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 Melissia wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Well Chenkov is the most stereotypical guardsman commander.

Pity the fool if he has to fight Tyranids with his usual tactics though.

Or Orks. Or Eldar. Or... anyone other than poorly equipped cultists...

Chenkov may be the most stereotypical, but he doesn't appear to be the most typical, if that makes any sense.

I'd just like to see the look on his face if he ever has to fight anything that can play his game better than he can.

"Boss dis 'umie finkz 'ez got more boyz."

"Wot? Datz crazy talk!"

"'Ez makin' a bridge outta 'is boyz"

"Datz stoopid dat iz. We got da storm boy rokkit ready yet?"

"Ya boss, da mekboyz just finished 'er up"

*Later*

"Another glorious day for the Imperium"

"Sir you killed a hundred million of our own men to make a bridge across the lake!"

"Hah, we have billions more. Comissar have this man executed."

"No, I'm tired of wasting lives for no discernable purpose."

"What was that?"

"I sa-*Sound of a rokkit approaching* What in the emperor's na-"

*Rokkit explodes to reveal millions of stormboyz stuffed inside.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!"

"Oh fe-"

*And then all the humiez were stabbed to death*

I think Imperial Guard suffer from being used for two very different purposes by GW.


1. The Imperial Guard is used as a contrast against which to set the more Super Human, sci-fantasy elements of 40K. To give you a sense of the physical strength of a Space Marine, you contrast him against the "puny" strength of regular human. To give you a sense of the military/tactical brilliance of a Space Marine, you contrast their actions against the "inept" military/tactical approach of the Imperial Guard.

Of course, no Codex or Black Library author actually knows how the "tactical brilliance" of an army made from genetically superhumans bred for war from birth and with 500+ years of battlefield-experience each would actually be. To short-cut the problem, you give Space Marines "good" military tactics that you can actually research by reading up on actual "real life" modern military and exaggerate the difference by attribution obviously bad military tactics to the "contrast-counterpoint" of the Imperial Guard.


2. The Imperial Guard is used to lure in people from the historical wargaming/military wargaming, (real)-tank-modelling side of the hobby. There's a huge segment of the market. Whole games like Flames of War and/or whole Miniature companies like Revell thrive on it. The Imperial Guard is GW's mantrap to get these people into 40K, as they tend not to be interested in Space-Elf-Sorcerers-on-Flying-Bikes so much.

Of course, to make the Imperial Guard interesting and appealing to the second type of people, you cannot use the "contrast" approach used under 1), but have to describe it as competent military that is "cool" in its own right. Ironically, the second kind of "border-line-historical-gamers" are likely more interested and versed in the actual military/tactical stuff than the first crowd.


GW caters to both 1) and 2), and by and large, the kitchen-sink of 40K allows for both. But every-time a person into 40K, and specifically into Imperial Guard, from 2) stumbles upon a piece of fluff meant for the crowd in 1) (or a player from the first crowd retelling his perception of the Imperial Guard), the paradox in it is painfully revealed.

"Puny" is a fairly relative term; the Imperial Guard are "puny" in the sense that they're normal, if well-trained, human beings with laser rifles and combat armor in a setting where they're fighting evil eight-foot power-armored genetically-engineered superhumans wielding fully-automatic armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenade launchers, centuries-old powerfully-psychic space elves with technology beyond humanity's wildest dreams and a working knowledge of the future, millennia-old self-repairing immortal metal robots that use guns and engines that completely override humanity's knowledge of physics, endless swarms of alien insect things whose corpses just get melted down to make more alien insect things if you kill them conventionally, and the like.

The Imperial Guard are probably more hardcore than any fighting force in the modern world, simply because of all the overpowered crap they have to fight, but that doesn't make them not "puny" in the context of the overpowered crap they have to fight.

 Kain wrote:

Pity the fool if he has to fight Tyranids with his usual tactics though.

He has. He won. Crushed them under the boots of half a million men as I recall. Considering his Codex entry says that he leads from the front, he must be doing something right.

Void__Dragon wrote:It hasn't, but I wouldn't count an extinct race in the running.

I see. Not sure I'd count them as extinct if most of them are still partially conscious and some may well be partially free.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Pity the fool if he has to fight Tyranids with his usual tactics though.

