Hey everybody, our group has been working on infiltrating and crippling the Storm Warden's homeworld of Sacris. We have been executing our grand strategy for some time now and now as it reaches its culmination I'm beginning to think I missed something and was hoping that some of the fine folks on this forum could maybe give our plan a review and let me know if we're missing something?

First some background. Our group has five members. We have gained a moderate amount of experience and the highest infamy in our group is 63 whilst the lowest is 37. Four of our members are devoted champions of a god, which include a nurgle and tzeentch sorcerer, a khorne champion and a slaanesh forsaken. All the characters are from various different later founding chapters and warbands including the Purge and the Skulltakers. My character is the fifth, and is an Alpha Legion veteran who is also incidentally the only undivided character. My character has over the course of the campaign evolved into the glue that holds the team together as well as the face of the party. The other characters allow mine to take the 'leadership' so to speak and I was the one who developed this plan at the start.

Now an overview of the plan. The main objective is to deal a critical blow against the hated Storm Wardens, whom our group has fought in the past (our campaign is not contained in the vortex and we can go pretty much where we want within reason and with a proper plan to get there). We aimed to accomplish this in a pretty extravagant plan.

First came the infiltration. We decided we needed to plant people in the defense array so that they could disable orbital defenses. This includes ground based and the floating orbital platforms that are around the planet. We also indoctrinated serfs and planted them in the chapter, which involved sneaking on the planet and pre-indoctrinating them before the chapter attempted to recruit them. Third we infiltrated a tech priest into the chapter. This didn't come cheap as the tech priest wanted a sample of the obliterator virus so that he could study it which involved a fight with another warband to get a hold of it. The last thing we wanted to was infiltrate the chapter itself, i.e. replace one of their marines with one of our own. Specifically a chaplain, which will be explained why below. This last part has yet to be completed.

Now the second part. We bartered with some pirate lords to increase their activity in the sector. This wasn't cheap but it was necessary, as our intel told us that the entire third company was currently on the planet replenishing losses. The goal is that the pirates will launch a major attack timed so that the third company will leave the fortress when our group attacks.

Third. Our group bought a bomb. A big one. The heretek from whom we purchased it on Samech from assured us it will at the least break the continental shelf and at the most cause an unstable reaction with the planetary core resulting in a possible utter destruction of the planet. This sounded great to us because we didn't want either of those, we just wanted the monastery blown up. After the arrays are down and the attack has begun one of our members will escort the bomb to the planet where it will then be rigged and set to blow after we leave the fortress. Incidentally, we want to try and time it to blow when the third returns so that it would destroy an entire company.

Fourth. Now here's the real kicker. We want to steal their recruits. My character will insert himself as a chaplain so that he may tamper with the hypno-indoctrination so that the recruits will have a control word. During our group's assault the recruits will rise up against the Storm Wardens, they will ransack the armory and then provide us with superior numbers over the Wardens.

This fourth part is where I need the most help here. Any thoughts on how to actually get my character infiltrated into the chapter? As a chaplain nonetheless? Our group theorized that we could draw them into battle, kill the chaplain and then slip my character into his armor. However, that raised the issue of not knowing the chaplain's personality nor does my character look like him. One of our members recommended literally stealing the chaplain's face and transplanting it on my char. My other problem is with the indoctrination itself. Our newer member of the group recommended this part, and the others agreed. I'm skeptical on whether it can be done though. How do you think the best way to go about kidnapping their recruits would be?

So I guess what I'm really asking for is help and thoughts on how to slip my character into the chapter and how to indoctrinate these new recruits. I would also like opinions on how to handle the bomb, do you think it is possible to hide it so it could have an extended timer such as a week later maybe? Also, any suggestions on what we may have overlooked (I get a feeling we missed a key component to infiltrate) or perhaps ways to make the assault more simple? Any input or feedback here would be fantastic. Thanks in advance!

Sidenote: All together our group can muster about 20 space marines not including our own and our ship is a cruiser dating from the times of the great crusade that is outfitted with various stealth fields/upgrades.

First I'd like to say that I love this and wish you all the favor of the Dark Gods for this enterprize. Its the **** that Black Crusade was made for!

Valhalla said:

If it could be done it would be awesome but I remain sceptical about this to be honest.

