If it was still Vlad we will see an endurance match where Vlad dies but keeps coming back and the marine just accepts it and keeps killing him again and again.

Vlad will want to drink him and turn him too.
He regens from his ring though. Vlad relies pretty extensively on his enemies being surprised by him regening and attacking, so if he regens, gets shot again the marines are going to notice he's regening from the ring and call up a psyker or a plasma gun to destroy the ring itself
 
He regens from his ring though. Vlad relies pretty extensively on his enemies being surprised by him regening and attacking, so if he regens, gets shot again the marines are going to notice he's regening from the ring and call up a psyker or a plasma gun to destroy the ring itself
As much as I want to see them put him under the table they will do what you said. Many marines are the search and destroy type not seek and capture.
 
Background summary:
Large numbers of psykers, some of whom are chaotic and might summon daemons for backup, with time to prepare and perform rituals, are a tough enemy even for Space Marines. Therefore, I propose to take advantage of the fact that we have a serious airforce (see Forces) and advanced technology, while the Djinncallers merely have some flying units, by bombarding them from the air. The first plan attempts to starve them out and take their stuff mostly intact by destroying their supplies, at the cost of risking upset Elves if we sink an Ulthuan ship. The second plan attempts to reduce our casualties by breaking their stuff before we land, at the cost of having less loot.
I encourage people to vote just the plan name if you like one of these, not copy the entire block, so I can make inevitable minor edits while keeping the spirit of the plans.

[X] Plan Starvation
-[X] Preparation phase
--[X] Announce and broadcast an embargo of the Sorcerers' Isles until they surrender. Any foreign ships docking there will be sunk for aiding the enemy.
--[X] Pilots: Fly over the islands, burn fields and bomb food storehouses, take pict-captures and recordings for further inspection. Bring Interceptor escort in case of Air Djinn.
--[X] Mechanicus: Assist with augur scans and analysis to locate concealed storehouses.
--[X] Librarians and whoever else works with warpstone: prepare warpstone-laced bolter rounds for use against daemons.
--[X] Militarum: Practice amphibious landings and artillery transport.
-[X] Offer terms of surrender: our Librarian will inspect the Djinncallers and execute any Chaos-corrupted ones. The rest will become vassals, subject to negotiation.
-[X] Invasion phase
--[X] Astartes: Partial decapitation strike at the capital of Water Island using the majority of the Chapter's forces, then moving to help secure a port for the Militarum.
--[X] Interrogate captives, eat brains, destroy control items, or otherwise make strait-guarding Djinn stand down where possible.
--[X] Militarum: go by ships to Water Island, set up for cautious advance and artillery support once they land.
--[X] Continue rest of invasion with Militarum leading, Astartes held in reserve in case of enemy champions or other surprises.

Video recordings are an awesome tool for ferreting out depots. Once you observe a covered cart turning out to be food, you can play the tape backwards and see where that specific cart came from, rather than trying to remember every cart's route and mentally sort out the decoys.
I'm planning the invasion on the assumption that they won't surrender, but I think the condition I've given is fairly clever and should appeal to both sides. (Assume that other reasonable surrender conditions about vassal states apply.)
The Astartes will be expecting a lot of purges of untrained psykers haphazardly grasping at the Warp and getting corrupted, and the survivors can be kept at arm's length and potentially used as an expendable force against other Mallus Psyker Bullshit.
The Djinncallers will be expecting a lot fewer purges (and OOC, I expect they'll be correct) because Araby is so far from the Polar Gates, and the influence of Chaos and magic generally is weaker here, which is why they can reliably bind Djinn, something that would lead to a lot of free elementals running amok if wizards in Sigmar's Empire tried it.

Alternatively, the simpler approach:

[X] Plan Devastation
-[X] Preparation phase
--[X] Pilots: Fly over the islands, repeatedly bomb anything that looks sorcerous or towerous or important, except the Fire Island capital. Bring Interceptor escort in case of Air Djinn.
--[X] Librarians and whoever else works with warpstone: prepare warpstone-laced bolter rounds for use against daemons.
--[X] Militarum: Practice amphibious landings and artillery transport.
-[X] Invasion phase
--[X] Astartes: Decapitation strike at the capital of Fire Island using the full Chapter's forces.
--[X] Militarum: go by ships to an outer coast while the Djinncallers are in disarray and likely concentrated in the capital.

