Fluff Space

[Chengar Qordath]

If it a backwater, drained of resources, why would a warlord want it? Most of the population would have been taken away to be used on other worlds, so there wouldn't be much of a local slave base. And I'm thinking that a more populous target would be a higher priority for the Imperium. And if "99%" of their military is tied up, where did all this extra manpower come from during the 13th Black Crusade. This implies to me that there are extra resources, especially for a major Chaos incursion (and a warlord conquering worlds would have to be considered that. Besides, if they are always having to win back worlds, would that not necessitate a full planetary invasion? I mean how else would they win back a world. And this isn't some outskirt world seceding, this is a major strike by the Imperiums most hated foe. Surely that would warrant a bit of priority? And I'm sure the Adeptus Terra would eventually notice the sudden cessation of tithes being paid.

Just because the world is drained of resources the Imperium knows about and wants doesn't mean it wouldn't have something of interest to Chaos.

 

As for the Black Crusade, it's an obvious case of prioritization. Offensives are canceled and battles on other fronts are abandoned to throw everything the Imperium can spare into defending Cadia. Letting (just to name a random enemy) Orks overrun a couple minor colonies is a small price to pay if the alternative is losing Cadia.

 

It's not like the Imperium has huge amounts of military resources just sitting around doing nothing, on the off chance that something comes up.

[Kol Saresk]

I recall mention of a backwater world in the Eisenhorn Trilogy that carried immense value to a follower of Chaos. The planet was the burial ground of some sort of daemonic king. To be honest, I wish he could have expanded on that piece of fluff. But anyway, the follower of Chaos went to that planet to resurrect the daemon king's chariot and to use it in war against the Imperium.

 

In the Blood Gorgons novel, there is another backwater world that was loaded in warpstone. But because the nomads were unwitting pawns of the Blood Gorgons who stayed away from Imperial contact except to trade, the Imperium was never able to find a viable mining site. In the end, plague zombies were mining the rock.

[darth_giles]

Just because the world is drained of resources the Imperium knows about and wants doesn't mean it wouldn't have something of interest to Chaos.

 

As for the Black Crusade, it's an obvious case of prioritization. Offensives are canceled and battles on other fronts are abandoned to throw everything the Imperium can spare into defending Cadia. Letting (just to name a random enemy) Orks overrun a couple minor colonies is a small price to pay if the alternative is losing Cadia.

 

It's not like the Imperium has huge amounts of military resources just sitting around doing nothing, on the off chance that something comes up.

That was the whole point of the Tau arm of the Eye of Terror campaign; the Imperium was having to pull back defenses from the border of the Tau empire so they could deal with Abbadon, and as a result the Tau were able to mount a new offensive to expand the empire.

 

I do wish we could get more "evil plot" info for Chaos. One battle report I don't remember too well involved Typhus and the Death Guard landing on a world that looked like a WFB or Mordheim table, and trying to recover some ancient artifact so they could use it to spread disease and all that. I think the enemy was one of the Inquisitorial forces, and it was a close game. What can I say, Nurgle is a little too disgusting for my tastes.

 

Besides, a "void of resources" world might be of strategic value to someone with something to hide, because its void of resources and thus people would be less likely to go nosing around. I was thinking about putting in a Black Mechanicus forge, or something of that nature. A ranch for breeding slaves, some kind of temple desgined to take advantage of warp currents in the area, building an installation to induce a warp storm in the area to allow daemons to intrude into realspace more easily, stuff like that.

 

But yeah, I love the idea of having narrative elements to a game. "My CSMs and your IG are fighting on the hull of a damaged Battle Barge over who gets to haul it off and repair it" is a lot more fun than "We're fighting a Capture the Hulk mission."

 

Chengar Qordath- Warpstone? As in, the stuff the Skaven like to chew on? I wonder which world WFB is happening on.

