We've all noted and wondered and complained that there's not a lot of information on utilizing the "Inquisitor" advanced career, but I'm there now.

An Untouchable Desperado has attained 75 Influence and 10,000 XP spent and he's proved to be a really viable candidate based upon his strengths and the feats he's accomplished ingame (recruiting half a chapter of Astartes to wage a war against the Heretical Mechanicus that're swarming all across the Sector amongst other things). He bought up the idea and it's stuck in my head. It'd be a terrific thing to do, but I want it to do memorable and something that the players can point to after the campaign ends and say "That was a highlight".

But I'm not sure how to do it. The players have drawn up planes to attack a strong point of the Mechanicus (a whole Forge World), but with 500 Astartes, the combined might of Four Inquisitors and their supporting staff it's not unfeasible that they'll all burn up in orbit on the way there. Should the Forge World fall, I'm thinking it'd be a great spot for the Promotion by his Inquisitor, amidst the burning wreckage of wherever they currently stand.

But I'm not sure how to go about it, I want it to be an informal thing and not a huge ceremony with a speech. I want some words though, strong words that the Character will hopefully find inspiring and useful. And that's where you guys come in, what words could the Inquisitor offer? He's essentially Colonel Commissar Ibram Gaunt in temperament and methodology, stern but fair and giving credit where credit's due if that helps offer any insight.

500 Astartes do sound nice but unless you have the Guard and Navy on your side a regular attack against a forge World is most likely doomed to fail unless the chapter happens to be the Raven Guard or Protagonist of a Novel.

Forge Worlds are more often than not fortified planets and of extreme value meaning that they will have the means to bring up quite some orbital defense. The chapter might have a battle barge or two any maybe a hand full of strike cruisers but these are no competition to any decent orbital defense. They might get in, drop some troops and some of them will get out in time but this is no force to get space superiority.

Once dropped these 500 marines will find them self on a world dedicated to kill them and being equipped with the tools to exactly do that. They either might target several key infrastructure and then close in around the HQ resulting in maybe weeks of CQB in the dense areas of the planet, cut of from supply and quite likely to fail, or they might brute force their way straight to the enemy HQ where most likely the most firepower already awaits them.

Astartes are great but invading a forge world seems to call for at least the navy to get space superiority. Once the marines clear out the orbital defense they might perform close range runs and assist with their firepower. As for a full invasion I would rely on the Guard if this campaign is about taking full control. If it is about the assassination of the heretek leaders just let some scouts sneak in, deploy a beacon, let the battle barge perform a strife and port in several terminator squads.

There is a reason the astartes are called the scalpels and the guard being called the hammer. They simply do not have the numbers to wage full-scale war and in most cases their losses are either horrible or they are assisted by the guard.

Simply make the other inquisitors use their power and draft several regiments and the sector fleet. That should do just fine.

As with the combat on its own I do not see a realy need for Akolythes or the Inquisitors to play a big role here. All forces they can call on have their functional and working staff and hierarchy. If the Inquisitors do have a martial background like Hector Rex they may call them self leader of such an operation and hence plan and prepare everything but to be better at that job than an astartes captain or even chapter master takes quite some skill. Most inquisitors simply pick the force and show them where to strike - that is their talent.

Maybe though they want to make it personal and once their troops have cleared everything they go in to finally capture the enemy leader or strike him down. At this scale though the importance of most single men simply vanishes.

As for the promotion it depends on the sector you play in and what the rules of the conclave (if there is any) are. The most common are that he requires the approval of 3 inquisitors or of a lord inquisitor. Imho becoming a inquisitor is also not a reward for great deeds and feats but foremost of being qualified both in character and skill which have to be judged over a long time. Feats might show what they can accomplish but being a good soldiers and being a inquisitor are absolutely different things. This is also the reason for the common rank of Legate Investigator or Senior Interrogator that are given more and more privileges and responsibilities over their service years to evaluate their performance with an increasing power at their disposal.

As with the ceremony I go with an entirely different approach. Your inquisitor might be a cool guy and all but when it comes to the inquisition "We honor the office, not the man" and hence I would still stick with all the mystic formality that comes with this office that also has a spiritual component. You are called to enforce the will of the god-emperor to a degree where you might even interpret that will with theoretically no restriction in power. You do not simply hand over a badge, shake someones hand and give him fatherly advice.

