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 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Furthermore, GW has stated that everything that gets published with a GW stamp on it is canon.

{citation needed}

Marc Gascoigne wrote:Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40k universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it. Let's put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex... and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths.

 Peregrine wrote:

Where? Source please.

Just to name one obvious example, IA3 has a space marine warship trying to take out a missile silo with an orbital bombardment. The bombardment does little more than make a few craters in the dirt, and they have to destroy the silo by dropping in space marines to plant melta charges on the doors. That's laughably poor firepower.

First of all, those bunkers were built specially in order to be able to withstand orbital bombardments. Secondly, the orbital bombardment in question never actually hit the bunker. Thirdly, it makes sense ships would have lighter weapons for tactical bombardments, which were used in this case. You don't always want to take out entire continents.

 Peregrine wrote:

Destroying a planet with conventional weapons takes rather long. Dedicated Exterminatus weapons are much faster. Also, the bombardment of Nostramo was only as devastating as it was because the lances could get right to the planet's core through a weakness in the planet's crust.

That doesn't even make any sense. It's like saying that your 500lb bomb did a really good job of smashing an apple because there was a small weak spot in the skin. Having a weakness in the thin layer of dirt and rock on a planet should have very little, if any, impact on how hard it is to destroy the planet. And that's especially true if you're hitting it with such overwhelming firepower that the surviving fragments are thrown hundreds of light years away.

You just forgot this is science fiction. There is a lot of stuff in 40k that does not make sense or would be impossible in real life.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lol, that applies equally to present-day nukes and terrorist groups. The fact that terrorist groups can annihilate an entire city if they get their hands on a nuke does not stop us from producing thousands of them. If it doesn't stop us, why would it stop the Imperium?

We make nukes in the real world because we don't have any other weapon that can fill their role. Making dedicated exterminatus weapons in 40k makes no sense if any random capital ship's lance batteries can overkill a planet with firepower that makes a death star look like a minor fireworks display. You aren't gaining any meaningful firepower advantage, you're just making it easier for the wrong people to get their hands on WMDs.

Exterminatus weapons do have a role that can't be filled by Lance batteries or other weapons. Lance batteries can't destroy planets quickly, and it requires an entire fleet of ships. In situations where time is important (like when an enemy fleet is bearing down on you) or in situations when you don't have an entire fleet ready, Exterminatus weapons are the only option. They are especially useful for Inquisitors or Space Marines, since they have rarely more than a few ships available.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its actually the opposite. Everything published by an official source in 40k is canon.

{citation needed}

GW has no canon policy at all. Your choice to limit "canon" to official sources only is nothing more than your personal preference.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Meanwhile a lances are so powerful that a Legion Fleet in a day or less blew up a planet (Nostramo), which had a solid adamantium crust, without exterminatus weapons, and blew it up "so hard", that in Soul Hunter Talos and Friends find a chunk of Nostramo over two hundred lightyears away. Meaning that the explosion was so violent chunks of Nostramo were accelerated to a significant fraction of .C that they were found in a completely different sector in a mere ten thousand years.

Meanwhile orbital bombardments are often portrayed as being comparable to a barrage of light mortar shells. And this whole "lances can blow up a planet with such overkill that its pieces are found 200 light years away" argument fails pretty badly when you remember that dedicated exterminatus weapons exist. There's no reason to bother with developing special weapons for killing all life on a planet if standard weapons are already massive overkill. In fact, creating such weapons would be suicidally stupid because any random chaos cult that gets their hands on an exterminatus torpedo can annihilate everything on a planet.

The weapons were designed to take out enemy Void craft, the fact that they're able to be used for orbital bombardment is just a plus for ships that aren't equipped for orbital bombardment. Actual Battle Barges, and similar craft, have far more accurate and effective orbital bombardment techniques. Do you have a source for anything that you just said? So far, Wyzilla is the only person in this thread with an actually tenable position regarding Void craft, as he is the only one who actually has sources.

This whole thread is absurd. The imperium would win, hands down 99 time out of 100. And these are the reasons why:

Ability to wage effective war.

Experience and generalship.

Industrial might.

Ability to reverse engineer.

Colossal initial advantage.

Ok lets get started: To understand the first concept we have to understand what these two societies are and what they stand for. The empire is nothing more than a modern day nation complete with republic origins, a senate (although it is useless at this point), trade agreements etc... The imperium however is something entirely foreign, a completely autocratic centrally controlled fasist/communist clusterf**k that has been warped and twisted over generations of war. Did i say generations? whoops i meant Millenia as in thousands of years of constant warfare.

