The Mallus Compliance (Space Marines in Warhammer Fantasy - Chapter Master/Empire Building)
- Thread starter FractiousDay
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so I know you don't mean this but it amuses me to imagine Sageras showing up or something
I remember this one crossover of Warhammer fantasy and warcraft one time not the one with the Death Spectre but a different one where Belakor the salty daemon that he is did the crossover and so you get burning legion to chaos interaction.
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Yes I remember that one. I tried to read it and found myself very confused as to what was actually going on all the time. Very odd.
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Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
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Wow I did not expect the Leigon of the Dammed to get involved!
I wonder if this means Amra and Corax are like a Deamons of the emperor now and no longer flesh and blood.
Regardless, it seems like the third legion has kept the forces of the dead distracted for quite a while and thinned their numbers. I hope this means our own Knights and the rest of the chapter is able to strike at this blinded and defanged snake before it recovers?
I wonder if this means Amra and Corax are like a Deamons of the emperor now and no longer flesh and blood.
Regardless, it seems like the third legion has kept the forces of the dead distracted for quite a while and thinned their numbers. I hope this means our own Knights and the rest of the chapter is able to strike at this blinded and defanged snake before it recovers?
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Not going to give a stated position on teh god stuff but one question I'd raise is around what forces you intend to do all of this with. You've got very little fuel and won't have much for a while while you're still getting your industry set up. It will be a decision for you whether you want to use it to zip about the place shooting stuff, or instead to use it for something else instead. Similarly, Your marines have been hit hard and your IG units have also been hit pretty badly too, that's another question on what you want to do with them for now. You could, for example, build a autogun factory fairly easily and quickly and just produce guns very quickly to arm a load of serfs. You could rapidly get a low quality 40k but high quality WFB army that way, which you could indeed use to conquer various areas.
This is true, and I'm glad it's been represented well in the previous chapters, that was certainly the intention. I really like the themes of development and how different parties interact with it so yes I've been using it here. I would also say though that just because something can be countered it doesn't mean it's not useful anymore. Yes you can take a tank down with an antitank missile, but at the end of the day the tank is still a tank and it can shoot you etc.
There are indeed various forces which could match Astartes (and the Imperium more generally) in battle. These might include martially skilled elves (Swordmasters etc) with mage support and monsters, blessed warriors of various sorts (eg grail knights) and so on. However, this doesn't invalidate the power of the Imperium in the first place. There are indeed a limited number of anti-Imperial forces. Let's say an Errantry War is indeed called, the peasants and most of the knights literally will be useless against Astartes, who can run faster than horses and would just stand there with lances breaking on their armour. Maybe an exceptional strike might go through their eyeplate or something but I doubt it. With the brets there will indeed be magical support, but there's not going to be loads of it, mages are still rare, as are grail knights. I can't imagine more than 10% of bret knights are Grail Knights, probably less than that, so again there's not that many of them. That's the same for Swordsmasters, Black Guard, Chaos Champions, Blood Knights or whoever you decide to use.
There's also the question of organisation and deployment. Are the High Elves actually going to deploy a significant proportion of their forces in anything other than direst need? Everyone has other enemies. If the Skaven decided to attack, they'd never deploy their whole force because they're so terrified of backstabbing. If Clan Skyre sent out a load of war machines etc I assume someone else would attack them and so on.
Comparably, the majority of the rest of the forces is other stuff. This isn't a computer game, if you kill enough of the enemy and leave them without support, the survivors will probably give up and go home. You have the strategic mobility to do stuff like that. What's the point of the Errentry War if you've gone round them and destroyed their cities and salted the earth?
This is also still true.
I note btw that these are good ideas, I welcome creativity in various factors like this. I'd be perfectly happy to give you a herbicide option for example. It might be expensive in terms of resources etc, or it might take time to gather enough of it, or you could invest time into getting the Genetors to make you a super-herbicide etc.
Considering it they're actually quite an admirable race. They've actually developed over time, they've grown in power, pushed their way out, and advanced their technology. They're perfectly happy to live underground when they can just leech off the surface. It's actually more troublesome for them to attack openly and they benefit a lot from the Conspiracy of Silence.
