapon of war, given that it would allow for decentralised action on hundreds of different fronts without the need for a dedicated industrial base. Clever

Orks are arguably the sauciest, tech-wise.

Even the most primitive Wild-Boy instinctively knows how to bash together a Choppa, and from pretty much any materials.

And when you get a proper Ork Kultur developed, they see inspiration, and then Orkify it (ref Epic, when a Mekboy see's a Warlord, figures it's Da Empra come to give them all a kicking, and decides to build metal bodies for Gork and Mork so they can give Da Empra a kicking - it's suggested that was the very first Great Gargant?)

Yeah I'd say that of all the races the Orks have the best industrial setup to win a galactic-scale conflict (alongside the Tyranids probably).

The Dark Eldar are probably next TBH. High level of technology, no limit to population growth (other than how much pain you can harvest to keep your citizens from withering away), and a first-class transportation network. Sounds like a logistical dream lucky they're more interested in twisting your ears off for fun than conquering the galaxy. However, their single stronghold would make them very vulnerable even if it is well defended. The Orks' decentralised command structure is much more resilient.

Necrons would probably do better in a series of short bloody conflicts than a war of attrition. While their warriors don't really die, if you destroy a Tomb World they're irrevocably lost. Seems like a pretty tenuous situation TBH.

Humanity is probably quite similar to the Orks thinking about it. although they have the God Emperor as a figurehead, their command structure is likewise highly decentralised. As is their manufacturing capabilities. Plus, compared to the other denizens of the galaxy like Eldar and Necrons, humans reproduce like rabbits. Not quite as resilient though...

I imagine Chaos has an advantage in that their manufacture centers and the like are located in an area able to violate the laws of nature.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Necrons would probably do better in a series of short bloody conflicts than a war of attrition. While their warriors don't really die, if you destroy a Tomb World they're irrevocably lost. Seems like a pretty tenuous situation TBH.

From what I've heard that's similar to how to played out in Battlefleet Gothic. The Necrons were devastating in single battles but struggled to recover losses.

There are a lot of tomb worlds, however. Necrons are roughly equal in number to the Imperium. Should they unite they're the best placed to win with their combination of numbers and superior technology. Plus we've no idea how many scarabs etc they could make. Is there anything stopping their mass production or do they too require living lifeforms to be imprinted?

 Ynneadwraith wrote:


Judging from the depiction of the Craftworld Eldar in the Path novels they have something approaching a post-scarcity economy (although they do go on trading missions so it's not true post-scarcity). Their main limiting factor is manpower. You can make all the guns in the world, but if you've only got 10 blokes to shoot them then that's hardly an army.

I feel like the craftworld eldar are limited in resources and manufacturing capacity. Collecting resources requires world to mine said stuff. Making things requires manpower to build it. They get around a good bit of it with psykic constructs out of psykic material but that still requires a psyker to process and activate

The Dark Eldar, interestingly, categorically do not have a manpower problem. Their cloning tech has essentially cured the elven birthrate problem, and presumably they have a similar industrial capacity to the Craftworlds. Not sure really what's holding them back, given that in 10,000 years they've completely altered their technology tree (previously psychic-based tech like craftworlders, now mechanical but still mroe advanced than any race bar the Necrons).

DE also have slaves, lots of slaves. They can raid raw materials with virtual impunity. I suppose if they started stealing more than 1% of the IoM's raw goods they might attract suspicion. That is probably their limiting factor, they can only ever get to a fraction of the galaxy's production with theft.

Chaos is where it gets interesting. There's definitely daemon forgeworlds, although presumably a lot fewer than the Imperium simply due to the amount of space each faction occupies. That's probably made up by the fact that CSM looting loyalist equipment is a healthy pass-time, whereas loyalists looting chaotic equipment will net you a very final visit from an Inquisitor.

Chaos though can use daemons and otherworldly properties to speed production. No need to build a computer system to control your tank, just summon a daemon and bind it to the hull. No need to build things iteratively along a factory assembly line, just build it all at once on a daemonworld where the rules of physics are suggestions rather than laws. There is a description somewhere of how the Dark Mech makes a maulierfiend; it basically takes 1 guy a few hours to create one from nothing but scrap metal.

Necrons would be an odd one. Do they even have manufacturing capabilities any more? I can see them producing more Tomb Spiders and other AI robotic gribblies. Can they produce new Necron Warriors anymore? If they were originally made by biotransferring Necrontyr and there's no Necrontyr left, are their numbers limited? Makes sense as to why they're harvesting the living though, to try and find a way of making them compatible with biotransference.

No new Necron warriros. They can make new spiders and ships and variety of weapons but no new souls can be created.

Awesome thread idea!

