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ASOIAF Miniature Game

2021-11-12T05:44:28Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: /* Targaryen */

[[Image:1587414916979.png|thumb|400px|right]]

'''ASOIAF Miniature Game''' is a new rank and file [[wargame]] that's based on [[A Song of Ice and Fire]]. Despite being made by a company with a bad miniature system record but good boardgame record, it still manages to be a rather fun game. Also it is based on the book, so they can choose to not copy stupid shit from the show.

It received a resurgence on /tg/ but noone gives a fuck about it on the general. They were some fan-made factions early on (Greyjoy, Yunkai, Tully) but even those people fucked off.
Both the official app war council and asoiafbuilder, lets you look at units, while they somehow fucked up and made no gallery, closet I found is https://cmon.com/product/a-song-of-ice-fire-tmg.
Also there is a TTS mod for it.

== Setting and History ==

Meh later i'll write condensed fluff

As this is CMON the game began with a [[1]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with more factions added.
The problem for CMON is, that Asmodeeus does all the distribution and that shit doesn't work.
Most units had an initial releases, which prometly sold out, and then 4 months later those units were available again. Fuck that.

At least [[Duncan Rhodes]] says it is one of his favorites games.

== Game Mechanics ==
ASOIAF is a rank and file system. However unlike Fantasy, you have alternating activations instead of I-Go-U-Go. that means that player 1 activates a single unit, then player 2 until every unit is activated once.
A combat unit can do one action generally, which includes pivots, movements, and attacks. The standard movement for example, is pivot, straight movement and then pivot. A march would be double movement and then pivots. Attacks are based upon the number of ranks as well as the unit's accuracy. All hits are saved by the enemy units armour. If you suffer 1 wound, you have to do a panic test with 2d6 against your morale, taking 1 + 1d3 wounds if failed. As well as all these fairly basic rules, many units have special abilities.

Compared to Fantasy, a lot is streamlined and made more fluid. You have a fixed rank size (3 ranks of 4 models), the number of attack dice are based on the number of ranks and health is just how many models on the base for most part.

Units usually have 1 or 2 abilities, which are normally easy to understand, and either give bonus actions and abilities or more dice/wounds.
There are also conditions and shit which are more complex, but you will figure it out with practice.

For army building you have your combat units, each of whom can have 1 attachment (normally a character), and your non-combatants (non-combat units, or NCUs) which are explained below. Additionally you will always have 1 Commander, who is free.

Now the unique part: You have two unique aspects - the tactics board and tactics deck.

The tactics board is the political side of the battle. Here non-combat units ([[Elf|cowards]]) can influence the board. You have 5 spots, each with a unique ability. These can be healing, taking another attack or movement, forcing panic test and drawing tactics card. This gives another layer of strategy to the game.

The tactics decks are faction specific decks, which around 7 cards + 3 commander specific cards in pairs of 2. These cards have bonus effects which can be played from your hand, some of them quite powerful like free movement, better charges or in case of the dirty Free Folk, respawns. A lot of these cards gives better effects, if you control certain spots on the tactics board, which gives another layer of decision making to the game.
A big part of your thought process will be dedicated to make the best use of the tactics card in your hands in a turn.

Last point is objectives: while killing a unit gives off 1 VP (victory point), you need 10 to win a 40 Points game. Most games are therefore played with a scenario, which allows you to receive more points

== Models ==

All the characters are unique and for the most part pretty cool looking, with decent casts. Basic infantry units are made up of 12 dudes, with a variation of 4 models generally, plus a banner bearer. So you have around some samey looks. Cavalry has 4 sculpts, so are all unique as they only have 4 models total. Models are good to amazing and for the most part realistically made. The body are made from PVC, shitty boardgame plastic, but all weapons and fragile is made from normal plastic. So that is okay. One thing to note is that the models are one-piece casts, rather than the sprues you'd see for GW products.

Then the [[Skub|Baratheon showed up]].

== The Factions ==

Like all games under the sun, ASOIAF has different factions, each with a different playstyle. While this lead to widely different armaments and technology in a unified realm, having every single model look the same would be stupid as fuck.

There are currently 8 factions:
Stark, Lannister, Night Watch, Freefolk, Baratheon, Targaryen, Neutrals and Greyjoys.

The biggest difference between each faction are unit choices (with their abilities) and the tactics deck.
Closest (in play style) to each other are the Starks and the Lannisters.

In most cases the unit variety between both factions can be big: the stark sworn swords and the Lannister guardsmen are both 5 points unit who are suppose to hold ground, but the lannister are very defensive while the sworn swords have the option of a better attack.
So in most cases you have 1 unit in each faction fulfilling the same task but with sometimes a cost difference and widely different abilities.
But there are also unit who are quite similar: Lannister Knights and Tully Cavaliers (who cost 1 point more).
Both have the same statline, same primary ability but a different secondary ability.

But we now come to the biggest difference: Tactics deck.
Each faction has its own tactics deck, which are ability cards you can play. There are usually quite strong and change how you approach the game. The Tully Knights play differently due to the access to their new cards.

I would generally say that you have three factors influencing your army playstyle:
*Your faction, which gives you your 7x2 generic tactics cards.
*Your commander, which grants you another 3x2 generic tactics card.
*Your subtheme, units from a certain theme play differently from other units.

So while the Lannisters are generally very sneaky and controll-y, using only the Mountain's Men and Gregor Clegane leads to a very aggressive version of the Lannister army. They keep their generic tactics card and can control the game with it, but you will have access to really heavy hitter.
I'll ignore sub-themes for now and focus on the iconic playstyles.

=== Stark ===

The simple but [[Lawful Stupid|honorful]] citizens of the cold north. These were one of two factions introduced in the two-player starter.

As of now they are composed of the Houses Stark, Umber, Reed, Tully, and recently Karstarks and Mormonts added.
In general you have more cloth and fur wearing units, while the tully side look more similar to knights and shit

==== Playstyle ====

Stark are the aggressive factions. You have heavy hitting units, some units where you take dmg to deal more dmg and access to Greywind, Shaggydog and Summer.

Your tactics cards are all about either getting you into melee or hitting harder in melee. Most of your attachments also play into more dmg and more movement.

Aggressive and very charge heavy. Try to line up side charges and unexpected movements. Tactics cards are more of a addition instead of your main focus.

=== Lannister ===

Introduced in the first starter set, these are the defensive counterparts to the Starks.
Composed of the well equipped and trained Lannister soldiers, the brutal and vicious men of House Clegane and the devout followers fo the church of the seven.

==== Playstyle ====

Lannister are generally defensive. You have an average higher defensive value then the other factions, access to some good defensive tools but are also generally slow and not moverable as much as other.

Your tactics focus on messing with the enemy, disabling their abilites, causing panic tests and non-direct dmg.

Playstyle is a very tactics card heavy while creating scenario where you can use your ability and tactics for maximum effect, on the field you are more defensive normally but commanders like Gregor can change this, the name of the game is control and you have it in spades, and if you don't then you're probably losing

=== Night's Watch ===

Elite army somehow. Mostly to be a foil to the Free Folk.

Different take: of all the factions only the Watch spent all the time fighting, training and preparing and unlike other factions, they are constantly fighting free folk. In the books Yoren, an old and physically decrepit member of the Night's Watch kills several Lannister soldiers before being killed during a battle, so the Night's Watch being elite honestly makes sense.

==== Playstyle ====

The Elite army. You have solid unit and attachments. Generally less units, but they're not going anywhere. You are a tough army, with some inbuilt heals and versatility via tactics card.

Your tactics card give benefit over multiple rounds and stay attached. Iconic abilities are all about healing back up. Also some top tierranged options, also the only faction with war machines.

Attrition heavy, stay in combat and your superior units will slowly win the fight.

Also you will usually want to draw your entire deck with this faction, so a lot of your game plan is maximizing your ability cards.

=== Free Folk ===

Uncivilized savages, or so the people south of the wall believe.
A confederacy of tribal societies with some monsters and war-beasts thrown in for flavor.
You're playing a very different game from the rest of the factions, they are playing ike 3 ages ahead in Age of empires while only your Thenns have reached Bronze, you will not win a straight up fight, but then again, why should you play fair?

==== Playstyle ====

The Horde army. Your people are cheap and not very well equipped. Yeah you have specialized unit, many different themes and ability but to summarize, you are a horde, try not to block your own charges and movements. Also Giants.

Tactics card are mobility based and piling in.

Lots of luring enemy to overcomming and dogpiling on the surrounded units. Also a suprising amount of auto-wounds with your Monsters.
Unity is what lets you win, having Thenns taunt enemies into bad charges, Raiders mucking up the battlelines and ganging up on miss-positioned units, Spearwives assaulting and disengaging, Trappers tripping up the enemies chargers, Giants grinding the enemies anvils, you won't win unless you're on the offensive and make the battle a mess only you can work with.

=== Baratheon ===

Divided into 2 sub-factions with its own sub themes.

You have the Baratheons of Dragonstone with King Stannis, who have come unto their own as an aggresive and well rounded force, you have panic shenanigans, tactics card drawing, last stands, sentinel order, Stannis loyalty is less offensive and more armored spearhead.

Then you have the Baratheon of Storm's End under Usurper Renly Baratheon. As of now defensive oriented, but lacking in unit variety (we only have Rose Knights as of writing this) they have control and healing to make your units even tougher to shift.

==== Playstyle ====

Irrespective of loyalty, I would consider them second strike forces, you want to weather an attack and hit the enemy afterwards.

Tactics card are all about getting benefit from starting in combat and such, and throwing out new attacks.

Playstyle are defensive, you don't necessary need the charge but on the other hand you don't want the enemy to cripple your unit. Get hit, and counter charge them. Plays different then Lannister that you don't really have counterplay but a lot of punishement.

=== Targaryen ===

Dothraki, Unsullied and Stormcrows, you can't say they don't have variety at this point, the peoples of Essos who have joined Daenerys in her crusade to retake the Iron Throne for the Targaryen and make a better world.
Now with added Dragons, which of course, are terrifying.

==== Playstyle ====

Given the variety of themes you won't say you're not spoiled for choice, with Dothraki being maneuverable and fast as cracked out demons, Unsullied being hard as hell to shift and Stromcrows filling the in-between you don't really have any glaring gaps in your arsenal.

Since Commanders in this faction have 4 Tactics cards intead of the standard 3 playstyles will vary far more wildly than normal, but the Basic deck is all about maneuverability and aggression, not unlike the stark deck, thusly aggressive playstyles and a healthy dose of Dothraki cavarly should be your go-to with this faction.

=== Neutral ===

Neutrals can be recruited into all factions except Free Folk.

You have three subthemes, Boltons who are very panic and fear heavy. Stormcrow who are more reliable, focusing on the money spot and attachements and lastly the goat people, The Bloody Mummers who focus on hit and run tactics and not getting absolutely blasted on the counter attack.

==== Playstyle ====

Depending on your units and shit you have 1 of three main themes.

Boltons go all in on the panic and dirty fighting shenanigans, with their commamnders rewarding control (Roose) or hyper-agression (Ramsay) and having a healthy balance between fast and hard-hitting units and heavily armored line holders/breakers.

Stromcrows are more balanced stats-wise and get discounts on whatever attachments they get, their melee units can use the Bags spot to get extra attack actions while the Archers get additional effects on their ranged attacks when you control some specific spots on the tactics board, overall they can reliably patch a hole in your list and can stay cheap while doing it.

Bloody Mummers are very lightly armored and have average offensive profiles, but their abilities can be very powerful when used correctly, skirmishers want units that are bad at combat so they can use counterstirke and Zoarse Riders want to hit flank and rear charges and then retreating to do it all over again, sort of weak currently but can be made to work if built around.

While not belonging to any particular theme in this faction, we do have Hedge Knights, they aren't stellar profile wise but get better when holding the Bags and/or Swords spot, also the attachments they bring aren't bad at all for their cost so do give them a chance.

=== Greyjoy ===

Pillage and burn baby! the denizens of the Iron Isles are a brutal lot, they reward early aggression so they can build momentum and reach their full potential.
Currently no real subthemes, but the roster is pretty solid so far.

