Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Threadmark still lists the reward as TBD.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears (WH40k Design Bureau)
- Thread starter DaLintyGuy
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
Turn One Strategy Phase Results: Pox Marsh, Lexicalum, Minor Powers
Plan Local Counterstrike and Consolidation
The start of a Crusade was no small thing. It was weeks of speeches, by religious and more secular speakers from the heights of power. It was the display of might to the citizens that the power to change, to improve the galaxy was there. It was late night meetings for final supply dispositions, it was constant shuttle, lifter, and booster launches, it was tens of millions of people leaving the world of their birth to seek death among the stars.
A Crusade was no simple military operation, though it was that as well. It was the rage, hate, greed, and hope of Humanity condensed into one act of destruction aimed at that which threatened it's survival.
This was one of the humbler starts on record... But it was just the start. Buoyed by the vision of what seemed to be an unstoppable force departing legons of workers bent back to their tasks. In the shipyards to birth more warriors to ply the stars, in the factories to provide for what was already fielded, and in the fields to feed the world and all who depended on Calavar for sustenance.
1st Naval Squadron, 1st Auxiliary Squadron, and the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Army: Pox Marsh
Warp travel was neither safe nor fast. Existence itself was in flux and only held in place by the artifice of Human hands. Every deckhand, soldier, and captain to travel the inchoate madness fervently prayed that "today" would not be the one failure. And while there were minor manifestations it seemed that this would be the case.
The Navigators present noted a slight discoloration in the madness before the task force tore out from the realm of thought and reentered the Materium. Sensors opened and peered across the void of space once the wounds in reality had closed, searching for those their wielders deemed to be enemies.
They found them.
The Agri World was listed on Calavan charts as Bailafax and even before the invasion had been a world of few inhabitants. Migratory workers harvested great sheets of fungus from the rocks that would be turned into nutrient paste and medicae supplies for those who were willing to pay for such, be they Forge World or Chartist vessel. A single great processing plant formed almost a quarter of the capital city where the production of a world was brought in great tracked crawlers for sale and conversion.
The arrival of devotees of the Ruinous Powers had changed all of this. The fungus the world once produced was left to grow unchecked with irrigation channels dug for shore plants to thrive in between the massive fans. Slave labor stripped from nearby worlds continuously expanded these works and were buried where they fell as the "Pox Marsh" was forcefully spread in a climate that should never have supported such a thing. It was not a Warp phenomenon, not yet.
But the cultists were seeking to make it so.
The men and women of Calavar were intent on keeping it from occurring.
Automated systems checked incoming data against libraries of foe-recognition tables and discarded things that did not match the definition of "foe": chunks of ice and rock or debris left over from some long ago disaster. The idiot-savant programs ruthlessly carved away the massive emission sources that were the primary and the planets, and carefully sifted them for anything that fit. First two, then five, than eight tracks were confirmed across the fleet. Lord-Captain Kelaman checked over the data personally and concurred: the cultists were offering battle.
[Combat Initiated:
Loyalist Forces
2x Resolute-class Corvettes
1x Escort Carrier
2x Armed Merchant Marine
4x Craft Hauler Transports
-2x Infantry Armies
Traitor Forces
5x Captured Freighters
2x Captured Craft Hauler
1x Captured Bulk Haulers]
The vessels of the cultists were ill-maintained in addition to being repurposed civilian shipping. Rust was present on every surface, leading the captain of the Starstrider to ponder aloud whether the Traitors had purposefully fouled their hulls using oxidizing chemicals. Soon after a horde of small craft lifted off of the Traitor flight decks and emerged from converted cargo bays like scavenger insects disturbed from a carcass. The mismatched force was several wings strong but held no commonality of equipment: civilian pleasure yachts flew alongside a handful of Lightning interceptors, shrouded with a dozen models of cargo shuttles with guns or boarding clamps welded on.
The Calavan fleet launched it's own strike craft in response. Combat Lighters neatly filed into space and formed a bulwark ahead of the combat line and the transports waiting behind. Their numbers seemed paltry in comparison to the horde that bore down on them but they held their position with only minor wavers, for this was not a mere military campaign but a Crusade. And there were Traitors ahead of them.
Space lit up with the discharge of weapons, ranging from the vehicle scale lascannons on the Combat Lighters to the ship based turrets on the flanks of the Resolute and second rate vessels behind them, to a cacophonous yowl of a dozen types and a hundred makes of weapons from the oncoming Traitors. Small craft burned as weapons gouged and rent armor but the heart had been torn out of the swarm as the actual military frames were prioritized for destruction by the disciplined gunline of the Calavans.
Converted craft smashed against the flanks of the Calavan warships, easily boring through the unarmored hulls and disgorging loads of slave soldiery onto their decks. But these were no civilian transports that could be frightened into submission, or ill prepared System Defense vessels that had never seen combat. Calavan armsmen responded to the site of reported incursions without delay and engaged the rowdy mobs of thralls with perhaps a little less trigger discipline than was warranted. Even so, the Calavan defenders had the benefit of adequate ammunition for every man and full armor for every soldier where the Nurglite attackers typically had little more than the odd chainsword, a handful of stubguns, and improvised melee equipment.
Numbers began to win out in the end, as the Calavan warships matched up against their supposed equals as the Traitor light "carriers" fled, and systems went offline as marauders overran decks and killed crew.
