Ok, yes, and super-heavies.
I don't think we should iterate the superheavies for the same reason I'm opposed to iterating speeders into a light tank, and we've got even less EP investment in them.
A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)
I don't think we should iterate the superheavies for the same reason I'm opposed to iterating speeders into a light tank, and we've got even less EP investment in them.
F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
Speeders are described as "effectively jetbikes" so instead of a light/ultralight tank they may be a heavy bike when it comes to making a design.
Not to mention both cargo and passenger shuttles
I was thinking about what an armoured detachment would look like (the other detachments in the war host would bring the infantry).
Now, I think that such a unit is designed to operate together, so we don't want too wide a spread on speed or protection across it.
The kind of thing I'd look at is:
1 HQ: Command variant of a not yet developed Heavy Tank chassis
2 elites: Elite variant of a Heavy Tank chassis. Probably with at least on Point Singularity Projector as they're noted to need skilled crew, and they probably need to keep aiming at the target during the singularity's travel time, so heavy armour is helpful. Plus some other weapons
3 Troops: Fata Morgana chassis with paired Vehicle Amplifier and Imploder, an extra Grav Shield, and either a pair of heavy needles or a vehicle Vibration grab weapon, if that can hit an area to melt infantry
3 Fast Attack: 3 units of twelve of our iterated jet bikes with a mixture of plasma cannons, heavy needlers, and missile launchers. I think jet bikes maybe to our grav tanks what regular infantry are to much slower and ground bound regular tanks
2 Extra Troops: a different Troop variant of a Fata Morgana with, say, twin vehicle plasma cannons, two heavy needles, and an extra grav shield
2 Extra Heavy Support: two variants of the Fata Morgana. One with triple Fusion Mortars and a Heavy Needler as organic medium indirect fire artillery. One with triple vehicle grade Missile Launchers and a Heavy Needler as indirect fire artillery and organic anti-air
1 Headquarters: A command squad to be mounted in the Command Heavy Tank.
The reason I've gone through this is just to demonstrate the number of different vehicles we're likely to want to commission to make a detachment.
This armoured detachment has nine vehicle designs in it. Each of these will need WAP to commission. This is quite a reasonable number, given the limits of only having three units of a given type, and the importance of having organic artillery and anti-air support.
If we wanted to make a more homogenous unit with more equal speed and protection we may even want to make command and elite versions of the Fata Morgana rather than use a heavy chasss, but that doesn't change the number of designs.
That's true. As we don't have any designs that use those in service or in our stockpile, there's even less incentive to iterate on them.
Now, I think that such a unit is designed to operate together, so we don't want too wide a spread on speed or protection across it.
The kind of thing I'd look at is:
1 HQ: Command variant of a not yet developed Heavy Tank chassis
2 elites: Elite variant of a Heavy Tank chassis. Probably with at least on Point Singularity Projector as they're noted to need skilled crew, and they probably need to keep aiming at the target during the singularity's travel time, so heavy armour is helpful. Plus some other weapons
3 Troops: Fata Morgana chassis with paired Vehicle Amplifier and Imploder, an extra Grav Shield, and either a pair of heavy needles or a vehicle Vibration grab weapon, if that can hit an area to melt infantry
3 Fast Attack: 3 units of twelve of our iterated jet bikes with a mixture of plasma cannons, heavy needlers, and missile launchers. I think jet bikes maybe to our grav tanks what regular infantry are to much slower and ground bound regular tanks
2 Extra Troops: a different Troop variant of a Fata Morgana with, say, twin vehicle plasma cannons, two heavy needles, and an extra grav shield
2 Extra Heavy Support: two variants of the Fata Morgana. One with triple Fusion Mortars and a Heavy Needler as organic medium indirect fire artillery. One with triple vehicle grade Missile Launchers and a Heavy Needler as indirect fire artillery and organic anti-air
1 Headquarters: A command squad to be mounted in the Command Heavy Tank.
The reason I've gone through this is just to demonstrate the number of different vehicles we're likely to want to commission to make a detachment.
This armoured detachment has nine vehicle designs in it. Each of these will need WAP to commission. This is quite a reasonable number, given the limits of only having three units of a given type, and the importance of having organic artillery and anti-air support.
If we wanted to make a more homogenous unit with more equal speed and protection we may even want to make command and elite versions of the Fata Morgana rather than use a heavy chasss, but that doesn't change the number of designs.