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I plan on trying to get the Skittari(who still seem to be strong) into the fold with Bretonnia to be honest, but I also was not planning to advocate an attack until we had cleared up the badlands.
Furthermore, I was only planning on brining war to the badlands after we take a few years break to manufacture some new stuff.
Most fuel, bullets and possibly stub guns since bolters and las guns have been mostly overkill so far.
I noted you @FractiousDay have been silent on the orcs capacity for building up their tech tree and a silent alarm bell is ringing in my head because of such.
Furthermore, I was only planning on brining war to the badlands after we take a few years break to manufacture some new stuff.
Most fuel, bullets and possibly stub guns since bolters and las guns have been mostly overkill so far.
I noted you @FractiousDay have been silent on the orcs capacity for building up their tech tree and a silent alarm bell is ringing in my head because of such.
Zeitgeist Blue
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Ah, I was looking forward to get right to doing big wars the turn after the next. But guess we'd have to stick to building up for a few more turns then. Though I do advocate using our forces in a limited manner, like in the proxy civil wars where we send Space Marines to do their thing, which is to run around and break all the soft targets thus making the enemy easier to finish off for our proxy forces.
Like imagine Norsca, Tilea, or the Border Princes. Space Marines fly in with their Thunderhawks (or just run if we're that badly out of fuel) before anyone's the wiser. They drop right on top of the human leader's residence, shoot some mages, break down the gates of the walls, burn the docks, and other stuff that would play merry hell on their logistics and organizational capabilities (like FractiousDay states in the Errantry War example), then get out of dodge after a few hours doing so. Rinse and repeat for a week or two nonstop. Stop to reload and fix equipment, and to sleep for an hour before doing it all over again. Do it with multiple squads all over the country in a staggered approach so that there's never a lull for the enemy to gather their wits. Do all that for a full year or campaign season.
The enemy would wise up after a few days considering they have magic to make communications easier, but I bet they'd be hard pressed to do anything about it if our proxy forces like the Emperor-worshipping Norscans are also marching against them in force.
Why not just demand the enemies to surrender to the Imperium immediately? Something something proxy wars are cool. We don't need to care about the new lands our proxy forces defeated. We make our friendly proxy forces stronger. It's much more economical and efficient than blasting an entire army ourselves. Insert other justifications here.
Edit: Though tbh, we could probably deepstrike the enemy leaders and get them to surrender if there aren't so many enemies like in the Tilean city-states. Then we just transfer the defeated city-states to our friendly proxies? That's even more economical than what I've outlined above and there's a good chance that Bretonnia won't deploy so heavily as FractiousDay states in the organisation and deployment of forces below. So the tactics I'd described would only be useful in Estalia or the Border Princes. I'm also sure there's a good possibility that Norscan tribes would just fracture into petty tribes if we got the top leaders to surrender.
Tbh, one of the reasons why I'm so intent on grounding down Bretonnia to paste (over other factions with super forces) is because of how I view Grail Knights. I don't really have that much experience with WFH besides Quests and the wiki. My knowledge is in WH40k including novels, RPs, a GSRP, and the wiki. And Grail Knights are the closest thing to a loyalist Space Marine. Loyalist Space Marines are rulers of their worlds, their whole self empowered through their genetic lineage to the Emperor, and so are fanatically loyal to the Imperium. Similarly, Grail Knights are the rulers of Bretonnia, their whole self empowered by the Lady of the Lake, and so are also fanatically loyal to Bretonnia.
I can't imagine loyalist Space Marines ever bending the knee to anyone whether that'd be heretic, other Imperial authorities, or other Space Marines (Chaos Space Marines are another matter since they act more like RL warlords), so the same could be said about the Grail Knights. The Royarch's a Grail Knight, many Dukes are Grail Knights, and a lot of the Bretonnian ruling class are also Grail Knights or aspire to be like them. So to get Bretonnia with our program you've got to either break their hierarchy apart (remove them as rulers and/or the incentive to be empowered) or convince them you aren't a threat to their sovereignty and just be an ally on equal footing with them.