==== Playstyle ====

As said before, aggression and momentum, the Pillage mechanic allows our units to get better whenever they shave off an enemy rank giving us imporved armour saves, better panic damage, better melle attack rolls, etc, so getting a good first few engagements will mean your units will plow through similar opposition later in the game, but you have to be wary since neither our morale or armor saves are any good, we are all about dealing out punishment rather than taking it, with few exceptions.

Our tactics deck gives us added agression, some utility and fuinally sustain, with the notable detail of still getting extra benefits when enemies have the bags spot (only on a couple of cards don't get too excited), letting you still pull ahead if you've lost control of the tactics board.

== What to buy==

There are three point sizes: 30 for demo games, 40 for normal players, 50 if you want to kill an afternoon.
A unit cost between 5-10 points, a NCU about 3-5. A normal list will have between 7-8 (Units + NCU) in a 40 point game.

So to start off, you want the starter box for your factions. This includes 2 identical units, 2 * 1 another unit, 2 NCU, 2 Commander/Attachement, your tactics card, dices and all you need to play (shitty cardboard terrain).
So in total you have 4 units and 2 NCU, clocking in at about 30 points.

If you want to go up to 40 points, another box would suffice. A unit box will just have the unit you want + 1 Attachment generally. Hero Boxes usually contain 7 characters, which can be Commanders, NCUs or Attachments.
I recommend buying both, 1 unit box and 1 heroes box of the faction you play or neutrals. For the unit, just don't buy any unit already in your starter.

Neutrals are the big outliner here, they don't have a starter box, the tactics cards are in Neutral heroes 1.

In general a starter box is 135, while the smaller boxes clock in at 39, the two-player cost around 190? and contains everything for two people to start playing, (but only 1 of each non-essential item; 1 rulenook but 2 tactics deck 1 for each faction)

The starter includes anything you need: Rulebook, Tokens, Tactics card, tactics board and Terrain.

== Tactics ==

Some minor advices. Usually your list will have between 7 (low amount) - 8 (average) units.
There are two schools of thought, the american prefer 5 units and 2 NCU, while European play 4 units and 3 NCU.
The justification is simple: If both have 2 they can claim their spot their want, but you can only limit your enemy to a small level. Both players having 3 NCU, will usually hurt the army of both players, but if only one has 3 and the other has 2, it'll hurt the 2 NCU player more.

If both have 3 NCU, you usually first contest the Tactics board, before moving to the units, the most important spot early on is probably the letters spot

While choosing your NCU if you have 3 I recommend taking 2 with a effect while claiming and a third effect if possible.

Also having a replace effect as one of your NCU helps you take those zone which won't help you and still gain some value

Commander choices influences your army as does the objective. You want to build your army usually around your commander, and the cards he gives to your deck.

For list-building do not go overboard on attachements. Not all units need attachements, make sure each attachement works in their rule. First try to get to your required number of activation, then decide if you want attachement.

General rule of thumbs in ASOIAF Miniature Game is to play your card more often then just keeping them in your hand. In higher level plays you want to combo cards to one-shot units quickly.

==Tactics pages==
Here's the tactics pages that we have so far:

While I will give an overview of the tactics, this is just the info by a guy who is around the midlevel.
I have heard some more information by pros by I can't verify myself and therefore will not include that.

Furthermore even though I will say Unit x is shit, do try them out yourself, I might be wrong.

Being constantly updated

* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Stark|Stark]]
* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Lannister|Lannister]]
* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Night Watch|Night Watch]]
* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Free Folk|Free Folk]]
* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Baratheon|Baratheon]]
* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Targaryen|Targaryen]]
* [[ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Neutral|Neutral]]

==Fanmade-Shit==

Because we are /tg/ and we have all the time I'll add everything people created in the general

[[Media:Harras .pdf|All the missing factions]] Way too much time and unformated: But it is nice to imagine how certain factions could be

[[Media:Baratheon units.pdf|Stannis Fixed]]

[[Media:Greyjoy.pdf|Greyjoy as Neutral]]

==Gallery==
<Gallery>

</Gallery>

==See Also==

[[Category:Wargames]]
[[category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]]

ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Lannister

2021-11-12T05:25:35Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: /* Attachements */

[[ASOIAF Miniature Game|Back to the list]]

==Why Play Lannister==
''Hear Me Roar"/"A Lannister Always Pays His Debts"/"Tywinn shits gold"/"MY HAND!!!"''

You are a dick in real life, and want to be one in the game too. So you play this factions. Or you think money can buy you everthing (it can actually if you are rich enough).
Lannisters are the richest factions and can buy the coolest shit. You are the faction build around tricks and defense

===Pros===
*Lots of denial and debuffs
*Toolbox approach to units
*Good defense
*The Mountain who rides
*Some of the strongest glass cannons in the game

===Cons===
*Morale is kinda crap in general
*Panic bomb got nerfed
*Toolbox approach to units
*No offense increase via effects
*No free action either in attack or movement
*no movement tricks

===Playstyle===
House Lannister is about tricks. You debuff their offense and their option, you ensure you stay in a good position.
After you are sure, you apply your specialized units to the task they are best at, then you pat yourself on the back you lazy fuck.
Generally you are a defensive factions, and your offense is via Abilities and NCU. If you do take the iniative you mostly deal wounds via panic.

==Unit and Attachement Analysis==
You have 3 themes in your unit choices.
The Lannister troops are all pretty well armored, have average to bad moral and help deal panic dmg. The Clegane units, that get benefits by fighting dirty and are better at finishing off wounded units rather than going at it toe to toe. The Faith of the Seven troops have excellent morale and play around ith it by generating tokens that give them either offensive or defensive buffs.

===Commander===

*'''Jaime Lannister:''' Mostly defensive and gets a better effect out of his cards if its his unit benefiting from them but doesnt really have the impact that other commanders have, doesn't see too much tournament play for that very reason but he can be very fun to use.

*'''Gregor Clegane:''' Relentless, Gregor is what you choose if all you want is to crush your enemy's head with your bare hands, his cards can combo with each other with quick and dirty combat buffs that have increased effect if the unit has the "Clegane" affiliation so he benefits from bringing Sandor, Mountain's Men and Brigands to get the most out of them.

*'''Tywin Lannister:''' Gives "Lannister Supremacy" to the unit he attaches to and Weakens an enemy unit whenever his unit activates, Broken Resolve depends on the target being Weakened so it really benefits to bring Pycele along so you can keep him guessing. He's very utilitarian giving you offense, defense and activation passing in one neat package.

*'''Tyrion Lannister:''' Very strong, his cards depend on having the Letters spot on the Influence board and are focused on giving you more cards or stumping your enemy's own, he can burn through your and your opponent's tactics deck and if the game goes long enough he allows you to cherry pick cards from your discard pile (which should be all of them). He's easily one of the strongest commanders for the faction if not the game.

*'''Joffrey Baratheon:''' Not used very much since he gives 3 VPs if he dies and his cards have negative effects for you, though the positive effects are one of the strongest in the game. He's a high risk high reward kind of guy so you need to build your list around him if you want to use him.

*'''High Sparrow:''' Our only in-faction NCU Commander and one of the strongest of the lineup, he synergizes with his intended combat units (Faith) like no other commander and his cards can be hair pullingly frustrating, his army will tend towards wound restoration and tough as nails morale sort of tankiness and can deal a surprising amount of damage through the use of Faith tokens (of which you'll have plenty). Very fun to use though the units he supports can only be purchased on their own so they might run a bit expensive, but you're a Lannister, money is not an issue.

====Units====
*'''Lannister Guardsmen (5pt):''' Your bread and butter melee unit, very defensive with a 3+ save and an in-built defensive ability in Lannister Supremacy, stick them on an objective and they have a good chance of holding it for a long time, considering giving them a Guard Captain if you don't want to run them naked to ensure that Lanniser Supremacy always goes off. Though with 4 movement and a 6/5/3 attack profile they can hardly afford to go on the offensive and even if they doo they'll dish out more wounds from Lannister Supremacy than their longswords.

*'''Poor Fellows (5pt):''' Your other bread and butter unit, faith edition. Despite their 6+ save they are much more tankier than your would have believe, a 3+ moral ensures they will almost never fail a panic check which many units require to wipe out a tray and their ability to easily regenerate wounds helps them recover. Much like Guardsmen they rely on their ability to do the majority of their damage though their ability rather than their attacks so they like the meatgrinder. They unsurprising pair VERY well with the Champion of the Faith attachment which again helps them regen more mmodels and gives them an easy way to generate faith tokens.

*'''House Clegane Mountain's Men (6pt):''' Mountain's Men are very simple, you want them to be in combat as soon as possible, with critical bow and vicious they can do serious damage to a unit though with a 4+ save and a subpar 7+ they can't take a lot of punishment in return. Another unit that a Guard Captain can fix but it's normally better to put The Mountain or Bronn in to up their strengths rather than softening their weakness.

*'''Lannister Crossbowmen (6pt):''' 7/7/3 attacks with Long Range and Sundering is fantastic, however this also means they are normally target number one for any dudes on horseback, so keep them protected. A guard captain is always a good idea as an 8+ leadership is one of the worst in the game. Use them to shoot at any wolf or Jorah you can see for a free VP, to soften up a unit before a charge, or use them to shoot at a unit camping an objective to force them to come to you.

*'''Lannister Halberdiers (6pt):''' Another very defensive unit, their order Set For Charge lets them lets them attack a charging unit with 8 Sundering attacks which can give you extra control of the board as no unit really want so be around them to eat that attack.

*'''Pyromancers (7pt):''' If you look up the definition of glass cannon you'll see these guys. They die easy but kill even faster if they can get there. Wildfire is a great way to crack open high armour targets. One of the most fun units in the game to use, they love anything that can give them extra attacks and work well with The Mountain or Jaime for full scorched earth.

*'''Knights of Casterly Rock (8pt):''' The gold standard of cavalry, though with Lannisters did you expect anything else? The wealthiest motherfuckers around and they give you the mobility you desperately need, since they have a 3+ save and Lannister Supremacy they can take a hit as well as a Guardsmen but you want them to be constantly charging to make good use of their Lance ability.

*'''Warrior's Sons (8pt):''' Your other Faith unit these dudes have two different abilities, one offensive and one defensive that require Faith Tokens to use, using a faith token to hand out panicked and vulnerable give them good offensive output letting them kill units the Poor Fellows cannot. while getting a +1 or +2 to their save means that they will not die when brought down a rank or two, put Barristan Selmy on them to give them even more solid morale and a better wound regen than the Champion of the Faith.

*'''The Mountain That Rides (4pt):''' Your cheapest unit points cost but not price wise. A Kickstarter exclusive model so good luck finding one or even being able to use him, that said 4 points for a couple of auto-wounds and a guaranteed Panicked on horse legs is a good deal.

====Non-Combat Units====

*'''Pycelle (4pt):''' Weakens an enemy whenever he activates, its hard to argue against him since he directly synergizes with practically everything in your army by selectively blunting your enemys attacks.

*'''Cersei (4pt):''' Drawing cards is great, drawing 2 cards, which are among the best in our base deck, even out of your discard pile, twice per game is etty fucking good my guy. A hilarious tactic is to use her son (Joffrey) to take the bags, he plinks off his own panic token and efectively activates your whole tactics deck nd allows Cersei to drawn both Hear me Roar and Subjugation of Power giving you a TON of value in just 2 activations.

*'''Joffrey Baratheon (4pt):''' Counting as holding the Crown independent of where you put him is VERY strong make no mistake, if he takes the Bag spot he turns on the WHOLE basic Lannister tactics deck and while panicked on one of your units will definetely sting he is definetely worth considering if you want to save a bit on NCUs.

*'''Tywin Lannister (4pt):''' Completely screw over a unit at the start of a turn once per game. Thats it, and its very strong, especially if your enemy is running a deathstar, but that means you should know your opponent before choosing him.

*'''Tyrion Lannister (4pt):''' The Trolliest of NCUs, bigger hand size and forcing your oponent show you 2 cards and have them discard one of them will ensure you have the advantage in the tactics card game, take him if you really want your opponent to be frustrated playing againts you.

====Attachements====
*'''Preston Greenfield (1 pts):''' Drawing more cards is always good but make sure you can capitalize on the benefit.

