Right, and once we've finished steps one and two I'll talk finding AP for development.
A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)
That's true.
Part of the thing is that with the way detachments/hosts work if we're going to want to have an artillery detachment, we probably want to have all the pieces in place to create it before we make any of them, and I doubt we want all the artillery in a detachment to be of one type. And given the way you'd want to deploy artillery, i.e. far away from the front lines, you probably do want artillery detachments rather than try to embed artillery units in other kinds of detachments.
Now, normally, I'd say, sure, have an artillery park that's just ten grav tanks with fusion bombards and some motorised infantry as a screen, but we can't do this, because of this rule 'In addition, no more than three of any given unit should be present in a given Detachment'.
That means that we're probably going to need to have multiple different types of artillery to have a proper artillery detachment, and we'll need to have things like command vehicles, etc, etc
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F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
Could that change after the shrine has been built?
That's true for a dedicated artillery detachment, but if we're just making a light artillery squad to be put into other detachments where that's a useful capability, one's good enough. And I'm not sure how soon we'll actually get to the point of putting together detachments, especially since we've got some 6 AP in required Steward projects that we'll need to go through as well. (Moving into the Hall, training the power distribution operators, the last agriculture task.)
- Location
- Germany
The way you likely do a pure artillery detachment is likely by making it a light one.
So you have 3 artillery pieces + (small) guard.
In a warhost you can now switch a heavy detachment down to 4 light ones.
- Pronouns
- Reader
I want self-propelled artillery so badly; like imagine Imperium expecting a standard Eldar speedster fight but facing the Eldar equivalent of Iron Warriors.
I was reading more about how the Dark Eldar worked, and I realised that someone who was writing the Dark Eldar at some point (Gav Thorpe) seems to have been very precise with words in a way that can be quite misleading. I thought I'd summarise what I'd surmised:
Dark Eldar suppress their psyker abilities. They can't call on the power of the Warp, because doing so can be dangerous in the Webway.
Dark Eldar have a wide range of psychic abilities. They apparently:
If those are all inherent abilities, you can see the incentive for the murder cults to prey on each other and other Eldar in the run up to the Fall, and why the Old Ones might have engineered soldiers with those capabilities, as they could charge up from the fear of their enemies and the joy of their allies. And also why the Necrontyr might have thought biotransference was a good idea, if they were facing psychic vampires like that.
Now, presumably, Craftworld Eldar have the potential for those same psychic abilities, but they're heavily circumscribed by their Paths, and unlike elite Dark Eldar don't drain other people for extra energy to supercharge their abilties, although I can imagine that the extraordinary abilities are similar, psychic abilities amplified by their wargear powered by the energy generated by the Eldar's own souls. While as I say above, Craftworld Eldar don't take energy from other people, they also aren't having the energy their souls generate drained away by Slaneesh.
Now, this has been a bit of a survey, but I wonder what we are doing or will b doing, if anything, with our own psychic rather than psyker abilities, assuming the distinction exists here in the same way it seems to in canon.
Given that I mused before about potentially partially adopting the Paths as a stop gap method, I wonder if there's anything that can be borrowed from the Dark Eldar approach. We wouldn't want to eat pain and suffering, but if we had xeno protectorates we could try to feed from other emotions they had, like excitement at sports matches (or, more cynically, fervent worship). It probably doesn't scale though, although perhaps you could use it to charge up a small number of elites with excess psychic power before they go into battle
Imagine it's some unholy combination of the best of both. Incredibly fast grav tanks rapidly redeploying in between rapidly launching intense artillery barrages. Shoot-and-scoot on steroids.
Dark Eldar suppress their psyker abilities. They can't call on the power of the Warp, because doing so can be dangerous in the Webway.
