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Fat and content populations are loyal as long as they believe their prosperity is owed to you.

The problem with terror is that it becomes hatred and resentment, and people eventually forget about the terror part.

And I'm pretty sure Legions like the World Eaters and Night Lords being a constant hindrance to the Crusade is canon.

If you kill everyone on the planet there is no one left to be resentful.

Planets are valuable because their populations are valuable. An empty planet is a worthless rock.

 Tyran wrote:
Planets are valuable because their populations are valuable. An empty planet is a worthless rock.

Not if you have spires with billions of people living in them that you can relocate.

To bad the IoM cannot relocate them.

 Tyran wrote:
To bad the IoM cannot relocate them.

Says who?

The world from Dead Men Walking was a new hive world, with partially constructed hives, if I remember correctly, so they must be able to construct and populate such cities.

EDIT:Also, Armageddon was totally re-populated following Angron's invasion, so there you go...

Tyran wrote:To bad the IoM cannot relocate them.

Kayback wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
To bad the IoM cannot relocate them.

Says who?

Not GW; after all, Armageddon was repopulated after the 1st Battle for Armageddon, to replace the population exposed to Chaos. They managed to ship in enough replacements that 500 years later it was a heavily populated hive world again.

Fair enough, but repopulation multiple worlds is a waste of time at the scale the Great Crusade was working at.

It's been a while since I was completely up to speed with the lore, possibly 3rd or 4th edition. Most contact I've had recently has been the Horus Heresy, some older Black Library books like the Cain or Gaunt series and perusing the 8th rulebook.

I've seen a lot of conversion stuff recently about Chaos corrupted Tau. When did this start happening? Where can I read more about it?

Repopulating isn't that hard. In fact it doesn't even have to be particularly managed, as long as the great crusude era humanity can be said to follow rough commercial endeavours.
All the Imperium has to do is advertise a load of dirt cheap real estate, and people will come themselves.
Nobles will buy up provinces and industries with the intention of expanding or elevating their own standing.
The working classes will buy passage on commercial freighters to start a new life where the grass is greener.
Even if the planet's a shithole, no one can tell that from the poster and they probably can't afford a return journey once they get there. Perhaps give a hab block a familiar name like "Nova-Munda" so it sounds more familiar and homely to people of the planet you want to relocate.
Basically how America was colonised/settled depending on your outlook.

Don't forget humans are one thing the Imperium has in vast abundance to the point that they are almost worthless.

Don't forget hive cities can house billions of people and many of them are living lives basically like a machine - focusing on breeding, eating and working and not much else. If anything over-population is likely a greater risk on many Imperial worlds than underpopulation. So if a bunch of new worlds come up for residence the Imperium can likely ship vast numbers toward them. The main limiter would be food, trade networks and production of infrastructure.



Plus don't forget the Imperium views things in long time-scales. 50 years is as nothing to an Imperium that has lasted 10thousand years.

Kayback wrote:
It's been a while since I was completely up to speed with the lore, possibly 3rd or 4th edition. Most contact I've had recently has been the Horus Heresy, some older Black Library books like the Cain or Gaunt series and perusing the 8th rulebook.

I've seen a lot of conversion stuff recently about Chaos corrupted Tau. When did this start happening? Where can I read more about it?

Not so much Chaos Corrupted Tau as in "The Tau finally tried to use the Warp to travel and... then it got worse." If you've ever seen the movie Event Horizon, basically that happened, and all the Tau on the expedition became paranoid xenophobes after having to execute all their auxiliary's because turns out jumping into the warp without a Geller Field is going to give you a bad time.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fourth_Sphere_of_Expansion

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Kayback wrote:
It's been a while since I was completely up to speed with the lore, possibly 3rd or 4th edition. Most contact I've had recently has been the Horus Heresy, some older Black Library books like the Cain or Gaunt series and perusing the 8th rulebook.

I've seen a lot of conversion stuff recently about Chaos corrupted Tau. When did this start happening? Where can I read more about it?

Not so much Chaos Corrupted Tau as in "The Tau finally tried to use the Warp to travel and... then it got worse." If you've ever seen the movie Event Horizon, basically that happened, and all the Tau on the expedition became paranoid xenophobes after having to execute all their auxiliary's because turns out jumping into the warp without a Geller Field is going to give you a bad time.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fourth_Sphere_of_Expansion

Ta!