And then the gun duel commenced. The death flare of small craft was rendered miniscule as shield failures filled the void with seething static and washed out vox channels and small targeting systems. Solid slugs hammered into hulls with muted flashes of light and snuffed out lives by the hundred without them even knowing they were under threat.
On the third volley one of the Traitor gunships buckled, internal spars broken near the stern as their shield layer did little to resist the heavy shells of their opposites, whereas their own guns were finding little purchase on the Calavan rapid-generating shields. Shield panes would drop and allow maybe one or two shells through, and then return to block the rest of the volley. Two of the Traitor gunships then decided to cooperate, timing their shells to arrive at nearly the same time, and promptly began taking fire from both Resolutes under the reasoning that Traitors capable of working together were a greater threat than mere random barbarians.
The two Armed Merchants assigned to the squadron dueled with the leftover gunships, their superior armor to the Resolutes reducing the bites along their flanks to mere pinpricks as they slowly savaged their opposites. Calavan Combat Lighters continued to flow through the fleet battle even as the Traitor craft ebbed back to their carriers behind their battle line. Reduced in number but unbowed the Calavan small craft reaped a terrible toll on the retreating craft, lascannon capacitors recharged while the autocannon turrets had kept the Nurglite flotsam at arms reach.
With the tide turning the Traitor commander finally committed their flagship to the fray, collecting a number of their own craft in it's cavernous launch bays and raging at the "cowards" who fled past the Bulk Hauler towards the still fleeing light carriers with bellowed demands and light cannon fire alike. Sensing greater prey the two Resolutes turned from their savaged victims and burned towards the oncoming heavy ship with the mangled remains of ad hoc boarding craft studding their flanks and murder in the eyes of their two captains.
In a strange moment of clarity the Traitor commander took stock of their position. The enemy fleet was bloodied but unbowed, having thoroughly outgunned their every opponent by dint of superior craftsmanship of weapons and defenses alike, and their own was ravaged by gunfire. Two of their gunships were thoroughly crippled, with another just then being vigorously gutted by a fuel explosion as both Armed Merchants coordinated their fire.
And both of the heaviest ships in the enemy force were now solely focused on the Traitor flagship. That was now rearming, and refueling, a strike package.
It's bow began to turn away from the oncoming Calavan warships but there was no respite to be found: it only gave the two Corvettes a larger target to hit. The Traitor flagship began firing weapons meant to discourage pirates and the Calavan warship returned fire with weapons built with the line of battle in mind, from behind shields meant to fall and rise again, laying fire using sensors a cut above that of their opponents.
With the enemy fleet dispersed and the Resolutes licking their wounds and those of their fellow combat ships the second phase of the operation could be undertaken. From orbit tacticians studied the defenses of the Traitors, mapping out crude defensive works and plotting troop strength and concentration. Offensive operations were drawn up, with estimations of the time needed to thoroughly stamp out the enemy armed forces under the assumption that they were at least as well equipped as the Calavan soldiery, at the same time as the first ground strike packages were being launched by the Escort Carrier to further decapitate the Traitor's command structure and destroy vital supplies.
It was no longer a battle. It was industrialized slaughter, the retribution of a scorned father.
[Operation Result: Victory
Enemy Losses:
3x Captured Freighters
1x Bulk Hauler
1x Infantry Army (approximate)
Friendly Losses:
11M in Ship Repairs
2M Worth of Combat Lighters
1M Worth of Infantry Losses]
2nd Naval Squadron + 1st Calavar Infantry Army: Outpost Station Lexicalum
The Adeptus Mechanicus was a notoriously insular organization. Lexicalum did not break with this pattern. Built above an Agri World in order to keep the skilled labor from having a supply interruption and need to be replaced, the disk shaped station measured twelve kilometers across and had docking space for a small armada of freighters. Internal factories produced anything it could need from material shipped in from light years around and it's leadership wrought great works from what was left over. These trade ties had been the key to it's survival once the Subsector began to fall.
As Xenos rolled over the core of Lativa (including Lexicalum's parent Forge World) and Traitors pressed in from the West Lexicalum heard the pleas of it's partners and turned it's great industrial might to the support of it's loyal providers and Humanity. Hundreds of millions of lasguns spilled from hastily retooled manufactorums along with lascannon, tanks, and a comparative handful of air- and strike craft. When the Orks finally came Lexicalum's partners were ready to repel them and burn the very earth to prevent local infestations. When Traitor vessels came to plunder the transports they were seen off by meticulously produced voidfaring strikecraft that rent hulls apart in great, plasma-fueled pyres.
When the Calavar detachment of ships and men arrived to offer aid Lexicalum was running out of ships with which to fight, to base their far superior fighters and bombers from, and to ship minerals to the voracious foundries that studded it's underside.
Feeling the executioner's axe pressing towards their neck the senior Magos of Lexicalum took up a spirited negotiation with the commodore of the 2nd Naval Squadron. If Calavar could help keep the shipping lanes open, if they would render aid to Lexicalum's beleaguered partners, and if Lexicalum's sovereignty and mandate were respected...
Then Lexicalum would provide equipment to the force of Calavar at cost.
The commodore accepted, naturally. It was the whole reason that he had been sent here and the terms were the same as the Adeptus Mechanicus' other branches. Nothing was lost, for much potential gain.
