Thanks to Argentus, you'll probably noticed I mostly used your numbers, and just shuffled a few guys around.
You did...and if I am going to be frank, you did it terribly and I will illustrate the issues I have with the plan below.
The fortress here is largely the same, to be honest. Technically our Knight House going to be here to help out as well. The big thing here here that we'll still be own g a favor to Konrad, albeit one I'm not too concerned about paying.
you left this alone for which I am thankful and that's the most I can say here.
The other big thing are the Dreadnaughts. Originally, when Daemon rolled this world he made comment on how useful sending g either Beltran or Abdul to these worlds would be in conjuncture to Konrad's new device. Both have the ability to cover the entirety of the fortress in fire or lightning, as well as just overpower the fortresses' Void Shields almost at will, letting our forces teleport in without issue.
I fail to see how letting your OCs being able to cover the void shields with limited and temporary lightning or fire makes them effective enough to merit inclusion here. Let alone I do not recall them being powerful enough to take down the Void Shields of a
Dark Age of Technology planet fortress and would need outright QM confirmation as to this fact, and if they are...they need reclassification as that is alpha+ level nonsense right there.
The problem is, as a Dreadnaught, Beltran needs to make a roll to even wake up for this mission, and I didn't want to leave a Maxima Extrema high and dry when we had so few Astartes on it, even with the Primarchs. So I figured it's be safer to assign both Dreadnaughts together, and sort of hedge our bets there. At the very least, I think Gabriel's Trait still works whether he's awake or not.
To be frank, we're not leaving it high and dry with my plan, as 2 primarchs, 30k Astartes, Gabriel, as well as the Vigilance, will be plenty when combined with Kesar's ability to make teleportation completely safe as well as Konrad's own abilities *AND* the artifact.
Including Beltran here serves absolutely no purpose imo.
Ralan is a bit of an opposite story. While I bemoan not having more units for this, having both Maticus and the Doom Slayer seems like overkill, and with Beltran having a chance to not even wake, I'd prefer to consolidate here, and possibly draw in a few of the Imperial Fists if that'd be wise. In general though, I wanted to be a bit stringent here to buy forces for the rest of our objectives.
You would prefer to consolidate...on another Maxima extremis world... A maxima extremis world with at least one major psyker commander that is insane as well as several factions that are reluctant allies at best and outright enemies at worst...I legitimately do no see how you are coming to this conclusion in any positive way and feel that it is more a chance to try to shove Abdul into the spotlight which I do not agree with. Quite frankly, I do not trust your OC with a situation as volatile and fractured as this. Maticus and Doomslayer have not only good history, but are an effective leader that has worked well with humans in the past while Doomslayer is a good champion that would be an effective tip to the Shades's spear.
That said, for all most part the pairing of Doom and Abdul fulfills most of the key objectives here. Doom is a monster at clearing vast warms of enemies, which is the crux of the matter here. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to hear him taking out half the enemy's actual combatants here, as crazy as that sounds.
I strongly disagree, Doomslayer and Abdul would not work nearly as well as he and Mati if for no other reason than Doomslayer is a focused champion and Abdul is an unreliable psyker with a penchant for getting corrupted, he is not a leader or someone who should be in charge of a campaign. At best he's a two edged sword psyker champion and thus you have technically 2 champion and no leader to not only lead the Eternal Wardens but work with the Imperial army or the locals.
Abdul, on the other hand, is actually here to act as support. With a temp +81 to combat, a small kill multiplier, and a smaaaaal casualty reduction he should be able to keep heat off of Doom Slayer, and just let him do his magic. He also has a temp +35 for any needed diplomacy and tactics, and should be able to tell what's up with the notable Imperial Army Psyker himself. All of which is a complicated series of ways to say: Abdul let's Doom Slayer slay.
In short, he'd be doing what the shades arguably would be doing but would be less useful. Maticus is more stable, used to working with humans, and has a more reliable track record with not only Doom but working with humans forces that need to fight in heavy meat grinders while getting them out alive. Abdul does not have that and his pesence in this planet would only make things more chaotic which we do not need.
Beltran serves a decent enough psyker champion if one is needed as well as being a heavy hitter in terms of impact so leaving his out fails to appeal to me.
For Kivan I had much the same idea as Argentus, but I figured the Titan Legion would be more useful as a series of small deployments of often individual Titans for our minor conflicts. While certainly unlikely, they could potentially handle like 5 minor deployments with just them, so I figured that should be their main use.
The Titan legion is ill suited for all the other fronts for the reasons as follows.
The fortress is going to be a massive blitzkrieg battle and shadowwar where the titans will just not have the time or ability to do any damage to anything more than pockets of holdouts.
The Ralan planet is not only too chaotic but has nothing they'd be effective against to be used with. They would at best just do the job that Doom and the Shades would already do.
Trionia is the worst planet to send the titans to as they would be ill suited to dealing with a guerilla war and ferreting out moles
And for helping the Imperial Guard...they literally only need 2k space marines a planet, titans will spending more narrative time traveling than doing actual fighting.