That's true. As we don't have any designs that use those in service or in our stockpile, there's even less incentive to iterate on them.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
With the chassis design work we have now done.
I would say the heavy grav vehicle might get an iteration, but the rest doesn't.
The for the air/spacecraft a flat out new chassis likely works the best.
If we want a light vehicle we are better off going for a new design that is suited for what ever role(s) we want it for.
Attached transports are only allowed 1 heavy weapon + ranged weapons.
Edit: Unless you put the tanks into the troop slot instead of infantry ?
I would say the heavy grav vehicle might get an iteration, but the rest doesn't.
The for the air/spacecraft a flat out new chassis likely works the best.
If we want a light vehicle we are better off going for a new design that is suited for what ever role(s) we want it for.
Assuming you are using attach transports here this is an invalid design.
Attached transports are only allowed 1 heavy weapon + ranged weapons.
Edit: Unless you put the tanks into the troop slot instead of infantry ?
Last edited:
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan: Fata Morgana-class Multirole Chassis, Gravshield Variant
Not sure the vote is still open, but...
Basically, a multirole chassis is better for our purposes because we can set up fewer production lines for the same output of vehicles that are almost as good as specialized vehicles in their given role. Greater output of good designs is to our benefit, especially early on. As Perun says, "a good-enough tank is better than no tank", and a critical advantage of the Allies in WW2 (past the early stages of the war) was that they had enough tanks for them to be available for a lot of tasks frequently to back up infantry and other types of units all the time, rather than needing to concentrate all of them in a handful of armored divisions just to keep the armored divisions up to strength.
The modular aspect also plays well, as we can choose which weapons we want later on in different variants, or upgrade armaments for future weapons systems.
And the more industrial actions we can make to expanding an existing production line and expanding our industry rather than creating new production lines for specific, new designs that are all similar but specialized, the better. (For example: the M4 Sherman chassis was the basis for a ton of vehicles, but benefited from all of them sharing the same chassis, massively easing production of them all rather than needing new chassis for each new vehicle).
Not sure the vote is still open, but...
Basically, a multirole chassis is better for our purposes because we can set up fewer production lines for the same output of vehicles that are almost as good as specialized vehicles in their given role. Greater output of good designs is to our benefit, especially early on. As Perun says, "a good-enough tank is better than no tank", and a critical advantage of the Allies in WW2 (past the early stages of the war) was that they had enough tanks for them to be available for a lot of tasks frequently to back up infantry and other types of units all the time, rather than needing to concentrate all of them in a handful of armored divisions just to keep the armored divisions up to strength.
The modular aspect also plays well, as we can choose which weapons we want later on in different variants, or upgrade armaments for future weapons systems.
And the more industrial actions we can make to expanding an existing production line and expanding our industry rather than creating new production lines for specific, new designs that are all similar but specialized, the better. (For example: the M4 Sherman chassis was the basis for a ton of vehicles, but benefited from all of them sharing the same chassis, massively easing production of them all rather than needing new chassis for each new vehicle).
Last edited:
No, I'm putting a vehicle into a troop or elite slot. The only infantry unit in the detachment is the command squad in the extra HQ slot.
Every other unit is an armoured vehicle or mounted on jet bikes.
This is what you do, I think, for armoured detachments.
Last edited:
If we were going to make a light tank, it'd probably go in the fast attack role competing with the Jetbikes.
If minelaying equipment is too bulky and inconvenient to go on bikes, a dedicated minelayer might be of use in Heavy Support.
- Location
- Germany
One of the max variation of what you can stuff into a detachment
2 HQ
5 Troop
4 Fast Attack
3 Elite
4 Heavy support
1 Special Unit
= 19 Units/Squads
18 if we pull the special unit
So if we want to play games with the org chart:
2 HQ - (Super) Heavy Tank
5 Troop - 3 MBT, 2 AA Tanks
4 Fast Attack - 2 light tanks, 2 aircraft
3 Elite - 3 (Heavy) Tanks
4 Heavy support - 2-3 (super) Heavy Tanks with long range indirect fire, 1-2 heavy gunships
At least that would be one potential mix here.
We can and should mix in aircraft here + some general AA + some long range fire support.
Some superheavy weapons on some of these are very likely wanted in this.
