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To sell miniatures, silly.

The same point it's ALWAYS had.

Aircraft and space bombardments cannot hold territory or assets. They can help you take it, but to HOLD it, you need boots and asses on the ground.

Nuking from orbit is fine if you want to deny assets to the enemy, but if you want to keep it intact, you need to send the meatboys in.

IRL we have had enough nuclear weapons to kill everything on the planet multiple times. We have had this capability for decades. Only two nuclear bombs have ever been used in war, and that was in 1945. We have had lots of wars since then without nuclear weapons. Just saying.

Three words: rule of cool

 Malika2 wrote:
Three words: rule of cool

Rule of basic logic is better. And precludes glassing planets just because you can.
Pretty much every faction wants something from planets, so barring complete disasters like 'if we don't do something, its going to become a daemon world' glassing isn't on anyone's agenda.

In one of the star wars stories Moff tarkin was asked why the imperial forces didn't just use their star destroyers turbo lasers to destroy everything on a rebellious planet.

He said words to the effect of "The strength of an empire lies not in what it can destroy, but what it can control." (As I typed those words I actually heard them in peter cushing's voice, BTW. )

Now yes he stardusted Alderran but hey, that was just to see if his new toy worked and to let the audience know the empire was eeeevilllll. (Subtly was a rare item in the star wars universe.)

The imperium wants to control every human world and life in existence. It destroys worlds when it either can't control them or they pose a threat to the imperium's control of other worlds. Like a genestealer overrun world.

Plus I imagine most casualties sustained in ground action are IG, not space marines, and hey, the imperium always has more guardsmen, so maybe their causalities are a form of population control. Plus the survivors are tougher and more experienced. Good for the future's need for the best guardsmen possible.

See? Simple, really.

Its the same reason that Nukes haven't rendered other military forces obsolete in the real world.

You can't just deal with every military problem by blasting it with your Space Ships or Exterminatus'ing the place. That planet most likely has valuable stuff. Stuff like industry, a civilian population, natural resources, etc... Stuff that would be destroyed if you were to use the massively destructive weaponry on your space ships. In order to take those valuable things, that is what ground forces are for. Fortunately, the Imperium has an endless supply of warm bodies, unlike the ammunition for all of those space ship cannons.

Planets are really the most valuable resource the Imperium has. They need to be preserved whenever possible. Which means that defending or attacking one is always going to involve ground troops.

Of course, ground invasions will be supported by tactical support from the Imperial Navy, which would include limited orbital bombardment when possible.

Tygre wrote:
IRL we have had enough nuclear weapons to kill everything on the planet multiple times. We have had this capability for decades. Only two nuclear bombs have ever been used in war, and that was in 1945. We have had lots of wars since then without nuclear weapons. Just saying.

Not actually true. There has never been anywhere near enough, nor is there actually enough fissile material on this planet to make enough, nuclear weapons to destroy all life on Earth. The worst that could happen would be destruction of modern society as well as some environmental damage that would take a couple thousand years to resolve, though the environmental recovery that would occur due to modern society ceasing to exist would probably completely outweigh that in the grand scheme of things. Human's would also survive such an apocalypse since the nukes that exist/could exist are not numerous enough to actually eradicate humanity. There are simply too many people spread out across too much of the world for the approximately 14,000 nuclear weapons that exist to wipe us out. Enough to kill a few billion both directly and in the immediate aftermath of global collapse yes. Wipe us out? hell no.

The environmental damage caused by nuclear weapon detonations are also vastly overstated by Hollywood and the media in general. You'll notice that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fully inhabited today with no lasting environmental damage, and the bombs that were dropped on them were far dirtier than a modern nuclear bomb. A nuclear apocalypse would be an initial burst of death and destruction, but the blast sites would be completely safe after a couple months in terms of radiation danger. Even Chernobyl is no that bad, at least if you're thinking about extinction level's of nastyness. Wildlife thrives despite the radiation, little worse for wear beyond an higher rate of cancer and other mutations. Even human life would be mostly ok with that.

The reason why we still use soldiers instead of nukes is because we don't want to escalate. We'd rather sacrifice our soldiers and lose the war rather than use nukes to wipe out other humans.