And so the Calavar naval detachment broke up into hunter pairs and tasked the Escort Carrier Due Excise to convoy escort duties only with Lexicalum squadrons rather than Calavan ones. Lone Ork Attakk Ships were no match for paired military vessels, and with a ship built to base strike craft the Mechanicus squadron reaped a vicious toll whenever an enemy approached a convoy with the Due Excise present.
The First Infantry Army undertook a campaign of extermination against the Ork remnants left over from a dozen raids and failed invasions, for they were massed, used to working together, and had not underwent decades of attrition against the green hordes. With the aid of a few thousand armed soldiers not even the most entrenched heretic or cultist den was safe and the Mechanicus worlds made regular use of this aid for their own militaries had been battered enough that the losses and publicization of their weakness would have had major potential ramifications.
[Operation Result: Lexicalum Ties Formed
-Lexicalum has agreed to provide (read: trade) manufactured goods in excess of what Calavar can make domestically, although not ship components. Relations will need considerable warming before proper technical patterns can be bought, although they have gifted Calavar a basic defensive platform schematic as a token of appreciation.
-Calvar has agreed to garrison and patrol the region, as well as lend civilian shipping to take over for lost ships. This will require at least one Naval Squadron, with a ground force Army considered useful but not critical.
2M of Ship Repairs Required]
3rd Naval Squadron + 4th Calavar Infantry Army: Nearby Worlds
The worlds of Humanity were lost and adrift without someone to motivate and look after them. When warships entered their skies, to stay, men who controlled worlds purportedly wept with joy. Armed soldiers marched down streets and were welcomed as heroes rather than shunned as conquerors.
It is the duty of all of the worlds of the Imperium of Man to provide for their own and the collective defense, and now the worlds near Calavar had a way to do so once more.
[Operation Result: Nearby Worlds Vassalized, +50M every turn, +worlds to recruit infantry from]
[Battle Honors and other Stuff will be updated Soon(TM)]
[Beware, for resistance will only stiffen from here...]
The start of a Crusade was no small thing. It was weeks of speeches, by religious and more secular speakers from the heights of power. It was the display of might to the citizens that the power to change, to improve the galaxy was there. It was late night meetings for final supply dispositions, it was constant shuttle, lifter, and booster launches, it was tens of millions of people leaving the world of their birth to seek death among the stars.
A Crusade was no simple military operation, though it was that as well. It was the rage, hate, greed, and hope of Humanity condensed into one act of destruction aimed at that which threatened it's survival.
This was one of the humbler starts on record... But it was just the start. Buoyed by the vision of what seemed to be an unstoppable force departing legons of workers bent back to their tasks. In the shipyards to birth more warriors to ply the stars, in the factories to provide for what was already fielded, and in the fields to feed the world and all who depended on Calavar for sustenance.
1st Naval Squadron, 1st Auxiliary Squadron, and the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Army: Pox Marsh
Warp travel was neither safe nor fast. Existence itself was in flux and only held in place by the artifice of Human hands. Every deckhand, soldier, and captain to travel the inchoate madness fervently prayed that "today" would not be the one failure. And while there were minor manifestations it seemed that this would be the case.
The Navigators present noted a slight discoloration in the madness before the task force tore out from the realm of thought and reentered the Materium. Sensors opened and peered across the void of space once the wounds in reality had closed, searching for those their wielders deemed to be enemies.
They found them.
The Agri World was listed on Calavan charts as Bailafax and even before the invasion had been a world of few inhabitants. Migratory workers harvested great sheets of fungus from the rocks that would be turned into nutrient paste and medicae supplies for those who were willing to pay for such, be they Forge World or Chartist vessel. A single great processing plant formed almost a quarter of the capital city where the production of a world was brought in great tracked crawlers for sale and conversion.
The arrival of devotees of the Ruinous Powers had changed all of this. The fungus the world once produced was left to grow unchecked with irrigation channels dug for shore plants to thrive in between the massive fans. Slave labor stripped from nearby worlds continuously expanded these works and were buried where they fell as the "Pox Marsh" was forcefully spread in a climate that should never have supported such a thing. It was not a Warp phenomenon, not yet.
But the cultists were seeking to make it so.
The men and women of Calavar were intent on keeping it from occurring.
Automated systems checked incoming data against libraries of foe-recognition tables and discarded things that did not match the definition of "foe": chunks of ice and rock or debris left over from some long ago disaster. The idiot-savant programs ruthlessly carved away the massive emission sources that were the primary and the planets, and carefully sifted them for anything that fit. First two, then five, than eight tracks were confirmed across the fleet. Lord-Captain Kelaman checked over the data personally and concurred: the cultists were offering battle.
[Combat Initiated:
Loyalist Forces
2x Resolute-class Corvettes
1x Escort Carrier
2x Armed Merchant Marine
4x Craft Hauler Transports
-2x Infantry Armies
Traitor Forces
5x Captured Freighters
2x Captured Craft Hauler
1x Captured Bulk Haulers]
The vessels of the cultists were ill-maintained in addition to being repurposed civilian shipping. Rust was present on every surface, leading the captain of the Starstrider to ponder aloud whether the Traitors had purposefully fouled their hulls using oxidizing chemicals. Soon after a horde of small craft lifted off of the Traitor flight decks and emerged from converted cargo bays like scavenger insects disturbed from a carcass. The mismatched force was several wings strong but held no commonality of equipment: civilian pleasure yachts flew alongside a handful of Lightning interceptors, shrouded with a dozen models of cargo shuttles with guns or boarding clamps welded on.