There is a reason the astartes are called the scalpels and the guard being called the hammer. They simply do not have the numbers to wage full-scale war and in most cases their losses are either horrible or they are assisted by the guard.

Simply make the other inquisitors use their power and draft several regiments and the sector fleet. That should do just fine.

Kinda depends who's writing the book. Assault on Blackreach had a single Space Marine company take down an entire Ork Waaagh that was demolishing the Imperial Guard, basically without any support from the Guard besides the Guard telling them about where the Orks were coming from. They lost less than 10% of their forces in the process.

Note as well, that 500 Space Marines is pretty much overkill for anything short of a large Waaagh, Chaos Invasion or Tyranid Hive Fleet. I believe it's noted in one of the Codex's that a single company of Space Marines is usually enough to take and secure an entire planet. Forgeworlds would certainly be tougher than the average planet, but so much tougher you'd need five times the normal number of Space Marines?

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Note that I'm not necessarily saying I buy into the "movie marine" system, merely pointing out that it depends entirely on who's writing the Space Marines. If the author wants his SM's to be big **** heroes, they can be, so it wouldn't personally bother me as a player if the GM did something similar with his, especially if the Acolytes manage to mess with the Forgeworld's defenses from within or something.

Yea, you are absolutely right.

Space Marines have some rather "interesting" capabilities when it comes to their abilities. On the one side they loose 950 battle brothers on one space hulk, on the other side they are featured in an Ultramarines Novel. In a stroy they can pretty much achieve anything you want them to though I prefer a somewhat reasonable level that roughly orientates on the better ones of the Space Marine Battles Series where they are highly competent and pretty much fill their role as super-soldier but still may take horrible losses and simply die when shot at several times or even once.

For an RPG though, we have to question what kind of astartes we want to fit into the theme we create and at the latest, when the players actually shoot an astartes or his chaos equivalent in the game they rather quick come to wonder how 500 of them were able to take a forge world when they have reached a power level where they can kill an entire squad in one round without being something extraordinary special on their own. In the RPG you might give an autocannon to a guardsman and you might have a few dead astartes in front of you. Now think of the amount of autocannons and skitarii on one forge world. That is not even fair.

So even for 500 marines infiltration and deep strike seems to only way to cripple or assassinate something. But winning a war? Not really.

Yes, it's a question of how you perceive their combat prowess. If you figure out what can kill them in a one-on-one, you can easily get a grasp of what could become problematic in a larger engagement where they are hopelessly outnumbered. It is for this reason that I tend to stress the Space Marines' mobility to be just as much, if not more important than their physical enhancements and advanced wargear, because it is this ability to deploy within a moment's notice that allows them to strike where the enemy is weak, to simply bypass the most dangerous defensive lines, and to withdraw before the enemy can bring their numerical advantage to bear on them. This is why their losses can be catastrophic when deprived of this advantage, as seen in the case of the Celestial Lions and their faulty intel on Armageddon 3, or the less known (due to being printed only in White Dwarf) case of the Iron Shields when assaulting a fortress held by renegade PDF.

Of course, it is also a question of whose writings you want to follow. Games Workshop has described their limitations well in articles of White Dwarf and the codices themselves, clearly stating that they need the Imperial Guard for large-scale warfare. Due to this, I have come to think that instances there where seemingly few forces have captured an entire world did so only thanks to the support of elements that went unnamed in the narrative. For example, according to Codex Witch Hunters, Saint Aspira "liberated a hundred worlds with only a thousand Battle Sisters" .... are we really supposed to take this statement at face value, or should we not rather consider that such statements simply omit the presence of IG regiments, Frateris Militia warbands and other Imperial forces you'd expect to see in such an endeavour?

On the other hand, we have numerous novels with Marine protagonists where they pull off all kinds of heroic shenanigans, probably topped by such ... colourful depictions as in Blood of Asaheim or the Space Marine videogame. In the end, they're all equally (un)reliable, so what we pick for our preferred interpretation is really up to us. I maintain, however, that a balanced approach will feel a lot more like placing a piece into a larger puzzle, rather than those materials that sound as if the entire galaxy would revolve solely around the Astartes, placing any other Imperial sub-factions into a role of sidekicks or extras rather than valued, even necessary allies to help win a few battles in a losing war.

