Hi all,

Thought it might be fun to discuss some of the possible way in which a party of Black Crusade players might be able to contribute to the death of the false Emperor in a more meaningful manner than attack generic planet XX and try to turn it into a daemonworld, and therefore avoiding messy confrontations with entire Space Marine Chapters, Imperial Guard regiments and the might of the Grey Knights...

Here are some of my ideas on the subject and I'd love to hear yours.

1. Inflitrate the Inquisition, with a view to getting hold of the routes and schedules, used by the Black ships, so that other chaos forces specialising in inflitration such as the Alpha Legion can attempt to destroy or sabotage them in one fell swoop, effectively starving the Emperor of his only food source and plunging the Imperium into anarchy.

2. In a similar manner, work alongside Dark Mechanicus researchers, who are looking to create their own Golden Throne in order to understand its functioning. After some success is made, launch attacks on imperial installations guarding the production of the rare elements needed to maintain the Golden Throne. If this seems a little far-fetched, do something similar with other essential Imperial technology such as Gellar fields.

3. Test or field trial meme-viruses designed to turn the psyker populations of Black ships into warp-powered explosives.

4. Work as minions for Fabius Bile as part of a primarch creation programme, while trying not to be used as part of his experiments. Could possibly involve the capture of a Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest, a genestealer, taking the Ovipositor, removing the genetic cassette coding for the genestealer's phenotype and replacing it with Sanguinius's DNA obtained from the cells within the Sanguinary Priest's blood. Potentially could hideously back-fire if Fabius fails to remove the genes coding for the psychic call to the Tyranid hive-fleets....

5. Step 1. Obtain full working knowledge of Eunica. Step 2. Profit!

6. Hear a rumour that a bunch of Imperial archeologists are getting close to discovering of undreamt of power. Beat them to it, find out it's a time machine, go back in time and do your best to prevent little Horus or an Alpha Legion spy from deactivating the shields on the Vengeful Spirit. Or alternatively, hiding behind Horus's throne and then shiving the Emperor after he's just used up all his strength obliterating Horus....

7. Corner the sub-sector market in children's toys while lacing them with chaos-drenched subliminal messages. Would the Inquisition see it coming?

personly i think we should stop all supply of haribo to the imperial guard regiments and watch the chaos unfold mohhhaaaaa

serious note though i like the ideas laid down also maybe a game where they race against a pro imperial faction on a non affiliated world to gain control

or to corrupt the ruling caste to bring them power

Perhaps fleeing from Imperial Tyranny, your Black Crusade leads a rag-tag fleet on a search for a legendary world to call home...

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this thread. TS' suggestion would seem to me to actually require a larger budget in terms of extremely hard-to-get information or expertise. For example managing to actually infiltraiting the Inquisition for a Chaos followers seems to me that it would actually require even more resources and energy than drawing together an army of traitors, heretics and mutants to try and overtake some random planet. And outirght warfare would probably be easier to handle as well. Most of the stuff that has been suggested would also likly draw significant Imperial attention and probably violence before the greater effect could take place.

Or maybe its just that I'm slow?

Yes, most of this stuff does require significant resources, but they are still on a vastly smaller scale than that required by the traditional method of gathering the Chaos Legions, daemons and mortal warbands and throwing them at Cadia.

For example, inflitrating the Inquisition would require at most thousands of operatives, compared to the several trillion warriors needed to mount a concerted push towards Terra.

Yes, of course. It will be significantly smaller than say the 13th Black Crusade to infiltrate the Inqusition. Hell I can't even think of anyone except Abbadon and maybe one or two of the Daemon Primarchs that could hope to gather the resources for an operation like a full fledge invasion of Cadia - and stand a chance to take it. But even so, while infiltraiting the Inquisiton might "only" need a few thousand individuals, I think that these individuals can't just be some random Joes off the street. They will after all have to have make regular contact with lots of Imperial personal who may well be highly skilled at detected signs of Chaotic influence in a person. Unless you have very highly skilled and very well preapered agents, I would imagine that they would be rooted out very quickly.

I would probably suggest using infiltraiting of local Imperial administration and keeping the personal away from the limelight of public life. For example the planetary governor may be a bit bad since he will be among the first ones to met off-worlders if things are wrong. But the planetary governer's secretary's extramartial mistress may be in a more ideal position to get information, and perhaps gentle nudge policy in a certain direction.

