Gurkhal said:

Well then, explain to us all where chaos was getting its ammunition. Where was the fuel for all their vehicles coming from? Who was repairing or delivering fresh vehicles when they got damaged or destroyed? Where were all the chaos forces getting their food (I don't think the Khorne berserker was putting up a farm for his lovely cultist fellows). How did the chaos forces repell or resist Imperial air and space superiority (kind of hard to amass troops when a couple of lance strikes or bombing runs can waste them all, dispersed troops are less effective troops)? How did the chaos forces gain ground in other places when they had no way off the planet they landed on (no space ships = no space travel)?

The infrastructure needed to run and up-keep an army are immense. When the Gothic fleet finally amassed and began winning (meaning destroying ships or forcing them to retreat out of the combat sector) the infrastructure of the invading forces (invading forces have to bring their own infrastructure with them, in this case on space craft) went away with it. The Imperium may not have been able to beat all the enemy forces on ground immediately, but without supply or transport the enemy wasn't going to do anything but degrade over time. The Imperials are also not about to leave their infrastructure for their enemy, a basic rule of warfare: if you're being overun or you are retreating destroy or render un-usable anything to large to carry with you which your enemies may benefit from.

You state, "taking them will strip the defense against other threats and allow them to win ground." What exactly do you think happened? The Tau were on the cusp of a major Imperial advance which would have wiped them out, it is the Tyranids and 13th Black Crusade which saved them. As the Imperium redirected many of the resources being used to counter the Tau and those they might have used to destroy them to the sectors with the more significant threats. In the absence of the continued Imperial power the Tau advanced with their 3rd phase expansion.

It seems careful and logical analysis of the situations supports what I stated is indeed the practically assured outcome. (oh boy here comes the: "its sci-fi hooptawhoop so logic doesn't matter" argument. Well to counter that, if anything can happen because of lack of logic, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing, which states your illogical assessment is more true than my logical one. As all arguments are equally valid under this assumption, there is no way to know which one truly occoured unless we bring in another method, say for instance: logic. When we do that, though, the illogical argument, which requried the illogical = just as true as logic to be true, is no longer true.) No military force in its right mind would allow enemies to remain behind their lines, they would have been excised, and very quickly at that (at least the ones on Cadia).

herichimo said:

I would presume that there are both some degree of supplies already present on Caida, that some degrees of supplies have been captured from the Imperials and that there are some degree of works that have been captured reasonably intact so that they can be repaired to provide for the Chaos forces.

Also as the Chaos invasion is a rather big one I would assume that they carried some degree of surface-to-air weaponry with them in case that the Imperials did indeed sent air forces against them. Orbital weaponry is a bit harder of course and will probably prevent the Chaos forces from directly overruning remaining Imperial forces in the direct future.

The forces of Chaos rather simply gained ground by going with space ships and landing on new planets. What did you expect? As you said yourself it wasn't untill the end that the Imperial fleet got an advantage and by then the forces of Chaos had made gains in several places as well as Typhous had made himself a nice new daemon world. But I know you already knew about this.

herichimo said:

I am well aware of the infrastructure beind a large army. thank you. But for the Imperials to uphold the blockade of the Chaos forces a significent they must keep their fleets right there, while at the same time giving a freebie to other enemies. Simply the Imperials must either go for the Chaos forces now or retreat with the bulk of their fleet as it will be needed in other places. That's the ***** with fighting on several fronts at the same time.

herichimo said:

So we know both what happens when the Imperials concentrate all their forces agains one enemy? Then I assume you also know that a concentration like that can't be upheld for any longer degree of time.

Well, I do not think the Imperium has that much of fear for the Chaos infested continents on Cadia.

There are two ways the Imperium handels its enemies.

1. The enemy can be beaten, this might take some years but this war can be won. Who cares how many imperial guardsmen might die, thats what they are born for.

2. The enemy can not be beaten, this might be because of to less troops or another threat that must be engaged. In this case Exterminatus is imminent though in this particular case where the Imperium has still a foothold this would lead to lance-striking the enemy down.

The imperium would accept no chaos foothold in his main defense perimeter as long as it can not control it. They have the space superiority, the defeat of the cut-off chaos forces on ground is only a matter of time.

