Tyranids vs the Galactic Empire

[NecronLord]

Bolding mine. It appears that phaserspulse rifles using different frequenciesammunition were successful at penetrating the Tyranids' shieldsarmour until they adapted to those as well.

So it's frequencies and borg if your old weapons had more punch than your new ones? Better tell that to the US Army, their weapons in WW2 had more power per bullet than their present assault rifle.

[Serafina]

Having just read it, it's that they created 'nids with thicker armour capable of resisting the Tau's weapons, and the Tau were forced to use prototypes and modifications to be as effective against them.

In response to the powerful pulse rifles of the Tau Firewarriors[sic], carapace was restructured, bone recombined and tissue reknitted, dramatically increasing the Tyranids' resistance to Tau ordinance. In reply, the Tau reconfigured their weapon load-outs, retro-fitting pulse rifles to use new prototypes or older ammunition, ballistics which the Tyranids had not before encountered and hence had not yet adapted to. However, each time a weakness was found, the Tyranid biomatrix shifted once more.

Bolding mine. It appears that phaserspulse rifles using different frequenciesammunition were successful at penetrating the Tyranids' shieldsarmour until they adapted to those as well.

Gee, guess what - you can actually optimize organisms!
"Shifted once more" merely means that there was some kind of adaptation.

What we see here is an classical example of an arms-race - both opponents adapting to each other.
The Tyranids start by making their organisms more resilient to Pulse Rifles.
(Presumably by making their carapace more heat-resistant, adding "padding" in the organism that is good against heat rather than impacts etc.)
Then the Tau switch to ballistics - not because they have to (the Nids are not immune), but because it is more efficient.
Then the Nids adapt against the ballistics, which the Tau conter by using other projectiles (shaped-charged instead of penetrators or the like), which the Nids adapt against again.

At no point they are magically immune againt Tau weaponery. At no point an existing organism adapts.

You see that in every stone-scissor-paper RTS:
I build tanks you build gunships i build AA-Infantry you build Riflemen i build tanks...

[Ryan Thunder]

Bolding mine. It appears that phaserspulse rifles using different frequenciesammunition were successful at penetrating the Tyranids' shieldsarmour until they adapted to those as well.

So it's frequencies and borg if your old weapons had more punch than your new ones? Better tell that to the US Army, their weapons in WW2 had more power per bullet than their present assault rifle.

What possible advantage could there be to having a low-powered pulse rifle? Aren't they already packing "only" lasgun firepower according to Connor?

[white_rabbit]

fuck me, why do we even bother talking to Ryan ?

I mean, I posted the bare bones of it, and yet managed to highlight how it was a bit of a fuck up for the nids in the end.

Was it just easier to strawman me ?

Looking at it again, there's no evidence that the Kroot weapons were any more effective than the Tau's.

Jesus christ, the Firewarriors dumped their pulse rifles and scavenged long rifles at one point!

What a waste of time it is talking to you.

[Connor MacLeod]

Except that unless I'm mistaken, your own analysis concluded that pulse weapons cause damage by a variety of means, so specializing against "energy" at the expense of kinetic damage resistance shouldn't really help the 'nids that much.

Which just goes to show you're too fucking stupid to be trusted to analyze things on your own. Are oyu telling me that by your logic, a fragmentation grenade and a concussion grenade do damage in exactly the same way?? Or are you really too stupid to understand that having multiple damage mechanisms doesn't obviate teh fact that a bullet and an energy weapon (or a bullet and an explosive, or an explosive and an energy weapon) are completely different fucking things? That's the whole goddamn point of the Tyranids' so called "adaptation".

Yeah, sure. We'll just pretend there's nothing wrong with epic-scale biowankery because the Tau suck and don't belong in 40K.

Nice strawman asshole. Goes really well with the semantics bullshit you're pulling. Try again.

[Connor MacLeod]

What possible advantage could there be to having a low-powered pulse rifle? Aren't they already packing "only" lasgun firepower according to Connor?

Oh I don't know. Increased ammo capacity? reduced heating may actually alow for increased rate of fire or prolonged use. It might even lighten the gun (if it doesnt generate as much heat, or need as much focusing/containment components, or propulsive elements, or whatever.) I can think of alot of reasons. But by all means continue strawmanning and misrepresenting what I say. I CLEARLY don't know my own fucking words so I need you to be interpreter!

[Darth Nostril]

fuck me, why do we even bother talking to Ryan ?

