As the topic says, I need a war.

After a few introductory scenarios set in Sepheris Secundus I was planning to get my acolytes transferred on some planet in middle of a large-scale conflict. The war itself would be mostly part of the background setting and not the main focus of the campaign, but my idea is that as if investigating heresies wasn't difficult enough the acolytes would have to conduct their investigations in middle of active war-zone.

However, I need a proper war for that. I don't want a full-scale apocalypse with Imperial Guard armored divisions, orbital bombardments and space marine dropships zooming around everywhere... Thats a bit too heavy arsenal, to start out with at least. Instead I want a conflict that would be important and big enough to require the Adeptus Arbites sector command redeploying several regiments of Arbiters along with full-spectrum support a few imperial navy squadrons, a missio or two of Adeptus Sororitas battle sisters and maybe an Imperial Assassin or a few.

While the conflict would have to be (at least initially) small enough that Adeptus Arbites sector command thinks they could be handling it with just a couple of tens of thousands of arbiters and some special support it should have enough potential to spill over that when I need a really dark twist into my campaign (you now, the kind of world-is-ending-soon kind of background) I could turn the war into slow, desperate delaying action where the Arbiters, Adeptus Sororitas and Inquisition try to keep the fort while hoping that Imperial Guard or Space Marines show up before everything is lost...

All ideas and contributions about the kind of war and where it would be set are appreciated

a populist cult uprising at hive world's space port?

It could start in the underhive lead by some mutant gangers and workers. the local arbites think they can handle it with reinforcements(and some help from the pdf). The gangers are mysteriously well armed and coordinated and overwhelm them capturing the hive/space port.

Imperial navy moves to blockade the space port and tries to send reinforcements. An all too convienient malfunction or some disaster happens with the navy in that they accidently lance strike the hive/ a ship falls on it.

That actual cause of the war...I dunno, an Istavaanian inquisitor mucking about. Hell, it could even be a genestealer uprising orchestrated by that inquisitor. Now there is something that would escalate the war as the imperium battles desperately to eradicate the threat before a hive fleet begins to notice the psychic presence on the planet.

Does that help?

Polaria said:

The Adeptus Arbites don't do warfare in that regard. They are more like a semi-militaristic police force (think the Colombian JUNGLAS, the Kazakh SUNKAR or Polands BOA), who might be well armed and effective enough to fight riots, terrorist activities and even the most wealthy and well armed criminal elements. But outright warfare wouldn't be their table (other than as auxiliary forces working with a real army).

Warfare (even small scale like you seem to be looking for) would either be a job for a local PDF-forces or the Imperial Guard (yes, even the Imperial Guard fight in smaller scale conflicts, they don't always have to send "apocalyptic-sized" taskforces like they do during a planetary invasion).

But if you need a warzone then Tranch might be a good bet. Officially it has been declared pacified, but considering the constant streams of Imperial Guardsmen that has to be sent there still to surpress the mutant uprisings and terrorist activities, the real war is far from over.

I agree to Varnias in the most parts. However, it is the stated duty of the Arbites to "hold on till force arrive" in the case on a planetary revolt. But even in this case, their wouldn´t be any "re-deploying of Arbites Regiments". I do not think there is such thing. Arbites are more like "police garrison". If they can´t do it, the army is send for. Not further Arbites from other systems.

My take would be that the tithe of a world was not met and that the Adminstratum therefore wanted the Governeuer out of office. As he refused to back down "for such a minor infringement" the Administratum called in the Arbites. PDF is devided into "governeuer loyalist" (who toot the lign that the Administratum is not right in what they are doing) and "Imperial Loyalists" (whom side with the Adepta).

Varnias Tybalt said:

Varnias Tybalt said:

"The Adeptus Arbites are equipped to fight a minor war, but their main role is maintaining order. A single precinct courthouse functions as a base for a complete and fully-equipped army, capable of fielding vehicles, including Rhinos, Chimeras and even Leman Russ tanks as required."

I seriously don't think you can compare any modern earth police special unit to these guys. The only historic comparison coming even near is probably Russian MVD internal troops which have been deployed as regiment and divison sized units (complete with armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, assault helicopters, greande lauchers, mortars and shoulder-fired anti tank weapons) into places like Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan and others. Surely people might not officially call this fighting a war, but that is what it is for all practical purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Troops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Troops _(Russia)

Even the mandate of the Russian Internal Troops says: "National Defence - conducts all military operations within national borders."

