Hi,

for my next session I plan to interrupt my player's warp travel by some 'uninvited guests'. Now I wonder how to treat this issue.

As far as I have understood it, you need three things for successfull warp travel.

First, the possibility to enter and leave the warp.

Second, the Navigator to find a secure warp route.

And third, a Gellar Field to keep warp creatures at bay.

Going the list in the other direction, I think intruders would be quite stupid to destroy the Gellar Field (generator?), because they would also be killed by warp creatures floating the ship. Another question is, if a Gellar Field could be locally lowered to let warp creatures in and cause some distraction. Okay, in the end it is up to the GM to decide that the enemy is capable of doing so, according to some vile xenos technology.

The next is the Navigator. I think it would be a secure issue to stop him from navigating. But since he is a very important person I think his rooms are quite protected? Is he somehow on the bridge of the ship or does he / she have seperate rooms from where he / she navigates?

And finally, the good old engine room. I guess simply stopping the machines is not enough because then the ships just stops in the warp. I think there has to be a special issue to enter and leave the warp?

Thanks for any response and advice,

TechVoid.

There's a navigator power in Into the Storm that can be used to prevent a vessel from making a translation into the Warp.

Errant said:

Thanks for the reply.

I was thinking on a more 'mundane' method and the ship is already travelling through the warp.

Cheers,

TechVoid.

There are a few examples of ways to force a ship out of the warp- mostly psychically based, and as far as I know none of which are safe to use (or can be used from the same ship you want to force out of the Empyrean).

The most clearly demonstrated example is in the Ciaphas Cain novel Death or Glory: a Brute ram-ship packed full of Ork Weirdboyz lurked in the warp just further out from the standard translation zone from Perlia and generated a spectacular psychic pulse which threatened to trigger a localised warp storm. A significant portion of the incoming Imperial task force were knocked back into real space far further into the outsystem than planned. The resulting flare attracted enough warp creatures that the Brute was torn apart.

Assuming you've already boarded the ship in question- taking out the warp drive would, as far as I understand it, strand the ship in the Warp unless they could repair it or find a Warp rift, as the Warp Drive doesn't really provide motive power, just the ability to enter and exit the warp, and (possibly) the ability to steer your drift through the currents of the warp. Terrible fate, and referenced in the first line couple of lines of the Ave Navigatus, the Litany of Lost Souls.

Taking out the Geller Field- well, if you're suicidal or have some guaranteed protection, then you could take out the entire geller field at once. Best case scenario- people realise in time and make a crash-translation to real space before the ship gets invaded by warp beasties or decoheres out of reality. Worst case scenario- feeding frenzy as warp beasties rip it apart to ape it's real-ness and eat the souls of those aboard. In between those two, there's the possibility of an Event Horizon scenario.
However- my personal theory is that the Geller Field is not one massive over-arching bubble, but a number of smaller shield zones generated by emitters all over the ship (at least on larger ships- maybe frigate and up?). If that's the case you can shut down or destroy the emitters covering portions of the ship to provide daemonic beach heads. Again- best case scenario is that the crew realises something's up with the Geller Field and crash-translate; more likely one or more minor entities will board and wreak havoc. Key response then is to restore the Geller Fields and then cleanse the infestation as soon as possible, before making what repairs are possible while still under weigh.
It won't necessarily force the ship out into realspace, but it will distract them from anything else.

The smart move is to kill or incapacitate the Navigator(s)- if they don't want to find themselves lost in the warp they have to return to realspace ASAP and start taking star fixes to find their position and plot calculated warp jumps to civilisation. The downside is that the Navigator(s) will be secluded in their own Eyrie away from the bridge. Reaching them is a matter of fighting or sneaking your way to the Eyrie past the ship's troops, then past the Navigator's own House troops and attendants and cracking one of the most secure armoured doors on the ship (likely only rivalled or exceeded by those on the ship's magazines, the enginarium's main reactor chamber and the bridge).