The reason for that is that i kind of have problems seeing when we would ever deploy an armored detachment if part of the mission isn't smash some very heavily fortified position that has super heavies / potential titans.
2 HQ
5 Troop
4 Fast Attack
3 Elite
4 Heavy support
1 Special Unit
= 19 Units/Squads
18 if we pull the special unit
So if we want to play games with the org chart:
2 HQ - (Super) Heavy Tank
5 Troop - 3 MBT, 2 AA Tanks
4 Fast Attack - 2 light tanks, 2 aircraft
3 Elite - 3 (Heavy) Tanks
4 Heavy support - 2-3 (super) Heavy Tanks with long range indirect fire, 1-2 heavy gunships
At least that would be one potential mix here.
We can and should mix in aircraft here + some general AA + some long range fire support.
Some superheavy weapons on some of these are very likely wanted in this.
The reason for that is that i kind of have problems seeing when we would ever deploy an armored detachment if part of the mission isn't smash some very heavily fortified position that has super heavies / potential titans.
Last edited:
- Location
- Utrecht
Do we even have Super heavies to iterate on?
- Location
- Germany
Yes the heavy grav vehicle is a super heavy chassis.
It's also the only one left that I would actually try to iterate on.
I probably wouldn't pick that myself, as I think that the jet bikes can do the 'infantry' job of screening the grav tanks better than a single light tank could.
One complexity here is whether Mechanis is using tank squadrons.
In the tabletop game you can take squadrons of three tanks in a single slot.
For example, a Leman Russ company has ten tanks. One Command variant in an HQ slot, and three squadrons of three Leman Russes.
You then have a Leman Russ regiment, which is three of those companies plus a HQ detachment of a regimental command tank, and squadrons of Hydra Anti-Air tanks and Sentinel Walkers, and sometimes a Super-Heavy as an auxiliary support.
If Mechanis is using Squadrons, then there would be a lot more tanks in the Detachment.
I think that's a bad mix. Detachments are designed to operate together. You want the units in it to have similar speeds and similar levels of protection, I think as they're on the same part of the battlefield and travel mostly at the speed of the slowest unit, and can only go where the least protected unit can survive.
It's at the war host level where you have different detachments operating in concert that you'd combine those units.
So you'd have a detachment of mostly medium armoured tanks towards the front, a detachment of lightly armoured artillery that stayed together further from the enemy, a detachment of super-heavies doing what super-heavies do, a detachment of mechanised infantry for when close dismounted assualt was required, a recon detachment of jet bikes and light tanks, and a detachment of aircraft providing air support.
That's because the Warhost is the unit of deployment, not the detachment.
Last edited:
Ah, right, the light tanks wouldn't go in the armor detachment at all, they'd be the heavy support equivalent for a recon detachment. Hmm.
There have been 'armored detachments' in the past of WH40k that can just...take way more HS, or even take some tanks as troops, and this seems to be what's going on here in this proposal. Sticking within the limited offerings of our current force-org, I'd go with this:
2 HQ units, either infantry with attached transport, tank commanders, or a paired infantry commander and IFV command vehicles.
2 units of Troops, mounted on attached transports for rapid movement
3 units of Fast Attack Tanks, light vehicles with an emphasis on speed.
3 Heavy Support MBT units,
2 Elite Combat-walker units, or elite infantr support with attached transports.
Exactly.
I'm not even convinced that you'd have the jet bikes in the armoured detachment I proposed, although they do have a use.
It's possible you'd want to just not have Fast Attack units in that detachment and instead have them in the recon detachment, as you say.
Or have a Fast Attack variant of the Fata Morgana with closer ranged weapons, something like Grav Vibration Weapons.
The problem is that this detachment has very different speeds and levels of protection. The Grav Tanks can't make use of the fact that they can redeploy across the theatre at hundreds of miles per hour if they have to move at the literal walking pace of a combat walker.
A detachment isn't an army. That's a Warhost. A detachment is a wing of an army designed to operate together, that's why I say all the units in it need similar speeds and levels of protection. Otherwise you're limited to travelling at speeds and into levels of danger of the lowest.
