Scenario: SW Galactic Empire vs. WH:40K Imperium of Man

[Enforcer Talen]

TIME DISPLACEMENT
The time differences between real space and warpspace are quite drastic. Not only does time pass at different rates in both kinds of space, but it also passes at very variable rates. Until a ship finishes its jump, it is impossible for a ship's crew to know exactly how long their journey has taken. Time passing in real space is referred to as real time. Time passing on board a spacecraft is referred to as warp time. For example, a 100 light year jump will seem to take from 234 to 934 hours to a spaceship's crew, but between 3 days and 3 weeks will have passed in real space. These times do not include journey times out to and from jump points on the edge of the star systems. It takes from days to weeks of travel at sub-light speeds to reach a drop from the spaceship's starting planet, and a similar time to re-enter the destination system.
The Imperium is approximately 75 thousand light years from edge to edge. A journey of this length would take between 75 and 300 days in warp time, and between 6 years and 40 years real time.

BATTLEFLEETS
Imperial space is so vast, with so many star systems and areas of Wilderness Space to be patrolled, that even the many thousands of spaceships in the warfleets must he spread thin, with individual ships and squadrons set out on their own assignments. The Imperium cannot maintain permanent fleets ready to respond to invasion or rebellion. Nor would it make sense to do so - it would take so long for a fleet to get from its base to the war zone that the enemy would surely have moved on by the time it arrived.
Instead, temporary battlefleets are gathered together whenever they are needed. Warships within a relatively small area are summoned to join the Battlefleet. It is rare for ships more than 50 light years from the battle zone to be included in the fleet and more commonly only those within 10 or 20 light years are summoned. Even with ships this close to the battle, it will take at least days and more often weeks for them to arrive.
Only during the very largest of wars, lasting for many decades, does the Imperium bring battlefleets together and dispatch them en masse to a warzone. Such a war is currently underway in the galaxy's south-eastern spiral arm. Here the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken is inexorably advancing, conquering and consuming the planets in its path. A massive campaign involving millions of men, thousands of ships and whole chapters of Space Marines is being fought against the Tyranid invasion. Fleets are being mustered in all the Segmentae to begin the long journey to the warzone. The journey will take decades in some cases and many of the crew will never see the battles they are heading towards - but the Imperium knows all too well that in mere decades the Tyranid threat will be as strong as even

These were taken from the 40K fluff bible. As far as I know they're accurate descriptions of travel in 40K and it's effects to space combat.

-Gunhead

with that in mind, my concept plan seems to work pretty well - although if my death star is traded in, Ill prolly need a squadron of eclipses.

we *are* laying seige to the capital of a rival power, after all. it seems unlikely my emperor would give half efforts for his mission.

[White Haven]

Ah, yes, the Eclipse Squadron That Does Not Exist. So...we have to count assets that the Imperium actually has and that it would actually have in Sol, but the Empire is allowed to CREATE assets it does not, in fact, possess. Nice one.

[Enforcer Talen]

it would take a few weeks -shrugs- do not underestimate the wrath of the empire.

seriously. Im taking resources from stuff which is shown to be built, can be built again, and have huge amount of gear to put into it. a 2nd deathstar is a lot crazier then that - and Im sure we dont have thousands of world devastators either.

*prepare* the invasion, *then* invade.

we're not going into war with the navy we have

[Enforcer Talen]

just realized an added bonus as I was flipping through my 40k manual - the astronimocon is powered by hundred of consecrated psykers daily, brought by the black ships, iirc. use a few star destroyers built by world devastators to cut that off, and no warp drive is possible

The astronocon isn't what powers Warp travel. It's a nav beacon, a point of refernace. Cutting it off is just going to make navigation a little less certain, not stop it.

certainly, but if there are no psykers being drained, the astronimocon dies, and quoting the fluff bible, "without it the imperium would fragment as warp travel became utterly hazardous and imperial authority impossible to enforce." hence, no reinforecements, and a breaking of the empire.

however, I am unclear on fluff - does the emperor power the signal?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

If the Empire is allowed years of preparation, it seems only reasonable that the Imperium is given this same benefit. Handing the initiative over to the Empire freely only further skews the space battle bias. With a month of work, the Imperium could muster a much more brutal defense with the local Astartes already space-borne; particularly nasty would be the Terminators of each Chapter (not to mention the Grey Knights in their entirety) for whom teleportation boarding tactics are commonplace.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

does the emperor power the signal?