*'''Meryn Trant ( 1 pts):''' Applies a condition token on an enemy when he activates, versatile so he can pretty much go anywhere.

*'''Arys Oakheart (1 pts):''' Defensive Buff, simple though its effectiveness will depend on where you put him in.

*'''Boros Blount (2 pts):''' Offensive Buff, good stuff since you usually dont have that many autowounds outside of Poor fellows, goes swimingly with Mountains men.

*'''Jaime Lannister - Kingsguard (2 pts):''' Snipe an attachment or 1 autowound is very good, put him on something that'll survive in the thick of it and send him towards something that really needs his attachment.

*'''Mandon Moore (2 pts):''' Offensive buff, great on Halberdiers.

*'''Sandor Clegane (2 pts):''' Hurts you unit to give them Vicious and +1 to hit, good on Halbediers and better still if your commander is The Mountain.

*'''Jaime Lannister - The Young Lion (2 pts):''' More consistent attacks on your unit, Pyromancers love him.

*'''Tyrion Lannister (2 pts):''' Turns off your enemies tricks when fighting a unit but you're probably running him as a commander since he does more stuff and he'll be free.

*'''Barristan Selmy (3 pts):''' Better morale, restore wounds if you have the Crown and pass a morale test, very good on faith units.

*'''Gregor Clegane (3 pts):''' more attacks and sundering, also makes your unit less controled but charges reliably if you lose that control. He's a very obvious tool and that doesnt make him any less terrifying, hes downright disgusting with his own Mountains Men but in the end he just makes a melee unit that much more hard hitting.

*'''Gregor Clegane (Cav):''' Hard to find his Cavalry Attachment Card but he's very strong since he deals d3 autowounds in melee and deals a Panicked token when he charges, he obviously goes on Knights of Casterly Rock since his panicked thing is redundant on Flayed Men.

*'''Clegane Butcher (2 pts):''' (Previewed) A cavalry attachement that gives out a weakened and panicked token when an engaged enemy fails a panic test, he interferes with the counterattack againts your Knights and sets up a harder morale check for another unit, depending on the cost he might be an autoinclude but will probably just be overshadowed by the rare and not tournament approved The Mountain.

*'''Champion of the Faith (1 pts):''' Tests morale and restores a wound on a fail and 2 on a success, he obviously goes very well on Poor Fellows.

*'''Guard Captain (1 pts):''' [[Commissar|Kill one of your guys to autopass a panic test]], your easy Lannister Supremacy Trigger and as such goes very well on Guardsmen

*'''Assault Veteran (1 pts):''' Not used very much since his ability requires you to already be engaged when you activate, so he's a little slow, a shame since his mini is verry pretty.

*'''Sentinel Enforcer (1 pts):''' has Taunt to force an enemy to charge his unit (if they fail a morale test and are close enough) good if you want to divert certain enemy units into your anvils, halberdiers are probably the better choice, though Guardsmen are cheap enough to do the job too.

*'''Turncoat (1 pts):''' He's another one of those "Attach to an enemy unit to screw them over" type of guy, you can kill this little guy to give the enemy unit a condition token of your choice and turn off their orders and friendly tactics cards for the turn (their natural abilities are still on though), he's pretty straightforward really, just plop him with an enemy unit that you want to screw over and go for it when the time is right.

*'''Maimed Jaime (2 pts):''' You attach him to an enemy unit, whenever they activate they take D3 hits and if the unit is destroyed they grant an additional VP. Put him on an enemy unit that cant really afford to constantly take hits (bad armor save) and panic tests (remember you only need to inflict a wound to trigger one) and he might be an easy extra VP.

==Building your Army==

As always, your list depends on your commander and objective. Make a list which can make use of your commanders ability and tactics card.

In general you want around 7+ activation in your army.
Most everyone wants 3 NCU, and Lannister also like 3 as this allows them to steal a spot, someone else wanted. Also it gives you a NCU to claim the highly contested letters spot.

Your faction more then any other factions are highly dependent on the commander.

Sample List:

==Tactics Deck==

General rule of thumbs in ASOIAF Miniature Game is to play your card more often then just keeping them in your hand and combo them if you can to one-shot units.
You are Lannisters, you will probably throw them out faster then anyone else.
You have some very specific condition and situational cards, you struggle is to determine, when do you just toss a card or when do you keep them.

Your general Tactics deck is kinda lackluster in general, but if you use them right, you will feel like a genius.
Though you have no offense increasing cards, in general your commander cards are just better.

But a perfect card, can stop the foes plan in its track

*'''Hear me Roar!:''' apply a -2 to -4 debuff to morale when an enemy takes a panic test and if you control the Crown spot they become Panicked, with how easy it is to trigger panic tests you will definetly find an opportunity to use it.

*'''Fealty to the Crown:''' When you enemy fails a panic test you can heal one wound on a unit unit for each model they lost, if you have the crown you can heal up to 2 wounds on any unit. Good on the attrition game and since we trigger and basically make sure our enemies *always* fail their panic tests you're gonna get use out of this card for sure.

*'''Wealth of the Rock:''' +1 to armor save and if you control the Bag spot you block d3 hits automatically, can really save your bacon whether you use it to protect expensive or cheaper units.

*'''Intrigue and Subterfuge:''' Take away your opponets NCU's abilities and make em discard a tactics card if you hold the Crown spot, this is deceptively strong since you only need to use it when the NCU activates which means your opponent is stuck with an NCU that only takes a spot and nothing else for a turn.

*'''Paid Mutiny:''' Not unlike Intrigue and Subterfuge, an enemy unit must pass a morale test or lose its attachments abilities and suffer d3 wounds, if you have the Bag spot the moral test has a -2 debuff and you deal 3 wounds intead of rolling. This can be very powerful since some units really need their attachments to shine, turning off a Baratheon's Warden Veteran before your Knighst make a charge can be HUGE.

*'''A Lannister pays his debts:''' Ehen you lose a unit you give one panicked and one vulnerable token to any units (you can put both tokens on the same enemy) and if you have the Bag spot you get one of you cards from the discard pile back. While you dont really want to lose units this can ease the sting and prepare you to absolutely wreck an enemy unit with the card and tokens.

*'''Counterplot:''' This is THE Lannister card, it allows you to deny the enemy a card they are trying to use on a 3+ with a reroll if you have the Crown spot, this is VERY powerful since you enemy doesnt know you have this card until you deny him his (unless you're fighting other Lannisters), letting you deny your opponent his tactics cards is strong on its own and making sure he has to commit to the card before you shoot him down puts this a step above.

==Tactics==

Imperial Navy

2021-11-12T02:00:28Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: Undo revision 796420 by 68.149.126.73 (talk)

[[File:imperialnavy1.jpg|400px|thumb||Cathedrals IN SPEHSS!]]

{{Topquote|When you began, you couldn’t have possessed enough bones for the whole ship. It would look stupid with a few dozen skeletons nailed to the walls. So, how do you start? Do you save up enough bodies for a corridor at a time, or put them away until you have enough to decorate the entire vessel?’|[[Jain Zar]],-Storm of Silence, And while in context she is talking about a [[Dark Eldar]] ship, it applies equally well to the Imperium. She thoroughly underestimates how many corpses both have readily available.}}

{{Topquote|By my faith, may the light of the Emperor spread to the farthest star. By my duty, the galaxy will belong to the righteous. By my actions, the Imperial Navy shall be honoured and remembered on Holy Terra. For the Emperor of Mankind, AND FOR THE BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC!|Imperial Navy Captain Abridal, shorty before his blaze of glory that ultimately stopped the 12th [[Black Crusade]] and saved billions of Imperial lives.}}

The '''Imperial Navy''' is one of the main branches of the [[Imperium of Man|Imperial]] military in [[Warhammer 40,000]], although very little of the Navy actually appears in the tabletop game. They're also one of the main factions in the beloved spin-off game [[Battlefleet Gothic]].

Unlike the [[Imperial Guard]], who get killed in the <s>thousands</s> <s>millions</s> billions every day, the Imperial Navy rarely suffers that many casualties (at least when capital ships are concerned). This is because, unlike the [[lasgun|flashlight]] used by Guardsmen, the main weapon of the Navy is a giant, heavily-armed, heavily-armored battleship that puts other races' spaceships to shame. These ships are also [[Awesome|massive, flying, Gothic cathedrals]]. Be mindful that a ship ''surviving'' a fight doesn't mean survival of any and all of her crew - when the hull is compromised, people die by the hundreds, and retrieval of hulks after a victorious battle is a routine operation for the Navy.
The Imperial Navy is actually well handled by the Imperium. I know, shocking. ''But'', (there it is!) the Imperium seems to think trying to defend everywhere is a good idea. This works fine in general because most threats it faces are hilariously out-matched rebels. But when they're not facing hilariously out-matched rebels, multiple worlds are lost before the Navy can get enough force concentration to win and usually take back those planets. Since those rebels don't need anything above escorts to go squish them (and protect the transports of Guardsmen to do personal squishery), the Navy's penchant for trying to shove full fleets everywhere and even having light cruisers on patrol is not thought-out. It doesn't mean that Guard would get support of a full battlegroup initially tasked with securing the system during their ground campaign (see [[Vraks]] as an example).

Depending on how you look at it, and who you're looking at, the officers of the Navy are either wealthy cowards or badass gentlemen. In either case, their ships have crews numbering the hundreds of thousands or even millions (we're not kidding when we say that each ship has its own language(s) and culture(s,)) since the Imperial Navy doesn't understand how auto-loaders work, so loading a gun requires thousands of slaves running on treadmills. Of course, this might be the fault of [[Adeptus Mechanicus|a certain other branch of the Imperium, who, coincidentally, ''do'' have working auto-loaders on their ships]]. In any case, [[Grimdark|the Imperium has found it cheaper and ''more effective'' to use manpower because they have ''that many people'' to throw at even the tiniest of problems.]] Of course, for a major officer, most days simply require him to press a button and blow something up, then go back to drinking his tea. Oh, and ''maybe'' scramble the ground-support flyers, if he's feeling charitable that day.

Note that, back in the [[Great Crusade]], the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy were one and the same, operating under the far-less-badass name of "Imperial Army." However, thanks to the [[Horus Heresy]], the two got split up, so that a single military commander couldn't control too many forces; a Guard commander isn't able to get off any given planet either without the Navy ship or commandeering a civilian transport, an action that (theoretically) also reqiures approval of Navy officials, and the Navy isn't able to conduct wars (and, you know, occupy territory) without the Guard. You'd think that this enforced mutual co-dependence would make them collaborate, but [[grimdark|of course]], despite how much they need each other, the two bicker constantly, which, in fact, may be the reason for shitty situation the 40k Imperium finds himself in, at least on the military front. And it's all thanks to no other than [[Roboute Guilliman]], the fact his fans keep forgetting about.

While the fleet and ground forces generally had their own commands in the Imperial Army, they had one superior officer in form of Lord Militant (or Lord Solar) on top of both branches. Since admirals are not known for knowing jack shit about ground operations and vice versa, High Command generally operated in auftragstaktik and delegated specifics to the underlings (the same way WW2 army generals worked with air force, essentially), unless the whole expedition was lead by Lord Marshal (think Rogue Trader expedition, but with a cohort of [[Solar Auxilia]] and not all that interested in trading).

Interestingly, though most of the most well-known Chaos ship classes have been put into reserve fleets by the Imperium (hopefully after fixing the insanity-causing problems), those ships are still used by virtue of being, well, reserves. When your battlfleet goes off to fight who-knows-what, the reserve fleet is what holds the line if some major invasion happens. Frontline loses are generally not replaced by the reserves and reserves are used for when greater numbers or something are needed only if situation is really dire. Think of it as holding back a portion of your forces to take a wait-and-see approach for determining where to use them. It might have something to do with reserve fleet ships actually having rules for routing from the field easier and even turning traitor if the enemy fleet is Chaos in BFG...hmmmm.