I read the Warhost Informational post before posting the suggestion above. Nothing says we can't take vehicles in Troops slots. I think this strongly suggests we can:
I think we can have a doctrine that says that for some detachments, tanks are Troops.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
Lets take a look at Zahr-Tans armored detachment:
2 HQ infantry squads
5 Troop squads
2 Elite squads
+ bunch of Scabbards+Falchions (something funky is going on here because the Falchions seem to be used as attached transport but can't carry the full squad, only has capacity for 4)
3 Longsword Skimmers (Fast attack?)
3 Halberd Battle Tanks (Heavy support)
The detachments in general are build to fill a certain niche like for the armored detachment its (very) heavy fighting.
There is also very little organizational slot fuckery going on when switching between detachments and stuff stays in designated areas.
The implication is that what ever fuckery we do with the slots goes for pretty much our entire army.
You put a (variant) tank into the troops slot, they stay there and you don't get to pull them out of that late when building a new detachment.
2 HQ infantry squads
5 Troop squads
2 Elite squads
+ bunch of Scabbards+Falchions (something funky is going on here because the Falchions seem to be used as attached transport but can't carry the full squad, only has capacity for 4)
3 Longsword Skimmers (Fast attack?)
3 Halberd Battle Tanks (Heavy support)
The detachments in general are build to fill a certain niche like for the armored detachment its (very) heavy fighting.
There is also very little organizational slot fuckery going on when switching between detachments and stuff stays in designated areas.
The implication is that what ever fuckery we do with the slots goes for pretty much our entire army.
You put a (variant) tank into the troops slot, they stay there and you don't get to pull them out of that late when building a new detachment.
Last edited:
If you want to redeploy walkers across hundreds of miles, there are aerial transporters for that. And there's nothing to say that they can't run at hundreds of kilometers per hour, like Battlemechs.
If we really want to play games with an org chart, we can develop a new doctrine. E.g. ultra-mechanized one.
Also, I'm tinkering in my mind with flying saucers designs. We have two ways of making sure the vehicle can't be easily mobility killed: one is putting engines behind armor - super expensive. The other is putting two times more open engines than needed. Like, if your vehicle must take 4 lucky shots through the shields to be mobility killed, it's the same level of sturdiness as putting a single engine behind heavy armor, which also requires several lucky shots to mobility kill. If these engines are put to "speed" it has an additional benefit of making the fresh vehicle impossibly fast.
Something like this:
- Medium chassis, fully external engines, plasma turbines, starlight reactor, medium armor. Stability 3, Maneuvrability 2.
- 8x Enhance Speed engines
With full shield panoply (all 6 of them integrated) it has 53 free slots, and if we only fill 41 of them (e.g. by an extra grav-shield and 6 vehicle weapons) it can survive 4 engines being busted by just losing some speed. Until the engines are busted it's closer to an aircraft than to a grav-tank in speed, and with 6 layers of shielding on top of super-speed it's hard to bust 4 engines. The EP cost on top of base chassis is 139 EP. It even works in space! Can throw in extra hardening for a crew compartment or some other improvements. Seems like a good rocket artillery or AA platform to me.
Interesting how this idea is going to work one a lighter or heavier chassis.
@Mechanis is that something we can do or 8 engines are getting into unreasonable territory?
Last edited:
I think that 8 engines are unquestionably unreasonable territory, and you would need to lose far fewer than 4 engines to lose control of the vehicle, because dear gods, that thing is gonna have to cluster them up very tightly and you won't be able to contain their chain-explosions.
Octocopters are a thing, and work well. It's definitely a reasonable question to ask about the tech we know nothing about.
UPD: closest analogue to grav vehicles, military hovercraft, also field multiple propellers: two to four are more common but six and eight are also not unheard of on larger crafts.
Last edited:
That's just because of the choices Zahr-Tann made for what goes in which slot. In our troops slots we currently have both Guardian Militia Fire Squads with Wraithbone Trauma Plates and Forgefire Squads in Ithilmar with Power Mauls and Heavy Flamers. They fill totally different roles, as different as a tank and one of those units.
I don't see we can't have Fata Morgana tanks as troops to use in armoured detachments, as well as VGW+Sunblaster w. medium armoured transports to serve in mechanised infantry detachments plus Militia in Brigantine with Needlers w. lightly armoured transports to serve in motorised infantry detachments. They'd all be Troops. We just wouldn't usually choose to use those same troops together in the same Detachment, even though we'd have the option to.