But we're not talking about other humans. I'm pretty sure no human would give a damn about committing unspeakable unforgivable atrocities to orks.

----

So I get that IoM doesn't nuke their own planets because they want to keep their planets usable. That makes sense. But that's like only half of the battles. Imperium of man is the aggressor too in lots of cases, especially v.s. the Tau. So why didn't the IoM just exterminatus the entire Tau planets when they decided to wipe em out?

I guess the question should've been "what's the point of soldier combat" because shooting close range nukes just as easily renders soldier combat irrelevant.

We don't use close range nukes because nukes are an unforgivable atrocity and using it on another country will turn all other countries with nuclear capabilities against us until everyone is dead. Not because soldier combat has a use.

roboemperor wrote:
The reason why we still use soldiers instead of nukes is because we don't want to escalate. We'd rather sacrifice our soldiers and lose the war rather than use nukes to wipe out other humans.

But we're not talking about other humans. I'm pretty sure no human would give a damn about committing unspeakable unforgivable atrocities to orks.

Of course they don't mind about committing unspeakable atrocities to orks - that's just 'doing your job'. But that's not the problem here.

roboemperor wrote:

So I get that IoM doesn't nuke their own planets because they want to keep their planets usable. That makes sense. But that's like only half of the battles. Imperium of man is the aggressor too in lots of cases, especially v.s. the Tau. So why didn't the IoM just exterminatus the entire Tau planets when they decided to wipe em out?

They do, when it's required or absolutely necessary and when there is no other choice. See the wars against the tyranids, or plenty chaos risings.

But you forget the big picture - this is a last resort, akin to our 'we do not want to escalate'. It's not just that the imperium wants to keep its worlds, it wants their worlds too. And those worlds are not much use when turned into glass. Most of the imperials worlds were once inhabited by aliens - fake, for example, Armageddon. What did they do? Turn them to glass, or actually try to use the most afterwards?

Why would other worlds be any different. If they can potentially be of use, the imperials will use them.

vut this is only half the story. Planetary conquest isn't the only reason to strike at an enemy world. What happens when you want to rescue an important captive, or steal some viral bit of technology, or an ancient relic they have stolen and take to their world as a trophy? What happens when it's a recon operation and you just want to see what's going on? Nuking what you're after is not a very clever idea.

And beyond that - can they actually nuke the world? The imperials aren't the only ones out there with orbital defences and giant solos etc.

roboemperor wrote:

I guess the question should've been "what's the point of soldier combat" because shooting close range nukes just as easily renders soldier combat irrelevant.
We don't use close range nukes because nukes are an unforgivable atrocity and using it on another country will turn all other countries with nuclear capabilities against us until everyone is dead. Not because soldier combat has a use.

And yet soldier combat has uses, far more than nukes, which is why the humble infantry grunt is still such a hugely vital cog in any military's arsenal.


You know, ww1 taught lots of generals that trench warfare was the thing, and that cavalry was a silly idea when machine guns were a thing. And yet, after ww1, there were still lots of manuals written and operations/strategies developed that used, and relied on cavalry. It's not because they were idiots. It's because Trench warfare didn't make horses obselete in many other areas and so, they were used.

Now, Who says they don't use tactical nukes when appropriate?

Nukes are not the answer to every tactical challenge and yes, you do need boots on the ground for the many, many things that nukes are not appropriate for. Nukes still won't take and hold a city. Nukes won't rescue the captive. Nukes don't do recon for you. Nukes can't man a checkpoint. Nukes can't go room to room. Nukes cause lots of long term consequences after the war - you know, radiation, making the area uninhabitable etc.

Also, nukes are expensive. As are the means of deploying them. Especially if we are flinging them around like confetti, as you suggest. And for that price,I can train and equip a hell of a lot of guardsmen.

And tell me, if we have millions of nukes, what happens if some 'go missing'. I'm sure there's a few ratlingsout there who know a guy who knows a guy who might pay a few imperials for the nukes - he's got a few spikes and flayed skins on his belt, and he's covered in blood but his money's good. What harm could possibly come from selling him one or two nukes on the black market? guardsmen, on the other hand are far more easily replaceable.