The idea here is to have them think the capital is well protected and safe during preparation, enhancing the effect of our decapitation strike, so our Astartes can shoot as many of their Djinncallers as possible while they struggle to figure out what the hell is going on. This kills most of their mages and their magical tradition, and probably burns a lot of heretical tomes in the process, but we still get some artifacts since Astartes aren't city-destroyers the way future bombers are.
I might edit it to add a single bombardment of the capital at the start of the invasion phase to kill a few more of them before the decapitation strike.
Do we know enough about them that it's worth trying for shouts of "The Caliph has betrayed us!" or "The [faction] has gone over to the invaders!" in Arabic (Arabyese?) during the attack so they'll be even more confused? Or is that perhaps a degree of micromanagement I should just leave to the Astartes?

@FractiousDay these will probably need some adjustment to fit your expectations of a plan, but I trust the general idea is clear.
 
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Or is that perhaps a degree of micromanagement I should just leave to the Astartes?

@FractiousDay these will probably need some adjustment to fit your expectations of a plan, but I trust the general idea is clear.
Looks all fine to me, in regards to the deception point, I doubt anyone on the Imperial side would really think of this, it doesn't strike me as something they'd be familiar with much.

One other point I'd make would be around availability of fuel. I know I've not given a specific fuel amount but these plans, especially the second one, would likely use up the remainder of your fuel, save perhaps a strategic reserve. This means if another Khong type situation popped up any time soon you might not be able to intervene.

That's a wider point for discussion though about whether such a situation is likely or not in the first place.
 
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Hey FractiousDay which space marine chapter would allow mallus to retain some of their tradition im thinking the salamander and maybe the space wolves at least for the dwarves with the latter at least every other culture probably not so much.
 
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The Administratum full of writers classifiers, memorizers researchers and collectors and senders of vital resources might have done a better job than any chapter. They I feel genuinely had a shot at retaining mallusian culture more than any overpraised infertile brainwashed chapter of over jacked mutants(abhumans can sexually reproduce)could.
That said yeah the Salamanders and Space Wolves would indeed have more of a chance, fenris is mostly how it was before the Fenrica arrived not sure how such is relevant though given we were only given successor chapters and chapters of unknown founding to choose from.


I'm for [X] Plan Starvation

Mainly because I see no means of convincing the Imperials not to got to war with people they have already assumed want to rip out their guts, especially given it might even be true I mean we've given them every reason to hate us so far out of all the populations we have so far met who have so far survived.
 
Hey FractiousDay which space marine chapter would allow mallus to retain some of their tradition im thinking the salamander and maybe the space wolves at least for the dwarves with the latter at least every other culture probably not so much.

That said yeah the Salamanders and Space Wolves would indeed have more of a chance, fenris is mostly how it was before the Fenrica arrived not sure how such is relevant though given we were only given successor chapters and chapters of unknown founding to choose from.
I'd disagree actually. The Salamanders and the Space Wolves have a very strong culture each, I think you'd need a Chapter with less strong culture which is more adaptable. For example, if you have a strong willed Great Wolf or whatever the Wolves call their Captains, he can't go off and make his own chapter, because the Wolves and Salamanders have an unusual geneseed that requires certain conditions, and because both chapters are pretty exclusive and have very few successors. Comparably, an Ultramarines chapter has more reliable and adaptable geneseed and organisation, so if a Captain is really successful he can go off and make the Iron Snakes or similar who have a divergent culture.

The Iron Snakes adapted to Ithaca, I don't see the Wolves doing the same.

That of course implies the Space Marines are coming alone. Indeed, they are not good at culture stuff. They'd have relatively little interest in the culture of Mallus. The Administratum or the Ecclesiarchy would probably have some sort of method to record culture but the space marines themselves would be bad at it.
 