In my campaign I'm looking for something which is heavy enough to make Adeptus Arbites roll out with full-force, tanks and all.Something nasty enough to keep them occupied enough and something dangeroous enough to alrent Imperial Guards (the nearest regiment might be several years away). And yes, PDF is probably committed in this conflict... The question, however, is on whose side they are?

Polaria said:

Besides transports like Rhinos and perhaps some Razorback-like vehicles like the Retributer, it doesn´t them to me that the Arbites have tanks.
Perhaps some vehicles for riot control, but these would be similiar to the Retributer.

If you want tanks, you should perhaps switch from Arbites to PDF. Unless, you rule that in your gameworld the Arbites are similiar to PDF forces (which they do not seem to be in the general context... which makes sense since you normally do not have to organizations doing the same job...at least, not for longer then a couple of decades )

Polaria said:

Oh yes there are a few good comparisons. For instance the SUNKAR (Kazakhstan) is a special police unit who are trained in military CQB techniques, and they use many pieces of old Soviet military hardware like rocket propelled grenades and even the BTR-80 Armoured Personel Carrier. If Kazakhstan were to be involved in large scale warfare then you can bet the SUNKAR would be acting as a support force for their regular army because of their training and their standard equipment.

The thing is, it's hard to determine exactly what constitutes as a "minor war" in 40K terms. Things we might conider a minor war could very well be considered a small skirmish to an outright conclict that involves an entire planet. The Adeptus Arbites are also no regular presence on all the worlds in the Imperium of Man. Some worlds have extremely tight Imperial control, and are likely to have several Arbites courthouses and precinthouses. Others might only have one single official of the Adeptus Arbites and perhaps a few deputies (most likely on frontier worlds and newly established colonies), who enforce Imperial justice where they might see it lacking. A single official along with a few deputies wouldn't be able to fight a minor war, it's only the most populated worlds that would have such a large Arbites presence that might actually be capable to do that.

And even then, their primary task in any real warfare would be to safeguard the courthouses and vital Imperial buildings. Some cases they might even stay back from the fighting because the war in question might not concern the Imperium at all but simply be a matter of civil war between the current rulers and a bunch of rebels.

If there actually is a war threatening Imperial interests, then their job would be to hold out along with the PDF until reinforcements arrive in the form of the Imperial Guard.

If the PDF would prove to be the actual enemy, then naturally the Adeptus Arbites would be taske with fighting them at the best of their abilities (although in my opinion even on the most populated worlds, the Arbites chances would be slim against the entire PDF since the PDF's tend to outnumber the Arbites greatly).

To put it simply, if a war would actually warrant enough Arbites attention for them to actually empty their courthouses and roll out with everything they've got, then chances are that the war would be so serious that Imperial Guard regiments would be dispatched as swift as possible.

Gregorius21778 said:

Some Adeptus Arbites precints actually have access to their own Leman Russ Battletanks and other military hardware. But I still think it would be a bit wierd i the Arbites were to roll out in full without expecting to be backed up by a battlegroup of the Imperial Guard in transit towards the hotzone in question.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I was thinking that the conflict would be on a world where the only armed imperial presence would be Adeptus Arbites. Naturally the planet would have a sizable PDF, but it would be equipped and trained for fighting major wars and the political leadership would be reluctant to deploy it against its own population. If the conflict would start out with riots, strikes and terrorist activity the Adeptus Arbites sector command would redeploy more Arbitors there all the while the governor would go on about this being a "police operation unsuited for PDF". Depending on the world Arbiters might well be forced to "police" the streets against a well armed opposition all the while PDF would stand back, unwilling to go all-out on their own population with full-spectrum military hardware and simply not trained or equipped to take part in low-intensity conflicts.

Now, what would the Abiters do then if the rebels started to have access to military hardware? Probably phone backup from PDF, but what difference does a rocket laucher or two make to PDF position if there has been all-out shooting wars with platoons of autogun armed Arbiters taking on dozens of similarly armed rebels each day? Would the Arbiters even trust PDF anymore? The Arbiter command could call for Imperial Guard backup, but what priority would a relatively lightly armed rebels on a conflict that has been going on for year or more take when there are Orks, Tyranids, Dark Eldar raiders, Chaos Cults and all other sorts of nastiness lurking right around the corner? How long does it take untill you can really expect Imperial Guards to come? After all, the whole point of PDF is to be there because Imperial Guard can't be expected to turn out everywhere, every time and at a moments notice.