Dark Eldar have a wide range of psychic abilities. They apparently:
- sense emotions
- sense souls
- eat souls for energy
- absorb the energy of emotions, the stronger, the more energy, and any emotion will do (I think souls generate and emit more energy when they feel strong emotions - the drain doesn't have to be traumatic or invasive)
- use that energy to replenish the energy drained from them by Slaneesh's Thirst
- store that energy
- use that energy to heal injuries including completely regenerating their bodies from a scrap of flesh
- use that energy to reverse aging
- use that energy to become stronger, faster, tougher, etc
If those are all inherent abilities, you can see the incentive for the murder cults to prey on each other and other Eldar in the run up to the Fall, and why the Old Ones might have engineered soldiers with those capabilities, as they could charge up from the fear of their enemies and the joy of their allies. And also why the Necrontyr might have thought biotransference was a good idea, if they were facing psychic vampires like that.
Now, presumably, Craftworld Eldar have the potential for those same psychic abilities, but they're heavily circumscribed by their Paths, and unlike elite Dark Eldar don't drain other people for extra energy to supercharge their abilties, although I can imagine that the extraordinary abilities are similar, psychic abilities amplified by their wargear powered by the energy generated by the Eldar's own souls. While as I say above, Craftworld Eldar don't take energy from other people, they also aren't having the energy their souls generate drained away by Slaneesh.
Now, this has been a bit of a survey, but I wonder what we are doing or will b doing, if anything, with our own psychic rather than psyker abilities, assuming the distinction exists here in the same way it seems to in canon.
Given that I mused before about potentially partially adopting the Paths as a stop gap method, I wonder if there's anything that can be borrowed from the Dark Eldar approach. We wouldn't want to eat pain and suffering, but if we had xeno protectorates we could try to feed from other emotions they had, like excitement at sports matches (or, more cynically, fervent worship). It probably doesn't scale though, although perhaps you could use it to charge up a small number of elites with excess psychic power before they go into battle
Imagine it's some unholy combination of the best of both. Incredibly fast grav tanks rapidly redeploying in between rapidly launching intense artillery barrages. Shoot-and-scoot on steroids.
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Well, the Eldar are Devas...
I can see that working, but it's the kind of thing we'd want to be very careful with, because of how badly it could go wrong. As Devas, Eldar are probably subject to Godsmithing, or acquiring undesired Domains.
Well, given Eldar longevity, you could combine that with precognitively guided social engineering to only gain desirable traits.
In fact, thinking about it, if we want to perform soulforging, this may be a particularly subtle way to go about it.
The big problem I see is one of scale. I can see us uplifting a xeno species and helping them establish an Empire with our hero units as a pantheon of their gods to empower them on an individual scale (and if we do it fast enough perhaps Draylin could even use the energy to reverse his aging).
However, this would be hard to scale to a population of billions of Eldar. The Dark Eldar manage it with a population of trilliions because they prey on an entire galaxy and wring every last drop from their victims, and the great majority of their population have to share dregs of emotion that's just enough to net out the Thirst while behind the Webway's Wards. It's only a small elite who drain enough energy to be strongly empowered. We'd want to harvest a sustainable amount of emotional energy, to be farmers, not hunters.
Perhaps we'd just need to be very good patrons, and have very highly populated systems full of happily devoted worshippers, so there could be hundreds or thousands of them per Eldar. Most of the energy would probably still be focused on our leaders as head of the Pantheon, but I can see religious cosmologies that acknowledge the existence of vast numbers of guardian angels, and where everyone in a population of trillions is assigned a personal guardian angel to pray to at birth.
Still, it's lots of work, and potentially fragile if a Waaagh or the Great Crusade rolls over them.
Edit: the Eldar-Human world that Vulkan burned may have been doing this, as IIRC the humans there worshipped the Eldar, and they may have been a potential 'breed' of Eldar with their own unique survival methodology based on this which was strangled in the cradle, like the Ishari nearly were.
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- Pronouns
- Reader
Vau-Vulkesh are passionate artists. they excell in finding the beauty even in the darkest of hours, as the temple of last hour demonstrates. this could be fed into something to combat Nurgles curse. of course, I doubt we'll look into that for sometime, so it's not likely to be relevant this century.
