A deep dive into Imperial Logistics for the Indomitus Crusade

[Closet Skeleton]

Not sure exactly where the lore is being made more believable by a knowledge of military history, but I certainly support any attempt to rehabilitate the Indomitus Crusade following what I saw as an underwhelming (to say the least) introduction to the setting. Couldn't help but roll my eyes at the Guilliman handwave just as the discussion began to touch on logistics. The studio could learn a lot from FW's treatment(s), especially when it comes to the Primarchs. Will have to give this a proper listen later

The problem with using historical knowledge in fiction is that sometimes it makes that fiction less believable to people who have inaccurate ideas about history to start with, which is most people due to history being ironically a discipline that's made a lot of progress in the past 30 years so even comparatively well informed people can be very wrong.

[Marshal Loss]

The problem with using historical knowledge in fiction is that sometimes it makes that fiction less believable to people who have inaccurate ideas about history to start with, which is most people due to history being ironically a discipline that's made a lot of progress in the past 30 years so even comparatively well informed people can be very wrong.

 

Please do provide an example because this is one of the more bizarre claims I've seen in recent memory, and - ironically - makes you look like one of the people described in your post. Many of FW's books consciously draw on IR theory & history and they are almost unanimously praised. In the context of the IC I didn't see anything indicating any kind of historical knowledge. Are you referring to something in particular? 

 

As for the progress of history over the last few decades, you need to draw a stark distinction between popular & academic history. Innovations in the latter have not been focused around cultural and social history, not military, and popular history by definition does not innovate. This undermines your point.

[Bryan Blaire]

I would think that while these guys may be big history buffs, they are probably using either more popular historical knowledge as a basis for writings, or they are using new academic ideas that are distorted enough that you don't actually have to know what it's based on for it to be believable within the 40K universe...

[Marshal Loss]

or they are using new academic ideas that are distorted enough that you don't actually have to know what it's based on for it to be believable within the 40K universe...

 

lol, come on

 

I think you may have misunderstood my point, which wasn't whether something (specifically the Indomitus Crusade, I'm not talking about 40k itself broadly here...) was believable within the 40k universe - GW can make up rules as they go along, I'm not one of those loonies who runs around with their pants on their head demanding realism at all costs in all contexts - it was whether it was made more believable by a knowledge of military history. The Indomitus Crusade, as the example to which I was referring: when originally implemented was essentially just "Guilliman made a big crusade and personally visited a huge number of places, winning constantly and handing out Primaris as he went." They have made attempts to rehabilitate it, but these attempts are heavily undermined by the continued reliance on Guilliman as a trope to to justify its logistics. In-universe you can look at the GC as a much better justified example of a similar concept.

 

In layman's terms: it would be like a book on Alexander or Napoleon that simply waved away their logistical difficulties by saying "well the commander was a mega-genius, and so it worked". As a result, when I listen to somebody say "well my interest in military history was used to make (x) more believable", and go...huh? That's all.

 

On an aside, the root issue here is that during this interview Clark compares the Indomitus Crusade to the Horus Heresy, describing it as something that was waiting to be fleshed out. That is not accurate. Can it be fleshed out and made more interested? Sure, why not! But the problem wasn't that it wasn't fleshed out, but that it was implemented in such a jarring and unbelievable fashion, and that it revolves around a single individual. The IC was never a footnote like the HH was.

 

Anyway I'll cut the tirade short lest I derail the thread. You're all welcome to disagree of course, but hopefully I made myself more clear.

[Bryan Blaire]

lol, come on

 

I think you may have misunderstood my point, which wasn't whether something (specifically the Indomitus Crusade, I'm not talking about 40k itself broadly here...) was believable within the 40k universe- it was whether it was made more believable by a knowledge of military history.

Wasn't what I was responding to. I don't disagree with your points at all, which is why I didn't quote any of them and dispute them.

