Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Usually an exterminatus is used as a last resort when a planet is deemed "lost", and from what I understand most forms of exterminatus render the planet uninhabitable or borderline uninhabitable. I'm wondering why they just don't use a Rod of G-d? A kinetic bombardment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment )would kill everything, leave the planet more habitable then most forms of exterminatus, and is cheap (just throw heavy gak ie asteroids, or hell a tugston rod). My best guess is that the GW creators never heard of it when creating the fluff, but kinetic strikes were know around that time (ie the 80s), and referenced in scifi as well.

The idea might have been around, but it was not really widespread.

The spread of the kinetic "kill" round is relatively recent, which was spurred heavily by the perceived need for a weapon which could deal obscene amounts of damage without rendering an area inhospitable.

Plus, when you boil it down:
Exterminatus isn't used all the time. It's a "last resort" option, which is not hamfistedly given out left and right despite what players seem to think.
It is not simply a "kill all the things!" idea. It's a "This place is tainted beyond redemption. Burn it to the ground, salt the earth, and slaughter everything there" idea.

Maybe it existed at one point, but unless the Mechanicum finds the STC for them they won't be used. That's heresy otherwise.

Also, this:

(You knew it was only a matter of time)

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.

CHAPTER APPROVED!!!!

well if they dont use Extreminstus but Kinetic bobarmanet , then the threat will stil remanin.lets see some of threats :
1) demonic artifact : one day one will find it so the threat will start again.
2) deamons invasion : that let the portal stay
3)orks : they can survuve that thing
4)necrons : they can be affected or not?
5)Eldar & Dark Eldar : maybe whith a phychic shied can survive
6) Tyranids : the can come again , strorger as no one will be there to stop them
7) Tau : they will die, maybe the only case that that can work.

While the Imperium doesn't have "God Rods" per-say, they do have all manner of weapons that can be used for lighter orbital bombardment, and have some means of outright controlling meteors (Macharius destroyed a world he couldn't capture by redirecting a meteor at it). In the end the idea is redundant. Want to destroy a bunker or a tank? Use any number of other weapons. Want to kill the entire world? Virus bomb it or use cyclonic torpedoes. Can't even break through the orbital defences? Redirect a meteor at it. Also for a "God Rod" to kill a planet's entire population it would need to be absolutely massive, it is theorized that the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs was 10-15 kilometers, and even then mammals managed to survive just fine, so a God Rod would have to be the size of a large Imperial ship to kill the population, and at that point the world will be dead for decades anyway.

Bran Dawri wrote:Also, this:

(You knew it was only a matter of time)

Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.

CHAPTER APPROVED!!!!

The Most Ingenius answer

@ Bran Dawri - awesome.

Thanks for reposting that - it is a classic!

One could argue that most weapons batteries on a starship could represent various types of kinetic bombardment. Also the bombardment cannons on Space Marine ships are basically kinetic warheads.

I always wanted a good fluffy explanation of what would happen if an Imperial ship used a Nova Cannon round on a planet-based target.

A weapon that uses a blast template in the scales of BattleFleet Gothic......now THAT would be a big bang.

AegisGrimm wrote:One could argue that most weapons batteries on a starship could represent various types of kinetic bombardment. Also the bombardment cannons on Space Marine ships are basically kinetic warheads.

I always wanted a good fluffy explanation of what would happen if an Imperial ship used a Nova Cannon round on a planet-based target.

A weapon that uses a blast template in the scales of BattleFleet Gothic......now THAT would be a big bang.

Considering enough Cyclonic Torpedoes are capable of destroying all life on the surface, or even shattering an entire planet, I would say the Nova Cannon would not be any more effective than that. In fact since the description of both weapons is rather broad, I would assume there might be overlap in terms of warhead design, and the main difference is delivery method. Shooting your fancy gravitic implosion device at a planet out of your Nova Cannon, at a significant fraction of light speed, is just going to result in it exploding when it hits the atmosphere (essentially making it a very awkward kinetic weapon instead of a continent-shattering planet killer).

I've got your Rods from God right here

NOT THE BLUE CHAIR!

Also God is not his name, it is his job description!

Because you can't be sure, even with an Asteroid impact.

Thats the whole point of Exterminatus. You want everything on that mother ing planet dead and you want to know it. And Asteroid is all well and good, but it isn't a very good way of killing everything. It might just kill everything but what you wanted killed.

And Exterminatus does use conventional bombardments before finishing the job with Virus Bombs and the optional Clyclonic Torpedos.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNc242mbiUs&feature=player_detailpage