a few wh40k questions

[Stormbringer]

Hmm, i can't agree with you on that. Warp drives are stated as a military use item only, merchant traders rely almost exclusively on relativistic flight.

Flat out impossible.

Relavistic flight would not allow anything less than multi-decade travel and we know that merchants make regular runs of weeks or months. We meet a freighter pressed into service in Caves of Ice that has not just warp drive but a Navigator as well. And it's described as something a run down tub by it's captain no less.

Warp is absolutely not military only and while it's not exactly a day to day technology, it is fairly common one. The Imperium has plenty of shipping as evidenced by things like world hopping merchants, multi-world trade cartels, minor nobility taking multi-world trips, tourist guidebooks, and trade in perishable items. That wouldn't be possible with relavistic travel. It means FTL, which means warp drive.

Normal citizens will never travel trhough the warp, and in fact, its implied the military will only make a warp flight if its really needed. (This whoel paragraph was taken from the fluff section of the Dark Heresy rulebook).

Normal citizens in 40k are basically technological serfs. It's no surprise that the vast majority of them will never travel in the warp. Though I will point out some of the pilgrims in Sabbat Martyr would consider themselves lucky to be dirt farmers and yet they're traveling. By way of comparison, few people relatively speaking took ocean voyages in the early 1900s but by no means were ocean going ships rare.

Also, the higher up tech that you speak is hardly ever made, most of the time and effort associated with it is keeping it together and working. Plasma guns, something every chapter has and uses, are still regarded as ancient and holy artifacts. The lasgun for infantry is about the most technologically advanced weapon that is mass produced.

I'm not saying that production is done in staggering numbers, particularly for the choice bits. But you're flat out lying in saying that the lasgun is the most sophisticated weapon still in mass production.

They still mass produce plasma guns and melta guns as well as their pistol variants. For that matter things like psycannons, digital weapons, and other fun stuff also see fairly wide scale production too I might add. Production doesn't necessarily meet demand but they're certainly in massive production considering the scale of forge worlds.

Even bolter rounds are extremely rare and hard to get for someone not an Inquisitor, planetary govenor, or Astartes.

We have numerous examples of criminals, low-life gutter scum criminals packing bolt guns and pistols. See the Necromunda Rulebook, which is originally from GW itself as opposed to Green Ronin. For that matter, choke on the fact that Necromundan gangs can potentially have plasma weapons!

[Imperial Overlord]

Just a minor correction Stormbringer, but none of the Dark Heresy stuff is from Green Ronin (different story with WFRPG). It was originally Black Industries, a subsidiary of Black Library, and then the rights were sold to Fantasy Flight Games. As Fantasy Flight has yet to do any original work in the field, all the Dark Heresy fluff is from GW subsidiaries.

[Stormbringer]

Just a minor correction Stormbringer, but none of the Dark Heresy stuff is from Green Ronin (different story with WFRPG). It was originally Black Industries, a subsidiary of Black Library, and then the rights were sold to Fantasy Flight Games. As Fantasy Flight has yet to do any original work in the field, all the Dark Heresy fluff is from GW subsidiaries.

I know BL published it but I could have sworn that Green Ronin actually did a good deal of the development grunt work. I could be very wrong about that though.

[Imperial Overlord]

I know BL published it but I could have sworn that Green Ronin actually did a good deal of the development grunt work. I could be very wrong about that though.

They did do some of the development work and they are credit for it in the front of the RPG.

[Shadowtraveler]

We have numerous examples of criminals, low-life gutter scum criminals packing bolt guns and pistols. See the Necromunda Rulebook, which is originally from GW itself as opposed to Green Ronin. For that matter, choke on the fact that Necromundan gangs can potentially have plasma weapons!

To be fair, going by the mechanics of DH, the availability of a bolter in even the smallest of cities will be Common. It's the price that's the kicker (you can make a tidy sum just by selling individual rounds)

[Imperial Overlord]

It's not unreasonable that you can find a bolter for sale at a small city, given the militarized nature of Imperial society and the way the upper crust likes specialty weapons. The gun itself isn't too terribly hard to make. It's the ammo that's the kicker. Sixteen thrones a round and quite uncommon. Sure you can find some in a fair number of places, but how many rounds can you afford?

[Shadowtraveler]

Sure you can find some in a fair number of places, but how many rounds can you afford?