Fucked if I know, it's blatantly obvious it isn't even within shouting distance of a clue.

But then maybe the Village Idiot title it sports should have been a slight hint that you were arguing with something a hamper short of a picnic and all this is self inflicted because you weren't paying attention.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Out of curiosity at what level did the CIS deploy droids at the tactical level? I know they've deployed lots, and am aware of the whole quintilliions of battledroids and thus needing comparative numbers of clones argument, but have we ever seen egagement where they've deployed troop levels near what Tyranid swarms routinely deploy? I don't recal anywhere near Tyranid numbers of droids deployed in any one battle, albeit I've only seen the movies and the Clone Wars movie/most of the 1st season. I suppose what I'm getting at is what are the odds the GE could lose some initial engagements simply due to not being used to facing such sheer numbers. I am assument the GE isn't going to want to be practicing scorched earth tactics like what Inquisitor Kryptman settled on if it came to that point until after they've learned something about the nids (ie I doubt we'll see BDZs and such in the earliest engagements even if it appears the nids will successfully take a given planet), since the GE doesn't seem to be used to death and destruction on the scale the IoM routinely faces.

Regarding GE responses, we know the know the incredible speed of hyperdrive, but what of actual times to organize and deploy responses to crises? I assume it will be substantially faster than the IoM due to HoloNet comms, but do we know anything definite?

Finally, how if at all might the rebels exploit the situation to their advantage, and could that affect any overall GE campaign agaisnst the nids? Isn't the Rebellion somewhat at a high point at this time, still running off the massive PR victory of destroying the Death Star? I know their engaged in a galactic scale game of cat and mouse at this poiint and I believe IIRC that a good portion of the starfleet was busy hunting the Rebellion at Vaders behest at this time. Could that also affect any imperial repsonse? Then again I suppose a potential extragalactic threat would play right into Palpy's plans and probably be good for the Empire.

I admit my knowledge of the Star Wars EU is fairly sketchy, though I think I've kinda got a rough idea from all the discussions that have taken place here, and that I probaly know even less about 40K stuff (albeit I appear to know more and have a better grasp of the setting than Ryan).

[Srelex]

Out of curiosity at what level did the CIS deploy droids at the tactical level? I know they've deployed lots, and am aware of the whole quintilliions of battledroids and thus needing comparative numbers of clones argument, but have we ever seen egagement where they've deployed troop levels near what Tyranid swarms routinely deploy? I don't recal anywhere near Tyranid numbers of droids deployed in any one battle, albeit I've only seen the movies and the Clone Wars movie/most of the 1st season. I suppose what I'm getting at is what are the odds the GE could lose some initial engagements simply due to not being used to facing such sheer numbers. I am assument the GE isn't going to want to be practicing scorched earth tactics like what Inquisitor Kryptman settled on if it came to that point until after they've learned something about the nids (ie I doubt we'll see BDZs and such in the earliest engagements even if it appears the nids will successfully take a given planet), since the GE doesn't seem to be used to death and destruction on the scale the IoM routinely faces.

Sources mention that 'hundreds of millions' of droids were used on Coruscant, and in one episode of the CW cartoon they mentioned that they 'swarmed a planet'. That certainly implies high numbers there. Anyway, I'm sure the Empire would use liberal amounts of comparative precision orbital bombardment to thin out or exterminate Tyranid numbers on the ground.

Regarding GE responses, we know the know the incredible speed of hyperdrive, but what of actual times to organize and deploy responses to crises? I assume it will be substantially faster than the IoM due to HoloNet comms, but do we know anything definite?

TESB, they head over to Hoth as soon as they gain the intelligence. Therefore, if they get a confirmed threat and there are forces available, I imagine that the response could be pretty much instant, at least compared to the Imperium anyway.

Finally, how if at all might the rebels exploit the situation to their advantage, and could that affect any overall GE campaign agaisnst the nids? Isn't the Rebellion somewhat at a high point at this time, still running off the massive PR victory of destroying the Death Star? I know their engaged in a galactic scale game of cat and mouse at this poiint and I believe IIRC that a good portion of the starfleet was busy hunting the Rebellion at Vaders behest at this time. Could that also affect any imperial repsonse? Then again I suppose a potential extragalactic threat would play right into Palpy's plans and probably be good for the Empire.

I admit my knowledge of the Star Wars EU is fairly sketchy, though I think I've kinda got a rough idea from all the discussions that have taken place here, and that I probaly know even less about 40K stuff (albeit I appear to know more and have a better grasp of the setting than Ryan).