Weirdly, although Chaos is famed for its use of numerous carriers and attack craft and the Imperium for its big guns, the Imperial Navy has more dedicated carriers and more hybrid carriers whereas Chaos has the most and best guns. The difference is, of course, that the Imperium doesn't make nearly as frequent use of its carriers and carrier hybrids as Chaos does just as Chaos's non-carrier hybrids tend to be used as support vessels like how the Imperium uses its dedicated lance boats and ordnance boats which Chaos also has a small handful of. Chaos Lances and Macrobatteries also tend to have longer ranges due to being made with ancient advanced technology that has been long lost for Imperium of 40k. It sucks that [[Belisarius Cawl]] has been too obessesed with his Primarises for 10 thousand years to actually make something useful for any other military branch of Imperium, doesn't it?

== Types of Ships ==

The Imperial Navy has four types of ships they hide their cowardly asses in. The main ships are battleships, cruisers, escorts, and fighters. There are also mobile Battle Fortresses/Starbase.
Each ship can also be classified by its weaponry, and role in the battlefleet:
*'''Basic:''' Jack of All Trades ships, due to having multiples weapons types, and not being specialized into any. Lunar class cruisers are the prime example, having macrobateries, lances & torpedoes. Why use basic instead focusing on Ordnance-boats to drop shields and Lance-boats to finish off? Because escorts can carry lances and destroyer squadrons can spam torpedoes and the light cruisers can supplement cruiser ordnance and lance and attack craft wherever needed. Which turns space combat into a very complicated game of Chess and Risk combined. As such, carriers, ordnance-boats, and lance-boats become supplementary rather than the bread and butter. After all, if you have an ordnance or lance boat and its supporting escorts get quickly killed off (which is what would happen) then you've lost half your capabilities and would probably lose to a basic as you either couldn't drop shields fast enough or once you did drop you couldn't finish off the enemy fast enough. Plus, lances fluff-wise seem to do massive damage to shields and their only draw-back is the shields regenerating nearly as quickly as the lances so having even a small number of weapons batteries to prevent recharge or even take more bites out of enemy shields between lance blasts would be very good. Which seems to be how the Imperium likes to fight, actually: with lances being their "real" cannons and weapons batteries just assisting with a storm of shots.
*'''Lance-boats:''' Ships that focus into Lance weaponry, used for long-range focused attacks, especially against small ships & unshielded ones. Rarer as they have a weakness to Void Shields and require better drives due to the power requirements of the lances.
*'''Ordnance-boat:''' Opposite of the Lance-boat, replaces Lances with more Macrobatteries, focusing mostly into medium & short range brawls against enemy ships. Usually this is because they need extra power due to mounting a Nova Cannon or having power-hungry macrobatteries such as Plasma Cannons.
*'''Carrier:''' The red-haired stepchild of the Navy. Replaces the Lances with Launch Bays and is disliked by most Admirals due to the stigma against Attack Craft, although it is because the Traitors and Chaos pawns focused on raiding and striking fast, so with enemy fleets focused on long range attack (Lances, laser, and attack craft) plus Chaos likes them more because they can fill the bays with Assault Boats, the Imperial Navy might have got that stigma of seeing too many Chaos carriers raiding and pillaging imperial planets and so started disliking them. Some Carriers are also made from wrecked cruisers of other types, in which case damaged broadside weapons are ripped out and replaced by launch bays. Attack Craft are the primary weapon of the mighty Emperor-class and Despoiler-class battleships. So much for carriers being weak.
*'''Torpedo-boat:''' Originally an experiment for escort ships to overrun enemy vessel crews using boarding torpedoes, it was doomed to failure as the targets were either too nimble or too big. The Imperial Navy kept a few as Missile Destroyers.

=== Mobile Battle Fortress ===

Massive space stations that can serve a fleet of ships. Only two classes have been named in canon.
*'''Ramilies-class Starfort:''' Very rare battle stations that can move thru the Warp. Nobody knows exactly how that works so over the millennia, over a thousand of these valuable and rare artifacts were lost. As these were made by [[STC]]'s, it is assumed that they can still be constructed albeit very slowly. They serve as forward bases most of the time and only the most important people/locations get to have one. There used to be an Imperium-wide network of these things which enabled the Imperium to very quickly respond to threats despite the unpredictability of Warp travel.

In more recent canon, these things can move only with the aid of tugs, but their utility remains, and they serve as hubs for local military activity and Crusade staging.

=== [[Imperial Navy Battleship|Battleship]] ===

Supposedly rare, but every Grand Marshal and High Admiral has at least one and often several or even dozens to hide in because GW is completely and hopelessly inconsistent with fleet sizes, though as of late it seems that GW is leaning towards big fleets and big armies when it gives numbers. The biggest heaviest hitters available, these things are like actual medieval cathedrals in that the grandchildren of the workers who start building them get to live to see their completion. Fuckheug, lots (and lots, and lots) of guns and most can deploy fighters and bombers. Many of you are wondering why battleships instead of focusing on carriers. Contrary to popular belief, large ships are not negated because of smaller but more numerous ships being able to swarm it dead. Big ships are built to kill the ships directly below them, which the ones below them etc. like the universe’s most brutal food chain. So, the ships below them in power ganging up on them still costs more than the big ship they’re ganging up on. For torpedo boats, big ships are escorted by vessels specialized in killing torpedo ships and attack craft. Carriers replaced battleships in real life due to range, which is irrelevant when cheap swarms of potent anti-air ships can be spammed.
*'''Ordnance-boats:'''
**'''Retribution:''' Packing all gun batteries, the ship can devastate an entire continent in one broadside, has 3/4 of Gothic broadside as auxiliary weapons in turrets and enough torpedo tubes to tear a cruiser in half just for good measure. Subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.
**'''Invincible:''' An interesting class, dubbed a 'fast battleship', these were designed to chase down xenos and chaos raiders, and then use them to make the vast, empty tracts of space more interesting by filling it with their enemies' debris fields. This type of battleship combines the firepower of a ''Retribution'' with the speed of a ''Dauntless''. It worked ''incredibly well'' to the point that piracy and xenos activity in the entire sector became almost non-existent practically overnight. The problem, of course, is the general incompetence of Imperial tacticians. It looks exactly like a ''Retribution'' and has the guns to match, so it must be one, right? NO. They excelled at the role they were designed for, but throw them into gunfights against dedicated battleships, and these things tended to come apart easier than wet cardboard, earning them the nickname 'Kisher's Kombustibles' and the scorn of many admirals. Admirals who ignored the fact that the reports detailing the introduction of the ship and how to best use it (it's tactics also included in the Tactica Imperialis) explicitly state not to use it on a gun-line and that it is for fast-ship interdiction. The ship's Commissars must be particularly incompetent to let this slide as in the Guard the generals would be executed quickly for such incompetence. Of course, these are also the Commissars who do nothing when troop transports' escorts frequently run off to fight while the transports lose a significant percentage of their ships. Perhaps if they would actually enforce their orders to stay with the transports, the Imperium would have won most of the campaigns it has lost. Given that they still often win even with a fraction of their beginning ground forces actually managing to make landfall. [[Grimdark|Because they have THAT many men to throw at the enemy.]] Hmmm in fact, misusing the Invincible-class is technically heresy as its instructions of use are in the Tactica Imperialis and violating the Tactica Imperialis is outright heresy (I think I remember someone actually being executed in the fluff for violating it).
***Much like the Chalice-class of Battlecruisers, the Invincibles are a big reference to the real life Battlecruisers of World War 1, especially with the term "Kisher's Kombustibles" (real life Battlecruisers were referred to as "Fisher's Combustibles") and the fact that three blew up in a single battle (referencing Jutland).
*'''Lance-boat:'''
**'''Apocalypse:''' One of the oldest ship designs (predating the ''Retribution'', which is also one of the oldest ship designs), this ship packs a lot of [[lances]] and a [[Nova Cannon]]. Good for taking out lots of smaller sized ships with massed lance fire. It's also described in fluff as being able to cripple anything up to a cruiser with a single, concentrated broadside. They're fairly rare, since the Imperium doesn't know how to build them anymore, and the ones still operating are so old, their weapons systems have degraded permanently, forcing them to fire their lances at only a fraction of their full power. Shares all the disadvantages of a ''Gothic''-class cruiser.
***Despite the fluff stating that the Apocalypse and Oberon classes are unique in that they lack figure-heads, the artwork and [[Crunch|models]] [[Derp|give them one anyway.]]
**'''Victory:''' Possibly an attempt to recreate the ''Apocalypse'' class, the ''Victory'' is basically a ''Retribution'' with a bunch of lances replacing its broadside cannons, and a Nova Cannon instead of torpedoes. Has the range that fluff states the ''Apocalypses'' once had, but lacks the same level of firepower. Effective at sniping, and hilarious when used against escort heavy fleets.
**'''Desolator:''' A ridiculously old design. Designed to emphasize range and carries Torpedos, Broadside Lances and Dorsal Macrobatteries. Like most keel-built ships, the Desolators ended up mothballed or went traitor.
*'''Carrier:'''
**'''Emperor:''' The "standard" battleship of the 40k 'verse, the ship has multiple fighter decks and, thanks to dorsal and prow turrets, enough weapons batteries to put Dominator broadside to shame. Unfortunately, most commanders like to use this ship as a hideout, causing the lack of sufficient air support in the ground wars even though the Navy's atmospheric aircraft are completely different from its much bigger space based strike craft. Tabletop-wise, its status as the official battleship of Battlefleet Gothic doesn't stop it from losing carrier duels against the Chaos equivalent.
**'''Nemesis:''' The super-carrier of the Imperial Navy. It has SIX flight decks (the size of towns or small cities, each), more than any other ship in the galaxy. But because of Rule of Cool, it is incredibly rare since the Navy captains prefer to get up close broadside their enemies, or actually rather because all of the ships in this class were just ships modified from Emperor class ships in one particular war, because they were damaged or otherwise. Naturally, the Navy never considers making them based on the Invincible instead (the Invincible was mass-produced).
**'''Desecrator:''' The carrier variant of the Desolator. Replaces half the Broadside Lances with Landing Bays. Shared the same fate as its sister class and is now only seen in Chaos fleets. Traitorous despite its clearly pious and Emperor-loving name.
**'''Despoiler:''' Oh boy, where do we start? The Despoiler-class came about after the cogboys discovered plans for a carrier on Barbarus. The catch? Well, Barbarus is the former homeworld of the [[Death Guard]], and the plans were for the same class of ship that the [[Terminus Est]] is a part of. Showing a complete lack of common sense, the Imperial Navy decided to build ships of this class, only for them all to go traitor due to the class's inherent [[Gellar Field]] flaws. [[Fail|Oops]]. The Despoilers at first don't appear to be that unique, as they have Dorsal Lances and Broadside Landing Bays and Weapons Batteries. Their difference is that, like the Terminus Est, they managed to have a Prow Landing Bay as well.
*'''Other:'''
**'''[[Gloriana-class_Battleship|Gloriana]]:''' Massive, terrifying and capable of decimating entire fleets on their own, these were the personal flagships of the Primarchs during the Great Crusade. Very few, if any, are still around in the Imperium in M41, though a few such as Horus's flagship ''[[Vengeful Spirit]]'' are still tooling around inside the Eye of Terror. Because they were dickheads, the [[Alpha Legion]] had two, creatively named the ''Alpha'' and the ''Beta''. Interestingly, the Ultramarines have one, the ''[[Macragge's Honour]]'', but didn't [[derp|fucking]] use it, the whole fucking time until [[Roboute Guilliman]] returned. It shows up again in ''Dark Imperium,'' with the Smurfs having stolen it back from the Red Corsairs, which at least is fucking funny even if it makes no sense. The Imperial Fist had the ''Eternal Crusader'', but it was never their flagship since the [[Phalanx]] is so much better, so [[Rogal Dorn]] gave it to the [[Black Templars]] in the [[Second Founding]]. Also, due to Forgeworld apparently hiring people from the street now, the 9th black book of HH states Dark Angels had those as core of their ''support'' flotillas.
**'''Oberon:''' The mixed-breed bastard of the Imperial Navy. It has [[lances]], fighter bays, and weapon batteries. Its a powerful ship... <s>when fighting foes half its size</s> "Newer" fluff says the Oberon is rare, but a complete success in making a ship capable of killing anything it comes across, alone. Unfortunately, fluff also says a ridiculously low number of these (apparently) powerful ships were made (like, 3 or so). Then again: only four Iowa class battleships ships were built (technically 6, but 2 were scrapped before completion), and we know HOW to build them. It makes sense in a way. Attack craft can cripple an enemy's main weapons and engines and likely ultimately damage the power transfer from generators to void shields. Combined with macro-batteries hammering away and the enemy's weakened ability to maintain its shields would cause them to drop much quicker than usual. Then the city-sized lance-batteries rip the enemy in half. If used against enemy escorts to support attacks on large enemy ships like battleships and grandcruisers, this would work extremely well to the point an Oberon would likely become a priority target for enemy ships.