Gurkhal said:

I've said it already, but it must need repeating. So take it from a military veteran. WHEN YOU ARE BEING OVERAN OR RETREATING YOU DESTROY ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING YOUR ENEMY CAN USE WHICH YOU CAN NOT TAKE WITH YOU. No self-respecting army is going to leave a stockpile of ammo, vehicles, or even food their enemy can use against them. 10 sticks of C-4 (or 40k equivalent) place in the depot and viola no more ammo, and took less than 5-10 minutes, an amount of time base defenders can most likely stall for. Same thing for factories etc. Scorched earth brother, leave nothing for your enemy.

Gurkhal said:

Maybe, but unlikely. We all know the typical degree of pre-mission planning in most chaos missions. Besides, they had their fleets there, which handled air to air supperiority. In fact, until the Imperial forces rebounded after the chaos fleet split up to go hound and dilute their forces all over the sector they held space/air supperiority over every major battlezone with their fleet, they didn't need ground based forces. When their fleet was forced to flee their airpower went with it.

The forces of Chaos rather simply gained ground by going with space ships and landing on new planets. What did you expect? As you said yourself it wasn't untill the end that the Imperial fleet got an advantage and by then the forces of Chaos had made gains in several places as well as Typhous had made himself a nice new daemon world. But I know you already knew about this.

And see what good it did them, it took men, materials, and ships away from the main battle areas and gave the imperial fleet many easy targets to engage. The chaos fleet was too powerful to be taken on with the Imperial fleet until the chaos fleet did this. Afterwards the consolidated Imperial fleet went around and destroyed one or two ships in numerous systems, slowly but surely reversing the numbers issue.

I am well aware of the infrastructure beind a large army. thank you. But for the Imperials to uphold the blockade of the Chaos forces a significent they must keep their fleets right there, while at the same time giving a freebie to other enemies. Simply the Imperials must either go for the Chaos forces now or retreat with the bulk of their fleet as it will be needed in other places. That's the ***** with fighting on several fronts at the same time.

Perhaps you are, too bad it seems you don't understand the tactical and strategic situation. The chaos fleet was broken, spread too thinly and the groups of one or two chaos ships were being systematically picked apart by larger imperial fleets. The Imperium didn't need a blockade, they were hunting. With enemy forces routed and unable to return to pick a fight, a single ship is more than enough in most cases to gain air/space superiority over a planet with ongoing fighting like Cadia at this point. Being a galactic government the Imperium would not simply vacate all their resources from every other fight to engage one enemy. They needed reinforcing along a few fronts therefore others lost some of their combat strength to provide it. The weakened fronts weren't helpless, but didn't have the same power as they did so operations were likely scaled down to sustainable levels based on their lower combat capabilities.

So we know both what happens when the Imperials concentrate all their forces agains one enemy? Then I assume you also know that a concentration like that can't be upheld for any longer degree of time.

In the Imperium? Yes it can. The imperium's weaknesses do not include maintaining supplies or supply chains, its creating the supply chains. Once all the pieces are in place the Imperium can keep things going for a while. This is moot anyways, again, the chaos fleet was broken, after a short time hunting and destroying major enemy hold-outs, the typical Gothic fleet is all thats needed to continue hunting down the last stragglers when they show up, as well as support any major Guard operation to retake planets.

Anyways, if you still don't believe this ex-military intelligence specialist who spent 10 years analysing just such socio-military-political situations then nothing will, so this is all I'm going to visit upon this thread.

**** stupid board code…

herichimo said:

I heard you the first time. But as historical experience has shown its, to my knowledge, not often that such things are 100% when its on a world war size and I kind of assume that the Chaos forces brought down supplies for themselves to the surface which would constitute the majority of the supplies that they have present.

herichimo said:

We do? I'd say its very different between warbands and that the Chaos Space Marines, who most likely leads the operations, probably have a fairly good organization of the operations. Maybe not Imperial style but enough to make things work and not forget obvious things. And I still think that the Chaos forces, or at the least the Chaos Space Marines and the Traitor Guard formations brought gear for all manner of different uses with them, including surface-to-air weaponry in case local air superiority would not be there or something would go wrong.

herichimo said:

This is the internet. Everyone is professor, expert, war veteran etc. What authority that you claim to possess has little relevance for me as there is no way for you or me to verify it or prove it.

so…wait…we're fighting about who won the 13th Black Crusade? Easy fix: it was a tie! Chaos got driven back, but they finally broke into Cadia…doubtless the Chaos stragglers will be hunted down (after causing much mayhem and misery), but Cadia will never be the same….the End Times indeed……

In fact Chaos is one of the most laughable enemies of the Imperium ATM though it should be the Archenemy.