[ThisisJimmy]

I feel that the point has been missed. This isn't Orks overrunning a few border worlds, this is a Chaos warlord invading Imperial territory, attempting to expand their empire. This would rate as high in the prioritisation list, at any time. I'm not saying they have regiments just lying around, saved for a rainy day, I'm saying that a chaotic expansion into Imperial territory would be worth pulling resources back to combat, even if it was on a backwater. And as to the Eisenhorn narrative, surely he, an Inquisitor, was there to stop the ritual? And this debate is more about the viability of a warlord conquering worlds and creating a semi empire, rather than conducting a clandestine ritual and then getting out of dodge.

 

Relating to that point, I have found precedent for renegade held worlds (that aren't the Sabbat worlds), and it was in the Codex of all places. Occasionally it seems, renegade chapters have managed to hold onto their homeworlds, even after their turns. Whilst they could be outskirts worlds, it was also mentioned that things like warp energies are used to protect them from reprisal. It does also mention large amounts of fleet power defending a world, so a warband would have to have significant naval strengths to hold onto a world in Imperial space, but it has happened it seems.

[Chengar Qordath]

I feel that the point has been missed. This isn't Orks overrunning a few border worlds, this is a Chaos warlord invading Imperial territory, attempting to expand their empire. This would rate as high in the prioritisation list, at any time. I'm not saying they have regiments just lying around, saved for a rainy day, I'm saying that a chaotic expansion into Imperial territory would be worth pulling resources back to combat, even if it was on a backwater.

Sure, a Chaos invasion is always going to be high priority, but sometimes it comes down to having to choose between stopping random Chaos warlord #427 from capturing a couple minor worlds, or letting the Orks take Armageddon and/or the Tyranids overrun Ultramar.

[ThisisJimmy]

I feel that the point has been missed. This isn't Orks overrunning a few border worlds, this is a Chaos warlord invading Imperial territory, attempting to expand their empire. This would rate as high in the prioritisation list, at any time. I'm not saying they have regiments just lying around, saved for a rainy day, I'm saying that a chaotic expansion into Imperial territory would be worth pulling resources back to combat, even if it was on a backwater.

Sure, a Chaos invasion is always going to be high priority, but sometimes it comes down to having to choose between stopping random Chaos warlord #427 from capturing a couple minor worlds, or letting the Orks take Armageddon and/or the Tyranids overrun Ultramar.

 

That's a fair point, perhaps it won't be worth raising an expedition force immediately if a couple of border worlds cop a hiding from a warlord when things like Armageddon are going on. But it will raise warning bells, because the longer that Chaos spends on a world, the less chance there is for reconquest, simply due to corruption. And any warlord bold and powerful enough to actually capture a world in the Imperium, warrants a bit more notoriety than just "random warlord". So perhaps it doesn't warrant as much attention as an Armageddon, but its not something that is going to be ignored. The High Lords of Terra aren't just going to let part of the Imperium fall to Chaos without some sort of opposition, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

[Kol Saresk]

darth_giles: I am not Chengar Qordoth. But yes, warpstone is what the stuff is called, just like what the skaven chew to use as a source of power. Not that much has changed either as it is bein used as the source of power for warp engines. Only time I've seen it, but then again that is the only time I've seen anything that resembles the fuel source for ship being shown.

 

Fuel source, not generator.

 

And in the Eisenhorn narrative, Eisenhorn went in by himself and a retinue an ultimately used a daemonhost to kill the Chaos cultist. So in the end, while the chariot was never recovered, Chaos still won a soul.

 

But what I was trying to point out i that there are multiple examples of Imperial worlds that possess resources that the Imperium simply forgot about because the planet was deemed unimportant for one reason or another. Then there are also planets that the Imperium is only loosely affiliated with. By that I mean that the hive planet is Imperial, but it has little or no contact with the Imperium at large unless it is some routine by merchants, Inquisitors or something along that line. And considering how many Inquisitors just "disappear", there i no telling how many of them walked into a Chaos fleet and just died without being able to tell anyone. And for some reason they were just declared "lost to the warp" or some other footnote denoting an accident.

 

Another BL novel had an entire subsector(might even had been a sector, would have to look) under the control of Chaos. And Chaos was doing a very good job of keeping the Imperium out. In fact, the only thing that stopped them was a new sun being birthed that destroyed most of the subsector because of how big it got.