The rebels, if they know what's good for them, would sit this one out. This would play into the hands of Palps; he can unite the galaxy behind him, and use this threat to justify Imperial militarism and totalitarianism. A threat that's going to keep coming for years? Perfect.

[PainRack]

TESB, they head over to Hoth as soon as they gain the intelligence. Therefore, if they get a confirmed threat and there are forces available, I imagine that the response could be pretty much instant, at least compared to the Imperium anyway.

That's not a very good example, since Death Squadron explicit mission was to find and destroy the Rebels Headquarters.

A better example would be Yavin IV, where a naval blockade was enacted within days and an invasion organised much later.

The Imperial also mounted a navay response to Endor within hours via probes and etc. Anyone has the Truce at bakura sourcebook to establish the naval response?

Imperial ground forces responses appears to be much slower, for a high end response though, nothing beats Geonosis. They organised an invasion within hours, a day at most.

The rebels, if they know what's good for them, would sit this one out. This would play into the hands of Palps; he can unite the galaxy behind him, and use this threat to justify Imperial militarism and totalitarianism. A threat that's going to keep coming for years? Perfect.

The problem is that part of the Rebel declearation is against the over-militarisation of the Imperial Starfleet, supposedly to defend against an "alien threat". The Rebels could find their popularity pouring away, a wartime hike in popularity so as to speak. Afterall, even in ANH, the popular sentiment of Palpatine was that of a well meaning leader sheltered by "evil" men. If only Palpatine knew so as to speak.

Well, in the Marvel comics, there was an alien threat, 2 from the comics, one from the Suk....

[PainRack]

There's also the fact they've sucked dry many hundreds of worlds, including the oceans and atmospheres and such. That's quite a huge chunk of resources that we know of - easily equal (in mass at least) to many Death Stars or DS2s - and we dont know (yet) what they do with that stuff. If they do the same with the GE (attacking the Outer Rim, Wild space, or unknown regions for example) they could easily get a massive material advantage without the GE neccesarily noticing - they are hardly omniscient of events in the whole galaxy.

Is there any data to suggest how much resources the Nids need to sustain themselves?

[Srelex]

The problem is that part of the Rebel declearation is against the over-militarisation of the Imperial Starfleet, supposedly to defend against an "alien threat". The Rebels could find their popularity pouring away, a wartime hike in popularity so as to speak. Afterall, even in ANH, the popular sentiment of Palpatine was that of a well meaning leader sheltered by "evil" men. If only Palpatine knew so as to speak.

That's what I meant. Either the rebels would basically keep to the shadows and try and exploit any chaos discreetly, to avoid bad publicity, or they would focus all their efforts on the invaders.

[Serafine666]

Anyhow, the real question to address when you consider whethre or not the Tyranids are a possible threat to the GE is: How big a force are we talking, and "are there time limits on how the Tyranids act?" We tend to get impressed by the relative size and scope of Hive fleets (thousands or millions of vessels of differing sizes, billions of Tyranid warriors) but tend to ignore the fact that the Tyranid War Effort has, in practice, een conducted over a course of centuries. With every attack they have changed their tactics against the Imperium, and there really hasn't been a sign of them letting up. To the tyranids, losses of huge numbers of troops, failures of genestealer cults, or hive fleet losses seem immaterial, it just simply forces a change in tactics (and more often than not they just have more material to draw from anyhow.)

So before one can debate this one has to define how large a Tyranid force is sent against the Empire. A single Hive fleet or a handful probably owuldnt be a problem, but something much bigger (dozens of fleets?) could be a problem, especially if they take the stragetic "long term" approach like they usually do. I'd fully expect the tactics they apply against the Imperium to fail, but that hardly means the tyranids won't ADAPT their tactics once it becomes obvious that they'd fail. They've proven adaptable to enemy tactics or strategy before in too many different respects to think otherwise.

There's also the fact they've sucked dry many hundreds of worlds, including the oceans and atmospheres and such. That's quite a huge chunk of resources that we know of - easily equal (in mass at least) to many Death Stars or DS2s - and we dont know (yet) what they do with that stuff. If they do the same with the GE (attacking the Outer Rim, Wild space, or unknown regions for example) they could easily get a massive material advantage without the GE neccesarily noticing - they are hardly omniscient of events in the whole galaxy.