As I see it, the Imperium simply can't be toppled in one go. It is just too big and just too strong. What is needed is to grind it down. And if possible, without using the Chaos forces themselves for the heavy work, but instread rely on other pawns. Orks should be a favored one for managing the Imperial armed forces and keep them busy. In my eyes, Chaos should best focus on raiding and acts of terrorism and subterfudge. Causing Chaotic revolts on planets that can force these to be either abandoned by the Imperium or outright put under Exterminatus is a good way, since it will in the end make the number of worlds under the Imperium's thumb to draw resources from fewer. The only races that I think that any Chaotic forces should NOT try to hinder the Imperium's effort against, or try to help, are the Tyranids and the Necrons. They both after all have the agenda of cleaning off all life form the galaxy and thus will run counter to any except the really mad Chaos followers' goals - and indeed the very goal of the Chaos gods.

So that's what I think of it. Grind the Imperium down through small victories or force the Imperium to win Pyrrhic victories that harm themselves more than us in the long run. Outlying systems that can be cut-off from the Imperium can be outright conquered or converted with the chance that they will survive under Chaos influence. Of course fighting a long war with the Imperium could well allow other forces, most likly aliens, to take advantage of it and cause the Imperium even more problem. Say that you start a series of Chaos lead revolts in a sector, or sub-sector for that matter, it will lead to the Imperium arriving to supress the problem. So either they engage in a long war that will eat resources from other places and perhaps allow the Orks to take a sector or two. So once the Imperium have cleansed a sector and returned it to the Corpse God, the Orks might have invaded taken three other sectors.

Some good thoughts there

Another angle of attack would be to undermine the very concept of the Imperium. For example, what would happen if Chaos Cultists obtained proof that the Emperor never wished to be worshipped as a God and were able to disseminate broadly?

Another amusing but highly risky gamble would be to try to launch a mission to "cure" Roboute Guilliman. After all, if Chaos poisoned him, Chaos (particularly the daemon possessing Fulgrim) might have the cure. The assumption here is that a returned primarch would rebel or lead a revolt against the corrupt nature of the present day Imperium and that the resulting strife might help weaken and divide the Imperium to the point that conventional assault might succeed.

Hmmm, continuing from Lucifer's thoughts, having any of the "surviving" primarchs return would be pretty bad for the ruling factions of the Imperium. All of them would have a less corrupted memory of their father's teachings and such be at odds with most of the Imperium. Sending a Chaos warband on a quest to find a Primarch under the guise of loyal servants of the Imperium would be a clever way to stir up trouble on a shoe-string budget (as shoe-string as anything gets in the 40k verse at least) and allow Chaos to make a better pass for Cadia.

I don't know if a returning loyalist Primarch would be a such good way for Chaos. These are awesome superhumans after all if Roboute Guilliman returned, two-thirds of the Adeptus Astartes would follow his commands more or less blindly, and I imagine that most of the population will just fall to their knees and stare in disbelief at the sacred Primarch and gene-son of the Emeperor returned. While any loyalist Primarch would be a problem for Chaos, Guilliman is probably the worst alternative as he's good with more things that just fighting.

I do however agree that the concept of the "Imperium" might be worth to undermine, at least untill Abbadon can capture Terra, eat the Corpse God himself, and then create a new Imperium dedicated to the glorious majesty of Chaos. Stating that the Emperor never wished to be worshipped or highlight the Imperial Cult's roots with the Primarch of the Word Bearers could also cause some fun trouble. Or just generally provoce the Imperium to conduce actions that undermine their own standing, or foster secular separatist notions among planetary populations.

or Fabious Biles just creates another Primarch copy in order to gain access to the chapter's relic!

Glorious Fabious Bile!!!!

Gurkhal said:

I think the point was that Guilliman would be opposed to the Imperium at its current state.

