Warhammer 40k: 4X-Strategy in M42

Game Master Swordwhale

I'm certainly not up to speed with you guys but I do try to build the background one step at a time =3

@Azih: Could you give me a very short list (just names/types) of your planets/holds? I think you are pretty much done by now, but they are scattered all over the place and some are missing names (I think). Then I can add them to the map :-)
The shared ones (with Keen 'Dastea') and the one in Choons system 'Archepex' are already there.

@Keen:
I added all your holds to the map.

@Lurch:
I added Subsector Aurelia.
I guess you will want Meridian and Calderis as recruitment holds?
What about the others? I think you also got a hold on one of Choons forge worlds, but I don't think you two settled on which one, right?

Updated the snapshot.

@All: I am a bit at a loss atm. Did we loose our Lord Admiral on the way or what happened to that faction? I am currently see:
- Azih >> Lord General >> Imperial Guard
- Choon >> Fabricator General >> Ad-Mech
- CmdKeen & Lurch >> Chapter Masters >> Lightning Claws & Blood Angels
Navy is pretty important I guess, so if we indeed lost that position, I am going to start a search soon.

I think you also got a hold on one of Choons forge worlds, but I don't think you two settled on which one, right?

Right

- CmdKeen & Lurch >> Chapter Masters >> Lightning Claws & Blood Angels

NOW they've done it. The Blood Ravens finally stole the identity of a first founding chapter...

I did a quick search for 'admiral' in recruitment and discussion and I don't think we ever had a volunteer for that position

Well, whoopsi *rofl*
Blood RAVENS of course.
***
Thanks for looking it up keen, I'll ask some people if they want to take on the mantle of Lord Admiral then.

I'd be interested to take a crack at it, but that's probably a mess of conflict of interest. :D

Kachewan-35 - Agri world

Insol-8 - Mining World/Death World

Night/Day Death world shared with CmdKeen

Maximadin-37- Hive World/Manufactorum of mechanized infantry up to and including battletanks as well as the crews experienced with them as well as troops expereinced with defensive seige warfare.

Glory-B - Knight World/IG Millitary Academy in System SO 499-691.46 in alliance with Forge World "Fires of Industry". Takes in GG and recruits and puts out Knight Pilots, IG Officers, and troops experinced in open ground and trench warfare

Which one did you name Archepex?

Flavor
Kachewan-35
Kachewan-35 is as Large as a rock planet can get and is blessed with moderate climate on its one giant continental landmass which sits in a large world spanning freshwater ocean. It is so flat that it is said that you can watch your dog runaway for three years.

Its value as a breadbasket, source of water and seafood is so important that large settlements are not allowed on the surface and the only structures are the space ports that ferry these vital supplies to the rest of the imperium. These ports also contain work camps and the manufactorums that service the giant farming equipment and trawlers used to harvest the bounty of the world.

The planet's atmosphere is so large that it shares it with two of its moons. The first is Grey and covered with tenemant housing. It is in fact a Hive moon that provides the workers that harvest the Agri World and a few recruits for the IG. The second moon is a small orange rock and it is from here that the PDF are organized and the governance of the world and moon managed.

Insol-8
In the countless worlds of the Imperium the Hive World of Insol-8 is just another mote of icy dirt under the ceaseless gaze of the Holy Emperor; just another ink-blot on the ledger of his Administratum. But where most Hive Worlds push the poor to the lower levels while the privileged nobility live above, closer to the heavens and the stars, the opposite is true on Insol-8.

For the surface of Insol-8 is more akin to a frozen Death World than a Hive World. Roiling tempests, some millennia old, roll over the tortured land showering down seemingly endless storms of dagger like ice shards stabbing into a pock marked landscape close in temperature to absolute zero. Elsewhere drifts of snow as large as continents shift and morph, sculpted into alien forms by the ceaseless howling wind before being blown flat again.

It is only the stability of the stolid crust underneath the hellish frozen surface and the vast riches of mineral wealth deeper still that has drawn the attention of the Imperium. Once it was discovered that boreholes and solid vents and shafts could be tunneled deep into the crust with only minimal engineering a project was launched to create a mining outpost. Success breeds success and the initial post was expanded again and again under the auspices of the barely human servitors from the Adeptus Mechanicus with orders only to dig. Now a vast underground rat's nest many layers deep has been created. Vast mining complexes plumb the riches of the planet and a dizzying number of Hab tunnels house the countless millions of miner-citizens.Initially brought in from other Hive and Penal Worlds the population of Insol-8 has been self-sustaining now for generations. Giving the planet worth as it spouts out raw materials to feed the endless wars of the 41st Millenium.