The victories Chaos achieves are a side notice if you compare them to the sucess of the tyranids, orks or necrons.^^

Mabye only the Tau are more inferior though they achieve sucessfull expansion.xD

FieserMoep said:

Actually They have not all fully awakened, The Awakening has been going on for several mellinnia, however it did not go as planned and has been patchy at best. There are still possibly thousands if not millions of Tomb worlds that could still be slumbering. Not to mention Crown Worlds still to be awakened.

Personally I like the New Codex. It gives the Necrons Character.. Before we pretty much had only Necron Warriors which were the soulless mindless killing machines. We still have that. However now we have much more depth and history. Before the Necrons were more mystery, now they are becomming known.

and yes they have the power even now to wipe Tera/Earth out. One tomb World Alone could all but destroy Tera and its entire Solar system with out so much as an invasion. The Tomb World of Thanatos holds the Celestial Orrery which has the power to cause any star in the galaxy to go supernova.

As far as a Regular Invasion Fleet. If the Necron Lords were to ever truly Unite.. Which is something that could still very well actually happen. Tera would not stand a chance.

computertrucker said:

I kind of agree about the Necrons with you. The new Necrons are much more interesting, at least for me, than the old ones and I can see how they can actually be used in my games.

In regards to Chaos, Chaos isn't an enemy like other enemies because its essentially not fighting a convential war but a spiritual war against the Imperium. To that they have the ability to take part and project force anywhere in the galaxy, but I kind of agree that the Tyranids and Necrons are actually made out a bit to powerful for a setting to fall entirely into my taste.

And this is why I speak of "Codex-****". Old super weapons are replaced by new ones and this turns WH40k in a Cold War Scenario that leads itself into nonsense. For example the Necrons recieved their fancy new tools, but as a counter measure the Grey Knights guard the terminus decree which is very likely the key to awaken the emperor himself, a beeing that could possibly become a god and kill anything that tries to attack Terra. Not to speak of a specific grey knights that walks on the planes of warp, ****** bloodthirsters in their own home and fisting some daemon-primarchs.

And with the Necrons as the Archenemy of every living thing, and therefore the warp, Chaos is pretty much on the lower end of the food of chain. Just have a look at the tyranids, the big badass enemies of the 5th edition. They eat nearly everthing. The Orcs can not be defeated, there are just to many of them. Even the Tau celebrate their sucessfull expansion while the Eldar do nothing else than trickery, just like always. And Chaos? They recieve a minor victory, a foot hold that is very likely to be lost, some more potent enemies and a few new daemon worlds… wow… every notable chaos stronghold is guarded by warp… becaus chaos is always driven back… realy intimidating for the archenemy of mankind… and in the meantime the hive fleets just destroy the half of the galaxy and can only be driven back by horrendus losses… and guess what? The hive mind does not even care about that…

I sense resentment and disdain in your post?

Are you upset about a supposed CODEX Rapewriting? Or are you upset that Chaos is not the biggest threat in the Galaxy? The forces of Chaos by their very nature will never be that big of a threat. They are constantly warring with each other. They barbaric Brigands and Ruffians. Pillagers that at times spill out into Realspace to Cause Havoc and well Chaos.

In the end though. They have been defeated, and left wanting. Sorry if this upsets you. The truth may sting but it will also set you free.

I just remember the god old days when not every codex tries to beat another one by adding more and more absurd over-kill. I have no problem with the situation of chaos, I have a problem with the meta-balance of the different species. And with that I do not mean their balance in terms of a tabletop game but in terms of fluff. GW marketing has a goal, and that goal is selling miniatures and codizes. How do they achieve that? They regulalry release a new edition and release new codizes. And every ****** ne codex is a conglomerate of overpowered badassdom that erases exisitng fluff in favor of some more awsome awsomeness. (Well, atleast they think it is) All the former grimdarkness has turned into a fashion show - who has the most fancy stuff now?

The problem I have with chaos is symptomatic for every major enemy. They are made so strong that they must include some stupid power limitation or, like the tyranids, they are so "strong" that they literaly chew through the imperium but then get always stopped and repelled because if not this would pretty much result in the end of the imperium (ye,ye with some horrible losses etc *sigh*), something that will never happen in a wargame without any story progress.