He has. He won. Crushed them under the boots of half a million men as I recall. Considering his Codex entry says that he leads from the front, he must be doing something right.

Void__Dragon wrote:It hasn't, but I wouldn't count an extinct race in the running.

I see. Not sure I'd count them as extinct if most of them are still partially conscious and some may well be partially free.

 Kain wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Well Chenkov is the most stereotypical guardsman commander.

Pity the fool if he has to fight Tyranids with his usual tactics though.

Or Orks. Or Eldar. Or... anyone other than poorly equipped cultists...

Chenkov may be the most stereotypical, but he doesn't appear to be the most typical, if that makes any sense.

I'd just like to see the look on his face if he ever has to fight anything that can play his game better than he can.

"Boss dis 'umie finkz 'ez got more boyz."

"Wot? Datz crazy talk!"

"'Ez makin' a bridge outta 'is boyz"

"Datz stoopid dat iz. We got da storm boy rokkit ready yet?"

"Ya boss, da mekboyz just finished 'er up"

*Later*

"Another glorious day for the Imperium"

"Sir you killed a hundred million of our own men to make a bridge across the lake!"

"Hah, we have billions more. Comissar have this man executed."

"No, I'm tired of wasting lives for no discernable purpose."

"What was that?"

"I sa-*Sound of a rokkit approaching* What in the emperor's na-"

*Rokkit explodes to reveal millions of stormboyz stuffed inside.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!"

"Oh fe-"

*And then all the humiez were stabbed to death*

Because that's what they are when you compare them to the other races of 40k. You have genetically enhanced supermen who wear enough armour to protect a tank going up against 10 feet tall demons.

The individual human is puny against everything the rest of the galaxy can throw at it, what can one person do against genetically enhanced super warriors or a carnifex with scythes that can tear though solid metal?

Give a man a lasgun though and lump him in an galaxy-wide fighting force made up of trillions like him with a ton of powerful tanks to back him up and you'll find that the "puny little human" and his peers can become quite a dangerous thing indeed. Imperium would be nothing without them.

"Spit at them alone and you can't change a thing, but if you spit together you can drown the b******s."

 Ardaric_Vaanes wrote:
The individual human is puny against everything the rest of the galaxy can throw at it, what can one person do against genetically enhanced super warriors or a carnifex with scythes that can tear though solid metal?

Give a man a lasgun though and lump him in an galaxy-wide fighting force made up of trillions like him with a ton of powerful tanks to back him up and you'll find that the "puny little human" and his peers can become quite a dangerous thing indeed. Imperium would be nothing without them.

"Spit at them alone and you can't change a thing, but if you spit together you can drown the b******s."

The problem arises when you meet Orks and Tyranids and possibly Necrons who can very easily outnumber the Imperial Guard.

 Kain wrote:

 Ardaric_Vaanes wrote:
The individual human is puny against everything the rest of the galaxy can throw at it, what can one person do against genetically enhanced super warriors or a carnifex with scythes that can tear though solid metal?

Give a man a lasgun though and lump him in an galaxy-wide fighting force made up of trillions like him with a ton of powerful tanks to back him up and you'll find that the "puny little human" and his peers can become quite a dangerous thing indeed. Imperium would be nothing without them.

"Spit at them alone and you can't change a thing, but if you spit together you can drown the b******s."

The problem arises when you meet Orks and Tyranids and possibly Necrons who can very easily outnumber the Imperial Guard.

Yeah, they can be outnumbered by these races but that's why they have Marines to call in (like when the Praetors of Orpheus showed up to back the IG in 'Fear the Alien') when they are too overpowered by the foe. The IG are also able to stand up for a good long while because of their weaponry I suppose. Against Necrons not much has a hope anyway, but against Nids it's a war of attrition and Orks - well it's the same thing, just look at Armageddon as a great example.

The allies matrix has done a lot for fluffy battles for 40K imo (even though some of the alliances on that matrix are just absurd fluff-wise). Now we can have awesome battles like in the books where two forces work together.