The ability to wage effective war is the ability of a nation to commit itself to a cause, especially one fought on foreign soil. The mongles, the nazis and the the Macedonians are all excellent examples of this. In modern times this factor breaks down to two questions, How long can your economy stand being on a war footing? and how strong is your political will? Well considering that the empire is based on a generally capitalist model the first factor is a serious issue. A capitalist economy is capable of short intense bursts of war production that can be very impressive but over the long term can cripple its host. Take the British empire after WWI.

The imperium on the other hand has been at war for thousands of years, its clearly capable of going on forever.

Another issue with societies such as the empire is that its capable of only limited unpopular action. What does this mean? take America in the Vietnam war, clearly America could have won if it gave everything it got, but its people decided the it simply wasn't worth the cost. The empire is crumbling from rebels even without the added stress of committing your people to a foreign war against an unrelenting opponent.

The Imperium however frequently goes on vast crusades far from friendly stars, clearly its capable of maintaining an iron hard will even in the direst of times.

Second point(swear it shorter than the first)

The empire just got out of a civil war in which its armies and navies got a lot of experience right? nope all the jedi who were functioning as generals were killed, the clones replaced and any other minor war since (huts) has ben just that: minor. We can see this from the absolutely awful tactical decisions the empire makes on a constant basis: endor both in the sky and on the ground, hoth( Im sorry, those plains were flat ice no need for walkers, send in some tanks you morons.). Even the death star as a strategic weapon is moronic, but more on that later.

Now lets look at the Imperium: did I mention the Millenia of constant war? I did? well how about the fact that many generals and admirals live for hundereds of years? Oh and do these generals fight like the same enemy over and over again? no they are constantly pitted again new and horrible foes that they have to adapt to. An imperil admiral would read and react to a situation so much faster than a moff the empire's forces would be dust long before the leadership even understood what was happening. Does anyone honestly think that in the chaos of two totally alien forces engaging in massive interstellar warfare that the empire would be the ones to grasp the situation before the guys that have been doing just that for centuries?

I shouldn't have to stress the value of leadership; take alexander, Ghengis Khan, Julius Caesar Hannibal, etc/. All these people have triumphed over poor odds thanks to tactical brilliance.

Third point: I don't know where but somewhere someone said the Empire had more industry. It doesn't but i'll tell you what it does have: showmanship.
Ah the death star, the most useless hunk of space junk ever made. Aside from the fact that a hundred ton asteroid directed by chemical rockets would do the exact same job, the whole thing is mostly hollow (giant pits everywhere anyone?). This is because the empire likes to impress, and the death star is certainly that, but don't think for a second that makes the empire an industrial force. After all the ancient Egyptians made the pyramids and those are still the biggest buildings we've ever made.

No the death star is in many ways like storm trooper armour, impressive and intimidation, but not very useful. This actually follows the whole incompetent money grubbing ethos of the empire. There like a puffer fish, their bark is far bigger than their bite. Conceivably the Imperium could make a death star. But why? they have extermitus ships, all a death star is is a big slow target. We never see massive industrial plants in starwars. And remember space is full of iron and nickel, a big metal globe isn't exactly a leap of engineering. You see the imperium fights real enemies all the time. The empire usually fights internal ones, their whole war machine is different. Its like the soviets flying the same bomber squadron over the sky over and over again.To anyone with a sense for history or politics its clear that the empire is incompetent and exaggerated. I mean they were overwhelmed by rebels in a pitched battle, REBELS! if you understood history you'd know that that only ever happens when the military in charge is absolutely useless.

As for the imperial industry, well they have hundreds of forge worlds, and are capable of floating a navy an order of magnitude larger than the empire's, but more on that latter.

This ones a bit of a minor point but its a specific counter the one one thing that the empire has going for it: faster strategic speed. The warp drive is undoubtable inferior to hyperspace. But how long would it take for the imperium to copy the tech? Remember the imperium spends most of its tech time reverse engineering stuff from the dark age, they have a lot of experience. Also hyperspace drives are way more common than a geller field, i mean a god damn X wing can have one. Are you telling me the Imperium cant capture a single hyperspace drive? I mean its clearly better, id think the Imperium would simply go bananas trying to copy that piece of sweat tech.

Finally and this is the kicker: numbers. Shear numbers.

I think general consensus is that empire ships are slightly better than Imperium. Fine. I personally disagree but fine. In the end it doesn't matter one bit. Lets crunch number shall we? The empire (according to wookiepedia) had 25000 destroyers at its peak. And during the clone wars there was around 5 million guys (again wookiepedia) in the clone army. (im using clones because lets face it, storm troopers are hot garbage in plastic.)

The imperium has, i quote: untold billion of guardsmen equipped with vastly superior weapons. As for the navy well according to the rule book there are between 50-75 capital ships per sector in the Imperium, there are around 10000 sectors, do the math. Were talking about a navy an order of magnitude larger than the empire's. A population an order of magnitude bigger an industrial capacity a order of magnitude bigger. a military war machine an order of magnitude bigger.