While true, we have many indications that the GE by itself commands a resource base comparable to that of the Tyrannids but beyond just itself and its institutions can coopt a much larger resource base. They have the capability to drain the oceans of a presumably Earth-like world rapidly just to make an example of the inhabitants and a Base Delta Zero operation (sterilizing a planet, more or less) requires a relatively tiny fraction of their overall fleet strength (if I remember Mike's interpretation on his BDZ page, it takes 3-4 Star Destroyers but smaller ships can do it as well). I admit to having very limited familiarity with the Warhammer 40K universe but I don't recall that the Imperium of Man or any other major power has the capacity to fight its way to a planet that the 'Nids have conquered and are in the process of consuming and simply sterilize it of every living thing after carving apart the Hive Fleet. The Tyrannids obviously are indifferent to massive losses but indications of the industrial scale the GE commands, their speed of travel versus that of the Tyrannids, and much better communications versus those of the WH40K universe seems to make a strong case for them being able to defeat the Tyrannids in a war of attrition since they can sterilize unimportant worlds that they lose (the GE doesn't seem to care about slaughtering billions to get at their enemy i.e. wiping out a planet as an interrogation tactic to get at the Rebellion) and use an ability to rapidly shift large amounts of reinforcements to kill a Hive Fleet and then assault the 'Nid forces occupying an important world. I'm not suggesting a walk-all-over-them-with-two-Star-Destroyers victory like would happen against the Federation but it seems that the balances that fall in the favor of the Galactic Empire would suggest that they would have vastly greater success against the Tyrannids than WH40K powers did, even to the point of convincing what remains to seek easier prey.

Now, moving on to the "Borg bio-wankery" factor (I'm just using the terminology; I know they have a rational and believable mechanism for adapting): the 'Nids apparently enjoy limitless tactical adaption, willing to lose a trillion bodies here and try something else there to adapt to that loss. The question, however, is time and competing adaption. We're not talking about a power that uses a few massive war machines (I don't seem to recall that the Imperium has tens of thousands of Titans) and then relies on smaller war machines and super-infantry but one that relies on a full spectrum of combined-armed warfare with a supporting technical apparatus to develop weapons that can take advantage of the see-saw nature of Tyrranid adaption. As NecronLord pointed out, they adapt by weakening traits that are ineffective and strengthening traits that are effective but from what little we see if Star Wars ground combat, the 'Nids would be forced to adapt to an enemy whose weaknesses are more fluid than those of WH40K adversaries. The Orks rely on great numbers and cobbled-together technology; the Imperium relies on its supersoldiers; the Imperial Forces have numbers and large modern-esque war machines; the Tau are hypertechnical and rely primarily on their pulse rifles and auxiliaries. A 'Nid force in for the long haul can plausibly adapt its sliding scale to meet each of these but the GE seems to be hypertechnical, enjoy great numbers, have armored soldiers with a variable loadout, and a whole load of various war machines of various sizes and capabilities which include mortars, thickly-armored transports with heavy assault weaponry, transports that can crawl up and down sheer cliffs (the AT-MT), TIE fighters adapted to act like light tanks, and a varying grade of weaponry power including AI-driven war machines that are incapable of biological emotion (even moving up to World Devastators that wander around eating everything which could easily include 'Nids). Again, I'm not arguing "instant victory, Tyrannids suck balls" but that the GE seems to enjoy characteristics unlike most of not all WH40K adversaries that the 'Nids deal with in canon.

[Black Admiral]

The example simply speaks more to the "over optimization" of tau combat doctrine (yet again) rather than any problems with the presentation of the Tyranids anyhow.

Yeah, sure. We'll just pretend there's nothing wrong with epic-scale biowankery because the Tau suck and don't belong in 40K.

Nice try there. It is not saying "the Tau suck and don't belong in 40K" to say that their chosen tactical doctrine is deeply flawed, because it is. Tau doctrine is inflexible, casualty- and risk-averse, and lacking in low level leadership and initiative; the first two being the most serious faults when dealing with Tyranids.

[Shroom Man 777]

Bolding mine. It appears that phaserspulse rifles using different frequenciesammunition were successful at penetrating the Tyranids' shieldsarmour until they adapted to those as well.

That's silly, man. If the bad guy comes in with a bullet proof vest, your hollow point rounds are useless and you switch to armor piercing rounds. While I can't say for the mechanics of Tau pulse rifles, changing ammunition to optimize against new kinds of enemy armor is hardly analogous to the "Borg".