Hmm IDK I think some of those nor scans could have made fine spacewolves, I mean they already have people who turn into werewolf esque things and they do tame very large beasts and drink mead and have a viking esque thing going on.

Salamanders though, I didn't realize that the Genesee needed like the people of nocturn to work, though I did remember that there was something odd about it. I was about to bring up the Dark Krakens as an example of the salamnders being flexible, but that was probably created without their permission so maybe it doesn't count here? The Black Dragons are also only allegedly Vulkans spawn, I swore it was more definite before today.
 
I'd disagree actually. The Salamanders and the Space Wolves have a very strong culture each, I think you'd need a Chapter with less strong culture which is more adaptable. For example, if you have a strong willed Great Wolf or whatever the Wolves call their Captains, he can't go off and make his own chapter, because the Wolves and Salamanders have an unusual geneseed that requires certain conditions, and because both chapters are pretty exclusive and have very few successors. Comparably, an Ultramarines chapter has more reliable and adaptable geneseed and organisation, so if a Captain is really successful he can go off and make the Iron Snakes or similar who have a divergent culture.

The Iron Snakes adapted to Ithaca, I don't see the Wolves doing the same.

That of course implies the Space Marines are coming alone. Indeed, they are not good at culture stuff. They'd have relatively little interest in the culture of Mallus. The Administratum or the Ecclesiarchy would probably have some sort of method to record culture but the space marines themselves would be bad at it.
Think the wolves and dwarf would end up good friends dunno how the conversation on ancestor gods go though and same for vulcan dunno their policies on compliance but would love to see vulcan working with grungi or thorgrim. Especially after tasting bugmans best beer ale whatever it is
 
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Hmm IDK I think some of those nor scans could have made fine spacewolves, I mean they already have people who turn into werewolf esque things and they do tame very large beasts and drink mead and have a viking esque thing going on.
The Norscans, perhaps the northern empire yes, but what about the rest of Mallus? Space Marine chapters have to be able to recruit from wider ranges than just a single polity on a particular world. Furthermore, the Space Wolves and Salamanders are both inextricably tied to their homeworlds, which is one of the reasons why they don't have (many) successors. That's why I say they need a more varied force rather than a chapter that's just good at one thing.

Salamanders though, I didn't realize that the Genesee needed like the people of nocturn to work, though I did remember that there was something odd about it. I was about to bring up the Dark Krakens as an example of the salamnders being flexible, but that was probably created without their permission so maybe it doesn't count here? The Black Dragons are also only allegedly Vulkans spawn, I swore it was more definite before today.
It seems to go back and forth. They have very few successors, and there's an implication that the successors they do have are unusually mutated, and besides that might be Adeptus Terra experiments. Comparably, when the Ultramarines or the Imperial Fists broke up they could just say 'you take your company and now you're a chapter have fun'.

As for requiring the people of Nocturne, I'm pretty sure they need them yes, but I can't find a source for it. However, I remember a fic where a non-Nocturne child saved a Salamander's life and as recompense he was taken as an aspirant, which was noted as being unusual, there was a chaos sorcerer at one point who even said 'im going to find your world and destroy it because you look different because everyone else is from nocturne and you clearly aren't', or some variation thereof, so clearly the author of that fic also thought the same.
 
[X] Plan Starvation

I want to see greater integration with people of Malus, especially regarding their magic.
It may and eventually will trigger our orthodox fanatic club into a killing frenzy, but honestly? Better sooner than later, considering their current goals.
 
One other point I'd make would be around availability of fuel. I know I've not given a specific fuel amount but these plans, especially the second one, would likely use up the remainder of your fuel, save perhaps a strategic reserve. This means if another Khong type situation popped up any time soon you might not be able to intervene.