=== [[Imperial Navy Grand Cruiser|Grand Cruiser]] ===

Only slightly weaker and less powerful than Battleships, Grand Cruisers were the weird middle-child of actual Line Ships (that really were the mainstay of the fleet back then) and Cruisers in the ancient Imperium. Built primarily with autonomy in mind, those were reserved for the most daring expeditions in the uncharted regions, conducted both by Imperial Army and Rogue Traders. Nowadays most of them run on archeotech that is barely understood and hard to repair with current Imperial knowledge. These grand ships are often used as flagships in lieu of extremely rare Battleships. Ultimately replaced by battleships (which is why they became explorers later) as it’s ultimately cheaper to build a battleship than a grand cruiser and a cruiser to rival the firepower and survivability of a battleship. Even though realistically since many Grand Cruisers are a third smaller than a battleship, it actually is better to build two Grand Cruisers to gang up on enemy battleships and way waste to everything else but the writers forgot about the massive difference in ships’ volume. Basically, they are the quintessential Battlecruisers; tougher and deadlier than Cruisers and yet more mobile than Battleships. Strangely, a common characteristic of all classes is the inability to fire forward though all can ram.
*'''Basic'''
**'''Vengeance/Furious:''' The granddaddy of "modern" Imperial warships. The ''Vengeance'' was the winner of a GW-sponsored ship design contest, and was originally known as the ''Furious''. Highlights include heavy shielding and armour (though lacking the prow armour of later designs), as well as both lances and long range weapons batteries, making this the sniper of the Imperium's Grand Cruisers.
**'''Repulsive:''' Originally named the Corinus Class, before being renamed after many fell to Chaos by an overly literal Mechanicum designation. Whilst the Repulsive Grand Cruisers are exceedingly maneuverable heavy warships (and therefore exceedingly useful because they can fill a hole in the Imperial tactical lineup), they are considered a cursed class due to the majority of them falling to chaos, [[Fail|which unfortunately was the result of experimental warp drives which occasionally interfered with the Gellar Field (OMGWTFBBQTIME)]]. Only the Emperor knows what kind of complete moron would deploy ships equipped with that. The ones that remain in Imperial control are kept mothballed in reserve fleets and segmentum fortresses (imagine giant glass boxes with 'In Case of Emergency, Break Glass' signs). It doesn't say anything about their warp drives being swapped out for something that isn't shitty or perhaps a completed and no longer experimental version of their own. Not that you want AdMechs tear off your head for tinkering with their sacred templates, on the other hand.
*'''Ordnance-boat:'''
**'''Avenger:''' The short range brawler of the Imperium's Grand Cruisers, it's a ''Vengeance'' with only macrobatteries (kilometres of Macrobattery broadsides). Intended to break the line of battle like Nelson's ships at Trafalgar, while suffering from the lack of an armored prow. Unfortunately line-breaking is quite a dangerous role for any ship, even a Grand Cruiser that excels at doing it, and so not many exist in the 41st Millennium. Those that have survived are known for being exceedingly reliable and faithful; it takes a lot of damage or mistreatment to cause these noble vessels to give trouble. If you spoke with members of the Imperium (both members of the public and the navy), this is the vessel they would think of if you asked them about Grand Cruisers. Now, if only the Imperium realized a slower but more heavily armored and shielded ship would fare better in its role.
*'''Lance-boat:'''
**'''Executor:''' The sniper of the Vengeances, the Executor replaces its Broadside Macrobatteries with even more Lances. Unfortunately, the last remaining Imperial Executors decided to act retarded and chase a fleet into the Eye of Terror, meaning that all of the ships are chaos aligned now.
*'''Carrier:'''
**'''Exorcist:''' A ''Vengeance'' that has carrier bays in place of lances. Useful in providing carrier support to any Imperial fleet. As a bonus, being Grand Cuisers mean they can outrun anything except battleships to save their vulnerable carrier self while their attack craft are away. Originally designed for extended operations alone on the Frontiers of Imperial Space, either on Patrol or by exploring into the unknown, the Exorcist developed quite a reputation for 'boldly going where no man has gone before'. Whilst not many remain in Imperial Service due to maintenance difficulties, they still find use in the hands of Rogue Traders who need vessels capable of long cruises and of defending themselves against anything they might encounter. So much for maintenance difficulties.
**'''Retaliator:''' A mix of a Repulsive and a Vengeance, but as a Carrier. Has Lances, Launch Bays and Macrobatteries on its Broadsides. Unfortunately, it has the Repulsive's tendency to go traitor.

=== [[Imperial Navy Battlecruiser|Battlecruiser]] ===

What do you do when you forget how to maintain an entire category of heavy warships? You build a new bunch of heavy warships, with simpler technology.

Battlecruisers are basically upgunned cruisers, with more weapons (usually adding dorsal weapons and some armor), and are intended to fill the gap between true battleships, which are rare, and normal cruisers, which tend to die really easily to the ancient Chaos cruisers and grand cruisers. Battle cruisers were tried in real life as some way to combine battleship firepower or armor with the speed of a cruiser. They did not, frankly, work well and much like reality these things have their share of problems. Chaos operates their own versions known as Heavy Cruisers. In real life, the accepted successful form of a battlecruiser is between a heavy cruiser and a battleship; it can kill anything it can catch and it can outrun anything that can kill it (usually only an enemy battleship). After its teething years it was generally a good and effective form of combat when used intelligently. Then the navies trying them realized they had basically made a battleship and it fell out of use again. Why build a ship with the speed, only a slightly lower firepower and roughly equal armor to a battleship when you can fork out a few bucks more and build an actual battleship? Exactly.
*'''Basic:'''
**'''Armageddon Battlecruiser:''' An upgraded variant of the Lunar Class Cruiser (YAY! ANOTHER ONE!). A rather new innovation, the Armageddon class is basically made up from recovered Lunar Class Hulks that have been extensively repaired and then retrofitted with more armour and more weapons. The base hull was never designed to cope with all this extra equipment (and the extra crew to man said equipment) and so it has problems operating independently for long periods of time. This isn’t really a problem, though, since they wouldn’t be operating away from a fleet anyway. Though reinforcing its frame to handle the added mass would be a smart thing to do to save immensely in future maintenace costs over the centuries. Battlefleets won't say no to them because more guns = better! These ships are extremely powerful and live up to their name. Somehow, though, the Imperium never went “Hey guys, this thing kicks the shit out of everyone, let’s upgrade all Lunar-class ships to Armageddon-class and make a new class to accomodate the new crew and equipment.” Or someone did and was turned into a servitor...
**'''Hellfire Heavy Cruiser:''' An upgunned Murder-class. Has the same issues as the Armageddon, slow as fuck and has power and supply issues. [[What|Also, lacks Void Shields]]. Most mutinied and joined Chaos, which decided to use them for some reason.
*'''Ordnance-boat:'''
**'''Overlord Battlecruiser:''' The Classic Imperial Battlecruiser. Using the standard Imperial doctrine of - Macrobatteries, Lances and Torpedoes, the Overlord has become the most effective Battlecruiser simply because it really complements standard Imperial Navy Tactics. As an added bonus, its simplicity of design makes it easier to produce and one can be built within a decade. The only negative (if you can call it a negative), is that it's not really useful for anything except war.
**'''Chalice Battlecruiser:''' A fast heavy cruiser. Unique to the Calixis sector and an exceedingly new design, the Chalice was conceived as a Battlecruiser that could either out-run or out-manoeuvre anything it can't kill. Which means it was conceived to be a plain ‘ol normal battlecruiser. Whilst good in theory, unfortunately, speed came at the cost of armour and durability and so whilst these vessels punch hard, they can't take as many hits as other cruisers. Which is fine since battlecruisers as a concept are meant for slaughtering escorts in real life not fighting other capital ships. In addition, it carries an experimental plasma drive layout, which while boosting power efficiency, also makes it rather vulnerable to lighting up like a roman candle. Imperial Propaganda is currently trying to cover up their failings and is lauding them as the Poster-ships of the Calixis Sector and therefore a lot of people think they're the 'Best Battlecruisers Eva!'. If they would just use a normal plasma drive and make the whole ship bigger, it would be fast enough, armored enough, and even better armed (or just change the drive). Unfortunately, not being stupid is heresy in Calixis.
***The idea of a ship that can "either out-run or out-manoeuvre anything it can't kill" that turns out to be really poor at taking hits was the original design of real life Battlecruisers, which although being up-gunned Cruisers (<s>which are the equivalent of Frigates IRL, not Ships of the Line</s> cruisers are the lowest level of capital ship types, you’re thinking of the WW2 destroyers), were used as discount Battleships at Jutland were they turned out to lack the armour required for a proper fight. Thus, if the Imperials were smart, they would be using the Chalice as a commerce raider, not a ship of the line. Or use it to rip up escorts and light cruisers and then run away and hit somewhere else in the battle before they can be overwhelmed by an enemy cruiser.
**** Actually, they were not bad at taking hits, they were better at it than heavy cruisers. They just sucked at taking hits from battleships like everybody else on the planet. Real life battlecruisers (after their early screw up designs) were made only a little smaller than battleships which allowed them to have greater armor and firepower and speed than heavy cruisers and were even fast enough to outrun battleships at the cost of significantly lower firepower and armor than the only slightly larger battleships (which caused things like the Jutland kablooie). They had the whole package. So, imagine an Invincible-class but give it a heavy cruiser’s firepower and use the saved weight to give it proper battleship level armor. In reality, the larger the ship the faster it is in navies (broadly speaking, in dense fluids the longer the vehicle is relative to its cross-section, the easier it is to go fast (and the larger the engine by even a little makes far more power)), sci-fi just is made by ignorrants. Battlecruisers fell out of favor shortly after they were perfected for the same reason battleships and heavy cruisers did: the carrier. That isn’t quite accurate. Light cruisers stopped being made because anti-air destroyers grew large enough to do the same job (or you could see it as light cruisers being renamed “destroyers” and actual destroyers being phased out by them, but there were also AA cruisers which was probably not fun to fly against) though when light cruisers were first invented they were just stop-gaps but the name returned to use for normal cruisers due to the invention of heavy cruisers and heavy cruises became known just as “cruisers”, battleships stopped being made, battlecruisers were perfected by making them so big, armored, and armed that they were battleships by another name and so the name “battlecruiser” was dropped as meaningless by that point. That said, they were indeed usually used as commerce raiders. But that is true for all ships. Navies exist to destroy enemy commerce shipping and to transport armies. The only reason fleets engage each other is because both sides defend their own shipping and seek out enemy fleets to pre-emptively destroy to protect said shipping and transports. In 40k, it could be said that the Invincible-class is the closest thing the Imperium has to an equivalent to a real life battlecruiser.
**'''Long Serpent Battlecruiser:''' A true success story, this is what the ''Chalice'' wishes it was. Taking a battlecruiser's armour and firepower, and giving it the engine suite of a battleship, this thing can kick the shit out of anything short of a grand cruiser or battleship, while being able to keep up with raiders. It's only real flaw is that when one is taken out, it has a better than average chance of rupturing its warp drive. As a result, the names of ''Long Serpents'' that have been destroyed are usually accompanied by those of allied ships that were too close. Which is somewhat odd since the reasoning is that the Long Serpent also has a battleship's warp core (who knows why, it isn't big enough to need it). Given the small difference in size between this ship and other "normal" cruisers which are the mainstays of the fleet, the Imperium could just choose to use a smaller warp core suitable for this ship's size and focus on mass-producing the Long Serpent to replace basically every other class of ship except battleships , Cobras, and carriers. Fewer would be made but, unlike video games, swarming a capital ship with escorts does not work at all. The escorts are slaughtered and the capital ship like this one is left unharmed. (<s>There are plenty of instances both in 40k and irl of large capital class ships being overwhelmed by smaller, faster vessels due to being caught without support.</s> Actually that is when they’re spamming torpedoes. All non-Imperial navies do not do that (the closest being Chaos but even they don’t use torpedoes nearly as much), although swarms of Firestorms could carve up large ships, the shields prevent this without much larger supporting vessels. Swarms of Cobras and Vipers could do it, but few would survive the attempt, not that any admiral cares about that...until the tech-priests tell them they won’t have a Navy for the few centuries it takes to replace so many ships regardless of size) But doing this would require common sense, which is [[Heresy]]. Like properly using the Invincible-class must be.
**'''Mercury Battlecruiser:''' Another fast Battlecruiser. It's a cruiser with a Battleships's engines. Nothing more.
**'''Hades Heavy Cruiser:''' A long-ranged brawler. Carries Broadside Macrobatteries and Dorsal and Prow Lances. Got phased out like most keel-built designs, but Chaos still uses them.
*'''Lance-boats:'''
**'''Acheron Heavy Cruiser:''' Designed to test new Lances and Macrobatteries. The Imperials only built one, which went traitor. Carries Broadside and Dorsal Lances with Prow Macrobatteries.
*'''Carriers:'''
**'''Mars Battlecruiser:''' In a word - Mediocre. Some Imperials say it's versatile due to its diverse weapons loadout but in reality it makes it an awkward duckling to use. The Nova Cannon and Launch bays would be good on a ship holding back and harassing enemies at range and yet it has Macrobatteries and Lances which are great for brawling. So if you sit back and harass or go in and brawl, you're wasting half your ship. The Imperial Navy never really got on with it either and so it has gone out of production on most Forge-Worlds. Which is a shame because if they would replace the macrobatteries and lances with larger, long-range lances, and a great number of small, short range weapons batteries for fighter support and self-defense respectively, this would be a great ship in any fleet. It's nova cannon clears a hole in the enemy escort screen, the attack craft rush through to wreck the weapons and engines of light capital ships while long-range lances assist other Imperial ships in slaughtering targets of opportunity. The destroyed enemy light capital ships leaves all the other big ships vulnerable to mass, concentrated torpedo attack from friendly ships. Attack craft return to the fight to tear up the no-doubt seriously damaged enemy big ships and lances win the day. Then just send in friendly light capital ships with attack craft support to finish off the surviving escorts. That would almost make this ship into a sort of miniature "I Win" button. Almost. Especially in a squadron of two, as they could assist each other against any opponents that slip through to them with their combined, close-range firepower, lances, and whatever attack craft they kept back for defense ripping the enemy weapons and engines apart to let the close-range macrobatteries have fun.
**'''Dominion Battlecruiser:''' Basically a fixed Mars, some tech priest got it in their head that, maybe, it'd make more sense to replace the Macrobatteries with Lance Batteries instead, making it a dedicated support ship, harrassing enemy ships at range whilst the big guns go out and fight. Apparently not that successful, a number were used at the Battle for Maccrage (Of course the fucking Smurfs get them) against the tyranids, though apparently they all got fucked up and have been in drydock since, which is why up until now no-one's seen them.
**'''Styx Heavy Cruiser:''' A pure carrier. Has Broadside Launch Bays, Dorsal Lances and and Prow Macrobatteries. For some reason the Imperial phased it out for the Mars, so only Chaos uses them now.
**'''Hecate Heavy Cruiser:''' An attempt to replace the Styx. Swaps out some of the Launch Bays for Macrobatteries. Believed to have an inherent design flaw that made them go traitor, so they were decommissioned.