It might just to easier to sell the first bolter you find, shells and all, and buy a small armory of weaponry, with enough leftover to buy a 40 Throne Rolex.

[Imperial Overlord]

Sure you can find some in a fair number of places, but how many rounds can you afford?

It might just to easier to sell the first bolter you find, shells and all, and buy a small armory of weaponry, with enough leftover to buy a 40 Throne Rolex.

We had plenty of loot to sell by the time we picked up our first bolter so that wasn't the case for us. A slug thrower with Manstopper rounds or a hellgun is a good substitute weapon if a bolter is out of your price range but you still want to massacre lightly armoured opponents.

[dragon]

new question

What is the life span of the main characters as the second book in Isenhorn onmi he's well over 100. In the space wolf and ultramarines omni they mention marines that are hundreds of years old.

Does anyone know how old Isenhorn is when he dies or is he dead?

[Lord Relvenous]

Well ended up working a double shift, so i'm a little late, but here are the passages i was referencing.

Page 254:
"In many palces, space travel is reserved for the priviledged few who can afford to maintain the ritauls, priests, and shrines that such craft require, as well as the vast cost of the ships themselves."

This is preceded by:
"The average citizen is unlikely to experience slower than light travel."

That's just STL flight, let alone the warp.

On the same page:
"Those attempting to use slower than light drives to travel any appreciable distance comdemn themselves and their descendants to a shipboard life, endlessly whittling away the years until they arrive at the distant star to reach."

Same page:
"Colonists, pilgrims, and refugees spend many generations in the vastness of space..."

Ok, so i will grant that it is more common than i made it sound to be, but it is hardly something that is accessible to everyone. Which you acknowledged. So i will concede the point, but not all of it. I wasn't just making shit up. I had reasons for my comments, maybe misguided and a little fuzzy, but still with some truth.

They still mass produce plasma guns and melta guns as well as their pistol variants. For that matter things like psycannons, digital weapons, and other fun stuff also see fairly wide scale production too I might add. Production doesn't necessarily meet demand but they're certainly in massive production considering the scale of forge worlds.

Analogy: A factory capable of making 2 billion household lightbulbs a day, can also make 1,000 glow-lamps. Would you say that the glow-lamps are massed produced? Thats a lot of glow-lamps, and yet when compared with the number of lightbulbs, it is quite small. While the numbers are surely not proportional, when you compare the number of lasguns produced to melta guns, its the same thing. The numbers produced are big, but the civilization is bigger. And i'm not aware of plasma weapons being a technology made in any large numbers. In fact, all the indicatiosn that i have seen are that they are rarely obtained new, most of the time just maintained extremely well for thousands of years. Hell, if we're gonna go by dark heresy for an indication, both the plasma gun and the melta gun are classified as very rare weapons. While the game mechanics and a very imprecise system factor into this, it at least gives us something to go on. And i'd like to see where you got that psycannons are produced in any great numbers, seeing as how the only people with access to them are Grey knights (the most secretive and well-funded chapter in existence) and Inquisitors, who have all the best stuff. You can't use those as an indication of the availability of an item.

We have numerous examples of criminals, low-life gutter scum criminals packing bolt guns and pistols. See the Necromunda Rulebook, which is originally from GW itself as opposed to Green Ronin. For that matter, choke on the fact that Necromundan gangs can potentially have plasma weapons!

Good for them. Now tell me where they got them. Did they buy them new? No. Did they steal them from the Imperium and its forces? Yes. No proof. Weapons have a habit of trickling down the ladder. Like terrorist forces having stinger missile systems, which has happened. Also, like i said, bolter rounds. The delivery system is cheap and easy to make. The high tech, mass reacting round? Not so much.

[Block]

new question

What is the life span of the main characters as the second book in Isenhorn onmi he's well over 100. In the space wolf and ultramarines omni they mention marines that are hundreds of years old.

Does anyone know how old Isenhorn is when he dies or is he dead?

There's been hints to his fate, but I don't think anything specific has been said. Space Marines can live a long long time, some of the Horus Heresy books suggest that they're basically immortal as far as aging past a certain point. Dante of the Blood Angels is at least 1000 years old, maybe older. I know some Inquisitors can live several hundred years, and then those touched by Chaos like Abbadon can live pretty much forever.