That's a wider point for discussion though about whether such a situation is likely or not in the first place.
This is acceptable. If there's another Khong type situation this turn, I figure it's going to be on the Sorcerers' Isles, so we might as well be shooting there already. Maybe they have an extra-large Djinni kept in reserve or something. As for next turn - we'll burn, I mean cross that bridge when we come to it. :coolbeans:

I'm for [X] Plan Starvation
FYI, the forum tally only counts votes if the [X] is at the start of the line. But the GM gave you a like so he'd probably count it anyway in this case. :smile:

I want to see greater integration with people of Malus, especially regarding their magic.
It may and eventually will trigger our orthodox fanatic club into a killing frenzy, but honestly? Better sooner than later, considering their current goals.
From a somewhat OOC perspective, this is where it would be useful to recreate various mortal institutions. Neo-Administratum and Ecclesiarchy and such that the Space Marines set up now would have to draw some personnel from natives of Mallus and not give them hypno-therapy brainwashing, also could do some things out of earshot of Amra and his centuries of violently bad habits.
 
[X] Plan Starvation

So just to be absolutley sure I am reposting this here. There's actually a lot more that I want to say but that will have to wait for me to deal with a fairly long list of issues that affect myself and those significant to me in non-digital realspace.
So I'll make this a brief note for myself.

Important things we still need to properly plan to contend with one way or another.

-Skaven

-Naggoroth


-Ogre Kingdoms

EDIT:

-Golden Magus, I don't trust Reis's work that he has the high-ranking Tzeenchian Sorceror dude with an entire pokemon teams work of monsters all of which are either mechanical or incorporeal, some of which might even mega evolve on us under his complete control.
 
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That seems sufficient, voting closed
Scheduled vote count started by FractiousDay on Oct 13, 2021 at 4:26 AM, finished with 18 posts and 4 votes.

  • [X] Plan Starvation
    -[X] Preparation phase
    --[X] Announce and broadcast an embargo of the Sorcerers' Isles until they surrender. Any foreign ships docking there will be sunk for aiding the enemy.
    --[X] Pilots: Fly over the islands, burn fields and bomb food storehouses, take pict-captures and recordings for further inspection. Bring Interceptor escort in case of Air Djinn.
    --[X] Mechanicus: Assist with augur scans and analysis to locate concealed storehouses.
    --[X] Librarians and whoever else works with warpstone: prepare warpstone-laced bolter rounds for use against daemons.
    --[X] Militarum: Practice amphibious landings and artillery transport.
    -[X] Offer terms of surrender: our Librarian will inspect the Djinncallers and execute any Chaos-corrupted ones. The rest will become vassals, subject to negotiation.
    -[X] Invasion phase
    --[X] Astartes: Partial decapitation strike at the capital of Water Island using the majority of the Chapter's forces, then moving to help secure a port for the Militarum.
    --[X] Interrogate captives, eat brains, destroy control items, or otherwise make strait-guarding Djinn stand down where possible.
    --[X] Militarum: go by ships to Water Island, set up for cautious advance and artillery support once they land.
    --[X] Continue rest of invasion with Militarum leading, Astartes held in reserve in case of enemy champions or other surprises.
    [X] Plan Devastation
    -[X] Preparation phase
    --[X] Pilots: Fly over the islands, repeatedly bomb anything that looks sorcerous or towerous or important, except the Fire Island capital. Bring Interceptor escort in case of Air Djinn.
    --[X] Librarians and whoever else works with warpstone: prepare warpstone-laced bolter rounds for use against daemons.
    --[X] Militarum: Practice amphibious landings and artillery transport.
    -[X] Invasion phase
    --[X] Astartes: Decapitation strike at the capital of Fire Island using the full Chapter's forces.
    --[X] Militarum: go by ships to an outer coast while the Djinncallers are in disarray and likely concentrated in the capital.
 
I've actually really been thinking about this threads engagement levels for a while and I think I might have some more ideas that might help.

A recurring theme that seems to have come up discussing these draughts when I've seen them discussed elsewhere seems to be a fear of some readers receiving a very unpleasant response if they do post feedback. I don't think that is warrented with this thread but It seems to come up a whole lot over here: Solving The Comment Draught.

