Ok so there I was and I handed out some printouts to my players of

http://davidszondy.com/future/city/depthscraper.htm

to illustrate the nature of the habs that was common on that world.

I left the url on the picture when I printed it which of course led them to

http://davidszondy.com/future/war/land_fortress.htm

The image was simply too much for them and they sqee'd with glee (or so I assume).. they now are trying to get something similar. Even supposing I allow it, witch may be hard to deny as it does positively reek of the sort of thing the imperium/mechanicus would make. How would you suppose they take it with them? Specialized cargo bays? Special drop ship? I am thinking of throwing a lot in their path to getting something like it but ultimately doable. Any ideas on what obstacles I should place in their paths?

Frankly, it looks a little tame compared to the Leviathan command vehicle. Not too sure where to find a pic, used to be one in one of the WH40K- Epic rule/army books.

I'd guess getting one of these to the ground requires actually landing the Transport carrying it, or at least getting it near to the ground then using tractor beams or the like to lower it. As for difficulties in getting one, similar in scope to gaining cruisers, but dealing with the IG more than IN, plus Ad Mech as always. Probably also need a Regiment or so to justify having it, but could be easier than gaining a Titan, if rarer.

I'd be more horrified if they wanted a Bolo.

First thing I thought of when I saw it was a Zayth land-ship, but those are far bigger.

Plasmafest

As to tame well they want something similar and this is much bigger than a leviathan, the 40k version of the picture soo...

It would be MUCH cheaper than any working void ship even the cost of the cheapest transport would dwarf the cost of this by orders of magnitude.

I like landing the transport idea as it would require them to bring one along (which they do but for other uses so they would need another one).

As for rarity I was thinking that basically there were none (still mobile anyway) and they would need to commission the building of any they wanted.

They have a VERY good relationship with the mechanicus and this is the sort of thing I would say they would love to build, so long as someone else is footing the bill anyway.

Don't see the IG angle unless you meant that if there was any available it would be in IG hands and that is who they would need to get it from.

As to troops, they have plenty.

Errant

I imagine this thing is maybe roughly the size of nimits class so maybe ~300meters long ~100 wide. The zayth sips are the size light cruisers (though with cruiser hull points and 3 shields). But yes this is kinda that only smaller.

A bolo? Emperor forbid! Unless you believe in tanks that are more powerful than spaceships many times their size (for some reason despite being MUCH bigger they never thought to mount better armor or guns on the ships).

Keep the ideas comming

So far I am thinking time (they need to be built) and transport (they are going to need a transport ship) will be the big obstacles. Need some more as that will not even give them pause. Sigh I can already hear the RTs maniacal cackling as they crush villages under its treads.

Send them on a quest to find an essential widget; "we only have the designs for transmission boxes up to size 12,035, this'll need a size 12,604 at least!" Either dig up an old wreck from Zayth, or journey to an obscure Forge World to find such data. Possibly entailing a fight with some Thulians (or Logicians for a real scrap).

My reference to the IG was about them having the occassional Leviathan and the like, since they run them as command vehicles by themselves, rather than by the Collegia Titanica. Whole bunch of tech-priests on board either way of course, but since it itsn't a God Machine, there's more leeway for using the Warrant's authority to ask for a 'loan'. Though they are very rare.

Plasmafest said:

I like the quest idea. Something along the lines of we here at the lathes have never actually built one of these transmissions but forge world "X" has. We can send a request for the pattern from them though and in a few short decades we should have it. Or you can go there and convince them to give you the plans directly. Or if you bring us an example of a transmission from one of these things, even a busted one, we can copy. (there could be a few around calixus or the expanse as old museums or on battlefields on Tranch (long ago immobilized) or some such.

As for the Leviathan they already have one got it as spoils of war from another imperial noble who had picked a fight with them.

By looking at the picture I'd say this thing was about the size of a small starship. Looks like about a kilometer long. Like a sort of aircraft carrier/battleship hybrid with treads. There's two runways over the tracks so probably about half again as wide as an aircraft carrier. At the very least it looks to be about six blocks long and about two and a half wide.