The empire hasn't a snowflakes chance in hell if the Imperium could devote its entire military might against it. And I refuse to consider any other scenario, "oh but what about the Imperium being so tied down with all its enemies?" some dweeb says, Fine... sure i mean i would beat mike tyson if twenty people would hold him down for me. A hero is only as great as his enemy, comparing the empire's to the impeiums? no contest.

Alright then, I think we've established that the Imperium beats the Empire. In fact their victory just got even easier with Disney retconning the EU and most of the super weapons.

What I'm interested in now is how does the Empire match up against the other 40k races? Generally, I'm of the opinion they don't do well.

Tyranids- I shouldn't need to explain this one. The Empire might keep their mobility, but in any battle the nids have far too many numbers, and they'll just get more numerous. On the Hilarious side, if they attacked the empire we'd actually get to see the stormtroopers hit something (too many nids for them not too).

Necrons- Empire is horribly beaten. Necron ground forces are incredibly superior, their fleet is established as generally being better than the Imperiums, and if they feel the need they can build they own death star thingy. Also, Necrons have all their fancy tech and no force sensitivity whatsoever.

Eldar- The Empire could actually win a pitched fight, but catching the Eldar is going to be the trick here. I honestly have no idea what the Eldar would want with the Empire though, so they'd probably just ignore them.

Dark Eldar- Yeah. The Star wars universe is in for one awfully unpleasant time. In fact, the sheer vulnerability of SW may well cause the dark Eldar to group up just to do their thing on an galactic scale.

Ork- The Empire stands a fighting chance in space, but Orks win on the ground. Add their numbers, the spores (and the face that no one in Star Wars knows what to do about them) and that their is an enitre galaxy (allowing all the Ork bosses to do their own thing without bumping into each other). I would say this one either ends with Ork victory or the Empire consistently fighting Orks just about everywhere.

Chaos- Daemons. Star Wars has no knowledge of the daemons (an even then, we know the best anti-daemon weapons a blades/fire. star wars is generally all various lasers). As soon as Chaos bothers to sneeze in the Empires direction, everyone goes mad as warp storms appear everywhere. Chaos wins, everyone else dies, the end.

Tau- this is the interesting one. The Tau have far superior infantry, more elite specialized/auxiliary units (battle-suits, kroot etc.), so I think we can chalk them as winning any ground battles. However, I have no knowledge about Tau battleships, beyond the fact that they use a method of warp travel considered slow even by the Imperium, so Empire gets a huge maneuverability bonus. Still I can't call a verdict without knowing the Tau's Naval Capabilities. Also, it would be interesting to see how the Tau/Empire react to one another, either diplomatically or violently.

I'm more than happy to discuss my opinions if any of you think these matchups would turn out differently

 Sir Arun wrote:

Warboss Gorhack wrote:
This has been done to death in other threads. Not sure why you want to dredge it up yet again. Do some searching and you'll find a mix of thoughtful analysis and rampant fanboyism.

I am curious why you want to delete the iconic IOM troop type, the one that defines the 40k genre, from your scenario.

Because bringing in Astartes would completely tip the scales in favor of IoM, and I'm pretty sure past threads had included them. Lorewise an unarmed Astartes can take on 100 guardsmen. A fully armed squad can make short work of anyone, even Jedi. If you remember the order 66 scene in Episode III, there was this one Jedi who started getting shot at by Stormtroopers and he could only use his light sabre to deflect the first couple of shots before they went past him and killed him, so I doubt they could deflect bolter rounds as easily. The only time Jedi in the movies had an easy time deflecting shots was against droids (Episode II) but even then they took a lot of casualties. The presence of shielded destroyer droids could easily force a Jedi even the likes of Obi-Wan into retreat, so it doesnt take much concentrated firepower to bring them down.

Then IoM wins cause you know there would 100% be marines in any sort of large scale conflict like that. If they have the death stars those are like world engines sort of, so you could easily expect a few companies there.

Thread over.

I would think the empire would beat the Tau because the Tau have no clearly defined navy (since they simply lack the time and industrial might to produce one). Without the ability to move supplies the empire would be able to blockade them to death.

As for the orks, well that's tricky. The orks are rarely organized long enough to mount a successful conquest beyond a string of worlds. This means the orks are most certainly incapable of wiping the empire out in one blow. Which is significant when you consider that the empire advances technologically where the orks do not. This means that unless a 40k force has the ability to wipe them out in a century or two, the empire will adapt and overcome.

Eldar, The eldar have the best tech in the game (aside from possibly the necrons; who the eldar mainly fight with wraith bone, a weapon specifically designed to kill necrons.). This one comes down to numbers in my opinion... how may craft worlds attack? I'd say that any more than a hundred would shred the empire.