On the topic of Inquisitors, I feel it should not be left unmentioned that in GW's own background of the Deathwatch, it was normal and common for Inquisitors to accompany and lead kill-teams on their missions. For an example, check the background of Captain Artemis .

Inquisitors can generally be categorised into investigators and militants. The former may feel comfortable keeping to the shadows, limiting their own involvement to research and direction, but the latter is the power-armoured warrior striding headfirst into battle, personally leading whatever force they have amassed. Remember the Black Templars' Vinculus Crusade?

An assault of a forge world (especially one occupied by heretecs) should be a horrifying and deadly experience. Just think about all the warp infused servitors, cult indoctrinated scitarii with deadly high tech weapons, highly capable tech priests and maybe even one or two titans.

I'd agree that 500 Astartes might sound like few, but maybe time is an issue and the guard can't be there in time to stop a ritual from taking place (ahh, the clicheed stopping the ritual narrative Oldy, but goody). So the Inquisitor, his warband and the Astartes need to device a plan to stop it.

Maybe get in some surgical strikes, take over a titan and pump the ritual spot full of plasma, therefore depriving the planets defenses of their leader and coordination. Than hole in and wait for the imperial navy fleet to mop up.

Even if the ascension to Inquisitor is an informal one I'd still try to give it a bit of mysticism and a few ritual aspects. Find a good spot, that has significance for the defeat of the heretecs. In my example the bridge of the titan would be nice. Chose an appropriate time. Maybe the Imperial Fleet is landing in the background and raining hellfire onto the automatic defense lines.

Or maybe on the bridge of the Imperial Navys command ship with the burning and smoldering carcass of the planet just visible outside the window.

The Inquisitor calls his warband to the bridge, telling them to dress formally, but giving them no explanation why. They enter to find a group of persons standing there, looking at them with curiosity. There are the Inquisitors that were crucial for the victory over the heretecs and their Interrogators. (Maybe the captain of the Astartes). The warbands Inquisitor calls forth the character and tells him stand before him. Then all individual present (including the other characters) are called forth individually and asked to vouch for the candidate.

They all do, starting with the other characters (who hopefully have only good things to say about their comrade) and ending with the Inquisitors, who at the end of their recounting of the heroic deeds the character did in the siege of the planet, formally recommend the character for Inquisitorhood. (Maybe something like this: "By the Authority invested in me by the Holy Inquisition and in the name of the most Holy himself, I Inquisitor XY recommend this servant to be elevated into the ranks of the defenders of mankind")

The warbands Inquisitor looks at the character and says "Kneel before me, Acolyte XY", draws his sword (If he doesn't use one normally, he has a ceremonial one for this occasion), touches the characters left shoulder with it, than the right shoulder and the left shoulder again and speaks a formula "By the Authority invested in me by the Holy Inquisition and in the name of the most Holy himself I, Inquisitor XY name you Inquisitor, declare this to be true and make it known to all present. (Time this tricolon with the touching of the shoulders.) Rise now, Inquisitor XY." (Think about the knighthood getting scenes of movies). He shakes the characters hand as an equal, gives him the inquisitorial badge and (maybe) hugs him.

This concludes the scene. After that there might be a great party, which is much more informally, where everyone gratulates him. Maybe the warbands Inquitior takes him aside and gives him some tips, maybe initiate him into his faction (if he has a special one), proposes to him the transferrence of the other characters to his new warband, etc.

Even if you want to dodge the ceremony, I would not dodge the political Gambit that Comes with such a Thing.

An Inquisitor is a figure of formidable power. Whenever there is somebody to be bestowed with power, there will be a political theater to be won (or at least: be eased) unless one wants to make a number of enemies to begin with.

My assumption was that the naming of a new Inquisitor Needs "the approval of the conclave" and that is something gained prior before stepping in front of them. While the current =I= the pc is working for will for sure have already positioned his protegee, it is not a bad idea to arrange for some social Encounters with other Inquisitors. Perhaps three to five. Some might be inivations, some might try to seek the character out to make themselves a Picture.