[Chengar Qordath]

I feel that the point has been missed. This isn't Orks overrunning a few border worlds, this is a Chaos warlord invading Imperial territory, attempting to expand their empire. This would rate as high in the prioritisation list, at any time. I'm not saying they have regiments just lying around, saved for a rainy day, I'm saying that a chaotic expansion into Imperial territory would be worth pulling resources back to combat, even if it was on a backwater.

Sure, a Chaos invasion is always going to be high priority, but sometimes it comes down to having to choose between stopping random Chaos warlord #427 from capturing a couple minor worlds, or letting the Orks take Armageddon and/or the Tyranids overrun Ultramar.

 

That's a fair point, perhaps it won't be worth raising an expedition force immediately if a couple of border worlds cop a hiding from a warlord when things like Armageddon are going on. But it will raise warning bells, because the longer that Chaos spends on a world, the less chance there is for reconquest, simply due to corruption. And any warlord bold and powerful enough to actually capture a world in the Imperium, warrants a bit more notoriety than just "random warlord". So perhaps it doesn't warrant as much attention as an Armageddon, but its not something that is going to be ignored. The High Lords of Terra aren't just going to let part of the Imperium fall to Chaos without some sort of opposition, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

Oh, I agree that losing worlds to Chaos is not the sort of thing the Imperium is ever going to ignore, it's just that sometimes between other big threats, limited resources, and the general slowness of the Imperial bureaucracy it can take quite a while before they can actually get around to a response.

 

To bring up the Sabbat Worlds again, Chaos started capturing worlds in the area around 600.M41; it took until 754.M41 for the Sabbat Worlds Crusade to begin (and the crusade itself has lasted around 20 years).

[A D-B]

The High Lords of Terra aren't just going to let part of the Imperium fall to Chaos without some sort of opposition, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

 

The problem with that is that it falls short of the sheer vastness of the Imperium. There'll be plenty of systems like that which have simply fallen off Imperial record over the years, some way, somehow.

 

Then there'll be others that secede or are conquered and simply vanish from the map, as it were. And it takes years, decades or centuries to find them again, after warp storms or whatever else.

 

Then you have the ones where the invasion is simply never heard about, because there's no way of contacting the wider Imperium and no one finds out, or doesn't find out for centuries. Astropathy isn't a pohone call, it's getting a madman to deposit his dreams into the mind of another madman he's never met, and pray he understands even a fraction of it. The best way to actually carry a message from world in the Imperium to another is to carry it there, physically, yourself. And even that involves going through a literal hell-realm where you may emerge years or decades or centuries before or after you left, let alone a billion miles off-course.

 

Then you have regions that are considered acceptable losses because someone in political power doesn't care, has no interest in wasting resources, or wants a rival involved with the place to fail.

 

Then you have the regions that are considered acceptable losses because the local worlds can't retake those places without massive help from the rest of the Imperium; help that it may never get for a million or more reasons.

 

Then you have the fact that plenty of Imperial worlds barely know anything about the Imperium, except that the Emperor is a Sun God / the Father of All Ancestor-Spirits / The Deity That Brings The Annual Floods / An immortal god walking around on Earth, etc. and these worlds have no real idea what the rest of the Imperium really is.

 

Only then do you get into the more traditional stuff, like "Threat X isn't as bad as Threat Y, so we'll deal with one, then the other."

 

The Imperium is staggeringly, breathtakingly vast, and under attack at all times, from all angles.

[the jeske]

yes but to build up a power base one would need to take over a forge world or at least a hive populated planet or a high resources planet and those do have astropaths choirs and will not be left alone . it is enough if they stop paying their taxs and a strike force will be sent .

