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Use quick strikes to take out all leadership. Start propaganda broadcasts with demands to surrender/cease resistance to avoid/stop the pain that is to come. Start randomly killing folks and nuking cities disrupting military, food and economic production. Identify dissidents who support surrender and protect and arm them. Show the peace and stability they enjoy in these dissident's propaganda cities. Planet eventually subdued as ranks of dissents grow. Expected time to accomplish goals is 6 months to 5 years.

I think Alpha Legion is very capable of conquering a planet.

I guess to many people in this thread are assuming that conquest = exterminatus. I don't agree with that since, despite having the capability of wipe all life out in a single planet, SM fleets don't do that, except on extreme circonstances.

I guess one chapter can hurt a world very badly but once again, we have to define which type of world we are talking about. IIRCthe Badab sector was not that fortify and it took half a dozen of chapter to take it, with heavy losses in the end !

So, if I'm allowed to go Humanity F*** Yeah for a moment here...

A rift appears around Mars, and out of it comes a fleet of ancient, yet advanced ships. The fleets send down drop pods filled with with huge power armoured soldiers unlike anything Earth has ever seen. Most leaders (after the first few casulties) manage to escape, while the power armoured soldiers begin taking control of larger cities and such.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world begins planning to how to throw the usurpers out through clever tricks, guerilla warfare and possibly a supposed last stand in a large city or something.

Then, nuclear bomb go boom.

It's the perfect plot for an action film.

But nukes are never the answer in such movies!

If anything, it would be something like Alien vs Predator - SM and CSM taking their war to Earth.

DorianGray wrote:
Title says it all - no Astra militarism or Naval support - can only 1000 of humanity's finest übermensch superman (created in Nazi-like genetic labs) conquer and subdue an entire planet say with just 6 billion people (around earth today)?

Or would it be a case of Deneriys in GoT where her unsullied couldn't even keep order in one large city?

In several of the Horus Heresy books it is mentioned that 10 marines would be enough to take a city. 100 enough to take a planet. It does feel somewhat exagerated though. But yeah, 1000 should def be enough.

 Selym wrote:
Come to think of it, how are we defining conquering?

- They tithe guard regiments
- They surrender their psykers every x years
- They confess the Imperial Creed

You really don't want to hurt their military, because they have to defend themselves later and tithe you guard regiments.

 The Wise Dane wrote:
So, if I'm allowed to go Humanity F*** Yeah for a moment here...

A rift appears around Mars, and out of it comes a fleet of ancient, yet advanced ships. The fleets send down drop pods filled with with huge power armoured soldiers unlike anything Earth has ever seen. Most leaders (after the first few casulties) manage to escape, while the power armoured soldiers begin taking control of larger cities and such.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world begins planning to how to throw the usurpers out through clever tricks, guerilla warfare and possibly a supposed last stand in a large city or something.

Then, nuclear bomb go boom.

It's the perfect plot for an action film.

I think you mean everybody dies. We could fire every single nuke in our possession at an Imperial frigate and only succeed in scratching the paint.

I think it's possible but not in the sense we know it that requires boots on the ground to patrol and control the population. It would be a form of conquering the likes of which we might not ever expect.
They do have the resources to wipe out gov'ts, electrical infrastructures, radios and quite a fair bit of what we consider to be our tools of modern civilization and then sit back and let the quasi medieval leaderless chaos sort itself out with regular interventions on the surface to foster a warlike tradition/religion across the globe with contrived grievances and grudges. From then on that SM chapter has a recruiting planet by picking out the toughest, strongest soldier from a planet whose entire society is based on combat acumen.

40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet, whether that's one guy or a senate body or something along those lines, is like the king in chess. Take that out, and you win the game.

So, based on that premise of the setting then, yes, one Space Marine Chapter can topple an entire world. They blitz in, cut the head off the snake, and go home, they won. This, of course, is not at all how actual warfare works, but it's something of a conceit of the setting.

 Psienesis wrote:
40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet, whether that's one guy or a senate body or something along those lines, is like the king in chess. Take that out, and you win the game.

So, based on that premise of the setting then, yes, one Space Marine Chapter can topple an entire world. They blitz in, cut the head off the snake, and go home, they won. This, of course, is not at all how actual warfare works, but it's something of a conceit of the setting.

Considering the fact that Space Marines have kilometer-long Battle Barges, they could just nuke a few cities from orbit, and say "surrender, or die" Any country that did not surrender would have its military leaders butchered followed by its political leaders (drop pods, and teleportation). If resistance continued, nuke it. Then repeat.