Unless you are saying that bad guys with bulletproof vests are Borg drones, and guys who switch from hollowpoints to AP rounds are like Federation redshirts who're trying to modulate the frequency adaptability of their phazotronic peestols!

Or unless the reason why tanks have multiple ammunition types, from HEAT to APFDS rounds, to HESH and canister rounds is because the Soviet Army's tank battalions are composed of Borg Cubes on treads.

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE!

What possible advantage could there be to having a low-powered pulse rifle? Aren't they already packing "only" lasgun firepower according to Connor?

As Connor said, increased rate of fire and decreased heating issues. It really depends on the nature of the Tyrannid's armor. Perhaps the Tyrannids developed some kind of biological ERA armor? So that a Tau would waste his few high-energy shots at a 'Nid, which would detonate the ERA armor on the 'Nid but otherwise the 'Nid would be intact whereas the Tau would end up depleting his ammo. Whereas many but low-energy shots at a 'Nid would still detonate the ERA armor on the 'Nid, and while the 'Nid would still be intact the Tau would have MORE energy shots left to finish the 'Nid (whose ERA has now been detonated).

Or something.

Think of the decreasing the individual power of the pulse rifle shots, to increase the ammunition capacity, as a kind of tandem charge type of deal.

That's IF the Tyrannids were using weirdo biowank ERA armor. I don't know if they were, because I never read the thinggy in question. But this is just a suggestion, proposition, a guesses and a randome hippotheticel senareo! RAR!

[PainRack]

Nice try there. It is not saying "the Tau suck and don't belong in 40K" to say that their chosen tactical doctrine is deeply flawed, because it is. Tau doctrine is inflexible, casualty- and risk-averse, and lacking in low level leadership and initiative; the first two being the most serious faults when dealing with Tyranids.

Does the Tau actually lack low level leadership and initative?

[PainRack]

Now, moving on to the "Borg bio-wankery" factor (I'm just using the terminology; I know they have a rational and believable mechanism for adapting): the 'Nids apparently enjoy limitless tactical adaption, willing to lose a trillion bodies here and try something else there to adapt to that loss. The question, however, is time and competing adaption. We're not talking about a power that uses a few massive war machines (I don't seem to recall that the Imperium has tens of thousands of Titans) and then relies on smaller war machines and super-infantry but one that relies on a full spectrum of combined-armed warfare with a supporting technical apparatus to develop weapons that can take advantage of the see-saw nature of Tyrranid adaption. As NecronLord pointed out, they adapt by weakening traits that are ineffective and strengthening traits that are effective but from what little we see if Star Wars ground combat, the 'Nids would be forced to adapt to an enemy whose weaknesses are more fluid than those of WH40K adversaries.

SW ground combat can be simplified into light infantry, mobile vehicles and heavy firepower delivered by a mixture of heavy ground vehicles and aircraft.

Dantooine, Bakura, all this appears to be how the New Republic held their territories.

but the GE seems to be hypertechnical, enjoy great numbers, have armored soldiers with a variable loadout, and a whole load of various war machines of various sizes and capabilities which include mortars, thickly-armored transports with heavy assault weaponry, transports that can crawl up and down sheer cliffs (the AT-MT), TIE fighters adapted to act like light tanks, and a varying grade of weaponry power including AI-driven war machines that are incapable of biological emotion (even moving up to World Devastators that wander around eating everything which could easily include 'Nids). Again, I'm not arguing "instant victory, Tyrannids suck balls" but that the GE seems to enjoy characteristics unlike most of not all WH40K adversaries that the 'Nids deal with in canon.

That's..... highly debatable. The Imperium arguably enjoys a better mixture of technologies and capabilities. For one, the Empire has no equivalent of the heavy armour provided by Titans or BaneBlades, with heavy endurance provided by mobile shield generators instead. Mobility appears to be of greater importance but that advantage may be negated by the Tyrannids greater numbers.

Of course, the Empire COULD modify their existing doctrine by introducing droid army swarm and heavy armour etc but that's another issue altogether.

[Shroom Man 777]

How intense and ugly is ground war in Star Wars, anyway? What are the largest depictions of protracted ground warfare in SW, and how does it compare to 40k's depictions?

[NecronLord]

As NecronLord pointed out, they adapt by weakening traits that are ineffective and strengthening traits that are effective but from what little we see if Star Wars ground combat, the 'Nids would be forced to adapt to an enemy whose weaknesses are more fluid than those of WH40K adversaries.