The Calavan fleet launched it's own strike craft in response. Combat Lighters neatly filed into space and formed a bulwark ahead of the combat line and the transports waiting behind. Their numbers seemed paltry in comparison to the horde that bore down on them but they held their position with only minor wavers, for this was not a mere military campaign but a Crusade. And there were Traitors ahead of them.
Space lit up with the discharge of weapons, ranging from the vehicle scale lascannons on the Combat Lighters to the ship based turrets on the flanks of the Resolute and second rate vessels behind them, to a cacophonous yowl of a dozen types and a hundred makes of weapons from the oncoming Traitors. Small craft burned as weapons gouged and rent armor but the heart had been torn out of the swarm as the actual military frames were prioritized for destruction by the disciplined gunline of the Calavans.
Converted craft smashed against the flanks of the Calavan warships, easily boring through the unarmored hulls and disgorging loads of slave soldiery onto their decks. But these were no civilian transports that could be frightened into submission, or ill prepared System Defense vessels that had never seen combat. Calavan armsmen responded to the site of reported incursions without delay and engaged the rowdy mobs of thralls with perhaps a little less trigger discipline than was warranted. Even so, the Calavan defenders had the benefit of adequate ammunition for every man and full armor for every soldier where the Nurglite attackers typically had little more than the odd chainsword, a handful of stubguns, and improvised melee equipment.
Numbers began to win out in the end, as the Calavan warships matched up against their supposed equals as the Traitor light "carriers" fled, and systems went offline as marauders overran decks and killed crew.
And then the gun duel commenced. The death flare of small craft was rendered miniscule as shield failures filled the void with seething static and washed out vox channels and small targeting systems. Solid slugs hammered into hulls with muted flashes of light and snuffed out lives by the hundred without them even knowing they were under threat.
On the third volley one of the Traitor gunships buckled, internal spars broken near the stern as their shield layer did little to resist the heavy shells of their opposites, whereas their own guns were finding little purchase on the Calavan rapid-generating shields. Shield panes would drop and allow maybe one or two shells through, and then return to block the rest of the volley. Two of the Traitor gunships then decided to cooperate, timing their shells to arrive at nearly the same time, and promptly began taking fire from both Resolutes under the reasoning that Traitors capable of working together were a greater threat than mere random barbarians.
The two Armed Merchants assigned to the squadron dueled with the leftover gunships, their superior armor to the Resolutes reducing the bites along their flanks to mere pinpricks as they slowly savaged their opposites. Calavan Combat Lighters continued to flow through the fleet battle even as the Traitor craft ebbed back to their carriers behind their battle line. Reduced in number but unbowed the Calavan small craft reaped a terrible toll on the retreating craft, lascannon capacitors recharged while the autocannon turrets had kept the Nurglite flotsam at arms reach.
With the tide turning the Traitor commander finally committed their flagship to the fray, collecting a number of their own craft in it's cavernous launch bays and raging at the "cowards" who fled past the Bulk Hauler towards the still fleeing light carriers with bellowed demands and light cannon fire alike. Sensing greater prey the two Resolutes turned from their savaged victims and burned towards the oncoming heavy ship with the mangled remains of ad hoc boarding craft studding their flanks and murder in the eyes of their two captains.
In a strange moment of clarity the Traitor commander took stock of their position. The enemy fleet was bloodied but unbowed, having thoroughly outgunned their every opponent by dint of superior craftsmanship of weapons and defenses alike, and their own was ravaged by gunfire. Two of their gunships were thoroughly crippled, with another just then being vigorously gutted by a fuel explosion as both Armed Merchants coordinated their fire.
And both of the heaviest ships in the enemy force were now solely focused on the Traitor flagship. That was now rearming, and refueling, a strike package.
It's bow began to turn away from the oncoming Calavan warships but there was no respite to be found: it only gave the two Corvettes a larger target to hit. The Traitor flagship began firing weapons meant to discourage pirates and the Calavan warship returned fire with weapons built with the line of battle in mind, from behind shields meant to fall and rise again, laying fire using sensors a cut above that of their opponents.
With the enemy fleet dispersed and the Resolutes licking their wounds and those of their fellow combat ships the second phase of the operation could be undertaken. From orbit tacticians studied the defenses of the Traitors, mapping out crude defensive works and plotting troop strength and concentration. Offensive operations were drawn up, with estimations of the time needed to thoroughly stamp out the enemy armed forces under the assumption that they were at least as well equipped as the Calavan soldiery, at the same time as the first ground strike packages were being launched by the Escort Carrier to further decapitate the Traitor's command structure and destroy vital supplies.
It was no longer a battle. It was industrialized slaughter, the retribution of a scorned father.
[Operation Result: Victory
Enemy Losses:
3x Captured Freighters
1x Bulk Hauler
1x Infantry Army (approximate)
Friendly Losses:
11M in Ship Repairs
2M Worth of Combat Lighters
1M Worth of Infantry Losses]
The Traitors had a literal butt-ton of random flying Stuff crammed onto a couple civilian hulls with the space to turn into hangar decks, the Calavar warships had better everything. Yes, even the Combat Lighters were at least uniformly Okay-ish, and supported by carriers capable of fixing damaged craft on site for subsequent operations. This resulted in a morale break on the Traitor side as the Calavan force endured their best shot and subsequently Doom Slayer-ed the remaining opposition that wasn't running away fast enough.
