Warhammer 40k fluff thread VI: They see me Ward'en, they haten

[GolemsVoice]

I think most Imperial Regiments are pretty close to real-world armies regarding tactics and organization. Of course, the IG as a whole, and maybe even a single planet, do have so many people that basically any specialization imaginable can exist in reasonable strength, often enough for several regiments or a whole army. For any possible climate, planet type, type of combat situation and more or less any variable that you can think of, there's likely a regiment.

"General, we're attacking a Slaaneesh fortress made out of ultra-sweet cake! Our man are dying from diabeetus!"

"Send in the Tartowan 251 "Cake-Eaters"!"

[Zorg]

Don't know if it's still current, but old (Space Marine game old, maybe into 2nd ed 40k) background had that regiments were mono-tasked - all tanks, all infantry etc - to prevent insurrections as they would be strong in one area, but weak in another so easily put down.
Similar to how the Navy has no ground forces and the Guard have no interplanetary mobility.

[GolemsVoice]

I don't think that applies anymore, since I guess that wouldn't make very much military sense, since you had to always mix and match regiments for any given task.

[hamishspence]

It still applies. In the Cain books there's tank regiments, artillery regiments, and infantry (or mechanized infantry) regiments- and they tend to deploy some of each for a campaign.

I believe its brought up occasionally in the Gaunt's Ghosts books as well.

[DaedalusMkV]

Indeed, the current IG codex also makes mention of dividing Regiments specifically to minimize the damage any one Regiment can do if they go traitor. That said, there are exceptions to the rule and it's pretty loose to begin with. The Cadian 8th includes artillery, tank and mechanized units in addition to its' primary infantry focus, the Armaggeddon Steel Legion always includes at least one Tank company in their Mechanized regiments and the Valhallans are noted for being extremely artillery-happy, with their Infantry regiments equipped with heavy siege guns. That's not even getting into oddball cases like the Death Korps of Krieg, which institutionally include combined-arms forces while the Munitorum turns a blind eye because they're all fanatically loyal death-seeking clones or the Tallarns, who field Rough Rider companies in their Tank regiments (and every other regiment, too).
The moral of the story? The IG lets you get away with what you need to do to succeed in your specialized field, and exceptional cases get exceptions to the rules.

[GolemsVoice]

Success needs no explanation. Failure allows none.

[Squark]

I believe the point is that if one regiment goes rogue, it can only do so much damage. There are probably fully-specialized regiments (Pretty much composed of nothing but Lehman Russes and other battle tanks in the Mechanized case, or nothing but foot soldiers), and some designed to be supplement existing defenses (in cases when a single regiment is deployed)

[Brother Oni]

Originally Posted by Zorg

Don't know if it's still current, but old (Space Marine game old, maybe into 2nd ed 40k) background had that regiments were mono-tasked - all tanks, all infantry etc - to prevent insurrections as they would be strong in one area, but weak in another so easily put down.
Similar to how the Navy has no ground forces and the Guard have no interplanetary mobility.

Technically speaking, the Navy doesn't need ground forces, since an orbital bombardment tends to sort out most ground issues.

[Weezer]

Originally Posted by Brother Oni

Technically speaking, the Navy doesn't need ground forces, since an orbital bombardment tends to sort out most ground issues.

Well it does stop them from actually conquering anything on their own. Sure, nuking everything from orbit is a great way to kill everyone, but if you want to build up an empire or want to make use of a planet you're going to need some groundpounders. Here is a relevant quote from Heinlein's Starship Troopers:

There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships or missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time. We've never been told to go down and kill or capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if they tell us to, we can. We will.
We are the boys who will go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We're the bloody infantry, the doughboy, the duckfoot, the foot soldier who goes where the enemy is and takes them on in person. We've been doing it, with changes in weapons but very little change in our trade, at least since the time five thousand years ago when the foot sloggers of Sargon the Great forced the Sumerians to cry "Uncle!"

[Tehnar]

Yeah orbital bombardments and the like only work if the side on the receiving end is willing to negotiate. Given how in 40K almost every faction by modern human standards is:

- crazy
- resilient enough to survive through all but the heaviest bombardment (exterminatus scale), and the accompanied lack of food/resources
- would rather die to the last man/fungus/warp essence/overgrown roach the to surrender

means pretty much if you want to take a piece of realestate, in such a condition that it will be usable sometimes in the next 10 millenia, you will need to send in the ground troops. Thankfully all other races think that such realestate is valuable, so no one is going around blowing up planets. Well the tyranids are but that is why they are so alien compared to the rest of the galaxy.