=== [[Imperial Navy Cruiser|Cruiser]] ===

Cruisers are the bread and butter of the Imperial Navy. Much larger than escorts and light cruisers, but less rare than battleships, cruisers are what the Imperial Navy (and Chaos and Xenos) use to fight their campaigns across the stars. Thus far, all Imperial Cruisers have been shown to utilize the same hull-type: a squat armored prow in front, capable of mounting a prow-mounted weapon system, and a big bunch of engines in the back, with baroque and Gothic architecture in-between. Most cruisers can effectively be placed in four categories:
*'''Basic:'''
**'''Lunar:''' The Lunar. You've heard so much about it and now you want to know what makes it the standard Imperial Cruiser. First of all, it's one of the oldest designs still in use by the Imperium and is so easy to build that even less advanced worlds can produce them. They're quite versatile due to their weapons loadout (a balanced build of Macrobatteries, Lances and Torpedoes) and make up the backbone of Battlefleets throughout the entire Imperium. This is the cruiser against which all other cruisers are measured.
**'''Emasculator:''' Considered a failure by the Imperium at large, Emasculators have the same basic load-out as the Lunar, but are keel-built, lacking the armored prow and replacing the torpedo tubes with more weapons batteries. This means they require different tactics to a Lunar, using their speed and longer ranged weapons to pound ships from a distance. As this fits with Chaos tactics more than Imperials. most of them ended up as traitors. [[/d/|The name Emasculator is due to them being seen mostly as Slaaneshi ships, their original name is unknown.]] The fact the Imperium keeps trying new ships built on the normally Chaos style hulls implies that usually it must work out just fine since otherwise it would have been banned by now. So, there are probably many cool looking keel-based Imperial ship classes floating around we'll never catch wind of ever.
**'''Slaughter:''' A special type of Cruiser, the Slaughter-class has a more powerful drive called the Scartix Engine Coil, but lacks prow weapons. Armed with short ranged, but powerful lances and macrobatteries, the Slaughter is designed to get in close, blast away and retreat. Unfortunately, the Imperium can't build them anymore because one went traitor and destroyed the plans for the Scartix Coil. It is unknown if they were always called the Slaughter-class or were renamed when most went traitor. Considering the usual lack of intelligence in the Imperium's leadership, it was probably called something worse, like the "Traitor-class" or something and then the Imperium was shocked when they lived up to it. Really, would you be surprised if the Imperium did that?
**'''Inferno:''' A earlier counterpart to the Carnage-class, carrying more lances in exchange for some Macrobatteries. Had the same difficulties as the Carnage and was mothballed, though a few went renegade beforehand. Rare example of the Imperium learning its lesson. Still too stupid to realize that using cheaper-after-a-few-centuries-than-manual-labor auto-loaders would've fixed the problem for both ships.
*'''Lance-boat:'''
**'''Gothic:''' Another variant of the Lunar Class, the Gothic is designed as a heavy Lance gunship. Due to the amount of Lance Weaponry it carries, it can easily deal with ships of its own size or larger but often does require an escort or a partner to strip enemy void shields first in order to use its own weaponry to the maximum effect. When supported and used correctly, Gothic Cruisers are the most efficient way to deal with enemy capital ships.
*'''Ordnance-boat:'''
**'''Dominator:''' A variant of the Lunar Class, the Dominator is designed primarily for planetary bombardment and assault. Not generally used in fleet actions even though it can provide support with its Nova Cannon when necessary. After one Dominator fucked over a Chaos Cruiser with said Nova Cannon during the Gothic War, the Navy took note and started making more Dominators. [[Awesome|Additionally, another Dominator came close to destroying the Terminus Est (''aka the toughest Battleship in the galaxy''), before being destroyed.]] The Dominator possesses the same armament as the Retribution-class battleship but lacks the range of one. This is fine, though, since it's meant to get close to the enemy like most Imperial ships anyway. Basically, if you get in range of this thing, ''you're going to die''.
*** From Lexicanum 40K: "Captain Straden of the Depth of Fury defended the shrine world of Kathur to the death, and came very close to destroying the Death Guard ship Terminus Est. As it was, he and his crew vaporised several of its decks and destroyed scores of escort ships before finally succumbing. Ironically, no Imperial souls survived to tell the tale."
**'''Tyrant:''' The Tyrant was originally intended as a stand-off vessel; it would stay at long range and bombard enemies from afar with superfired plasma weaponry. Unfortunately, due to design compromises where it mixed both short range and long range weaponry to save on power, it wasn't really deadly enough at long range to do its job. Therefore the Imperial Navy is trying to replace the short range weapons with ancient Long-range weaponry (that doesn't use a lot of power) recovered from Space Hulks or Renegade Ships. The Hull itself is a rather effective design and so the Tyrant has become very popular with Rogue Traders who generally replace all of the Plasma Weaponry in order to have more power available compared with other cruisers.
**'''Relentless/Carnage:''' Another attempt at a fleet support ship with Plasma weapons, the Relentless ended up with technical difficulties and, when these were overcome, [[Heresy|most ships ended up turning traitor]] [[Fail|(including the lead ship of the class)]]. [[Tzeentch|This is theorised to be due to something wrong with the geometry of the ship's design]], as the Relentless-class is keel built, like most older ships (This also means the Relentless lacks an armored prow and torpedo tubes, carrying more plasma batteries instead). The tendency of these ships to turn to Chaos, along with changing tactics, led to the class being renamed the Carnage-class and mothballed in favor of the Tyrant-class, though their speed means they suit Chaos tactics famously.
*'''Carrier:'''
**'''Dictator:''' A Carrier retrofit of extremely damaged Lunar Class Cruisers. If a Lunar class has its lance weaponry destroyed, it's quicker, easier and cheaper to replace those with heavy launch bays for strike craft. This makes it quite versatile and able to deal with virtually all situations and interestingly enough, makes it more effective than the original Lunar Class at everything except fighting as a ship of the line. Unfortunately, the Lunar Class is designed for fighting as a ship of the line, so Admirals dislike Dictators. Interestingly, given why attack craft and torpedoes can go through shields, theoretically a Dictator whose weapons batteries are missiles could use its fighters and missiles to swarm enemy anti-air and ultimately kill an enemy ship without damaging its shields.
**'''Jupiter:''' A kitbashed design, converted from other classes of cruiser that have been heavily damaged in battle. By stripping out all the damaged components and replacing them with launch bays, you get a pretty sturdy carrier. Just don't let the enemy get anywhere near it. Apparently the Imperium doesn't build these normally at all, likely because they are absolutely shit at defending themselves from other Cruisers.
**'''Devastation:''' Deviating from the standard Carrier design, the Devastation-class carries Lances instead of Macrobatteries. Mostly turned traitor or mothballed, as they lack armored prows and torpedos; and are keel-built. Chaos likes them, as they can pack them with mutants and sit back to spam assault boats and lances at anything that looks at them funny.
*'''Other:''' Various other cruiser types exist, but are rarer.
**'''Ambition:''' Custom-made Cruisers for the exceedingly affluent - it's the Rolls Royce of the Cruiser World. Most Rogue Trader ships are second-hand, battle-scarred, tired and worn ex-navy vessels but the Ambition is not. It's the only cruiser class that can be bought brand spanking new by Private parties in the Imperium and each one is unique and built to the customer's specifications. These exclusive ships, whilst still cruisers and deadly in their own right, are stately homes and status symbols. Some durability sacrifices have been made in order to make them the most opulent and luxurious ships on the market but for eccentric people like Rogue Traders, it's generally worth it.
**'''Conquest-Class Star Galleon:''' Built for the very first Rogue Traders on the orders of the Emperor himself, the Star Galleon is an ancient and noble design. Whilst not considered heavily armed by modern standards, they're still formidable opponents and yet as specialist exploration vessels they are able to operate independently for many years and can transport greater quantities than other Cruisers. In effect, it's a cruiser fused with a transport and looks fucking amazing.
**'''Murder:''' The predecessor to the Lunar. Differs by being keel-built, exchanging their torpedos for Lances and having more powerful macrobatteries. The majority that appear in modern 40k are Chaos-aligned, as the Imperials mothballed theirs in favor of the Lunar. A few carried lances as well as Macrobatteries, meaning they don't fit into any category. As with the Slaughter, it is unknown if Murder-class is their original name or they were renamed.
**'''Cardinal:''' The black sheep of Imperial Cruisers. A ship that's plagued by its ancestors. The Cardinal-Class Heavy Cruiser is a class of Cruiser used by the Imperial Navy. Seeing as how this ship used the original template for the ill-fated Acheron Class, one can see why this class of ship proved a tad bit too controversial for the Imperial Navy. The failure of the Acherons and their supposed use of xenos technology has haunted the Cardinal Class and now only a handful of Imperial Navy fleets use the ageing ships in service. As its design was Great Crusade-era, the Cardinal lack the armored prow of its modern cousins and is more suited for long-range engagements.