Mechanis
Confirmed Extremely Screwed
- Location
- Absconding with Alacrity
The primary resource for ship construction is time, because they're expensive enough is 'stuff' that the difference between "expensive stuff" and cheap stuff" is mostly in "how long does it take for us to make these." Sloops are essentially exactly 1/turn for all reasonable batch sizes for the current turn scale, Nettles meanwhile are not.
It will almost be voting time in two hours so I decided to share the plan I want to vote with.
[] Bring the Seers and Make a Strong First Impression
-[] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
-[] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
-[] Seer Araeniel of Meros
-[] Zevrin Kal, Blademaster of Arach-Qin
-[] Faelin Wraev of Zahr-Tann
-[] Elite Bodyguards
-[] Special Bodyguards
-[] Weight: Escort Heavy
-[] Configuration: Battleship Task Group
-[] Special: The Hidden Fang
I am excluding the Sons because it would draw too much attention away from our allies. I am also excluding Irsfeial to conceal the Ishari from the warmongering attention of Biel-Tan. If we had already completed the evacuation of the Ishari, I would want to be more transparent about their existence. Since we have not, I want to conceal them for their own good. Zevrin Kal will help us with the more martial craftwords. Yranne Kal and Xenael Wraev will stay behind in case of emergencies.
[] Bring the Seers and Make a Strong First Impression
-[] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
-[] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
-[] Seer Araeniel of Meros
-[] Zevrin Kal, Blademaster of Arach-Qin
-[] Faelin Wraev of Zahr-Tann
-[] Elite Bodyguards
-[] Special Bodyguards
-[] Weight: Escort Heavy
-[] Configuration: Battleship Task Group
-[] Special: The Hidden Fang
I am excluding the Sons because it would draw too much attention away from our allies. I am also excluding Irsfeial to conceal the Ishari from the warmongering attention of Biel-Tan. If we had already completed the evacuation of the Ishari, I would want to be more transparent about their existence. Since we have not, I want to conceal them for their own good. Zevrin Kal will help us with the more martial craftwords. Yranne Kal and Xenael Wraev will stay behind in case of emergencies.
[x] The More the Merrier - Division
- [x] His Sons
- [x] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [x] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [x] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [x] Irsfeial, Emissary of the Ishari
- [x] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [x] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [x] Special Bodyguards
- [x] Elite Bodyguards
- - [x] Reduce this
- [x] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [x] Configuration: Cruiser Squadron
- [x] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
- [x] His Sons
- [x] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [x] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [x] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [x] Irsfeial, Emissary of the Ishari
- [x] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [x] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [x] Special Bodyguards
- [x] Elite Bodyguards
- - [x] Reduce this
- [x] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [x] Configuration: Cruiser Squadron
- [x] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
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- Location
- United Kingdom
From what we've learnt of the gods so far I imagine any trait, no matter how desirable, can be twisted eventually depending on circumstances. Which makes me wonder how effective precognition would be at stopping that, it feels like it'd run into diminishing returns.
We could go for groups of heavy jetbikes or skimmers armed with Heavy fusion mortars, though I don't think the latter can be sorted into squads like the former.
I'm going to bed soon, so I wanted to post my draft plan in case anyone was interested in a more moderate proposal. It only takes one emissary per faction, splits the bodyguards between Troops and Special, and doesn't take the Sword of Vaul to keep it up our sleeve but in exchange takes a Battleship Task group weighted towards Escorts to show off our Nettles and War Ketches. I ended up coming down on the side of bringing Irsfeial, as I figure she'd do more good than harm when it comes to the project of breaking the Curses considering her connection to Isha.
I bring the Mothwing Lord to solidify the alliance, and because between them and Xenael Wraev they should cover appealing towards fellow soldiers. With the bodyguards I try to split the difference between showcasing our special troops without coming across as showing off.