So this would take a lot of materials. Data from blue prints long lost...probably on Zayth in an ancient buried catacomb about the war weapons they used before building their hive-tanks. So yes, probably several quests to get the knowledge needed to build it, materials both common and rare, someone willing to build it as it's so mammoth that it's probably not something that the Imperium would use (just moving this thing would tear up whole swaths of land needed for production) and thus Mars would look down on their people building anything that they do not approve of. So find a Radical Mechanicus Cult and offer them a copy of the blue print in exchange for building it amongst other favors. Then yes, load er up with some atmospheric attack craft, plenty of crew, and a load of troops.

Now...if you can keep who built this monster secret and keep them building? Start selling them at a big mark up to the people in the Jericho Reach doing the Crusade. There would be a big profit there as these things in pacifying worlds that are going to be rebuilt later anyways.

Forget the thing in itself, it looks like you'll have to start producing/modifying transports to specifically take the things onboard! That seems to be the main problem: transport. If your players want to move them around at all they'll need some special transport craft.

Those things look heavy as hell, too. I'd put some special rules in that the things will just sink into mud unless the ground is compacted and bone dry (like Zayth). As powerful as those things would be, I'd emphasize this limitation so they can't be deployed just anywhere.

Also, I've seen a whole site full of those crazy concepts for future war machines. I rather dislike that picture because of how smooth the thing is. More gothic architecture! More flying buttresses! More Aquilas!

vastrix said:

Did some VERY quick estimations based on house size and it does seem to be bigger than a nimitz class, looks to be 100~ meters tall 150~ wide and 500 long. All VERY rough estimates though height and width may be less and it may be longer hard to tell with the perspective given. I have to disagree about the mechanicus not wanting to build it though. If the imperium is ok with me orbitally bombarding and planet to conquer it for the imperium then this is nothing.

numb3rc said:

Yah it needs to be 40ked up. As far as I can tell this is an old WWI era magazine cover. This is merely a concept what the players get will "they hope" be similar. Actually if the treads were actually that wide it would probably do ok with ground pressure. It probably weighs in (at the size I gave above) 200-300k tons. Add it it would almost certainly use suspensor and repulsor tech and you should be ok. I don't think you would need a special transport but you would probably have to specially modify a cargo hold which would loose you the trade bonus and only carry one.

You know of sites that have all kinds of nifty machines (future war machines)? Please share!

llsoth said:

Take a swing by Tales of Future Past ( http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm ). It's quite a funny site. If you go to the "Future War" section, you can find a variety of fantastical war machines including the one you posted with some funny commentary. It includes other gems such as "helicopter cavalry," men riding preposterously small open one-man helicopters, or a mile high air tower. The sections other than "Future War" are good too, so I'd highly suggest looking if for nothing but a laugh.

Have a google for Ordinatus war machines. This seems to be in the same realm.

These are one of a kind vehicles, generally mounting epic weapons and created for a single war or even battle by the admech. Some of them get really big and some of the weapons they mount are on the ridiculous end of things.

I used one in a Dark Heresy campaign as the macguffin that the bad guys were after. The Ordinatus Samson, a massive warchine mounting a single giant warp cannon that was used only once to put down the Thulian Heresy (nothing to do with our admech Thulian friends) on the hive world Samson IV. The admech used it to cut a necromunda style hive in half from top to bottom. After firing it once, all concerned agreed that it should be mouthballed and never used again.

The existence of the Ordinatus proves that the Admech do indeed make one off machines from scratch, just not very often.

numb3rc said:

That is where this one came from.

Gribble:

Aye this is something like a general purpose ordinatus. Not sure yet if I want to make this a one off or just a very rare pattern though. At some point someone somewhere undoubtedly had built a similar huge land battleship thing. The only difference for the players is it would take longer if they had to design it. Given what I have come up with so far to make it difficult for them I am not sure that is needed. They will be investing a lot of money and time in getting something that while powerful has a very limited scope of usefulness. Which of course is why things like this are not normally built, for the same price they could get thousands of lemun russ tanks. Which would also be more versatile, easier to transport, cheaper to maintain, and in all likely hood beat it in a straight up fight. Also the moment it shows up on the battlefield it becomes a theater wide target...

Basically it is a prestige item meant to flaunt wealth and power.