 

I think your layman example is very good illustration here about why the current writing hasn't been all that believable, and I think the fact they are going back to write about the Indomitus Crusade is in part because of how unbelievable the previous miniscule writing about it really was.

[Marshal Loss]

 

Wasn't what I was responding to. I don't disagree with your points at all, which is why I didn't quote any of them and dispute them.

 

Oops. That's on me, sorry! My overactive imagination strikes again

[BitsHammer]

I feel like the Guilliman defense (at least in this case) is less "because he is super smart" and more that he's a libing demi god and the highest voice of authority currently running around shy of the Emperor himself. Basically he can take what he wants (not that they every really dig into logistics of anything in 40k beyond forge worlds and manufactorums making stuff but no one ever seizes the transport ships full of equipment for some reason).

[Marshal Loss]

I feel like the Guilliman defense (at least in this case) is less "because he is super smart"

 

Even if that were true - and it's not, because that's literally what their defence is here, and the studio has written as much elsewhere as well - that's still just handwaving the problem away. If GW doesn't want to delve into logistics that's fine, but you can't/shouldn't cite logistical difficulties and then handwave them away because there's a mega-genius floating around. Guilliman's authority really shouldn't mean that much on a galactic level (SOTE conveys that perfectly, imo) simply because of the sheer scale of the Imperium.

 

 

Beyond just, lots of lots of armies go and fight the chaos forces and the xenos and all the rest of it, logistically, how on earth does that hang together, how would you do it so it all worked properly. And the thing is that the Imperium is this great big creaking bloated bureaucracy, and everything is backwards and on top of itself and in triplicate but 300 years old and goodness knows what, but the absolute saving grace is Roboute Guilliman. And because you have Guilliman's ability to optimally organise everything, he's like the best military logistician the Imperium has ever created, as well as being an incredible warrior and an amazing battlefield commander and an inspiring demi-god presence.

 

Having one of the Emperor's own sons around is undeniably a boon when it comes to getting things done. But it isn't a solution to the nightmarish bureaucracy in and of itself. That they can successfully identify the problem but seem unable to deal with it is all the more frustrating.

 

edit: look at Horus's role in HH: Conquest, that's how I'd like them to approach Guilliman & the IC. Would make it a lot more palatable

[Closet Skeleton]

 

The problem with using historical knowledge in fiction is that sometimes it makes that fiction less believable to people who have inaccurate ideas about history to start with, which is most people due to history being ironically a discipline that's made a lot of progress in the past 30 years so even comparatively well informed people can be very wrong.

 

Please do provide an example because this is one of the more bizarre claims I've seen in recent memory, and - ironically - makes you look like one of the people described in your post. Many of FW's books consciously draw on IR theory & history and they are almost unanimously praised. In the context of the IC I didn't see anything indicating any kind of historical knowledge. Are you referring to something in particular? 

 

As for the progress of history over the last few decades, you need to draw a stark distinction between popular & academic history. Innovations in the latter have not been focused around cultural and social history, not military, and popular history by definition does not innovate. This undermines your point.

 

 

FW books are unanimously praised but they also have a small dedicated fanbase. If I wanted a £70+ book I'd buy one with actual facts in it so they aren't for me.

 

There are contemporary debates in military history. The American concept of the WW2 eastern front has been completely revised since Soviet records became available in the 90s. Some historians can't even agree with each other how 15-17th century Pike blocks actually fought, history is full of open questions and limited lines of evidence and if you want to base fiction of that then you've just got to pick one and pray for the best result. That's a bigger issue if you want to write a novel about merchants in a Bronze Age inspired city state but it doesn't entirely go away even when using analogues which still have living witnesses around.

Of course popular history innovates, that makes no sense. It can re-iterate debunked nonsense at the same time as bringing new research to a broader market but its not entirely stuck in the 1820s. Popular history is too broad a concept that could include Mary Beard, Dan Snow and Graham Hancock.