Yes, and it is the psychic choir that in turn powers the Emperor.

[Enforcer Talen]

If the Empire is allowed years of preparation, it seems only reasonable that the Imperium is given this same benefit. Handing the initiative over to the Empire freely only further skews the space battle bias. With a month of work, the Imperium could muster a much more brutal defense with the local Astartes already space-borne; particularly nasty would be the Terminators of each Chapter (not to mention the Grey Knights in their entirety) for whom teleportation boarding tactics are commonplace.

the empire starts with the iniative, neh? see op.

we'll prolly have to dig up lusankya (anyone know any other eclipses? I like to think they built more then one, but dont have any evidence of it on hand.) and hit cadia. that should distract the iom enough so that world devastators and eclipses can be built, while sds hold the wormhole on the sw side.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

the empire starts with the iniative, neh? see op.

It is not implausible that the Emperor forsees this.


Or the Chaos Gods.

[Connor MacLeod]

Page 203 of Iron Hands describes another psychic attack from Melchor as "immolating" a cultist (normal human AFAIK).

Immolate does generally refer to burning but not neccesarily cremation ( - the defintion goes "to kill or destroy" but that doesnt neccesarily equate cremation.) Its partticularily used in a sacrificial sense.

They're taller and broader (one ork hit three meters tall in Ghostmaker), and pretty muhch definitely mass more than humans.

Probably not more than a couple of metric tons, given that any organic can only be expected to mass so much for a given size range - unless they incorporate substantial "metallic" elements like cybernetics (which would be accounted for in a different manner.) I doubt they are as large as (say) an elephant, for example.

Should do fine as an extremely low-end, since the idolator's shields deflected an unknown amount of the shot's energy, and it (obviously) isn't made from iron.

Within an order of magnitude, since materials cannot reasonably be expected to be substantially "better" than what we have today without evidence of some sort of exotic matter (IE neutronium) and/or exotic atomic-bonding techniques ( quantum crystalline armor, molecularly bonded armor, etc. in Star Wars.) Also remember that I did specify that secondary destruction due to fuel or reactor damage might be an issue - calcs based on capital ship destruction are usually problematic because starships are not inert objects like say, asteroids are.

What are weapons calcs normally based on?

Traitor General says that SMs weigh 533 of an unknown unit fully armoured, but Uexhull cuts off the ordinal doing the measuring before he gives units. I'd guess that the ordinal was going to say either kilograms or pounds, since the Imperium uses mainly modern units of measurement (with some alterations after 40 millenia).

Probably. 500 kg (or pounds) or so would affect my calcs by around 2 -5 times (2.2 pounds in a kilogram, btw)

At a guess, I'm say that Iskavan only scored a glancing hit on Rafen, since he wasn't making much effort to be precise (being monumentally pissed off does that), and a direct hit wouldn't have torn off the outer plating of Rafen's chestplate; probably would've fractured or cut through it.

By the quote, it does not seem so much glancing as unfocused - it seems that that Iskavan person was not "concentrating" and reacted more out of emotion/instinct, which lead to a less "efficient" blow than what he might otherwise strike. A glancing blow would I imagine impart some sort of spin or knock someone away at an angle. Given that we're probably talking about what amounts to a feat of "telekinetic/force field" strength, the lack of "concentration" explains why the blow was not fatal.

BTW, there are some scenes which might be calcable for 40K personal weapons in the Ghosts books and Storm of Iron. Since 40K small arms are relevant to this debate I'll try and find them.

Go ahead if you want. If I can do the calcs I'll try.

[Connor MacLeod]

Ah, yes, the Eclipse Squadron That Does Not Exist. So...we have to count assets that the Imperium actually has and that it would actually have in Sol, but the Empire is allowed to CREATE assets it does not, in fact, possess. Nice one.

An Eclipse is just a much more heavily armored/shielded Executor-class vessel with a bigass fixed weapon of mass destruction. You could just as easily use huhndreds or thousands of Executor-class (or other "battleship" scale vessels) which DO exist (as per Cracken's Threat Dossier, the fact that the Trade Fed dispatched "thousands' of battleships to Naboo, etc.)

[Connor MacLeod]

In fact:

Katarn infiltrated the Arc Hammer and sabotaged the titanic vessel. The Emperor was so infuriated by the loss of the Arc Hammer, and the incredible investment in the dark trooper project, that all research into stormtrooper battle droids ended with Mohc's death.