What if all this is the whole intent of the rebels? Keep it big enough to keep Arbiter sector command wasting troops on pointless skirmishing, unable to investigate the real culprits but also keep it small enough not to get Imperial Guards rolling in full-force before the rebels are ready? Whats was the real reason why PDF is unwilling to commit? These are the questions where Inquisition comes in and starts to investigate the matter all the while outside the Arbiters are already "policing" the local population with tanks, autoguns and whatnot and things are slowly, but surely, spinning out of control...

I think this scenario isn't so unlikely at all. I just need a suitable planet and a suitable "baddie" to fuel the conflict.

Polaria said:

Well I can see that scenario work out as long as the local planetary governor will be declared a traitor and be executed afterwards and be replaced with a more cooperative person instead.

Mainly because the Arbites wouldn't concern themselves with mere rebels, unless those rebels are actively violating Imperial laws. And if they are, then it would most likely be considered as heresy and the =][= would be contacted to investigate. And I guarantee that if the =][= discovered an unruly population blatantly breaking imperial laws and targeting imperial installations, and the local governor isn't ordering the PDF to assist the Arbites and quelling the rebellion yesterday, that governor and probably loads of high ranking officers of the PDF would be in for summary execution.

But if the rebels are mostly focusing their efforts on local rulers and installations, then it would most likely fall under local police force jurisdiction and the Arbites probably won't care. It's not their job to solve civilian shootouts and acts of terrorism as long as these acts don't spill over into damaging imperial officials and installations.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I guarantee that the =][= in question is going to be in for a rough ride here... When he finally comes in to personally take over, it'll be something like 10 000 loyal as hell Arbiters, a few dozen zealous SoBs and a handfull of special support against a up-and-coming full-scale rebellion on a planet with uncooperative governor and PDF.

Just the kind of stuff Inquisition legends (and epic campaigns) are made off

Varnias Tybalt said:

The space port idea someone posted above sounded viable. After all, even if the space port might technically be a "local installation" it might also be so important in large scale of things that Arbites will react to any large scale civil disturbance. Maybe something that would endaner the production of important Forge World would also count... After all, an installation doesn't have to have a huge Imperial Aquila above the front gate to be of "strategic importance". Arbites don't just protect imperial infrastructure, they also have to protect the whole imperial system: trade, communications, economics. Especially if the ramifications extend beyond single planet.

Polaria said:

Splendid.

I presume that the acolytes will be sent in during the less hostile uprisings that are just starting to catch on the interest of the Arbites, only to have the whole thing escalate further as their investigation progress?

Perhaps an interesting segment could be for the acolytes to actually be able to notify their Inquisitor of the uncaring planetary governor and the apathetic PDF and the plight of the Arbites, but the only way to do it would be through an astropathic message, and the only astropaths that haven't been killed by the rebels yet are guarded at a secure facility, and the only thing standing between them is pretty much the entire main capital city of the planet and streets full of rioting rebels fighting against Arbites riot squads?

Just a thought...

However, I need a proper war for that. I don't want a full-scale apocalypse with Imperial Guard armored divisions, orbital bombardments and space marine dropships zooming around everywhere... Thats a bit too heavy arsenal, to start out with at least. Instead I want a conflict that would be important and big enough to require the Adeptus Arbites sector command redeploying several regiments of Arbiters along with full-spectrum support a few imperial navy squadrons, a missio or two of Adeptus Sororitas battle sisters and maybe an Imperial Assassin or a few.

Er... are we talking Temple Assassin here? If so, a conflict has to grow far beyond "apocalypse" before even one of them is sent. As for "a few"... well, should the entire war council of Abaddon the Despoiler be behind your rebellion, you might have a chance...

Varnias Tybalt said:

Actually my Acolytes are a small squad of Arbites investigators and they'll be sent in with the first wave of reinforcements. At this stage of the campaign they've only witnessed the Inquisitor once through a vidlink and have no idea how much he is monitoring their progress... It'll take a while before they realize that they are actually working for Inquisition now

@Cifer: I don't think Officio Assassinorum operators are that rare. Besides, Assassins are exactly the sort of tool Inquisitor would use before things turn into a real war. After all, what is the point of sending an assassin looking for a priority target in middle of an all-out war where you could just kill the target (and everything within 100 meter radius of his HQ) faster and more effectively with means of a single blast from Imperial Navy vessel? No, assassins are what you use to kill key figures before the war to prevent it from happening in the first place.