Also the cultist leader on the ground was a psyker with a small retinue of Plaguebearers but frankly who cares when the Nurglish Army was outnumbered, outgunned, and suffering from regular air attack on every front while having little to no heavy equipment.
Also the cultist leader on the ground was a psyker with a small retinue of Plaguebearers but frankly who cares when the Nurglish Army was outnumbered, outgunned, and suffering from regular air attack on every front while having little to no heavy equipment.
2nd Naval Squadron + 1st Calavar Infantry Army: Outpost Station Lexicalum
The Adeptus Mechanicus was a notoriously insular organization. Lexicalum did not break with this pattern. Built above an Agri World in order to keep the skilled labor from having a supply interruption and need to be replaced, the disk shaped station measured twelve kilometers across and had docking space for a small armada of freighters. Internal factories produced anything it could need from material shipped in from light years around and it's leadership wrought great works from what was left over. These trade ties had been the key to it's survival once the Subsector began to fall.
As Xenos rolled over the core of Lativa (including Lexicalum's parent Forge World) and Traitors pressed in from the West Lexicalum heard the pleas of it's partners and turned it's great industrial might to the support of it's loyal providers and Humanity. Hundreds of millions of lasguns spilled from hastily retooled manufactorums along with lascannon, tanks, and a comparative handful of air- and strike craft. When the Orks finally came Lexicalum's partners were ready to repel them and burn the very earth to prevent local infestations. When Traitor vessels came to plunder the transports they were seen off by meticulously produced voidfaring strikecraft that rent hulls apart in great, plasma-fueled pyres.
When the Calavar detachment of ships and men arrived to offer aid Lexicalum was running out of ships with which to fight, to base their far superior fighters and bombers from, and to ship minerals to the voracious foundries that studded it's underside.
Feeling the executioner's axe pressing towards their neck the senior Magos of Lexicalum took up a spirited negotiation with the commodore of the 2nd Naval Squadron. If Calavar could help keep the shipping lanes open, if they would render aid to Lexicalum's beleaguered partners, and if Lexicalum's sovereignty and mandate were respected...
Then Lexicalum would provide equipment to the force of Calavar at cost.
The commodore accepted, naturally. It was the whole reason that he had been sent here and the terms were the same as the Adeptus Mechanicus' other branches. Nothing was lost, for much potential gain.
And so the Calavar naval detachment broke up into hunter pairs and tasked the Escort Carrier Due Excise to convoy escort duties only with Lexicalum squadrons rather than Calavan ones. Lone Ork Attakk Ships were no match for paired military vessels, and with a ship built to base strike craft the Mechanicus squadron reaped a vicious toll whenever an enemy approached a convoy with the Due Excise present.
The First Infantry Army undertook a campaign of extermination against the Ork remnants left over from a dozen raids and failed invasions, for they were massed, used to working together, and had not underwent decades of attrition against the green hordes. With the aid of a few thousand armed soldiers not even the most entrenched heretic or cultist den was safe and the Mechanicus worlds made regular use of this aid for their own militaries had been battered enough that the losses and publicization of their weakness would have had major potential ramifications.
[Operation Result: Lexicalum Ties Formed
-Lexicalum has agreed to provide (read: trade) manufactured goods in excess of what Calavar can make domestically, although not ship components. Relations will need considerable warming before proper technical patterns can be bought, although they have gifted Calavar a basic defensive platform schematic as a token of appreciation.
-Calvar has agreed to garrison and patrol the region, as well as lend civilian shipping to take over for lost ships. This will require at least one Naval Squadron, with a ground force Army considered useful but not critical.
2M of Ship Repairs Required]
3rd Naval Squadron + 4th Calavar Infantry Army: Nearby Worlds
The worlds of Humanity were lost and adrift without someone to motivate and look after them. When warships entered their skies, to stay, men who controlled worlds purportedly wept with joy. Armed soldiers marched down streets and were welcomed as heroes rather than shunned as conquerors.
It is the duty of all of the worlds of the Imperium of Man to provide for their own and the collective defense, and now the worlds near Calavar had a way to do so once more.
[Operation Result: Nearby Worlds Vassalized, +50M every turn, +worlds to recruit infantry from]
[Battle Honors and other Stuff will be updated Soon(TM)]
[Beware, for resistance will only stiffen from here...]
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Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Alright, I'd say that went well... Now before resistance stiffens up too much, I'd say we should see to the Orks next turn.