IMO - provided Abbadon can continue to expand the Eye like he wants, I can see Chaos slowly gaining a huge advantage in terms of war material. Especially as the current offensive drags on and the Eye becomes more and more powerful. I can see the conflict reaching a point where the balance of power (in terms of production at least) starts to tip in favor of Chaos. They're the kind of threat that becomes more dangerous the longer the war goes on. Chaos is also not bound by any tradition or strict dogma when it comes to production. Where the Imperium needs to wait for an STC to turn up, Chaos can innovate on the spot and have something new pretty quickly. Plus, even thought the Imperium is massive, it really has a finite number of people/places that can actually properly produce.Servitors/massed manual labor helps with that, but again, it gets harder and harder to replenish that the longer a conflict drags on.

I kind of see the Tau somewhere between Chaos and the IoM. Tau can innovate quickly, aren't bound by any silly religious traditions and have demonstrated the ability to quickly set up production facilities within active warzones. They also have the advantage of having a home world that is not currently under direct threat. Most of "Tau space" is actually fairly peaceful (for now anyway) so I could see it being easier for them to get production/shipping lines set up. Of course they're hampered by very limited FTL and by being somewhat naive about things.

My two cents ...

Supply.....

Problem is, the background supports Models who aren't in need of supplies "in game" and thus the whole logistics isn't playing a big part in whatever we could find.


Known fact: the Munitorum keeps the IG going. Nothing says they can't deliver whatever is neccessary. How could we know for sure if the Muni got endless ressources or if they are just not important to GW to think too much about their duties?

The IG has billions of Regiments. ( C: IG 5 ) Regiments of the IG are not unarmed and without any other gear, so basically it must be possible to supply that many Military formations at a level which doesn't get the Governor in trouble.
But there is also the PDF. And the rest of the IoM, the Ad Mech who have their own worlds and forces.

One Advantage i see is, the gear is standardized ( IG , SM ).
One Disadvantage is the bureaucracy.

Hundreds of thousands of industrial worlds, hundreds of thousands of forge worlds ( BRB 3 ).
A tithe of 1 - 5 - 50 million IG per anno ( BRB 5 ) as example of a fortress world .

We are not used IRL to Galaxy spanning empires and numbers in the 6-7-8 digit range sound massive to us.
What happens if each forge world / industrialized world which know how to made 100 Leman Russes and you have the transport capacity to gather them? Just 100. If 100 x 250 000 = 25 000 000. Or worse there are 500 000 worlds capable of this?

The size shown in Maps and the few numbers available and the way things multiply does not support the "hero - super-hero" approach GW likes so much.


So why should i assume the traitors who had to flee into their hideout ( EoT ) got the ressources to stand a chance in a fight that lasts until one is down for good ?
I mean, they could have just kept fighting if the supplies are so easy to access and if the support of chaos is sooo unlimited. But they did not.


Advantage of war material ?. Horus had a shot at starting a civil war cause he was in charge of the whole forces. He could get "his share" of the cake and send anyone too far away to matter.
Chaos in M40 ? Has no team but competitors, likes to fight itself or have some going for their own agenda instead of following plans. Can you be sure the war material of chaos is just 1 shared ressource?

Known fact: the Munitorum keeps the IG going. Nothing says they can't deliver whatever is neccessary. How could we know for sure if the Muni got endless ressources or if they are just not important to GW to think too much about their duties?

The IG has billions of Regiments. ( C: IG 5 ) Regiments of the IG are not unarmed and without any other gear, so basically it must be possible to supply that many Military formations at a level which doesn't get the Governor in trouble.
But there is also the PDF. And the rest of the IoM, the Ad Mech who have their own worlds and forces.

One Advantage i see is, the gear is standardized ( IG , SM ).
One Disadvantage is the bureaucracy.

Hundreds of thousands of industrial worlds, hundreds of thousands of forge worlds ( BRB 3 ).
A tithe of 1 - 5 - 50 million IG per anno ( BRB 5 ) as example of a fortress world .

We are not used IRL to Galaxy spanning empires and numbers in the 6-7-8 digit range sound massive to us.
What happens if each forge world / industrialized world which know how to made 100 Leman Russes and you have the transport capacity to gather them? Just 100. If 100 x 250 000 = 25 000 000. Or worse there are 500 000 worlds capable of this?

The size shown in Maps and the few numbers available and the way things multiply does not support the "hero - super-hero" approach GW likes so much.

That's all true, but part of the problem is that as the EoT expands and begins to claim more and more real-space, the Imperials lose more and more of their ability to access all those worlds while at the same time, it becomes easier for Chaos to move around the galaxy. It's also easier for Chaos (again assuming the EoT continues to expand) to begin to isolate critical systems. Remember - Chaos doesn't need to defeat all of the IoM to bring down humanity. If they can selectively bring down specific systems it all kind of goes down the tubes on its own.