They can cripple their close combat skills and focus on resistance to firepower (like they did against the Tau) for benefit against SW opponents. SW has nothing like the strength or numbers of hand-to-hand skill. They've got some, but the average stormtrooper is not going to beat a termagant in close combat, so why spawn hormagaunts?

Incidentally, the Imperium has crazy war machines too. They even have a burrowing ordinatus model stashed somewhere.

That's..... highly debatable. The Imperium arguably enjoys a better mixture of technologies and capabilities. For one, the Empire has no equivalent of the heavy armour provided by Titans or BaneBlades,

What? AT-ATs and Juggernauts are equivalent to baneblades at least, and probably titans.

[Darth Hoth]

So? Palpy set the Empire up to also have groups of ideologically blinkered, mutually competitive factions (there's several intel arms as I recall - ISB, Imperial Intel, the military intelligence agencies (Army and Navy intel).

And a couple more as I recall it, if we include every agency that has intelligence/security-related functions: Secret Order of the Emperor, the semi-autonomous Ubiqtorate and so forth . . . and as you noted, various individual powerbrokers like Jerec or Vader had their own informal spy rings and networks as well. My point of contention was that each of these agencies, or the major ones at least, are in and of themselves full-fledged formal galactic commands that control operations and receive/send information across the whole galaxy. With the redundancy there is bound to be inefficiency, but each of these agencies is more coherent than (I perceived) the Inquisition (to be).

Hell COMPNOR is basically just the Imperial version of the 40K Ministorum for all intents and purposes.

Ministorum is the same thing as Ecclesiarchy, right? I will not even attempt to pretend that I know 40k nearly as well as you or Necron, but I always perceived them to be basically the Mediaeval Roman Catholic Church with extra Grimdark. COMPNOR in the Empire is a social-cultural movement that pervades Imperial society with everything from economic development funds for the Rim to education efforts to youth groups to media control and what have you, in addition to spies/informers, Waffen-SS equivalents and other unsavoury stuff (The Imperial Sourcebook is the prime source on them). Basically they are the ISB's catch-all analogue for the various "populist" and cultural Nazi organisations in real life (Kraft durch Freude, Hitler Youth, SA/SS and what have you). Does the Ministorum do all that?

The Empire just as fractious in most ways, if not moreso in some, than the Imperium is, not least because the Empire is designed not to functio nat all well without Palpy in charge, so lets not go creating strawmen okay?

The Empire is by its definition a federal state, which has real-time communications across the galaxy as fairly standard (if expensive for a private citizen) measures. Federal agencies are coherent throughout, with orders going from the Coruscant hierarchy down to individual System Cells in Intelligence, for example, even if the agencies themselves compete between them. The Imperium is hampered by its worse communications and the fractitious nature of its agencies internally, as well as by the fact that it is essentially feudal rather than federal; planets are generally left alone as long as they pay their taxes and do not overtly worship Chaos/Genestealers/what have you, and the Inquisition at least seems more loosely/informally organised than the comparable Imperial agencies.

Inquisitors work on their own and to their own ends, but they have superiors (Inquisitor Lords and higher) they are responsible to. Just like a number of individuals in the Empire (Vader, Tarkin, etc.) So what's your point?

Jerec, Vader and comparable individuals are given a fairly free hand, but they do not typically do the groundwork of the intelligence gathering and security functions. I may be terribly off, but as I understand it the Inquisition is the primary intelligence/security agency of the Imperium that operates on the galactic scale, and they have no direct analogues to the ISB, Intelligence, Inquisitorius and other formally organised galaxywide intel networks and security agencies with strict chains of command.

[Chris OFarrell]

Here is a another question;

Once the Nid invasion vector is made clear, what is to stop the Empire from rapidly fortifying the worlds in that area and in the path of the invasion? Planetary shield technology *alone* is going to utterly vex the Nids, as they rain spores that shatter on the shields, without the ability to rapidly infest like they have always relied on. Add on to that things like surface to space defenses, orbital battle stations, weapons platforms, minefields and the like, and if the Empire wants to, they can rapidly make planets able to withstand sieges from Nids, costing them very significant resources.

Thus giving the Empire more then sufficent time to mass an overwhelming force and jump in, crushing them.

That way, you both deny the Nids the ability to grow their infestation with splinter fleets, and buy time if you need to to get the forces ready to make sure you will crush the enemy in short order.