- Location
- Brazil
- Pronouns
- He
yeah we should break the waaggg soon
Because I'm selfish NICE like that, here's a few prospective articles to write (600 word minimum, preferably a thousand):
A Combat Lighter pilot going through his kill cam and explaining why his craft needs to be replaced. (Reward: A bonus of one or two to the next strike craft design action)
A survivor of the next-to-final-battle describing how he killed the Traitor psyker-commander. (Reward: I dunno, whatever is thematic with the entry)
An armsman on The Resolute lamenting having to kill victims of the Nurglish cultists. (Reward: Probably a small bonus to developing a counter boarding Utility module)
The captain of the Voidwright, watching as the two Resolutes lay waste to what would have been a fair sized threat with seeming impunity. (Reward: Something, I'll spitball ideas based on what is written) Done by Sir_Travelsalot
A newly minted deckhand seeing a Warp travel manifestation for the first time. (Reward: Idbecoolif? I dunno, a small bonus to the next Warp-tech project maybe)
A Combat Lighter pilot going through his kill cam and explaining why his craft needs to be replaced. (Reward: A bonus of one or two to the next strike craft design action)
A survivor of the next-to-final-battle describing how he killed the Traitor psyker-commander. (Reward: I dunno, whatever is thematic with the entry)
An armsman on The Resolute lamenting having to kill victims of the Nurglish cultists. (Reward: Probably a small bonus to developing a counter boarding Utility module)
A newly minted deckhand seeing a Warp travel manifestation for the first time. (Reward: Idbecoolif? I dunno, a small bonus to the next Warp-tech project maybe)
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Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
I'm willing to try to tackle this. But did the enemy's flagship look like:
(A)
(Heavy Transport, cruiser sized)or
(B)
(Universe-class Mass Conveyor, 12 km long)
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Not the amazingly rare, astoundingly hueg capital-transport, no.(A)(Heavy Transport, cruiser sized)
If it was I'd have put in despairing remarks from the Corvettes as the sheer scale of the target meant they were doing just about nothing.
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NeonLights
Formerly Reliable_2IC
- Location
- In shambles
Would providing additional army groups and taking action against the Waaagh warm relations?
Statwise the ship was:
Captured Bulk Transport
-Medium Civilian Hull (5O,1E)
-Omni: 3x Hangar, 1x SDG (Damage .5), 1x Nav Shield (Shield 1)
With a bunch of more or less Merchant grade gear and Cultist yuck thrown in. Plus being cruiser scale, and having a half load of small craft in it's bays ready to combust when hit with naval fire.
Additional Naval forces, asking them for stuff they want done, or reclaiming bits of Mechanicus knowledge and handng it over rather than keeping it as spoils of war.
Leave them as is, I think. They are scraped together and using under par weaponry that makes up for it with Moar Dakka.
- Location
- Home
Fair enough.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
The number of guns is fine, but I'd suggest making the barrels a bit stubbier.
And just as a "feels good man", the Nurglites didn't even know what kind of ships they were facing because they had Merchant sensors (P .5, A .5) that were poorly maintained to boot. This resulted in offering battle and getting their teeth kicked down around their neck because they were expecting to be fighting ships equivalent to their own. An expectation supported by the engine characteristics your ships shared as they all were using Merchant drives.
- Location
- Home
I think I will. Gives me more options to show off tech progress when we get better guns
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
Well a good first turn I'll say! Let's try to maintain that momentum now.
- Location
- Pilipinas
Better engines for faster ships would be nice, that blockade runner idea and raider seems good or a miltary version of the Orion-class Star Clipper, a canon transport ship with a keel weapon hence having 360° firing arc. Also my favorite transport ship by the way in the RT rpg
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Weaving in the Void (Sir_Travelsalot, Granted Purified Bulk Hauler Frame)
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
It was a mystifying spectacle, void combat. Once calculations had been made, maneuvers executed and the barrages fired there wasn't much to do as a Captain but watch and wait for the ship's processes to cycle, a pattern that would repeat for anything between hours and entire days, the crews rotated out regularly or in times of utmost need simply pushed until exhaustion claimed their lives. But there was something compelling about the sight out from the bridge's viewport, sparks of light bursting into existence like newborn stars and flickering out into nothing in the void.
From what he'd heard and could hear of the Master-at-Arms' communiques with the armsmen evicting the loathsome boarders from the Voidwright's decks, personal combat was an ugly, frantic and blisteringly quick affair. He was very glad indeed that he had no obligation to take part in such. The sight before him held far more appeal.
The discharges of Macrocannons, loosing shot greater in size than any tank e'er constructed over distances the human mind was not and likely could not be equipped to even picture within their minds alone, the flash of Void Shields as said shot was intercepted at the last moment and the flares of engines burning to change a city-sized vessel's course. It all came together in a seemingly slow, stately pace to become a hypnotic, awe-inspiring display.
Let others contend on the ground if they so wished, hollering and feeling pride over firing guns that could at their best scarcely hope to even be considered in the minimum range band for his own. He would gladly remain here, to gaze as the heretic's hideous existence at its end created a single moment of otherwordly radiance and beauty. Here was a tapestry weaved by voidships committing to their courses for good or ill, and he was but one among the artisans of his fleet. It was about time to get back to work again.
"Captain, the Sergeants-at-Arms are reporting no more boarding parties. We've seen them off, sir." Excellent, no more distractions for the Ratings and no need to worry over the gun crews' performance. "Have some of the Armsmen perform a final sweep of the vessel as they're securing the wounded and dead. It wouldn't do to let vermin crawl into hiding on a freshly built craft such as ours, would it?" With a "no sir" from the Master-at-Arms, Grendel Pris' focus returned to the screens before him, tactical displays providing an overview of the loading cycle's timetable, auspex feeds and messages from the Enginarium flagged as being of importance by the Master of the Vox, all flashing before his eyes even as the Master Gunner coordinated targeting telemetry and the Steward directed crews off shift to nourishment and rest in an orderly fashion, occasionally weighing in with rank as he was meant to.
