Marines on a sword frigate

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Just how many marines could fit on a sword class frigate that had originally belonged to a loyalist chapter? a single marine or a squad or two?

[Seleucus]

Frigates are able to transport a full regiment of IG in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, so I would assume that they could easily accomodate a full company of SM.

[Tenebris]

Well Garro had almost half company on the Eisenstein and still it had room for some fliers and vehicles. I think that a company can be placed in a Frigate, the problem is that there will be little room left for the support echelons of the company, namely a proper armory and the munitions for a campaign, power armor repair facilities, ammunition manofactorums, a proper apothecarion and bionic rebuilding deck, a viable chapel to house a hundred or so astartes, supplies for a campaign and so on...

 

I think that the effective range would be around 30-50 marines to make some proper use of the Frigate. Point is that we think of astartes with some manner of human standards but even a basic marine can go trough a full stockpile of bolt rounds in a single mission, let alone if we think that the sheer volume of consumables to keep a marine in battle border on the epic. All in all think of marines in x100 terms, a squad need a x100 supplies to stay combat effective, it needs x100 in terms of space for training, living and for the operational factors, it needs a x100 crew to keep them running and so on. 

 

Sure that are low and high profile settings of an astartes maintenance, some units due to need operate at the minimum needed, some are fully supplied and thus benefit in full of the force multiplier that comes with this... all in all when you read Eisenstein you understand that while it is nice to have a company on a frigate it is viable for only one or two missions, than your warband begins to suffer. 

[Aradiel]

normal transport complements are 3 full companies plus armored support for battle barges, 1 for strike cruisers. escorts very rarely carry more than a single squad. if the presence of a full company is needed, its unlikely that the chapter would send them in a frigate, it to fragile to put so many valuable marines inside.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Thanks, trying to make some kind of sense of my warband's fluff. The idea being the last member of a renegade warband escaped on one it's escorts and ended up in the service of my warband, with the sorcerers putting the non thousand son elements on this one frigate with a sorcerer and rubric squad supervising, so about 22-28 marines.

[Trevak Dal]

Well Garro had almost half company on the Eisenstein and still it had room for some fliers and vehicles. I think that a company can be placed in a Frigate, the problem is that there will be little room left for the support echelons of the company, namely a proper armory and the munitions for a campaign, power armor repair facilities, ammunition manofactorums, a proper apothecarion and bionic rebuilding deck, a viable chapel to house a hundred or so astartes, supplies for a campaign and so on...

 

I think that the effective range would be around 30-50 marines to make some proper use of the Frigate. Point is that we think of astartes with some manner of human standards but even a basic marine can go trough a full stockpile of bolt rounds in a single mission, let alone if we think that the sheer volume of consumables to keep a marine in battle border on the epic. All in all think of marines in x100 terms, a squad need a x100 supplies to stay combat effective, it needs x100 in terms of space for training, living and for the operational factors, it needs a x100 crew to keep them running and so on. 

 

Sure that are low and high profile settings of an astartes maintenance, some units due to need operate at the minimum needed, some are fully supplied and thus benefit in full of the force multiplier that comes with this... all in all when you read Eisenstein you understand that while it is nice to have a company on a frigate it is viable for only one or two missions, than your warband begins to suffer. 

 

 

Yeah, many don't consider how often say, the drugs (pain relief, stimulants, etc) that are built into their power armor are replaced-or if they're synthesized by the armor or what.  They also probably eat A LOT.  This has never been addressed to my knowledge.  It's like how Beserkers got their paint job (because they stopped cleaning their armor) that in my mind makes them more dedicated to Nurgle than Khorne, because Wolverine-Tier immune system or no, that :cuss's nasty.

 

And they need humans too (as slaves, deckhands, etc) one book I read (old mind you) said even smaller ships had thousands of crew who ran the engines of star ships like how Roman naval ships/steam engine ships were but on a 40k scale of stupid.  I can get behind these ships having thousands of crew-but how it's done is just dumb, and it's one of the two reasons that pushed me towards Tau as my first army (Star Trek/Halo technology combined with Grey Knights not having plastic models at the time)

[Tenebris]

Well if we speak of the Rubicae it is not hard to field a whole lot of them on a Frigate, they require no assistance, no supplies and no special care bar the sorcerous incantations to bind them in their armor and the occasional repair of the suit which can easily resemble patching up with some ceramite.

 

But even so a proper Sorcerer would require vast room to hold his library, a place for a proper choir of Thrall Wizards, the many incantation and ritual chambers and so on. Overall when we speak of up to 30 marines, most of which Rubicae the concept of a Frigate as their vessel can be quite adequate, but still even so I think it would be viable for a string of missions, for some stealth operations (aka snatching psykers from the Imperium) but should the Sorcerer decide to partecipate to proper engagements of the Long War than he would find his vessel woefully inadequate for the rigors of open war.