As to the planet in question, I agree that Tranch might be a good choice. But another I just thought of might be Fenksworld. It is well know that there are borderline-rebellious/-heretical activities occurring there frequently. It is also rumored to have a large number of corrupt officials/nobles. Just my two cents.

Sister Cat said:

Fenksworld would be a good choice. Especially Hive Volg; seeings as it has been described as more or less a penal/exile hive. It's where they Fenksworld nobility and ruling class send their undesirables. Volg is more a sprawl than a spire, and them Volgites are a lot nastier then the average hivers. Of course, for an interesting twist (no mutation implied) you could have things begin looking like Volg is the problem, only for the real culprits being elsewhere on Fenksworld.

-=Brother Praetus=-

@Cifer: I don't think Officio Assassinorum operators are that rare.

Um, yes, they are. Every operation of a Temple Assassin has to be sanctioned by a High Lord of Terra. Of course you can get an assassin from one of the thousands of death-cults, hitmen agencies or or thug-for-hire groups the Officio maintains as a front and for screening their recruits for potential, but a fully-fledged Temple Assassin (as in Vindicare, Culexus and so on) is a little harder to employ.

Besides, Assassins are exactly the sort of tool Inquisitor would use before things turn into a real war. After all, what is the point of sending an assassin looking for a priority target in middle of an all-out war where you could just kill the target (and everything within 100 meter radius of his HQ) faster and more effectively with means of a single blast from Imperial Navy vessel? No, assassins are what you use to kill key figures before the war to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Assassins? Of course. Temple Assassins? If he deems the danger great enough (= a rebellion of multiple worlds or a single world plunging into full-scale Chaos) and can get hold of one , sure.
And these assassins are generally used for targets where you can't just move a battleship into position because there just happens to be an enemy fleet interposed between you and the enemy HQ.

Sister Cat said:

You could also use Protasia. It's an imperial world in the Malfian subsector that has declared independence from the sector and become a full-scale war world. You could set it in the early days of the uprising before full scale war sets in. The PDF would probably be loyal to the local regime, which could explain why the Arbites are reacting to such a planet-wide breach of Imperial law.

I want to purposefully avoid Tranch and Protasia as of now, because both are war worlds with accompanying rules of engagement and simply too much imperial hardware around. After all, I don't want to give the acolytes a chance to solve all problems with orbital bombardment or air strike (which, I assure you, they would at least try if there was enough imperial presence around).

Instead, I am going for (as some suggested) Fenksworld and Hive Volg. The rough draft version of the start of the war goes like this:

- A small scale uprising of strikes and riots start in Hive Volg with increasing numbers of people gathering on the streets to protest horrible living conditions and the latest additional tax the governor is collecting to finance the latest outfittings of Battlefleet Calixis in the Fenksworld depot.

- Many of the demonstrations are located outside the Adeptus Arbitor Precinct Fortress in Volg. This is a huge installation dating back to ancient history of Volg as penal colony and even though it was once manned by a full division of Arbiters it is now operated by mere two understrenght battalions.

- Sector Command of Adeptus Arbites hears about the problems in Fenksworld and decides to strenghten the Hive Volg Precinct Fortress with several regiments of Abitors, hoping that a sufficient show of force will defuse the situation.

- While the reinforcements are still in transit a terrorist strike into Precinct Fortress damages the compound and rioters flood in. Unfortunately for all sides the swarm of rioters decideto enter the most obvious landmark of the Precinct Fortress, an ancient black tower which now functins as a supermax holding facility for rogue psykers waiting for transport and "special" category of prisoners (mutants, suspected possession victims and demonhosts) still waiting for interrogation or castigation. The attack against the holding facility frees several hundreds of dangerous psykers and mutants to the streets.

- PDF is asked to help, but they refuse to enter Hive Volg stating that too harsh action against population of volg might cause strikes in atmospheric processor facilities, endanagering the population of whole world. Besides, they would not be much help anyway, since they have no training in riot control or apprehension of dangerous psykers.

