Warhammer 40k: 4X-Strategy in M42

Game Master Swordwhale

Nah, I don't think that would be necessary, but thanks for the offer.
I want to see this roll off, regardless of faction choices.

Indeed.

I think everything on my end is done? As always, feedback and offers of cooperation/friction are always welcome!

Five pages of discussion, I just noticed, and not a single gameplay post. Nice!

I may have got my brother-in-law interested in giving it a shot.

@Choon: To keep you busy, would you mind adding the following info to your titans/knights weapon selection:
- number of large-scale energy weapons
- number of large calibre solid-projectile weapons (anything firing projectiles larger than autocannon/bolt shells)
- number of flame weapons
- number of missile weapons
I use those to adjust the upkeep values for your titans
-> Energy-based (higher base cost, yearly maintenance cost, low-per-fight-upkeep)
-> large-calibre (need shells ressource, cheaper production)
-> flame weapons (lots of need for promethium per fight, reduced production cost)
-> missiles (need missile ressource)

@Everyone else:
How is it going folks? Do you need any input from me or help, or is it just a matter of finding the time to get your army together?

Haha, it does seem like the 40K fan community isn't very strong on the paizo forums, or has gotten smaller at the very least.

I think I've got just a little more to go to finish off my starting army list.

I'm taking my time but with space marines being autonomous I pretty much have to think about everything and there is a lot of 40k i have not yet delved in(for example ship weaponry, shield strength / types, maybe warp engine tuning, world history, output, government...)
So - still need time to get up to speed here.

Yeah, I know.
I have Xenos and traitors on top :-)

Anyway, for ships, it boils down to:
Battleship > Cruiser > Frigates > Raiders > Cargo-Haulers

There are basically three classes of ships available for the navy (and then some odd hybrids the admirals don't like much):
- Bruisers (LOTS of macro-batteries, armoured prow or torpedoes)
- Snipers (LOTS of lance batteries, torpedoes or Nova cannon)
- Carriers (as the name, frakked without a fleet to hide behind, pain-in-the-*** if they do, not available for anything smaller than a light cruiser)

SM ships are focused on delivering their cargo, so they are mostly a heavily armoured bruiser variant with some carrier capability and torpedoes (boarding torpedoes ftw).
They often feature less weapons than their navy counterparts, but are much more resilient and also faster.
Their game being: punch right through a system blockade, drop a couple dozen (or hundred) angry SMs via Drop-pod/Thunderhawk and burn away before the enemy fleet can concentrate their fire on them.
In Space Combat they like to get in close and witter own the enemy due to their sheer resilience and ridiculous powerful boarding actions (their whole crew consisting of nearly-Astartes and above)...

Ok. Here is my final list I'm pretty sure.

Made heavy use of
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_Guard_Vehicles

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

2 Sentinels
3 Hydras Mobile AA Divisions
5 Standard Chimera Loadouts
3 Hellhounds Mobile Flamers
2 Salamander Scouts

Artillery
3 basilisks
2 manticores

Tank Regiments
2 Leman Russ
2 Leman Russ Destroyer Tank Hunters
1 Leman Russ Punisher (Infantry Hunter)
2 Leman Russ Demolishers (City fighting, Line Breaching)

Super Heavies
4 Knight Households - 4 Knights each 16 Knights total
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.

@GM: Done. I'm carrying a lot of Dakka.

Good thing you have a flying factory to keep them supplied, eh?

That was my first reason to get an Ark. :)

Azih's force summary has been copy/pasted into the notebook.

I vote Choon to receive the golden secretary pen :-)

@Redac: My brother-in-law is going to take the admiral seat. I have two options for 'minor' other major factions, I would present you with. Otherwise, you can always double down on an existing role if you like.

Option 1: Ecclisiarchy. The High-Cardinal has a system with a Cardinal world and several shrine worlds - rally, this is the diamond of the sector with so many inhabited worlds in one system. It is obviousy that there will be a sizeable military force there as well. Mostly Nuns'with'guns of course.
> This would be my favourite, but it is alright if you'd rather want to play another faction

Option 2: We can easily have an ancient Rogue Trader empire in this sector, hosting a fabulously old and wealthy dynasty with a small fleet and sizeable mercenary armies.