Maximadin-37
Maximadin-37 is a Hive World which features habitable zones that are all heavily urbanized but with large tracts of hellish irradiated wasteland between. Travel between the habitable zones is accomplished through ground based vehicles which range from lightly armored speeders to heavily armored trade convoys which are needed to fend off attacks from the mutated barbarians that dwell in the radiation. These vehicles are built on world in heavily protected industrial areas that mark the boundaries between the habitable zones and the wastes. Not only do these areas produce the highly prized armored vehicles that the world relies on but also serves as defensive walls against the denizens of the wastes. Provides troops, mechanized infantry, light tanks.

Glory-B
Glory-B is an ancient world dedicated to the Imperium with a grand tradition of military excellence which takes pride in contributing troops to the Emperor's cause. One of its island continents (Australia-sized roughly) is completely dedicated to a military academy that turns the brightest or most well connected children of the world into officers for the IG, the most exception and talented of which are given the honor of piloting an Imperial Knight which are provided by the nearby Forge World "Fires of Industry" in an ancient compact between the two worlds. It also takes in offworld recruits in large numbers to be trained into grunt troops. Only the most exceptional of offworlders are able to overcome the prejudice of the natives to get into the officer track and only the dullest or most desperate to get offworld of the natives become troops. It is almost unheard of for an offworlder to become a Knight Pilot.

Alright, in terms of unit compositions this is the basic framework to work from right?

[One Possibility, IG is very free]
• 2 Super-heavy Regiments
○ (They are not pure super-heavies but rather a Tank regiments with a couple super-heavies as beachhead or squadron lead vehicles)
• 6 Tank Regiments
• 6 Artillery Regiments
• 12 Mechanized Infantry Regiments
• 24 Infantry Regiments of any type
• 6 Bulk Transport Void Ships
○ Each with 10 slots
§ Infantry takes one slot
§ Mechanized/artillery/tanks takes up 2
§ Super-heavy take 3

You can likely see the system behind this.
Tank regiments are about twice the 'points' of a Mechanized Infantry which in turn is about twice of normal infantry. You are free to switch around your setup according to that system to a certain degree.
You probably will want to create 'battlegroups' of several regiments which are usually deployed together to aid eachother.

General Troop Types:
• Armored (Tanks and Superheavy)
• Mechanized Infantry (Infantry with Chimeras Transports)
• Artillery (includes AA)
• Light Infantry (Scouts, Infiltrators, fast deploy, can be recruited fast, cheap and virtually everywhere)
• Line Infantry (many guys with flashlights, some heavy weapon teams)
○ May be specialized, see Only War regiment creation for ideas, including tank hunters, rough riders, pioneers
• Drop Infantry (drop from Valkyries in sub-orbit)
Siege Infantry (more bodies than usual, special

Thanks for the summary.
@Composition: Yup.
I am not perfectly sure about the numbers, but you can start with those.
Maybe they will go up. Maybe not.
But mos likely not down :-)

EDIT:

Which one did you name Archepex?

System SO 499-691.46 is also called Archepex by those with less affinity to numbers.

Ok, a quick copy/paste to excel shows that the base composition has 112 'points to play with (super heavies are 8 points, tanks and artillery are 4 points, mechanized is 2, and infantry is 1)

I shifted it around to make this more mechanized. Going to 3 super heavies was too darn expensive in terms of throwing bodies at problems which is were a lot of the value of the IG lies so I kept that at 2 and instead I've come up with this basic list:

2 super heavies
7 Tank Regiments
5 Artillery
15 Mechanized Infantry
18 Infantry

For Infantry, do DeathWorld specialists take 1 'point'? How about Light vs Line?

I'm suddenly curious how many points my force is worth.

Is there a good place to go too to get a list of units available for IG? I downloaded some random android app for 40K army building but it doesn't have Knights in it. I may be overthinking this.

Azih wrote:

Which one did you name Archepex?

System SO 499-691.46 is also called Archepex by those with less affinity to numbers.

Also known as the mentally challenged and those far from the light of the Machine God.

Let's just say that half of your Infantry regiments can be 'special' ones, so experienced Death Worlders, 'oversized' Line regiments or simply 'veteran' units (e.g. regiments which were trained in on your training world).

Drop Troops will have to be counted as mechanized infantry due to their high demand on special wargear and transportation.

Line vs Light is mostly a distinction for in-game purposes.
Line is THE IG regiments, while light infantry is the real fodder, as in: flak west (not a complete set) at most and low-grade weapons (e.g. few heavy weapons if any), maybe even 'archaic' weapons (favour a crossbow regiment? or one with front-loaders?)

The power gamer in me is struggling to understand why I would have any Light at all :). Faster to recruit? Basically pick them up from a planet and throw them into the fight while Line need a little bit of training and a little bit of GG to equip?