 

 

Even if that were true - and it's not, because that's literally what their defence is here, and the studio has written as much elsewhere as well - that's still just handwaving the problem away. If GW doesn't want to delve into logistics that's fine, but you can't/shouldn't cite logistical difficulties and then handwave them away because there's a mega-genius floating around. Guilliman's authority really shouldn't mean that much on a galactic level (SOTE conveys that perfectly, imo) simply because of the sheer scale of the Imperium.

 

 

I've heard an interpretation where Napoleon kind of did cut the Gordion knot on logistics and just genius his way into victory from the perspective of the Prussians and Saxons at Jena but that doesn't work in a Space Opera with incredible distances and broad fronts. Which is part of why historical knowledge often isn't that useful.

[Ishagu]

The Imperium, a hyper religious institution that worships the Emperor as an actual God, would be very willing to follow a literal son of said Emperor.

 

Of course there would be doubt, but not enough to dismantle his plans or operations. The Imperium's biggest weakness is it's size and unwieldy nature. Guilliman and/or one of his more tactical brothers can get around this by organising it neatly in a chain of command.

Remember that it has access to great resources and manpower, it's simply slow to respond and inefficient. Why is it remotely surprising that a centralised leadership with great tactical, strategic and logistical foresight would be a solution to many problems?

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

 

 

The problem with using historical knowledge in fiction is that sometimes it makes that fiction less believable to people who have inaccurate ideas about history to start with, which is most people due to history being ironically a discipline that's made a lot of progress in the past 30 years so even comparatively well informed people can be very wrong.

Please do provide an example because this is one of the more bizarre claims I've seen in recent memory, and - ironically - makes you look like one of the people described in your post. Many of FW's books consciously draw on IR theory & history and they are almost unanimously praised. In the context of the IC I didn't see anything indicating any kind of historical knowledge. Are you referring to something in particular?

 

As for the progress of history over the last few decades, you need to draw a stark distinction between popular & academic history. Innovations in the latter have not been focused around cultural and social history, not military, and popular history by definition does not innovate. This undermines your point.

FW books are unanimously praised but they also have a small dedicated fanbase. If I wanted a £70+ book I'd buy one with actual facts in it so they aren't for me.

 

There are contemporary debates in military history. The American concept of the WW2 eastern front has been completely revised since Soviet records became available in the 90s. Some historians can't even agree with each other how 15-17th century Pike blocks actually fought, history is full of open questions and limited lines of evidence and if you want to base fiction of that then you've just got to pick one and pray for the best result. That's a bigger issue if you want to write a novel about merchants in a Bronze Age inspired city state but it doesn't entirely go away even when using analogues which still have living witnesses around.

Of course popular history innovates, that makes no sense. It can re-iterate debunked nonsense at the same time as bringing new research to a broader market but its not entirely stuck in the 1820s. Popular history is too broad a concept that could include Mary Beard, Dan Snow and Graham Hancock.

 

 

Even if that were true - and it's not, because that's literally what their defence is here, and the studio has written as much elsewhere as well - that's still just handwaving the problem away. If GW doesn't want to delve into logistics that's fine, but you can't/shouldn't cite logistical difficulties and then handwave them away because there's a mega-genius floating around. Guilliman's authority really shouldn't mean that much on a galactic level (SOTE conveys that perfectly, imo) simply because of the sheer scale of the Imperium.

 

I've heard an interpretation where Napoleon kind of did cut the Gordion knot on logistics and just genius his way into victory from the perspective of the Prussians and Saxons at Jena but that doesn't work in a Space Opera with incredible distances and broad fronts. Which is part of why historical knowledge often isn't that useful.

If you’re not interested in the Black Books, Taros, Vraks, and Badab all demonstrate modern 40k military organization and deployment similarly and are more relevant to the Indomitus Crusade. You can also check out Codex Eye of Terror and Codex Armageddon, but the scale is a little dated - being written when Imperial crusades only had a tens of thousands of soldiers, etc. these do more without handwaving so much.

