Blood Pact said:

The problem there is that A) typically space marines arrive by boarding torpedo or thunderhawk, B) you have to get close enough to teleport, and C) at five ships of the line (presumably cruisers rather then BC/GC, or battleships, though neither is impossible, both Haarlock and Winterscale are flat out stated to have battleships), he'd have a greater weight of broadside then the rest of the ships listed combined.

(Emperor Class and Exocist Class are primarily launch platforms for fighter and bomber squadrons with limited firepower of their own. Oberon is an all arounder, though I'm vaguely surprised they could get one. There are only 20 of them in the Imperium. Not as rare as an ordinatus, which is a star ship nova cannon on a custom chasis, mind you.)

The problem there is that A) typically space marines arrive by boarding torpedo or thunderhawk, B) you have to get close enough to teleport, and C) at five ships of the line (presumably cruisers rather then BC/GC, or battleships, though neither is impossible, both Haarlock and Winterscale are flat out stated to have battleships), he'd have a greater weight of broadside then the rest of the ships listed combined.

You do realize that when there's nothing in the listing below the Grand Cruiser, that likely implies everything else is considered "small fry"?

Ravion Lupus said:

It's not that easy. If you do sth homebrewn and then later you'd like to run an official campaign book that is based on sth in the timeline that contradicts what you have run previously you might be hosed.

If there is official timelines, it would make sense to mark safe areas, white spots on the figurative map, reserved for GM homebrewn stuff.

Or just let's say: some help for conflict avoidance might be helpful.

Alex

Cifer said:

Well, there is that Mars class, but frankly the whole list is weirdly lopsided. (And five grand cruisers would make a hell of a mess of this group of ships)

Here's the problem: if the Crusade is really secret, this is probably the best force your going to put together (other then the really small Munitorium force should be much, much larger, as in, half the deployed forces) *if* you're going ot maintain the level of secrecy that supposedly goes along with this. It would explain the odd fleet (ships pulled from reserve someplace supplimented by a Rogue trader) and why there are no space marine ships named, as they would attract too much attention.

Basically, you can have the Crusade be small and secret, or have the Crusade be large and successful, but not both. To fight on three fronts acrossed an entire sector, 5 billion should be seen as 'bare minimum' to actually succeed in taking and holding the worlds.

"Ship of the Line" is a rather vague term, but using the old wooden ships as a base, it could be anything from a Light Cruiser all the way up to a Battleship. So one shouldn't assume.

And again, you're just making **** up to try and prove your point. There's no reason the Crusade has to be small to keep its secret, the Imperium isn't a big bumbling incompetant boob that can't handle that sort of thing. They lose so much information by accident I imagine it would only be too easy to manage.

Plus, everyone thinks everything is just going to the Margin Crusade, so it's not like they need to be sneaky about where they're getting ships from. Don't assume anything based off of a very limited and narrow snapshot of the Crusade's composition.

Also those are "Vessels of Note", not every ship of the line in the Crusade Battlefleet. Those are probably the flagships for individual task forces or sub-fleets.

Ravion Lupus said:

And I 100% agree with that, probably more than most FFG fans would in fact. But it's a rule for GMs, not for FFG.

Or to put it another way, I like to pick and choose what bits of canon I want to use, I don't wish to let FFG do it for me. Especially if they're basing their decision around 'wouldn't it be cool if we could fight x, regardless of canon and internal setting logic'. The least we should expect from FFG with their 40K books is that they are knowledgeable and respectful of the setting and it's known canon.

As to whether the previous canon was in any way shakey regarding the fact there were no known hive fleets, or significant 'nid activity, between Macragge and 992, I've personally not seen any contradiction of that. Perhaps someone could point out the contradictory canon.

MILLANDSON said:

Yep, that list shows what I thought it would, hence why I asked for precise details. It seems to me to strongly imply that is in fact the majority of the Crusade army at the start of the Crusade. As Baron says it seems to use the term notable with reference to IG units of significant size. It also, more importantly perhaps, lists full details of the other units involved, giving numbers that suggest the IG numbers given are roughly accurate to them being the whole army, more or less.

It's not concrete, and of course fans can always come up with their own explanations, I would suggest the Crusade started much smaller, then skyrocketted once the scale of the enemy forces became clear, and there are now 3-5 Billion IG troops in theatre.