- The nearest Inquisitor of Ordo Hereticus, having heard of mass breakuout of dangerous psykers, mutants and unconfirmed demonhosts in Volg contacts Officio Assassinorum. A single assassin is sent on ground to conduct preliminary intelligence gathering, reconnaisance and assessing the level of threat. The assassins hands are tied because no orders for actual killings have been applied or received as of yet.

- The acolytes arrive with the first reinforcement regiments and find a partially demolished precinct fortress, a supermax holding facility in the hands of rioters and several dozen arbiters already slain. The commanding officer of the reinforcement regiments, rolls out with everything he has, his first priority to take back and hold the precinct fortress and clear the blocks nearest to it so they could at least have a secure base to plan for how to continue.

Any comments/ideas on that draft? Or nice suggestions for "the big bad heretic" who started the mayhem?

Nice. Well, the most obvious choice(s) for the "big bad heretic" behind it all, at least in my mind, would be a Tzeentch cultist with ties to one of the really nasty prisoners in the black tower; or, a highly-disgruntled and highly-placed noble who wants (for whatever reason) to see the current planetary governor fried to a nice crispy brown, and hopefully take his place. He/she could even be both.

Another option might be the "ever-present" antagonist in the official adventures, the Serrated Query, who as best I can tell, just want to sow Chaos, in as many ways as possible, over as much of the sector as possible ... and maybe make some thrones while they're at it.

If you are deliberately trying to avoid the established war-worlds then I might have a fun option for you:

Ganf Magna

It is a frontier world with an ork problem. Not large or important enough to have large standing Imperial forces standing at the ready, but still of enough value to fight for. They have a PDF as all Imperial worlds not held in thrall to an Astartes chapter or the Adeptus Mechanicus, but the world is not established enough to support IG foundings. There would logically be at least one precinct-fortress of the Adeptus Arbites. If the acolytes mess up beyond all immaginable measure, it will not ruin your overall game setting the way Scintilla going the way of Alderaan would.

Immagine early American homesteaders struggling to establish farms and generally "doing cowboy stuff" but with a healthy distribution of lasguns, shotguns, greatweapon pitchforks and so on since they have "a little ork problem"

The Arbites of course have all their usual toys, but they are very few in number, and concern themselves mostly with maintaining Imperial Law on the frontier world, leaving local justice to the township sheriffs for the most part. The PDF has some aging IG castoffs for gear: a handful of aging Chimera, Leman Russ and Sentinels, hardly any flyers to speak of. What they have going for them: a large surplus of Drusis Pattern Lasguns, many horse-like critters and plenty of local rednecks willing to fight to protect their homesteads.

If you want an Imperial-related villain for the story then you could have an Istavanan (sp?) radical Ordo Xenos team on planet that are deliberately stirring up the orks. Alternately there could be some heretical locals that have started trading with some of the orks on the sly, since Blood Axe "philosophy" has started cropping up amongst one of the tribes and the Administratum keeps "misplacing and delaying" supply requisitions due to errors in the shipping manifests and a "we never make mistakes" attitude. Now if you would be so kind as to fill out Form 23-FW54723-C-43b-RG2 "Application to Request Petition of Grievance Pertaining to Misallocated Shipments to Colony Worlds and Forfeiture of Redress (abbridged)" and stand in line over by the blue placard in holding area 22b.

It's not just any war, it's a WAAAAAAGH!

Another option might be to have the source of local conflict something the PCs might sympathise with:

A schism has been present for many years in the world between two factions which recently spilled over into civil war not only threatening the Planetary Governor but also the planetary tithe. Following a high profile destruction of the planet's second largest mining complex the sector governor, Marius Hax, stepped in and replaced the existing planetary governor with Hax's own cousin, Mercurius Hax.

Mercurius arrives with his own small army and wastes no time in establishing a power base with the smaller, better equipped faction. The Mercurius Strategy is to empower 10% of the population with exclusive contracts, positions of responsibility and access to fund and resources to keep the other 90% in line. Backed with a series of brutal strikes from Hax's own private kill squads against specific rebel leaders and enclaves this strategy quickly restores productivity and maintains the planetary tithe as well as boosting the coffers of house Hax through judicious use of interplanerary cargo monopolies.

The cost are the living conditions and contentment of the other 90% of the population. While most are cowed into submission there exist a series of insurgant groups and rebels who are a constant thorn in Mercurius' side. While many of the supressed population are not invovled in the insurgancy they turn a blind eye to the few who are, making an art out of lack of co-operation with the authorities.

