Odd little quandary: does Chaos have "typical" Exterminatus devices? 10,000 years ago, Horus divided the Imperium almost neatly in half, taking not just half of the Astartes with him, and wrecking several Legions who wouldn't go, but also sucking in numerous assets of the Imperial Army, the Adeptus Mechanicus, and numerous other organizations. So, if they happened to steal numerous void craft, numerous DarkMech, Titans, Knights, Tanks, and such, did they not also get several planet breakers, or have the minds and assets to fabricate them?

I ask this because, if Chaos has EWs, they don't usually seem to use them. Sure, they might wreck some planets in their own ways, and Abaddon had the Planet Killer built, and held several Blackstones at his command, but where are the virus bombs (Nurgle?), the cyclonic torpedoes (do warp masters even need the torpedoes?), magna meltas, and other "typical" means in which an Inquisitor might deliver judgment upon your world? I know Terra is hellofawell defended, but Abaddon didn't loose anything apocalyptic on Cadia (does he need the Cadians alive?), when he tried to take the planet last. There are a number of times where I imagine a big Chaos ship could just blink out of the warp, hit a world with the device, and win the day. It might not be their style, but is it something that they CANNOT do? Do the Dark Gods forbid it, in favor of more lame Cultists?

Considering the civil war, I would wager that most of the devices acquired by Chaos forces were already used 10,000 years ago -- it doesn't make a lot of sense to keep them in storage when you are committed to an all-out-war already. The others I'd say were mostly used in the second civil war among the traitors themselves, when they fought one another in the Eye of Terror after their alliance fractured and broke apart, with countless warlords trying to establish their own little domains.

I'm sure there may be some devices left, but they'd be buried, hidden and locked away, as otherwise they'd been used ages ago when some self-proclaimed general had yet another awesome idea on how to stick it to the Emperor.

As for Cadia, I think they needed to do some sort of ritual with those pylons.

Note that it is considered likely that any heavy orbital attack on Cadia would destroy the pylons upon the planet that keep the gate open. The gate is the only reliable way to leave the eye. Taking out Cadia and its pylons would be a great way for Abbadon to shoot himself in the foot.

Then it would seem sort of weird for the Cadians to leave them alone. If the pylons are what makes the Eye's path stable, which gives Abaddon an easy path to Black Crusade through, is it worth it to not get rid of them? I also thought that they did something that lessened the warp, from the Oldcron days, where they were part of a plan to permanently separate the Materium and Immaterium, since the warp is anathema to the Oldcrons, and their masters (now hood ornaments, I suppose), though that might've changed along with Pariahs, and the history of the Newcrons, all together.

I do suppose that the Imperium might be calculating enough to prefer a known quantity. If you KNOW Abaddon is going to keep doing this crap till he dies, and you KNOW he will probably start at Cadia, you know where to fortify, and make his fight tougher. Also, being so close to Terra, it wouldn't do to have any such world easily takeable.

Still, with crazies like Fabius Bile still running around, and other techno-heresy crazies, too, it seems weird that Chaos never seems to have an Exterminatus waiting in the wings, just in case they need it. Oh well, one supposes that they need not exterminate the planet if they might know the Imperium WILL, once they are gone. Once again with the known quantity.

it's been theorised that the pylons are not only holding the safe path but also holding the eye contained and I read somewhere that its rumoured if they are destroyed, the eye could expand and consume other worlds including eventually Terra. The price of keeping the path there is greater than the risk that it swallows up all nearby worlds although this is why Abaddon is trying to overload them in the most recent black crusade.

That runs into the problem of Abaddon having no reason not to exterminatus Cadia, then, because if that happens to take out the pylons in the process it's great for him. Would make more sense if the pylons were something that both sides need intact, the Imperium can use them to contain the Eye of Terror and Chaos can use them to expand it.

I've read a lot of different theories about what those pylons are and what they do, but apart from this likely being rooted in so many different authors writing about them and using them in different ways, for once I actually like this bit of uncertainty, as it makes for great speculations. I really like what's been put forward by Calgor Grim and Lupa, for example.

I do suppose that the Imperium might be calculating enough to prefer a known quantity.

That reminds me of the Armageddon meatgri warzone now... or more precisely, what White Dwarf has suggested to be the Imperial high command's motifs regarding the "Muvva of All Battles", as the Orks call it.