[Brother Casman]

+++ Housekeeping Note +++

 

I've split this off from the Voxcast Repository thread, as it is a deeper dive into how GW and scholars present history (whether real or imagined). It's a little beyond the scope of the Voxcast thread, but is an interesting discussion in its own right.

[Marshal Rohr]

I think the key logistical consideration thy are relying on isn't so much 'Guilliman is a genius'. I think thats the broader catch all for the Ordo they created to facilitate the gather of the Fleets. On the ground, the Fleetmasters has the authority of a Lord Inquisitor/High Lord, and are effectively 'foraging' as they go, like a Bronze Age/Iron Age army on the fringes of an Empire. They set off with some supplies, but they are expected to sustain themselves in the field. Personally, I kind of like that - specifically because it makes Guilliman irrelevant to your personal army. Your Fleetmaster is God in these stories, and you will live and die on the front lines based on if he decided to exterminatus that agri-world instead of garrison it to feed your forces. 

[Lucerne]

The Imperium, a hyper religious institution that worships the Emperor as an actual God, would be very willing to follow a literal son of said Emperor.

 

Of course there would be doubt, but not enough to dismantle his plans or operations. The Imperium's biggest weakness is it's size and unwieldy nature. Guilliman and/or one of his more tactical brothers can get around this by organising it neatly in a chain of command.

Remember that it has access to great resources and manpower, it's simply slow to respond and inefficient. Why is it remotely surprising that a centralised leadership with great tactical, strategic and logistical foresight would be a solution to many problems?

Ah, yes, "organize it neatly in a chain of command".

 

No one in ten thousand years in the authoritarian empire based on mindless obedience and hierarchies has come up with that brilliant plan before.

 

Clearly, in the second Age of Strife, some gene-spliced lab rat with a talent for plagiarism is all the Imperium needs to solve its logistical problems while waging a defensive and offensive war against all comers, despite decades of lore spelling out why those inefficiencies are built into the system and simply cannot be solved- even during the Great Crusade itself the minute it left Terra.

[Ishagu]

Lol your outlook is very strange and slanted. You're complaining about a Primarch having authority or playing a big part in the setting? The Emperor and his Primarchs (and by extension the Space Marines) are the only reason there is even a Imperium in the first place.

For almost 20 years GW have been hinting at these plots happening - Guilliman awaking, Cadia falling, "The Wolftime" etc. This isn't real life where a story or legend is just that, when a legend is written into a fictional setting you should accept that it's realisation may come to pass.

I doubt you've invested time and effort into reading any of the recent Black Library novels - some of which are amongst the very best stories to take place in the 40k universe. If you had you wouldn't be so outraged or upset about some strange, perceived problem with the lore. Many of the detractors have not, unfortunately.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

There's not much need to go into the logistical nitty-gritty of something the scale of the Indominus Crusade. You don't gather an army that large capable of covering that much ground if you are not propositioned to keep it supplied - and, Primarch Big Brain or not, Guilliman is savvy enough to know if he could support a crusade of that size or not based solely on experience.

 

Where a real logistical look would be at it's most visible to us the reader is actually on the small scale. A few actual examples I can think of include Gaunts Ghosts in...the "defend the haunted house" novel I forget the name of...and Rynn's World. In both cases the protagonists were cut off from sources of supply and had to conserve/scrounge ammunition.

[Marshal Loss]

 

 

The problem with using historical knowledge in fiction is that sometimes it makes that fiction less believable to people who have inaccurate ideas about history to start with, which is most people due to history being ironically a discipline that's made a lot of progress in the past 30 years so even comparatively well informed people can be very wrong.

 

Please do provide an example because this is one of the more bizarre claims I've seen in recent memory, and - ironically - makes you look like one of the people described in your post. Many of FW's books consciously draw on IR theory & history and they are almost unanimously praised. In the context of the IC I didn't see anything indicating any kind of historical knowledge. Are you referring to something in particular? 