Of course, I'd be glad to be proven wrong here. I'm only using analogues to patch up my understanding here. If we can become hegemon over the Old World and Araby without worrying about Bretonnia preemptively attack or defending their land to the last Grail Knight, then I'm all ears for suggestions. Though I guess we don't actually need to invade them if we can invade everyone around them with a level of assurance that they'd sit still and not attack us while we conquer their neighbors?... Nah, not happening. I could also see the The Lady maybe prodding them to do something as Bretonnia and the Grail Knights were created to be a buffer state for the Wood Elves.
Also, because Bretonnia's super-soldiers are also their rulers we can't just do the favored tactic of Space Marines for conquest, which would be to drop Space Marines right on their leaders and demand they surrender. The Royarch and Dukes are gonna put up a good fight me thinks.
Ah, British and American war crimes. What can't they do?
Yeah. I remember a comparison being made that the Sigmarite Empire and the Skaven factions are like the Ta'u and the Imperium, respectively. The former thinks they're the best thing in town, but in reality they only occupy a tiny fraction of their settings while the real ruler of the universe is the Skaven/Imperium. If only they could stop fighting themselves and other threats they could crush the Sigmarite Empire or the Ta'u. It's only the fact that the Sigmarite Empire and the Ta'u are such small fry that the Skaven/Imperium don't care to.
So I guess don't poke them too hard.
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'''A robed figure stands atop a tower in Altdorf. The College of Astromancy boasts the tallest and grandest structure in the whole city, and from its summit the Patriarch of the Celestial Order seeks wisdom from the stars. Vobist the Faint, the sign of Darkness and Uncertainty, seems to rise in the west, while Nuthios comes up from the south to join it. Curious signs indeed, signs of evil perhaps? Grungni's Baldric shines strong, a reminder of the steadfastness of the Dwarves, that at least, the Patriarch is sure, is an auspicious sign.''
So...uh now that we've surely butterflied the College Of Astromancy/ Colleges of Magic in general out of existence, can the intro be updated to reflect this?
So...uh now that we've surely butterflied the College Of Astromancy/ Colleges of Magic in general out of existence, can the intro be updated to reflect this?
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Sure, just keep in mind the sort of conquest you want. Even Space Marines are more diplomatic than Skitarii
Two reasons, partly because I think Orcs are silly and I prefer not to think about them, secondly though because I haven't decided what to do with them yet. I wouldn't, for exmaple, instantly have them cranking out gargants, or jumping up in tech as that would be very silly indeed. It's notable
THis is a good tactic yes and would be likely to succeed. Indeed, Marines can move swiftly in that sort of way, and if they were backed up by some other force they could do pretty well.
They are, but they're also limited by custom. During the Affair of the False Grail there's this honour paralysis where they can't attack the false grail guy because he's kidnapped the Fay Enchantress and their need her authorisation or something. Also, yes there might X number of Grail Knights but they're spread out. If they're in a big block that's when you shoot them with a big bomb, if they're spread out you use a thunderhawk and a squad of marines each. There's different variations of them, some will be dolled up with blessings, enchanted items and so on, others aren't actually that powerful
Nope, it was only ever intended to set the scene really, the specifics of it are irrelevant.
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When I think of Imperial Norscans I think of them replacing the current fights the Old World had with them when they would fight for Chaos and their own interests.
With Imperial supervision and with the thunderhawks you can spread the Norscans to start settling or going the Saxon/Norman route.
With Imperial supervision and with the thunderhawks you can spread the Norscans to start settling or going the Saxon/Norman route.
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So revised preliminary plan then, use the Skittari to at least push the orkoids most out of the badlands. If we kill a bunch and the rest head north we can hit too birds with one stone while being able to spend time recovering resources for the Militarum and the Astartes.
Then after say five years build up if we can vote for such being one turn we can return to the offensive against bretonnia.
Only thing to really worry about in the now is defeating nehekara, and in the interidate time, NOT riling up clan Pestilens. That should mostly entail making sure they stay at the throats of the other clans which shouldn't be too too hard?
Then after say five years build up if we can vote for such being one turn we can return to the offensive against bretonnia.
Only thing to really worry about in the now is defeating nehekara, and in the interidate time, NOT riling up clan Pestilens. That should mostly entail making sure they stay at the throats of the other clans which shouldn't be too too hard?