There. No more political backing or funding. No more Dark Troopers.

What more did they need to research? They'd already built some working Darktrooper models, obviously.

And even somehow allowign that the Darktroopers are *lost* technology, what does this have to do with any of the other facts I pointed out? Its not as if the Darktrtoopers are somehow the *only* battle droids the Empire has at its command or would be capable of constructing.

[Connor MacLeod]

If the Empire is allowed years of preparation, it seems only reasonable that the Imperium is given this same benefit. Handing the initiative over to the Empire freely only further skews the space battle bias. With a month of work, the Imperium could muster a much more brutal defense with the local Astartes already space-borne; particularly nasty would be the Terminators of each Chapter (not to mention the Grey Knights in their entirety) for whom teleportation boarding tactics are commonplace.

What possible difference is that going to make? Even allowing for "thousands" to be interpreted as upwards of a million ships, giving them decades to concentrate their forces, and assuming the Empire does not strike in unprotected sectors while they concentrate in certain locales... We're still left with the rather PRODIGIOUS construction rates of the Empire (which I have yet to see evidence of being matched yet in this argument) and the firepower issue (which seems to be in the Empire's favor by orders of magnitude easily) Aside from the fact that the Empire still holds anywhere form a 10:1 advantage in ships to 1000:1 advantage in fleet size.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

What possible difference is that going to make? Even allowing for "thousands" to be interpreted as upwards of a million ships, giving them decades to concentrate their forces, and assuming the Empire does not strike in unprotected sectors while they concentrate in certain locales... We're still left with the rather PRODIGIOUS construction rates of the Empire (which I have yet to see evidence of being matched yet in this argument) and the firepower issue (which seems to be in the Empire's favor by orders of magnitude easily) Aside from the fact that the Empire still holds anywhere form a 10:1 advantage in ships to 1000:1 advantage in fleet size.

Oh sure, I'm not arguing that the Empire can't maintain dominance in space, and I'm certainly not claiming the Imperium can manufacture ships at anywhere near that rate. Uraniun wanted a bodycount, however. The Imperium of Man is molasses when it comes to mobilization and deployment, and some time to prepare makes a world of difference. As many have pointed out, the Empire can simply lay waste to the system except for Terra itself and in a state of relative unpreparedness (the entire system is essentially always on alert, see Black Admiral's quote a few pages back) a lot of assets will be on the ground. The Grey Knights' base of operations is Titan, and while ridiculously fortified, would be unlikely to survive sustained bombardment from SW capital-ship grade firepower.

[NecronLord]

What more did they need to research? They'd already built some working Darktrooper models, obviously.

They were aboard the Arc Hammer when it was blown up. Presumably, General Mohc did not have an off site backup of his research, given that the Emperor wrote the project off as a total failure.

And even somehow allowign that the Darktroopers are *lost* technology, what does this have to do with any of the other facts I pointed out? Its not as if the Darktrtoopers are somehow the *only* battle droids the Empire has at its command or would be capable of constructing.

I dislike the erroneous use of the term Dark Troopers. The Empire doesn't have Dark Troopers, except possibly the force-enhanced clones intended to go in the Type Three as described (breifly) in Star Wars Rebellion.

[Black Admiral]

Immolate does generally refer to burning but not neccesarily cremation ( - the defintion goes "to kill or destroy" but that doesnt neccesarily equate cremation.) Its partticularily used in a sacrificial sense.

Probably not more than a couple of metric tons, given that any organic can only be expected to mass so much for a given size range - unless they incorporate substantial "metallic" elements like cybernetics (which would be accounted for in a different manner.) I doubt they are as large as (say) an elephant, for example.

True. Of course, this is only for the direct psychic attacks, not including stuff like The Hell or telepathic attacks.

Within an order of magnitude, since materials cannot reasonably be expected to be substantially "better" than what we have today without evidence of some sort of exotic matter (IE neutronium) and/or exotic atomic-bonding techniques ( quantum crystalline armor, molecularly bonded armor, etc. in Star Wars.)

The way 40K starships are built isn't gone into AFAIK, mainly because the Adeptus Mechanicus (aka. the coggies) are the only ones who know and they aren't exactly open to discussion.

That said, 20cm of Imperium armour grade steel's sufficient to withstand a penetrator round capable of shoving a 62-ton Leman Russ Conqueror several meters sideways.