Is there a good place to go too to get a list of units available for IG? I downloaded some random android app for 40K army building but it doesn't have Knights in it. I may be overthinking this.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll go with broad regimental descriptions as those used in the Only War rulebooks for regimental creation (I guess you have the books with you?)

@Light Infantry:
- they make good scouts
- they are the cheapest units in the game
- they will have instant recruitment time if you have enough Men resources available
- they can be recruited on pretty much any world

I uploaded a handy overview of OW regimental 'attributes'

@Knight in IG service:
Each super heavy unit is replaced by two Knight households. So you will have access to four knight households, each of which is 4 knights strong.
See choon's army rooster to get ideas for knights.

Map updated with Azih's positions.

Ok, working bottom up. Looking for feedback.

Infantry composition

2 Light Infantry Skirmishers
7 standard Line Infantry

1 Death World Regiment (Hot Weather specialists)
1 Death World Regiment (Cold Weather specialists)
1 Veteran Defensive Siege Specialists
2 Veteran Open Ground Warfare
2 Veteran Trench Warfare
1 Veteran Sapper Squad
1 Oversized and well armored Line Infantry Unit (Vanguard Unit more durable)

Mechanised Infantry

3 Tank Hunter Divisions
3 Mobile AA Divisions
4 Standard Chimera Loadouts
3 Mobile Flamers
2 Speeder Transports

Artillery
2 Anti Siege Artillery
2 Anti Air Artillery
1 Anti Infantry Artillery

Tank Regiments
2 Standard Tanks
2 Mobile Close Quarters Anti Infantry
1 Anti Air
2 Siege Breakers

Super Heavies
4 Knight Households TBD.

Is there a good place to go too to get a list of units available for IG? I downloaded some random android app for 40K army building but it doesn't have Knights in it. I may be overthinking this.

Ya. I have a tendency to overthink too. I'd say go for general strokes. Yours is more faceless than mine.

Except for a couple knightly houses. I need to know which of your houses (if there's more than one) you tend to send my way.

@GW: Does that mean if I traded in 2 warhounds I could get more knights?

I think anti-infantry and Siege artillery are generally a matter of the ammunition used, not really a major difference to separate on the spreadsheet. But I could be wrong. I haven't looked as deeply into IG units.

@Choon: yeah, you swap out (exactly) one pack to get an additional two households.
@Azih:
- Choon is mostly right about artillery. You can choose between basilisk (BIG barrel artillery) and manticore rocket launchers
-- basilisk are better fit for sustained bombardment and are cheaper to produce and supplied
-- manticores fire more slowly but when they do, nothing wants to be near the area of impact, they can also be equipped with AA missiles, although they are better at finishing larger, less-agile craft (like troop shuttles or big bombers)
- I'd recommend to get at least one tank-hunter armour regiment, given that there will be enemy titan-grade-things sooner or later
-- for more details, just go to one of the wikis and read up the various Leman Russ variants
-The chimera (the most notable vehicle for Mechanized Infantry) does not have a particular good anti-tank variant iirc (they mostly are well able to deal with light vehicles though and are a pain for infantry), so you probably want to move dedicated anti-tank vehicles to the armoured regiment section

Or just get on the phone and call me when you see titan grade bullcrap and I'll do my best to send in my own bullcrap to match. :)

@GM, Can my trade just expand my numbers in a certain house? Or are Houses limited to 4 Knights? I plan to create a dedicated scouting house and I want to bump my numbers in a couple other houses as these things are essentially my skirmishers (as ridiculous as that sounds).

Sure!
From which house they hail is mostly your stuff.
I think we have a total of three or four (?) Knight worlds, so distribute them over those as you see fit.

Well one of mine is a house of Freeblades that saw the shineyness of the Omnissiah's Will and basically refuse to leave it. Ever. So the Archmagos just adopted them and they are now his ambassadors to anyone who he thinks needs a less metallic touch. This doesn't happen often, but still.
The others are from Glory-B and maybe one more world.

Oh my... I thought I had a handle on my knights...

I was wrong.

I have so much reading to do.

You know what. Let's lean into this thing.

The best of the best of the children of Glory-B are marked for the exclusive academy of Boarboil. In an ancient induction ceremony each child who gains admittance is made to wear an Iron Halo reputedly wrought from a suit of armor worn by the Emperor himself in ages past. The Halo decides which of the four Houses the child is best suited for.

The House of the Griffin: Honourable and straightforward. Dedicated foes of the enemies of the Imperium. They pilot Knight Paladin Pattern Imperial Knights
The House of the Elephant: Dedicated to supporting and aiding the weaker members of the Imperium this House usually sticks close to the smaller units they fight alongside, fending off threats that would be deadly to them. They pilot Knight Valiant Pattern Imperial Knights
The House of the Raven: Intelligent Tacticians who believe in not only being overwhelmingly powerful but also using that power in a fashion that allows them to outlast the foes of Mankind. They pilot Knight Crusader Pattern Imperial Knights
The House of the Serpent: Opportunistic and Ruthless Fighters who do not believe the enemy is deserving of an honourable duel and will instead strike at their points of weakness as much as possible. They Pilot Knight Errant Pattern Imperial Knights

How the pilots of the Knights get along with each other REALLY changes on the social dynamics of each graduating class.