Zeitgeist Blue
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Not a bad plan, I think. We get them more organized and more willing to export Imperial Creed. Get them to be a thorn in the side against the Old World, just business as usual, and other northern Chaos tribes. Though I would caution against making the Norscans too organized within Norsca.
We want them warlike, just as they are now, since those provide the best Astartes recruits. I'm not sure if the Saxon/Norman route would lessen the Norscan's warlikeness or if that could happen concurrently. Surely the Vikings settled in other places and assimilated there but Scandinavian Vikings and their raiding culture were still a thing.
We could get use the stubguns to start training our Arabyan auxiliaries. Though I'm not sure if we have enough Martial slots to start with that. We have three Martial actions to split between things.
Possible Martial actions I'm seeing in the next few turns would be Badlands invasion, supporting the proxy wars in the southern Old World, training our Voidsmen and martially inclined Chapter Serfs, bringing our IG units back up to full strength, supporting the Imperial Norscans in their civil war, poking the Skaven when they attack the Southland tribes, and cleaning up northern Araby from bandits and xenoforms. The last three actions should only take a turn to complete. The other actions could preoccupy a lot of our time. And this is all in addition to training the auxiliaries.
Anyway, I'm still unsure about not equipping Space Marines and our IG forces with their usual equipment. Space Marines are all about overkill, and have their pride as FractiousDar said to boot, while the IG forces could be used as our core forces. We need both to fight the powerful things like the Djincaller's elementals, xenoforms, Settra's forces, and Kong. I can't imagine stubbers would fare so well against those. Besides which we still have 7,000 IG equipment to use up.
I think we need to plan on the logistical and strategic concerns before we can get started on invading the Badlands. Though don't forget about the Knights!
Have you thought about how we're going to get there? Nehekhara might or might not continue to be a hellscape of necromancy and magic if the Tomb Kings are defeated. And the Black Gulf is considered to be a very dangerous sea according to the wiki, to the extent that only master seafarers and the Dawi Ironclads could traverse it regularly. I'm not sure we'd have enough master seaferer ships to transport the AdMech forces there or want to risk them on a voyage. Though the Black Gulf is calm enough for pirates to have made themselves a home there and for Barak Varr to have been threatened by naval fleets in its history? Sounds contradictory but whatever. Let's just ask FractiousDay after we've scouted the place. Maybe we could instead travel along the World's Edge Mountains using Dwarf trade routes?
Lastly, there's the question of how to mitigate the threat of the various Ork tribes coalescing together to form a Waaagh. The Badlands page notes that the Greenskin numbers is enough to invade the Old World many times over." So we'd need some sort of plan to keep them from uniting and overwhelming our Skitarii through numbers alone. A massive Waaagh! did happen when the Kingdom of Strygos pushed the Greenskins from the Badlands using Necromancy and undead armies. However, the Greenskins eventually formed into a massive Waaagh! to wreck the Kingdom of Strygos.
Maybe we could enlist the help of the Dawi holds and Ogre tribes in the fringes of the Badlands? There are several very old Karaks around the Badlands, and the Ogres might be amenable to work as mercenaries. Though we'd have to work on our understanding of the factions there before we could think about enlisting their help.
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Shouldn't be too hard with Astartes recruitment practices and just switching Chaos worship to Emperor worship. Both demand war to their neighbors which the Norscans would see as business as usual.
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I feel I must clarify I a few things.
1. Again I am interested in hashing out the logistics before we get moving on to other regions, not just Bretonnia. Obviously just rushing in guns blazing is what was kind enough to give Khong Skull Jungle. We don't need more sequels to that being made.
2. I was imagining crossing into the badlands overland to be honest. We might not be able to purify the whole desert but setting up a corridor of runes and supply caches through it does not seem impossible to me.
That said, trying to burn our way through the Marshes of Madness does not sound like a good idea, so i'm more than willing to defer to @Zeitgeist Blue 's wisdom on leading a naval invasion, once we have a few modernish battleships built up and or have surveyed the area for shoals.
Of course, if we don't mind risking dealing with warpstone there is a third plausible invasion path between Nehekara and the Badlands.
That being we could land using the Sour Sea and enter through the local mountain passes, through the Desolation Of Nagash and following the Blind River northwards for a bit....
