was just a thought though in the IG our hard and fast number systems and designations need not apply.

Just some food for thought along that line:

In general, WH 40k numbers in regard to armed forces are way off compared to our modern day standards.

In WW2 for example, the Red Army (probably closest analogue to the IG in philosophy of warfare) peaked at about 6.5 million men to fight mainly one nation, on mainly one front.

Meanwhile in WH 40k lore, the Angevin crusade conquered the better part of Calixis sector with 17 million troops, divided into 4 battlegroups and a strategic reserve. An optimistic estimate would put each battlegroup at about 4 million troops. So fluff-wise, they took planets with less men than the Russians had in World War II. Even the Ullanor crusade had only 8 million Imperial Guard troops, which seems way too little for an Empire spanning millions of worlds.

Hell, I'm reading Wariors of Ultramar atm, and they're planning to stop a Tyranid Hive Fleet with about a dozen warships, 2 space marine companies, 2 Imperial Guard regiments and some PDF. Unless 'some PDF'=several tens of millions PDF modern day army size logic really need not apply.

Hell, I'm reading Wariors of Ultramar atm, and they're planning to stop a Tyranid Hive Fleet with about a dozen warships, 2 space marine companies, 2 Imperial Guard regiments and some PDF. Unless 'some PDF'=several tens of millions PDF modern day army size logic really need not apply.

This is the thing that bugs me most about the 40k back story, and is also the first thing I 'fix' in anything I do. In any game where I GM, players should be ready to bring tens of millions of soldiers if they want to capture a well populated planet.

Incidentally, this is also why my barracks components contain a lot more troops than any of the numbers mentioned here. I expect Cruiser-sized facilities to carry ~80,000 light infantry, and Transports to carry a couple hundred thousand soldiers each. The numbers obviously change if the ships are also carrying heavy equipment and vehicles, but it still takes 20-30 transports to invade a significant planet.

On a side note, one GM uses the hull integrity tens digit to say how many launching bays the ship has. Which does affect troop landings, the ship can only launch/recieve/re-fuel so many transports in a strategic turn, which makes establishing a beachhead important.

As for small sizes, we led 2,000 armsmen, some armour (mostly light), a squad of sentinels and a good force of sororitas as a planetary invasion of an Ork Infested continent. Our big advantage was the ship itself, being able to rain down fire upon their installations, helping us clear a landing zone and working from there. It was hard, but we didn't lose many men for the number of orks, grotz and vehicles killed and secured enough of the continent that PDF/IG from the other continent could land their forces.

On a side note, one GM uses the hull integrity tens digit to say how many launching bays the ship has. Which does affect troop landings, the ship can only launch/recieve/re-fuel so many transports in a strategic turn, which makes establishing a beachhead important.

As for small sizes, we led 2,000 armsmen, some armour (mostly light), a squad of sentinels and a good force of sororitas as a planetary invasion of an Ork Infested continent. Our big advantage was the ship itself, being able to rain down fire upon their installations, helping us clear a landing zone and working from there. It was hard, but we didn't lose many men for the number of orks, grotz and vehicles killed and secured enough of the continent that PDF/IG from the other continent could land their forces.

That hull/10 to determine the number of shuttles and small craft a ship can hold and launch is in Battlefleet Koronus as an optional rule, it's not a house rule.

Ah, I didn't know that. Still one of those hidden away neat things you wish you knew earlier (like you can substitute your DoS for the damage on a single die)

Recently had a planetary conquest versus a chaos cult on a severely ****** up world colonized in the Dark Age of Technology which had regressed to a medieval state and was being slowly taken over by a crazy mutant lady who thought she was the Omnissaiah and also a fallen inquisitor who was manipulating the locals with a big anti-grav stone head like in the movie Zardoz.

In any case I ruled that in addition to the Guard Forces that about half the sip's crew also took part in the ground war, I mean once the sky is taken what are they going to do sit on their asses? You figure a RT planetary conquest is also going to include 25%-75% of his fleet's rating/voidsmen population acting as a zerg rush and carrying slug throwers or standard lasguns and suddenly the overall force gets a hell of alot more formidable against any world that lacks an equal technological base.

A whole bunch of shmucks with semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons vs a nunch of people who don't even if they're better trained and more numerous is still going to ultimately win in most cases regardless of how shmucky they really are. Hell they can even just bury a smaller force of equally equipped people who know what they're going, the Soviets didn't beat the Nazis through competence.

Regarding crew skill, pardon me for throwing in a 'real world' example: Back during the Korean war, the US Air Force clobbered the North Koreans in the air. The published estimates of the kill rate I've seen are all about 11 to 1 in favor of the USAF. The US was flying F-86 Sabres, the Koreans the Soviet built MiG-15. Fly offs between Sabres and captured MiG's showed the two fighter jets had very similar performance; the equipment was an even match. The difference was all crew skill. The US pilots were mostly WWII veterans and had a lot of experience, while the North Koreans were rookies. My point is that crew skill is a huge force multiplier - go back and look at that kill rate again.

Now, translating that to 40K, if you want to use your generic redshirted crew as troops, you certainly can. But, you're probably going to lose a lot of them. Even against opponents of equal skill, you'll lose a lot of crew. And, against tough opponents like orks or - Throne forbid - traitor marines, you're going to lose a lot of crew population and probably morale as well. You've got the gelt, that's what barracks and hired troops are for.

Cheers,

- V.

Well they did really well on their mass combat action rolls and this was after they had managed to sabotage the orbital defenses and subjected the enemy stronghold to limited orbital bombardment. The result I gave was actually completely inline with what you're talking about in that their dedicated professional troops only suffered ten percent losses. As for their red shirt ratings swarm however over half of those guys were killed in the fighting in large part because they were deliberately treated as a far more expendable resource.

Elites can beat swarms and swarms can beat elites, it all depends on how big the swarm and how elite the elites.

I went and read it on my own immediately after making that post, but I didn't see anything in it regarding the Barracks component.

Interesting. I just downloaded it (again) and that note has appearantly been removed.

Anyone have any clue why?

A long time ago someone asked that question to FFG, and they replied with "A barracks can hold a single regiment." I think that was before BFK came out, so they might have back tracked a little.

A link to one of the original topics can be found here. http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/63631-how-many-troops-does-a-barracks-hold/page-2?hl=barracks

Let's look from the other end. Barracks take 4 Space. Just like average crew quarters (Voidsman Quarters) on a light cruiser/cruiser or good (Clan-Kin Quarters) on a smaller vessel; light cruiser to cruiser crew numbers are in range 44-95 k. But of course soldiers travel with equipment, and aside of bunks, mess, etc some of this room must be given to exercise facilities, commissariat, their own brig, and so on. And as a hold type component, it should include bays for 4 shuttles.

Looks about right - big enough for a regiment with all its baggage, but not much more.