Mudrat wrote:
Alright then, I think we've established that the Imperium beats the Empire. In fact their victory just got even easier with Disney retconning the EU and most of the super weapons.

What I'm interested in now is how does the Empire match up against the other 40k races? Generally, I'm of the opinion they don't do well.

Tyranids- I shouldn't need to explain this one. The Empire might keep their mobility, but in any battle the nids have far too many numbers, and they'll just get more numerous. On the Hilarious side, if they attacked the empire we'd actually get to see the stormtroopers hit something (too many nids for them not too).

Necrons- Empire is horribly beaten. Necron ground forces are incredibly superior, their fleet is established as generally being better than the Imperiums, and if they feel the need they can build they own death star thingy. Also, Necrons have all their fancy tech and no force sensitivity whatsoever.

Eldar- The Empire could actually win a pitched fight, but catching the Eldar is going to be the trick here. I honestly have no idea what the Eldar would want with the Empire though, so they'd probably just ignore them.

Dark Eldar- Yeah. The Star wars universe is in for one awfully unpleasant time. In fact, the sheer vulnerability of SW may well cause the dark Eldar to group up just to do their thing on an galactic scale.

Ork- The Empire stands a fighting chance in space, but Orks win on the ground. Add their numbers, the spores (and the face that no one in Star Wars knows what to do about them) and that their is an enitre galaxy (allowing all the Ork bosses to do their own thing without bumping into each other). I would say this one either ends with Ork victory or the Empire consistently fighting Orks just about everywhere.

Chaos- Daemons. Star Wars has no knowledge of the daemons (an even then, we know the best anti-daemon weapons a blades/fire. star wars is generally all various lasers). As soon as Chaos bothers to sneeze in the Empires direction, everyone goes mad as warp storms appear everywhere. Chaos wins, everyone else dies, the end.

Tau- this is the interesting one. The Tau have far superior infantry, more elite specialized/auxiliary units (battle-suits, kroot etc.), so I think we can chalk them as winning any ground battles. However, I have no knowledge about Tau battleships, beyond the fact that they use a method of warp travel considered slow even by the Imperium, so Empire gets a huge maneuverability bonus. Still I can't call a verdict without knowing the Tau's Naval Capabilities. Also, it would be interesting to see how the Tau/Empire react to one another, either diplomatically or violently.

I'm more than happy to discuss my opinions if any of you think these matchups would turn out differently

Exalted.

I stopped reading http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/671762.page halfway through but I was under the impression that the empire wins in space while IoM wins on the ground. In the end I don't really think that would matter. Assuming space logistics (warp travel) isn't a factor then the sheer scale of the IoM warmachine is such that they'll overwhelm most other sci-fi universes militaries. Star wars included.

I can see tau being the only ones to straight up lose because they're the only ones who doesn't have an all war based society. Except for the minor races of course (Kroot, Hrud etc).

Tau wouldn't get wiped out immediately- when it comes to ton-to-ton firepower they still exceed the Galactic Empire like the Imperium. But they're restricted to an area small than Hutt Space, and would eventually just get drowned in bodies and numbers- especially when the Galactic Empire doesn't have any existential threats, and an expansionist empire would justify Palpatine's reign.

Actually, the Empire against Nids isn't as one sided as you think if space is taken into account.

All the empire would need to know is the right targets to aim at (the one housing the nord queen), in which case they could just ship the deathstar/star killer base in every time that would be required, then let the fleet clean up as the other nid ships start turning on each other and become disjointed.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Actually, the Empire against Nids isn't as one sided as you think if space is taken into account.

All the empire would need to know is the right targets to aim at (the one housing the nord queen), in which case they could just ship the deathstar/star killer base in every time that would be required, then let the fleet clean up as the other nid ships start turning on each other and become disjointed.

Kind of hard to do that when its swarms of them. The Tyranid infestation would spread quickly and fast and would be hard to see coming.

Even if the empire kills off a nord queen. There is always another one.

The problem with the tyranids is that they are survivalists. ITs like the flood from halo a single parasite could destroy a planet.

In the same manner the tyranid hive swarms will just devistate the deathstar and its defenses with something called. Tyranid Spores, and Genestealers.

A single person who has the genestealer strain could ruin everything, sometimes they don't even know they have it till it is faaarrrr tooo late. By then the parasite would take hold and the call of the swarm Hive Mind will cause the person to carry it out in secret.

Its happened on countless human worlds in 40k. Even the Tau, Orks have troubles against the nids.

 Asherian Command wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Actually, the Empire against Nids isn't as one sided as you think if space is taken into account.

All the empire would need to know is the right targets to aim at (the one housing the nord queen), in which case they could just ship the deathstar/star killer base in every time that would be required, then let the fleet clean up as the other nid ships start turning on each other and become disjointed.

