One in a billion probably isn't too bad a quota for psykers, considering that the Imperium has worlds with a population of hundreds of billions of people (Armageddon). There's also the rulebook stating that "tens of thousands" of psykers arrive at Terra every single day for processing, though this obviously includes the sacrifice to the Emperor. Still, lots of psykers left for the rest of the Imperium.

Apparently, at one point the Imperium lost "a billion astropaths" and "millions of ships" as a psychic shockwave travelled through the galaxy -- this could provide at least a hint for total numbers.

Both have since been retconned, though I'll have to go find the quotes. I believe the business with Bucharis was in the most or second most recent 40k core book.

If you could find the exact quote, I'd be grateful! It would be rather annoying to find such an unnecessary retcon when so far the studio fluff was relatively consistent (a standard that seems to be diminishing in the latest edition, though).

At the same time, I am a bit cautious, as it happened several times in the past that people misremembered something. Hell, it happened to myself once or twice, too, and I didn't find any mention of this in the 5th or 6th edition core rulebooks. and the 5E Codex Space Wolves only covers M41 in its history section.

Good point about the BFG fluff, though. Upon checking the material, it does provide an exception for ships from before the Horus Heresy -- I guess it makes sense that the High Lords wouldn't take them away from the Loyalists. There is a breaking point to which one could strain that relationship, after all.

Well, we are talking about Space Wolves here. To put it mildly, the fluff has a bit of tendency to put them on a pedestal.

Point taken -- their whole section in the Plague of Unbelief reads like a bad piece of fan-fiction. One or two companies of Marines manage to repel millions of Guardsmen and a fleet of naval warships right over their heads without running out of bodies or ammo for three years? M'kay. Rather different from Rogal Dorn's estimates.

Still, most often I try to minimalise such "incidental reports" from individual events and instead go for general descriptions of factions and equipment. It's here that you usually find the most objective perspective (or "relatively objective" in that it does not rely upon luck or coincidence, as may be the case with individual battles), which often ends up shining a different light on things.

I don't know, it's a bit vague, to me, but I always assumed that, within reason, the Guard should obey the gene-sons of their God, so I kind of assumed that the Astartes could, when necessary, boss around the Peon Guard, sort of like an Inquisitor can, since the Space Marines are the most important property of GW.

The material probably allows for quite a bit of interpretation here, too.

My own line of thinking is based upon the Horus Heresy providing a reason for a distinctive separation between the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines as codified in the Codex Astartes (which the Wolves may not care for, but the Imperial Guard and the Navy would), as well as for the human soldiers, voidsmen and officers in the Imperial forces standing a lot closer to their own organisations and their own religion rather than the Space Marines, which may be legendary soldiers, but who still stand apart from the rest of the Imperium.

Baronlveagh mentioned that these people would side with the Marines in case of obvious treachery, and I am inclined to agree -- but when is heresy actually heresy? You have to look at things from the perspective and limited knowledge of a soldier living in that time and space: it's generally accepted that Terra does not exist anymore, and the local representative of the Ecclesiarchy, whose religion you are a devout follower of, has taken over. Is it not true that it's the Space Wolves who are the heretics if they do not accept Bucharis' leadership but instead wish to secede from the remains of the Imperium?

Traditionally, the Astartes also stand apart from the rest of humanity. Whilst this brings an increased autonomy, it also means they have zero connection to the average soldier in the Imperial forces, who would often know them only from tales of legend or a statue they may have seen at some point, erected by the very same nation who has now condemned these Marines as traitors. By Imperial decree, every single Guard regiment and every single Navy ship has its own Confessor. Why wouldn't you believe the priest when he says that it's the others who are the bad guys?

Concerning the topic of Astropaths......approaching numbers of 1 in a million on some worlds, .....

Also I may be grasping at straws here, which I probably am, but there is a Thought For The Day written back in the good old days of 3rd Ed that reads: " Official! The graves of wariors who have given their lives for the Emperor now outnumber the stars themselves. "

Now this may just be Imperial propaganda, but considering its one of the rare instances the actual population of the Imperium is ever even ******* mentioned it deserves to be scrutinized......Or... it could all just be space magic and none of it makes any sense anyway....

the official population figures are here, based on hard evidence and research: POPULATION

so the percentage of psykers and navigators can be easily extrapolated.