That should be a backup plan though I think.
Here is the best map of northern nehekara/ southern badlands I could find.
3. Yes, the Adeptus Astartes are meant to be overkill used for when you want tough things to be 200 percent dead yesterday. However they are stilll very much capable of such even with just speed bikes and stubbers.
Hell, I'd bet all the chocolate I own on a naked Firstborn unarmed Astarte being able to bring a platoon of state troops to their knees.
Not that I recommend the above as good policy for regular use.
EDIT: Also, a greenskin waagh isn't so bad as long as it heads north and breaks itself against the border princes and southern realms, southern empire, etc. What's important is that one does not head south.
1. Again I am interested in hashing out the logistics before we get moving on to other regions, not just Bretonnia. Obviously just rushing in guns blazing is what was kind enough to give Khong Skull Jungle. We don't need more sequels to that being made.
2. I was imagining crossing into the badlands overland to be honest. We might not be able to purify the whole desert but setting up a corridor of runes and supply caches through it does not seem impossible to me.
That said, trying to burn our way through the Marshes of Madness does not sound like a good idea, so i'm more than willing to defer to @Zeitgeist Blue 's wisdom on leading a naval invasion, once we have a few modernish battleships built up and or have surveyed the area for shoals.
Of course, if we don't mind risking dealing with warpstone there is a third plausible invasion path between Nehekara and the Badlands.
That being we could land using the Sour Sea and enter through the local mountain passes, through the Desolation Of Nagash and following the Blind River northwards for a bit....
That should be a backup plan though I think.
Here is the best map of northern nehekara/ southern badlands I could find.
3. Yes, the Adeptus Astartes are meant to be overkill used for when you want tough things to be 200 percent dead yesterday. However they are stilll very much capable of such even with just speed bikes and stubbers.
Hell, I'd bet all the chocolate I own on a naked Firstborn unarmed Astarte being able to bring a platoon of state troops to their knees.
Not that I recommend the above as good policy for regular use.
EDIT: Also, a greenskin waagh isn't so bad as long as it heads north and breaks itself against the border princes and southern realms, southern empire, etc. What's important is that one does not head south.
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Zeitgeist Blue
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I was also gonna suggest we can move through the Border Princes and invade from the North. Then the Greenskins will flee to either the East or break themselves going through the Marshes of Madness and Nehekhara (with another contingent of our forces deployed south of Nehekhara ready to destroy the survivors). Though this obviously means we won't be able to destabilize the Sigmarite Empire with Greenskin "refugees" and introduces the chance of the Eastern refugees them coming back for a 2nd round. There's probably also a chance of a few Greenskins escaping into Araby itself, which would be really bad in the long-term.
Alternatively, attacking from the South and having the Greenskins move northwards means they'd be invading the Border Princes. This'd mean we'd have to dislodge the Greenskins again from the Border Princes. Not to mention that there will be Greenskins escaping to the east unless we block the passages through the Worlds Edge Mountains too.
Ah, so there're the wiki entries for wet navy battleships! And also a combined map of Badlands and Nehekhara.
They'd be good enough for normal troops like State Troops and such. But how're we gonna deal with the special forces or monsters? Things like Grail Knights, Chaos champions, trolls, dragons, Greater Daemons like Kong, all those Tomb King constructs, or the bigger Sylvanian undead monsters. And dealing with just regular Orcs when fighting Greenskin factions would best be done with the extra firepower of bolters and lasguns.
Astartes should still have access to their bolters. If you're trying to say we should equip them with both on their person and tell them to just use stubbers for cheap fodder and save the bolters for the above enemies, that might work due to them being practical? Might not due to IC pride. I guess we spend an action to try it out.
Though I doubt we can do the same with our IG troops. They can only carry so many stuff and only have so much training.
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I don't want the Astartes not to have bolters, I just want them to still be armed while we deal with these horrendous supply shortages.
One of the more recent updates noted that we were so strapped that we cannot presently produce bolter shells en mass.
And yes if we could convince them not to waste bolter fire on anything less sturdy than an Orc i'm sure that would save much precious ammunition.