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Repopulating isn't that hard. In fact it doesn't even have to be particularly managed, as long as the great crusude era humanity can be said to follow rough commercial endeavours.
All the Imperium has to do is advertise a load of dirt cheap real estate, and people will come themselves.
Nobles will buy up provinces and industries with the intention of expanding or elevating their own standing.
The working classes will buy passage on commercial freighters to start a new life where the grass is greener.
Even if the planet's a shithole, no one can tell that from the poster and they probably can't afford a return journey once they get there. Perhaps give a hab block a familiar name like "Nova-Munda" so it sounds more familiar and homely to people of the planet you want to relocate.
Basically how America was colonised/settled depending on your outlook.

You don't need planets for that though, any rock will do. Space is the cheapest real state after all. Moon settlements, asteroid mining, orbital and space stations. Planets are not really worth fighting for if you can build that.

Why colonize another world when you can just build another spire? The math is not the same as with America's colonization, because the capabilities and needs are different. And that's why even ten thousands years later, plenty of worlds are nothing more than wild primitive ones with a few thousands to millions in population, while most of humanity is concentrated in the billions to trillions in a (relatively) handful of Hive Worlds. It is much cheaper to build another spire, either on the ground or on space (and honestly on space is cheaper), than to colonize another world.

Moreover, the Great Crusade was operating on a strict timetable, the whole thing lasted a few centuries after all. A world that needs repopulation is a world that is a net drain in the resources of a fledgling and quickly expanding IoM. An IoM that was yet to become the juggernaut that it would be ten millennia later, the Great Crusade needed the human resources of each world it conquered to keep the momentum needed conquer the next one, it couldn't afford getting bogged down repopulating worlds.

Have they given any explanation as to why almost every Xeno outside of Tyranids and a few Necron are humanoid? Head, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs.

Kayback wrote:
Have they given any explanation as to why almost every Xeno outside of Tyranids and a few Necron are humanoid? Head, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs.

offically, thier are plently of non-humanoid xenos races, we just havent seen much of them beyond a few cryptic references in the Deathwatch codexes or one-off fluff pieces.

Also, the Great Crusade was a full on Xenocide, killing everything it came across that wasnt human. the xenos in the galaxy at the moment are largely those that either escaped notice (ie the tau and their client races) or we widespread enough to not be completely wiped out (eldar, orks, etc).

out of universe, its more or less the same reason even modern sci-fi tends to prefer humaniod aliens: its easier for us viewers to understand and relate to humanlike creatures than to Lovecraftian horrors, and less work for the writers to fill in the surrounding background details if they dont have to worry about how having tentacles for arms would affect everything about the ergonomics of every. single. item. they interact with.

Kayback wrote:
Have they given any explanation as to why almost every Xeno outside of Tyranids and a few Necron are humanoid? Head, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs.

Eldar, Orks (Krork), Jokaero among others were engineered by the Old Ones:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Old_Ones

Primates on earth were too, but were left to develop without interference:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Human

I've always inferred that that the bipedal species in the galaxy were seeded by the old ones which would explain the similarities.

For the more recent species, such as Tau, convergent evolution seems a reasonable explanation.

Aash wrote:

Kayback wrote:
Have they given any explanation as to why almost every Xeno outside of Tyranids and a few Necron are humanoid? Head, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs.

Eldar, Orks (Krork), Jokaero among others were engineered by the Old Ones:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Old_Ones

Primates on earth were too, but were left to develop without interference:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Human

I've always inferred that that the bipedal species in the galaxy were seeded by the old ones which would explain the similarities.

For the more recent species, such as Tau, convergent evolution seems a reasonable explanation.

The galaxy has a whole lot of non-humanoid aliens, most of them just nameless background filler that don't even have a wiki entry. To see them you kinda just have to read 40k publications and hope to be lucky. No models to sell means no limelight.

One the weirdest to be named is probably Antedil. They're powerful psykers who look like thumbless seven fingered hands and live on gas giants. One of their small space ships is a utility item in the Blackstone Fortress.
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Antedil

How much of cultural rift is there between Ultramarines successors? Assuming Guilliman wanted to reforge the Ultramarines legion, would the Ultramarines successor chapters be culturally cohesive enough to actually manage working as a Legion once more?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
How much of cultural rift is there between Ultramarines successors? Assuming Guilliman wanted to reforge the Ultramarines legion, would the Ultramarines successor chapters be culturally cohesive enough to actually manage working as a Legion once more?