Shrug, and lots more reasons.

roboemperor wrote:

But we're not talking about other humans. I'm pretty sure no human would give a damn about committing unspeakable unforgivable atrocities to orks.

----

So I get that IoM doesn't nuke their own planets because they want to keep their planets usable. That makes sense. But that's like only half of the battles. Imperium of man is the aggressor too in lots of cases, especially v.s. the Tau. So why didn't the IoM just exterminatus the entire Tau planets when they decided to wipe em out?.

The Imperium doesn't care about Xenos - but they do care about food production, mineral extraction, use of facilities and staging grounds. If you nuke a planet into oblivion then all the surface areas (all that rich food producing soil) is wasted. The atmosphere is polluted and unbreathable. Now if you want minerals or a staging ground to push your invasion further you've got to invest VAST amounts of resources in building sealed habitats and shipping in air, water, food, materials long before you can make any local resource extraction. This is on top of conducting a war and wanting to push the front line further forward.


Your attitude is abit like a player at the end of a 4X game when you've got planetary destructive weapons and you're the biggest fish in the game. You can blast worlds apart because you don't need any more. You are out producing all the other races so you're just mopping up by going around the game board destroying things. That works because you're in a position of ultimate superiority. You dont' need those worlds; the enemy isn't able to rise up against you so you can destroy without any holdback.

However the Imperium is no where near there. They DO need those worlds. They need them as staging grounds; local control hubs; resource centres; production; food; humans (yes they've billions upon trillions but thye still need more to be bred and raised). Their opponents can rise up against them; they can conquer them.






Also dont' forget, even in the Tau empire, there are many worlds settled with humans with human habitation. The Imperium would rather capture those people and settlements and use them for their own ends. Rather than obliterate the lot. Remember Exterminatus isn't just cleaning the planet of xenos; its stripping the atmopshere and upper layers of soil and minerals; destroying habitation options.

Good points.

But I just can't help but feel when I see a space marine kicking ass, killing titans on his own, fighting chaos space marines who also felled titans on their own, that a nuke detonated in their vicinity would end both him, his rival, and his entire squad.

So why don't they? I'm looking at Necrons. Why aren't they WMD spam happy?

Orks & Tyranids are WMDs themselves so I get that.
IoM & Tau, I guess for further potential for expansion they would try to preserve the environment
Dark Eldar want slaves not property so it makes sense for them to not blast everything to nothing.

Eldar... Why aren't they nuking the gak out of every xenos that threatens them? They don't even need planets right? Everything is wraithbone craftworld.

Chaos actually does use nukes. 13th black crusade started with a planet cracker and then ended with a meteoric impact.

Necrons, what's their excuse?

Necrons are perhaps the only race that could use exterminatus style weapons and have a lore reason why they can use them and a justifiable reason for not caring if a planet can be lived on after by organic life. They have no vested interest in resources save for minerals and they've no real need to worry about irradiation or such.

I can only presume that the reason they don't is because they are the exterminatus weapon. An army of machines, built to destroy who can teleport out to repair and return to the battle forever. A neverending tide that just marches ever onward. They don't need a planet busting weapon, they are the weapon.

Also because they clean the world manually with gauss guns they are likely more effective than exterminatus - leaving no corner for tiny spores to hide and repopulate ork and tyranids and other xenos. No bunker to hide in against the bombs - no armoured and shielded facility.




Also Eldar do live on planets, the Exodites hold many worlds on the fringe. Craftworlders just left the planets because so many were corrupted and sucked into Chaos. Eldar just hasn't the numbers to go toe to toe with the Imperium and secure an empire for themselves. Even Tau are only managing because they are in the backwater corner of nowhere that the Imperium forgot about.

The same reason that carpet bombing didn't achieve much in Vietnam/Afghanistan etc. Bombing doesn't occupy/claim land/territory, it just destroys a lot of it, and makes people there hunker down and wait it out as best they can.

Boots on the ground are how wars are won.

The IoM have used a scorched earth policy against Tyranids, it was used to 'starve' the fleets, but was a very desperate measure, as it ultimately cost the IoM some planets that it may have salvaged from the Tyranids.

A lot of times the battle is about something you want on the plannet.