[Ford Prefect]

They're are two methods for extending your age past it's natural length* in 40k; rejuvenation treatments and warp travel. Rejuvenation is obviously some sort of surgical proceedure which is actually fairly common, though in differing grades. Warp travel is often time warping to an extent; Colonel Schaeffer of the Last Chancers has, because of travel through the Immaterium, served over a century in the Guard, but he doesn't look old, just grizzled.

*which in itself may be longer or shorter depending on where you are.

[Keevan_Colton]

They're are two methods for extending your age past it's natural length* in 40k; rejuvenation treatments and warp travel. Rejuvenation is obviously some sort of surgical proceedure which is actually fairly common, though in differing grades. Warp travel is often time warping to an extent; Colonel Schaeffer of the Last Chancers has, because of travel through the Immaterium, served over a century in the Guard, but he doesn't look old, just grizzled.

*which in itself may be longer or shorter depending on where you are.

IIRC though, Schaeffer has had a lot of regen treatment and bionics and so on over the years. He's meant to specialize in leading suicide missions after all, he get decent medical coverage

[Ford Prefect]

IIRC though, Schaeffer has had a lot of regen treatment and bionics and so on over the years. He's meant to specialize in leading suicide missions after all, he get decent medical coverage

Whiile it would not surprise me at all (rejuve is hilariously common), the article I read on him implied that it was mostly due to Warp travel. Mind you, he could have all manner of bionic replacements, like his lungs or heart, as well as his arm, which would further augment his eventual age.

[Stormbringer]

Ok, so i will grant that it is more common than i made it sound to be, but it is hardly something that is accessible to everyone. Which you acknowledged. So i will concede the point, but not all of it. I wasn't just making shit up. I had reasons for my comments, maybe misguided and a little fuzzy, but still with some truth.

Concession accepted.

Analogy: A factory capable of making 2 billion household lightbulbs a day, can also make 1,000 glow-lamps. Would you say that the glow-lamps are massed produced? Thats a lot of glow-lamps, and yet when compared with the number of lightbulbs, it is quite small. While the numbers are surely not proportional, when you compare the number of lasguns produced to melta guns, its the same thing. The numbers produced are big, but the civilization is bigger. And i'm not aware of plasma weapons being a technology made in any large numbers. In fact, all the indicatiosn that i have seen are that they are rarely obtained new, most of the time just maintained extremely well for thousands of years.

I didn't say that high tech weapons, such as meltas or plasma guns, are in anything like the production numbers of lasguns. For that matter, melta guns are produced more than plasma weapons and are intended in part as a substitute for them. The fact that plasma and melta weapons are available as squad support weapons to Marines, Guard, and pretty much any other Imperium forces indicates that they can indeed keep pace with attrition.

Simply because they don't spam them like the lasgun doesn't mean they're too terribly rare either.

Hell, if we're gonna go by dark heresy for an indication, both the plasma gun and the melta gun are classified as very rare weapons. While the game mechanics and a very imprecise system factor into this, it at least gives us something to go on.

I think what we have is a difference of opinion on just what rare weapon in Dark Heresy means to the over all universe. I don't find it at all surprising that such weapons are extremely difficult to procure for the average person. The Imperium absolutely takes steps to see that such weapons get the military and not in the hands on unauthorized individuals.

Dark Heresy is for small bands of players, not fully equipped military units. Common in civilians hands and military ones are two vastly different things.

And i'd like to see where you got that psycannons are produced in any great numbers, seeing as how the only people with access to them are Grey knights (the most secretive and well-funded chapter in existence) and Inquisitors, who have all the best stuff. You can't use those as an indication of the availability of an item.

Not disputing they're specialty item. But when you consider how many Inquisitors (and their bands) there are in existence, you'll realize that there are still a ton of them out there. Even a relative trickle for a galaxy spanning organization is big numbers.

Good for them. Now tell me where they got them. Did they buy them new? No. Did they steal them from the Imperium and its forces? Yes. No proof. Weapons have a habit of trickling down the ladder. Like terrorist forces having stinger missile systems, which has happened. Also, like i said, bolter rounds. The delivery system is cheap and easy to make. The high tech, mass reacting round? Not so much.

And when was the last time a gang did a drive by with a mini-gun? Or the mob whack some one with an anti-tank missle? The fact that low level gangs have any of them at all to have trickle down to them implies a pretty big supply to begin with. Further more, the fact that the gangs kept them implies that there is enough "trickling down" to keep them in working order. Which again implies a supply to draw from.

