Holy hell Arach-Qin went absolutely Beast Mode on their neighbors.

And they're a Minor.

Our position in general is not bad, even if there's a lot of scary Orks in the region, we've got plenty of people who hate them too. There's worse grounds to come to an Agreement on.
 
And yeah kind of need to update all/most of our Milita units, depending on how many slots we have i would not do the update to the heart hguard because they are likely still fighting in Meros and they have to be home for upgrades.
I don't think we can upgrade the Hearth Guard this turn. All of those are classed as Elite picks and the turn vote said "new standard troops", which is Troop picks. But maybe I'm wrong and the term was being used more broadly so we'll be able to come up with as many infantry designs as we want.

This is mostly armor, but i would be pretty happy if we give mix in some harder hitting weapons into their formation.
Starblasters kind of act like anti vehicle/heavy infantry weapons for the squad, so 1-2 added to the line would likely be worth it.
If possible, I'd like to suggest a troop design that focuses on survivability to offset our low numbers, so maybe some heavier Warsuits with built in holo-fields / conversion shields (though this would be pretty expensive) and starblasters as our workhorse weapon (again, if the expense isn't too high) since we can get more blasters per Vaulforge than we can with fatecasters (so if I had to guess some kind of balance - assuming we still use squads of 10 - would be a 6/4 ratio of starblasters and fatecasters maybe?)
Since we know that there's "further armor development" available in future turns, per the text of the Wraithbone Warsuit choice taken this turn, I think we should be planning on having heavier/faster warsuit variants come into play eventually and plan on using those for future elite designs, loaded down with all our shiny things. For a troop pick I'd be worried about expense and lean more toward Skjadir's suggestion here- something like our new warsuits for everyone, seven needlers, one fatecaster rifle, one screamer grenade, and one starblaster rifle per squad would work out well as our cheapest line unit moving forward. That's probably something like 120 EP plus 5 starcrystals and 1 psyscope for a squad, which is affordable, and if we make one of our vehicle picks a tanky IFV and pair them with the infantry squads doctrinally then death rates shouldn't be too bad.

The grav-barge IFV sounds good as long as we uparmour it and give it some grav-shields, maybe some mounted needlers/fatecasters as well?
If we take the current Attack Barge design and throw on holofields and grav shields, then revise its weapons and crew gear a bit, we should have something costing around 250 EP plus a handful of special resources in the end. That's nicely mass-producible.

Destroyers should definitely lean into a balanced mix of starlances and fatecannons if we can help it, and absolutely grabbing holo-fields + grav-shields (or only gravs if we can only fit one or the other), so we won't be lacking in either anti-shield or anti-armour capabilities (fatecannons to drop shields and target components like engines while the starlances carve the ship apart maybe?)
We probably want to use the Sloop hull for our destroyer (we'll have to use the Cutter or Sloop and the Cutter has no heavy weapons). Unfortunately slots on that are so limited that we'll have an extremely limited number of choices; a lot will depend on what the systems rules look like.

The jetbikes are by the looks of it the only option we have for light units at the moment.
And they can be excellent, but need quite a bit of investment for that, and they are still not a direct frontline unit.

They are fast, flying/hovering vehicles that with the right weaponry can do some hideous damage (3-8 jetbikes each with 2 starblasters rifles can shred a lot of things), add holofields for defense, and you have some a unit that can raid and scout and be terrifyingly good at it).

And the scouting/raiding role is i think what they are already doing.
You could convince me to go for a heavy jetbike design as one of our only two modernized vehicles on the grounds that we need some kind of functional fast attack option, and with two vehicle designs available putting together one fast attack design and one heavy support design is a reasonable allocation. But I'm opposed to a standard jetbike on the grounds that they are just so much less cost-efficient than the heavy jetbike designs. We can get all that fast movement and the same or greater damage for less cost by concentrating firepower into bigger, better-defended units.