Additionally, your quote assumes efficient bureaucracy and an Imperium that is all working towards the same end goal. Neither of those things is true. In all likely-hood, in the Leman Russ example you put forth - all the Forgeworlds make 100 Russ hulls. Half of those get tied up in red tape and don't ship on time. Another 1/4 get lost during warp travel, 1/8 of them get shipped to the wrong place and/or get seized by greedy planetary governers looking to up their own stock despite not being in active war-zones, 1/16 straight up get destroyed en route by pirates etc, and you end up with less than a 1/16 of tanks actually making it anywhere useful. That doesn't even begin to cover whether or not they have crews when they get to where they're going ...

Plus, as big as the galaxy is, the Warp is literally limitless. It has no end and has no need of worrying whether or not it's going to run out of anything. An isolated star system? Not so much ...

So why should i assume the traitors who had to flee into their hideout ( EoT ) got the ressources to stand a chance in a fight that lasts until one is down for good ?
I mean, they could have just kept fighting if the supplies are so easy to access and if the support of chaos is sooo unlimited. But they did not.

They've been fighting virtually without material reinforcement for over 10,000 years ... That's a strange statement that doesn't have much bearing here. They fled to the EoT because of the shock of losing Horus. They descended into internal squabbling for a crazy long time after that while everyone tried to figure out where they stood. None of this had anything to do with running out of supplies ...

Advantage of war material ?. Horus had a shot at starting a civil war cause he was in charge of the whole forces. He could get "his share" of the cake and send anyone too far away to matter.

Nope. Horus had a shot because of surprise and the fact that he was ... HORUS. Not to mention the fact that he was fueled by the Gods themselves at a time when almost nobody even knew what those really were. Again, like the above quote - not really related to production capability in general and not even tangentially related to the "now" of 40k ...

Chaos in M40 ? Has no team but competitors, likes to fight itself or have some going for their own agenda instead of following plans. Can you be sure the war material of chaos is just 1 shared ressource?

Like I said above, these same things could be said of the IoM. The fluff supports this in numerous places. So many corrupt planetary governers,and heck even Space Marine chapters that, when push came to shove, looked out for themselves rather than the IoM as a whole. Also, again, Chaos doesn't actually NEED to fight every imperial world. They really just need to strangle certain select systems. In terms of Chaos having "one team" - The Black Legion would like a word with you. When you can get all of the Demon Primarchs to say yep - that's our team now, you pretty much have everything you're going to need. Yeah, there are still holdouts/offshoots, but they won't deplete the "supply chain" of Chaos the way jealous Forgemasters and Planetary Governors could ...

 1hadhq wrote:


The IG has billions of Regiments. ( C: IG 5 ) Regiments of the IG are not unarmed and without any other gear, so basically it must be possible to supply that many Military formations at a level which doesn't get the Governor in trouble.
But there is also the PDF. And the rest of the IoM, the Ad Mech who have their own worlds and forces.

One Advantage i see is, the gear is standardized ( IG , SM ).
One Disadvantage is the bureaucracy.

It's a huge size advantage, but also a liability when fighting Chaos. Chaos has it's own stuff, but also finds IoM standardization 100% useable. Whole regiments of IG go traitor every day. More space marines have turned traitor than exist today. The IoM needs overwhelming numbers to face chaos, because they need to make sure they have enough to still prevail if a quarter of their force changes sides.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Chaos is where it gets interesting. There's definitely daemon forgeworlds, although presumably a lot fewer than the Imperium simply due to the amount of space each faction occupies. That's probably made up by the fact that CSM looting loyalist equipment is a healthy pass-time, whereas loyalists looting chaotic equipment will net you a very final visit from an Inquisitor.

I mostly agree with this as being the off-table reasons for Chaos having different equipment than the loyalists. Chaos's manufacturing is not only a fraction of the Imperiums to begin with, but there's a lot more infighting for resources by rival factions. The Blood Angels and Space Wolves aren't killing each other over rights to a particular forgeworld supply, whereas I'm sure the chaos legions are competing for "home-grown" resources all the time.

But piracy will always work for them, so they wind up with a lot more of the standard stuff that the bulk of the IG uses. Autocannons, Heavy Bolters, Lascannons, Meltaguns. Although the IG has Plasma Cannons or Multimeltas, they're vehicle-mounted models and either hard to convert to man-portable, or just not worth the effort for the CSMs. IG aren't fielded with bolters as standard kit, but bolters are common enough in the Imperium that they can be found, and IG does use bolter ammunition for secondary weapons on tanks, so a raid will still net the Chaos forces supply in that regard.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Chaos is where it gets interesting. There's definitely daemon forgeworlds, although presumably a lot fewer than the Imperium simply due to the amount of space each faction occupies. That's probably made up by the fact that CSM looting loyalist equipment is a healthy pass-time, whereas loyalists looting chaotic equipment will net you a very final visit from an Inquisitor.