However, that this needs to be done, does show, despite the tenuous (imo) arguments to contrary, this Crusade hasn't been a model of fluff excellence to say the least. But hey, I'm just a hater right, rather than an impartial playtester ... who posts about twice a day every day how much he loves getting advance product from FFG.

@BaronIveah

Here's the problem: if the Crusade is really secret, this is probably the best force your going to put together (other then the really small Munitorium force should be much, much larger, as in, half the deployed forces) *if* you're going ot maintain the level of secrecy that supposedly goes along with this. It would explain the odd fleet (ships pulled from reserve someplace supplimented by a Rogue trader) and why there are no space marine ships named, as they would attract too much attention.

Why? As long as the Crusade is going, none of these ships are going to return to Calixis or other sectors.

Cifer said:

Doesn't matter, the supplies have to come from some place: this force, it would be possible to skim assets using wholly inquisitorial operated fronts to supply the force. Anything they couldn't get would probably be comming from the AdMech, Short falls, errors and discrepencies could be made to fall within the acceptable margin of error.

This is how secret wars get their supplies from governments that don't know what they're funding. The organisation within the government uses a combination of embezzelment and mysterious slush funds (occasionally financed illicitly themselves) to run thier operation.

Or, ya know, they just say it's going to the Margin Crusade.

Which is what we've been told they're doing.

Blood Pact said:

The problem with that is what happens when someone from the Magine Crusade goes 'What are you talking about? We never ordered 1800 sets of white socks in Space Marine XL..."

Since there are, you know, people coming back from the Margin Crusade.

Although it's extreamly common for materials and IG units to be redirected in transit from one crusade to another.

The problem with that is what happens when someone from the Magine Crusade goes 'What are you talking about? We never ordered 1800 sets of white socks in Space Marine XL..."

Since there are, you know, people coming back from the Margin Crusade.

AFAIK, it's unknown whether the Margin Crusade still exists (at the point where Deathwatch begins, not at the point where DH characters with the fitting background package are created) or has been taken over entirely by the new one, with only a few paper-pushers left to conserve appearances.

Quicksilver said:

Granted: point. However, the paper trail for that would be immense. Remember, the form to requisition a single las gun is five pages long.

Also, eventually the Margin Crusade command will start wondering why so much of their gear is going someplace else.

The way to keep it quiet is to make it so that people think that nothing is happening at all. If someone somewhere has reason to question, you're that much closer to having the thing blown wide open.

That and it's heavily implied that they expected this war to be a cake walk at the outset (why is it always that they think that a Crusade against the Tau will be easy? They didn't learn anything fifty years earlier?). The 'minor detail' of a mini eye of terror filled with daemon fortress worlds filled with CSM in the dead center of the sector had escaped them. Not that they could know that a 'splinter fleet' that covers a third of the sector would also hop in. Makes fighting the tau look positivly easy.

BaronIveagh said:

Except, you know, Deathwatch states that the Margin Crusade has been lost, presumed destroyed, for 20 years, so the Margin Crusade command aren't saying much, because they are either lost in the Halo Stars unable to communicate with the Imperium at large, or dead.

The Margin Crusade is now entirely on paper, for the purpose of making the Sectors near to the Halo Stars think that the forces they are tithing are benefiting them in some tangible way, when they are actually all being diverted to the Jericho Reach through the Warp Gate.

MILLANDSON said:

But isn't fighting on the other side of the warp gate still beneficial to their defense? I mean, if they are effectively adjacent, I don't see what the real issue is with keeping it a secret from the planetary govenors and what not (or rather, why anyone would seriously care enough to piss of the big =I=).

Sure I can understand not telling the troops for the purpose of secrecy though. While there is some argument as to how the Tau travel, I imagine something like this "warp gate" is more of the pass into, come out the other end type, so it could easily be believed as a possible threat if they find out where this is coming from.

They might not see it that way though. I could fully understand why they would go "no, get sectors in the Eastern Fringe to deal with it, not our problem", where as a Crusade into the Halo Stars means more Imperial systems nearby, which means more money and trade coming through.

Also, due to them having kept the secret initially, it's now reached the stage where the secret needs to be kept because, if the Sectors that are being drained for it knew they had been lied to all that time, you can well imagine them being rather pissed off and cutting off supplies for the Crusade.