Gurkhal said:

The Imperium as it is currently is simply not the way the Emperor envisioned it, he did not consider himself a god and actually even pushed one of his sons towards Chaos because that son venerated his divinity so adamently and the Big E wanted no truck with organized religion. Other aspects of the Emperor's vision for the Imperium I have no reference for but it is suspected that he would be ameable to the idea of a treaty with the Eldar and Tau... it's also suggested he was a great scientist and while he would likely understand the need for slow, steady, calculated advances, he would also not be pleased with the stagnation in the present Adeptus Mechanicus.

Short of the Emperor himself, the loyalists primarchs have the least corrupted memory of how the Imperium should be. Even though most of them have their own opinions and personalities, they all should still have a reasonable clue of "what daddy would have wanted." The ones that disappeared instead of died vanished in the direction of the Eye of Terror with the exception of the White Scars... meaning they're likely either in the CSMs stomping ground or battling Dark Eldar if they're still alive and hey, who better to resist the maddening sights of the Dark Eldar city then someone who is already mad and corrupted?

Yes, in the long run a returning primarch is seriously bad news for Chaos. But the time between his initial return and the time the Imperium gets used to the new status quo is quite the opprotunity.

There's half a dozen chaos primarchs that haven't done anything in centuries. Go and petition one of them to get off their lazy butts and do something!

Lucifer216 said:

All of those are really good! #3 had me almost spitting soda on my monitor.

Going back to the point about the psyker population and their collection by the Black Ships, boosting anti-psyker hatred across the Imperium, through Redemptonist cults and ultra-puritan Inquisitors might be an interesting way to go.

Another key vulnerability the Imperium possesses is its reliance on Navigators. Successfully triggering off a massive inter-house Vendetta that could irreparably compromise their already limited gene-pool below that needed for a sustainable population would be a massive win for Chaos, given their use of Sorcerors and Possessed to fulfil the same function.

I'd also like to point out that in Titanicus by Dan Abnett, the alliance between the rest of the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus almost gets compromised by the discovery of information that casts doubt on the belief that the Emperor and the Omnissiah are one. While this particular angle has already been tried, Abaddon does know about the Void Dragon in the Noctis Labyrinth. While awakening the Void Dragon, would in the long term be a problem for Chaos, the massive damage it could do might make it worth doing in conjunction with other plans to destabilise the Imperium.

A very insidious idea would be to slowly, step by step alter the girl pics in the imperial guard's nasty magazines to more and more resemble eldar girls until whole regiments are drooling xenos lovers.

After that one can either call them out to the inquisition while at the same time instigating them to rise up and defend themselves against a corrupted bureaucracy that wants to kill them all.

Then use the resulting time of unrest to hide other actions or try to profit from the internal strife in other ways.

Yeah I kind of understand the idea of a using the temporary chaotic situation of a returning Primarch pissed with how the High Lords of Terra have handeled things. But I think that any gains will be lost when a reinvigorated Imperium goes to renewed offensive with a walking demi-god with them. Hell that kind of guys can take down Greater Demons by themselves. Therefor I think that a stagnant and declining Imperium is to prefer above the possibility of having it infused with new vigor.

I agree that the Navigators will probably be a good thing to strike at. As have been said, without them loyalists are more or less doomed and Chaos can take root and move almost at will. The way I see this is to either direct violence towards the Navigators or to corrupt them to Chaos. If they are killed, well that should settle the problem rather quickly. But if they are corrupted that could spread among their ranks and the Imperium will likly have to kill them themselves, and keep a close watch for return of the corruption. It would make a fine irony if the Imperium kills the very personal responsible for allowing them to keep their empire together. But while the Navigators may be relatively few, they probably are a whole shitload of them across the Galaxy so it will need a significant effort over a longer period of time. But I totally agree that the Navigators makes a weak link to strike at.

I think corruption is probably much harder than creating or intensifying vendettas between Navigator houses. Not to say that you couldn't, but it would be harder. Actually, you might have the issue that Navigators might be rather resistant to corruption. After all, what exactly can Chaos offer them, given their incredible wealth and the fact that they stare into the Warp all day probably gives them some resistance to Chaotic influence in the same way that "familiarity breeds contempt."

However, a combination approach might be an interesting strategy. First of all, engineer a war between rival houses and then offer to help the weaker side. If they win, then they're in the debt of Chaos....