[Hazzardevil]

3 questions about fluff. One on Chaos and two on Imperial Guardsman.

1. After a Chaos Space Marine army wins a battle, what do they do with the wounded? Do they keep them around until they are walking again? Or do they kill them?

2. How do guardsman get from space on a ship to the ground?

3. How do guardsman get back into space again?

[Brother Oni]

Originally Posted by Weezer

Well it does stop them from actually conquering anything on their own. Sure, nuking everything from orbit is a great way to kill everyone, but if you want to build up an empire or want to make use of a planet you're going to need some groundpounders.

True, I suppose terrorising a planet into submission with selective strikes wouldn't work too well in the 40K universe, simply due to the differences in culture compared to most other sci-fi universes.

Originally Posted by Tehnar

Thankfully all other races think that such realestate is valuable, so no one is going around blowing up planets. Well the tyranids are but that is why they are so alien compared to the rest of the galaxy.

Well necrons really. Tyranids only want the place long enough to chow down on it.

Originally Posted by Hazzardevil

1. After a Chaos Space Marine army wins a battle, what do they do with the wounded? Do they keep them around until they are walking again? Or do they kill them?

2. How do guardsman get from space on a ship to the ground?

3. How do guardsman get back into space again?

1: Depends on the legion. If they're so badly crippled that no use can be found for them, they're generally killed.
Since they don't have any gene banks to speak of, their progenoid glands aren't harvested.

2: Dropships, either dedicated military ones or commandeered civilian ones.
Military ones are better armoured and can carry vehicles along with troops.
Civilian ones tend to be either passenger carriers or ore carriers, so generally more awkward to disembark regiments and equipment from orbit.

3: As for 2 - the drop ships are reusable.

[GolemsVoice]

Aren't there spaceships which can actually land on planets?

[hamishspence]

There are. Going by BFG, any escort sized ship (which includes normal Imperial Transports) may land on the planet.

"Escort-sized" varies a bit- but in Rogue Trader they range from about 1 km long to 2.5 km long.

[Hazzardevil]

Originally Posted by Borgh

Except these guys are the Primarchs. The third to twentythird most powerfull guys in the imperium with some of the most important jobs in the galaxy.

new question related to above.

If 1st is Emperor, and 3 through 23 is the Primarchs, who is the 2nd?

[Wraith]

Traditionally held to be Malcador the Sigilite, who for all intents and purposes was the Emperor's Right Hand Man throughout the entire Crusade and Heresy, as well as being the First High Lord of Terra (and thus the man trusted to rule in the Emperor's place while He was away) and the Grand Master of what would eventually become the Officio Assassinorum.

Though he was a gifted psyker, he was still just a human rather than a Marine. By saying he was the second 'most powerful' man in the Imperium is more an account of his position and to whom he was close rather than how physically astute he was.

[Hazzardevil]

Originally Posted by Wraith

Though he was a gifted psyker, he was still just a human rather than a Marine. By saying he was the second 'most powerful' man in the Imperium is more an account of his position and to whom he was close rather than how physically astute he was.

I was wondering weather that was meant as physically or politically.

[Knight13]

I was wondering weather that was meant as physically or politically.

Aside from his political power, he was also one of the most powerful human psykers ever, though still nothing compared to the Emperor, of course.

The Emperor trusted him enough to leave him powering the Golden Throne while the Emperor went to fight Horus during the Siege of Terra. He wasn't nearly as strong as the Emperor though, so it put such a huge strain on his body that it basically sucked his lifeforce out and when they moved him off the Throne to put the Emperor on there, his body pretty much crumbled on the spot.

[Hazzardevil]

Originally Posted by Ailurus

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the First War of Armageddon one of the main reasons why Logan started not liking the Inquisition, when the orders came down to execute every single Guardsman on the planet after the war was over?

Just replaying to this from before.
I thought Yarrick was in charge of all the Imperium Forces at the Wars of Armageddon?

This leads me to the question of how long does a normal human live in 40k?
By this I mean a human who does not fight Tyranids, Orks, Chaos and Eldar on a regular basis, one who will live their lives never seeing combat.

And, do the Greyknights have Librarians? Since the main role of the Librarian is to be a psychic who writes stuff down and from the sounds of it the GK are hardly lacking the first one and don't sound fond of the second idea.