Trolls are hardy but far from quick or fire proof, honestly some longbows and a few barrages of firey arrows should turn most variants away.
Also, the orcs fleeing east does not bother me at all.
Most likely many will be shot by the Orderly dwarvers and many of the rest will be enslaved by the Chaos Dwarves, in both cases that removes them as a problem bordering our core provinces in araby in any fashion.
Thanks for being willing to bounce ideas around though!
EDIT: Stuff like say chaos dragons and greater deamons are probably best dealt with using tanks as soon as we can refuel those rather than any sort of infantry IMO.
One of the more recent updates noted that we were so strapped that we cannot presently produce bolter shells en mass.
And yes if we could convince them not to waste bolter fire on anything less sturdy than an Orc i'm sure that would save much precious ammunition.
Trolls are hardy but far from quick or fire proof, honestly some longbows and a few barrages of firey arrows should turn most variants away.
Also, the orcs fleeing east does not bother me at all.
Most likely many will be shot by the Orderly dwarvers and many of the rest will be enslaved by the Chaos Dwarves, in both cases that removes them as a problem bordering our core provinces in araby in any fashion.
Thanks for being willing to bounce ideas around though!
EDIT: Stuff like say chaos dragons and greater deamons are probably best dealt with using tanks as soon as we can refuel those rather than any sort of infantry IMO.
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Zeitgeist Blue
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Or an alternative to the usual Norscans raiding and fighting the Old World. Get them cracking against other Chaos tribes occupying Mallus' north instead. Equip them with mono-weapons and other stuff we could think of. Let the Missionaria Galaxia work them into a frenzy against Chaos and let the Norscans rip. It'd be a fun reversal if the Chaos tribes were to be attacked instead of the Forces of Order defending against them all the time.
Ah that sounds sensible. So long as it's just a temporary state of affairs I could see it maybe happening. Though I do want to semi-beeline the Advanced Manufactorium anyways (perhaps do so alongside Roads) so we could finish the Advanced Manufactorium in ~4 Turns. We'd get all the juicy power armours, vehicles, and bolters that we'd want (mines willing).
FYI, if we use the Astartes in the southern Old World first where there aren't that many monstrous or special forces, then we wouldn't need the bolters yet.
I think that's basing a plan too much on luck. The Greenskins had already been dislodged from the Badlands once by the Strygos Empire, but the Greenskins came back with a Waaagh! that made them a more credible threat than the disparate tribes of the Badlands. The Waaagh! was enough to break the Styrgos Empire and retake the Badlands for the Greenskins. I bet we're going to see the Badland Greenskins again within the timeframe of the Quest if we run them out with no contingency. Tbh, if such a thing happens in the future I can see them coming back with upgraded tech-levels*since it'd be easy to imagine they were able to steal a few Imperial items, which would give rise to Mekboyz and upgraded tech in the long interim it would take for the Greenskins to return.
Perhaps instead of hoping they'd break against the Dwarves and the Chaos Dwarves, we should work to steer the Greenskin refugees into the Dwarven and Chaos Dwarven strongholds? That'd require us getting some IC knowledge about the Dwarven and Chaos Dwarven strongholds though. This is if you don't want to block the Worlds Edge Mountain passageways.
And if you don't mind the Greenskins escaping east, I think fortifying those passageways would be a good contingency for the eventual Waaagh! with an upgraded tech-level.
*Perhaps not to the Imperium's level, but I could see the Greenskins coming back with Late Modern Period, or maybe even the World Wars period or Modern era, style tech depending on what the Greenskins manage to steal and how unlucky we are.
Also wait, are we sure we want the Greenskins moving to the Border Princes and Tilea? I don't. Those factions are fractured and weak enough as it is that replacing them with the Greenskins will actually make invading those lands much harder me thinks. It'd be better to conquer the Border Princes, fortify, then use or ally with Barak Varr in order to funnel the Greenskins straight into the Empire before invading the Badlands.
Thanks! Glad to be here. Big thing I learned from the GSRP portion of the SV and SB boards. Bounce ideas a lot. And this Empire Builder Quest is pretty much the same in the fundamental problems of warfare and internal faction politics that the same ideas work.
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u93muD2tHgg
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOys_u98mNI
Does this line with your impressions of Cathay?