Some other thoughts I had were as follows:

I remember once having a discussion with a German Lawyer about how after WWII, the German constitution was rewritten to make it extremely difficult for a dictator to seize power ever again and 40K has equivalents to this in the form of the reorganisation of the Space Marines and the Eccleisarchy after the Horus Heresy and Vandire's reign of terror. It makes sense then to attack or corrupt the institutions within the Imperium which have undergone such reforms. I'm particularly thinking of the Inquisition, given the awesome amount of power its wields through a relatively small number of individuals and the massive potential damage that can be caused by corruption, exterminatus on false pretences and Inquisitor Wars.

Another interesting real-world analogy is the fact that throughout recent history, some of the greatest hardships faced by armies came about due to the fact that the equipment they were provided with was not designed with the conditions of their operating environment in line. For example, the German advance on Russia in WWII or Napoleon's earlier attempt, or the tendency of British armoured vehicles to fail in desert environments during the first Iraq war.

Now, obviously the Imperium has centralised areas such as forgeworlds which crank out weapons and ammunitions for many different regiments. Also, those worlds that produce their own weapons to equip their PDF and the Imperial Guard regiments that are raised as part of the their Imperial tithes have to produce all-terrain equipment.

Inflitrating such manufactorums and compromising the quality control or altering the designs slightly so that they will not work reliably in conditions other than those of their home planet, would dramatically eat into the Imperium's fighting strength, while at the same time would be difficult to detect.

Yeah actually corrupting the Navigators might be a bit hard, although I'm more thinking about corrupting them through exposure to Chaos rather than making a fishy deal with them. But you are correct that it might be a bit hard to fight them, although if one could tainted their genetic structure that could cause alot of fun. Anyhow it might be easier to deal with them through good 'ol fashioned assassination and terrorism, for which most Chaos followers should be at least reasonably well prepeared.

Yes, using an Inqusitior to spread some hell could be fun, although the problem is of course that other Inquisitors are looking out for tainted in their peers and so I fear that a corrupted Inquisitor would not be able to pull off something long-term before he is unmasqued. I could be wrong of course if you can find a good candidate.

I like the idea of corrupting the Adeptus Mechanicus. The problem with making malfunctioning weapons would be that they could get caught in Imperial quality controls. Still if the system is corrupt enough (not Chaos corruption in this regard) then I could see them slipping through. Using somewhat inferior material so that the things will be worse could also be used in prolonging a war to draw away the Imperials from our real objective. I like that idea.

Let's see....

1. Fabius Bile is working on cloning his own pet Emperor the last I read. He obtained the Blood Angel Primarch dna and says he had analyzed it before it was taken away from him. Supporting him could bring about a shift in Chaos politics if it works (it also may require killing Abbadon the Despoiler to prevent a massive civil war which the Chaos Gods would sadly just laugh about)

2. Gather a fast fleet. Again tap in the skills of Fabius Bile. Watch the fleet movements of the Tyranids and work to knock out listening stations and other methods of discovering that the Tyranids are closing in on Terra. Let them eat Holy Terra and allow Fabius to unleash some Chaos weapon to either destroy them or send them from the galaxy. Yes, a good half the galaxy may be dead, but a win is a win. Right?

3. Fabius Bile...again. Can he make a Chaos Sorcerer be capable of tapping into the Waaugh! energy enough to both be able to channel this immense power and be "Orky" enough to sway them under his command? Combine the power of the Waaugh! and the power of the warp to collect the mightiest Waaugh! in the history of the galaxy...and then...aaahhh FIGHT! Then valuable Chaos Space Marine Legions and their followers can be spared while the orks are being fought on the other side of the galaxy. Cadia will be well guarded still, but less so if the Imperials have to fight Orks to the western reaches of the galaxy and Tyranids to the eastern side of the galaxy.

Ok...lots of usage surrounding Fabius Bile and/or plenty of genetic research. Any major plan involving Bile may require placating or killing Abbadon to prevent him from deciding to move against any and all plans because of old grudges.

Or...can it be discovered somehow that the Golden Throne, center of the Emperor's rule and source of the Astromonicon is failing? Seed a possible way to repair this device and the Mechanicus will brave every danger to try to save their beloved leader. When this device backfires and kills their leader? Though I wonder...the last Night Lord novel I read, they still used the Holy Beacon that the Emperor provided to navigate. Simply let the truth out and watch the Imperium tear itself apart in trying to stop the rumors from travelling and the thousands of rebellions as worlds and systems work to become independent and try to find new ways to navigate without his Holyness.