If we were to actually scale the power and numbers of certain races to real-life measurements, the end-result would be Tyranids vs. Necrons. If Necrons all awoke from their slumber at once and united utterly, they would wipe out humanity and most life, thereby ending the fuel that powers Chaos and just defend their galactic empire from the external (and lightly peppered internal) threat of the Tyranid hive fleets and main fleets in the galactic void. A race with unimaginably powerful and advanced technology against a race with incredible numbers, tenacity, and unshakeable morale. Although one wonders, if the Necrons scoured the galaxy of life, would the main fleet know this and simply re-direct its course to another galaxy?

 Kain wrote:

I'd just like to see the look on his face if he ever has to fight anything that can play his game better than he can.

Tyranids play the numbers game better than Chenkov can. They still lost. Probably because he doesn't always just throw men at the enemy like the assumption seems to be. He may sacrifice soldiers but he apparently does so for a purpose, even if it's just to save time on taking an objective. One would imagine that against the Orks and Tyranids he wouldn't try to match casualty for casualty.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

I'd just like to see the look on his face if he ever has to fight anything that can play his game better than he can.

Tyranids play the numbers game better than Chenkov can. They still lost. Probably because he doesn't always just throw men at the enemy like the assumption seems to be. He may sacrifice soldiers but he apparently does so for a purpose, even if it's just to save time on taking an objective. One would imagine that against the Orks and Tyranids he wouldn't try to match casualty for casualty.

And then he gets murdered by Lictors/Kommandos/Deathmarks.

Just to mention: Tau Firewarriors are just better armed than a normal IG, and they are even worse in melee... ( Considering a firewarrior dont really need to be a Tau at all, a few novels have humans in those armors )

 Kain wrote:

And then he gets murdered by Lictors/Kommandos/Deathmarks.

Shame it hasn't happened yet. Has he actually fought Necrons?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

And then he gets murdered by Lictors/Kommandos/Deathmarks.

Shame it hasn't happened yet. Has he actually fought Necrons?

If his model stops selling you can expect to read about his death shortly after.

Yea, technically, Tau are even punier than humans are. They need/have those battlesuits to compensate for that.

 Kain wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Kain wrote:

I'd just like to see the look on his face if he ever has to fight anything that can play his game better than he can.

Tyranids play the numbers game better than Chenkov can. They still lost. Probably because he doesn't always just throw men at the enemy like the assumption seems to be. He may sacrifice soldiers but he apparently does so for a purpose, even if it's just to save time on taking an objective. One would imagine that against the Orks and Tyranids he wouldn't try to match casualty for casualty.

And then he gets murdered by Lictors/Kommandos/Deathmarks.

Well if we're doing it that, way, the Necron Lord/Hive Tyrant/Boss all get assassinated by stormtroopers...

This topic reminds me of a quote from the Space Wolves Primarch Leman Russ;

"Only in the Space Marines of the Legiones Astartes are courage and expertise perfectly blended. In other troops they are present in varying degrees and proportions, and many scholars have debated their relative merits.

For my own part, I come down on the side of courage. For courage can sometimes make a virtue of inexperience. I myself have commanded Imperial Guard troops whose probitor units have achieved great things, because they were too inexperienced to realise that their goal was impossible."

- (Leman Russ on the military use of Whiteshields, De Natura Belli, Book XIV)

In Wahammer 40k the vast majority of Imperial Guard units are completely expendable as far as the high command of humanity is concerned, but they vastly out number even the combined entirety of all the Adeptus Astartes chapters, all 1000+ of them combined. But the former being said they both contrast and complement Adeptus Astartes, as I've seen it said they form the "Hammer and Scalpel" of the Imperium respectfully.

The Imperial Guard are the hammer as the simple crush through enemies of the Imperium with sheer overwhelming superiority in numbers, batter their foes into submission, wave after wave, artillery bombardment after artillery bombardment, not giving up until either they or their foe lives broken and beaten.

In opposite to the Imperial Guard the Space Marines are meant to be like a scalpel, striking pinpoint targets and locations, to cripple the enemy by hitting them where they are most vulnerable, said places being the most well guarded on the battlefield, places only the war build and battle hardened fearless Astarte would dare to tread.