- Orks wanne fight. This also makes them stronger then killing a plannet from orbit.
- Nids want the food. And the DNA since they need DNA strands to CRISPR new genetic materials.
- Eldar usualy have backdoor aces to planets. They often wanne mess with future event by manipulating fate. Bombaring a planet might not be the best scalpel. In battle of mymnenia book they are looking for a lost phoenix lord.
- Dark eldar wants slaves for torture and work force.
- Imperial guard and SM often want to save the local population. Or old factories they can not copy.
- GSC wanne spread the dease, or throw of the oppresors. Infiltration might be better
- Daemons do not wanne manifest on a dead plannet.
- Chaos might wanne blow up a plannet.
- Necrons might wanne blow up a planet if they do not have realestate on it.
- Tau might wanne blow up a plannet, but liberating it is usually better.
- A lot of loyal forces might not have the authoraty to blow up a plannet, or get in trouble for doing it.

A lot of armies want to recover some form of relic.

That being said, a lot of plannets gets blown up.

roboemperor wrote:
Good points.

But I just can't help but feel when I see a space marine kicking ass, killing titans on his own, fighting chaos space marines who also felled titans on their own, that a nuke detonated in their vicinity would end both him, his rival, and his entire squad.

Better people than you and me have tried this with far nastier things than just nukes and failed. take istvaan iii during the Horus heresy. Horus almost literally turned the world to goop with the life's eater virus and then set the whole thing on fire. Most of the marines who were planetside survived. They found whatever shelter they could, went underground, shut doors, etc and just waited it out.

Besides, your assuming you're able to launch a nuke in the first place. What's actually going to happen is While your targeting one squad with your nukes, the other nine squads in the company are seizing your silo.

roboemperor wrote:


So why don't they? I'm looking at Necrons. Why aren't they WMD spam happy?

Eldar... Why aren't they nuking the gak out of every xenos that threatens them? They don't even need planets right? Everything is wraithbone craftworld.

Chaos actually does use nukes. 13th black crusade started with a planet cracker and then ended with a meteoric impact.

Necrons, what's their excuse?

You wake up and there's loads of cockroaches in your house. Do you (a) burn it down, or (b) get the exterminator in?

Just because they hate life doesn't no mean the necrons will be wmd happy - who knows, maybe they like pretty sunsets on planets other than irradiated rocks. In any case, they're reclaiming their old worlds. Chances are they want to maintain them in some manner akin to what they envision they used to be.

As to eldar - maybe they can't? Firstly, There's so many threats, and so few eldar. Plus, they are limited in how they can travel since the web way is so fragmented.

They need planets, they have planets (see exodites) and biel tan in particular is notably fierce in protecting what they regard as their maiden worlds, as they have not yet given up the idea of rebuilding their empire. Plus, nuking all the nature kind of goes against the 'elf' source material. They'd probably see it a shame and terribly wasteful, and frankly, beneath them.

As to chaos - sure, they use nukes, where necessary. Like the imperials. They also make extensive use of ground forces. They're less interested in seizing ground rather than, say exterminating the emperors lapdogs, but they still need resources, munitions, recruits etc. Plus, look at their psychology. Nurgle worshippers and their love of dirty war would be the most likely to use nukes, and even then it's for the rads, not the initial blast. Black legion? Sure, but they have far more plans. khorne - you can't claim skulls properly with nukes. You need a chainaxe. Slaanesh? Again, they like the more intricate kind of murder. Nukes are boring and for brutes. Tzeentch? Mortals are far more interesting to toy with than nukes. World bearers? You need people to fuel your demons. Nukes are a very bad idea. Night lords? Prefer to inflict fear and terror, nukes are too quick. Alpha legion. Yeah, they'd use them, but like the black legion, have far bigger plans.

Eldar... Why aren't they nuking the gak out of every xenos that threatens them? They don't even need planets right? Everything is wraithbone craftworld. 

Depends what they're fighting for.
The most militaristic craftworlds tend to be fighting to protect the 'maiden worlds' - uninhabited worlds terraformed by the eldar that they resent other races using.