Give each of them there own Point of few and Agenda in regard to "what threatens the Emperium". See if "I am capable" will be a good Argument.

My 2 Cents.

by the by: the character will become Inquisitor. The questions is more about if he will have enemies/allies within the Inquisition to start with...and perhaps if his new Influence should be modified: a candidate brought through against the Odds will have lower influence then one who managed to ease the a number of People into actually supporting (or at least: not opposing) him.

The Space Marine videogame actually shows the limitations of astartes fairly clearly. You can die to literally anything you meet there, and at times, fairly easily. Without the Khorne-induced blood-healing, Titus would never have lived past even the first boss, on average.

Personally, I think the best way to illustrate just how well marines fare against a foe is to grab Dawn of War and the Firestorm mod. It's fairly close to codexes and you can gain a good, solid "feel" of what a marine unit can be capable of. You will quickly notice that they're far from immortal, for example, and that mobility and vehicular deployment will increase their longevity considerably. I fully believe 500 space marines, for example, could take an agri or feudal world with minimal defenses. Anything beyond that simply needs more manpower, and when the initial conquest is over, even more to actually hold it.

Destroying defenses and taking out titans is the easy bit. You can do that with far less men than keeping the place pacified for extended periods of time, but either scenario needs more than five hundred men, no matter what they are. A forge world, especially, generally has the following defensive capabilities:

Skitari. Can 1vs1 against a marine, and there should be thousands.

Combat servitors.

The tech priests themselves.

Excessive anti-vehicle units. Literally everything barring lasguns the tech priests love and use works vs vehicles.

Anti-aircraft emplacements

A surprisingly low number of vehicles, but depending what the forge produces, they may just cart the last Baneblade or Leman Russ Exterminator batch right into combat.

Possibly anti-ship weaponry on the surface or in orbit

Titans

Explorator vessils and some of the best ships the imperium has.

In other words, your players are going to need two things with but five hundred marines:

1) Knowledge wether or not the hereteks have the support of the populace. If they have to keep resistence crushed, you have a window.

2) A stealthy approach that doesn't get you shot down, ergo, transport on a ship with the correct codes and looking the right way.

After that, it's a matter of tactics and your position remaining a secret until you want the enemy to know. That is preferably after he's dead.

As for the inquisitorial fluff, it would be good to know if your inquisitor is more an investigator or a crusading militant. The former might have the ceremony take place in a dark room with plenty of other robed figures with only the icon of the emperor providing dim illumination in the middle and go on a tangent about the God Emperor's hidden work etc., while the latter may well be outright knightly, and include a vigil in a temple and public ceremony on a shrine world. Just some ideas there. You do whatever XD

Without the Khorne-induced blood-healing, Titus would never have lived past even the first boss, on average.

Yes, this game mechanic is what I was referring to (maybe should've made it more clear). Well, the THQ interview where a certain someone claimed that a single Marine could defeat "tens of thousands" of Orks (suuure) certainly did not help to promote a less Superman-like image of the Astarte either.

If you take the Selfheal away, I actually agree that the game gives a good idea of Marine resilience, at least as far as my personal interpretation is concerned.

That being said, limiting the Marines' exposure to enemy forces must not always depend on supporting forces, but can also happen by the aforementioned surgical strikes, either by dealing a crippling blow to the enemy's plan with blowing up an important building or item, or by attempting to kill the enemy leader. I'm sure a lot of planets have indeed been "captured" by Space Marines simply by having them show up at the governor's doorstep and putting a bolt in their head long before the PDF was able to respond in full force. It stands to reason that not the entirety of the Machine Priests on this Forgeworld are behind the traitorous activities of whoever is responsible, and they are simply following orders passed down from below. Behead the snake and see the rest surrender in confusion. Or just attempt to pull out and let someone else pick up the pieces whilst the Marines will travel to the next warzone where they are needed. You don't have to win a war if that would merely be one potential byproduct of your actual mission objective.

For everything else ... well, let's just say your 300 Spartans are going to need a couple thousand Greek allies to hold the line, even if legend will omit the latter's participation because it's way more epic this way.