Kind of hard to do that when its swarms of them. The Tyranid infestation would spread quickly and fast and would be hard to see coming.

Even if the empire kills off a nord queen. There is always another one.

The problem with the tyranids is that they are survivalists. ITs like the flood from halo a single parasite could destroy a planet.

In the same manner the tyranid hive swarms will just devistate the deathstar and its defenses with something called. Tyranid Spores, and Genestealers.

A single person who has the genestealer strain could ruin everything, sometimes they don't even know they have it till it is faaarrrr tooo late. By then the parasite would take hold and the call of the swarm Hive Mind will cause the person to carry it out in secret.

Its happened on countless human worlds in 40k. Even the Tau, Orks have troubles against the nids.

The death star can theoretically drop in, fire and leave though, advantage of a mobile super weapon.

Also, no, the fleets encountered tend to have only one nord queen within them, and as soon as that is taken out, there is a period of time where they are generally quite easy to take out before another can be generated.

Firing range as well, tyrannid spores would have to be within orbit range of the death star, and since it can travel, it shouldn't get into that problem.

I'll give you gene stealers, but if the death star is retreating far enough away from the general area the nids are coming from, it wouldn't be such an issue. Seriously, I'll give a space battle to the empire over nids any day, the other advantage of the death star being, it can destroy the planets in the kids path, starving them of biomass by the time they come to engage, weakening the kids significantly.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Actually, the Empire against Nids isn't as one sided as you think if space is taken into account.

All the empire would need to know is the right targets to aim at (the one housing the nord queen), in which case they could just ship the deathstar/star killer base in every time that would be required, then let the fleet clean up as the other nid ships start turning on each other and become disjointed.

Kind of hard to do that when its swarms of them. The Tyranid infestation would spread quickly and fast and would be hard to see coming.

Even if the empire kills off a nord queen. There is always another one.

The problem with the tyranids is that they are survivalists. ITs like the flood from halo a single parasite could destroy a planet.

In the same manner the tyranid hive swarms will just devistate the deathstar and its defenses with something called. Tyranid Spores, and Genestealers.

A single person who has the genestealer strain could ruin everything, sometimes they don't even know they have it till it is faaarrrr tooo late. By then the parasite would take hold and the call of the swarm Hive Mind will cause the person to carry it out in secret.

Its happened on countless human worlds in 40k. Even the Tau, Orks have troubles against the nids.

The death star can theoretically drop in, fire and leave though, advantage of a mobile super weapon.

Also, no, the fleets encountered tend to have only one nord queen within them, and as soon as that is taken out, there is a period of time where they are generally quite easy to take out before another can be generated.

Firing range as well, tyrannid spores would have to be within orbit range of the death star, and since it can travel, it shouldn't get into that problem.

I'll give you gene stealers, but if the death star is retreating far enough away from the general area the nids are coming from, it wouldn't be such an issue. Seriously, I'll give a space battle to the empire over nids any day, the other advantage of the death star being, it can destroy the planets in the kids path, starving them of biomass by the time they come to engage, weakening the kids significantly.

Does the deathstar even move?

I mean you are making it out that the tyranids have no tactics and are just dumb beasts.

Don't confuse orks with tyranids or vice versa.

Tyranids are quite intelligent and have been known to outsmart even imperial admirals and generals.

Also finding a nord queen is going to be quite hard, as the space battles are where most of the problems will arise.

Also interesting fact:

Upon the extinction of the class of xeno-form known as a Norn Queen, a psycho-temporal event approaching level Gamma 12 is generated – a level sufficient to temporarily obscure the light of the Astronomican. It is believed that this phenomenon represents the 'death knell' of said xeno-form, and that its purpose is to trigger those bio-vessels that intercept the signal to calve. This has been dubbed the 'Hydra effect', for, upon the death of one Norn Queen, a number of others are calved and thus the advance of the Tyranids is merely slowed, not stalled.

I mean yeah you could blow it up with a deathstar.

But there is only 1 deathstar, and cannot in anyway respond to EVERY single occurence.

The deathstar has to move to attack Yavin 4, it's a bit of a useless super weapon if it can't move to acquire new targets.

I'm not assuming nids are stupid, they aren't as fast as hyper space though, and they can't jump in and out of the warp at a whim like a hyperspace capable vessel.

Lastly, that's what is assumed to happen, it doesn't mean it does happen. Another assumption you are making is that there is only EVER one death star, I see no reason to why more cannot be created if the need required it?

And well, if one death star won't do the job, star killer base will, as that can nuke all the big nasties in a nid fleet in one shot.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
The deathstar has to move to attack Yavin 4, it's a bit of a useless super weapon if it can't move to acquire new targets.

I'm not assuming nids are stupid, they aren't as fast as hyper space though, and they can't jump in and out of the warp at a whim like a hyperspace capable vessel.

