A rarely unique lore video - naval/amphibious warfare in the grimdark future

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

 

It’s inspired me to work on a short story about a gunboat involved in the civil war going on, on my regiment’s homeworld.

[Emperor Ming]

When you have space ships that can enter low orbit, why would you need craft that can go on water

 

oh and chimeras of course

Edited June 8, 2024 by Emperor Ming

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Emperor Ming said:

When you have space ships that can enter low orbit, why would you need craft that can go on water

 

oh and chimeras of course

lol chimeras.

 

but on a serious note, if your enemy has good air defenses but not necessarily air superiority, (Ukraine and russia type situation) then it may be safer to launch an invasion amphibiously.

 

but the same question can generally be asked about ground bases as well. Why have ground bases when space ships can sit in orbit and deploy troops via landing/drop craft?

[phandaal]

That question can be asked of most of 40k. Why launch a massive ground invasion at all when a missile will do the trick? Then send in small units to mop up the remainder. Why launch hyper elite super soldiers from orbit into enemy territory defended by aircraft and air defense artillery? One stray shell and you've just lost 20 of the 1,000,000 Space Marines you've got for the entire galaxy. Why do Eldar bother fighting with ground troops at all instead of robotics and long-range weapons?

 

Et cetera, ad nauseum...

 

Just have to suspend disbelief and assume there is some reason why it has to happen the way it does. 

[Brother Tyler]

On 6/8/2024 at 7:31 AM, Emperor Ming said:

When you have space ships that can enter low orbit, why would you need craft that can go on water

 

Proponents of air power made similar arguments, only to find out that there are valid reasons to utilize warfare in all domains (and there are times when other domains are more efficient/effective). Combined arms warfare is a wonderful thing.

 

I think that naval/amphibious warfare presents a great opportunity for theme, whether for miniatures, terrain, or scenarios. Realistically, Battlefleet Gothic was just a naval wargame with a space theme. It wouldn't be difficult to adapt the BFG rules, perhaps with some influences from other naval wargames, to create a set of (wet) naval warfare rules for the grimdark future. Similarly, hobbyists wanting to represent the interpersonal combat of ship boarding actions and amphibious warfare can use bespoke missions/scenarios with converted/painted miniatures that have the desired theme.

 

We have had hobbyists represent all kinds of diverse military groups and operations in their armies. It would be easy to incorporate naval/amphibious themes into a variety of armies.

[Dr. Clock]

One of the most compelling mental images I always had of Eldar tanks was squadrons zipping across the water... And obviously that extended to the Drukhari Raiders when they came out. Ocean worlds would definitely be a thing in the Imperium and beyond, and water itself is incredibly valuable as the basis of all life.

 

My Drukhari army are liberally sprinkled with fishy beasts; in headcanon their webway domain is a vast ocean beneath a dying orange sun, with underwater portals allowing them to emerge from the depths of numerous planets from Cegorachi to Rianoen.

 

I also use some Kharadron boats in my Votann army because I bought and built them as 'alien mercenaries' for my AdMech before Votann came out. They're not truly water ships but rather airships that behave more like water ships than planes due to their (headcanon) mastery of inertia fields that allow the ships to just kind of slowly fly through anything from void to the densist atmo.

 

Also gotta figure that any reasonably proficient space navy is going to be able to conduct operations underwater since that'd be roundly similar to void combat?

 

Obviously it's a spacefaring setting so that gets more play, but the faring part of that is already deeply 'nautical'... It'd be cool to link those themes directly with like some regiments of Imperial Navy that are drawn from ocean planets and the wet navy serves as training ground for the void. Learn the 2d tricks... THEN move to the 3d lol.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Doghouse]

I think atmospheric conditions in addition to air superiority could present a very good opportunity to justify water based battles. I think it's one of those things where you are better off embracing science fiction and suspending disbelief in order to create a narrative or scenario. For example you could even justify it by saying a long dead ancient alien race left artifacts on a predominantly island based water planet that have a side effect of preventing high orbit air travel so warfare has become reliant on naval battles. You could even have it as two 40k factions that have become marooned there thousands of years ago. It could also be two rival factions that never had contact with the greater universe, the reasoning behind it can be endless.  

 

Me and my mates as kids used to fight all manner of underwater and surface battles using boats with our minis mounted on them, jumping from ship to ship to engage in combat like the old pirate films. I think it's one of the aspects of modern tabletop games are lacking with a reluctance to venture beyond official rules and how lots tend to try to imprint 40k with our modern day understanding of reality rather than use our imagination to create fun scenarios.

[phandaal]

You can always have a "naval" battle over something besides an ocean. This is a sci-fi game set in a galaxy with at least a hundred billion stars in it. There are endless possibilities!

 

For example, at certain depths and pressures in a gas giant, the atmosphere would behave like liquid. Or maybe the planetary surface is covered in flammable liquid compounds and the combatants don't want to risk bringing their bigger ships into the atmosphere.

 

Or maybe there is a gas toroid like in Larry Niven's Integral Trees novel, and within that toroid are continent-sized water bubbles that have to be explored.

 

Or maybe you have boats that look like old sailing ships, fighting in a nebula like the ships out of Treasure Planet.

 

Like @Doghouse says, you really can do whatever you want!

Edited June 15, 2024 by phandaal

[Doghouse]

Totally agree with you there mate.

 

One of my favourite stories in 40k comes from one of the first novels ever released for the game, the Death Wing anthology. In it local forces battle rebels on a surface made up from thick moss stretched between the trees and beneath which terrible things lurked.  We covered our gaming table in railway model lichen and recreated the battle as kids. Great fun!

 

There's far more to 40k than Hive Cities, Daemon, Necron and Nid worlds! 

[Cactus]

13 hours ago, Dr. Clock said:

Also gotta figure that any reasonably proficient space navy is going to be able to conduct operations underwater since that'd be roundly similar to void combat?

 

 

When I was playing the Deathwatch RPG one of my friends wrote an underwater scenario loosely based on At the Mountains of Madness. It made the process of choosing our equipment very interesting as we figured out what could credibly be adapted to underwater use. IIRC we replaced our traditional rocket-based bolt shells with special torpedo versions.