I mostly agree with this as being the off-table reasons for Chaos having different equipment than the loyalists. Chaos's manufacturing is not only a fraction of the Imperiums to begin with, but there's a lot more infighting for resources by rival factions. The Blood Angels and Space Wolves aren't killing each other over rights to a particular forgeworld supply, whereas I'm sure the chaos legions are competing for "home-grown" resources all the time.

Chaos fights among themselves, but they dont have to fight all the other threats the IoM has to. There are no orks, tyranids, necrons, or tau in the eye of terror. Pirate eldar do not show up out of the webway and take slaves and material from the eye. If they didnt fight among themselves it would be a pretty short war after 10,000 years of building.

Chaos's manufacturing is not only a fraction of the Imperiums to begin with,

We don't really know that do we? I think the safer assumption is that the two are different but on-parr with the biggest difference being that Chaos can draw directly from the power of the warp for its material. I mean, if it were true that Chaos only had a "fraction" of the manufacturing capability, I don't think the Traitor Legions would have survived 10,000 years of fighting almost exclusively within the Eye.

Additionally, a lot of folks are talking about things like scavenging/piracy and making sure things are uniform. This all really matters much more for the Imperium than it does for Chaos. "Standardization" isn't an "advantage" for the Imperium. It's simply a "must". A zero sum game if you will. Whether or not a HB is man-portable, or if you have the right ammunition for your Lucius pattern Boltgun becomes completely irrelevant when you can simply infect a group of soldiers with something like the Flesh-metal virus.

The reality is, Chaos, for the most part, does not have to adhere to the laws of, well, reality. This only gets more extreme the bigger the EoT becomes. The Imperium meanwhile, still has to content with the laws of physics (such as they are in 40k anyway )

Triple Edit:

One of the best example of this that I can think of is in the book "Storm of Iron". There's a scene where a Warsmith is watching an Iron Warriors Titan transport descend to an ad-hoc landing pad. The ship is actually a massive Tyranid Brood ship that the Iron Warriors managed to drag back into the Warp and modify to their own ends. It is specifically mentioned how this type of thing is only possible with the "power" of Chaos.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah I'd say that of all the races the Orks have the best industrial setup to win a galactic-scale conflict (alongside the Tyranids probably).

Humanity is probably quite similar to the Orks thinking about it. although they have the God Emperor as a figurehead, their command structure is likewise highly decentralised. As is their manufacturing capabilities. Plus, compared to the other denizens of the galaxy like Eldar and Necrons, humans reproduce like rabbits. Not quite as resilient though...

Given the events of War of the Beast, it definitely shows that when a powerful enough Warboss has gathered enough Orks under him, they are capable of amazing things.....

....like Teleporting a Moon through the Warp and using it as a battle station.....

Tycho wrote:

That's all true, but part of the problem is that as the EoT expands and begins to claim more and more real-space, the Imperials lose more and more of their ability to access all those worlds while at the same time, it becomes easier for Chaos to move around the galaxy. It's also easier for Chaos (again assuming the EoT continues to expand) to begin to isolate critical systems. Remember - Chaos doesn't need to defeat all of the IoM to bring down humanity. If they can selectively bring down specific systems it all kind of goes down the tubes on its own.

To expand the EoT isn't an act vs Humans alone. Your assumption is, there is a path to Terra without any non-Human contact.
Very unlikely.
Put a world into the warp and you oppose anyone who isn't chaos.
So now, in realspace, before you can claim that world, everybody else throws a wrench in this plan. Because really, only chaos likes the warp as a "home".


To select worlds may work in GW Logic. Am not saying the fluff wouldn't be following the story they want to tell. But "spread across the stars following the travel routes" and "monolithic block of an Empire" , which do you pick to describe the situation in wh40k ?

Tycho wrote:

Additionally, your quote assumes efficient bureaucracy and an Imperium that is all working towards the same end goal. Neither of those things is true. In all likely-hood, in the Leman Russ example you put forth - all the Forgeworlds make 100 Russ hulls. Half of those get tied up in red tape and don't ship on time. Another 1/4 get lost during warp travel, 1/8 of them get shipped to the wrong place and/or get seized by greedy planetary governers looking to up their own stock despite not being in active war-zones, 1/16 straight up get destroyed en route by pirates etc, and you end up with less than a 1/16 of tanks actually making it anywhere useful. That doesn't even begin to cover whether or not they have crews when they get to where they're going ...