Also, it was the High Lords of Terra, the ones that authorised the Crusade, that ordered that it be kept a secret due to the huge damage that could be done to the Imperium if their enemies knew of a Warp Gate that allowed almost instant transportation from one side of the galaxy to the other. Generally, one does not argue with the High Lords of Terra.

Also, according to the fluff, it was meant to be a quick, fast crusade, that has since got bogged down, and as such had "countless millions of Imperial Guardsmen", not the billions put forward by Baron.

Cifer said:

Or the DH characters were in the Jericho Crusade, but thoguht they were in the Margin crusade and so forth.

They might not see it that way though. I could fully understand why they would go "no, get sectors in the Eastern Fringe to deal with it, not our problem", where as a Crusade into the Halo Stars means more Imperial systems nearby, which means more money and trade coming through.

While I'm not quite sure what exactly that warp gate is (celestial phenomenon or actual structure) the sector lords might also simply be in favour of destroying the **** thing when they find out about it.

There seems to be a double standard as regards the relative power of Sector Lords coming from supporters of this conspiracy theory, on the one hand Sector Lords do not seem to have the reach or ability to monitor the progress of a crusade that's theoretically going on adjacent to their sector and which they are concerned is draining their resources, but on the other they are apparently able to put the fear of the G-E into the High Lords of Terra over the possibility that they might be ordered to send troops where-ever the heck they're told.

I don't really think past canon supports that Sector Lords get any say whatsoever in the deployment of IG regiments raised in their sectors if they are over-ruled by higher Imperial authorities. Their opinion is important at the planetary and Sector level, but pretty limited and minor beyond that. The Macharius Crusade for example dragged in troops from many different Sectors and even different Segmentum. There's no evidence I've ever seen this caused any significant ill-feeling or uprisings amongst Sector Lords. Even a backwater Sector like Calixis is not short of canon-fodder -ah 'brave new recruits' after all.

MILLANDSON said:

A 'little' 40k Crusade then? Hardly inspiring that, imo. So are we to assume the numbers are by the time of play now up to more (for lack of a better way of putting it) '40k' levels, ie in the billions not the hundreds of thousands?

Adam France said:

I'd totally agree with this. After all, what's the point of a galactic empire if every regional satrap gets a say in what happens outside his area of responsibility?

As for the "little" crusade point, the siege of Vraks could count as a "little" campaign, despite the fact that millions died in it.

I do have some reservations regarding troop numbers. Personally, I'd have thought that to reconquer a sector-sized region of space, you'd need at least 200 million plus troops. But I'd be surprised if there are any hard and fast numbers in DW, and any suggestion that numbers are smaller may be explained by the fact that the Imperium may have originally anticipated a very different campaign to the sort of campaign they've actually got. Possibly they were expecting planetary empires that could have been knocked over one at a time over a couple of centuries, with no opposing fleets.

What they appear to have is a grinding campaign across three vast salients with three very different types of opponent and multiple enemy fleets capable of striking behind the lines.

@Lightbringer

I'd totally agree with this. After all, what's the point of a galactic empire if every regional satrap gets a say in what happens outside his area of responsibility?

I'd assume it's just a bigger version of an Inquisitor's power: In theory, an Inquisitor has the authority to order nearly anyone to do nearly anything he wants them to do. An Inquisitor who puts that theory into practice too often will very soon find out why it's a bad idea. In the same way, the Crusade may find itself sabotaged from within (after all, they're regularly inducting reinforcements from the sectors into it) to force it to stop - and assuming the Warp Gate can be destroyed, there's a very simple way of cutting losses if the High Lords can be shown the Crusade is more trouble than it's worth.

Adam France said:

I think what you're neglecting to understand is that a Sector Lord has a lot to do, not only the managment of their Sector, but also fending off political rivals, handling the intrigues of court, and various other things. Hax is a paranoid, micro-managing, power monger, but that doesn't mean he has a lot of free time to put the Margin/Achillus Crusade under a magnifying glass. And he really has no reason tot ake a closer look either, I would imagine the same goes for the Scarus and Ixaniad sector lords.

And they would certainly have enough political influence to cause trouble for the Crusade efforts. Inability to find out does not equal inability to cause trouble for the Crusade. And as for the Macharius Crusade, this is just speculation, but I'd assume that after he left the Segmentum Solar with his vast armies and warfleet, I'd assume there was little recruiting done from that part of the Imperium, and that instead he was limited to drawing from the Segmentum he was operating in (Pacificus?).