But just because they are mean to be expendable doesn't mean a handful of them can't achieve great things, just look at Lieutenant Mira from Warhammer 40k: Space Marine! Through charisma, cunning and sheer force of will she keep a not in sizable group of Imperial Guard units not only alive but fighting back even after the majority of Graia's PDF had been utterly destroyed by the Orks, including all of her superiors.

Though the Space Marines under Captain Titus where the ones to finish the fight they could not have done it without the Imperial Guard, and to that extent the tireless work of Lieutenant Mira keeping them alive and fighting.

Basically, the guardsmen are just puny humans. Comparing them to different races, they completely useless individually. From the hundreds of IG novels Ive read, it always appears as if they have trouble fighting mere cultists and insurgencies. In the book Flesh and Iron, the Riverine Guard companies struggled to fight off a bunch of mutated cultists and 2 Chaos Space Marines. In Dan Abnett's The Saint, Tanith First would die left, right and centre mostly against poorly equipped cultists. Thats why I love them though.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:
Your failure in logic is that you're trying to equate 40K to real life. Don't. It doesn't work.
In the fantasy that is the year 40,000 humans are innumerable and expendable en mass. They are based on WW1 with slow infantry, tractor like tanks and inaccurate artillery. If you want an army that's more like today's infantry, the space marines are just that.

Real life soldiers dont drop in with only a single squad and engage the enemy with chainswords

Remember that ig regiments hail from the best of the pdf regiments

Seriously im fething tired of this space marines aré the only competent force crap

I agree that 40k isnt real life, but the ig regiments are based on real life armies

I can see your point and why you are annoyed. Often anybody wanting to say a Guardsman can think of a good way to attack an enemy on the spot must go to great lengths to explain why that Guardsman is smart enough. Though most other races being clever is never questioned.

I find the same reaction with Tyranids. Any form of Tyranid intellect, strategy or bio-tech must be explained and rationalised in real world terms in extreme detail. However humans with warpdrives? How do those things work and how could they ever make them. Explanations for this and other fancy stuff is never need for humans, Eldar, Necrons or even Tau. Even then many will say Tyranids can't do this or that and ignore that Tyranids are the most adaptive and fast advancing race around, they even put the Tau to utter shame with how fast they develop new tech. Not to mention Tyranid bio-tech is well beyond what the Emperor used to create the Marines. Marines need years to be trained and require huge amounts of equipment to be useful compared to the hours it takes to spawn a Hive Tyrant which is superior to any Marine but also more easily replaced.

Not to mention half of the Primarchs and their legions became traitors, deeply flawed in a human military sense and a Tyranid bio-tech sense. However no one mentions this when bashing Guard and Nids.

I can see your point and why you are annoyed. Often anybody wanting to say a Guardsman can think of a good way to attack an enemy on the spot must go to great lengths to explain why that Guardsman is smart enough. Though most other races being clever is never questioned.

I find the same reaction with Tyranids. Any form of Tyranid intellect, strategy or bio-tech must be explained and rationalised in real world terms in extreme detail. However humans with warpdrives? How do those things work and how could they ever make them. Explanations for this and other fancy stuff is never need for humans, Eldar, Necrons or even Tau. Even then many will say Tyranids can't do this or that and ignore that Tyranids are the most adaptive and fast advancing race around, they even put the Tau to utter shame with how fast they develop new tech. Not to mention Tyranid bio-tech is well beyond what the Emperor used to create the Marines. Marines need years to be trained and require huge amounts of equipment to be useful compared to the hours it takes to spawn a Hive Tyrant which is superior to any Marine but also more easily replaced.

Not to mention half of the Primarchs and their legions became traitors, deeply flawed in a human military sense and a Tyranid bio-tech sense. However no one mentions this when bashing Guard and Nids.

Well said. I had this same conversation with a friend who thought it was outragous to say that a species created living ships that could not only survive and travel space but also jump galaxies. Would it be easy? no. Would it be possible? given enough time i think naturecan do whatever it likes.
Here here to the Guardsmen and Tyranids! wave after wave of awesomeness

swagmasteryolo wrote:
Basically, the guardsmen are just puny humans. Comparing them to different races, they completely useless individually. From the hundreds of IG novels Ive read, it always appears as if they have trouble fighting mere cultists and insurgencies. In the book Flesh and Iron, the Riverine Guard companies struggled to fight off a bunch of mutated cultists and 2 Chaos Space Marines. In Dan Abnett's The Saint, Tanith First would die left, right and centre mostly against poorly equipped cultists. Thats why I love them though.