And?
Even with the very very small size of just 100, I got millions. But there won't be just 100.
Armageddon had a story where they assembled Chimeras and put a crew into them in the same facility the Orks fought against the Imperials. Why should anything stop the flow of war material if Orks who are pretty close to it can't?

Tycho wrote:

Plus, as big as the galaxy is, the Warp is literally limitless. It has no end and has no need of worrying whether or not it's going to run out of anything. An isolated star system? Not so much ...

The warp is a mirror... and the powers of the warp beeings change.. so NO, I don't buy this unlimited claim without very good sources to back that up.

Tycho wrote:

They've been fighting virtually without material reinforcement for over 10,000 years ... That's a strange statement that doesn't have much bearing here. They fled to the EoT because of the shock of losing Horus. They descended into internal squabbling for a crazy long time after that while everyone tried to figure out where they stood. None of this had anything to do with running out of supplies ...

...because of a shock? Good. Lets snipe every chaos leader and they can flee shocked again.

But that wasn't the point. My point was: the traitors were unable to withstand the counter to their gamble to take Terra, they had to flee or be undone, because here was no option to " just make some more CSM and keep on fighting" .
Production and supplies in highly technical warfare cannot be gathered "in the field" . You need those pesky logistics. Logistics, something you think more about order than disorder...

10000 years is ... not the best you can use .. the argument often used is time flows different in the warp. Threads were we shall accept that 10000 years didn't pass for everyone and some are just "in the long war" like it is what they did last month happen.
I fail to see why you should have 10000 years to produce, to gather, to plan your "vengeance", but otoh the CSM shall be the same as at M32 because only some years passed for them. You either live through 10 millenia or you don't.
And if you have 2 different places to be, 10000 years in realspace may not be 10000 years in the warp.

Tycho wrote:

Advantage of war material ?. Horus had a shot at starting a civil war cause he was in charge of the whole forces. He could get "his share" of the cake and send anyone too far away to matter.

Nope. Horus had a shot because of surprise and the fact that he was ... HORUS. Not to mention the fact that he was fueled by the Gods themselves at a time when almost nobody even knew what those really were. Again, like the above quote - not really related to production capability in general and not even tangentially related to the "now" of 40k ...

So his "share of the cake" didn't include the production, the havens, the war material flow of the Imperium etc ?
No war without stuff to hit stuff.

Tycho wrote:
. In terms of Chaos having "one team" - The Black Legion would like a word with you. When you can get all of the Demon Primarchs to say yep - that's our team now, you pretty much have everything you're going to need. Yeah, there are still holdouts/offshoots, but they won't deplete the "supply chain" of Chaos the way jealous Forgemasters and Planetary Governors could ...

Team disorder is falling apart in no time. Those demon "primarchs" who followed their own agendas in the HH won't stick with a plan just because Horus attack dog is now Warmaster. Chaos is all about personal gain, personal agendas. No one is going to play cannonfodder or to save someone elses ass. If things run well and there is something they want, they get along. But in War, nothing is going your way 100%. Just wait and see.

In regards to chaos, I once read a very interesting thought in regards to how Chaos forces manage to re-supply themselves, both in terms of equipment and manpower.

The reason being that fully Chaos world do not obey the laws of the universe, and therefore can produce materials/men/creatures at literally impossible rates. It was a very interesting thread... I wish I could remember where I found it (it was on these forums, but things move so fast...)

To expand the EoT isn't an act vs Humans alone. Your assumption is, there is a path to Terra without any non-Human contact.
Very unlikely.
Put a world into the warp and you oppose anyone who isn't chaos.
So now, in realspace, before you can claim that world, everybody else throws a wrench in this plan. Because really, only chaos likes the warp as a "home".

That's not my assumption at all. What I said was that Chaos doesn't NEED to face the entire might of all mankind all at once. What I said was quite different than that. Again, admittedly, this all hinges on the Eye expanding along the Crimson path (and so far evidence points to that happening). If that DOESN'T happen all bets are off. That said, as the Eye expands it will hit preselected key systems on the way to Terra. Systems the Imperium doesn't know will be attacked yet. Systems that will be easy to choke off because Abbadon appears to have a better way to control the warp. So yes, they can and will be able to isolate systems as I mentioned. "Other" factions become irrelevant in those isolated systems. Eldar would be the possible exception, but I doubt they have the ability to make much of a difference in the long-run.

To select worlds may work in GW Logic. Am not saying the fluff wouldn't be following the story they want to tell. But "spread across the stars following the travel routes" and "monolithic block of an Empire" , which do you pick to describe the situation in wh40k ?

I'm not sure what you mean, but Abbadon is essentially doing what I just laid out. That's happening right now in the fluff.