That runs into the problem of Abaddon having no reason not to exterminatus Cadia, then, because if that happens to take out the pylons in the process it's great for him. Would make more sense if the pylons were something that both sides need intact, the Imperium can use them to contain the Eye of Terror and Chaos can use them to expand it.

They are used for both sides though. The warp is just as treacherous for Abaddon and his forces to navigate as anyone else. The pylons give him a safe approach out of the eye but also hold the eye back from in theory spiralling out of control. It is possible that Abaddon doesn't know that overloading them might doom his changes.

My personal view is that Abaddon is STOOPID. But let's get back to heart of the matter:

I guess chaos does have some weapons of mass destruction (as former daemon pri-errr president Bush used to call them) but thye aren't as fond of using them as you might think. Chaos usualy wants to get stuck in and slaughter things up close until reality itself breaks and the world becomes a daemon world.

Chaos lord: "Fire the life-eater virus torpedoes!"

*planet is consumed in a firestorm after all living matter dies and decays until the corpse gasses ignite.*

Nurgle: "NOOOO! Now all my lovely diseases and funguses are gone!"

Chaos usualy wants to get stuck in and slaughter things up close until reality itself breaks and the world becomes a daemon world.

I dunno, a lot of worlds were blown up during the Heresy...

Besides, aren't Exterminatus weapons for when you cannot afford to secure a planet by conventional means, anyways? *coughHiroshimacough*

It's also entirely possible that nobody really knows what would happen if the pylons were gone. Maybe the Eye would expand uncontrollably, maybe it would devour itself, destroying everything inside.

The risk of bad things happening far outweigh the possible benefits.

Chaos usualy wants to get stuck in and slaughter things up close until reality itself breaks and the world becomes a daemon world.

I dunno, a lot of worlds were blown up during the Heresy...

Besides, aren't Exterminatus weapons for when you cannot afford to secure a planet by conventional means, anyways? *coughHiroshimacough*

The Heresy SOP and current Chaos SOP aren't exactly the same thing.

For one, during the Heresy, it was much more of a conventional war, with more conventional aims - depose the Emperor, destroy his loyalists, and put Horus and his followers in their place. There was a unified command structure, and they weren't as far gone - they were still mostly their own people, but not anymore, now they're creatures of the Dark Gods. They don't really have a Grand Plan anymore.

Chaos usualy wants to get stuck in and slaughter things up close until reality itself breaks and the world becomes a daemon world.

I dunno, a lot of worlds were blown up during the Heresy...

Besides, aren't Exterminatus weapons for when you cannot afford to secure a planet by conventional means, anyways? *coughHiroshimacough*

I was thinking about those planets... From the top of my head:

Nostromo. Completely blown up. But thats Nighthaunter being emo.

Istvan III: life eater virus but the loyalists marines survived mostly intact.

Calth: Turned its sun into a rad canon, but the planet is still there.

Tallarn: Life eater virus. Aagain the planet and it's enhabitants survive to this day.

That chaos planet from "Fear to thread": ULTIMATE EXTERMINATUS! Blood Angel fleet goes full on death star!

Prospero: The wolves left it a realm mess.

Other traitor homeworlds: Destroyed post heresy. (Well except for those of Angron and Alpharius)

I'm probably missing a few...

For one, during the Heresy, it was much more of a conventional war, with more conventional aims - depose the Emperor, destroy his loyalists, and put Horus and his followers in their place. There was a unified command structure, and they weren't as far gone - they were still mostly their own people, but not anymore, now they're creatures of the Dark Gods. They don't really have a Grand Plan anymore.

They did seem pretty "far gone" during the excesses of the Siege of Terra -- but that was fairly late in the campaign, and you do raise a good point in there being a transition.

Abbadon has a grand plan, but he's also the only one who seems interested in building WMDs.

I wonder why no one plans to build the Death Star... maybe they watched too much Star Wars and got dispirited when the rebels destroyed both Death Stars with tiny fighters... then again there aren't many fighter craft in 40k... but the Death Star would have to be three times the size of number two... mainly because there already is massive space ships... maybe the Necrons already built one but aren't telling... I don't know why they wouldn't...

Well the Planet Killer (What's in a name?) is the 40k Equivalent of the Death Star. So big it had to be built inside the warp. (You know a spaceship is special when reality doesn'ty have the facilities to build it!) It even got destroyed once! Or so the imperials claimed after the Gothic war. Then during the 13th black crusade Abadon shows up with a new/the same one!