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Yeah it more or less seems like a good match for Grand Cathay.
BTW I really like the idea of continuing to build our converted Norscans into an anti northern chaos fighting force.
Now post Bretonnia does anyone else think our next most dangerous foes, barring a renewed orc presence are likely to be either the Dawiizhar empire or the Kingdoms of Ulthuan?
BTW I really like the idea of continuing to build our converted Norscans into an anti northern chaos fighting force.
Now post Bretonnia does anyone else think our next most dangerous foes, barring a renewed orc presence are likely to be either the Dawiizhar empire or the Kingdoms of Ulthuan?
You could make them a bit self sustainable with the help of the tech priests as the in for progress there.
Zeitgeist Blue
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Any specific aspects you have in mind on what we want the Norscans to be self-sustainable with? Manufacturing, military equipment, agriculture, etc? I was originally thinking we just provide them with mono-weapons and then a few carapace armour once we can churn them out reliably. Maybe a few chain-weapons with the promethium fuel as well. As Norscans can travel around a lot, they could just travel to Araby to get these stuff fixed. Anything greater would be too fiddly for them or might degrade their Deathworld life, which the Space Marines wouldn't want.
I would personally prefer to focus on uplifting Araby first to Imperium standards. These guys would be our manufacturing and population base. But I can definitely see us raising a temple to the Omnissiah in Norsca if we have excess tech-priests.
From what I can tell, the Chaos Dwarfs seem very insular. Their wiki keeps on talking about their plans for conquest but they don't really seem to do it in their history beyond slave raiding and fighting Greenskins for control of the Darklands. Do the Chaos Dwarves have any depiction in the novels about venturing out of the Darklands to invade other polities?
The High Elves meanwhile, I think would be pretty chill with us. They shouldn't really care about non-Chaos humans conquering each other out, so I can't see them intervening with us conquering the Old World. So long as we don't muscle into their colonies and world trade, they'd be fine. Though I wouldn't know how the Imperials will react if they find out how steeped in magic the Elves are. Probably violently.
Tbh, I think once we've conquered the Old World it might be a good time to focus on inward problems. The Skaven in particular is a faction I want to start a war with on our terms and not theirs. We should slowly gather intel on their existence and just how extensive their Empire is. At the very least, by fighting them in the Southlands then doing so again further north in Tilea, the Badlands, the Empire, and/or Kislev should give us an idea on the ubiquity of the Skaven race across our lands, if not that they're kind of untied as an Under-Empire.
Other threats would be the Vampire Counts. I don't really know much about the other Vampire bloodlines to comment on them atm, but I should read up on them. Ditto with whatever Nagash is up to now. Then there are the Greenskin tribes in the Badlands.
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So anyway, I've mulled over our next options after talking it out and I see three ways we can proceed. Notwithstanding Nehekhara and preparations like gathering intel and such.
1.) Invade Estalia then Invade Bretonnia.
- Pros
- Goes (almost) straight for the jugular. Once Bretonnia is out of the way, the various human factions in the Old World, including the Empire, would be easy pickings.
- Strategic scale surprise attack.
- Cons
- We're going to lose Space Marines if they have to fight Grail Knights in person.
- We might be subject to fight at least three factions when we invade Bretonnia: Bretonnia, the Wood Elves, and whatever support the Empire could send.
- This would be bad for the Empire in more ways than one*.
- We might be locked in a follow-through to invade the Empire next depending on how bad the Bretonnia refugee to the Empire situation gets.*
- Requires us to beeline the Stewardship actions below in order to keep our Space Marines in tip top shape for when they might have to go against their peers in the Grail Knights.
- Stewardship Beelines
- The Peregrin to bomb the ever-living hell out of any massed Bretonnian/Empire formations.
- Advanced Manufacturing to keep our Bolter shells supplies up.
- Mines and Wells to get our resources.
- Pros
- The laidback path. We don't have to rush the Stewardship items above as the forces we have (ie. Space Marines without much bolter ammo, Imperial Guard, AdMech) can easily roll over the petty kingdoms of these factions with force. The Missionaria Galaxia will be our silk glove (relatively) to the iron fist of our military forces.