 

taking an aggri world or a low tech world is all nice and good but aside for sacrifice or finding some slaves it is not worth the fuel and the resources to take stuff from planet to ship . I mean the cost of such an undertaking [in materials] is huge . even if w40k fuel is more efficient [has to be ships wouldnt work otherwise] to get a ton of stuff from planet to a ship would make most plantary invasions not worth it . every bullet , every liter of fuel , every pice of screw you need for your tank/armor/weapon would have to be taken from the ship and if it somehow didnt get there a warband operating on its own would be on brink of exitiction [fuel/ammo/gear wise] if something went wrong . And it doesnt have to be even enemy fire . transporters , drop pods get destroyed just by trying to land . Space marines[loyalists] can ignore this a bit , because of the pacts with the ad mecha giving them a steady supply source . no such thing for independand chaos warbands we have now .

[Vesper]

The Imperium wins every war in the end. That is the problem with fluff right now.

(...)

TLDR; Imperium is the house, xenos and chaos are gamblers, who occasionally win big, but if they keep playing they lose in the end.

 

Rejoice. Chaos won the EoT campaign (thank God, we played it with the 3.5 codex) ! If this ended with a draw, the Imperium would have conquered half of the Eye of Terror !

In fact, I don't really get the point of making the Imperium win/notlose every single conflict. Seems like a huge fanfic of a twelve years old "I play the most badasses of the badasses Draigowank style, GK never lose, man."

In fact, yes, GK never lose. The imperium never ever lose... Is GW really afraid that a single real defeat would drop their SM sales ?

[ThisisJimmy]

It does seem a shame that there is such potential for some interesting fluff that seems to have been overlooked. I guess its probably down to the fact that its best to tell the story from a relatable position. We have seen stories told on a chaos held world, but its also usually told as an outsider looking in. Personally I really enjoyed both Daemon World by Ben Counter and the parts told from the guardsmans perspective from the Dark Apostle series by Anthony Reynolds. I think I really enjoyed just how different it was, how surreal the environments really are. So a story such as from the Sabbat Worlds, but told exclusively from the point of view of a Chaos trooper. I mean, hearing a story from someone who grew up on a chaos held war, who didn't hold the bitterness of a traitor, how can that not be good?

[A D-B]

It does seem a shame that there is such potential for some interesting fluff that seems to have been overlooked. I guess its probably down to the fact that its best to tell the story from a relatable position. We have seen stories told on a chaos held world, but its also usually told as an outsider looking in. Personally I really enjoyed both Daemon World by Ben Counter and the parts told from the guardsmans perspective from the Dark Apostle series by Anthony Reynolds. I think I really enjoyed just how different it was, how surreal the environments really are. So a story such as from the Sabbat Worlds, but told exclusively from the point of view of a Chaos trooper. I mean, hearing a story from someone who grew up on a chaos held war, who didn't hold the bitterness of a traitor, how can that not be good?

 

...Hmmmmmmmm.

 

Yes.

 

Good point.

[Legatus]

The problem I would see with that is that it would probably make the Chaos occupation seem much more "relatable", because the author would probably describe how the Chaos Trooper was somehow able to live his life on under those conditions. But "chaos" in 40K almost literally means "hell", so I don't really find those kinds of perspectives very suitable for a story. Especially if "things aint so bad, really". That was one of the (very few) issues I had with Soul Hunter and Blood Reaver. You sometimes got the impression that while rough, living as a slave on a Chaos ship was somewhat tolerable.

[darth_giles]

Rejoice. Chaos won the EoT campaign (thank God, we played it with the 3.5 codex) ! If this ended with a draw, the Imperium would have conquered half of the Eye of Terror !

In fact, I don't really get the point of making the Imperium win/notlose every single conflict. Seems like a huge fanfic of a twelve years old "I play the most badasses of the badasses Draigowank style, GK never lose, man."

In fact, yes, GK never lose. The imperium never ever lose... Is GW really afraid that a single real defeat would drop their SM sales ?

Interesting take on the Eye of Terror. I was under the impression that the Imperium had won just because Chaos hadn't taken Cadia.

