p. 250

Where did House Gibraham get a battalion of Land Raiders? How many space marine chapters did they mug to collect that?

Leman Russ tanks sure, but Land Raiders?

Well, they are Rogue Traders; just a chat away from everything those Rogue Traders. Or they found it during their travels one day, and figured they'd loaned them to the war effort, first to protect their interest and look good, second to have extra cargo space for all that money they'll make from the promethium after the war's won.

The Imperial Guard used to field regiments of Land Raiders, but in their recent rarity, they are limited to Space Marine Chapters. That a Rogue Trader has them is plausible, if . Their ships, for example, are worth vastly more and are vastly rarer than even an entire regiment of Land Raiders. A painful loss it would be should anything happen to it though.

Obviously, they got the Land Raiders by trading them for a hundred baneblades in the Kaurava System. What did you think?

Seriously, though, a "Land Raider Battalion" does stretch things a little, especially when it's just thrown in there as an offhand reference rather than being the focus of the adventure…

It may well be a single land Raider with 50 supporting Leman russ for all we know…

Braddoc said:

Doubtful. You don't make a battalion of tanks out of a Leman Russ and 50 chimeras. It's pretty safe to assume that a battalion of something consists of mostly that something.

I honestly don't have a problem with the battalion of Land Raiders, and here's why:

If you read the background, Land Raiders used to be much more common, to the point there was at least one Forge World dedicated to purely producing thousands and thousands of them. This implies they saw ridiculously wide deployment before and during the Heresy (which makes sense) and it was the emerging Chaos threat and the (Imperial loss/Chaos gain) of key Forge worlds that meant the supply suddenly dwindled, resulting LRs being assigned solely to the Astartes.

However, as we know, there are plenty and plenty of worlds that were "lost" from the Imperium following the Heresy, and many of them are still being rediscovered in various states of disrepair, heresy, whatever. However, it is not the Space Marines who are exploring new worlds, nor the Imperial Guard, or any branch of the Imperium (except perhaps the Mechanicus). Rather, one of the most common people to "re"discover lost Imperial worlds are Rogue Traders, since by definition they primarily operate outside the realm of Imperial Space.

Thus, if anyone were to discover a world with a storehouse of Heresy-era Land Raiders, the likelihood that person is a Rogue Trader is ridiculously high. This would also explain why House Gibrahen is as wealthy as it is: if they found a battalion of Land Raiders, that planet likely contained other extremely valuable treasures, helping to propel the House to a higher status. Because Rogue Traders operate on the same 'level' as the Inquisition and the Astartes, it's not like anyone could take the find away from the House.

I agree the concept is somewhat extreme, but I don't think it's implausible on any level, considering this is the 40k universe and plenty of more ridiculous things happen on a regular basis.

In our RT game, our Ragnarok Dynasty did almost exactly that. Plus Xenos fighters and a 1200 man Valkyrie borne-mercenary army to roll along side the Land Raiders.

We dealt more in reposessions, running the Pearl Casino and Arena and real estate than in subtle trade negotiations.

A rich dynasty is completely unhinged in the kind of decadence you can muster.