 

As for the progress of history over the last few decades, you need to draw a stark distinction between popular & academic history. Innovations in the latter have not been focused around cultural and social history, not military, and popular history by definition does not innovate. This undermines your point.

 

 

FW books are unanimously praised but they also have a small dedicated fanbase. If I wanted a £70+ book I'd buy one with actual facts in it so they aren't for me.

 

Well whatever you're currently buying evidently isn't doing you much good, so perhaps you should give them a shot. None of what you said above remotely corroborates any of your claims.

 

There are infinite lacunae in the historical corpus. There always have been, and there always will be. There are gaps in our knowledge and innumerable approaches for dealing with them. You seem to be under the impression that the existence of differing perspectives means that the use of historical analyses as the basis for believability in fiction is like building a fortress on sad, which is not the case. Take logistics: I could list two dozen books with ease that deal with military logistics in various contexts in very different ways, some of which I agree with, many of which I do not. Any one of them, if drawn upon as inspiration for something like the Indomitus Crusade, would make it more believable than it currently stands. Whether scholars can agree on how a pike phalanx was used in a particular period has absolutely 0 relevance here, because nobody is suggesting that (e.g.) "Guilliman should use real historical tactics" or "Space Marines should fight in (x) way like this particular historian says". Once again, FW's books provide an example of the kind of usage I am advocating.

 

And no, popular history does not innovate. Popular history is a useful vehicle for mass dissemination but by definition is always a few steps behind academic scholarship, exceptions in cultural/social/micro-history (e.g. N. Z. Davis' The Return of Martin Guerre) aside, which have their own significant issues. Academics do sometimes write popular history, but you would never see Mary Beard claim that her popular works are in any way innovative.

 

 

Even if that were true - and it's not, because that's literally what their defence is here, and the studio has written as much elsewhere as well - that's still just handwaving the problem away. If GW doesn't want to delve into logistics that's fine, but you can't/shouldn't cite logistical difficulties and then handwave them away because there's a mega-genius floating around. Guilliman's authority really shouldn't mean that much on a galactic level (SOTE conveys that perfectly, imo) simply because of the sheer scale of the Imperium.

 

 

I've heard an interpretation where Napoleon kind of did cut the Gordion knot on logistics and just genius his way into victory from the perspective of the Prussians and Saxons at Jena but that doesn't work in a Space Opera with incredible distances and broad fronts. Which is part of why historical knowledge often isn't that useful.

 

 

As with the above, perhaps you should look at works where historical knowledge does add significant depth to the setting before citing whatever on earth that interpretation is as an example of why historical knowledge isn't useful. There's methodological divergence and then there's an argument that goes against decades of scholarly consensus.

 

In an effort to be constructive, because I'm not going to interact with points irrelevant to the topic again, this is the reading list we use to introduce graduate students to the current state of the field in history. These works touch on the intersection between popular & academic history, the definition of objectivity, and the concept of a historical fact. Some (like #2) are available for free online.

 

•     E. H. Carr, “The Historian and his Facts,” and “History, Science and Morality,” in What is History?, pp. 3-35,  and 70-112
•     Jo Guldi and David Armitage, The History Manifesto, Introduction, Chapters One and Two [ pp. 1-60]
•     “AHR Exchange on The History Manifesto”: Deborah Cohen and Peter Mandler, “The History Manifesto: A Critique,”  with response by Armitage and Guldi, American Historical Review (April 2015), pp. 527-554.
•      Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre
•      Clifford Geertz, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”
•     William Sewell, Logics of History, chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, and 10.  
•     Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity, esp. Prologue & Chapter 4
•     Thomas L.  Haskell, “Objectivity is not Neutrality: Rhetoric vs. Practice in Peter Novick's That Noble Dream,” History and Theory, Vol. 29, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 129-157.
•    Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical Profession, Chs 2, 13.