[hamishspence]

The First Armageddon War was several hundred years before the second- Yarrick had not been born at that point.

They weren't executed- but they were sterilized and imprisoned (which angered Logan).

Those who fled the planet were executed- often in fashions which took out thousands of people whose only crime was to be on the same planet, or the same ship- a GK strike cruiser ambushing a passenger ship with one escaped Armageddon Guardsman on it would be typical.

Originally Posted by Hazzardevil

This leads me to the question of how long does a normal human live in 40k?
By this I mean a human who does not fight Tyranids, Orks, Chaos and Eldar on a regular basis, one who will live their lives never seeing combat.

If they have access to "juvenat treatments" they can live hundreds of years.

Originally Posted by Hazzardevil

And, do the Greyknights have Librarians? Since the main role of the Librarian is to be a psychic who writes stuff down and from the sounds of it the GK are hardly lacking the first one and don't sound fond of the second idea.

They do- a librarian's job includes probing the minds of recruits to ensure there is not a trace of corruption or weak-mindedness.

Long-ranged communication requires Epistolary-level power- most GKs aren't that powerful, and those that are form the Librarians for the Chapter.

[DaedalusMkV]

Originally Posted by Hazzardevil

Just replaying to this from before.
I thought Yarrick was in charge of all the Imperium Forces at the Wars of Armageddon?

This leads me to the question of how long does a normal human live in 40k?
By this I mean a human who does not fight Tyranids, Orks, Chaos and Eldar on a regular basis, one who will live their lives never seeing combat.

And, do the Greyknights have Librarians? Since the main role of the Librarian is to be a psychic who writes stuff down and from the sounds of it the GK are hardly lacking the first one and don't sound fond of the second idea.

1: No, that would be Dante. Yarrik was merely the most notable non-Marine hero of the War and the commander of a relatively small Imperial force.

2: A bit over two centuries, assuming access to the life-extending Juvenat treatments, which anyone important enough to actually be a common name certainly does have access to. Using cybernetics and other methods, the oldest person I've heard mention of without resorting to Chaos-based immortality was more than half way into his third century.

3: By the old fluff they did not, with their massive support staff keeping track of the Chapter's knowledge and the entire lot of them fulfilling the 'Psyker' bit. New-fluff GK do make use of Librarians, though I'm not sure to what degree they actually act as historians and record-keepers as opposed to just particularly psychically gifted individuals.

[hamishspence]

Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

Using cybernetics and other methods, the oldest person I've heard mention of without resorting to Chaos-based immortality was more than half way into his third century.

Who are you thinking of?

Inquisitor Czevak in Atlas Infernal is somewhat older than this- being over 400 years old even before going to the webway (where it begins to reverse his aging) and has (or at least had) no truck with Chaos during that period.

Inquisitor Golesh Heldane is, as far as I can tell, not a guy who has extended his life with Chaos either- and he's lived a similar length of time- from the Eisenhorn novels to the Gaunts Ghosts novel First and Only.

[Brother Oni]

Also, are we talking actual age or chronological age, since warp travel monkeys around with people's time?

[Knight13]

Inquisitor Golesh Heldane is, as far as I can tell, not a guy who has extended his life with Chaos either- and he's lived a similar length of time- from the Eisenhorn novels to the Gaunts Ghosts novel First and Only.

This is a bit of a weird example, considering that Heldane got killed by having his head vaporized with a digital ring weapon in the last Eisenhorn book. It might not be the same Heldane.

[Tome]

Originally Posted by Hazzardevil

And, do the Greyknights have Librarians? Since the main role of the Librarian is to be a psychic who writes stuff down and from the sounds of it the GK are hardly lacking the first one and don't sound fond of the second idea.

Yes, there are GK Librarians.

Most GKs use their powers for enhancement or warding, with the exception of Paladins, who can use Holocaust. They also tend to be fairly middling in terms of power, relying more on being able to use their powers together with the rest of their squad than individual strength. The Librarians, meanwhile, are the ones with the more direct or far-reaching powers, like Warp Rift or Shrouding. They're chosen from the recruits who show truly exceptional levels of power, which tends to mean that they're among the strongest psykers humanity has.

GKs are also exceptionally fond of writing things down actually, as indicated by many books show up in their various bits of heraldry. Mostly the names and weaknesses of various daemons, but also quite a few prophecies relating to daemons and daemonic incursions. Whenever a Grey Knight learns a new bit of information that might someday by helpful in defeating a daemon, the Librarians are the ones who write it down and keep the records organised.