Lastly, that's what is assumed to happen, it doesn't mean it does happen. Another assumption you are making is that there is only EVER one death star, I see no reason to why more cannot be created if the need required it?

And well, if one death star won't do the job, star killer base will, as that can nuke all the big nasties in a nid fleet in one shot.

They barely could afford it. There were only ever two for a great reason IE it is expensive to build those things. The nids don't care about expense.

The imperium has millions of worlds. Where the Empire barely has any thing at the sheer scale the imperium does.

The Empire has resources that are fairly limited, and even then a single deathstar or a dozen of them would only deplete their resources to the point of hilarity.

There aren't enough resources, manpower, commanders, and people to build the deathstars in the star wars universe.

It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

Resources suggest that there are enough to build such weapons in the SW universe, so there's no reason whilst more couldn't be built.

And within the imperium, the resources to build such weapons could be endless.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

Resources suggest that there are enough to build such weapons in the SW universe, so there's no reason whilst more couldn't be built.

And within the imperium, the resources to build such weapons could be endless.

Uhm.. three years to build the Death Star? Where did you get that. Based just on the fact that it was being constructed at the end of Revenge of the Sith but wasn't put into full operational use until ANH.. kinda negates that argument mate.

And I've seen no source anywhere that says it takes 100 years to build an Imperial Cruiser.

 Chapter Master Angelos wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

Resources suggest that there are enough to build such weapons in the SW universe, so there's no reason whilst more couldn't be built.

And within the imperium, the resources to build such weapons could be endless.

Uhm.. three years to build the Death Star? Where did you get that. Based just on the fact that it was being constructed at the end of Revenge of the Sith but wasn't put into full operational use until ANH.. kinda negates that argument mate.

And I've seen no source anywhere that says it takes 100 years to build an Imperial Cruiser.

Well that is a reference to an FFG lore discussion which is noncanon compared to the actual lore where it states that a light cruiser could take weeks or months to build on an imperial hive world.

Battleships don't take as long as it would be ridiclious if it would take more than a hundred years. Otherwise the imperial navy would of gone extinct a long time ago. Plus it didn't say "Only one at a time"

It is probably in the dozens or even hundreds.

The only reason why they take so long is finding people to pilot them and maintain them. Which takes time and resources. The imperium has alot of infantry, but its voidmen are alot harder to come by than the average guardsmen.

That and also most imperial ships are built to last, and very few things can actually destroy an imperial naval batttleship or a cruiser. most often lighter craft is destroyed but they are fairly easy to replace compared a 8km ship. Which takes a lot of resources and management.

The Imperial Navy is not to be trifled with the only time it has had trouble was during the gothic war.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

That is not true. Imperial Cruisers are designed to be able to be built very quickly and in huge numbers. They can even be built without dedicated spaceship building industry. For example the cruiser Lord Daros was built on a feral world in a period of just 11 years.
It always surprises me how little many people know about the Imperial Navy and space warfare in 40k. Does no one ever bother to read through all of the Battlefleet Gothic stuff?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

That is not true. Imperial Cruisers are designed to be able to be built very quickly and in huge numbers. They can even be built without dedicated spaceship building industry. For example the cruiser Lord Daros was built on a feral world in a period of just 11 years.
It always surprises me how little many people know about the Imperial Navy and space warfare in 40k. Does no one ever bother to read through all of the Battlefleet Gothic stuff?

Very few have.

I have read parts of it, but I have never owned a copy of it.

I know enough to get by and to say "Nova Cannons are awesome."

 Iron_Captain wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

That is not true. Imperial Cruisers are designed to be able to be built very quickly and in huge numbers. They can even be built without dedicated spaceship building industry. For example the cruiser Lord Daros was built on a feral world in a period of just 11 years.
It always surprises me how little many people know about the Imperial Navy and space warfare in 40k. Does no one ever bother to read through all of the Battlefleet Gothic stuff?

People always think that because they have this wierd mindset of the Imperium of Man = stereotypical view of Christianity during the Dark Ages.

I think that most posters here are too hung up on straight up fights and are ignoring the realities of theatre vs theatre conflicts. Both sides are capable of exterminatus level attacks, and both sides have substantive industrial capacity. However, when looking at the entire galactic theatre: Since the galaxy is made up of mostly empty space (which needs to be mapped and traversed) IoM vs the Empire comes down to two things.

Response and deployment speed.
Information gathering / Recon of enemy space.

IMHO, the Empire has advantages in all of the above. The IoM's standard doctrine is to send out an Explorator fleet into unknown areas and return in force should it encounter any concerted resistance. Belligerent first contact would go either one of two ways:

1. The Empire's patrol group successfully runs away and the Empire musters a substantive response resulting in the destruction of the Explorator Fleet.
2. They would be destroyed, and the Empire would DEFINITELY muster the first response (due to faster muster time, despite having less overall fleet strength), resulting the destruction of the Explorator Fleet while it is picking over the wreckage of the patrol ships.