 

Anyway, back to logistics.

 

 

There's not much need to go into the logistical nitty-gritty of something the scale of the Indominus Crusade. You don't gather an army that large capable of covering that much ground if you are not propositioned to keep it supplied - and, Primarch Big Brain or not, Guilliman is savvy enough to know if he could support a crusade of that size or not based solely on experience.

 

Where a real logistical look would be at it's most visible to us the reader is actually on the small scale. A few actual examples I can think of include Gaunts Ghosts in...the "defend the haunted house" novel I forget the name of...and Rynn's World. In both cases the protagonists were cut off from sources of supply and had to conserve/scrounge ammunition.

 

You're right that showing how logistics work in the setting on a small scale has a lot of merit, but a pseudo-historical take outlining the difficulties entailed in calling a crusade on this scale, the kinds of challenges it encounters passing through the galaxy, etc, can contribute a great deal. Vraks is a more isolated example in line with your view, but even the snippets provided to use about the GC in various FW HH books add substantial depth. The Imperium must be making enormous sacrifices to marshal these kinds of vast forces. What is Guilliman sacrificing or putting at risk for the sake of this endeavour? A good logistical take in the context of this setting can be more than just "Guilliman wouldn't do a big crusade if he couldn't support it" or "where do the bullets come from". I think logistics in 40k can be used to help give a sense of the size and scale of the Imperium and the galaxy it inhabits. That, for me, is what makes things believable.

 

edit: spoiler tag mucked up, fixed

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

 

You seem to be under the impression that the existence of differing perspectives means that the use of historical analyses as the basis for believability in fiction is like building a fortress on sad, which is not the case.

 

 

Unrelated to the rest of the post/discussion, but this is one of my favourite typos. Ever.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

Lol your outlook is very strange and slanted. You're complaining about a Primarch having authority or playing a big part in the setting? The Emperor and his Primarchs (and by extension the Space Marines) are the only reason there is even a Imperium in the first place.

 

For almost 20 years GW have been hinting at these plots happening - Guilliman awaking, Cadia falling, "The Wolftime" etc. This isn't real life where a story or legend is just that, when a legend is written into a fictional setting you should accept that it's realisation may come to pass.

 

I doubt you've invested time and effort into reading any of the recent Black Library novels - some of which are amongst the very best stories to take place in the 40k universe. If you had you wouldn't be so outraged or upset about some strange, perceived problem with the lore. Many of the detractors have not, unfortunately.

 

I suggest you invest your time in a different sci-fantasy setting if you're so discontented with the most fundamental ideas, themes and plots in this one.

The logistics for something like the Great Crusade and Indomitus Crusade are not only an issue of having the authority to pull it together. Sure he has the authority to strip worlds of their resources for his crusade but what are the repercussions of doing so? Military logistics isn't only about munitions, soldiers, even the Primaris need to eat. They need water, they need atmospheric gasses to replace those lost through hull breaches to keep the ships livable*. They need replacement parts to repair damaged vehicles and armor. Each of these things has to come from somewhere and the Imperium has always had issues in the lore with producing the required amount to keep things going as they were let alone a second Great Crusade level endeavor (has this changed and I've missed it or maybe been addressed in one of the books I haven't read).

 

When you take the materials and resources for the crusade who goes without? You obtain food from an Agri-world what world gets to starve or what percentage of the population from multiple worlds gets to go without? Do the defense forces for the worlds they cross the path of get to sacrifice their spare parts and possibly some of their vehicles to ensure the crusade is fully supplied with functional vehicles reducing their own defensive capabilities should they come under attack? Were the raw materials, struts and beams which were taken to fix up damaged ships slated to repair part of a decaying Hive and now the population has to worry about the roof over their heads collapsing before they can procure replacements? The medicines needed to heal the wounded soldiers and tend to their diseases, were they originally planned for a world ravaged with a plague that now has to lose more people because those medicines were allocated to the Crusade? Where is the money coming from to pay for the procurement of these goods or does the Primarch and those he invested with his power just take them on his authority and damn the economic repercussions on those worlds raided by him?