And?
Even with the very very small size of just 100, I got millions. But there won't be just 100.
Armageddon had a story where they assembled Chimeras and put a crew into them in the same facility the Orks fought against the Imperials. Why should anything stop the flow of war material if Orks who are pretty close to it can't?

And the Orks still shredded that facility WITHOUT the ability to summon demons, use warp storms to cut off planets and without the ability to turn the human population against itself.

The warp is a mirror... and the powers of the warp beeings change.. so NO, I don't buy this unlimited claim without very good sources to back that up.

Individual Gods have their powers go up and down. Chaos/the warp itself? Yeah, it's limitless as long as there a beings with souls. This has been said ... well pretty much everywhere.

But that wasn't the point. My point was: the traitors were unable to withstand the counter to their gamble to take Terra, they had to flee or be undone, because here was no option to " just make some more CSM and keep on fighting" .
Production and supplies in highly technical warfare cannot be gathered "in the field" . You need those pesky logistics. Logistics, something you think more about order than disorder...

And again, this is completely irrelevent to 40k. The traitor legions had almost no concept of what the waro truly was. Even as twisted as most of them were by the time they got to Terra, they were NOT the CSM we know today. They had almost no understanding of the warp. Now you have CSM summing demons left and right, Iron Warriors producing Demon engines, etc etc. It's not an "apples to apples" comparison. Additionally, logistics becomes exponentially easier when you can control the warp, aren't reliant on archaic buracracy/religious superstition and have things like the Flesh-metal virus.

To summarize that entire argument: 30k ≠ 40k

10000 years is ... not the best you can use .. the argument often used is time flows different in the warp. Threads were we shall accept that 10000 years didn't pass for everyone and some are just "in the long war" like it is what they did last month happen.
I fail to see why you should have 10000 years to produce, to gather, to plan your "vengeance", but otoh the CSM shall be the same as at M32 because only some years passed for them. You either live through 10 millenia or you don't.
And if you have 2 different places to be, 10000 years in realspace may not be 10000 years in the warp.

Again, I'm not entirely sure what you mean, or why you keep bringing 30K into it, but yes, while for some it has only been a few days, for others, it has been 10,000 years. And somehow, they're not out of ammo ...

So his "share of the cake" didn't include the production, the havens, the war material flow of the Imperium etc ?
No war without stuff to hit stuff.

Again, 30k ≠ 40k. Heresy Era traitor Legions are completely different from the CSM they grew into.

eam disorder is falling apart in no time. Those demon "primarchs" who followed their own agendas in the HH won't stick with a plan just because Horus attack dog is now Warmaster. Chaos is all about personal gain, personal agendas. No one is going to play cannonfodder or to save someone elses ass. If things run well and there is something they want, they get along. But in War, nothing is going your way 100%. Just wait and see.

Well ... all the latest Black Legion fluff says otherwise when it comes to the Demon Primarchs. Regarding the rest of it - both the IoM and Chaos have that issue. The difference is that Chaos doesn't give a feth whether or not Hive Fleet Kraken sacks a world or system here and there where the Imperium has to respond to that. Chaos cares aboslutely nothing about the Tau 3rd Sphere expansion, where the Imperium has to constantly send armies to keep that at bay. Also, again, let's not pretend like the IoM is one perfectly well oiled unified fighting machine. It just isn't.

Of course, like I said earlier, this all falls apart for Chaos if the Eye ceases to expand along the Path Abbadon has set. Even WITH the Eye "doing its job" it's not like Chaos has an easy job. It's still a long hard march to Terra. I just think it's not nearly so difficult for Chaos to get supplies and proper production capabilities as some might think.

Given the events of War of the Beast, it definitely shows that when a powerful enough Warboss has gathered enough Orks under him, they are capable of amazing things.....

....like Teleporting a Moon through the Warp and using it as a battle station.....

Heh ... ultimately, I still believe the Orks win everything in the end. They're just so insanely adaptable, can produce production facilities anywhere and can be insanely powerful when they are led by a powerful leader.

GrapeApe wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah I'd say that of all the races the Orks have the best industrial setup to win a galactic-scale conflict (alongside the Tyranids probably).

Humanity is probably quite similar to the Orks thinking about it. although they have the God Emperor as a figurehead, their command structure is likewise highly decentralised. As is their manufacturing capabilities. Plus, compared to the other denizens of the galaxy like Eldar and Necrons, humans reproduce like rabbits. Not quite as resilient though...

Given the events of War of the Beast, it definitely shows that when a powerful enough Warboss has gathered enough Orks under him, they are capable of amazing things.....

....like Teleporting a Moon through the Warp and using it as a battle station.....