I personally think we might also benefit from a few more appropriate tags like such for examples: things will go wrong
forums.sufficientvelocity.com

votes are good also

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

ckii

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

discussion and votes keeps the quest going



I know I at least have been greatly helped when searching for content when it has more tags rather than fewer.

If I think of anything else I will let you know!

EDIT: I think maybe also communicating to those who follow this on Fanfiction.net that this stems rom a quest they can join might help, maybe also updating this on Space Battles might get more attention, and thus eventually more voters maybe, I mean mayhaps the timing was just bad before?
 
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So while I'm waiting for my hair to dry I'd like to make a suggestion that I hope is not too premature.

Once we finish setting up roads, gun emplacements for the fortress mon, agricultural lands and refueling in araby{ which Exmorri and I probably for once can both wholeheartedly agree is a good idea] I think the next area worth trying to take are The Badlands.

Here is why I think so in order of importance as I see it.

1. The Ork threat, now goblins seem capable of living among other races or serving them, or going into seclusion if they feel sufficiently cowed as evidenced I think by the Gnoblars and Forest Goblins. Sadly such does not seem to ever be the case for Orcs in this setting.
The badlands contain some of the highest number of Orks on the planet perhaps second only to the Darkands if the wiki is to be believed. if we could sufficiently thin their numbers we could not only ensure great training for our scouts with more perpetuity than the jungle beasts that seem to slowly be going extinct under our reign.
This could also gain some really good Public Relations from the Border Princes and the local dwarves who know much of the mineral resources locally than we will, that is if we can find a way to keep our chaplains from covertly murdering them.

2. Magical Investigations: The badlands are home to The Pillar of Bone, which is a very large arcane fulcrum that seems to allow users of it to have visions of the future or the past, either would be useful to us I reckon. As well as the Floating Village, I mean come on a whole village that flies, our librarians would be practically overjoyed to study such and the practical applications of understanding how it was done could be immensely practical either in replication or if the chaplains are being a real thorn in undoing such techniques when used by our enemies.

3. Human Knowlege: Those Humans who have managed to survive in the badlands might make incredibly skilled and hardy trackers and skirmishers and thieves for us if we can convert them to our cause more so than I can imagine in most of the southern realms. There are also lots of old ruins in the land they can likely teach us about which may have further valuable loot tying back into point 2.

4. Political Optics, no other polity that I can imagine except for perhaps the local ogres (who are not part of their larger polities) is going to come to the defense of the Greenskins of the badlands or condemn us in any sense for any campaigns against them unless we also kill any of their dudes along the way such as the dwarves who have some peripheral outposts, this should give us a ton of leeway in planning such.

EDIT: Note on the Mineral worth of this place, They have an entire mountain in this region mostly composed of iron, and some of the rarest and most valued by dwarven standard gems are found in this area as well which we could selll to them or refine for use in retaing magic, nothing to sniff at really.
 
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Once we finish setting up roads, gun emplacements for the fortress mon, agricultural lands and refueling in araby{ which Exmorri and I probably for once can both wholeheartedly agree is a good idea] I think the next area worth trying to take are The Badlands.
You raise good points.
My difficulty with the Badlands is that it's on the other side of Nehekhara. Maintaining logistics around Nehekhara would be a PITA, and trying to invade Nehekhara would be an even larger PITA.
I don't have a good alternative though. Maybe the jungles and the southern part of Totally-Not-Africa, though I get the impression population density is much lower there and there's less to take.
 
I know this is going to sound as wild to the marines as an ogryn becoming a vindicare, but like such probably isn't completley impossible but maybe just maybe we can have a diplomatic discourse with the Nehekarans?

where we promise not to touch any of their stuff(which has little value to us anyway) and not go to war with them in exchange for allowing us free but observed passage and returning artefacts of theirs we find to them perhaps, I mean they are descended from humans at least and arent the most hostile faction the planet, I mean they let NUmas exist right?
 