Option 3: Double down on any of the existing roles. I'd favour if you'd choose either IG or Navy, as they make up the grand of imperial forces after all.
-> if interested in a Space Marine chapter, I'd like you to take control over the Tigers Argent chapter which is located near the upper-edge of the map. More than 3 chapters in a sector seems to be a bit much in my eyes. And beside the name and homeworld, that chapter is about blank, so you're free to craft it to your wishes

I vote Choon to receive the golden secretary pen :-)

For this campaign only. :P

Your Admiral arrived. :D

I'll try to catch up as fast as possible.

I recommend two sites.
This one by fandom.
and This one by Lexicanum
Both sites say mostly the same thing, but with slightly different angles. You'll probably be dealing with a lot of piracy and raiding, I would think. But it'll all have to come together to a nice, complimentary force. If you really get in a pickle you have two fleet based factions to support you if we feel like it.
Good Luck!

One slight Correction: three fleet based factions. Both our noble astartes chapters are fleet based in fact.

@Admiral: Keep in mind that you can only change your alias name within the first 10 posts. So if you want to give your admiral a name (and want the alias to represent that) you better do it now, before posting 'too many times'.

Oh! Ok! I didn't realize that. I thought they had a planet when I saw them on the map.

The Tigers Argent are planet based ... Now.
They suffered quite some losses during the ending days of 41th and finally 'landed' their barge on the planet and became planet-based afterwards.
But I am talking about the Blood Ravens (they always were, but Aurelia was/is their recruitment ground holds) and Lightning claws.

Oh, Lord Admiral, If you don't want to compose in the wonkiness that is Piazo, you can do all your composition and planning and whatever in the notebook linked above. There's also good info up there about the mess you've just stepped in.

Thank you very much for your support Choon I appreciate it!

I'm already studying the wiki to get a composition that fits for me.

[Well I'm still looking for a name so yeah I'll change my name soon ;) ]

Let's not scare the new players away Choon!

I'm not trying to be scary! I'm just... enthusiastic.

I found a reference to battleship scale void shields. Normal Battleships have 4 shields. Ark defenses are said to be significantly stronger, "neigh impenetrable", so I set my ark's shields to 6.

I'm also looking into just how much production capability the Manifold Radiance of the Omnissaiah Shipyards and Shipbreaking Yards should have.

For that mobility things, well scouts do not have either and assault marines are usually not concerned with stealth.

Throwback, I know but I got to have that cleared up for my forces to work =D

That said I'd like to add some kind of "stealth" trait to my assault marines. Because that is what they do.

One more thought to throw in:
The WiP Unit Cost has a tactical squad at 3xGG 1xOre 1xRare Minerals while a
devastator squad is 4xGG 1xOre 1xRare Minerals

Fluff wise tactical squads are the "end" of a line astartes career. They mastered being assault marines and devastators already. So instead of the tabletop "10 boltgun marines" it is actually supposed to be "10 marines which can be anything. Need assaulters? Give them some chainswords from the armory. Snipers? give them the guns. Devastators? Bring out the big guns."
So they should either be costly or "graduate" from other units
Not sure if civ has this mechanic but for space marines scouts should be the only recruitable unit. They should then graduate to full battle brothers after X turns of combat. Or go for the full fluff route and have them graduate to devastator marines, then assault marines, then tactical.

Come to think of it I should probably play some civ to get into the swing on how this will work. I'm still far too deep into fluff and not enough into civ mechanics

100% dacore for the fluff.
The only problem I see with a 'graduation' approach is that is inherently per Marine and not per squad let alone per an even broader organisation unit.
Same goes for equipment and weapon loadout.
The typical SM fluff does seem to dissolve into a big clusterf@%% if one goes bigger than a demi-company.
Another extreme variant could be to only go with tactical marines and resolve the rest by equipment choices giving the respective unit the respective set of traits.
I'd rather not do it like that as it diverges too far from the awesome SM fluff...

I am really not sure how do deal with them to be honest, so ideas are welcome....
@Price difference: that was to depict heavy weapon cost, going from an all-bolter tac squad.

Well the Civ mechanics in this game don't need to be set in stone. The beauty of p and p is the flexibility. The graduation mechanic for marines sounds awesome.

Why can't a squad of tac marines be like 5 or 10 guys and then they can be assigned a squad loadout of special equipment (like assault or snipe or aa) for a cost to turn them into different kinds of combatants?