=== [[Imperial Navy Light Cruiser|Light Cruiser]] ===

Smaller than true cruisers, light cruisers are used in two ways. Either you use a fast, maneuverable light cruiser like the Dauntless to add some extra firepower to a scouting squadron or long-range patrol, or you use a pocket cruiser like the Voss light cruiser to add some heavy firepower and armor to a convoy, fleet, or base. The advantage of the light cruisers are that they're cheaper to build and operate than real cruisers. Another departure from real nomenclature. In real life, “light” cruisers were less armed and armored normal cruisers made to make up for losses, especially in America after Japan’s initial attack. After the industry fully turned to wartime manufacturing, the light cruisers’ changes were recinded and they were just normal cruisers again. However, with the introduction of heavy cruisers, the normal cruisers again were named “light” cruisers to avoid confusion. In 40k, however, light cruisers are very distinct and fill a unique niche. Like the Cruiser, they fit into a few base categories.
*'''Basic:''' Same as its larger sibling, a Jack of All Trades.
**'''Dauntless;''' The standard Light Cruiser of the Imperium; it's a Jack-of-all-Trades. You can't go wrong with the Dauntless even though other Light Cruisers may be better for certain tasks. Considered 'scouting' cruisers, these make up the bulk of Imperial Patrol Squadron leaders. Comes in lance and torpedo variants, with the prow lance being a bit more common.
**'''Defender:''' A convoy escort variant of the Dauntless, with added dorsal weaponry.
**'''Endeavour;''' A 'heavy', Light Cruiser, designed as a stop-gap between the 'lighter' light cruisers and true cruisers. Whilst they can slug it out in a fleet fight, they can easily be overwhelmed because they simply aren't cruisers and don't have the equivalent fire-power or hull integrity. As an added titbit, most of Battlefleet Koronus' patrols consist of an Endeavour and a pair of frigates. The Endeavour and its variants are relatively new designs unique to the Voss Prime forge world and are rare outside of Battlefleet Armageddon. Except Battlefleet Koronus, apparently, which must have a ton of them.
**'''Siluria;''' Three-quarters the cost of the Endeavor, and about three-quarters the ship. Standard weapon batteries only, no fancy frills to speak of. Cheap and effective, at short range, to catch enemy torpedoes.
*'''Lance-boat:''' Also the same as the Cruiser version, though some have weak weapons batteries for better defence.
**'''Endurance;''' An Endeavour variant with just enough guns to claim it has them, lance batteries and a couple of torpedoes. It's the lance half of a Lunar, nothing more.
*'''Carrier:''' More useful as a Light Cruiser, as it can act as backup for patrols.
**'''Enforcer:''' A carrier variant of the Dauntless, with a bombardment cannon like those seen on space marine cruisers. Designed to maintain control of rebellious planets via intimidation [[Grimdark|(and possible orbital bombardment)]]. Given one managed to stop the rebellion of an ''entire sub-sector'', its a shame the Imperium doesn't build more of them. Anyone else just realize that 40K is so Grimdark we're disappointed the dystopian ultra-oppressive, bloody regime isn't being more oppressive? [[Grimdark|''Because we know their oppression is the right and best choice they have.'']]
**'''Defiant;''' A carrier variant of the Endeavour. It's quite versatile (by virtue of being a carrier) and so has found a home in many Rogue Trader houses but unfortunately the Imperial Navy doesn't consider it as useful because they can't stand by themselves and require an escort. Gee, it's almost like ships are meant to be used in groups to compliment each other. Due to being based off of the Endeavour, it's relatively well armoured for a Light Cruiser and that does help with its survivability.

=== Ironclad ===

8 kilometer long battering rams. No, really. Tyranids and Orks are busy taking notes.

=== [[Imperial Navy Escort|Escort ships]] ===

Escorts are the smallest armed vessels available to the Imperial Navy. These ships are normally assigned sector patrol duties or perform as escorts for much larger ships. In fleet engagements they will also act as scouts, ranging out in front of their armada to verify enemy ship numbers and locations. They are generally classified as either frigates or as destroyers. They are usually deployed in squadrons consisting of the same class.

==== Frigates ====

Ranging from about 1.4-2km long. They are used for all sorts of duties from convoy escorts to attack or patrol squadrons. Ironically named, as in real life Frigates were the same as Cruisers (which were not Ships of the Line). In the Age of Sail. But in WW2, cruisers had like six or eight times the armament and were more than twice the size of frigates and were self-sufficient and were intended to fight other ships and were considered capital ships. Usually deployed in three-ship squadrons.
*'''Basic:''' Laser batteries or Light Macrobatteries only, maybe some Torpedoes if you're lucky. Named after types of swords.
**'''Sword Frigate:''' The most common warship in the Imperial Navy, and one of the simplest. No torpedoes or lances to distract you here; a Sword puts two massive laser batteries in turrets behind a pointed armored prow and cuts into enemy formations like [[C.S Goto|a multi-laser through canon.]]. Some variants replace the lasers with light macro batteries instead.
**'''Falchion Frigate:''' A new (245 years old) class of escort ship built by [[Forgeworld|Voss Prime]]. Slower than the Cobra (in the lore they were faster than invading Chaos ships, though) but still capable of firing torpedoes. While Cobras are used offensively in fleet actions, Falchion's are designed to be convoy escorts and stick close to larger warships to defend them from enemy escorts. Effectively a Voss-pattern Cobra with two more laser/macro batteries.
**'''Turbulent Heavy Frigate:''' Heavy Naval Escorts; these things have comparable armour to cruisers. They're built to sally forth ahead of the main fleet and win skirmishes against enemy scouting forces and vanguard elements. They've garnered a reputation for being lucky; they've contributed to many glorious victories and survived catastrophes that other ship classes have not. Their only downside is that they have rather antiquated communication equipment, probably equipped for durability, not ease of use. The other downside is that the Navy isn’t smart enough to replace the Sword-class with these badasses.
*'''Lance-boat:''' Rarer for Frigates, as they need a Prow slot to mount a Lance.
**'''Firestorm Frigate:''' A Sword-class frigate with a prow-mounted Lance replacing one laser/macro battery. Gives the Sword some extra anti-ship punch that it dearly needs. It's also two hundred meters longer than the Sword-class as a result. The Navy does not like the Marines having them, for [[Horus Heresy|some reason.]]
***[[Derp|Given the general naming scheme for Frigate classes is naming them after weapons (Claymore, Sword, Falchion, Gladius etc), the Firestorm would make more sense being called the ''Lance''-class due to its role.]]
**'''Thunderbolt Heavy Frigate:''' Not much information on this one, but implied to be a Lance version of the Turbulent, like how the Firestorm is the Lance version of the Sword.
*'''Ordnance-boat:''' Mostly upgunned Frigates. Can carry a mix of macrobatteries and small lances.
**'''Tempest Strike Frigate:''' Specialized Brawling frigate designed for devastating enemies at close range. Basically a Sword with a triple armoured prow and heavy short-range broadside batteries. They're often equipped with Assault Boats and Barracks for boarding actions.
**'''Havoc Merchant Raider:''' Small, yet fast raider sized vessels whose impressive firepower came at the expense of armor. Glass Cannons, in large squadrons these can easily overwhelm larger vessels by weight of fire. Supposedly has large storage space for its size. Which makes sense for something meant for piracy.

==== Destroyers ====

The most common warship class. Their tasks range from scouting to shuttling VIPs or fighting in fleet engagements in large squadrons. Most pirates use these speedy, nimble vessels to prey upon transport ships. The Navy usually deploys them in squadrons of four. Instead of a WWII or modern analogue, the destroyers of the Imperial Navy are like those of the First World War: ocean-capable torpedo boats that swarm enemy ships.
*'''Basic:''' Usually mounts Prow Torpedoes and a Macrobattery/Laser.
**'''Cobra Destroyer:''' The PT-Boats of the Imperial Navy. Small, fast, and lightly armed, their one purpose in life is to fire shoals of torpedoes from 3-4 ship squadrons. A great part of the Imperium's military advantage (in fluff and [[Battlefleet Gothic|on the tabletop]]) comes from all the torpedoes they can fire at the enemy, and the Cobras are a big part of that.
**'''Infidel Raider:''' Was meant to replace the Cobra, but the plans [[Blood Ravens|were stolen]] by Chaos. Armed with Prow Torpedos and a Macrobattery like its predecessor, though some Chaos fleets upgrade them to Heavy Raiders by adding another Macrobattery. The Falchion was developed from the redevelopment. Both ships are almost twice the size of the Cobra they are meant to replace. Guess someone realized PT boats aren’t that useful if your extremely long-ranged and fast enemy just slaughters them.
**'''Iconoclast Destroyer:''' If there ever was a Guardsman of starships, the Iconoclast is it. A destroyer so shitty the Navy doesn't want it, the Iconoclast mounts 1-2 macrobatteries and is used by Rogue Traders, Chaos and Pirates. Notable for being one of the few ships to have a forward placed bridge, likely due to the smoke-stack like pylons along its spine. It actually has good firepower for its size and is effective at killing enemy attack craft, torpedoes, and destroyers. So, not actually shitty at all until a Sword shows up to kill everyone.
*'''Torpedo-boat:''' Why waste space on pop guns?
**'''Viper Destroyer:''' Given GW's naming conventions, it was inevitable somebody would do this. Not to be confused with the Sloop below, this is a variant of the Cobra where the remaining guns are replaced by torpedoes. Weak against escorts but deadly in numbers against capital ships. Use [[Boarding Torpedo|Boarding Torpedoes]] for hilarious results. Since a Cobra has one gun and it’s useless, we can only assume either Tzeench or self-lobotomy was involved when the navy decided to focus on the Cobra instead of the Viper.
*'''Lance-boat:''' Rather rare among Raiders, as most use their Prow slots for Torpedoes.
**'''Apostate Heavy Raider:''' A variant of the Infidel. Somehow those heretics managed to shove a full sized Lance into a Dorsal slot, which only Light Cruiser and bigger can normally manage.
**'''Idolator Raider:''' Also known as the "WTF is this" ship, the Idolator is the lovechild of a Infidel, a Firestorm and Xenotech. Has a prow lance and a macrobattery.
*'''Other:''' Mostly weak scouts.
**'''Viper Scout Sloop:''' Smallest warp-capable ship in mass production. It is an exceedingly fast scout ship with ridiculously powerful realspace engines and high-tech auspex scanners. In support of Naval Operations these vessels would burn into enemy territory at high speed, collect as much information as possible and then warp back to friendly territory. Unfortunately they are so specialized that they can't do much else apart from that.
**'''Rudense "Class":''' A small ship designed post Gathering Storm to be as fast, heavily armed, and densely armoured as possible, which they do with aplomb. You may ask yourselves, why are they not used in more regular combat roles? Well, the answer is that they are a specialised orbital insertion ship - designed to get as close to the atmosphere of a heavily defended planet as possible, drop it's cargo of primaris marines into the top layer, and get out of there. Whilst this may seem too specialised to be practical, few enemies are ready for half a company of marines dropping in to their base unexpectedly. (Nb - the class hasn't been formally named yet but the only example of it thus far was named the Rudense).
**'''Claymore Corvette:''' Designed entirely around escorting vulnerable transports and protecting them against light raiders in order to allow true Frigates to accompany more valuable ships such as Battleships, Battlecruisers and Cruisers. The Claymore Corvettes are easy to mass produce and maintain and are exceedingly common in the private sector, as they are simply a discount Sword. It’d be nice if someone bothered using them to protect troop transports.