Yes, we'd have lots of different 'Troops', just as the Imperial Guard has lots of different troops that it uses in different kinds of regiments, but I don't see why that's a problem.
We don't know if we can even add organic transports like that. And this matters for tactical movement on the battlefield, not just strategic movement. If we want to detachment to be able to exploit the fact that the vehicles in it can fly around at hundreds of miles an hour, all of the units in it need to be able to do that. Otherwise they'd leave parts of the detachment behind. And this applies on a single battlefield when you want everyone to be able to be five miles away in 20 seconds so you can drop an orbital strike right then before the concentration of enemies there can redeploy, or you want them to engage while travelling at a hundreds miles an hour, making flyby attacks at treetop height, or similar. You can't load them onto a transport.
Basically, I think for optimal use, nearly everything in a detachment wants to be in the same category of movement and resilience, as otherwise you're wasting the speed and resilience of the faster/hardier units.
Last edited:
I don't think sticking a bunch of Ithilmar-armored melee types in a troop slot has fucked our ability to use Ithilmar on Elites for the rest of our army.
We say "this squad is Elite, this one a Troop, this one a Heavy Support, this one a Fast Attack" when we design the troop, not when we design the gear that goes in it, and it's not like we lose the ability to make different squads with that gear.
So, like, if we made a Troop squad filled with several light tanks, it'd be a Troop squad whenever we raised it, and it'd stay a Troop even if we later put it into a Warhost that wasn't intended to be dedicated heavy metal Warhost.
The cost is that when we design a Troop, time spent designing a Troop that only fits into one type of Warhost that we won't have that many of is time not spent designing troops that almost every Warhost is going to be using day in and day out.
The actual difference between the troop types in practice, outside of "whatever we stick in them"... we know it impacts how many we can include in a detachment, with Troop and Fast Attack being able to bring more and Special being able to bring less. There's probably other impacts what we're not aware of, either from Peaceful or just from inexperience, e.g. Elites possibly being made up of more-skilled soldiers.
Also, our commanders (who we do not get to micromanage) are presumably going to use troops by their designation, so Fast Attack get the orders to make flanking attacks, Troops get the orders to hold ground, Heavy Support get the orders to back up Troops who've run into trouble, that kind of thing.
I don't agree with @Alratan that everything in a detachment needs to have the same speed; yes, they'll collectively move at the speed of the slowest element, but that's for strategic movement; tactically having units in your forces that can quickly respond to things faster than the rest of your forces is basically what Fast Attack is for, and we don't want tactical situations getting kicked up to the guy in charge of the entire Warhost if it's a detachment-scale problem that they only can't deal with because we specifically denied them the proper tools.
What we do need to pay close attention to is the slowest speeds in the detachment, and consider the impact of adding a unit slower than that very carefully.
I don't think they need to have exactly the same speed or level of protection, but they should probably be in the same ballpark. Sure, have Fast Attack that's faster than average, but particularly when dealing with armoured detachments, what Fast Attack probably needs more than speed is manoeuvrability. It's the ability to accelerate to rapidly change direction and respond to a threat or opportunity.
What also matters for Fast Attack is, I think, range. A Fast Attack unit wants to focus on shorter range attacks than a Troop unit usually does, as their role is to drive towards the threat/opportunity and hit the enemy from behind or in the flank
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
There then is the question if we are concerned with the speed what goes for our heavy "ground units".
Would going for (super) heavy "air" units fix that problem, considering that the situations that we will need what goes for our heavy/super heavy vehicles very rarely in looking at our overall strategic situation.
I am going to disagree with you here pretty hard there our flanking forces shouldn't (need) run into what goes for close range engagements.
Close range is the absolutely worst range for us because it restricts our ability to maneuver and is one of the places where enemies have the easiest time to damage/kill our units.
Last edited:
Mmm. A squad of soldiers who need to disembark to start firing and all get back on board their transport to move again is a very poor fast attack unit even if their transport is the fastest thing in the detachment.
Still needs some speed, though. A set of jump-pack hit'n'fade footsloggers might be very questionable Fast Attack units even if they can fire on the move and disengage reliably if they can't get to the critical spots on the battlefield in time.
So far, our only attached air unit falls under Special. I wouldn't be surprised if we could stick a shuttle specialized in moving heavy tanks from place to place as a Special unit, but I would be concerned that their transport being taken out would become a weakness of the tanks.