[hamishspence]

Originally Posted by Brother Oni

Also, are we talking actual age or chronological age, since warp travel monkeys around with people's time?

I'm guessing in 40K reference it's nearly always "age in terms of timeline"- and that they may be physically a bit younger than this would suggest.

Inquisitors in particular tend to spend a lot of time travelling.

In Rogue Trader it's generally 2 weeks of "subjective time experienced in the warp" for a 1 year trip.

Originally Posted by Knight13

This is a bit of a weird example, considering that Heldane got killed by having his head vaporized with a digital ring weapon in the last Eisenhorn book. It might not be the same Heldane.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't killed- the head shape (horselike, after injury + cosmetic surgery) was specifically mentioned.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Heldane
Quote from the book?

In case someone doesn't want to check the link (it has spoilers for two of the books) here's the key bits- putting Heldane as over 500:

Golesh Constantine Pheppos Heldane was an Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus. He was a powerful psyker and a pupil of Inquisitor Commodus Voke in 240.M41.

... (events in 386 M41)

Heldane continued on in his service to the Inquisition for nearly four centuries afterwards, and was a part of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade during the campaign on Menazoid Epsilon in 765.M41.

[DaedalusMkV]

Originally Posted by hamishspence

Who are you thinking of?

Inquisitor Czevak in Atlas Infernal is somewhat older than this- being over 400 years old even before going to the webway (where it begins to reverse his aging) and has (or at least had) no truck with Chaos during that period.

Inquisitor Golesh Heldane is, as far as I can tell, not a guy who has extended his life with Chaos either- and he's lived a similar length of time- from the Eisenhorn novels to the Gaunts Ghosts novel First and Only.

I was thinking of the Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord in Grey Knights, actually, who was a decade or two shy of 300 at the time of the novel's events. Can't remember his name, and I don't have the book at hand, so I can't provide that. The figure was stated to be biological age, however, since specific mention was made of the fact that he was far, far too old for Juvenat to counteract his frailty, and he needed to make extensive use of cybernetics just to be able to walk and use his arms.

I'll admit, I haven't read Atlas Infernal and I kind of thought Heldane was dead after the events of Eisenhorn (I'm not a big fan of Abnett's books), so I was just using the oldest example I could think of. If Heldane actually managed to live that long without Warp-based trickery, he blows the next best examples I can think of clear out of the water. Daemon Hunter Ahmazzi from Dark Heresy would be another example of a nearly-300-year-old Inquisitor being described as in his last years of life, physically decrepit to the point of disability and generally beyond the point where life-extensions can maintain anything approximating youth. I would say that barring extremely exceptional circumstances, the highest-ranking Imperial officials can expect a lifespan not much longer than 300 years.

[hamishspence]

Czevak had to wear a cryogenic suspension suit to preserve him, he was so aged- so that does show he's old.

Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

specific mention was made of the fact that he was far, far too old for Juvenat to counteract his frailty, and he needed to make extensive use of cybernetics just to be able to walk and use his arms.

I've got Grey Knights but not the next two in the trilogy- and I couldn't find that bit. Indeed, I found a bit that said he was "dismembered by cultists" and while Imperial medical knowledge was able to save him, from then on he needed an exoskeleton.

Though a Cardinal in Dark Heresy: Blood of Martyrs, while "well into their third century" so around 250-odd, plus or minus a few years- needs massive medical assistance to survive, he's so ancient. Maybe Cardinals move less than Inquisitors do.

So 300 does seem to be near the upper limit.

[Brother Oni]

Originally Posted by DaedalusMkV

(I'm not a big fan of Abnett's books)

Do you mind if I ask why?

I've just finished the first Gaunt omnibus and Necropolis is possibly the best 40K book I've read, with nearly every 40K element represented: brutality, ignorance, horror, heroism and sheer bloody-minded defiance.

I admit the style is somewhat dense (had to read with brain engaged, unlike the Cain books), but he shows a good detail in how the Imperial Guard does its soldiering, via significant influence from current tactics and doctrines.
The Sharpe influence keeps on popping up as well, although I don't mind it too much as it adds character to the Tanith, plus I'm a big fan of Cornwell's books anyway.

[hamishspence]

Funnily enough, the Cain books have at least one Shout Out to Sharpe - when two people quote a song:

"The Emperor points and we obey"
"Through the Warp and far away"