[Darth Hoth]

I'm not sure what novels you've read? As for Inquisitor the game, it's got stuff about their higher organisation in there, especially the Thorian sourcebook,

Various stuff: anthologies, Draco, some early Gaunt's Ghosts and a couple of Space Marines novels, though I do not remember them all all that well. I seem to recall also some book with a lot of Eldar in it. For Inquisitor I basically had only the basic rulebook and material from White Dwarf and assorted publications.

[Serafina]

Nice try there. It is not saying "the Tau suck and don't belong in 40K" to say that their chosen tactical doctrine is deeply flawed, because it is. Tau doctrine is inflexible, casualty- and risk-averse, and lacking in low level leadership and initiative; the first two being the most serious faults when dealing with Tyranids.

Does the Tau actually lack low level leadership and initative?

Yes, they do.

Tau soldiers are not encouraged to act independently.
We can conclude this from general Tau doctrine ("for the greater good") and from the descriptions of their commanders and battles.

Now, they have some lone-wolf battlesuits who act more or less on their own, and their battlesuits generally display more initiative than other soldiers, but they are still not terribly independent.

As for flexibility:
They have to rely on their battlesuits for having at least some flexibility. All other units in their army are bound to a single role.
Firewarriors are only good against Infantry at medium ranges, Broadside-Battlesuits are anti-vehicle only etc.
Compare this to other 40K-factions or modern-day soldiers, who can mostly engage multiple types of enemies (in 40K-terms: Tanks, heavy infantry etc.) at various ranges.

[Simon_Jester]

So? Palpy set the Empire up to also have groups of ideologically blinkered, mutually competitive factions (there's several intel arms as I recall - ISB, Imperial Intel, the military intelligence agencies (Army and Navy intel). Hell COMPNOR is basically just the Imperial version of the 40K Ministorum for all intents and purposes. The Empire just as fractious in most ways, if not moreso in some, than the Imperium is, not least because the Empire is designed not to functio nat all well without Palpy in charge, so lets not go creating strawmen okay?

It is, but the Imperium has had thousands of years for its internal faction feuds and Byzantine bureaucracy to degenerate. Given time, the Empire would probably devolve to be at least as bad as the Imperium is, but as long as Palpatine is in charge, the system will probably function better than the Imperium (though probably not as well as the Imperium worked when it had an emperor too).

Don't be an idiot. Borg wankery means they can magically adapt to any weapon at will and rapidly without defining any real mechansim and without any tradeoffs (Kinetc, thermal, whatever).

Does it? How much of this is in the shows and how much is just random idiots on the Internet oversimplifying the concept of "adapt" so that it will fit in their heads?

Sources mention that 'hundreds of millions' of droids were used on Coruscant, and in one episode of the CW cartoon they mentioned that they 'swarmed a planet'. That certainly implies high numbers there. Anyway, I'm sure the Empire would use liberal amounts of comparative precision orbital bombardment to thin out or exterminate Tyranid numbers on the ground.

Works for the Imperium. Really, that seems to be the main counter the Imperium uses against the 'Nids: they have space superiority whenever they can concentrate comparable tonnage. If you let a Tyranid force hit groundside and don't have major orbital fire support, you're probably screwed, because they can spawn new bioforms faster than you can kill them. When you've got enough firepower to actually vaporize your targets, the rules change.

Is there any data to suggest how much resources the Nids need to sustain themselves?

Very little, it would seem, given how long they can survive in sterile vacuum. Remember that their FTL travel is pretty slow, and yet somehow they managed to cross intergalactic distances...
_________

While true, we have many indications that the GE by itself commands a resource base comparable to that of the Tyrannids but beyond just itself and its institutions can coopt a much larger resource base. They have the capability to drain the oceans of a presumably Earth-like world rapidly just to make an example of the inhabitants and a Base Delta Zero operation (sterilizing a planet, more or less) requires a relatively tiny fraction of their overall fleet strength...

I admit to having very limited familiarity with the Warhammer 40K universe but I don't recall that the Imperium of Man or any other major power has the capacity to fight its way to a planet that the 'Nids have conquered and are in the process of consuming and simply sterilize it of every living thing after carving apart the Hive Fleet.

That's mostly a product of their slow FTL drive; they can't concentrate forces from thousands of light years away in a hurry the way the Empire can. The Imperium has a much higher ratio of warship tonnage to space, but even so they have trouble pulling together the force to meet a full Hive Fleet in orbit over a single planet in time to beat it.