Yes, we have like a thousand standard jetbikes right now. And frankly, what we should be doing with those is selling them off to other craftworlds for political favors as soon as we can replace them with things that aren't trash.
 
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Type: Maiden World
Status: Uninhabited


Erd-Varesh is the farthest north of the Maiden Worlds known to Vau-Vulkesh, and was chosen as their destination when the craftworld fled the Croneworlds. Like most Maiden Worlds which have not been settled, Erd-Varesh is a paradice world with temperate climate, but has local fauna which would be somewhat hazardous to low-technology civilizations. The rest of the system also contains abundant resources, as it has remained unexploited by any starfaring power as yet. Currently, the Craftworld of Vau-Vulkesh is stranded in this system by the damage to the craftworld's engines during the Fall.

Man that is actually really nice.
We pretty much have a world we can settle, which I think is kind of needed long term to actually build up.
 
Man that is actually really nice.
We pretty much have a world we can settle, which I think is kind of needed long term to actually build up.

Might not fully settle it, but we'll definitely be able to establish a strong presence in this system long term. Might be a useful port of call if diplomacy and other affairs work out.

I think canonically, this area was pretty much a sea of Green by the time the Great Crusade got here?

EDIT: Actually, no, Istvaan was doing okay apparently.
 
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Might not fully settle it, but we'll definitely be able to establish a strong presence in this system long term. Might be a useful port of call if diplomacy and other affairs work out.

I think canonically, this area was pretty much a sea of Green by the time the Great Crusade got here?

EDIT: Actually, no, Istvaan was doing okay apparently.

If I have my timeline right the great crusade isn't going to start for another ~1000 years.

For fully settling this, I am pretty sure we will together with the smaller craftworlds.
It is just to much of a boost for us to do that, and we have the industry to actually get some industry up.
 
That's quite a few human worlds...
In fairness, only like three of them are actually notable beyond "oh there's some humans there"---one is a bunch of hunter-gatherers whose most advanced technology is "pointy rocks on the end of sticks", one is too busy being the setting of Frostpunk to be relevant, and the other thinks that the steel pike is the height of technological prowess.
Might not fully settle it, but we'll definitely be able to establish a strong presence in this system long term. Might be a useful port of call if diplomacy and other affairs work out.

EDIT: Actually, no, Istvaan was doing okay apparently.
Hense why I went "well they already had a pocket empire going even in the tail of M29"
Sure it's just two systems, but that's actually pretty darn good for "roughly 3/4ths of the way though the Age of Strife depending on how you count"
 
Settling might be somewhat difficult with our growth. With a -3 pop growth malus, actually build-up might be agonisingly slow.

At least we got a bunch of places to get allies from.
 
We probably do need a 12 man IFV or to standardize on 6 man squads. Upgrading/converting our Jetbikes would be fairly expensive given the defensive systems are a flat cost per vehicle, but if we built an upgraded Bright Talon we could probably afford the AP to modify the other Jetbike squads.

One thing I'd like to consider depending on how limited to the variety of troops we improve is a holofield for the Veteran squads. Given they're are most experienced soldiers and our command staff keeping them alive is probably going to be key to preserve experience and avoid any potential breaks in the command structure. By my count we have about 270 Veterans and this would take about 2,160 EP.

If possible, I'd like to suggest a troop design that focuses on survivability to offset our low numbers, so maybe some heavier Warsuits with built in holo-fields / conversion shields (though this would be pretty expensive) and starblasters as our workhorse weapon (again, if the expense isn't too high) since we can get more blasters per Vaulforge than we can with fatecasters (so if I had to guess some kind of balance - assuming we still use squads of 10 - would be a 6/4 ratio of starblasters and fatecasters maybe?)
This probably isn't feasible given the resource limitations we're going to have for the time being. The new warsuits alone are going to strain our budget for a partial roll out. Assuming 4 EP per, there's 344 Guardians in a Militia Warhost, that would be 1,376 to give the guardians new armor. If we only upgrade two of those warhosts and two of the heavy Militia Warhosts, that would be ~5,152 EP. 6,440 EP if the new warsuit costs 5 EP.