If enough orks believe it is possible, it is possible

I don't know about you, but I'd think siting a factory in a place where the laws of physics don't apply sounds like a hindrance more than anything.

Great. You've set up a production line to manufacture Bolters, taking advantage of the fact that inertia doesn't work normally in that location so you can move stuff around extra-fast. Quids in!

Hang on. On the third Friday after a full moon plastic becomes flammable for no reason, and every month or so time starts running backwards and it unmakes the Bolters you've just made for a couple of days. Except when it doesn't.

Yeah sod citing a factory in a place where the laws of physics are more whimsy than anything else.

I don't know about you, but I'd think siting a factory in a place where the laws of physics don't apply sounds like a hindrance more than anything.

Great. You've set up a production line to manufacture Bolters, taking advantage of the fact that inertia doesn't work normally in that location so you can move stuff around extra-fast. Quids in!

Hang on. On the third Friday after a full moon plastic becomes flammable for no reason, and every month or so time starts running backwards and it unmakes the Bolters you've just made for a couple of days. Except when it doesn't.

Yeah sod citing a factory in a place where the laws of physics are more whimsy than anything else.

Meh ... It's been cited multiple times that CSM have "stable" factories/forges in Warpspace and can produce quite a bit of material using a lot of the advantages of the Warp while experiencing almost none of the issues. Again, I don't really see the Imperium pulling off making a Titan transport out of a Tyranid Bio-Titan ...

"Needless prayers" I think not.

Last time Steve-347835 didn't do his prayers, well.... He's not around anymore to fix what he did. They are still cleaning pieces of him out of the air ducts. The piece that went the furthest was his augmented foot which was found in Assembly Bay 3 which was 1.352 Kilometers from his position at the time of the "accident".

Most of the prayers are more mnemonics or methods of remembering how to do things. think p.e.m.d.a.s for example, or R.o.y.G.B.I.V. They help you remember what order to solve a math problem or what colors are in a rainbow (in that order). So "Twist thy bolt thrice, apply sacred oils, press thy activation runes in sequence 5, 2,3,7. wait 4.2 seconds and use the Right of Percussive Activation (Hit it to make it work) to bring a Baneblade reactor online during assembly" isn't for just religious reasons. Its to make sure its done right. That and its a matter of nearly forgetting what the mnemonics actually mean. "I know its Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, but I havn't a clue what it applies too".

I'm sure the Ad Mech want to go faster and more efficiently.... But they don't want to blow themselves up in the process. That's for the orks.

 Engine of War wrote:
"Needless prayers" I think not.

Last time Steve-347835 didn't do his prayers, well.... He's not around anymore to fix what he did. They are still cleaning pieces of him out of the air ducts. The piece that went the furthest was his augmented foot which was found in Assembly Bay 3 which was 1.352 Kilometers from his position at the time of the "accident".

Most of the prayers are more mnemonics or methods of remembering how to do things. think p.e.m.d.a.s for example, or R.o.y.G.B.I.V. They help you remember what order to solve a math problem or what colors are in a rainbow (in that order). So "Twist thy bolt thrice, apply sacred oils, press thy activation runes in sequence 5, 2,3,7. wait 4.2 seconds and use the Right of Percussive Activation (Hit it to make it work) to bring a Baneblade reactor online during assembly" isn't for just religious reasons. Its to make sure its done right. That and its a matter of nearly forgetting what the mnemonics actually mean. "I know its Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, but I havn't a clue what it applies too".

I'm sure the Ad Mech want to go faster and more efficiently.... But they don't want to blow themselves up in the process. That's for the orks.

Yeah that's 100% correct. One of the things that occurred from each edition to the next is that as 40K has grown more Grimdark, it has grown a lot more serious.

If we peg AdMech to the days of 1st/2nd/3rd edition, those prayers are in fact Needless, because writers were poking fun at AdMech's retrograde approach to technology. Same writers poking fun at the Sisters of Battles for their Miracles implied at being more acts of will and training.

Flash-forward to the current incarnation of 40K. AdMech isn't doing useless crap when they pray, hell prayer is essentially them going through the Instruction manual...

Meanwhile not only do Sisters spit out Miracles, we got the Legion of the Damned running around acting essentially like "Daemons of the Emperor"...

The times they are a changing

Chaos should have an advantage as time doesn't work the same in the warp, the production for the 14th chaos incursion could have started 10.000 years ago.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Chaos should have an advantage as time doesn't work the same in the warp, the production for the 14th chaos incursion could have started 10.000 years ago.

If time goes slower in the warp, that would have a detrimental effect for Chaos preparations.

In the Eye, the CSM have had (very roughly) a couple of hundred years to prepare for their invasion.

On the outside, the IoM have had 10,000 years to prepare.