• one in a million for astropaths - 11 trillion psyc. in galaxy
• one in 100 million for navigators - 110 Million Nav. in galaxy

so when the Nav acts a little snooty, now you know.

and in some fluff, regular radio works in the warp, but can a channel for evils...

hard evidence

Hah! Nice try.

The material probably allows for quite a bit of interpretation here, too.

My own line of thinking is based upon the Horus Heresy providing a reason for a distinctive separation between the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines as codified in the Codex Astartes (which the Wolves may not care for, but the Imperial Guard and the Navy would), as well as for the human soldiers, voidsmen and officers in the Imperial forces standing a lot closer to their own organisations and their own religion rather than the Space Marines, which may be legendary soldiers, but who still stand apart from the rest of the Imperium.

Those divisions get rather loose on occasion. (Parol handing defacto command of the space forces at Armageddon to Helbrecht, Ultramarine fluff in general... A good example of how it's supposed to work and doesn't is in the CC novel Emperor's Finest. In theory the guard and the SM are separate, but the reality is they simply come in and dictate to everyone how the war will be run, as they're, by nature, the most experienced officers in the room, nine times out of ten. When they are not their feathers can get a bit ruffled [war meeting in Helsreach, anyone?])

In Armageddon, it could be because the council officially put a Space Marine (Dante) in overall command of the defence. The Imperial Navy almost shot down the ships of the Relictors Chapter because they departed without permission , until Dante intervened and told them to stand down!

Still, I agree -- reality and practice are often two different things, and with the Space Marines being legendary warriors, I imagine a lot of soldiers would just do what they say even when they are not officially seconded. I remember a short story by Gav Thorpe where this topic came up as well as a squad of Salamanders was reinforcing a platoon of Guardsmen (the Lieutenant in command was so accommodating, one of the Astartes almost punched him ).

Of course, this necessitates them to be on the same side to begin with, and recognising each other as allies. I imagine the average soldier would act quite differently if the Marines were denounced as traitors (else the Imperium would have a lot more problems fighting CSM).

Forgive me, I am exhausted level of tired at the moment, and I kinda skimmed the last couple of entries, but if I don't get this thought out there I'm afraid I'm going to lose it.

Thinking about this very topic the other day two things came to mind. They both involve psykers. Idea one was more simple and only required one psyker and the minds of ones navigators to be willing: Mind Link. "A successful Focus Power Test allows the psyker to create a Fettered Strength telepathic communication link for a number of willing minds up to his Willpower Bonus at the same time. This technique does not require line of sight." When the navigators 'navigate' they could see each others processes and match them. I assume this would require home rules/additional skill checks to pull off.

Idea two was a more traditional idea taken to a 40k level. It would require each ship having one navigator and one astropath. The navigator gets to do his/her thing. But in addition to all the charts/sensors/etc that are viewed while they work their mojo, the astropaths would use their ability to send messages through space and the warp kind of like a sonar. Something to 'sound' where the other ships in the formation were, if they were drifting too far away, too close, etc. The astropath would then pass that info on to the navigator and they could adjust accordingly.

Then I thought maybe one should save the second idea for desperation or emergency measures due to how freakin loud that might be to any/all demon peeps in the area that might be listening... or hungry.

Nap time!

I think you may be overthinking this darkknight9, consider that any Warp-capable vessel in 40k must have a Gellar Field. Now this field projects a bubble of reality around the ship, and during Warp Travel several ships can travel under a combined Gellar Field envelope. As such, stock-standard Augurs and Auspexes could be used to ping out the nearby vessels (not sight obviously bcs I CAN FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME )

Depending on whom you ask, IT IS A GOOD KIND OF PAIN!!!

The issue of multi-ship warp travel is quite complicated, and it has been bothering me too since my Rogue Trader group had acquired a small fleet of support ships. From what I have seen, there are some really interesting ideas in this thread, so I would like to try breaking this all down into some useful house rules together with my own thoughts about the matter. Rules are mostly based on the warp travel rules from the Navis Primer book.