They're basically fighting what they see as a vermin investigation in their perfectly manicured garden: carpet bombing with napalm would get rid of the mon-keigh but it's kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face....

Other eldar are often trying to cause some subtle manipulation of destiny - kill this individual, cause that one to rise to a leadership position, that sort of thing. Again, exterminatus is a bit ill-suited to that sort of plan.

Necrons also really don't want to be robot skeletons - or at least the ones that haven't gone crazy and became Destroyers or contracted the Flayer Virus. How are they meant to undo their biotransference if all life in the galaxy has been completely annhilated and all planets are left entirely uninhabitable to everything that isn't artifical life?

That and some necron lords and the like still think they're Necrontyr back in their civil war times- such as Zahndrekh. Doesn't make much sense to try and destroy your own people and planets (even if said 'people' are actually orks, and the planet you thought was Sephrokh-011 is actually some planet on the far reaches of the galaxy that the Necrontyr never settled).

It could be that Eldar and Necrons don’t want to feed all the poor souls on the planet to Chaos. Which is where a bunch of them are probably going to end up.

1) Almost any excuse for a war all boils down to one guy wanting to take the other guy's stuff.
2) Sometimes the victim then gets the idea "If I cannot have my stuff, then no-one can!"
3) Sometimes the offender gets the idea "If I cannot take his stuff, then he cant have it!"
4) Sometimes the offender just wants to hurt the defender really bad and is willing to destroy some of the stuff he wants to take.


All ground wars are the process of point #1.
The bombardments, virus bombs, exterminatus and nukes or whatever is all part of #2 and #3.

Funny you mention the Tyranids as munitions: they just want to eat the enemy and harvest bio-mass: what is the point of blowing them up??

If you've ever played something like Stellaris then the answer should be apparent. You can't really capture a planet without winning the war on the ground. Space combat is a extremly important factor but those spaceships are produced by the people on the planets. Or at the very least planetary production is part of a production chain of ultimate military superiority. Capturing the production chain, not just annihalating it, requires ground forces.

 Nerak wrote:
If you've ever played something like Stellaris then the answer should be apparent. You can't really capture a planet without winning the war on the ground. Space combat is a extremly important factor but those spaceships are produced by the people on the planets. Or at the very least planetary production is part of a production chain of ultimate military superiority. Capturing the production chain, not just annihalating it, requires ground forces.

And once you've got the planet and you've populated it (or subjugated the population) you've now got a new world. Generating wealth, resources and potentially ships and infantry to further the war. This after spending large amounts of resources (influence to capture; materials for the fleet; credits for the upkeep of it all) to gain the planet. It's far more valuable to own it and make a profit and use it as a new staging ground to push further into the enemy. Against a strong opponent you might have to fight and war world to world in a slow advance.

Plus it means if the other end of the empire gets attacked you can leave the system with its defensive battlestation and fly off to tackle other problems that will arise.



You might destroy a world entirely because you can't win the war, so you deny it to your opponent to weaken them in the long run, knowing that you also can then only gain asteroids in that system.
And, as I noted earlier, if its nearer to the end-game when your empire is far more powerful than the competition, you can then roll out your planet busters at a whim; tearing worlds apart because you're at a point where you are steam-rolling over every opponent.

 Nerak wrote:
If you've ever played something like Stellaris then the answer should be apparent. You can't really capture a planet without winning the war on the ground. Space combat is a extremly important factor but those spaceships are produced by the people on the planets. Or at the very least planetary production is part of a production chain of ultimate military superiority. Capturing the production chain, not just annihalating it, requires ground forces.

I do play stellaris. As an exterminator gestalt robot race I do armageddon bombardment until everything on the planet is dead and then I send a single ground troop to claim the annihilated world. Stellaris is part of the reason why I came up with the question.

Part of it might be that planets have the means of production-the imperium wouldn’t want to commit a planet to Exterminatus if it was a productive member of the imperium. It might produce soldiers, food, arms, or munitions. If nothing else, they would have to start over from scratch. Fighting with boots on the ground gives them a chance to keep producing for their war machine. Likewise, the Tau May have use of imperial citizens. The imperium May want Xenos tech or prisoners for studying and or intel. Dark eldar is pretty self explanatory... as are orkz. Eldar, though, I can’t really speak for.