Our named warhosts have around ~360 additional guardians in them for another 1,440 EP, 1800 EP at 5 per. We should probably budget at least 6,600 EP for the new armor. This allows better armor for 4 of the 9 Militia formations, and if the armor is relatively cheap at 4 EP per, better armor for the Guardians in the elite formations.

If up-armoring the jetbikes with our existing defense technologies isn't acceptable then we could use this opportunity to design hornets instead as our light vehicle of choice. They're a straight upgrade over the jetbikes but come at a greater industrial, and technological cost than the jetbikes meaning they're typically only issued to elite units to be piloted by veteran jetbike pilots.
The Bright Talon is probably the current jetbike we can get the most use out of. Easier to upgrade with defenses on an EP basis, decent weaponry that's easy to use. A Hornet does seem like a nice gradual evolution though.
 
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What are you talking about ?
We haven't picked any of the pop growth stuff in part 1.
"Infertile" was mandatory.


Ectoza are, comparatively, close by. If we bail them out, we could get the auxillary force going, most likely. They are small, but they'll owe us, big time.

Depending on the precise shape of things, their terraforming system also could serve as a great defense system. They are more adapted to surviving their frosthell than almost anyone.
 
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Kronite is a human colony that has descended into a pre-industrial feudal state. While the wars of its petty kingdoms likely matter a great deal to its inhabitants, they have no real impact on the galaxy at large. The system, however, still contains a not insignificant amount of wreckage dating to the height of human civilization, and therefore may contain interesting technology.
Ooooo hello there free tech! Wonder if you have any goodies we could 'borrow'?

Also! We have a name to our current problem-ork, 'Grimtusk', who's in charge of Wazdakka, and oooof BiggaDakka is the source of a LOT of titans and other assorted heavy vehicles, stuff we just aren't capable of dealing with at the moment - short of orbital bombardment, which I don't even think we can do? But then again Arach-Qin managed to do it to 3 worlds already...

So, our big three targets are Wazdakka (most likely where the warboss is if he isn't out on a fleet), Biggadakka (their titan and heavy manufacturing world) and Zappagits (their source of ships)

There are three others of note, the Tork-Toofs, Red Toofs and Dat Purple One, with a priority on killing the Tork-Toofs as soon as we can once we've dealt with Grimtusk.

With any luck, we'll be able to pitch the idea of a combined attack with Arach-Qin and Zahr-Tann to be able to mop up the three priority targets (Wazdakka, Biggadakka, Zappagitz), if I had to guess who to pick first, I'd go with Biggadakka to prevent the Waaagh from cranking out Titans and steamrolling our glue-eaters (we are at our weakest when it comes to a planetary assault and we physically do not have the ability to destroy Titans on the ground save for orbital support)

Once we've gotten Meros out of the danger zone and sealed an alliance with the three craftworlds, and outfitted our warhosts, we should focus on crippling Biggadakka through sustained orbital bombardment (nothing of value to preserve on any of the Ork planets, no point wasting time, lives or resources on a ground battle) until we've sterilised the Ork presence.

This should then HOPEFULLY stem the tide of titans flowing to Grimtusk.

Then we go and target Zappagitz to knock their shipyards out and deny naval reinforcements (same MO as earlier, orbital bombardment, minimal surface assaults if possible).

Then we focus on Wazdakka, bomb the planet as hard as we can and then send headhunters to the ruins of the planet to see if the warboss survived the bombardment, until we get a kill confirmed, we need to assume he's still alive and able to take over rhe Waaagh at any moment.

After that, mop up, Tork-Toofs would probably take advantage of the power vacuum around their freeboota warboss, so again, top priority, orbital bombardment, headhunters, kill confirmed, move on.