Ah,

thank you very much Alasseo. These are indeed very useful ideas and descriptions. My own thoughts were on a similar way but not as detailied as yours.

Best wishes,

TechVoid.

There is actually another option (with less need for psychic mojo) to force a ship back into real space, but it, again, requires you to be on another ship (and have ridiculous luck/a very skilled navigator (or daemonic equivalent thereof), as assuming you can track and follow the target ship (no mean feat by itself), actually closing with it without losing it by taking a different set of currents in the Warp is wholly prodigious feat. Even more so is closing to such a distance that standard auspex and opticon can find and lock onto the target well enough to generate a firing solution (and there's always the possibility that your shots will disappear, or be transmuted to perfume or something equally improbable as soon as they leave your Geller field). However, there is an upside (other than surprise):

It's alluded to in the extended, multi system duel between HDMS Lord Solar Macharius and the Contagion (formerly HDMS Vengis- now excommunicate traitoris), and this matches up with forcefield rules across the entirety of the W40k line since the original Rogue Trader back in '87, that ships travelling in the Empyrean don't benefit from their void shields- they have to choose between void, holofields and Geller fields.

As a result, ships who find themselves in Immaterium combat are likely to be more conscious of the damage they're taking, and more prone to try and disengage (either by hiding in the warp currents around them, and/or by translating back to the material universe (which gives them a safer place to make running repairs, and lets them reactivate their void shields for protection if their attacker manages to spot them and continue the pursuit).

Unfortunately, the validity of this technique has not been made explicit in the current set of rules (probably due to the extreme rarity of the situation cropping up), but it is a logical extrapolation of the "only one field at a time" rule, and has some (admittedly tenuous) fluff mentions backing it up.

Brought up a couple of times in fiction (in one of the HH anthologies, for a certainty, but I can't remember where else) is the concept of merging Gellar fields. A tricky process that should only be performed by a skilled crew, merging fields requires one ship to drift up to the other and let their shields slowly merge into one bubble that covers both ships. If it goes wrong it could knock down both shields, destroying the crew of both ships.

Once the shields are merged, the intruders need to make their way onto the other vessel. Teleportatiums are useless (hard to create a warp tunnel in the warp inside an unstable merged Gellar field… you could try, but I woulnd't recommend it), and most shuttles couldn't be used less you accidently see too much outside of the field. Boarding torpedoes would be best, failing that assault craft that don't have view screens to the outer void or firing grappels between the voidships and coming in close for a boarding action.

Once on board, the engineerium is a high priority to capture - by controlling the ability to divert power to the warp drive, you can decide when or if your target will be permitted to translate back into real space.

Deaths in the warp should always be avoided. To spill blood on a warp bound vessel is to attract predators, and the gellar fields are straining as it is. Webbers, stun-batons, suppresion shields and choke grenades are the order of the day, with additional boarding parties following the first wave to bind and hobble captives. Most pirates or boarding crew should have at least one boarding team that carry prayer strips, sanctified water stolen from the chapels on void stations, or even a few crew members that know basic ecclesiarchal blessings to quickly go to any site of combat to say a prayer over the bodies of any who are accidently killed. Should their souls be sent on to the Emperor's side quick enough, it may deter the predators waiting outside. For the same reason, boarding teams should be aware that blasphemies may attract local warp predators, so they should remain as clean in speech and thought as possible.

Once captured, the enemy vessel should be stripped of whatever the boarders need from her, the warp engines should be damaged to the degree that they could be repaired in an amount of time that will give the boarders enough time to make good their getaway, then they should flee. Stranding a vessel in the warp practically guarantees that it will be lost forever and should its crew be filled with ENOUGH hatred towards you for your actions, the emotional focus in the warp may grant a new and unholy life to the ship ensuring it tracks you through the stars and becomes, at best, a major warp transit obstacle until it can be destroyed. At worst, it will almost certainly destroy your ship and devour your eternally screaming soul.