There's a lot of speculation as to "Is 500 Marines enough, is it too much?" 500 Astartes are pledged to the War Effort, the pacification of Seven Forge Worlds worth of HERESY. The current Forge World target was specified as the PCs intel suggests that it was this world that had a primary role in the construction of key components of the Hereteks mystery capital ship (That can fire a super laser that sucks planets into the warp). The PCs are barrelling in with....500 Astartes (plus the Chapter Master!), 4 Inquisitors, 1 Regiment of Imperial Stormtroopers and Five Regiments of Imperial Guard (foot infantry only). The Astartes themselves have no vessels and are piggybacking on the Inquisition because of plot shenanigans.

The Inquisitor himself is something of a Knight. He goes by the Formal Title of Duke Inquisitor Octavius Electius. Duke has nothing to do with Official Stature, but instead is a formal title granted to him by his homeworld after he burnt out a Heretical Cult that had infiltrated the ruling family. When dressed for combat he is indeed in ye olde plate mail(e), Digi Weapons out the wazoo and a Force Sword. The PCs have never seen him fight, but he prefers not to. Their first campaign they were sent in without papers to identify and quell a prophesised Daemonic Manifestation in its infancy, they were never able to contact him and he showed up at the end with a task force of other Inquisitors (who made the jump to the current campaign) to congratulate them, a ceremony was held as a formality in his Castle upon his homeworld.

I'm not ignoring the Political aspect of it either, the head of the Inquisitorial Conclave, a Radical and an Elusive Adeptus Mechanicus figure (loyalist, just concerning) are all blips on the radar for him and the only ones he can count on as allies are an insane Militant Inquisitor, hopefully his own Inquisitor and an auspicious Inquisitor hunting for his excommunicated radical of an Interrogator.

Ill only refer to the war effort and say that this force will never take 7 Forge Worlds, to take even one is rather questionable.

As with sticking with the inquisitors the Astartes do also lack their rather essential means of deployment for these ships are most likely navy standard with some gadgets and lack the required close strafing and deep-strike/boarding abilities of a dedicated astartes vessel. This severely cripples those 500 marines.

Given the numbers of the assisting regiments I doubt there to be a full black fleet of the inquisition either so maybe 5 cruisers are available that will never make it through the orbital defense that consists of planetary rockets/laser weapons and at some monitor/system defence ships in the system just as strong. And this is the bare minimum for a such important world.

A primary forge world though has fleets of its own and is plastered with defensive structures.

This of course is within a reasonable level of realism in the fluff of WH40k for you can always narrate the Astartes to be as strong as you want them be.

But even in the case of them making an attack and being successful it will mostly be the show of that Chapter master and his captains. This is war and if your inquisitor is not of the crazy martial kind that runs ahead of the front lines there is not much the PCs can contribute instead of watching the show. If the Chapter Master takes command and utilizes infiltration it will be done by his scouts, if he goes for intense firefights 4 guys with guns make no difference between 500 astartes and 6.000 well trained soldiers.

The biggest problem of that force is to actually deploy its troops for even if there is some teleportation among your ships its capacity is very limited and without Astartes ships and supplementary space/aircrafts the Steel Rain tactic is impossible. That way they have to be deployed traditionally as do the many human troops and in that case you have to get ready for a landing massacre once the landings ships even made it through the defensive fire.

Without any navy support though these ships most likely lack the required transports to make for a hot landing assault where you have to deploy the bulk of your force instantly with very quick and frequent reinforcements to fill the gaps.

At last with such a force they might successfully attack that world with severe losses but are far from securing or even holding it. The biggest problem though is to get even a foot on such a world and if they loose one ship with maybe 1.000 or more combat troops that will set them at an incredible disadvantage at ground. Not to speak of those defensive ships that might just pound your own deployment zone with lance strikes.

This is war and if your inquisitor is not of the crazy martial kind that runs ahead of the front lines there is not much the PCs can contribute instead of watching the show. If the Chapter Master takes command and utilizes infiltration it will be done by his scouts, if he goes for intense firefights 4 guys with guns make no difference between 500 astartes and 6.000 well trained soldiers.