Regular Space Marine: "Shouldn't we be purging these walking corpse-things?"
Diplomatic Space Marine: "No. They're human. Officially human, there's a treaty about it and everything."
Regular Space Marine: "They don't look human. They don't even look alive."
Diplomatic Space Marine: "They're just really old and there's a defect in their juvenat."
RSM: "They have juvenat?"
DSM: "Um, it's complicated."
:p
 
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Hehe, worst-case scenario proposing such might get our worst fanatics to crawl out into the light of day where we can see them/shoot them for endangering the chapter.

But seriously for a second they do technically seem to have something like Juvenat going on! or at least the Liche Priests do? my understanding is that they might technically not be undead by just severely aged immortals(in the sense that aging cannot fully kill them).

Ah ha here ''They passed on their knowledge to the next generation of priests who exceeded them in wisdom and expertise. In this way, their knowledge accumulated until the fifth generation of priests who did not die, though their bodies slowly withered away until they were little more than living corpses. ''
So technically since these dudes haven't actually full-on died it wouldn't be stretching the truth too much to tell onlookers what you just mentioned!
All we need to do is make it sound like they were stranded colonists from early in DAOT or slightly before and there should't be too many questions for like... ten years, ten years is probably a good enough buffer?
 
Please don't feel bothered about it Fractious, we've been watching this closely so we know you put months of work into it even if a quote was filched here and there.
It's fine for you to take a bit of rest especially if it helps you with this next most exciting and dangerous chapter the game has yet seen.

I now have a bit more time to follow up on one of my previous posts though.

Dark Elves: I am genuinely surprised they have not raided any of our coasts looking for slaves, I was under the impression that they undertook slave raids worldwide essentially. Or maybe they have taken some towns but we were too busy to notice?

Ogre Kingdoms: They are going to be a huge problem if we can't sign a treaty to nominally incorparate them, sure we can eventually kill them all, but I recall them being numerous, tactically flexible and armed with potent magics and mobile mortars not to mention likely having a huge home field advantage from knowing the mountainous terrain far better than us. The best case scenario in combat would be a large-scale bombing campaign but the logistics of that make me shudder to be honest.

Skaven, edited in:
I had some before but I want
So either wiping out or pacifying or bringing the Skaven into the fold is going to be quite difficult.

That said, I think the imperials would benefit more from trying to convert some to the cause(seperately while likely writing the others off) who could later breed more. The why is because of their breeding rates and human origins, natural digging abilities(at least compared to baseline humans), and disease resistance.

So I have a few plans for that.

Firstly we need to capture some females from some warlords whom we want to be particularly dead, and some males who have grievance with greater Skavendom, thrall clans especially those that were once powerful I think would be most likley to yield individuals willing to reevaluate their loyalties to the horned rat and his systems that have blatantly only hurt them.

Alternatively, if we could capture some of those females while already pregnant and raise their children away from the worst effects of warpstone and in not horribly cramped spaces.
Alternatively again at the risk of them being malnourished ratmen (no milk maybe less muscle movement gestating) and less fun but with maxiumum safety parameters we could probably just grab some DNA or live tissue samples and vat grow some ratmen once the genetorium is up and running.

In the long term, we need to make sure the horned rat gets physically summoned a la, Total War Warhammer 2 so that we can bombard it with sufficiently blessed nuclear weapons*, I can't think of the other chaos god being summoned but his is a stragey worthy trying again if they do.
*Really any large stockpile of Ordinance Extremis needs to be dropped on him/ made into a giant mine for him to step on at the near point-blank range. Getting the sorirtas to volantarily bleed on shell casings may be a potentially very strong blessing.



Pacification/ conquest with survivors in mind:

Attacking food stores and physically collapsing tunnel networks should make for very strong psychologial blows.
Drugging the remaining supplies we can get our hands on may leave many of their valued beasts incapacitated which would again be a strong blow.
Finding tunnels could probably be done decently well with disguised servo rats or other very small servitors or other small roots being used to follow forces directly back into them. Even better would be being able to collapse such structures from within so that fewer human settlements are lost above ground.
Letting groups know that surrender is an option (assuming we can avoid our chaplains fucking things over) is likely to be the most difficult part to achieve but translated messages in qeekish may serve the role
 
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