They certainly have the firepower to sterilize a planet. Their capital ships are Base Delta Zero-capable; though they may need to use slightly larger battlegroups to do the job, they have those larger battlegroups, in numbers comparable to the number of Star Destroyers the Empire owns. Even many of their lighter ships (especially the ones owned by the Inquisition) have other methods of delivering an "Exterminatus"- by torpedoes, or virus bombs that destroy the biosphere. While they've got nothing to match the Death Star in sheer main gun power, they certainly don't lack for the ability to ruin worlds; they're even more genocide-happy than the Empire is. The Empire wrecked, what, about ten planets in twenty to thirty years of rule? By Imperium standard that's practically a hippie commune.

Eleventh Century Remnant did some interesting analysis on this subject; you might PM him.

We're not talking about a power that uses a few massive war machines (I don't seem to recall that the Imperium has tens of thousands of Titans) and then relies on smaller war machines and super-infantry but one that relies on a full spectrum of combined-armed warfare with a supporting technical apparatus to develop weapons that can take advantage of the see-saw nature of Tyrranid adaption.

To be fair, the Imperium has weapons of every description; on the ground they are brilliant at combined arms. Aside from the supersoldiers and the superheavy war machines, they have the ludicrously massive ranks of the Imperial Guard, which include rifle infantry, mortars, antitank weapons, artillery, air support, and indeed pretty much the full panoply of ground warfare that's ever been imagined.

The Titans and Space Marines just get most of the press; the real backbone of the Imperial ground forces is the Guard.

[NecronLord]

And a couple more as I recall it, if we include every agency that has intelligence/security-related functions: Secret Order of the Emperor, the semi-autonomous Ubiqtorate and so forth . . . and as you noted, various individual powerbrokers like Jerec or Vader had their own informal spy rings and networks as well. My point of contention was that each of these agencies, or the major ones at least, are in and of themselves full-fledged formal galactic commands that control operations and receive/send information across the whole galaxy. With the redundancy there is bound to be inefficiency, but each of these agencies is more coherent than (I perceived) the Inquisition (to be).

The Inquisition is actually mostly effective. Inquisition Wars are (barring the novels of the same name) supposed to be super rare, and responded to by the High Lords (and their inquisitor) by sending the navy and marines to kill everything in the region.

Ministorum is the same thing as Ecclesiarchy, right? I will not even attempt to pretend that I know 40k nearly as well as you or Necron, but I always perceived them to be basically the Mediaeval Roman Catholic Church with extra Grimdark. COMPNOR in the Empire is a social-cultural movement that pervades Imperial society with everything from economic development funds for the Rim to education efforts to youth groups to media control and what have you, in addition to spies/informers, Waffen-SS equivalents and other unsavoury stuff (The Imperial Sourcebook is the prime source on them). Basically they are the ISB's catch-all analogue for the various "populist" and cultural Nazi organisations in real life (Kraft durch Freude, Hitler Youth, SA/SS and what have you). Does the Ministorum do all that?

You just described the Medeival Catholic Church, man.

The Empire is by its definition a federal state, which has real-time communications across the galaxy as fairly standard (if expensive for a private citizen) measures. Federal agencies are coherent throughout, with orders going from the Coruscant hierarchy down to individual System Cells in Intelligence, for example, even if the agencies themselves compete between them. The Imperium is hampered by its worse communications and the fractitious nature of its agencies internally, as well as by the fact that it is essentially feudal rather than federal; planets are generally left alone as long as they pay their taxes and do not overtly worship Chaos/Genestealers/what have you, and the Inquisition at least seems more loosely/informally organised than the comparable Imperial agencies.

Or other Imperium of Man agencies, too. The Inquisiton operates independantly because of comms speed and reliablility, nothing else.

Jerec, Vader and comparable individuals are given a fairly free hand, but they do not typically do the groundwork of the intelligence gathering and security functions. I may be terribly off, but as I understand it the Inquisition is the primary intelligence/security agency of the Imperium that operates on the galactic scale, and they have no direct analogues to the ISB, Intelligence, Inquisitorius and other formally organised galaxywide intel networks and security agencies with strict chains of command.

There are other intelligence agencies in the Imperium, largely planet-sector based, reporting to the administratum. The Inquisition is a level above. They have thousands of agents per Inquisitor. some of whom are field agents and spies. Dark Heresy is 'play the footsloggers who work for the Inquisitors.'