Well we're talking about a moon's worth of boarding action here, but yeah depending on the group and on the level of ship combat you want to deal with by all means throw some Kroozers in there too.
Ever want to fly a planet
Let's look at this in a slightly different way.A moon flying around with engines on it is undoubtedly badass. How abotu this as an endeavour?
The Amaranthine Engine
Minor endeavour
+3 PF
The Inquisition has recently lead a war of extermination against the Amaranthine syndicate, a crime organisation made up of multiple xenos species. The war was a simple and fast one, but as the last amaranthine stronghold was destroyed, their leader activated their last doomsday weapon - one of their homeworld's moons. Designated Haephastia by the Ordo Xenos, the moon has been fitted with Fra'al gravitic drives, layers of tectonically reinforcing void shields, and automated defences. The warp shock of the Haephastia entering the immaterium created a storm that has left the inquisitiorial forces stranded, but the ranking inquisitor on site, Inquisitor Marios Fel, has managed to get a message out to all free captains, warning them of the rogue moon, offering a hefty reward for destroying it.
Objective 1: Locate the Haephastia
Themes: Exploration
Finding the rogue moon may be the hardest challenge of all. As it travels through the warp, it leaves a storm behind it that can be tracked by skilled navigators. The disturbances as it flies near systems can be felt by all, leading to nightmares and riots on inhabited worlds which could also used to chart a path.
Objective 2: Boarding the Beast
Themes: None
To the horror of all imperial subjects, the Haephastia is on a direct course to collide with [insert name of favoured local Hive world here], an event that would easily kill twenty billion loyal members of the imperium and cripple manufacturing for the Imperial Guard and Navy. By the time it translates, it will be far too late to stop it, the only chance will be to dare a risky warp-docking. This will require the navigator to perform the most difficult act of navigation in their career, negotiating the wake of the Haephastia. The ship will be suffering, requiring the agents of the mechanicum to sooth the tortured vessel. The captain must hold the crew's morale during this most dangerous of actions, and all hands will need to work as hard as they ever have to hold the ship and her people together long enough for this to work.
Objective 3: Kill her.
Themes: Military, Criminal
The geller fields merged, your vessel has docked on one of the thousands of towers dotting the surface of the moon-weapon. All that is now required of you is to explore the heart of the machine, fighting off the heretical thinking machines that patrol and defend it, find its reactor core heart, set it to explode, run back to the ship and fly away with an explosion happening behind you that you won't look at. If a cargo hold worth of xenos trinkets happen to make their way aboard, destined for the black market...
An interesting, crazy endeavor
Now, if only they could've pointed it at a Crone World, or some other Chaos asset...
If you mean the Gaelan Sphere, it allready has all the systems to handle such things. It was made to do so. Those systems would need repaired, and that is where the massive campaign to repair it comes in.
Speaking of the Gaelan Sphere, I rechecked my copy of Soul Reaver. The exact size isn't explicitly mentioned, though the interior chamber with the fusion core is "hundreds" of kilometers down. It was built on / into an asteroid, and it seems most of the chambers, construction, and whatnot are still on the surface. Even so, the surface area is on a par with a mid-size country. (I ran the numbers assuming 300 km radius and got a surface area halfway between France and Australia.) So, it's pretty dang big. There's nothing like a drive system mentioned anywhere in the Gazetteer, but the backstory implies that monstrosity HAS to be mobile somehow. Also, please note the surface is exposed to the void - it has no atmosphere. And yes, I can see why you'd want such a thing. Having your own Death Star / Dahak / Skylark of Valeron is just COOL. And in 40K the rule of cool beats everything.
Oh, please note the Necrons DID fly an actual planet, if the fluff in the most recent tabletop codex is to be believed. Of course, that codex was written by Mat Ward, so I'm sure some of you will take that with a grain of salt...
Cheers,
- V.
Oh, please note the Necrons DID fly an actual planet, if the fluff in the most recent tabletop codex is to be believed.
Well their Tomb Worlds are pretty much all mechanized anyways. So if someone was able to do it, might as well be the Necrons because they are the oldest beings in WH40k.
One way to go about this would be to enclose a planet (or a moon) fully. Keep it grav-stable, floating in the middle of a massive sphere, and place one helluva fusion reactor to provide solar power and heat to the planet at its appropriate intervals.
Think of it as an Arboretum for the next level of void ships. It's something I think humans would attempt in the Dark Age of Technology for sure. Now, we're taking that is as big as a world, that'll need immense layers of Gellar fields to keep it safe in the Warp.
That thing must shine like a planet-sized mega-diamond in the Warp though. And who can actually steer a planet? I say limit it to 2-4 lightyear jumps.
You'll need a massive source of energy to negate this thing's gravity too. I mean, things will literally try to orbit this, making navigation in realspace quite a hazard.
Still, I love the idea of a "Warp Moon" that flew off into the void a la Space 1999. But that would be one massive Space Hulk really than a true World Ship.
I remember reading a story about an Ork moon that was converted to a rok and it took a combined show of force from both the Eldar and the Imperium to stop it but I can't find it any more. I think it was on the Lexicanum and I found it by randomly clicking links.
Instead have a Deff Star
Huh for some reason I can't use the image tags here so I'll include the link instead.
And now I found it: The Rok of Ages
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rok_of_Ages
Edited by WeedyGrot
Necron Tombworld Designate - Unicron is disturbed with your collective lack of faith.