In conclusion, yes, Space Marines could conquer a planet given enough time and strategical genius (which Captains are supposed to have, despite the fact that they never actually do).

 dusara217 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet, whether that's one guy or a senate body or something along those lines, is like the king in chess. Take that out, and you win the game.

So, based on that premise of the setting then, yes, one Space Marine Chapter can topple an entire world. They blitz in, cut the head off the snake, and go home, they won. This, of course, is not at all how actual warfare works, but it's something of a conceit of the setting.

Considering the fact that Space Marines have kilometer-long Battle Barges, they could just nuke a few cities from orbit, and say "surrender, or die" Any country that did not surrender would have its military leaders butchered followed by its political leaders (drop pods, and teleportation). If resistance continued, nuke it. Then repeat.

In conclusion, yes, Space Marines could conquer a planet given enough time and strategical genius (which Captains are supposed to have, despite the fact that they never actually do).

You have to land ground-forces to take out the "orbital defense" batteries on the planet's surface before you do that, or your Battle-barge/Strike Cruiser/what-have-you becomes so much debris in space.

True. If an SM chapter showed up here it would have to launch their small hard to hit drop pods with Marines in key places on the ground to take out missiles we've designed to take down orbitals. Maybe even cause some of our Nukes to go off in key places. Turn the planet into a setting like Fallout and then recruit the strongest of the survivors to be SM themselves.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
True. If an SM chapter showed up here it would have to launch their small hard to hit drop pods with Marines in key places on the ground to take out missiles we've designed to take down orbitals. Maybe even cause some of our Nukes to go off in key places. Turn the planet into a setting like Fallout and then recruit the strongest of the survivors to be SM themselves.

Our "orbital" defenses mean squat. Again we could fire every single nuke in our possession at a Strike Cruiser and fail to do anything.

Not talking about us using them. Mentioning that the SM can easily use our own Nukes against us and send us back into dark ages.

40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet, whether that's one guy or a senate body or something along those lines, is like the king in chess. Take that out, and you win the game.

40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet is like the king in a kingdom. There are lots of dukes around, and one of those dukes is the king's cousin. If you can put the duke who is the king's cousin in charge, he'll pay you taxes, because he hates the king and is thankful for bing put in charge.

I mean, for "king" read the U.S. or China, and for "cousin" read Russia or Canada. Use most any countries, really.

Broly wrote:
I think Alpha Legion is very capable of conquering a planet.

Hmm... I am now starting another thread about this - but with only one marine.
Good idea!

pelicaniforce wrote:

40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet, whether that's one guy or a senate body or something along those lines, is like the king in chess. Take that out, and you win the game.

40k is kinda based on the idea that the ruler of a planet is like the king in a kingdom. There are lots of dukes around, and one of those dukes is the king's cousin. If you can put the duke who is the king's cousin in charge, he'll pay you taxes, because he hates the king and is thankful for bing put in charge.

I mean, for "king" read the U.S. or China, and for "cousin" read Russia or Canada. Use most any countries, really.

Took me a few seconds to get it, but yeah. That might work.

Raising this thread from the dead, but I've been conducting significant research into this, and other, subjects, and thought I would share my results.

SM 7e codex chronicles list several battles with rough numbers and assumed battle strengths. For example, a large Raven's Guard strike force disabled defenses and captured a heretic fortified world in 1 day with 300+ marines and scouts.

Siege of Vraks: multiple companies from various chapters aid in the ongoing siege of Vraks, a campaign over 17 years. Several hundred casualties (150 Red Hunters KIA in one drop assault)

The common concept is that taking a planet is not actually boots on the ground in every city, just the important ones. Planetary defense batteries make this more difficult.

Legions could take and hold a planet for an unlimited period of time. Chapters can't do this. 1K soldiers, no matter how powerful and well equiped, won't even be able to hold a small country, let alone a whole planet.

I think we've pretty much reached a consensus that the Chapter could easily *take* the planet, but they'd have a very hard time holding it until reinforcements from the other arms of the Imperial war machine arrived.

I suppose what we need to know is WHY they want the planet.

If they wanted to bring the planet under Imperial compliance, great crusade style, then they'd struggle to impose themselves on a population that would likely resist their way of life being changed so much.

If they want its natural resources, then Exterminatus would easily allow them to hold the planet until a mechanicum force arrived to strip mine the planet.

Exterminatus would be the easiest option for most of their goals really. The planet is strategically placed and will be used as a staging post for operations? What do they need a rebellious population for?