PS: Your example actually works against you in that many of those wound up in terrorist hands by distribution to too many people.

[Stormbringer]

There's been hints to his fate, but I don't think anything specific has been said.

He's dead as of the Sabbat Crusade in the 700s and it's stated that Ravenor plays a role in his death. They don't say when but some of the implications make it seem like it would be relatively soon after the events of the Ravenor Trilogy.

Space Marines can live a long long time, some of the Horus Heresy books suggest that they're basically immortal as far as aging past a certain point. Dante of the Blood Angels is at least 1000 years old, maybe older.

Depends on what dates you accept. Dante is between 1100 and 1400 years old but the "current" dates for that varies. Of course, the veteran sergeant that tought him is still alive and kicking, so he's probably got another couple centures on Dante.

Logan Grimnar is unambiguously 900 and change.

Though I will point out that the Blood Angels and Space Wolves appear to be far longer lived than other Chapters. That's quite probably tied to the fact that both practice a far more extreme initiation than Codex Chapters. Ultramarines are lucky to see a couple centuries.

I know some Inquisitors can live several hundred years, and then those touched by Chaos like Abbadon can live pretty much forever.

They can potentially, but that's owes pretty heavily to divine favor, and in actual fact the average Chaos Marine has spent less time in real space since the Heresy than most normal Marines.

[dragon]

Are there any books that star with the Libarians.

[white_rabbit]

Red Fury seems to imply that Dante has actually "seen" 1100 years of life, and I think its probably intended to be so anyway, simply spending time in transit doesn't have the implied battlefield experience that Dantes lifespan is originally mentioned in context with.

Staying with the Blood Angels, a low level Librarian called Furion accompanies Leonatos because he feels he's approaching the end of his life and wants to die in battle rather than be retired.

I think the Space Wolf books address the contradictory information best, in that they describe the enhancement process affecting people differently, so a smooth skinned fop could be centuries older than a grizzled ancient, and thats just in the same chapter.

Another titbit, the Flesh Eaters are definately still in the background, although they only get a brief sardonic mention by the Flesh Tearers Chapter Master...who is a bit of a prick actually.

Are there any books that star with the Libarians.

Librarians play prominent roles in Warrior Brood and Warrior Coven by C.S Goto, and the main character of the Soul Drinkers books is Sarpedon, a former Chief Librarian.(also a giant prick)

[dragon]

Ok another question in several of the space wolf books they mention that las shots are worthless against power armor. And then in some chapters bolters blast through armor no problem but in others situations they bounce. Is there a reason for the discrepancies.

[Ford Prefect]

Dirrent qualities of las weapons. A lasgun, hellgun and lascannon are all basically just different scales of the same technology. Power Armour is relatively proof against pulses from a lasgun, but obviously would provide no meaningful protection from a lascannon. Even Typhus, Herald of Nurgle, was more inclined to run away like a girl as opposed to take a lascannon blast to the gut and he's a Nurglite Terminator.

Also, not all parts of Power Armour provide the same amount of protection (the abdomen is not as well protected as the chest). Honestly, it depends on a number of factors, but I honestly can't think of any instances in which a Space Marine was taken by a normal lasgun on an average power setting.

Bolt weapons are easier to imagine having glancing shots that ricochet off, and some types of bolt are just better for penetration compared to others. The normal bolt is actually described in a way to imply an armour piercing round, in addition to it being explosive, but the Adamantium cored Kraken bolts are superior anti-armour rounds regardless.

[Night_stalker]

After several of the omnibuses and others a few more questions pop to mind.
1. What is the most powerfull ship for the imperials.
Probably a Imperial Navy battleship, though a Adeptus Astartes Battlebarge may give it a run for its money.
2. Several times power swords and power guantlet are mentioned as being very powerfull but a majority of the space marines use chain swords. Is there a reason why power swords are uncommon? Are they difficult to make?
they are often hundreds, if not thousands of years old so they are rare, and plus most people just like teh chainsword.
3. In the ultramarine omnibus one of the dark eldar had literaly took a person apart are then reassemabled them is this just a eldar ability or can the imperium able to do something similar?
The Dark Eldar are...unique in that way as they've ahd a whole lot of time to practice that on people, so only they can as far as I know.
4. At the end of the ultramarine omni the two marines board the demonic ship to get away and then the book ends. Do they esacpe and make it home?

no idea, sorry

[Lupercal]

Also, not all parts of Power Armour provide the same amount of protection (the abdomen is not as well protected as the chest). Honestly, it depends on a number of factors, but I honestly can't think of any instances in which a Space Marine was taken by a normal lasgun on an average power setting.