Assault and Devestator have restrictions on what loadouts they are allowed to take while tacs can take anything, scouts can only pick like two.

'Hellsreach' is the only fluff i've ever read(well, listened to) that REALLY got a large scale SM deployment right.
But thats against OVER-EFFING-WHELMING ork numbers.
The thing is an orbital bombardment nuking your largest center of resistence and then 100 space marines dropping on the face of your rebel / ork / xenos war leader and stomping it into the ground so hard the ground cracks is not really book material.
On the other hand there are some example where someone tried to write that by describing what might happen on tabletop. And thats seriously stupid. Space Marine Commanders have 200-300 years of combat experience. They are not going to order a single tank forward to have it nuked by some kind of defense turrent, then watch their battle brothers crawl out of the wreck... seriously, it does happen in fluff.

How about this:
Whenever a scout unit is in combat is has a chance to generate X Potential Graduates.
This is a resource located as marker on the unit(same as with planets, except on the unit)
Creating a higher level squad takes Y amount of Potential Graduates which can be drawn from multiple scout units.

So essentially scout units become mini planets and use the same rule as planets: generate resources, have resources destroyed when in combat(I assume that'll happen to plants too)

@Azih I like the loadout idea. But I believe GoW already somewhat turned that down because he doesn't want the complexity. Oh, and the smallest Unit my space marines get to deploy in are demi-company. So 50 space marines minimum to mess up someones day.

If you want to nano-manage every squad including loadout, we can probably do that.
Headache for me to get a semblance of balance but hey, this mess was my idea Al along ... ^^

I kinda like that idea. It could represent pretty well just how differently the Marines operate. They essentially only recruit neophytes. It would take time and the fires of combat to produce anything else from those raw recruits, making the loss of an experienced battle brother as keenly felt as it should be.

@GoW I can hear the pain =P

Leaving it at demi company size is fine by me. Thats why I talked about scout units, not scout squads.
I think 'choosing loadout' could be achieved by allowing battle line units(which include tactical squads) to act as melee / fire support units by 'temporarily' consuming a GG - that GG is in use as long as they act as said unit.
Becaues you can't give those chain swords to your new assault guys if your tactical guys are out in the field with them.
Or just drop the temporary thing and allow them to act as some other type for the duration of a 'war' for the cost of 1GG because it already makes them damn versatile compared to having to ship your actual specialists from half the sector away

I think that consuming the GG is a good way to represent the overall effort to equip them + ammo they'll spend + storing the old gear + opportunity cost to get the gear to them or bring them to the gear + etc.

Just so you know, I have training today& tomorrow.
Will give more though&comment later/tomorrow/Friday.
Jus dump your ideas/comments and I will go through them as I have the time to.

Booo. Becoming a better person sucks. :P

Becoming a better cog in the machine.
Yeah u should be able to relate ;-)

Oh, if that's the case then go forth and boldly in the name of the Omnissaiah!

I've added some more fluff to my pages. Still not sure just how much a starbase can produce. Those details seem intentionally vague.

@ Choon I'm looking for some kind of a “Assassin/Hunter/Flank”-Cruiser …
(It should be a fast Cruiser with high firepower, able to hunt down fast ships, go for flank attacks burst down escorts and as two ore more cruisers to afterwards disappear fast to charge the next flank attack. For the downside they sure lag in defence and need to use their speed and maneuverability to survive)

The “Long Serpent Class Cruiser” is more or less matching my expectations.
The lexicanum tells it is just build in limited numbers and also only in Segmentum Obscurus and Segmentum Pacificus so there are some points/questions or what ever you want to call it I'd like to mention/ask:

What do think about this? What about your Adeptus Mechanicus build a new Type of Cruisser?
Do you got any idea how the “veteran” status will work with fleets and other more or less mechanic troops? A marine for sure will get “experience” and maybe used to new weapons and more skills or something but Cruiser or Battleship for example won't be like “give the the chainsword”
What about some kind of a “research” system to upgrade ships or get a new class of cruiser, battleship or escort? So something like a research-tree? Like I need a new heavy cruiser with high shield and be able to transport attack craft so I'll have to research a new class with some costs like I'm building a new ship just to get the new blueprint and afterwards be able to build it?