 

But than... if the said frigate belonged to the Space Wolves and you mutilated their bodies and used their canine souls to fuel the furnace of your warp drive, than by all means have as many frigates as you wish... and remember Space Wolf pelts make for superb rugs for under your sorcerer throne and their skin is a great parchment for your tomes... and if you have a library to fill you better start searching for more Space Wolves... and their Frigates. 

 

To be back on the topic, point is that a Frigate is good for some stealth operations and for some raiding of undefended worlds but it is incapable to contend with dedicated battleships in a direct confrontation. That is why the Frigates move in squadrons and are usually employed as flankers and pursuers of the enemy ships as well as scouts for the main elements of the fleet. 

 

But afterall you are a Tzeentchian sorcerer with countless years of experience and a wealth of magic lore at your fingers, to you even a Frigate is a deadly asset... and remember to lubricate the torpedo tubes with Space Wolf blood. 

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

The frigate is an escort in the warbands fleet. One Battleship, a grand cruiser, a couple of cruisers/light cruisers/strike cruisers and a few escorts, with the bulk of the warband on the larger ships.
I take it you have also read Ahrimans "999 uses for a dead space wolf"?

[Karthak]

I was under the impression that escorts typically house one or two squads at most, a strike cruiser houses one company, and a battle barge can house multiple companies.

[KingDeath]

A typical sword class frigate is, if we go by the FFG rules which i prefer, over a mile long and has a crew of over 26000.

I would see no reason why one, especialy if properly modified, couldn't transport an entire company + equipment or more.

[Hellios]

Modify the ships weapons to run off sorcerery/warp energy/dark mech crazy... The ship now needs less storage space for its munitions. You could also give it special magical shields of some sort to make it tougher. I don't mean to make it Mary Sue, buttomake it tougher so it isn 't such a risk. Why haven't they used this on their bigger ships? It requires too many resources, which they still need to acquire. You can use chaos to solve fluff problems... just remember every blessing is also a curse.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Or just make the ship bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. We're talking Tzeentch and sorcery here. You could say the sorcerer made a pocket dimension using raw warp stuff and human sacrifice because he didn't like the idea of being crowded, so between bulkheads 9 and 10 there's some mysterious extra space that only the chaos space marines can use.

 

Maybe he used an ancient artefact to make this happen.

 

Maybe he used a really complicated scroll that burned up after the ritual.

 

Maybe one day it just happened, so instead of worrying about it decided to put it to use.

 

Maybe the ship came that way, and nobody really knows why, but if they don't throw a member of the mortal crew down a mysterious hole in the middle of this extra space every once in a while the area starts to shrink back to normal size.

[Hellios]

Or just make the ship bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. We're talking Tzeentch and sorcery here. You could say the sorcerer made a pocket dimension using raw warp stuff and human sacrifice because he didn't like the idea of being crowded, so between bulkheads 9 and 10 there's some mysterious extra space that only the chaos space marines can use.

 

Maybe he used an ancient artefact to make this happen.

 

Maybe he used a really complicated scroll that burned up after the ritual.

 

Maybe one day it just happened, so instead of worrying about it decided to put it to use.

 

Maybe the ship came that way, and nobody really knows why, but if they don't throw a member of the mortal crew down a mysterious hole in the middle of this extra space every once in a while the area starts to shrink back to normal size.

 

I was thinking of mentioning that MAYBE he is just a Time Lord (Timelord? Time-lord?).

[Tenebris]

We speak of Tzeentch people, anything is possible...

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

 

Or just make the ship bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. We're talking Tzeentch and sorcery here. You could say the sorcerer made a pocket dimension using raw warp stuff and human sacrifice because he didn't like the idea of being crowded, so between bulkheads 9 and 10 there's some mysterious extra space that only the chaos space marines can use.

 

Maybe he used an ancient artefact to make this happen.

 

Maybe he used a really complicated scroll that burned up after the ritual.

 

Maybe one day it just happened, so instead of worrying about it decided to put it to use.

 

Maybe the ship came that way, and nobody really knows why, but if they don't throw a member of the mortal crew down a mysterious hole in the middle of this extra space every once in a while the area starts to shrink back to normal size.

 

I was thinking of mentioning that MAYBE he is just a Time Lord (Timelord? Time-lord?).

I now have this image of thousand sons hunting artifacts, technology and knowledge of the legendary Galifrey, hunting for a blue box, hoping to use that to go back and save Prospero and warn the Emperor..