Also remember that I did specify that secondary destruction due to fuel or reactor damage might be an issue - calcs based on capital ship destruction are usually problematic because starships are not inert objects like say, asteroids are.

What are weapons calcs normally based on?

I can't recall any examples of 40k ships firing on inert objects offhand. There's a possible one in Shadow Point, but that includes the destruction of a shielded fortress into the bargain.

Probably. 500 kg (or pounds) or so would affect my calcs by around 2 -5 times (2.2 pounds in a kilogram, btw)

By the quote, it does not seem so much glancing as unfocused - it seems that that Iskavan person was not "concentrating" and reacted more out of emotion/instinct, which lead to a less "efficient" blow than what he might otherwise strike. A glancing blow would I imagine impart some sort of spin or knock someone away at an angle. Given that we're probably talking about what amounts to a feat of "telekinetic/force field" strength, the lack of "concentration" explains why the blow was not fatal.

That would make sense, since Iskavan's crozius is both a daemon weapon and has a psychic force field around it.

Go ahead if you want. If I can do the calcs I'll try.

For reference, the bunker being targetted is big enough to contain several leman Russ pattern MBTs. Exactly how big that makes it I'm trying to find a decent reference for.

Before the echoes had died, the Iron Warrior with the multi-melta rose from his concealment and charged forwards to fire. The guns' discharge built to a deafening screech before erupting from the barrels in a searing hiss. The warrior's aim was true and the air inside the bunker ignited with atomic fury, spurts of vaporised flesh and superheated oxygen blasting from the weapons slits.
[...]
He [Honsou] leapt over the Marauder's fuselage and sprinted towards the molten hell of the destroyed bunker, its walls now flowing like wax across the ground.
[...]
Honsou leapt onto the remains of the bunker, his ironshod boot sinking into the molten rock.
[...]
Scorched and blackened limbs lay strewn about, all that remained of those stationed too close to the bunker; the backwash of the melta impact had burned flesh and bone to cinders in an instant.

There're some calcable scenes for lasguns in Gaunt's Ghosts, just have to find them.

[J_Cayman]

the empire starts with the iniative, neh? see op.

It is not implausible that the Emperor forsees this.


Or the Chaos Gods.

Isn't 40k's emperor mostly just an overgrown paperweight at this point?

He isn't likely to be doing much foresight.

[Black Admiral]

Isn't 40k's emperor mostly just an overgrown paperweight at this point?

He isn't likely to be doing much foresight.

No, he's still active psychically, like guarding Zealot Zane, Gunt's Ghosts and Ragnar, manipulating events over the course of thousands of years to disrupt Chaos alliances (ocassionally) and generally setting things up in the Imperium so that the right person is in the right place at the right time.

[J_Cayman]

No, he's still active psychically, like guarding Zealot Zane, Gunt's Ghosts and Ragnar, manipulating events over the course of thousands of years to disrupt Chaos alliances (ocassionally) and generally setting things up in the Imperium so that the right person is in the right place at the right time.

Thanks for the info I just tend to be a bit suspicious of anything which involves games workshop.

[Enforcer Talen]

even presuming the golden throne makes the prediction and gives iom ten years warning, that doesnt change much. the imps still build their fleet, do their strike, and get away years before reinforcements arrive.

[Falkenhayn]

the empire starts with the iniative, neh? see op.

It is not implausible that the Emperor forsees this.


Or the Chaos Gods.

Isn't 40k's emperor mostly just an overgrown paperweight at this point?

He isn't likely to be doing much foresight.

Nope, we just have canon instances of him opening ly wide warp rifts to destroy traitor fleets, seending powerful psychic entities in the form of his saints and angels to make his intentions clear, and altering the flow of time to suit his plans. Don't be an idiot.

[Falkenhayn]

even presuming the golden throne makes the prediction and gives iom ten years warning, that doesnt change much. the imps still build their fleet, do their strike, and get away years before reinforcements arrive.

Talen, have you addressed my challenge of your claim that it takes decades for the IoM to respond to a crisis on the level of an invasion of Segmentum Solar?

[white_rabbit]

even presuming the golden throne makes the prediction and gives iom ten years warning, that doesnt change much. the imps still build their fleet, do their strike, and get away years before reinforcements arrive.

Talen, have you addressed my challenge of your claim that it takes decades for the IoM to respond to a crisis on the level of an invasion of Segmentum Solar?