Thank you in advance for your feedback and sorry for my bad english and grammar, I'm not used to speak/write much english in general so I hope your eyes won't bleed. ^^

@Experience:
Pretty much any unit will gather experience. Space Ships are crewed by myriad of people, all of which gathering experience during combat.
Knights&Titans have Princeps that gather xp (and so do their machine spirits).
Even Combat Servitor Troops are led (or at least pre-programmed) by a Magos, so even those units will gain xp in a manner.
So that's that.
Also: units will actually loose xp too, if they suffer major combat Losses and have to be restocked with new blood.

@Research:
Yeah, that is a bit of a problem in 40k. Even Choons Magos must treat quite careful in that area.
But, there are other ways to 'research'. Finding STCs. Recovering thought-lost ships from the enemy or space hulks. Finding the husk of an old titan/shop/tank on a planet long since forgotten. Stuff like that.

@Flanking cruiser:
If you want that kind of role, I suggest looking into the Light Cruiser category. Cruisers are the Ships of the Line in 40k. They aren't meant to flank and all that. Take a look at the Dauntless class. It hits hard, but is weak on the defense with half the armor and defensive turret cover. You could also have your escorts provide flanking to a lesser degree. If they hunt in packs they can prove quite effective, especially if something bigger is occupying most of their attention.

@ research: Ya, the Imperium doesn't really do "research" I mean, I'm walking a Tech Heresy tightrope over here just making minor modifications to my titans. Most research will come through exploration, which is done mostly by the Mechanicus and Rogue Traders. Thankfully, you all have a rather open minded and military-friendly Archmagos in your region who might even let you borrow a bit of his tech if you're nice enough. :)

Edit: Also, no worries on the English. I actually volunteer teach English to adult learners, so yours won't do anything to me. English Sucks 70% of the time, especially in special topic like this one.

Isn't the Imeprium attitude towards 'research' changing a bit with the whole Primaris Marines thing? Still I think calling in allies from outside the subsector and finding ancient relics will be the way to get access to special units.

One thing I noticed is that I haven't put in any air units in my loadout. Is that okay for an initial state of affairs?

Air units are a bit odd in any game though, either they're unstoppable or they get shut down right away by Anti-Air.

Fun fact: the Imperial Guard does not have any.
Beside a few shuttles and Valkyrs (mostly for drop troopers).
The 'real' air force is provided by the Navy.

Another thing, Azih.
How do you feel about the customizability of your Force?
With the special treatment of Astartes oncoming, I feel like the IG is somehow much more coarse-grained than the others.
If you want, we could probably go down to company level (with three companies a regiment) - at least for the 'more interesting' regiments, like mechanized infantry and armoured regiments. Your call. Don't want to leave people to feel ... less cared for?

@Redac:
You're with us, fellow?

Air power is actually the Navy's job, believe it or not.

And ya, the times are changing, but still. Some dogs just refuse to learn new tricks.

Edit: GM ninja'd

I think I'm mostly good. The point of IG is to field large numbers of units of the same type outside of its super heavies. It's an army, not fancy pants special forces.

I could add some drop troops buutt that sort of stuff is better done by the Astartes and I like the initial loadout being more of a traditional army rather than dynamic. Fighting the Tyranid didn't encourage mobile tactics in the sector's IG in my head canon. They went for a more steel wall approach.

One question though on the super heavy. It seems like I have 16 knights. Isn't that too much? It seems from the fluff and the tabletop wargame that an IK is the rough equivalent of a Baneblade.

I mean, if you want to re-convert some of those back into super-heavy tanks it would probably help your flexibility. Especially if they doubled as troop carriers. A squad of baneblades can take on a true titan, so they're very roughly the same? The Tanks would be much more firmly under your control as most Houses not sworn directly to the guy in command can be rather... independent. Or so I've read.

I just checked build times for titans and... wow. I really need to not loose one. On the plus side, my Skitarii types should be easy enough to recruit. And Knights only take 6 turns.

Can units be produced in parallel? Like, and by Ark produce several Knights at a time while my forge worlds produce several titans and a cruiser or three at the shipyard with a battleship being laid down for the Lord Admiral, etc? As long as resources are available, of course.

Yes, up to a point.
And the examples are pretty sensible.

over 700 food per 4 turns to keep my fleet fed.... wow. I hope those planets produce well because that seems like a big number. And I haven't even factored in the land forces yet.