Due to the obvious threat to planetary tithe and Imperial authority on the planet the Arbites sector command are successful petitioned by House Hax to place a small regiment on the planet to assist with the maintenance of law and order. Obviously this risks Arbites being drawn into a local conflict on one particular side when their duties should focus on threats to Imperial rule and production rather than the protection of private facilties and property. Mercurius hopes that not only with the Arbites act as a secret police for his own family's personal interests on the planet but will firmly cement the principle that rebellion against the planetary governor and his forces is rebellion against the Imperium, thus guarenteeing Imperial re-inforcement in the event of civil war.

So not only do the PCs have some Inquisitior asking them to jump through hoops for no clearly discernable reason they also have to contend with winning the co-operation of a population who view them as hopelessly corrupt and allied with their oppressors and who have only to point to the latest brutal raid by a Hax Family kill squad or act of brazen discrimination for evidence.

For some reason I'm getting the mental image of a couple of burned out and abandoned hive spires with refurbishment deadlines which keep on getting pushed back and back and back...

Thanks for the ideas so far. I'll stick with my plan on Fenksworld, partly because some of my players are new with 40K world and I don't want to confuse them with first-hand encounter with xenos (like Orks) yet and partly because I feel Adeptus Arbites and Ordo Hereticus are concerned with internal threats which a WAAAGH!, no matter how small, isn't.

I'll certainly introduce some political backstabbing and internal squabbles behind the scenes, but intend to keep House Hax (and other major sector level players) out of it because I want to have a situation where all sides are small-scale enough to be targeted by sub-sector/planetary level Adeptus Arbites investigation while the big =][= is sitting behind the scenes pulling strings and gently nudging Acolytes to the right paths.

As for the big baddie I want a demonhost, deranged cultist, rogue psyker or similar person who is Hereticus Extremis level in power. He might be part of some organization or larger cult, but in the scale of this campaign he'll be showing up as a lone, singular baddie that I can use to personify the enemy.

One thing you'll have to consider with Fenksworld is it dose have the main Imperial navy supply depot orbiting it (and I assume Fenksworld is responsible for most of the indentured slaves aboard Battlefleat Calixis' ships) so Naval intervention would be very likely if things get out of hand planet side. Of course, it might be interesting if they decided to lance certain spiers of Nova Castilla to show that they aren't going to take such noise and danger to their mortal fuel supply lightly. Likewise, having the navy right there would make deploying Imperial agents and troops to insure the mess doesn't get too messy rather fast and easy.

Graver said:

The really nice twist about Fenksworld and Hive Volg is that it isn't as easy as you'd expect... Sure, there is a naval base there which means that there is plenty of intersystem transport available and enough orbital weapons to lauch a full-scale Exterminatus. However, this doesn't automatically translate into a huge supply of Imperial troops. When you consider the fact that you can't just lance the whole Volg from orbit without destroying the atmospheric controls which would result in the death the whole planetary population the navy and the Imperial Guard are in a very difficult position.

The nearest Imperial Guard regiments (and only ones in Calixis Sector not already tied into a conflict somewhere else) are Scythewind Regiment stationed in Mortressa, 23rd Drusus Dragoons in Clovis and Brontian Longknives in Bront. All of these are several jumps away and even if you do manage to get the sector lead to allow trasporting whole regiment or two into this particular conflict a single regiment is only a few thousand troops strong. Surely a single IG regiment has enough firepower to destory the whole Volg several times over, but when you want to invade a hive without completely destroying it you need lots of living bodies carrying rifles in each block and this is something they don't have.

So, if things would turn very nasty then the only viable options would really be:

#1 Lance the whole hive, lose atmospheric controls, kill billions and turn the whole world into inhabitable deathworld.

#2 Transfer all three regiments into Volg and hope the few thousand bodies with laser rifles and rhinos can do something the several thousand arbiters with same kinds of laser rifles and shotguns and rhinos somehow couldn't do.

#3 Transfer more arbiters there from sectorial reserves to contain the problem and try to find a behind-the-scenes way of ending the problems

In my campaign I assume Imperium goes by route #3 (enter Inquisition, Assassins and Acolytes themselves) and reserves #1 as contingency plan if all goes south. Having a few fregates in geosynchronized orbit with Hive Volg, weapons aimed down also has the nice element of Acolytes knowing exactly what they will happen if the Inquisition and other Imperial Agents drop the ball.