Zappiel said:

And without constant resupply, and orbital superiority, the chaos forces on Cadia wouldn't have lasted a year or two, at best. They would have been hunted down and exterminated.

The giant turn around by Battlefleet Gothic in the later part of the 13th Black Crusade was why Chaos still ultimately lost. The old addage, "You can win the battles but still lose the war," still rings true. Without control of space all the chaos victories and holdings in the Gothic sector were all seperated, with no resupply, and left to their own devices. Allowing the Imperium to take them back, at their leisure, one battlefront at a time.

Indeed!  Which leads me to this point:  Terra can and will fall.  As soon as it gets cut-off by warpstorms again.  Also, there's a rumour about that the genestealers slipped onto Terra…possibly even slipping into the Senate…..anyone know any facts behind these rumours?  Because, with all the naval ships and all the space traffic in the system, the odds are good that a genestealer cult would, over 10,000 years, find some way in……

And, I'm curious about this adeptus custodes 'legion' thing:  huh?  they ain't space marines, so why are they a legion?  and a custodes beat up a primarch??  really!??  when?  cause if the custodes could do that, then what the heck was the primarch project all about?

It is very unlikely that the Senate or its closer loge has been infested with genestealers because the Imperium knows different techniques to discover such manipulation. In fact it is very likely that each senator is investigated by medical and psionik staff before he enters the senate to be sure nobody is controling him in any way. Atleast it is a very effektive mechanism if you think of the 10.000 years the imperium lasted with this government with only a "few" disturbances (I. e. Age of Apostasy).

And about the Adeptus Custodes, yes, they are no Astartes. Back in the unification wars on Terra the Emperor invented the genetical engineering that later was developed into the Astartes we know of today. But in the unification Wars the Emperor created warriors the same way the Custodes are made today. The technique used for Custodes makes them bigger, stronger, faster and overal more effective than any Astartes can be. The only reason the Astartes were invented is because their process is faster and does not have that strict requirements for its subjects. The way the astartes are created is how to maintain an army. The way the custodes are made is to maintain an elite. They were the Emperors Personal Legion and his Bodyguards, just as the Emperor was ahead of any primarch, the custodes are ahead of any other Astartes. And Constantin Valdor won agains Horus Lupercal back in the days on terra, you can read about that in the Horus Heresy Novels. This was the Moment when Constantin Valdor earned the respect of Russ himself which is kinda funny because Valdor served the Emperor a longer time any other Primarch did, because Valdor already fought on Terra itself, side by side with the Emperor, to form the Imperium.

The Primarch projects goal was to create ultimate Leaders that would be loyal and competent in any way. They are meant to be the strongest warriors of the Imperium, they are created to be that. Valdor was just, well, an exception. There is a reason he was the personal bodyguard of the Emperor. Just think about that. What kind of man do you need to be the bodyguard of the strongest warrior and psyker in the imperium? This strengh was not only a result of his custodes heritage but his personal skill in addition. Any "normal" custodes was not able to compare to a primach though they are all superior to any astartes. Valdor was "just" the the champion of the Emperors own Legion and this was enought to defeat horus in a sparring fight.^^

aha!  Well thanx for that information, sir!  So, the horus heresy novels are…..proving to be a disappointment…..Horus beat up by the Emprah's bodyguard, eh?  Sad…..so much for Horus being a big bad……Dorn heresy's starting to sound more interesting…..it's always an arms race with wh40k, it seems - the next big thing is always better than what came before…… :(

Zappiel said:

Well, as long as there is a Codex Entry about the Unit, yes, it is always an arms race. Remember, all the Fluff is made to suit a Tabletop game that is about total war.^^ Though there is no Codex about the Adeptus Custodes they are OP for the simple fact that they are the Emperors Legion. They are the Fluff Barrier that makes Terra a fortress nobody can hope to assault. If you read the codex of the races, everyone has some kind of super power and in counterbalance every race needs something to be save against other empires super powers. In the case of the Imperium its the defensive forces of the Segmentum Sol and more important the Adeptus Custodes on Terra.

That ground must be so defiled anyway that it's lost for ever… and Cadian was a guarison fortress world… there must be plenty of resources there to last for a long long war…

Come and take it! ;)

Overconfident Humans make me laugh. An ancient Empire is awakening across the Galaxy that is far more powerful than the pethetic forces that guard a corpse sitting on a golden baby chair.

LOL sorry I had to add that.

I however do believe that The Necrons will one day fully awaken and when they do. The Emperium and even Tera shall fall to their might.

computertrucker said:

In fact they are awaken and have been codex-raped just like some other armies. I liked the Necrons when they were mindless killing machines, now they are pussys made of metal.

Back in the good old days there were several "ultimate" Weapons/Tools/Events every race had and that would allow it ultimate power, though they were in balance for each other. The awakening of the necrons was one of this events. To prevent them to break the fluff they "humanized" the Necrons and made them a laughable mess.

Gurkhal said:

Well then, explain to us all where chaos was getting its ammunition. Where was the fuel for all their vehicles coming from? Who was repairing or delivering fresh vehicles when they got damaged or destroyed? Where were all the chaos forces getting their food (I don't think the Khorne berserker was putting up a farm for his lovely cultist fellows). How did the chaos forces repell or resist Imperial air and space superiority (kind of hard to amass troops when a couple of lance strikes or bombing runs can waste them all, dispersed troops are less effective troops)? How did the chaos forces gain ground in other places when they had no way off the planet they landed on (no space ships = no space travel)?