Ultimately, I see three possible methods for a small fleet to do a concerted warp jump: the "pack" (overlapping Gellar fields), the "trail" (Navigators track a lead ship) and the "hopper" (a series of small jumps in order to reach the destination, giving slower ships time to synchronize with the others).

The "pack" method, jumping together in one big Gellar bubble using manoeuvering thrusters to stay together, would be the most efficient way, however, besides it merits it carries some risks. Albeit, it may be the fastest method depending on the warp drive of the lead ship; if the leader has a "deep warp" drive like the Markov or Miloslav pattern installed, the other ships would benefit from the decreased travel time. Also, only the lead Navigator has to bother with finding a course through the warp, his colleagues on the other ships may focus fully on recognizing and avoiding possible hazards in the warp. In this case, I would allow a bonus on lead Navigator's Psyniscience rolls to detect hazards and warp travel encounters since his colleagues on the other ships may make him aware of potential threats. Rolls to avoid encounters are done by the lead Navigator, however, the Pilot (Spacecraft) roll to physically steer the ship away from the threat is at a -10 per ship in the convoy, since they have to keep a tight formation for the Gellar bubble to work. Also, if this roll is botched, the ships accidentially break formation, overstretching or even collapsing the mutual Gellar bubble; in this case, they not only suffer the effects of the encounter, but also count their Gellar fields as temporarily damaged or even destroyed (if the roll achieves 4 or more DoF).

The "trail" method relies on a Navigator's ability to track ships by the warp trail their drives leave behind (the Tracks in the Stars Navigator power). The lead ship does a regular warp travel, the other ships follow behind (assuming that the NPC Navigators possess the ability to do so). In this case, every ship bears its own risks and perils of warp travel and under adverse conditions (if the leader suffers a warp travel encounter) there is a risk that the pursuing ships lose track of the lead ship. Maybe simply roll a d10 for the other ships every time the leader fails to avoid an encounter. On 7 to 9 on the d10, the following ship loses track of the leader and breaks away from the convoy (either to emerge with a hefty delay at the target destination or even reappearing in a totally wrong star system after a while). On a 10 on the d10, the ship may even blunder into the same encounter as the lead ship, also suffering from the encounter.

I could imagine that the Astropathic choir of the lead ship may assist in this method by creating some kind of psychic beacon for the others to follow, decreasing the risk for the other ships to lose the leader (so only a 9 on the d10 makes them lose track). Still, this would require regular Focus power tests from the choir leader, maybe with increased risk for phenomena since they are deep in the warp.

The "hopper" may be the least risky way. Every ship navigates on its own and the ships simply drop into real space on a regular basis, waiting there to allow stragglers to keep up with the others before they make the next jump. There is not much risk to this besides the regular dangers of warp travel but it takes much longer than the other two methods since at least one ship will surely be delayed in between each jump. I would simply increase all travel time by 1d5 days, weeks or month depending on the original duration of the journey.

I try to keep things simple.

Pick someone to do the navigating. Use their navigation roll.

Use the travel time modifier of the slowest ship.

The group travels more or less together, meaning within sensor range of each other but not in one big gellar bubble. I've established in my games that merging (or extending to large enough to cover multiple ships) ship's gellar fields is a risky maneuver that can and often does cause problems.

Anyone who has "Tempermental Warp Engines" as a Past History can't be part of a warp travel group as the engine fluctuations cause them to shoot off ahead or lag way behind the pack unanticipated.

I try to keep things simple.

Pick someone to do the navigating. Use their navigation roll.

Use the travel time modifier of the slowest ship.

The group travels more or less together, meaning within sensor range of each other but not in one big gellar bubble. I've established in my games that merging (or extending to large enough to cover multiple ships) ship's gellar fields is a risky maneuver that can and often does cause problems.

Anyone who has "Tempermental Warp Engines" as a Past History can't be part of a warp travel group as the engine fluctuations cause them to shoot off ahead or lag way behind the pack unanticipated.

This is exactly the method I use. There are rolls for every ship, and you move at the worst roll each time. It took my players' one warp journey to stop trying to lug their fleet everywhere and set out on their own again.