One barrage later, another of the heretics rusted through hulks met its final end as the hull splintered from the birth of a short-lived star within it, a plasma burst's incandescent light bathing the bridge through the transparisteel for a brief instant before dwindling to nothing. "Right, onto the next one. Do the traitors still have anything to clash against, or shall we have to begin pursuit?"
"Captain, the enemy flagship is on an intercept course for our battle line!" Came the shout from the Chief Petty Officer in charge of the Sensorium's auspexes, even as Grendel's tactical display lit up with a pict-capture of the ship in question. It was a daunting sight, at least thrice the length of his own ship, bristling with launch bays for strikecraft. All signs of Imperial iconography had been flensed away from the hull, broken, defiled remnants of the proud Aquila dotting the rusted surface.
Blanching, Grendel turned to the Master of the Vox; "Open a line to all ships in the fleet. I don't feel confident in our odds against that thing unsupported, see who can divert to... assist..." The words died in his mouth as he glanced towards the viewport. Even before the news were spoken by the Master of the Vox, he already had realized them from what he was seeing.
The Resolute and the Wage of Dissent had formed up side by side, burning towards the traitor flagship. Two Corvettes, ships even smaller than his own, and they were charging without a moment's hesitation towards the greatest threat the enemy could throw at them. It was shameful.
"Get word to the Enginarium! I want us burning on an attack course toward that jumped up carrier ten minutes ago! Master Gunner, get the crews prepared to deliver their best shots yet!"
In the end it had been for naught. The two Resolute-class vessels had utterly obliterated the last heretic holdout, and the plasma drives had detonated by the time the Voidwright had closed to Macrocannon range. Still, they'd given a more than favorable accounting of themselves in the first clash of Calavar's Crusade Fleet, and the Resolute-class had passed their trial by fire in leaps and bounds.
With all the grandeur of the battle that had played out around him, Grendel couldn't in the end find it in him to feel too sore about the lost chance for glory.
From what he'd heard and could hear of the Master-at-Arms' communiques with the armsmen evicting the loathsome boarders from the Voidwright's decks, personal combat was an ugly, frantic and blisteringly quick affair. He was very glad indeed that he had no obligation to take part in such. The sight before him held far more appeal.
The discharges of Macrocannons, loosing shot greater in size than any tank e'er constructed over distances the human mind was not and likely could not be equipped to even picture within their minds alone, the flash of Void Shields as said shot was intercepted at the last moment and the flares of engines burning to change a city-sized vessel's course. It all came together in a seemingly slow, stately pace to become a hypnotic, awe-inspiring display.
Let others contend on the ground if they so wished, hollering and feeling pride over firing guns that could at their best scarcely hope to even be considered in the minimum range band for his own. He would gladly remain here, to gaze as the heretic's hideous existence at its end created a single moment of otherwordly radiance and beauty. Here was a tapestry weaved by voidships committing to their courses for good or ill, and he was but one among the artisans of his fleet. It was about time to get back to work again.
"Captain, the Sergeants-at-Arms are reporting no more boarding parties. We've seen them off, sir." Excellent, no more distractions for the Ratings and no need to worry over the gun crews' performance. "Have some of the Armsmen perform a final sweep of the vessel as they're securing the wounded and dead. It wouldn't do to let vermin crawl into hiding on a freshly built craft such as ours, would it?" With a "no sir" from the Master-at-Arms, Grendel Pris' focus returned to the screens before him, tactical displays providing an overview of the loading cycle's timetable, auspex feeds and messages from the Enginarium flagged as being of importance by the Master of the Vox, all flashing before his eyes even as the Master Gunner coordinated targeting telemetry and the Steward directed crews off shift to nourishment and rest in an orderly fashion, occasionally weighing in with rank as he was meant to.
One barrage later, another of the heretics rusted through hulks met its final end as the hull splintered from the birth of a short-lived star within it, a plasma burst's incandescent light bathing the bridge through the transparisteel for a brief instant before dwindling to nothing. "Right, onto the next one. Do the traitors still have anything to clash against, or shall we have to begin pursuit?"
"Captain, the enemy flagship is on an intercept course for our battle line!" Came the shout from the Chief Petty Officer in charge of the Sensorium's auspexes, even as Grendel's tactical display lit up with a pict-capture of the ship in question. It was a daunting sight, at least thrice the length of his own ship, bristling with launch bays for strikecraft. All signs of Imperial iconography had been flensed away from the hull, broken, defiled remnants of the proud Aquila dotting the rusted surface.
Blanching, Grendel turned to the Master of the Vox; "Open a line to all ships in the fleet. I don't feel confident in our odds against that thing unsupported, see who can divert to... assist..." The words died in his mouth as he glanced towards the viewport. Even before the news were spoken by the Master of the Vox, he already had realized them from what he was seeing.
The Resolute and the Wage of Dissent had formed up side by side, burning towards the traitor flagship. Two Corvettes, ships even smaller than his own, and they were charging without a moment's hesitation towards the greatest threat the enemy could throw at them. It was shameful.
"Get word to the Enginarium! I want us burning on an attack course toward that jumped up carrier ten minutes ago! Master Gunner, get the crews prepared to deliver their best shots yet!"