And don't be fooled by the fighter craft: There may not be many different ones (altough the imperials alone had 4 different types) And there are may carriers in the fleets of the 40k races. Wich means: lots of fighters!

"To all you chaos-haters out there... We'll blow your planet up!" -Abaddon the Despoiler

It might help if the people at GW/40k tried to take each other's writings into account when they wrote something [bLAM!!] did a better job of explaining little details in some of their own fluff. I'm not asking for Tolkien-level details, personally, with the whole life story of each blade of grass, until the Nids melt it into soup, or some booted foot smashes it into the mud, but at one point, someone described these pylons on Cadia. Were there already Necrons, then? Did they get allegedly attributed to the Oldcrons later? The Eye of Terror has been there for millennia, since the Eldar made it, and well before the Great Crusade, but the Oldcrons have been asleep for millions of years, and there may not have been anything interesting there, prior to the Eye of Terror ripping open, so the purpose of the pylons eludes me, if the Necrons didn't put them there to affect the Eye (it was new to them upon waking up), but the pylons have been there for ages. And this doesn't take into account the Settra virus that made them Tomb Kings in Space. I'm not even sure that the Newcrons still care about the perils of the Immaterium now, since their gods and masters are now kept as decorative hood ornaments on Monolith grills. If the warp is no big thing to them, and Pariahs are totally gone, then I REALLY don't know what the pylons are supposed to be for.

Oh well, more than half of 40k is "we'll say some stuff vaguely, and you can interpret it any way you wish; that way, everybody's happy." so I shouldn't be too surprised, should I? Maybe, if GW ever revisits the 13th Black Crusade, and its immediate aftermath, again, they'll do something to incorporate the Newcrons in, and cover the issue at least five words. Till then, it's a Wesley Crusher; I don't know what it is, or how it might work, but if I make it sound really smart, and need it to work really bad, it'll work.

Till then, it's a Wesley Crusher; I don't know what it is, or how it might work, but if I make it sound really smart, and need it to work really bad, it'll work.

This reminds me of a hilarious German fandub of TNG.

The Angron book, erm... ack, one of the Horus Heresy ones, can't recall the exact name at the moment. Anyways, Lorgar and Angron are attacking a planet, and the fleet sorts are wondering why they don't just destroy it. and, well, the answer is kind of terrifying in its own way. They want to go down and kill all they can to have the psychic energy of the warp resonate, just bombarding it isn't good enough. So that's AN answer.

Yeah, in this book it came down to them wanting to prolong the terror. Right down to taking the civilians and mass torture/sacrifcing them in a big ritual. Hell, at this point even Angron and the World Eaters were... disturbed by The Word Bearer's methods. And the fleet got even more angry days later when suddenly "OK, NOW we can bombard it to kill the jerks with the audacity to hide from us." came down as an order.

So yeah, it's lengthy emotions to give an effect in the Warp, not quick deaths. And Chaos wants to spill out into the Galaxy, not kill it.

So yeah, it's lengthy emotions to give an effect in the Warp, not quick deaths.

But should the latter not have a stronger effect on the Warp if you trigger (way, waaay) more deaths at the same time? Or rather: not the deaths themselves - but people all over an entire world noticing that their sky is burning, that there's beams raining from the sky, setting entire cities ablaze with a single hit, Hiroshima-style. Feelings of terror, pain, regret would be released globally, all at once.

I'm currently reading one of the new Elite novels (shameless plug: Reclamation ), and it begins with Imperial ships airbursting a nuke over a settlement. The description of the fire wave washing over the civilians was ... unsettling, and even though the deaths that followed were comparatively quick, there were still a few long seconds of incredible agony.

Of course, in the end it's a matter of how we interpret the Warp, and the "veil" that separates it from realspace. Perhaps Dragon Age and its Fade have influenced my thinking a bit too strongly here. =)

Apparently not. Not when compared to a hopeless lengthy battle followed by a mass sacrifice of 10+ million people being flayed and tortured at once. At least in that particular novel.

Did they really ship 10+ million soldiers to that planet to even have enough torturers?

It sounds .. weird, but I have to confess that I'm somewhat biased against those particular novels anyways.

It was a large chunk of two entire legions and their supporting Titans, "Guard," and the likes attacking the Smurfs' "War World" (primary recruitment world + main base) - so yeah. It was a massive battle.

Or Angron going after his homeworld: It's Exterminatus: one melee kill at a time: untill nothing remains alive.

BFTBG! OH YEAH!