Decades ?

Shit, I know its not impressive by many standards, but the Battle for Maccrage got a 200 ship fleet from another Segmuntum in less than a month IIRC.

This is Sol, Battlefleet Cadia had 12 battleships, indications are that Battleships usually have 5 squadrons of First line Squadrons more or less.

I could rant on some more, but really its not relevent, see previous posts.

[Raxmei]

The longest it could possibly take, assuming you started on the furthest edge of the Imperium and suffered through the worst travel conditions, is just over twenty years. More typical travel times are less than half that, and people from closer than the furthest edges of the eastern fringe can respond even faster. Imperial Guard armies called from nearby stars as is common practice normally have a response time of about 40 days, and Space Marines are faster.
Some reinforcements really could take decades to arrive, but most would get to Terra much faster than that.

[Lost Soal]

I admit I haven’t read every page of this debate so I might have a few things wrong but lets begin.
From what I’ve read there is a lot of mention of the Empire taking out strategic targets, like Cadia, and sending agents out to gather information. There’s also mention of cutting off the Astronomican to prevent warp travel and reinforcements. But there seems to be some major assumptions going on here.
Starting with how are they going to get this information. Sending agents off to planets really isn’t going to help as the Imperium is a vast organisation and your expecting them to be able to just go straight to the right place and talk to the right people. The fact is your average citizen isn’t going to be able to tell you anything useful. The common perception of the eye of terror is as an unnavigable place and evil omen that is off limits. Of the warp itself, people know it exists and that’s about it.

From Dark Millennium.
[quote]
The Warp – Only the most senior functionaries of the Imperium are aware of the true nature of the warp.[/quote]

Agents will be able to gather general information but I doubt they could gather enough detailed and reliable intel to be able to accurately predict fleet response times. And again choosing the correct place to ask these questions is a problem.

Destroying their strategic sights is interesting. Assuming the Empire actually knows the significance of Cadia and they decide to destroy it, the influence of the Pylons would therefore have been removed and so you’ve probably initiated the spread of the eye and put your own mission in Jeopardy. Well Done.
The existence of the Gray Knights is known to only a few outside the Inquisition so it’s a bit much to suggest they will jump into the system and destroy a force they don’t know exists.
Mars I grant you is common knowledge.

You can’t just cut off the astronomicon. You have to destroy it to accomplish that which means actually getting to Earth through the defences and then finding them. If the astronomicon is located inside the palace then you can’t destroy it without risking the prize.
On a related note concerning the palace defences, during the Horus Heresy the palace had an defence shield which was still standing when the Emperor boarded Horus’ battle barge. Its safe to say the palace will still have a shield.
WRT reinforcements, Earth already has a battle fleet before anymore are called in as it is the base of Battlefleet Solar

Dark Troopers. Considering the Empire has been using Storm Troopers successfully for so long why are they now suddenly going to decide that their not good enough and go into full scale production of these exotic troopers and equipment.

I don’t know if allies have been mentioned in this yet, but if there is a high probability that the IoM would lose the Emperor, you can probably bet on some unexpected help from the Eldar as they would know that the loss of the Emperor would result in total victory for Chaos. Dito on help from the Necrons, the C’Tan do not want warp space flooding the Galaxy.

[quote]Quote:

Traitor General says that SMs weigh 533 of an unknown unit fully armoured, but Uexhull cuts off the ordinal doing the measuring before he gives units. I'd guess that the ordinal was going to say either kilograms or pounds, since the Imperium uses mainly modern units of measurement (with some alterations after 40 millenia).


Probably. 500 kg (or pounds) or so would affect my calcs by around 2 -5 times (2.2 pounds in a kilogram, btw) [/quote]

7ft tall WWE wrestler wrestler weighs 470lb, a resonable min for a Marine, and Codex Angels of Death states that Power armour weighs over 250lb, so a bare minimum for the total weight of a Marine would be 730lb or 331Kg. Incedently the ordinal doesn't state wheather he's counting the armour or not.

[Enforcer Talen]

even presuming the golden throne makes the prediction and gives iom ten years warning, that doesnt change much. the imps still build their fleet, do their strike, and get away years before reinforcements arrive.

Talen, have you addressed my challenge of your claim that it takes decades for the IoM to respond to a crisis on the level of an invasion of Segmentum Solar?

gunhead replied, top of this page.