(This might be a little extreme, but considering that we don't need the planets at all is giving us a lot of leeway to just glass the planet from orbit, if it has something we need or want, we use limited bombardment and drop down a warhost to prioritize grabbing the IOI and then extract ASAP)

Edit: New priority, first target should be Zappagitz to destroy the Waagh's shipyards and allow us to glass the other worlds unimpeded.
 
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So, our big three targets are Wazdakka (most likely where the warboss is if he isn't out on a fleet), Biggadakka (their titan and heavy manufacturing world) and Zappagits (their source of ships)

Shipyards first because orbital bombardment is the way we will be cleaning up these worlds.
If we have to land warhosts something went very wrong.
 
we physically do not have the ability to destroy Titans on the ground save for orbital support
I don't think this is true, or at least, it doesn't have to be. The Heavy Grav-Vehicle chassis, which we could pick as one of our vehicle rationalization picks should we consider it necessary, has a superheavy weapon slot on it. The Starblade superheavy weapon in our wargear has the description "a single shot from a Starblade can core a fresh Warhound Titan like a mere infantryman hit by a Lascannon".

In other words, if we care about being able to beat Titans on the ground we could design a vehicle capable of doing so this turn and have some constructed as soon as the end of next turn.
 
You know, I wonder why in canon Asuryani didn't try to settle planets. Culture restrictions? Need to stay mobile to avoid enemies? Sure, space habitats are more efficient in regards to usable area per mass unit, but they didn't build them anyway, just craftworlding. And when you aren't building anything, planets offer near-infinite heat sink that is atmosphere, a reasonably good protection against most things (depending how deep underground you want to build) and resources that can be accessed with less refining.
So why not plop down a planetary colony once things stop being on fire? It's not like other craftworlds are going to think we're normal anyway...
And now I want to move towards recreating Norse Svartalfar, a.k.a. the original 'dark elves' who most scholars assume are just dwarfs by another name.
 
I don't think this is true, or at least, it doesn't have to be. The Heavy Grav-Vehicle chassis, which we could pick as one of our vehicle rationalization picks should we consider it necessary, has a superheavy weapon slot on it. The Starblade superheavy weapon in our wargear has the description "a single shot from a Starblade can core a fresh Warhound Titan like a mere infantryman hit by a Lascannon".

In other words, if we care about being able to beat Titans on the ground we could design a vehicle capable of doing so this turn and have some constructed as soon as the end of next turn.
True, but we'd still have to engage in a long and protracted ground war against a heavily fortified Ork world, it's faster and safer to glass the planet right now (We will definitely see about getting some SH options soon hopefully, but for now, we need to consolidate and work quickly, and nothing kills Orks faster than orbital bombardment)
 
Holy hell Arach-Qin went absolutely Beast Mode on their neighbors.

And they're a Minor.

Our position in general is not bad, even if there's a lot of scary Orks in the region, we've got plenty of people who hate them too. There's worse grounds to come to an Agreement on.
Retrofitted Dominion Weapons on Void Craft is fucking scary and Infantry don't matter if you're just glassing the Planet.

Remember, while the other Craftworlds may not be able to Maintain the good shit, they still got some and a will to use it.
 
The Bright Talon is probably the current jetbike we can get the most use out of. Easier to upgrade with defenses on an EP basis, decent weaponry that's easy to use. A Hornet does seem like a nice gradual evolution though.
The Vyper is probably what we'll end up with effectively then which is just an up-armored version of our Bright Talons. For the Hornet, whenever we get to it we'd probably be better off modifying the existing Speeder chassis rather than evolving the up-armored Bright Talon design further.
Shipyards first because orbital bombardment is the way we will be cleaning up these worlds.
If we have to land warhosts something went very wrong.
It's 40k so regular ortillery isn't effective unless you can disable the omnipresent theatre shields and AAA that make ground combat mandatory in the setting. The only exceptions to this are exterminatus weapons which only need orbital control over one uncovered area of the planet to destroy it.
The Eldar have a constantly declining population, so they don't benefit from colonialism. That's what happens when every single kid born requires you to go invade the Eye of Terror to get them a crystal for their soul.
 