I look at in a way that they have expanded upon the tools and heroes that take part in the war. It would be like having a modern War game that gives players M1s, Combat Infantry, and Apaches.. yay thats neat.. However where is all the other stuff? Later expansions that add things like CAV Scouts, Bradly's Kiowa Warriors, BlackHawks and maybe rules for deep insertions. and an artillery piece.Shiney new things that during the initial writing of the game they didnt have time or resources to put in. All these things cost money to produce, and play testing. However if you play those things. You want to see it expanded. Same is true for 40K.

You always hear about CODEX creep in 40k and fantasy, and yes there are some CODEX's that have a slightly harder time at some things. However Any Codex in the hands of a good player can win games.

If I had a gripe with GW and their design philosophy its this. I dont think they should come out with new Editions untill every Faction has recieved and had time to play with the faction they have.

Privateer Press definately has a better production philosophy on this. GW also does take entirely to long to put out Codexes, which is one of the reaons there are some imbalances.

As for Fluff. Yes GW has been guilty of changing things up from time to time. Then again look at Star Wars.. Its done the same thing 8). You want continuety I would recommend looking at Warmachine.. They have been VERY true to their story and timeline.

I had the players of my Rogue Trader campaign stop by Holy Terra on buisiness recently and this was the standing force I described defending the Solar System:

Luna - Terra's Moon, converted into a super battlefortress. Has arrays of super macrocanons and nova canons and generally enough firepower to cut down a battlecruiser.

The Eternal Dominatus - Super Battlecruiser, one of three still in service in the imperium. So massive and ancient it churns the warp around it, making it difficult for opposing ships to warp into a system under it's watch.

Planetary Voidshields - Enough to weather a few rounds of bombardment.

Phase Shields - Protecting the Imperial Palace itself, all but indestructable to planetary bombardment.

10 Battleships

30 Heavy Cruisers

2 Imperial Fist Battle Barges

40 Cruisers

100 Raiders

Legions of Smaller Non-Warp Capable Ships - Count as hazards in space combat.

Appologies to Venkelos for further derailing the original point of this thread, but…

FieserMoep said:

I've been slowly working my way throught he newest 40K Rulebook , and it seems to me that the background section is trying to 'walk back' the scale of the Tyranid threat. In 5th Ed . it was all but stated outright that the Tyranids would, with absolute certainty, destroy the galaxy; but the newest one includes two references to major Imperial victories against the Hive Fleets that make the 'nids sound like standard bad guys, on par with Orks. Am I reading too much into that, or is that everyone else's impression, too?

Cheddah said:

Said 'non-warp capable ships' are more often than not far more armoured or weaponized than naval ships. System defence ships can be more heavily armoured than light cruisers and carry comparable firepower, yet only be the size of a frigate. And they do this by not having over a third of the ship's space taken up by massive warp engines and gellar fields.

Speaking as a Rogue Trader who has gone up against both regular naval classes of ships and system defence ships, i would say i would always rather fight regular frigates and light cruisers - my ships come out of the fight better off.

If you try to crash land a ship into Terra, you will be vaporized out of the sky/space. The Emperor IS God to the Imperium, and if there is any possible threat, even so very little threat, it would warrant for virus bombs (they won't virus bomb Terra, but you get the point)

No one enters Terra until they are cleared. If anyone tries, for any reason, they will be destroyed.

Sorry if this is off topic, but it seems the OP's question has already been answered, so…

crisaron said:

Ward cannot actually override such an integral element of that canon at this point in time. The Horus Heresy is the most consistent of the "canonized" 40k lore, and Graham McNiell's HH novel, Mechanicum, is quite clear that fact the Void Dragon is, indeed, on Mars. Even if Ward is given free license to muck up the GK and Necron lore in the Codecis, his fluff does not override the concrete nature of the HH as canonical 40k lore. The Void Dragon is on Mars.

That being said, the nature of the Omnissiah is a complicated matter. According to Warp-logic, as described in the Liber Chaotica, there are actually 3, maybe 4 Omnissiahs.