It depends on the successor - I would guess most Second & Third Founding chapters would be pretty close, with a few exceptions like the Mortifactors. The successors already work together to a certain extent - there's a group of Second Founding ones called the Primogenitors who work together, and the Patriarchs of Ulixis "are renowned for their exceptional bladework and marksmanship, to the point where their Veterans are often seconded to the Honour Guards of the Successor Chapters of the Ultramarines".

roboemperor wrote:

Part A: I just want to know if the chaos gods are gonna smite the deserter with spawndom or something or if they'll leave the deserter alone.
Part B: Same thing. I konw they can kill their chaos lord in a mutiny. But can they desert without repercussions from the gods themselves? Hunting parties can be taken care of with skillz. A god smiting you can't.

The thing with the Chaos Gods are that they don't particularly care about the mortal plain. 99% of their time is taken up in 'The Great Game' where they combat each other. It's often and heavily implied that this is the core reason why Chaos doesn't win; because it's Chaos and too internally opposed. On the few occasions they have, in a united manner, turned to the mortal universe they've been triumphant (example: Chaos won the Horus heresy. The imperium was crippled and the Emperor's ideologies of "kill everything not man" lasted to ensure eternal war, thus feeding the Chaos Gods).

To answer your questions. If someone abandons the Gods, it would depend how lucky they are. How important a servant they were. If they left in the moment one of the Gods was paying attention then yes, Spawndom or worse may befall them (Tzeentch might let them go for another day). If not that moment, a daemon may notice and enact the wrath of their patron. If not that moment, it might be another worshipper that steps in. It would really depend on luck, timing of your departure and your own success.

B: Most of the Chaos Gods don't care about their champions in that way. A mutiny would only prove the champion weak and unfit. If they had some favour, their patron may save them at the moment before death (as the Gods have done with Abaddon) or they may resurrect the champion.

Which SM Legions were the best at avoiding casualties due to their tactics and strategies?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Which SM Legions were the best at avoiding casualties due to their tactics and strategies?

The easy answers would be Emperor's Children and Ultramarines, just because of their focus on battle plans and group work. EC would be more free-form, relying on other brothers to account for any SNAFUs while executing the battle plan, while the Ultramarines would have redundancies upon redundancies to account for any and all said SNAFUs. One could argue the Raven Guard and White Scars hit and run focus would help minimise casualties too. Maybe the Lunar Wolves too because they were just so sunshine-out-of-butt sparkly amazing and first amongst equals.

This is all pre-Heresy though, once the Horus Humbug kicked off the EC quickly devolved.

The worst would be World Eaters and Death Guard, by far.

Are DG even worse than Iron Warriors?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Are DG even worse than Iron Warriors?

Iron Warriors do attrition, but they generally try and keep their own casualties low, they just don't factor in the attrition of the meatshields. Death Guard, even pre-Heresy, were 100% about tanking the hits themselves.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Which SM Legions were the best at avoiding casualties due to their tactics and strategies?

If you mean avoiding casualties to their own, then Alpha Legion without a doubt. Avoiding casualties in general, such as collateral damage/civilian casualties, then probably Ultramarines or Word Bearers since they were known for empire building and leaving places in a fairly good condition.

Aash wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Which SM Legions were the best at avoiding casualties due to their tactics and strategies?

If you mean avoiding casualties to their own, then Alpha Legion without a doubt. Avoiding casualties in general, such as collateral damage/civilian casualties, then probably Ultramarines or Word Bearers since they were known for empire building and leaving places in a fairly good condition.

Also in the "underhanded" category, with their terror tactics the Night Lords sometimes didn't have to fight at all to subdue a world. And when they did, they avoided fair fights, so I suppose their own casualties must have been relatively low. Civilian casualties, on the other hand...

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Are DG even worse than Iron Warriors?

Iron Warriors do attrition, but they generally try and keep their own casualties low, they just don't factor in the attrition of the meatshields. Death Guard, even pre-Heresy, were 100% about tanking the hits themselves.

Well at least the DG way is more respectable in that it's the Spacies themselves getting themselves shot at, not some poor conscripted man who was blown to bits as a decoy to figure out where the enemy artillery is. DG would have the courage to go and take on the artillery by themselves.

Courage and lack of brains, Mortarion is an idiot for treating his sons as disposable conscripts.