That's the thing about guns: they're excellent combat equalizers.

Whether you're from a dirt-poor country or an extremely, fantastically wealthy one, a small bit of metal flung through you at hyper-velocity kills you just as dead.

What people got to realize is that the Imperial Guard does use tactics

Only problem is that most GW writers tend to be fat neckbeards who know little of the military and/or lack creativity and thus can't write a proper military story

The ones that do know(Imperial Armour writers for example) make the best Imperial Guard media

Seriously, I hate "DURRR ITS GRIMDARK, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR TACTICS, ITS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN STUPID FICTION EVERYBODY JUST CHARGES DIES THEN WINS" excuse, its like those whiny deviantartlets who can't take critique because its they claim "ITS MY STYLE"

Thats why I believe Halo's lore is much better then 40k, its grimdark and yet, makes a lot more ense and doesn't hide behind, "DURR ITS SCIENCE FICTION JUST DEAL WITH IT"

Of course the Imperial Guard use tactics. But it's not always the same tactics that people today consider to be sane, humane, or competent.

At the highest levels, the people who are making military strategy are, at least in theory, attempting to wage their war in such a way as to make the most optimal use of their resources. In many of the cultures that we consider more 'developed' there exists a pervasive notion that human life is worth more than money. However, in the dystopian future that is 40k, much like in several real world cultures that still exist today, human life has a definite value, and the higher-ups are all too willing to sacrifice men if that's the cheaper and, to them, more effective tactic.

That's not saying that the Imperial Guard doesn't use tactics similar to what we consider 'modern military tactics.' They do. When it suits the situation. They also use orbital strikes, artillery bombardments, armored deployments, or surgical strikes by teams of trained specialists, depending on what the situation calls for. Depending on how ruthless an officer is, then sacrificing loads and loads of expendable people is considered a perfectly acceptable strategy.

It may help to remember that there is some implication that high casualty rates among the Imperial Guard is one of the many strategies utilized by the Imperium to ensure its survival. Given the appalling rate of overpopulation on some of them, enforced conscription (and a resulting astronomic casualty rate) is one of the methods which conserves resources and keeps the human race of the future alive.

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
What people got to realize is that the Imperial Guard does use tactics

Only problem is that most GW writers tend to be fat neckbeards who know little of the military and/or lack creativity and thus can't write a proper military story

The ones that do know(Imperial Armour writers for example) make the best Imperial Guard media

Seriously, I hate "DURRR ITS GRIMDARK, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR TACTICS, ITS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN STUPID FICTION EVERYBODY JUST CHARGES DIES THEN WINS" excuse, its like those whiny deviantartlets who can't take critique because its they claim "ITS MY STYLE"

Thats why I believe Halo's lore is much better then 40k, its grimdark and yet, makes a lot more ense and doesn't hide behind, "DURR ITS SCIENCE FICTION JUST DEAL WITH IT"

The Halo books are complete garbage with the exception of those written by Greg Bears. And the story of the games is an incredibly generic space opera that fanboys seem to think is the LOTR of scifi (hint, that title belongs solely to the Culture books written by the now deceased Iain M Banks).

Read some Dan Abnett or Alex Stuart/Sandy Mitchell or ADB for more realistic tactics.

You also have to remember that the Imperium holds no intristic value towards human life, a tank takes more effort to make than a human, so most Imperial Generals will gladly sacrifice soldiers to protect their tanks. It's abhorrent to us, but we don't have a population in the quadrillions comprised out of fanatics who would gladly sacrifice themselves to the god emperor.

I mean, what would you sacrifice if you only saw the military value of humans? A soldier you can train up in a month or two and have more replacements than there are stars in the galaxy by orders of magnitude or a tank declared sacred by your only real engineering group?