You know, I wonder why in canon Asuryani didn't try to settle planets.
You listed some stuff. Additionally, their pop sizes are ultimately capped by soulstones and slow to grow besides. There is just no real point, they can't snowball-expand. They are, strategically speaking, stuck.

Hopefully, A Shield Alone mitigates this well enough for us.
 
You know, I wonder why in canon Asuryani didn't try to settle planets. Culture restrictions? Need to stay mobile to avoid enemies? Sure, space habitats are more efficient in regards to usable area per mass unit, but they didn't build them anyway, just craftworlding. And when you aren't building anything, planets offer near-infinite heat sink that is atmosphere, a reasonably good protection against most things (depending how deep underground you want to build) and resources that can be accessed with less refining.
So why not plop down a planetary colony once things stop being on fire? It's not like other craftworlds are going to think we're normal anyway...
And now I want to move towards recreating Norse Svartalfar, a.k.a. the original 'dark elves' who most scholars assume are just dwarfs by another name.
I don't really think there is a reason to colonise a planet other than just to have a population of Eldar on the planet (maybe some passive population growth?) Biel-Tan definitely doesn't seem to settle any of the maiden worlds they murder at least.

(And to be fair, unless they give EP or some sweet bonuses to our production, population or military, I don't really feel the need to establish a colony right now, maybe later as bragging rights, but that'll have wait for the future)

Plus our growth is pretty much capped to soulstones anyway so the colony is pretty much worthless unless it gives EP.
 
It's 40k so regular ortillery isn't effective unless you can disable the omnipresent theatre shields and AAA that make ground combat mandatory in the setting. The only exceptions to this are exterminatus weapons which only need orbital control over one uncovered area of the planet to destroy it.

If they had AAA good enough, ground combat is a non issue because nothing is every going to survive the landing on the planet.

And we have good enough weaponry on our ships to crack pretty much everything they have on the ground after we got our ships some functioning defense systems.
Considering this:

The Starcaster Mega-Lance is the largest known example of the family of extremely sophisticated Las-weapons employed by the Vulkhari Eldar, only ever seen as fixed forward mounts. Given that these weapons can carve through the armor of a human or Orkish warship as if it were cheese, rather than metal, even a single mount as most ships manage is extremely dangerous.
Type: Naval Special
Equipment Points cost: 50
Special Resource Requirement: 1000 Starcrystals

A Starblade is a modified Starlance designed to engage Titan scale combatants, sacrificing the majority of its refire speed for even greater power - a single shot from a Starblade can core a fresh Warhound Titan like a mere infantryman hit by a Lascannon.
Type: Superheavy
Equipment Points cost: 400
Special Resource Requirement: 50 Starcrystals
 
Yeah, in general, Dominion-era lasers allows us to not just keel over and die when enemies roll out titans on the field. IDK if we'll be able to just bombard stuff from orbit, but we are perfectly capable of bonking titans with weaponry we could mount on tanks.

Hell, we prolly could bonk them with infantry. Massed automatic lascannon fire is lol. Lmao. Prolly inefficient for our strategies, but funny.
 
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Yeah, in general, Dominion-era lasers allows us to not just keel over and die when enemies roll out titans on the field. IDK if we'll be able to just bombard stuff from orbit, but we are perfectly capable to bonk titans with weaponry we could mount on tanks.

Hell, we prolly could bonk them with infantry. Massed automatic lascannon fire is lol. Lmao. Prolly inefficient for our strategies, but funny.

I mean, Arach-Qin pretty much cleared out 3 system of orks after they damaged their shipyards (and they are a minor craftworld vs our large one).
So i don't see why after we got our stuff in order in 2-3 turns and with their help we can't nuke some more ork systems.
 
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