I think the parts you're missing for the Necrons are:
1. Most of them are asleep.
2. If they're waking up and annoyed about other races being present, remember that they're annoyed because it's their worlds.
3. As illustrated in the Psychic Awakening material, that death-by-apathy effect sure looks like a mass scale weapon.

For the Elder, it's probably a combination of factors:
1. Lack of resources and/or motivation to deploy those resources. If the craft worlds have a fleet, that fleet is more likely to be used to defend the craft world and the craft worlds aren't generally going near other worlds.
2. As demonstrated by the Exodite faction(s), there are Eldar who rather be living on planets, so probably sentimental reasons not to destroy worlds.

If a game like Stellaris leaves out penalties like ecological damage caused by warfare or bombardment...

You don't orbitally bombard or Exterminatus every planet that ends up in conflict. If an Imperial Governor knew that calling for help was going to mean "fleet rains fire upon me", he wouldn't call for help and he'd join the rebellion.

"What is the Point of Land Combat, Conan?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women"
"Very good, Conan."

To add to my previous comment, planets in general make really very little sense to fight over when you have technology that every faction in 40k has access to (fusion reactors, engines that can accelerate ships to meaningfully high fractions of C, etc, much less truly fantasy stuff like FTL and artificial gravity).

For living space, there's countless objects that can be made into habitats in any given solar system (or that can be used to construct artificial habitats), that collectively will give you far more living space than planetary surfaces will. Meanwhile gravity wells and thick atmosphere make rocky planets like Earth monstrously expensive options for resource extraction compared to literally any other source of materials. We tend to focus on planets because, well, we live on one, and that's what we know, but again, 40k is really Fantasy in Space, and once you start to apply realistic views to it, nothing really makes sense. It's best to think of it all as, at best, reskinned mid 20th century warfare, with naval warfare being mostly Age of Sail in inspiration and operation, and just go with that vibe, because that's where the writers are coming from.

If for nothing else, planets would have value for food production even if you can get everything else from asteroids and other celestial objects. You CAN hydroponically grow food, but that needs water. If a planet already has water on it you might as well, plus people would prefer to live in a more natural environment.

That said, plenty of humans in 40k do live completely in space. In the old RPG, there was a specific racial option for Voidborn humans who are people who have lived for generations in space.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To add to my previous comment, planets in general make really very little sense to fight over when you have technology that every faction in 40k has access to (fusion reactors, engines that can accelerate ships to meaningfully high fractions of C, etc, much less truly fantasy stuff like FTL and artificial gravity).

To be fair to this idea though, only the Imperium and Tau really fight for territory in this sense. Orks kinda do, but mostly they take territory to get in more fights.

But fusion reactors and ships don't really provide solutions to most of the basic food/fire/shelter problems. Warmth, yeah, but that's about it.

roboemperor wrote:
Good points.

But I just can't help but feel when I see a space marine kicking ass, killing titans on his own, fighting chaos space marines who also felled titans on their own, that a nuke detonated in their vicinity would end both him, his rival, and his entire squad.

So why don't they? I'm looking at Necrons. Why aren't they WMD spam happy?

Orks & Tyranids are WMDs themselves so I get that.
IoM & Tau, I guess for further potential for expansion they would try to preserve the environment
Dark Eldar want slaves not property so it makes sense for them to not blast everything to nothing.

Eldar... Why aren't they nuking the gak out of every xenos that threatens them? They don't even need planets right? Everything is wraithbone craftworld.

Chaos actually does use nukes. 13th black crusade started with a planet cracker and then ended with a meteoric impact.

Necrons, what's their excuse?

They are used, but they are both rare and the destruction they cause are very severely controlled.

Vortex grenades, D-Cannons, Deathstrike missiles, Doomsday Cannons and likewise. They are WMD's, but they are tuned to a level of destruction to wipe out very small, controlled areas.

And even the Necrons are interested in taking planets "alive" - they were awoken by the Silent King to counter the Tyranid threat because the latter threatens their living herd that they intended to cull. Cull for what? Both to increase their ranks in the initial push and as fuel to return them from robotic bodies back to living, immortal flesh.