 

Yes these things are not of immediate relevance to the story but it would make the world feel a little more plausible if the fall out from this were to be acknowledged even in passing**. Yes the IoM has lots of people and resources but it costs resources to move people, to arm people, to feed them, to house them, to replace worn out, damaged, and lost equipment. It costs resources to even procure raw materials, it takes time and resources to manufacture things, and delaying the procurement of critical resources for entire worlds to feed the crusade can have massive repercussions on those who were deprived even if that is only temporary.

 

A Primarch showing up doesn't all of a sudden materialize bumper crops able to feed a massive crusade, it doesn't solve the backlog on creating the parts and munitions required for waging war for the Forgeworlds that are already working at full capacity***. New Forgeworlds don't just materialize out of thin air. Okay I'll stop I think I'm just ranting and repeating myself.

 

*Always been an issue of mine with Warhammer 40k Space Ships, they have lots of wasted space which are all pressurized and maintain a human suitable atmosphere. Lots of wasted resources.

** Actions have consequences and some of these action could have major effects on the region for decades or even centuries.

*** My understanding was that it wasn't the bureaucracy that kept Forgeworld backlogged but that demand outstripped their ability to supply the IoM with all the things that they require.

[Tyriks]

For me, it seems silly how fast Guilliman was able to traverse the entire galaxy. He brought Primaris to every chapter, and per usual GW writing he was apparently at every battle along the way. How'd he get around so quick and so reliably? Seems hard to swallow, given that this is a setting where regularly scheduled trade routes get lost or just overlooked for longer than the entire Indomitus Crusade lasted. No level of authority or genius can account for that.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Sadly, they've just hand-waved it away again with "the Cicatrix basically broke time", at least as a standard measurement. 

[Bryan Blaire]

No level of authority or genius can account for that.

Agreed, just the idea that genius will solve it is itself a tropesque concept, no matter how genius it may be. A single genius, no matter how demi-god-like, can out-plan the Warp, unless they alter the nature of the Warp to something along the lines of "and Guilliman finally understood what no one else had ever figured out - the Chaos of the Warp was laid over an analyzable, predictable pattern if you just looked at it expansively enough, so he was able to plan out the logistics appropriately."

 

At that point, GW might as well write that he also just defeated the entire point of 40K. Or he finally became a follower of Tzeentch with all his obsessive planning of ways.

 

----------------

 

Oh dang - maybe that's some of what is going on - Guilliman's logistical gymnastics are actually a beautifully orchestrated sorcery planted by the Changer of Ways (and hidden from Guilliman and the Emperor) to the point where his logistical planning actually alters the physical universe and the Warp around what he planned.

 

Guilliman is more Tzeentchy than Magnus!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

I'll see myself out... :ph34r:

[Iron Father Ferrum]

@Marshal Loss, while I'm not one to gatekeep or determine what's fun or interesting for other people...the Imperium's bureaucratic inertia and mismanagement has been such a long-running theme that a tale about "Planet X starving because the Crusade took its grain" is already par for the course. Maybe consider the third order effects? If a planet revolted due to starvation because Guilliman took their grain shipments, you get a little grimdark back because the Imperium is shooting itself in the foot. If nefarious actors are the ones who tip the scales of rebellion and arm the insurgents - or even just show up after the fact to support the rebels - now you've got a real 40K plot going on. But the point is that the logistical issue that was the trigger point isn't the star of the show, it's the narration before the first act.

[Lord_Caerolion]

EDIT: Actually, gonna stick out of the personal bickering.

[b1soul]

The limited material on the Indomitus Crusade reads like Imperial propaganda. I'd take it with a grain of salt.