Most gods start as nebulous "spirits," a vacuum of identity in the Warp that must be filled. People believe in them and feed them with the psychic effluvia that feeds them, until they are strong enough to have a limited effect on the material universe. They do this to build themselves up, until their worship makes them effectively immortal, their worship (theoretically) never ceasing. Once a warp entity can perpetuate their existence in this manner they qualify as gods. (The Chaos Gods do not fit this model, except for the perpetuation of self, so the appelation "god" still does fit, as the last is the only real qualifier. The Emperor is also a god, but in a different way)

The concept of the Omnissiah is immediately divisible into three distinct "individuals": 1) The Omnissiah as an aspect of the Emperor, 2) The Omnissiah as his own Warp individuality, the one worshipped by those who do not believe the Emperor and the Omnissiah are aspects of one being, and 3) The Void Dragon, as placed on Mars, as described in the HH novel, Mechanicum.

A fourth Omnissiah may exist, if one considers the Omnissiah worshipped by religious members of the Dark Mechanicus to be separate from the 2nd Omnissiah described above (Ex: the hereteks in Ben Counter's second GK novel, Dark Adeptus).

But yeah, the Void Dragon as Omnissiah is still a thing.

Zappiel said:

Constantine Valdor defeated Horus in a friendly duel in the early stages of the Great Crusade. The HH Novels don't seem to be going in the direction of the Seige of Terra anytime soon. The duel between them is not reflective of Horus at the time of the Seige, nor should it be taken as such.

Zappiel said:

There has always been the presence of Chaos on Cadia. I would strongly recommend Aaron Dembski-Bowden's First Heretic. It's a wonderful read.

Besieging the surface of Terra would be incredibly difficult because of the numerous ground defences not to mention the labryinthine layout of the planet itself (One huge planet city reaching into the atmosphere…).

However the real defences of terra is the fact that it is not isolated unlike other Imperial worlds. If it was attacked the Imperial forces would respond very quickly. It is unlikely that any present enemy of the Imperium could muster a force large enough to take Terra before the rest of the Imperium responded.

I think the only exception would be the Tyranids. What we know of them is that they can strike beneath the Galactic plane, have near limitless amounts of troops, evolve quickly and crucially when they attack a system they cut it off from communication. If the Tyranids ever got a clear run at Terra then they might just be able to overrun it. It would be an epic battle.

One word: Impossible!

One thing is for sure, you'll need (Iron Warriors demon primarch) perturabo to do it.

Come to think of it... is that webway portal in the palace dungeon still open?

PS my custome chapter (i made for deathwatch) "the Champions of the Emperor" have a full compagny on a battlebarge in systhem at all times. (they are Ultramarines succesor chapter obssessed with the heresy. They have a massive guilt complex because the ultramarines weren't there at the siege of Terra and refuse to wield lightning claws- as this was the type of weapon used to wound Emperor)

While we are on the subject of impossible events: What if the Ultramarines and their successor chapters would turn against the Imperium? Not flat out go traitor but more "the high lords are stupid, the inquisition is corrupt, the imperium is stagnating, we need to rebuild this dump the way Roboute Guiliman made Ultramar". Think about it, Horus commanded half of the space marine legions, but in the 41st millenium 3/4th of all chapters have Ultramarine geneseed.

Well since Chaos took all but the smallest continent on Cadia I don't think the Imperium is going to take it back without a major push, in which case more resources will have to be drained from other parts, which will leave these other regions open to xenos and heretics which in turn will force the Imperium into another hard fight as they get back and so on.

Chaos can resupply directly through the warp, once they have a presence on planet. They don't really need space ships except to kill other space ships. Personally, if the battlefield gothic thing was such a decisive victory for the imperium that it would negate the Cadian issue, I'm wondering why GW stopped the timeline after the Cadian event.

As for Terra's defenses, it may do well to point out space has more approach vectors than the planetary orbits, so any defensive force would have to be arranged spherically. This is likely only feasable in the proximity of what you actually want to defend, namely the planets. The consequence of this is that the defensive force is likely a mixture of slow, orbital platforms and fast response ships, as well as 1-2 proper strike fleets to patch any holes.

On a personal security level, given the importance of Terra, it seems feasable to decree pilgrim-zones and terminate any unauthorized space travel to other locations. Authorized travel means hacking, bribing or mind controlling portions of the administratum.

I wonder what would happen if the necrons sent a Tombship with a tesseract prison full of c'tan shards straight into the Sol systhem. I admit there is a good chance the c'tan just turn on their necron jailers, but then again they might decide to check out that astronomican thingy...