Intelligence gathered from First Contact would inform all subsequent engagements. The galaxy is vast and each side has many uninhabited and unpatrolled areas, so the first side to map the enemy territory gets a tremendous advantage as it is clear in both the lore for Star Wars and 40k that it is impossible for each side to guard all their territory at the same time. IMHO, Holy Terra could be easily destroyed once located by dropping a suitably large object, (like a moon with hyperdrives attached) out of hyperspace in the atmosphere (we're talking in the 10^18 Terraton Range, which is substantively more powerful than any documented 40k weapon). Moons are plentiful, and I'm sure they can make a relativistic moon missile in a fraction of the time needed to build a Death Star) Sure the Empire has less ship-to-ship firepower (the magnitude that it is less is arguable, due to how inconsistent GW canon is) and possibly less industrial capacity... but it has ENOUGH.

IoM can not put up any resistance once the astronomicon is gone, and as its worlds are dedicated farming/forge/fortress/hive worlds, without the supply routes and astropath communications, many of its strategically important worlds will basically starve.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
It takes 100 years to build an imperial cruiser in 40k.

It takes 3 years to build a death star, and 30 years to build star killer base (if it indeed took all that time).

That is not true. Imperial Cruisers are designed to be able to be built very quickly and in huge numbers. They can even be built without dedicated spaceship building industry. For example the cruiser Lord Daros was built on a feral world in a period of just 11 years.
It always surprises me how little many people know about the Imperial Navy and space warfare in 40k. Does no one ever bother to read through all of the Battlefleet Gothic stuff?

People always think that because they have this wierd mindset of the Imperium of Man = stereotypical view of Christianity during the Dark Ages.

My god that by itself pisses me off when ever someone talks about crusades and has no idea what actually happened during the crusades. I always hear the christians during the dark ages were terrible. And then I point them to every other religious group.

The imperium of Man is quick assimilate new technology, but due to its sheer size its harder to see that happen. I mean look at the united states it takes years for it to get all of its states up to date technology.

 keezus wrote:
I think that most posters here are too hung up on straight up fights and are ignoring the realities of theatre vs theatre conflicts. Both sides are capable of exterminatus level attacks, and both sides have substantive industrial capacity. However, when looking at the entire galactic theatre: Since the galaxy is made up of mostly empty space (which needs to be mapped and traversed) IoM vs the Empire comes down to two things.

Response and deployment speed.
Information gathering / Recon of enemy space.

IMHO, the Empire has advantages in all of the above. The IoM's standard doctrine is to send out an Explorator fleet into unknown areas and return in force should it encounter any concerted resistance. Belligerent first contact would go either one of two ways:

1. The Empire's patrol group successfully runs away and the Empire musters a substantive response resulting in the destruction of the Explorator Fleet.
2. They would be destroyed, and the Empire would DEFINITELY muster the first response (due to faster muster time, despite having less overall fleet strength), resulting the destruction of the Explorator Fleet while it is picking over the wreckage of the patrol ships.

Intelligence gathered from First Contact would inform all subsequent engagements. The galaxy is vast and each side has many uninhabited and unpatrolled areas, so the first side to map the enemy territory gets a tremendous advantage as it is clear in both the lore for Star Wars and 40k that it is impossible for each side to guard all their territory at the same time. IMHO, Holy Terra could be easily destroyed once located by dropping a suitably large object, (like a moon with hyperdrives attached) out of hyperspace in the atmosphere (we're talking in the 10^18 Terraton Range, which is substantively more powerful than any documented 40k weapon). Moons are plentiful, and I'm sure they can make a relativistic moon missile in a fraction of the time needed to build a Death Star) Sure the Empire has less ship-to-ship firepower (the magnitude that it is less is arguable, due to how inconsistent GW canon is) and possibly less industrial capacity... but it has ENOUGH.

IoM can not put up any resistance once the astronomicon is gone, and as its worlds are dedicated farming/forge/fortress/hive worlds, without the supply routes and astropath communications, many of its strategically important worlds will basically starve.

And then you've also got the stupidity of people thinking factions will act completely out of character. The Galactic Empire will never use something like a hyperdrive missile by strapping a hyperdrive onto an asteroid- you're instilling competency to a faction that has none. If the Empire both knew how to do so and were capable, the Rebellion would have ended in a single night as a barrage of asteroids struck every planet known to be sympathetic to the Rebellion, there would be no need for a Death Star or Tarkin Doctrine. But of course if you can provide a list of all the times the Galactic Empire used this tactic, and the planets it has destroyed, that would be wonderful.