The 5k Astartes is also pretty solid, and truth be told we could probably use a Proto or Named Hero from the lists if you really wanted to for this (such as Aurelian), but Maticus definitely seemed like a good pick here. He's able to pretty much solo the walking Hives, he's a good commander, and it keeps this Compliance assured without getting things too complicated.
No...not only is sending maticus a waste here, but it also deprives a planet that needs him more just so you could put your OC in there instead. Abdul works here because quite frankly, backed up by the Titants we wouldn't *need* more than 5k to handle at most one or two walking hives while he makes a big show of how unstable he is and how much firepower he has at his disposal to get the rest of the hives to bow down.
The titans work here because they are not only the measurable size of the walking hives...but will be able to make a clear demonstration of our power without needing to actually take on more than one hive after the 'surrender or die' message is given.
Trionia is a bit of a harder sell, I recognize that, but, to be fair, the Night Watch should be able to solo this planet. Mooostly due to their new (and very powerful) Proto Hero leader. Because she'll be there to help guide them I'm not too worried. Especially because this is the type of environment and foe the Night Watch really excel at dealing with. Nevertheless, just to make sure I sent Solarus here to help out and keep casualties down as best he can.
I...you do realize that this is a planet that not only has become a functional no-mans land due to the guerilla war, but that the very
Imperial Army that you are relying on to back up the Night Watch here is equally concerned about moles in the organization? Even if this is the type of location the Night Watch is used to...the sheer amount of territory that needs to be held, retaken, secured, and even rebuilt means that quite frankly the Night Watch with their leader would be needing to keep track of enough that I legit will say why not send Oricarius here like I did because...this is his wheelhouse.
He is our best planning, spy catching, and all around strategic mind outside our primarch himself and with the Imperial Fists to help secure the regions, this planet will be in far better hands than sending Solarus to 'keep casualties down as best he can'...this is Solarus...the space marine that traumatized the Ultramarines with the power of BOOM! Who's gotten so good at boom that he makes enough bombs to blow up
solar systems now after the Maelstrom.
he is wasted here and would arguably do more harm than good in terms of trying to secure the locations from the guerillas and would not help at all with the IA's intelligence leak issues.
The Amalgams are a fun, to be honest minor threat, and truth be told the Cherished Son might very well be enough to handle this world by itself. That said, Oricarious I the best for adapting to any unseen surprises their strange biologies might have, Rikard's the best at confirming and distilling information about their biologies, and Daemon mentioned Ori wanted to work with Rikard at the moment. All together, they're the best at solving the mysteries of this world.
Except that Oricarius is needed elsewhere to lead Imperial fists and so having him here is a legitimate waste that I not only cannot condone but will actively campaign against as Rikard, Solarus, the Knight House, and 10k Imperial fists will have enough methods between them to handle the Amalgams in addition to the Cherished Son ensuring we have control over the orbitals.
Solarus fits here as Rikard would be able to keep him contained but would also represent a threat to be unleashed if the Amalgams have surprises that need to be annihilated. The Knight House is flexible and quick and would allow the Imperial Fists to have quick and effective support and sending Rikard lets him distill the information we get as best as possible.
Quite frankly, it would be better to move Rikard over to Tironia to work with Ori and let him sift the Amalgams after the compliance than move Oricarius here to essentially waste his skills on a 'fun but to be honest minor threat' when there's a much more complicated situation that would be better suited to him.
Also Ori is the only one absolutely guaranteed not to have any issues or surprises when leading Imperial Fists, which I value quite a lot.
Which is why I have him leading said imperial fists in a volatile situation as Tironia is where they arguably need someone who can help plan out their fortress building and fortification with not only greater precision but better ability to anticipate the ever shifting needs of fighting a guerilla movement in a broken region like they will be fighting in.
Edit: Took 5k away from minor deployments and put them on Ralan. It screws over two worlds, essentially, but the Titan Legion should more than makes up for that.
Which is as pointless as putting the Titan legion on this set up when
@Daemon Hunter can confirm that the Night Watch will count as 10k astartes, thus ensuring that we can meet all the needs of the Imperial army while leaving the champions and leaders of Ralan to handle the situation along with effective support.
You are screwing over those too planets for functionally little gain. You also removed Hektor for some reason despite his roll being a bonus that can't hurt and us having nowhere else he'd really work.
I also note you went out of your way to not place the shades anywhere despite that there are several systems that they would be effective in. Such as Ralan where their own history of civil war and facing against rampant psykers can come in handy.
This plan is a best a 'change for the sake of changing this so it isn't a direct copy' plan and at worst a plan that weakens the forces of several planets to put OCs in the spotlight for the sake of it as well as places other forces in situation that do not suit them.
The titans are already a small grouping...sending one titan to do the work of 2k space marines is not only replacing a scalpel with a tactical nuke, but we do not have enough titans to cover all the planets we'd need to to make up for the Night watch being replaced.
This plan is a poor copy of mine and I will not support it in any way.
my bad, thought someone someone had already posted