Valhalla said:

Trying to pouse as a Storm Warden sounds very difficult, although you could always eat a little of the Chaplain to get memories from him if you want to give it a shot. I would probably however suggest that you guys instead pretend to be from some other Chapter that has some business in the area and attempt to let the Storm Wardens take you in as their guests. That should give a better cover and also allow you to plant the bomb.

Valhalla said:

Indoctrinating the new recruits is probably impossible for the purpose you are asking for, but I think that slipping into the Chapter should be possible.

Valhalla said:

My advice would be to get access to the monestary, plant the bomb and then leave and blow the **** sky high. Give your armour a new paint job and take away all clear symbols dedicated to the Dark Gods I think that you should be able to pretend to be of some obscure Chapter. If they ask about your lack of numbers of power armour's disrepair you can say that you were separated from the rest of the company and the combination of alot of action and lack of a Techmarine has lead you to this situatiion.

Thanks for the input Gurkhal, it's greatly appreciated. I too am of the opinion the whole indoctrination idea probably won't work, but I was kicking aorund some ideas and came up with this. Perhaps instead of indoctrinating them to fight with us during the assault, we could instead kidnap them and indoctrinate them later. This way we still get more soldiers, but we also don't have to worry about them turning on and slaughtering us. I was thinking that after infiltrating the chapter it probably wouldn't be too hard to slip something to the recruit that will make them unconscious during the assault. Do you think that this idea is more feasible? Again thank you for the response.

If possible, you should steal any geneseed available. THAT would be a true blow to the Storm Wardens.

Valhalla said:

To give the initiatives some kind of poison seems alright to me. And if you've got the option don't forget to loot as much equipment and arms as you possibly can and stock up your ship with it. With some luck you might even get your hands on stuff that will allow you to create new Marines for your warband and thus grow it almost at will. Courtesy to the geneseed so generously provided by the Storm Wardens!

Here's the rub…

Getting to the recruits.
In order to pre-indoctrinate them you need to get to them prior to being taken as recruits by the Storm Wardens. Since only one out of every hundred recruits survives the implant process, you will have to pre-indoctrinate…well, probably every male child on the planet within recruiting ages if you eventually expect to have numbers beyond those of the Storm Wardens present on the planet when you push the "go" button on this plan. Okay, so that takes some time. Considerable time. Then, it takes years for the implants to mature; as I recall there are nineteen individual implants (not all of which work for Storm Wardens), but still, implantation is a lengthy process, not done assembly-line style, as each recruit is watched for deviancy of his zygotes, mutations, or outright rejections. I'm gonna guess it'll be a while before they have their muscle mass for Bulging Biceps, so they'd have to Brace a boltgun to avoid a BS penalty, not to mention the Astartes boltgun (same size as Legion boltgun) will be considered a Heavy Weapon in "infant" recruits' hands, so another penalty to BS. Let's assume you wait the years it takes for all of these recruits to fully mature; 'cause that's what you're gonna have to do if you expect a chocolate kiss' chance in the Hadex Anomaly for this to work; then what? You're going to have to be infiltrated as a Chaplain long before that, so that you can tend to the "spiritual" needs of the recruits and insure your pre-indoctrination hasn't been fouled or scrubbed by the psycho-indoctrination of the Storm Wardens.

There's more, all of it involving the complexity of the recruit angle, but I'll skip it. Maybe your GM decides you get lucky and pick every recruit that'll be taken just when you need them, a perfect stroke of luck. Still, the recruits is your weakest link in this plan. Subvert a Sacris clan or two, probably easier to foment hostilities between two clans and then stroll in as a disguised Storm Warden to "lend a hand", and since they're all about the honour and yadda yadda spirit of the warrior brotherhood, they'll owe you a favor, and you snowball the clans from there. I don't know.

What's to say the GM isn't waiting for a chance to throw the entire 3rd Company of Storm Wardens at you, a la Horde style?

Don't get me wrong; it's a grand scheme. But it's an Astartes Home-world. One where their entire (real) First Company resides in stasis. They ain't gonna be an easy nut to crack. There's likely 1st Company Heritors and Dreads guarding those tombs, and the Storm Wardens will abandon the Achilus Crusade in a heartbeat to wrest their world back from Chaos Space Marine usurpers.

Good luck