I wouldn't say so -- rather, the GM could build it up like a sort of "Darth Vader entrance" where the troops breach an area for the Inquisitor to enter, barely securing the area so that there are still some threats here and there for the Acolytes to deal with as their bosses bodyguards. Depending on their specialisations and roles, they may also be called upon to perform various rather specific tasks to help with whatever their Inquisitor has planned (the drafted war assets may have their own specialists, but it would be easy to justify the Inquisitor not trusting them and/or them just not being as well equipped as the Inquisition-sponsored operatives).

There's no way all those 500 Space Marines and 6,000 well-trained soldiers will all be in the same place, packed so tightly together so that the presence of an elite Inquisitorial strike team would make no difference. In operations such as these, space comes at a premium, what with small breaches in massive defence walls, or narrow corridors and chambers that make easy spots for an ambush. That's why Marines are still valuable in spite of their low numbers: when you can't send a huge amount of men in, you better make sure that the ones you do send are the best you have, to ensure that the job gets done. And the same applies to other Imperial organisations, including the Inquisition and their agents. Sure, you can also throw tens of thousands of conscript bodies at a problem until it eventually goes away, but this approach takes a considerably longer time than a carefully orchestrated deep strike, backed up by reserve troops, diversionary attacks in the surrounding area, and air superiority preventing enemy reinforcements from joining the battle.

That being said, I certainly agree about the transportation issue. Perhaps this bit could be revisited? Rob the Space Marines of their rapid deployment capabilities, and you are removing one of their major advantages! At least give them some Thunderhawks. ^^

Though ... now that I think about it, I do recall the Planetstrike ruleset referencing means for mass troop deployment by the Imperial Navy ...

"Huge sub-orbital transports take station in the upper atmosphere and project cones of anti-grav from ancient and frequently ill-maintained grav-effect generators. Imperial Guard troopers literally step into the anti-grav field and float down towards the ground. This approach is extremely dangerous, as even a glancing hit from ground-to-air fire may cause the anti-grav cone to veer wildly, leaving the drop-troops to the tender mercies of the world's gravity."

Would this be an option? Needless to say, the anti-air batteries would have to be silenced first, but perhaps this could be the very first target of the assault. Take the Space Marines and the Acolytes and have them assault a generatorium supplying the batteries with power, or (perhaps more realistic) a command center from where they can remotely shut them down. This is a prerequisite for the regiments of the Guard to arrive, and should they fail, the entire invasion might falter as the Imperial forces would be unable to establish a foothold and the few Marines would be overrun within hours.

Yea, maybe I was a bit off there. I imagine akolythes as being an investigative squad and not a kill team unless they are the entourage of an inquisitor. Going into the breach with an inquisitor is pretty much the job of storm troopers for my imagination though I always like organizations to heave their distinct fields of work and usage to be separated rather strict.

As for the invasion I always Imagined these super near-archeotec transports to be used in scenarios like the Siege of Vraks where one force calmly deploys on one side of the planet and the other vice versa, nothing you do on a battlefield even if cleared of its AA. For that there is to much emphasis in the imperial fighting forces for hot landings and regular transports with smaller ones going down to earth though this might be due to making a good story in a novel. Given though that one Autocannon might be enough to pop one transport/pod and cause a catastrophic chain reaction the anti-grav deployment is extremely risky. Yet this would actually call for such transports to even be available in the first place and this pretty much dips into the monopoly-by-law of the imperial navy as being the only space-faring force allowed to amass huge firepower and army transport capabilities.

The inquisition is one of the institutions that somewhat gets around that like the Astartes yet it still sounds like a war-ready inquisitorial fleet is needed where most others simply call for the aid of the Navy. And to be frank. 7 Forge Worlds going Rogue is pretty much the scope the Sector Fleet should be called in for as with as many IG Regiments that can be mustered. With going heretic these worlds lost their special status and independence and are a serious threat the Sector Command has to react to if not adeptus mechaniucs forces already pledged their military to such a cause to deal with this "internal" which might result in massive overkill.