PresidentOfAsia wrote:What people got to realize is that the Imperial Guard does use tactics

"People" also need to realise that, at least according to GW's own writing, there is no Imperial Guard as in = a single uniform body of troops with comparable expertise and equipment. This is why regimental sizes depend on the planet, after all - with the Departmento Munitorum's tithe set to balance a lack of quality with quantity. The 5E Guard Codex goes into a bit of detail regarding this.

Anyways, I'd assume that a nobleborn and academy-trained Cadian officer's tactics differ considerably from those employed by a, say, Warchief Cohan of the 1982nd Hyborian Broadswords. The Imperial Guard is one of the places in 40k where it can be exactly what you want it to be, simply because every planet's culture is different, therefore every planet's PDF is different, and so will be the Guard regiments raised from them.

Because they're not Fungus-Hulk, Captain Imperium, Elf Widow, Aliens(TM), or Iron-Zombie?

I mean, essentially they're just normal people with sub-par flashlight guns the Imperium gave them for cheap. Their strength lies in heavy weapons, superior numbers, and an amazing array of Mechs and Vehicles.

 Kain wrote:

the story of the games is an incredibly generic space opera that fanboys seem to think is the LOTR of scifi

The Lotr of sci-fi?

If you mean the cliched and contrived worldview written by complete hacks, I agree with you.
(Whilst Halo was hardly original, neither was lotr. Tolkien pillaged norse and more legends and folk tales and mashed them into his melange - I'm the rare gamer who is not a fan of either).


And I couldn't stand Bank's stuff.

When it comes to realistic battle writing, you can't go past someone who WAS a soldier, writing it. If it makes you NOT want to be there, then it served its purpose.
I prefer David Drake to any of GW/BL stable of writers. 40k BL fiction is as bad as the Halo stuff - worse in many cases. Marine mary-sue fanwank bolterporn. That includes stuff written by Dan Abnett - whom I regard as one of their better ones because he tends NOT to focus on the marines (because they are boring).

The Guard looses millions of troopers per day, all across the Galaxy: it also gain millions of new recruits every day all across the Galaxy as well.

Keep in mind, in the grimdark future of 40k the end justifies the mean (of course, except if you commit heresy, treason or sedition) to loosing let's say, 100k troops in an assault if that means the day is yours and the planet you're on remains to the Emperor, then all's well that ends well. Plus with the technology being what it is, you'd better send those 2000 guys to their death to save the Leman Russes, it's not like there's actual reliable logistics, or that the Tech-Priest won't simply put his foot down and be trouble (what with them not really being under your command, more cooperating at his own discretion)

Let's not mention the Commissars who's quite inquisitive about when will Objective X be taken, scrutinizing your every decisions, but always reminding you that you are in command and responsible for the success, of failure of the mission/campaign/crusade

And again all depends on who you are: a Cadian does not fight as a Mordian or a Catachan or a Steel Legionnaire or a Feudal inbred with a laslock, any of them will not approach a situation with the same tactical acumen...but at the end of the day, the orders come from high up and you'd better have that Hill/crossroad/spaceport by 1800 or someone will have to answer for the delay.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
(If it has yet to be destroyed despite several tries, that means no one has tried hard enough yet!).

This is going to be my life code. On the battlefield, my Necrons are losing badly... What's that? It can't be beaten? Well, if you try really hard, you could beat it! LOGIC yea!

 chromedog wrote:

 Kain wrote:

the story of the games is an incredibly generic space opera that fanboys seem to think is the LOTR of scifi

The Lotr of sci-fi?

If you mean the cliched and contrived worldview written by complete hacks, I agree with you.
(Whilst Halo was hardly original, neither was lotr. Tolkien pillaged norse and more legends and folk tales and mashed them into his melange - I'm the rare gamer who is not a fan of either).

What are you a fan of then? Most art draws inspiration from previous works, often taking parts from various sources to create something entirely new. If you discount anything that draws inspiration from somewhere else, and isn't a completely original work, you're limiting yourself to probably <1% of all art/media.

While I haven't read any David Drake, I did find this little snippet about his work

Drake based the Hammer's Slammers on his service with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970,[1] however Drake also borrows plots from historical or mythological sources for many of the Hammer's Slammers stories as with his other work. For example, he retells the story of Jason and the Argonauts in The Voyage, and part of the Odyssey in Cross the Stars.