 

That having been said, the later writeup of the campaign suggested that the Imperium had done better than everyone had predicted; while Cadia was originally listed as "a shining but quickly dimming beacon of light in a sea of darkness," the later writeup showed the Imperials had tightened their grip in most sectors. The Thousand Sons got booted out of the Webway, Nemesis Tessara was even more faithful than before, and the systems themselves had never left Imperial control, the Crone Worlds had become surprisingly faithful, and all that. Only a few planets were actually taken, and of those one (St. Josmane's Hope) was destroyed by the Imperium. Abbadon only blasted one planet (Macharia) into oblivion with the Planet Killer. He also lost said Planet Killer and all but one of his Blackstone Fortresses.

 

So yeah, when did GW change "Chaos lost" to "Chaos won by not losing half the Eye of Terror"?

 

By the way, when is the next time the Eye of Terror is going to blink, anyway?

[Kol Saresk]

It became a victory because the Cadian Gate is open to the Traitors living in the Eye. Don't ask me how since the write up is that virtually has changed from before the Crusade to after the Crusade. I just know the fluff says the gate is open to the Eye and that the dream of Chaos Rampant has been achieved. Hence, victory. The next crusade for Terra is in the 42nd millennium so we will never see that unless GW advances the plot and it becomes 41k.

[ThisisJimmy]

The problem I would see with that is that it would probably make the Chaos occupation seem much more "relatable", because the author would probably describe how the Chaos Trooper was somehow able to live his life on under those conditions. But "chaos" in 40K almost literally means "hell", so I don't really find those kinds of perspectives very suitable for a story. Especially if "things aint so bad, really". That was one of the (very few) issues I had with Soul Hunter and Blood Reaver. You sometimes got the impression that while rough, living as a slave on a Chaos ship was somewhat tolerable.

 

I get what you are saying, and it won't be an easy book to write by any means. But the way I see it, people have to be able to survive in Chaos held worlds then it would have to be tolerable, something that a resistance can be built up to. I mean, as far as I am aware, not all Blood Pact troops are traitors, they are more or less regular people who grew up in a Chaos dominated world. I don't know if it would ever happen, for the reasons you mentioned, but its just something I would like to see. I'm just one of those people who find the Chaos perspective a bit more interesting than the Imperium's

[darth_giles]

It became a victory because the Cadian Gate is open to the Traitors living in the Eye. Don't ask me how since the write up is that virtually has changed from before the Crusade to after the Crusade. I just know the fluff says the gate is open to the Eye and that the dream of Chaos Rampant has been achieved. Hence, victory. The next crusade for Terra is in the 42nd millennium so we will never see that unless GW advances the plot and it becomes 41k.

That's my point. The Cadian Gate was never opened. Cadia held, and the Imperial Fleet still controls the Cadian system.

[Kol Saresk]

The way I see it, growing up on a Chaos held world would be no different than Imperial world. There is a leadership caste and a working/slave caste. There would be obvious culture differences as shown in Traitor General and Blood Pact but not too many to make it impossible.

[minigun762]

Astropathy isn't a pohone call, it's getting a madman to deposit his dreams into the mind of another madman he's never met, and pray he understands even a fraction of it.

 

I love it! :)

[Vesper]

It became a victory because the Cadian Gate is open to the Traitors living in the Eye. Don't ask me how since the write up is that virtually has changed from before the Crusade to after the Crusade. I just know the fluff says the gate is open to the Eye and that the dream of Chaos Rampant has been achieved. Hence, victory. The next crusade for Terra is in the 42nd millennium so we will never see that unless GW advances the plot and it becomes 41k.

That's my point. The Cadian Gate was never opened. Cadia held, and the Imperial Fleet still controls the Cadian system.

 

That's what I know too. And it sucks.

[Kol Saresk]

And yet strangely enough, the Gate is open. :)

 

Most of this specific part was discussed in the Is Abaddon a Failure? thread.

[Marshal Rohr]

Its a wonder anything works in 40K. It feels like they take the whole, everything sucks all the time into the realm of 'then how does anything get done at all?'

[Vesper]

Can we know what is the current status of Cadia ? What the hell is going on in the cadian system ?

[Marshal Rohr]

I'd wager nothing has happened past Abaddon beginning his invasion and the entire Segmentum is at war. No ground gained or lost one way or the other. Thats how it has been portrayed in the Codexes.