As for the invasion there is not much this strike force can achieve without major shenanigans. Somehow get some Scouts to infiltrate the world and destroy its orbital defense (which will be heavily guarded after you destroyed a few dozen batteries) requires for a ship capable of that and forge worlds might utilize some of the most effective gear of monitoring their space, yet they have to break through the system defense fleet that might already be on their guard for they are pretty much enemy with everyone at that point. This said the system defense fleet is still an issue and I doubt that regular ships have either the teleportariums or boarding torpedos (and tubes) to force an early decisive victory through the astarte while being severely outgunned. For the battle on the ground the Hereteks are guaranteed to have air superiority for regular guard regiments do not have flyers and the aeronautica imperialis is a branch of the imperial navy - some attack crafts (that are really rare on non-dedicated ships) from the inquisition ships wont change that.

So even after getting through all the trouble of landing the troops there is still the local tech-guard being in skill and capability somewhere between imperial guard and space marines that number in several thousands if not tens of thousands or more. Also they got the industry to back them up for ultimate war. An industry of such scale that it takes orbital strikes to even reduce its production capability to such a degree that it wont have any ill effect on the enemy. On the other side there are several regiments and astartes without a logistics fleet or munitorum support.

Imho this is nothing the mentioned troops can hope to succeed in, not if the aim is to kill any resistance, bring the traitors to justice, secure the planet and hold it.

Planetary Invasions are decided in space and won on ground. Once one side has the advantage here it simply throws as many troops as needed to do the job (The quality only decided how many are needed) or blasts the other one from the surface. Notice how most major planetary wars always mention the fleet being distracted by something else, being in danger of captured orbital defense installations, shielded by super generators or incapable to overthrow the other fleet? That is for a reason for it would be boring to read: "Then they lance-striked that, then they lance-striked this and after that their air-wings bombed everything to ashes."

Imho this is nothing the mentioned troops can hope to succeed in, not if the aim is to kill any resistance, bring the traitors to justice, secure the planet and hold it.

But what if the goal is to disrupt the production of the death star until reinforcements arrive? Or just destroy the weapon for good? That would be possible in a swift, surgical strike, utilizing the troops they have. The Inquisitors and their warbands are the experts for identifying and sabotaging/destroying the super weapon. After that they have to either hold the line until the Imperial Navy arrives or try to find a way out of there.

It would still be hella dangerous and most likely end with the death of most of the PCs forces. But it would be manageable with the forces they have at their disposal.

Then there is still the question how they even get on the planet. There is no way to deploy their force in any rapid assault way yet no way to perform surgical strikes.

The problems are to get even close to the planet. You can do it via infiltration and extreme luck though maybe only a few scouts may accompany the PCs then or you try to bring your force which means you have to destroy the enemy space defense and superiority which I cant see possible in that scenario. As for deployment neither do they have the transports nor the astartes ships to do it in any reasonable way.

For stealth they have to much power so have to leave it back.

For force they have to less power so they cant even make an attempt.

Yea, maybe I was a bit off there. I imagine akolythes as being an investigative squad and not a kill team unless they are the entourage of an inquisitor.

And my thinking might be too close to the TT codices and GW's Inquisitor game - although I'd say that Dark Heresy easily offers spots for both. How combat-savvy are the Acolytes in this case, anyways? What classes do they have, and are they veterans (either from their backgrounds or actual campaign gameplay)? I feel this should be taken into account when designing their mission!

As for the attack - frankly, I don't think it actually matters whether it's one Forge World or seven. At least how I interpret the settings, Forge Worlds don't exactly neighbour each other in close proximity, and coupled with the peculiarities of warp travel it could easily take weeks, if not months for reinforcements to arrive (going by Imperial Guard response times as described in the 2E 'dex).

Also, I would expect the Marines to at least bring their Thunderhawks. Not bringing a bunch of strike cruisers along is strange enough (at least if we consider that we're talking half a Chapter here), although there can always be explanations such as casualties etc - but they ought to at least bring their famous dropships.

The infiltration mission is a cool idea. I think going undercover on a hostile Mechanicus world offers an incredible amount of storytelling potential, especially if we factor in all the creepiness that can be going on in such a place.

By the way, will this battlegroup be accompanied by an Inquisition Black Ship, by any chance?