The House of the Raven is most likely to be asked, or volunteer, to spend a portion of their service under the direction of the Adeptus Mechanicum thus fulfilling the ancient oaths between Glory-B and the Mechanicus Forgeworld of the Fires of Industry.

Edit: From Choon's linked wiki page threw in the kind of patterns they would use. Thanks for that!

I think that's my super heavy done. I need to rework my middle loadout.

I love it! Azih, those are their classes in school. Do they retain that class name after graduation, or are they inducted into a single, larger, planetary House?

I'm reading up on how exactly knights work in general and I think my first house will be a "Titanicus Vassal House" that owes it's loyalty to the Legio instead of the Mechanicus at large. They tend to have a higher turnover rate than other houses and treat their suits with a little less reverence as they are seen more as tools to protect and preserve titans. The best tools short of a God-machine, sure, but tools.

I'd say the class bonds are strong enough that they retain those names once they become pilots they do add the planet name at the end though so they're House Griffin of Glory-B etc. Makes it easy to distinguish their pattern as well.

So,basically, Mecha-Warrior-Hogwarts-in-Space?
Consider it sold :-) :-) :-)

Azih - Ok, cool.

The more I read the more I realize I'm going to have to completely rewrite a large portion of my knight forces. I'll probably keep the same patterns, but how they're structured is completely different from what I was expecting.

Artillery rework is pretty simple.

3 basilisks
2 manticores

Ammunition loadout will change depending on engagement.

Updated some stuff about the knights.

The House of the Serpent: Opportunistic and Ruthless Fighters who do not believe the enemy is deserving of an honourable duel and will instead strike at their points of weakness as much as possible. They Pilot Knight Armiger Pattern Imperial Knights

Knight Errants were a detachment of space marines, I just found out. Armigers are acutally two types, Warglaive and Helverin. We can say they pilot both types, I guess.

Anyone knows how to change the name of ones recruitment thread?
Or 'link' a new one to an existing campaign?

Should be able to do that in the campaign tab editing page

Ya.
Campaign Info -> edit
Scroll down and you'll see a list of linked threads. You can then unset and relink there.

Yeah, I had hoped I could just add another thread, but hey, there we go with a new one.

Hrm. They might have reused the name as there's giant wiki pages for Knight Errant Imperial Knights as well.

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Knight_Errant

And their flavor and loadout fits better for what I had in mind for the House of the Serpent.

The Armiger pattern on the other hand seems like a weaker variant.

ohhhh. I see. Cool. My bad.

Yeah, they are scouts after all.
I'd rule that you can have 5 machines in a scout-unit.
Still, probably more something for Choon with his greater number of knights.

But you better be training those pilots because the House Germinatus is going to grow if Principes De Lune has anything to say about it!

Still, probably more something for Choon with his greater number of knights.

Still, 5 is nothing to sneeze at, especially if they act in unison. And you can almost guarantee a part of my forces will come running if you're under serious threat. Unless something bigger is trying to kill me at the moment, of course.

We are technically in segmentum tempestus, right?

Nah, it should be Ultima.
We are basically closer to Ultramar than Terra ...

Ok. Just want to make sure I have my lore right. I'll probably still get stuff wrong, but I will have tried my best, dagnabbit!

Oh, wow, thanks Azih!
*blushes*

@All: If we do not find a player for the Navy, we will just handwave that position I guess. Instead of 'until-solved' blockades and attacked trade routes, we will have events ala 'System blockaded by Xeno pirates. Navy is en route and should fight them back soon' or something like that.
Still hoping to find a player though. We still have quite a lot of open points, so not much harm in letting it open for a while...

The Navy is in some ways the most thankless of the positions if you think about it. I know I'd be leery of playing a position where everybody needs me to provide an escort and break blockades so their ground forces can get to the real action and if I don't then their forces will just.. sit there?.

Might be best to just automate?

It kinda is a support role, that is right, but it is (in my eyes) the most strategic tasking one too.
And I figured it would be one of the roles with the biggest backdoor politics going on, as everyone is trying to get the navy supporting 'their' taskforce/expedition/system defence/trade route/... with the highest priority.
But, we'll see if someone turns his hand down for a try or not.
If not, I am going to have to NPC it.

If someone really wants to be AdMech I wouldn't mind Navy. They were my Number 2 choice. I would kinda stink to start over again, but I'd rather see this game succeed.