What about corrupting, or throwing a tiny wrench into the gears of the minstorium. They supply the whole of the Imperium, most importantly the billions of the imperial guard.

Something as simple as having all lasgun battery V3 and Lasgun batter V5 be mislablled as each other. Take years for the right format of charger to be given to the right people, making those fighting have to rely on small supplies and scavenged material.

Or transfer Petro or other needed supplies to the wrong, but similiarly named planet.

Or just go the volgon way and require certain papers to be resigned by the first signer, who is long dead when it gets back to them, for confirmation, meaning the planet never gets it's food supplies, and the glorious army of chaos comes by with food and is the savior on many planets

Oh I would love to mess with the minitorium here, especially after reading the little book about it, showing the power they truly have.

I'm gunning for the Adeptus Administratum.

Reasons:

Combat ability of the average scribe is typically mediocre to bloody awful so if you do have to roll him and throw them in the back of a van for a chat, its likely to be fairly easy.

Adeptus Administratum is above the local law, so you dont have to worry about them hassled by the beat cops, only Arbites and Acolytes, but they need a reason first to even suspect your average grade 1 pencil pusher is doing anything but being a cardigan wearing nobody in the first place.

The AA actually has a lot of power... we're not talking about angry spess mareen, blow stuff up and shoot you in the face power, but the ability to be in control of Imperial Assets and information isnt something to be ignored, especially when it ends up inYOUR pocket instead! Sure, it'll probably start off with little things like a crate of machineguns and whos running what in authority, but later on- Shipments dont arrive to a world you're going to subvert, tithes get crossed off and misinformation trails get laid and the imperium goes off the thump on otherwise rightous people who apparently didnt pay their taxes, that may potentially throw a spanner in your works. Well, life just gets all that bit easier.

Long term:

Sink the hooks in them, at first its likely to be that they wake up naked in a cheap hotel with a goat, empty bottle of amasac and the risk someone took pictures of the event. Maybe I save your arse from being kicked from a bunch of disrespectful gangers? But those pictures don't ever have to surface, we'll hunt down the terrible people that did it. There you go, no problems, no favours needed really for a member of the Adeptus.

I'm you're best friend. Boss giving you hassle, someone get in the way of promotion, its all entirely possible they might get disappeared and things just made all that smoother to the top. I know a few scum that can teach your forgery and if worst comes to worst there might be a few big chunks of cash, pretty girls and boys who might like to know you for negotiable affection.

Its good to have friends.

Since it sounds like Black Crusade will take place entirely inside The Screaming Vortex, and PCs will be people born on Daemon Worlds who fight other Chaos followers to try to rise in status, I wonder if the PCs will be assumed to know that the Imperium even exists?

This is true. The info inside the Black Crusade will be of the Screaming Vortex and the players will either have been born there or chased there.

However, there is a great big galaxy out there. I'm almost certain that Fantasy Flight Games or Games Workshop will not come pounding on our door with some muscle back up to make sure we remain within the semi-detailed domains that the four books have presented us with. Maybe some of us would like to be in the Eye of Terror instead and pound some Cadians into mush. Or help Warsmith Honsou and his vengeance.

Ah. Quietly capture some ships that have the Life Eater virus, but do not change the ships in any way so that they still look of the Imperium. Virus bomb the heck out of Terra with these bombs....nevermind such a ship may still not get near Terra unless the crew on board can get past all of the security check points. A vast fleet would be needed to gain space superiority before actual bombing runs could begin.

Let's see. Plunge fingers in own ears and chant. "There is no Imperium." Just get every single ork alive in the galaxy to do this at once and see what happens. Right? I mean...they can make a spaceship painted red go faster because they all believe that "Red makes fast"

Well, doing the Orky stuff to wish the Imperium away is probably not going to make it. Sorry .

However the idea with virus bombs isn't to bad. If the Cadians proves annoying again I don't see why that planet cannot be virus bombed? Its not like its going to harm the pylons or that we need the planet itself. We just need the **** thing cleared.