I think the main difference is the kind of inquisitor we imagine and embrace. I am more in favor of Inquisitors like Torquemada Coteaz that build huge networks with thousand akolythe cells where initially you are nothing and have to climb the ranks (you initially had some potential and later one grew into a gifted one which also follows the XP graph quite nice thematicly). You are still an investigator and that is what you where hired for - even if you learn to defend your hide quite well. This huge networks have the power and means to always utilize the right tool for the right job. An investigator investigates, a warriors fights, that is what Stormtroopers are for. On the other side we do have inquisitors like Eisenhorn that suit the board games with their highly diverse entourage, recruited from random yet exceptionally gifted individuals, that makes up their only constant power base and hence has to compensate and adapt for every situation. They travel much and cant rely on a local network that spans around an entire sector.

While the Black Ships are rather potent they are also quite rare though given that there is a hand full of inquisitors lurking around chances are rather "good" that one has such a ship. Given though how potent planetary defenses sometimes seem even against the specially reinforced astartes strike cruisers I still doubt that this ship alone, with minimal escort, will break through and secure space superiority as they explicitly still require a battle group.

It is as with all the elite forces of the imperium that they only come to shine when others hold the line and they are deployed at the most important location. So even with such a flagship I still see the need for sector command support.

As for the other forge worlds they will most likely take weeks to respond if we are not talking about a cluster of forge worlds here though how fast do you imagine such an invasion campaign to succeed? I am sure there have been less fortified worlds been sieged by greater forces for months yet the fluff always shovels some major planetary battle with a hand full of participant in our face that only lasted for a day... sci-fi authors and their numbers...

As for the marines they are honestly screwed without thunderhawks for conventional unloading of their motor pool is not just a huge hit to their extremely important mobility but also somewhat embarrassing. Also they truly lack some ordinance if they don't bring their stuff for the guard has no vehicles either. Even a predator tank is better than no tank at all... sometimes.

Is your player already an interrogator, which is a natural stepping stone to later becoming an inquisitor, or are you planning on bypassing that step?

You can always sacrifice some of your forces to create a diversion, so that an elite strike force can go around the planetary defenses.

But in the end, it is totally up to you cyclocius. It's your campaign, your players and therefore your Forgeworld. If you want the players to succeed in capturing it, go for it and make sure it is suitably epic.

Good god guys I left you alone for one day!

The Astartes have currently scrapped their entire Vehicle Pool after their Tech Marines were summoned to a Forge World for an update on their training/renew their vows/what have you. They were captured and tainted, filled with delicious tech-heresy and sent back. The Astartes discovered too late that they'd been infiltrated when their Predator tanks grew legs and teeth, without knowing the extent of this taint they decided to go without and incinerated the lot. It's one of their biggest advantages, thunderhawks and drop-pods and the like.

The PCs look set to be organizing a full out assault on this Forge World, none of them are adept commanders of men and I intend to make the situation enough of a mess that they'll either realise this isn't a situation where they can just roll some die or a tactica imperialis check and say "It's fine guys, it's a pincer maneuver!" while still being able to join in the battle. Certain Inquisitors will offer to take the helm, as will the Chapter Master. The PCs would be either wise or unwise to accept their help, the Astartes don't know what they're fighting while the Martial Inquisitor will be lucky if the planet is left intact by the time she's done with it.

The PCs as it stands are a Hive Born Arbites Seeker (he's corrupted out the wazzoo and if he gets threatened he goes insane, grows wolverine claws and frenzies, nobody has seen this happen yet), the aforementioned Feral Desperado on a fast-track to Inquisitorial authority and a new Character (replacing the corrupted and doomed Pyromancer if anyone has followed my other threads). He intends to function as a tactical character, in his words 'getting the job done without people realising until it's done'. None are very suited to a planetary assault, nor commanding it. I've yet to find out how they intend to go about it in the next session, if they're commanding or leading a small team on the surface and delegating the real job.

The Untouchable isn't an Interrogator yet, but if I'm being truthful he ought to have become one a while ago but I wasn't ready for the game to suddenly jump from gutter-crawling investigations to political ****-waving. But with the Apocalypse around the corner, when is there a better time to start!