Oh yeah, and Hyperspace doesn't preserve velocity. An object coming out of hyperspace is not in fact moving at lightspeed, or anywhere near it. Not to mention that an object striking something at lightspeed wouldn't actually do anything- because it would be mass-less.

If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient. And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient. And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

Sounds like something that Orks would do

A reason to post this



~GWs actual response to why you shouldn't just drop a moon on your enemies~

 dusara217 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient. And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

Sounds like something that Orks would do

It is something they do. They call it a "Rok"
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rok

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient. And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

Sounds like something that Orks would do

It is something they do. They call it a "Rok"
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rok

The IOM of man does it!! Caliban...

The Dark Angels fly around in whats left of their planet for goodness sake!

IOM is just so much bigger numbers wise its not a contest. The Empire is like some little rebellion in a back water of the Imperium in terms of scale.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient. And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

Plus the odds of it getting there is extremely hard, Instead of just sending in a contingent of ships to blast the fethers up is far more efficient and is more cost efficient.


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TheWanderer wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient. And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

Sounds like something that Orks would do

It is something they do. They call it a "Rok"
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rok

The IOM of man does it!! Caliban...

The Dark Angels fly around in whats left of their planet for goodness sake!

IOM is just so much bigger numbers wise its not a contest. The Empire is like some little rebellion in a back water of the Imperium in terms of scale.

Caliban also moves extremely slowly, hence why it has so many defenses to compensate for its low speeds.

Its hardly as efficient as a star fort, or a star base. Which excel and can vary in sizes from a fourteen times the size of a battleship to a small moon. Which can cause gravitational pulls because of how large they are.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ramilles_Class_Star-fort

The Ramilles class Star-fort is of ancient construction, made from STC data, it has been in use since the Great Crusade and still forms a vital lynch pin in Imperial strategy.[2]

The Ramilles is so large that it does not have conventional drives, and has to be towed through the warp by other vessels to relocate it. Each quadrant of the fort has masses of powerful weapons batteries and lances, and the central basilica houses many torpedo silos providing powerful salvoes to provide extra support to each quadrant.

There are four pairs of launch bays, one for each quadrant. They facilitate docking points to anything up to cruiser size to resupply and repair, even amidst the heat of battle; as Ramilles tend to only be deployed in massive engagements. So there is enough fire-power from the fort and other ships to ensure the repair crews are not disturbed during repair work. Only well known and successful admirals, or Inquisitors, are entrusted with a Ramilles, as they can take centuries to build.

It was designed by the hitherto unknown Artisan Magos Lian Ramillies from STC materials captured in the purgation of the 'Stone World' Ulthanx. Star Forts can be relocated through the Warp in a projected Gellar Field 'bubble', and though this is an extremely dangerous operation, each Star Fort thanks to their heavy armour, supply and repair facilities, and formidable defensive weaponry can strongly increase the operational capacity of Imperial fleets .[2]

It would be far more effective to convert a Ramilles Class to have at least sublight engines. But it might be easier to drag it with other ships.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If turning moons into ships was practical, both the Imperium and Empire would have done so a long time ago.

The Empire doesn't do it because its not reusable and a non-reusable planet buster isn't much of a terror weapon. The Imperium doesn't do it because destroying entire planets with a one-use weapon isn't an efficient use of their resources. In this case, if either side wanted to destroy a single planet with a non-interceptable relativistic munition, I can think of little else that would create that level of destruction for as little cost (time and money).

 Grey Templar wrote:
Using asteroids as guided bombs is actually woefully inefficient.

How is it inefficient? It only needs to destroy one thing. Who cares if it is not reusable.

 Grey Templar wrote:
And if you have the technology to do this reliably than you also probably have technology letting you build weapons which are just as good as an asteroid impact, but reusable and much less clunky to use.

Seriously? It's not like such a superweapon would be inaccurate either... All it needs is propulsion and astrogation.

At the highest levels, calcs place exterminatus weapons at the low 100's petaton yield. You need to bring said weapon into the star system past the enemy's defenses to bring them to bear. A normal asteroid strike is 0.1 petatons. A moon travelling at lightspeed has 6.6e39J energy. That's 1.5e15 petatons.

Also, let me know why it needs to be reusable when a single use weapon is sufficient to shatter the Imperium as a cohesive fighting force. The Empire would be outgunned at the start of such a fictional conflict, so time is of the essence. A hyperdrive equipped moon uses existing technology. Moving such a large object with hyperdrive is also not unprecedented. Is there some other less clunky but equally effective weapon that you suggest might be quickly developed from off the shelf parts, speedily built for immediate deployment (i.e. as soon as a hyperspace route to Terra is mapped)? If they are "fighting" (i.e. LOSING against) the Imperium, the Empire doesn't have 30 years to build Starkiller Base.