[] Plan Moderation
-[] Irsfeial, Emissary of the Ishari
-[X] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
-[] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
-[] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
-[] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
-[] Regular Bodyguards
-[] Special Bodyguards
-[] Weight: Escort Heavy
-[] Configuration: Battleship Task Group
-[] Special: The Hidden Fang
We've been told the Harlequins won't look kindly on other eldar who attack us in the short term after this Moot, and considering they're the ones who introduced us to the Ishari I'm confident that Biel-Tan at least won't be an issue for the evacuation.
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The plans I suggest:
[] The More the Merrier - Reconciliation
- [ ] His Sons
- [] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [ ] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [ ] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [ ] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [ ] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [ ] Special Bodyguards
- [ ] Elite Bodyguards
- - [] Reduce this
- [ ] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [ ] Configuration: Cruiser Squadron
- [ ] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
Is what I prefer. I don't want to take Irsfeial because this is probably at least partially a collective action problem and I want to avoid further alienating any faction, and make the neutrals' job of wrangling the extermists harder.
Alternatively:
[] The More the Merrier - Division
- [ ] His Sons
- [] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [ ] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [ ] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [ ] Irsfeial, Emissary of the Ishari
- [ ] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [ ] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [ ] Special Bodyguards
- [ ] Elite Bodyguards
- - [] Reduce this
- [ ] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [ ] Configuration: Cruiser Squadron
- [ ] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
Both bring the sons because there are ten times as many of our craftworld as the rest, so it's fair, and there's probably a lot to talk about. I bring every one else, save preferably Irsfeial for the same reason. The more of us who are here, the mroe other people we can talk to in order to push our agenda and convince them to work together. We have loads of work to do, and this is a pivotal moment.
I don't think anything is going to be directly done about the Curse here, but I think plans can and will be made. I think the Nurgle and Slaneesh Curse's are currently impossible to address, but we can possibly plan for something about Tzeentch's, hence double dipping on Meros, and we can also try to arrange other joint expeditions to start building the habit of cooperation.
I bring the Sword of Vaul to make a statement to the smaller Craftworlds that we're a viable protector, and a smaller other fleet to show the Majors we're not getting above our station, while being escort heavy to subtly advertise our refitting progress.
I bring Special + Elite bodyguards for the same reason, to advertise our Power Armour.
Generally, I want to show we're taking this seriously.
[] The More the Merrier - Reconciliation
- [ ] His Sons
- [] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [ ] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [ ] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [ ] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [ ] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [ ] Special Bodyguards
- [ ] Elite Bodyguards
- - [] Reduce this
- [ ] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [ ] Configuration: Cruiser Squadron
- [ ] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
Is what I prefer. I don't want to take Irsfeial because this is probably at least partially a collective action problem and I want to avoid further alienating any faction, and make the neutrals' job of wrangling the extermists harder.
Alternatively:
[] The More the Merrier - Division
- [ ] His Sons
- [] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [ ] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [ ] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [ ] Irsfeial, Emissary of the Ishari
- [ ] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [ ] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [ ] Special Bodyguards
- [ ] Elite Bodyguards
- - [] Reduce this
- [ ] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [ ] Configuration: Cruiser Squadron
- [ ] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
Both bring the sons because there are ten times as many of our craftworld as the rest, so it's fair, and there's probably a lot to talk about. I bring every one else, save preferably Irsfeial for the same reason. The more of us who are here, the mroe other people we can talk to in order to push our agenda and convince them to work together. We have loads of work to do, and this is a pivotal moment.
I don't think anything is going to be directly done about the Curse here, but I think plans can and will be made. I think the Nurgle and Slaneesh Curse's are currently impossible to address, but we can possibly plan for something about Tzeentch's, hence double dipping on Meros, and we can also try to arrange other joint expeditions to start building the habit of cooperation.