They could, by decapitating leadership, military command, and sever communications links to ability to control assets.

Strikes like destroying the military hq. Taking out key airbases, logistics sites. Extreme force multiplication.

One chapter. With 1000 marines, terminators, scouts, and 10 full company, backled by at least one to 2 battle barge, and strike cruisers is a heavy orbital bombardment formation.

Whenever I see threads like this, I remember this quote which I saw somewhere:

"Yeah, we flew our space church across 500 light years to get to this planet taken over by the orks. Now we're going to drop from orbit in buckets and run out and shoot pistols and hit people in the head with chainsaws."

Suffice to say, you can never hope to conquer a planet in this manner. Never.

I think it depends on two factos:
a) What Chapter it is - or more precisely, how well equipped they are and
b) What type of world is being assaulted.

a) includes factors such as fleet capability and armor on the ground.
The Space Wolves for example have more ships and battle barges than the grey knights and the deathwatch combined, I believe.
Some 30-something founding understrenght chapter with two rhinos and a broken predator do not constitute a good siege force, whereas say the salamanders have enough armor to shoot up some fortifications when needed.

b) lands you on a scale between 0 - barbaric hillbillie planet or poorly defended agriworld and 10 - ancient forgeworld with titans, orbital defense platforms, blackjack and repentia. The later is entirely out of question, but an average world with a couple hive cities and say a couple regiments worth of defenders is fair game i'd say.

It depends on the world. If it is a world that can easily be shocked back into compliance by eliminating rebellious leadership and military elements, then yes. If it is a world where an entire population of millions is rebelling and killing their leaders would not discourage them, then no. Not unless by conquering you mean 'Exterminatus'.

This is how you conquer a planet. Any other means is just inefficient by comparison.

You would only send in troops to conquer a planet if you cared about public relations.

As its been pointed out conquer no destroy yes. This is why the Chaos Space Marines often are more potent and able to carry on the long war despite having far less logistical support than the Imperial Space Marines. They kill and destroy what they don't want to take and take everything else as loot, slaves, or new recruits. They have don't have to spread their forces piecemeal and as a result can attack with their full numbers. In this aspect the question is misleading because an entire chapter would never be able to attack in its entirety with exception of the Grey Knights and Red Hunters who are kept in reserve by the High Lords. Most Chapters have commitments to different planets who supply them with recruits and forge worlds that build them weapons and ships.

Lol you don't need an entire chapter to conquer planets. rogue traders do it all the time with only a fragment of the resources, orks even conquered Terra without sending an army down. You just need one decent starship, a way to communicate with the planets leaders and questionable ethics.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now I think of it, what modern war has ever been won by killing of every enemy soldier?

 Bobthehero wrote:
Oh and obviously they magically know with 100% where all the leaders are, how the planet works and blablabla. Yeah, right, omniscient marines.

Marines cannot come to earth, see our primitive satellite technology and broadcast a message

"welcome from the imperium of Man, join or die"

While waiting for a response the techmarine aboard the battlebarge connects to the www, downloads all of our collective knowledge and, while getting key information regarding our leadership, military and infrastructure, it's all online and easily accessed by a techmarine.

Our leaders say no

With a mix of orbital info, our own broadcast info and the info on the Internet, they target all the key systems of the u.s, they wipe out Washington dc from orbit, we respond with nukes, they prove ineffective, we decide to resist.

The Marines deploy onto air bases (easily spotted) around the us, a sqaud per base, 10 Marines, they inflict massive casualties and withdraw, moral plummets as we realise the sheer terror of these super soldiers, men and woman blown into chunks, people literally torn to pieces, the us refuses to surrender, several cities are wiped out from orbit, the scale of bloodshed is so massive the us is forced to surrender, rinse and repeat across several nations around the world, through technological, biological and information superiority the Marines have crippled the most powerful threats on earth, with ease, no major battle fought.

The Marines call for imperial guard support and move on to the next world, leaving humanity crippled.

A legion would just land 10000 Marines in the us and wipe put the military wholesale.

They need not be omniscient, we have all the info needed broadcasted via the Internet and TV, anyone sufficiently intelligent would find it and exploit it.

And the Imperium is the pinnacle when it comes to be smart and interacting with unknown tech, yup. Oh obviously while the SM magically hack into unknown tech, the comms art does nothing and leaves all its critical airbases undefended. A single drop pod would get annuhilated before it reaches the airbase.

The one critical advantage the SM have is the orbital support, which can be denied in 40k but not on Earth.