In the end it had been for naught. The two Resolute-class vessels had utterly obliterated the last heretic holdout, and the plasma drives had detonated by the time the Voidwright had closed to Macrocannon range. Still, they'd given a more than favorable accounting of themselves in the first clash of Calavar's Crusade Fleet, and the Resolute-class had passed their trial by fire in leaps and bounds.
With all the grandeur of the battle that had played out around him, Grendel couldn't in the end find it in him to feel too sore about the lost chance for glory.
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
Here's a pair of ideas for the next design phase.
(Weapon) 'Duet' Pattern Torpedo Launchers: Very loosely based on the atomic armed rockets of our current missile based broadside option, the 'Duet' Pattern Torpedoes, and their associated launchers, are much much larger. Faced with the needs of stamina for long distance flight, armor to resist enemy point defense, and power to pose a threat to enemy ships, the designs of the Duet were forced to scale their designs significantly up. The price of that is that each set of the 'Duet' pattern includes only two launchers, thus launching only two torpedoes per firing cycle. But the profit is that torpedoes can be launched at all, armored enough to survive the enemy defenses, given autocannon clusters of their own to drive away enemy fighters, and with warheads big enough not only to threaten other escorts, but enemy cruisers, defense stations, and even, when sufficiently massed, the dreaded orkish space hulks.
(Ordinance) Arvus Combat Lander Refit: With lessons learned from the process of refitting the Arvus into a makeshift interceptor, the same design crews are now assigned to revise this civilian cargo hauler into a shuttle capable of dropping armed soldiers and armored vehicles through hostile air onto enemy held planets, and then returning to their motherships to do it again. While already meant to haul things, expected enemy efforts to interfere with landing armies requires additional armor, point defense clusters for protection, and advanced sensors and ECM gear to help detect, avoid, and divert enemy AA fire. And of course, the Combat Lander still has to be able to carry troops as well.
What I'd like to do in the next turn or so is to design these two designs, the fusion breaker guns, and Trent's Kill-Cyborg design, get the first torpedo flotilla formed, get started on the second fleet support unit with a bombardment ship and a lander ship so we can do two hostile invasions at once while upgrading one of our naval squadrons with the cyborgs. And then go hit one of the ork sites, either the asteroid base with torpedo ships and a normal squadron or the proto-fortress world with a normal squadron and the bombardment ship to knock them out.
If there's enough spare cash, also get started on the 4th naval squadron, which will determine if we can do something else because we need to cover our new allies, but now that we've had time to build up I agree that we should hit the orks before they build up too much.
(Weapon) 'Duet' Pattern Torpedo Launchers: Very loosely based on the atomic armed rockets of our current missile based broadside option, the 'Duet' Pattern Torpedoes, and their associated launchers, are much much larger. Faced with the needs of stamina for long distance flight, armor to resist enemy point defense, and power to pose a threat to enemy ships, the designs of the Duet were forced to scale their designs significantly up. The price of that is that each set of the 'Duet' pattern includes only two launchers, thus launching only two torpedoes per firing cycle. But the profit is that torpedoes can be launched at all, armored enough to survive the enemy defenses, given autocannon clusters of their own to drive away enemy fighters, and with warheads big enough not only to threaten other escorts, but enemy cruisers, defense stations, and even, when sufficiently massed, the dreaded orkish space hulks.
(Ordinance) Arvus Combat Lander Refit: With lessons learned from the process of refitting the Arvus into a makeshift interceptor, the same design crews are now assigned to revise this civilian cargo hauler into a shuttle capable of dropping armed soldiers and armored vehicles through hostile air onto enemy held planets, and then returning to their motherships to do it again. While already meant to haul things, expected enemy efforts to interfere with landing armies requires additional armor, point defense clusters for protection, and advanced sensors and ECM gear to help detect, avoid, and divert enemy AA fire. And of course, the Combat Lander still has to be able to carry troops as well.
What I'd like to do in the next turn or so is to design these two designs, the fusion breaker guns, and Trent's Kill-Cyborg design, get the first torpedo flotilla formed, get started on the second fleet support unit with a bombardment ship and a lander ship so we can do two hostile invasions at once while upgrading one of our naval squadrons with the cyborgs. And then go hit one of the ork sites, either the asteroid base with torpedo ships and a normal squadron or the proto-fortress world with a normal squadron and the bombardment ship to knock them out.
If there's enough spare cash, also get started on the 4th naval squadron, which will determine if we can do something else because we need to cover our new allies, but now that we've had time to build up I agree that we should hit the orks before they build up too much.
Is it exactly what I was thinking of? Not really.
Do I love it anyway? Yes.
I'm not sure what would be best to offer. A bump to the next Crew Rank for the Voidwright, maybe. Or the purified hull of the Bulk Hauler (worth something like... 12M? Plus some of it's internal bits. Not inconsiderable savings, plus the narrative aspect of it).
If you have another idea I'm willing to consider it.
*this Design phase
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Could the title be changed to Weaving instead of Writing? It would fit better with how the narrator described void combat as a tapestry.
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Easily done.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Can the crew be transferred over to a new ship if their current one is decommissioned down the line? If so, I'd be down for the better crew.
EDIT: Incidentally, what were you thinking of?
They can although it wipes a fair bit of their XP (due to no longer being familiar with their ship and the little foibles thereof).
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Alright, next question. Could we use the purified hulk to gain a bonus to designing a Cruiser hull as well as the materials?
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