I bring the Sword of Vaul to make a statement to the smaller Craftworlds that we're a viable protector, and a smaller other fleet to show the Majors we're not getting above our station, while being escort heavy to subtly advertise our refitting progress.
I bring Special + Elite bodyguards for the same reason, to advertise our Power Armour.
Generally, I want to show we're taking this seriously.
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The precogntiion would be to detect and shape social trends rather than the godforming directly, which I think would be more effective.
I'm currently leaning towards either Alratan's Division variant or making a version of it with only a Cruiser Task Force rather than a Cruiser Squadron. Other than the Serpent itself, I'd like to minimize the number of unrefitted or technical-style ships we show up with, and the smaller the fleet the easier that is - and with the Serpent, there's limits to the degree anyone can claim our fleet isn't impressive, even if it's small.
- Pronouns
- Reader
I don't think our sons draw attention away from our allies, because our sons are all figures of far lesser note than our allies. we have the leaders of two powerful craftworld fleets, the oldest Aeldari and most accomplished seer lord and lore master alive & his daughter. most likely while we are busy with the main proceedings, our sons will be socializing in the background, to some effect. at most they expand our alliance opportunities or close some off to us by way of offending the person in question.
we've confirmed that chaos is occupied with infighting, Biel-tan won't be showing up, and we are far from any orc worlds where they might appear from. if you want to leave Xenael wraev behind to command the fleet guarding our home world, by all means, do so but bring Yranne Kal and his battleship. their are Aeldari out their in need of a defender and they'll be more likely to approach our group for aid the stronger a show of naval might we make, and you can't get stronger than a crone sword class battleship.
this is our combat brig. an actual war vessel with the starcaster Mega-Lance as it's main gun, of our available options to make the focus of our group, none of which have a refit design, it is the one with most going for it, which is why I believe we should be going with a Battleship task group rather than either of the cruiser options.
[] The More the Merrier - Reconciliation BTG
- [] His Sons
- [] Dragonlord Amar-Ithil of Quilan
- [] Draylin of the True Sight, Seerlord of Meros
- [] Seer Araeniel of Meros
- [] Yranne Kal, the Mothwing Lord of Arach-Qin
- [] Forgemaster Xenael Wraev of Zahr-Tann
- [] Special Bodyguards
- [] Elite Bodyguards
- - [] Reduce this
- [] Weight: Escort Heavy
- [] Configuration: Battleship Task Group
- [] Special: The Serpent of the Stars
I also believe we should leave behind the Ishari. no sense drawing the eyes of the conservative to their existence and endangering them further or drawing greater pushpack against the revelation we intend to present to the Aeldmoot. we have inexplicably lucked into the aversion of a potentially century long conflict with Beil-tan. it would be a shame to jeopardize this new found freedom to focus on things besides getting a strong defensive force up as quickly as possible over including a single person in our retinue.
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Yeah, for all we know it takes 5 turns to bring production efficiency back to 100% from 50%. That woul be problematic, to say the least.
F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
No no Biel-Tan is here
It doesn't matter what we do here Biel-Tan is going to continue to hate us and probably the only way reduce that is by saving them from something apocalyptic.
I do believe that combined with our news bringing the Ishari could shake some lose from Biel-Tans sphere of influence.
I'm pretty sure I asked that above and it was confirmed to be one turn.
Or the opposite, as usually happens in this scenario, that when public challenged people double down on their views and commit harder. What were previously vague continuums become sharp dividing lines.
Conservatives who were previously not aligned with Biel Tan could easily be driven into siding with them if the salience of this issue rises once again to become more important than other policy disagreements.
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F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
Oh I'm sure that there's going to be those as well but I think that seeing proof of other ways working could bring the less hard core members out of it.
It's still a gamble I don't want to bet lives on.
I doubt anyone we put in our retinue is going to be in the background. The term retinue implies that they are going to be important representatives to our cause at this moot. If half or more of our representatives aren't important to the main topic at hand, that doesn't give the best of impressions.