If things weren't so grimdark, the IoM could have built billions of tanks in that time and just rolled over any resistance.

Now, I know that time's not that simple when it comes to the warp, but if one side has had more of it to prepare then that's going to be advantageous to them (unless they're on a downward spiral like the IoM).

Not sure we can say anything about time's flow within The Warp, as it's not something noted for consistency.

Sure, there will be war bands/chapters etc for whom a very short span has occurred - but likewise there's others who've been in there longer than 10,000 years.

The biggest issue for CSM is Chaos itself. Not only do you not have the mutually supportive supply structure the Imperium can typically boast of, but once you've paid the price, you have to keep hold of your toys - it only takes a stronger champion with a superior force (numerically or otherwise), and you can easily find yourself back to square one, and within warbands, you have to fight to maintain your position (ref Terminator armour. If you can kill it's owner, the suit is yours)

I'd say the Chaos definitely has advantageous things, but it's main flaws, like those of the Imperium, aren't something that can be mitigated or done away with. They're simply inherent to the situation.

Which is what makes this such an interesting discussion topic

Main thing in Chaos' favour this time - the Eye is expanding, and there's souls and trinkets aplenty to pay for resupply. It's also arguable that Chaos forces are at less risk from the Eye than their foe, so would likely have an easier time getting meteriel from A to B.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure we can say anything about time's flow within The Warp, as it's not something noted for consistency.

Sure, there will be war bands/chapters etc for whom a very short span has occurred - but likewise there's others who've been in there longer than 10,000 years.

The biggest issue for CSM is Chaos itself. Not only do you not have the mutually supportive supply structure the Imperium can typically boast of, but once you've paid the price, you have to keep hold of your toys - it only takes a stronger champion with a superior force (numerically or otherwise), and you can easily find yourself back to square one, and within warbands, you have to fight to maintain your position (ref Terminator armour. If you can kill it's owner, the suit is yours)

I'd say the Chaos definitely has advantageous things, but it's main flaws, like those of the Imperium, aren't something that can be mitigated or done away with. They're simply inherent to the situation.

Which is what makes this such an interesting discussion topic

Main thing in Chaos' favour this time - the Eye is expanding, and there's souls and trinkets aplenty to pay for resupply. It's also arguable that Chaos forces are at less risk from the Eye than their foe, so would likely have an easier time getting meteriel from A to B.

All very true and insightful

The only thing we do know about time in the Eye compared to realspace is that there are still plenty of Marines around from the Heresy...while there is precisely one outside of the Eye who's interred in a Dreadnaught. We can fairly safely assume that time passed on average slower in warp-space than it does outside of it, purely by the quantity of old stuff in the warp compared to realspace. Not to say it's not without massive swings and mucking about of course

Your comment about killing the owner of a Terminator suit to take is has just tripped a bit of inspiration!

'You kill what you keep'.

Someone should totally do a Riddick-themed Chaos Warband! That'd be sweet There's a GS Cults Neophyte head that would be absolutely perfect...

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Chaos should have an advantage as time doesn't work the same in the warp, the production for the 14th chaos incursion could have started 10.000 years ago.

If time goes slower in the warp, that would have a detrimental effect for Chaos preparations.

In the Eye, the CSM have had (very roughly) a couple of hundred years to prepare for their invasion.

On the outside, the IoM have had 10,000 years to prepare.
.

Time doesnt move slower in the warp it moves differently. In some places faster in others slower. The effects of time are different. It is a place without the bounds of laws.

There's a couple things that need pointing out:

Not all of Chaos' suppliers are inside the eye/warp, there are multiple hellforges (Dark Mech Forgeworlds) operating in realspace. Therefore, they're capable of matching if not beating the rate of Imperial manufacture due to Daemonic/ Warp shenanigans (there's just a lot less of them compared to the Imperium).

In addition it's been heavily implied that the warp can spit out, in effect, an infinite amount of CSM sans production. Due to the temporal warp shenanigans, if a CSM dies, the warp gods can just take a version of him from a few seconds earlier in the warp. Boom, instant replacement that never knows he may have died a thousand times before. It's probably why there's still so many Black Legion and World Eaters running around.

 Exergy wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Chaos should have an advantage as time doesn't work the same in the warp, the production for the 14th chaos incursion could have started 10.000 years ago.

If time goes slower in the warp, that would have a detrimental effect for Chaos preparations.

In the Eye, the CSM have had (very roughly) a couple of hundred years to prepare for their invasion.

On the outside, the IoM have had 10,000 years to prepare.
.

Time doesnt move slower in the warp it moves differently. In some places faster in others slower. The effects of time are different. It is a place without the bounds of laws.

And a strong Power/magos/demon could influence it to its advantage