IIRC Gaunt and the Tanith kill like five World Eaters in Ghostmaker. It took them awhile to die, of course.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well ended up working a double shift, so i'm a little late, but here are the passages i was referencing.

Page 254:
"In many palces, space travel is reserved for the priviledged few who can afford to maintain the ritauls, priests, and shrines that such craft require, as well as the vast cost of the ships themselves."

Of course. Just like how trans-atlantic air travel is reserved for the privileged few airline companies that can afford to maintain the engines, the pilots and avionics that such jumbo jets require, as well as the vast cost of the airplanes themselves.

This is preceded by:
"The average citizen is unlikely to experience slower than light travel."

That's just STL flight, let alone the warp.

I am sure that the vast majority of the teeming billions in, say, India and China and South America and Africa and Asia are unlikely to experience buying airliner tickets and flying across the Atlantic or the Pacific.

On the same page:
"Those attempting to use slower than light drives to travel any appreciable distance comdemn themselves and their descendants to a shipboard life, endlessly whittling away the years until they arrive at the distant star to reach."

Same page:
"Colonists, pilgrims, and refugees spend many generations in the vastness of space..."

In one of the Ciaphas Cain stories, he is riding a Warp-capable military transport and the hot chick he was boinking at the time was a member of the ship's crew and her family had spent generations living inside that Warp-capable ship, it's their home and they're perpetually in space, and they've grown very intimately familiar with the inner workings of their ship.

So, yeah, entire generations of people spending their life on ships isn't unheard of. In another book, Scourge the Heretic, they also described a "void born" as one of those people who born and live in spaceships, as part of its crew presumably.

Analogy: A factory capable of making 2 billion household lightbulbs a day, can also make 1,000 glow-lamps. Would you say that the glow-lamps are massed produced? Thats a lot of glow-lamps, and yet when compared with the number of lightbulbs, it is quite small.

America makes shitloads of M16s and M16 bullets yet compared to that, the number of anti-tank wire-guided missiles is pretty low since M16s are standard issue for every infantry man while ATGMs aren't standard issue for every soldier but are instead heavy weapons issued to designated squads. Similar analogy.

Good for them. Now tell me where they got them. Did they buy them new? No. Did they steal them from the Imperium and its forces? Yes. No proof. Weapons have a habit of trickling down the ladder. Like terrorist forces having stinger missile systems, which has happened. Also, like i said, bolter rounds. The delivery system is cheap and easy to make. The high tech, mass reacting round? Not so much.

Even the Imperial Guard and the Planetary Defense Forces have bolters. Even fucking Orks can manufacture bolters.

[Falkenhayn]

Does anyone know how old Isenhorn is when he dies or is he dead?

It's a passing bit of dialogue in the Ravenor Omnibus. Ravenor and Eisenhorn were in communication until sometime around 400-404.M41, when Eisenhorn was supposedly killed in an ambush laid either by the Cognitae and/or the Divine Fratery. It's a conversation between Zygmunt Molotch and Orfeo Culzean, IIRC.

Lexicanum has some vaguely like this on it, but it's a pretty slack recounting of the events.

[PainRack]

Flat out impossible.

Relavistic flight would not allow anything less than multi-decade travel and we know that merchants make regular runs of weeks or months. We meet a freighter pressed into service in Caves of Ice that has not just warp drive but a Navigator as well. And it's described as something a run down tub by it's captain no less.

Warp is absolutely not military only and while it's not exactly a day to day technology, it is fairly common one. The Imperium has plenty of shipping as evidenced by things like world hopping merchants, multi-world trade cartels, minor nobility taking multi-world trips, tourist guidebooks, and trade in perishable items. That wouldn't be possible with relavistic travel. It means FTL, which means warp drive.

To me, the issue should be how often feral, deathworlds or even factory worlds are visited by ships. Factory worlds with non-perishable goods, maintained by a thin silver industrial force would have relatively little need for constant trade.
Hive Worlds and agriworlds on the other hand would require a constant influx of ships and trade.