- Give us ~2 Turns to roll each faction up? It took us two actions, and the use of just the Missionaria Galaxia and Space Marines, to bring the mundane Araby cities to heel. Spread the Imperial forces up and I can see the same thing happening to the southern Old World factions simultaneously.
- Allows us to build up our Space Marines and IG forces back up after the losses we sustained since coming to Mallus.
- Cons
- If Bretonnia and the Empire get threatened by our obvious conquests, they could send an Errantry War backed with some Empire support. We would need to prepare for such an eventuality (like having the Peregrin on standby to blast any incoming army away).
- This would be bad for the Empire in more ways than one*.
- Pros
- Nips the threat of a Waaagh! in the bud. The Badlands Greenskin tribes are fractured and content to duke it out among themselves in the Badlands but a Waaagh! is always a possibility.
- Note that FractiousDay has stated they wouldn't be leapfrogging in tech so we don't need to worry about WH40k level Orks for a while yet, if ever.
- Nips the threat of a Waaagh! in the bud. The Badlands Greenskin tribes are fractured and content to duke it out among themselves in the Badlands but a Waaagh! is always a possibility.
- Cons
- Requires setup and follow-throughs before we can properly conduct a Badlands invasion without any unpleasant aftereffects
- Aftereffects may include:
- Greenskins fleeing to the Border Princes and Tilea, thus making any invasions into the latter lands much harder to enact as we now have to deal with the super-belligerent Greenskins instead of just normal humans.
- Greenskins filtering south through the Marshes of Madness, Nehekhara, and whatever defending forces we have to enter into Araby proper. Once in Araby, we won't ever get rid of Greenskins properly.
- Greenskins fleeing east only to come back again in a huge Waaagh!
- Greenskins heading to the Empire, thus disrupting them too much.*
- Aftereffects may include:
- Set-up
- Invade and fortify the Border Princes. Use or ally with Barak Varr. This would stop large amounts of Greenskins from moving to the Border Princes and then Tilea.
- We may need to create or find sufficient airlift capacity or seafaring vessels that could carry our forces to the Badlands' south (so that we push the Greenskins north and east instead) if the Black Gulf is really dangerous.
- Follow-Through
- We need to create contingencies for the eventual Waaagh! from the east.
- We can steer the Greenskin refugees towards Dwarf or Chaos Dwarf strongholds to break there. This would tie up some of our forces after the invasion of the Badlands is complete.
- Or we can fortify the Worlds Edge Mountains' passageways, which would use up our Stewardship special project slot. This doesn't need to happen immediately.
- Requires setup and follow-throughs before we can properly conduct a Badlands invasion without any unpleasant aftereffects
*I have been thinking about wanting to disrupt the Empire further with Bretonnian refugees, Greenskin survivors, or even blasting what forces they send to fight us.
See, the reasoning why we want to disrupt the Empire is we want to stop them from sending forces to oppose our conquest of the Old World and to make it easier for us to conquer the Empire itself. However, the Empire currently has an upcoming problem that would require them to unite against: the third Vampire War.
If the Empire doesn't unite as much due to being disrupted by the above butterflies, then we might see a Von Carstein on the throne. That's bad for us because we want to fight normal humans the most and magical being the least.
With normal humans, all we need to do is fly a Thunderhawk over their leader's residence. Drop Space Marines on them and demand they surrender. Bomb a few places and armies with air-to-ground missiles and heavy bolters to make them see the error of their ways. Maybe blast a few marching armies with our IG, AdMech, or Space Marine forces. That'd get the Empire to surrender in fear.
With Mannfred Von Carstein as Emperor and the Empire turning into Sylvania with undead armies, we get robbed of a lot of the above. Yeah, a whole Space Marine squad could beat up Mannfred but the guy doesn't die and we IC don't know that yet. Mannfred's liable to pop back up or something, and then we'd have to go the whole process about learning about his Nagash immortality ring before we can finally stop him for good. And the Necromancy thing will be terrifying if Space Marines ever die because now we'd have to face undead Space Marines. And undead don't feel fear so don't rout or surrender yadda yadda.
So yeah, we might want to protect the Empire as much as possible until we go up there ourselves and beat them up.
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