The infrastructure needed to run and up-keep an army are immense. When the Gothic fleet finally amassed and began winning (meaning destroying ships or forcing them to retreat out of the combat sector) the infrastructure of the invading forces (invading forces have to bring their own infrastructure with them, in this case on space craft) went away with it. The Imperium may not have been able to beat all the enemy forces on ground immediately, but without supply or transport the enemy wasn't going to do anything but degrade over time. The Imperials are also not about to leave their infrastructure for their enemy, a basic rule of warfare: if you're being overun or you are retreating destroy or render un-usable anything to large to carry with you which your enemies may benefit from.

You state, "taking them will strip the defense against other threats and allow them to win ground." What exactly do you think happened? The Tau were on the cusp of a major Imperial advance which would have wiped them out, it is the Tyranids and 13th Black Crusade which saved them. As the Imperium redirected many of the resources being used to counter the Tau and those they might have used to destroy them to the sectors with the more significant threats. In the absence of the continued Imperial power the Tau advanced with their 3rd phase expansion.

It seems careful and logical analysis of the situations supports what I stated is indeed the practically assured outcome. (oh boy here comes the: "its sci-fi hooptawhoop so logic doesn't matter" argument. Well to counter that, if anything can happen because of lack of logic, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing, which states your illogical assessment is more true than my logical one. As all arguments are equally valid under this assumption, there is no way to know which one truly occoured unless we bring in another method, say for instance: logic. When we do that, though, the illogical argument, which requried the illogical = just as true as logic to be true, is no longer true.)  No military force in its right mind would allow enemies to remain behind their lines, they would have been excised, and very quickly at that (at least the ones on Cadia).

herichimo said:

I would presume that there are both some degree of supplies already present on Caida, that some degrees of supplies have been captured from the Imperials and that there are some degree of works that have been captured reasonably intact so that they can be repaired to provide for the Chaos forces.

Also as the Chaos invasion is a rather big one I would assume that they carried some degree of surface-to-air weaponry with them in case that the Imperials did indeed sent air forces against them. Orbital weaponry is a bit harder of course and will probably prevent the Chaos forces from directly overruning remaining Imperial forces in the direct future.

The forces of Chaos rather simply gained ground by going with space ships and landing on new planets. What did you expect? As you said yourself it wasn't untill the end that the Imperial fleet got an advantage and by then the forces of Chaos had made gains in several places as well as Typhous had made himself a nice new daemon world. But I know you already knew about this.

herichimo said:

I am well aware of the infrastructure beind a large army. thank you. But for the Imperials to uphold the blockade of the Chaos forces a significent they must keep their fleets right there, while at the same time giving a freebie to other enemies. Simply the Imperials must either go for the Chaos forces now or retreat with the bulk of their fleet as it will be needed in other places. That's the bitch with fighting on several fronts at the same time.

herichimo said:

So we know both what happens when the Imperials concentrate all their forces agains one enemy? Then I assume you also know that a concentration like that can't be upheld for any longer degree of time.

Well, I do not think the Imperium has that much of fear for the Chaos infested continents on Cadia.

There are two ways the Imperium handels its enemies.

1. The enemy can be beaten, this might take some years but this war can be won. Who cares how many imperial guardsmen might die, thats what they are born for.

2. The enemy can not be beaten, this might be because of to less troops or another threat that must be engaged. In this case Exterminatus is imminent though in this particular case where the Imperium has still a foothold this would lead to lance-striking the enemy down.

The imperium would accept no chaos foothold in his main defense perimeter as long as it can not control it. They have the space superiority, the defeat of the cut-off chaos forces on ground is only a matter of time.

 Gurkhal said:

I've said it already, but it must need repeating. So take it from a military veteran. WHEN YOU ARE BEING OVERAN OR RETREATING YOU DESTROY ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING YOUR ENEMY CAN USE WHICH YOU CAN NOT TAKE WITH YOU. No self-respecting army is going to leave a stockpile of ammo, vehicles, or even food their enemy can use against them. 10 sticks of C-4 (or 40k equivalent) place in the depot and viola no more ammo, and took less than 5-10 minutes, an amount of time base defenders can most likely stall for. Same thing for factories etc. Scorched earth brother, leave nothing for your enemy.

Gurkhal said:

Maybe, but unlikely. We all know the typical degree of pre-mission planning in most chaos missions. Besides, they had their fleets there, which handled air to air supperiority. In fact, until the Imperial forces rebounded after the chaos fleet split up to go hound and dilute their forces all over the sector they held space/air supperiority over every major battlezone with their fleet, they didn't need ground based forces. When their fleet was forced to flee their airpower went with it.

[QUOTE efidm=754312]

Damn stupid board code…

herichimo said:

I heard you the first time. But as historical experience has shown its, to my knowledge, not often that such things are 100% when its on a world war size and I kind of assume that the Chaos forces brought down supplies for themselves to the surface which would constitute the majority of the supplies that they have present.

herichimo said:

We do? I'd say its very different between warbands and that the Chaos Space Marines, who most likely leads the operations, probably have a fairly good organization of the operations. Maybe not Imperial style but enough to make things work and not forget obvious things. And I still think that the Chaos forces, or at the least the Chaos Space Marines and the Traitor Guard formations brought gear for all manner of different uses with them, including surface-to-air weaponry in case local air superiority would not be there or something would go wrong.

herichimo said:

This is the internet. Everyone is professor, expert, war veteran etc. What authority that you claim to possess has little relevance for me as there is no way for you or me to verify it or prove it.