=== Aircraft ===

As part of the reforms falling the Horus Heresy, the Imperial Army was not just split into regiments to ensure that no one Imperial army could be self-sufficient if it fell to heresy or rebellion: the ground forces were also split from their airpower, which was given to the Imperial Navy. Strictly speaking, all atmospheric aircraft are also part of the Imperial Navy, with only [[Phantine Air Corps| few general exceptions]]. Which was stupid and pointless as now the IG can’t even pretend to defend itself if even one ship above them turns traitor and they don’t usually receive hardly any air support. This means all the split did was ensure the Navy held '''all''' the power.
*'''Fighter:''' The fighter's main role is to stop enemy torpedoes and bombers before they can [[anal circumference|rip your flying cathedral multiple new assholes]]. Comes in different models like the [[Fury Interceptor]] or the Thunderbolt Fighter. The main difference is that some can enter a planet's atmosphere to dogfight and/or strafe ground targets, whereas others are limited to space combat. Technically, Furies are capable of atmospheric operation but would maneuver like a crippled whale and would basically just be entertaining targets. The good news is you can have a bunch on a planet to surprise buttsax invaders.
*'''Bomber:''' Basically reusable torpedoes. Come in different models like the [[Marauder Bomber]] and the [[Starhawk Bomber]], but again the main difference is that some can dip in a planet's atmosphere and drop bombs on ground-pounders, while others are space-combat only. Starhawks might also be technically capable of atmospheric flight, unknown exactly.
Oddly, a modern F/A-18E Super Hornet is about one-thirteenth the size of a ''Nimitz''-class carrier. A Fury would take about 133 nose-to-tail to measure up to the length of an Emperor-class battleship. Yet, the number of Furies aboard an ''Emperor'' class is at most 40 (eight squadrons of 5 each at best) whereas the number of Super Hornets on a ''Nimitz'' at most is 130. Yeah, there's a problem there. A Super Hornet is slightly less than 19 meters long, a Fury is 60 meters long. That's a very small difference for such a massive discrepancy.

=== Converted Civilian Vessels ===

Civilian ships seized by the Navy.
*'''Armed Freighter:''' Not really a conversion. Considering what universe this is, odds are every freighter out there is armed in some way as a matter of course. Won't last long or do much damage. However, in sufficient numbers, they can cripple or even destroy Frigates, which is a good trade. Pressed into temporary service, these merchantmen are the basic transports of the navy.
*'''Q-Ship:''' Generally classified as Loki-class. These are civilian cargo ships taken over by the Imperial Navy and retrofitted to sacrifice cargo space for heavy weaponry. Unlike the Armed Freighters above, these are essentially auxiliary warships crewed by navy personnel. The standard tactic is to look like a scared civilian and let the enemy come close, then let them have it with the macros. They don't have warship armor or shields so they die in a prolonged battle.
*'''Escort Carriers:''' Like the Q-Ships above but with hangers instead of weapons. The Imperial Navy currently has a severe shortage of carriers despite having numerous hybrid carrier classes and dedicated carrier classes it chooses not to build, so this is a cheap way to get fighters and bombers to the field. More common than Q-Ships.

=== Fire Ship ===

A fancy name for what's essentially a colossal kamikaze ICBM. A '''Fire Ship''' is an Imperial Navy vessel that for whatever reason, is no longer considered for active service (due to old age, suffered catastrophic damage....etc), stuffed to the brim with whatever explosives the navy could spare, and flown straight into whatever priority target(s) the officers designate in a final blaze of glory. Again, Orks are busy taking notes for their Roks. Contrary to what you might think from the Imperium, this is not necessarily a one-way assignment (atleast for the crew).

A skeleton crew is used and supplied with plenty of escape pods/lifeboats. The crew evacuates and the ship detonates after they are far out of the danger zone. Some captains decide to go down with the fire ship anyway. Or they mindfuck some penitents to stay and guide it to the best point of detonation. The Imperium isn't short on criminals and/or desperate underclassmen/mutants. Despite its reputation, the Imperium does care about its people’s lives (mostly because Imperial lives are the Emperor's currency, and wasting His property is heresy). It just doesn’t care how many of those lives are sacrificed when necessary; but does attempt to minimize said necessity and sacrifice. It’s a nation, not a team-killing asshole out to murder its own people...when not believed needed for the majority to survive.

=== Non-Warp Capable Vessels ===

Vessels incapable of interstellar travel. All but the most primitive Imperial planets have them.
*'''System Ships:''' Civilian ships that do all the civilian stuff like ferrying, mining and transport. As nobody would buy models of them, [[GW]] never bothered to flesh out their canon. If armed, they are dragooned into the System Defense Force during invasions.
*'''Defense Monitor:''' Essentially, a mobile gun emplacement in space. Slow and small, it diverts all its power into the battleship-sized guns it carries. Crewed by regular Imperial Navy personnel and used to augment existing defenses. Threatening enough to make pirates and smallish raiding fleets fuck off for easier targets, but usually insufficient to stop a determined invasion force.
*'''System Defense Vessel:''' The primary unit of a System Defense Force aka the [[Planetary Defense Force|PDF]] in space. Nobody knows what they look like or even what capabilities they have. It is assumed they are lightly armed vessels usually used in police actions and customs enforcement. In times of invasion, they use hit and run tactics as best they can until they die.

=== Logistics / Civilian Vessels ===

Ships used for the transportation of cargo or individuals. The majority of Imperial ships would fall into this category.

*'''Carrack-Class Transport Ship;''' A newer version of the Conquest Star Galleon. It's a hardy vessel that can defend itself quite well against raiders. The profile even looks like a Military Vessel so opponents who can't distinguish between Imperial Ships could be scared off.

*'''Jericho-Class Pilgrim Vessel:''' Refinery ships that have been converted into personnel carriers, the majority of which will be transporting poor-er passengers. Can't really defend itself but usually not even worth the bother for pirates.

*'''Orion-Class Star Clipper;''' Blockade runners through and through. They're designed to transport low-volume but high-quality goods, even through hostile space. Speed is the name of their game. Hell, these things can put some Eldar ships to shame.

*'''Universe-Class Mass Conveyor;''' Think Super-Tanker in space. It's the largest standardized Cargo hauler in the Imperium and is 12km long. It looks freaking awesome too.

*'''Vagabond-Class Merchant Trader;''' Rather small cargo vessel but extremely common. As if to assist with its 'commoner' theme, it makes you yawn just looking at it.

== Adeptus Mechanicus Vessels ==
{{Main|Explorator Fleet}}
Being in charge of manufacturing the warships for the other departments of the Imperium, obviously the Adeptus Mechanicus would also have fleets of its own. The official Mechanicum body that constructs and operates spacecraft is known as the Basilikon Astra. Because the Quest for Knowledge can involve long & dangerous travels into unexplored space, it is important that they be heavily armed and armored, so the Adeptus Mechanicus ships generally are overall of higher quality than standard ships, with better tecnology, weapons, and shields. Though the total number of ships the Adeptus Mechanicus has at its disposal dispersed among its many forge worlds is far outnumbered by that of the Imperial Navy, it goes without saying that those responsible for all starship construction reserve for themselves among the most powerful and best-equipped warships encountered anywhere in the Imperium.

*'''[[Ark_Mechanicus|Ark Mechanicus:]]''' If battleships are literal void-traveling cities, then Ark Mechanicus are void-traveling factories or massive laboratories, with industrial capabilities rivaling that of many hive cities, with kilometre upon kilometre of manufactoria, refineries, crackling Plasma Reactors and laboratories, test ranges, chemical vats and gene-bays. These kinds of battleships are incredibly large, nigh-mythical ships that are said to endlessly search the stars as part of the Adeptus Mechanicus Quest for Knowledge, being led by a Venerated Archmagos Explorator. An Ark Mechanicus is outfitted with the most powerful weapons available to the Imperium, generally having a balanced set of lances, wepons batteries, and a Nova Cannon. Shit's that dangerous out there.
*'''Lathe-class Monitor-Cruiser:''' An Adeptus Mechanicus Light Cruiser designed around deep space exploration and extreme self-reliance. These ships, when properly outfitted, can operate for decades without returning to imperial space for resupply. These would make up the bulk of Explorator fleets.
*'''Secutor-class Monitor-Cruiser:''' An Adeptus Mechanicus Light Cruiser designed to excel at the art of war. Tougher than all of the other Light Cruisers and yet still more mobile than true Cruisers. Due to being designed from the ground up to be a Warship, this Light Cruiser is fitted with Cruiser sized Void Shield Generators.
*'''Goliath-Class Factory Ship;''' An Adeptus Mechanicus vessel designed to harvest plasma from Stars. These ships supply the fuel for the entirety of the Imperium. Other ships can be fitted with Plasma Scoops to top up their own tanks but this is the true fuel-harvesting-workhorse of the Imperium.

== Inquisition Vessels ==

The Inquisition usually borrow ships to do their jobs. However, there comes a time in every Inquisitor's life when witnesses are liabilities and executing entire Imperial Navy crews may be too much. Solution: Have a Navy of your very own. Still, these ships are rare and are assigned on a mission to mission basis. Usually carries [[Deathwatch]], [[Grey Knights]], [[Adepta Sororitas]] and/or [[Tempestus Scions]] depending on the [[Inquisition|Ordos]] involved. They do not have Armored Prows and usually travel alone.

*'''Inquisitorial Black Ship:''' What happens when a [[Strike Cruiser]] and Battlecruiser fall in love? They create offspring that are stronger than Battleships. Armed with a dorsal Bombardment Cannon, port weapons batteries, Attack Craft prow launch bays, prow Torpedoes and whatever Xenos/Chaos tech you can imagine.

*'''Inquisitorial Cruiser:''' A Strike Cruiser-variant built for the Inquisition. However, unlike most Strike Cruisers (which are the size of Navy Light Cruisers) they can be a lot bigger and have no set pattern. Usually specifically designed for use by specific Ordos.

== Adeptus Astartes Vessels ==

{{Main|Adeptus Astartes Fleet}}

== Adeptus Arbites Vessels ==

*'''Punisher Cruiser:''' Modeled after the [[Strike Cruiser]]s of the Astartes, they are supposed to bolster local PDF security, put down rebellions, hunt down pirate bands and transport high-ranking Arbites officials. Realistically, carrying Big Wigs is probably all they do. Despite being heavily armed with torpedoes, [[Bombardment Cannon]]s, Fighters and advanced scanners to spot bases, they are too few (usually travelling alone) to fight anything major. That said... being a Strike Cruiser variant means they have the body of a light cruiser but can punch way over their weight class. Can easily destroy escort squadrons and go ''mano a mano'' with bigger ships.

== Important Details ==

=== Crews ===

''Navy crews are made up of officers, techpriests, astropaths, navigators, servants, slave drivers, and slaves.''

A bit of an over-simplification, but broadly true. Due to the Imperium's aversion to AI and Automation each ship needs at least thousands of people to man it. Whenever the crew count gets low, the Imperial Navy sets up fake strip clubs on a planet claiming "Free Hookers" to lure in unsuspecting men (and the occasional woman). Once a future crewman steps in, he's knocked out, bound, gagged, and taken to the ship, [[grimdark|where they'll slave away the rest of their soon-to-be-short existence]] doing everything needed to make flying through space and fighting in the void possible.

This includes dragging shells the size of houses into cannons while being whipped. Still, at least for the crew sex is allowed, in fact encouraged, if for no other reason than maintaining the crew complement. Seriously, whole fucking cities and civilizations arise from the more massive ships, every bit as intricate as a long lived Hive City. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7wcShvrus Here is an idea of how it works, right up to the Roman armor, whips and beatings.] Oh and apparently besides whole civilizations, there are whole civilizations of mutants around too. They can more or less settle new worlds for da [[Emprah]] by simply disgorging their excess population, which the crew is probably all too happy to do.

High ranking officers may also bring their own people on board. These include, but are not limited to, concubines, bodyguards, servants, slaves, etc.. Makes you wonder just what regulations are actually enforced if any exist at all.

One area where fluff [[Black Library|hasn't been consistent]] is in the uniform worn by Imperial Navy crewmen. Some sources suggest that uniforms are divided by segmentum of the Imperium, while others suggest that it is a sector-by-sector fashion choice. Given the scale of the Imperium and the fact that Navy fleets are already identified by hull color, it's probably on a segmentum basis, but [[Games Workshop]] doesn't care enough to make a decision about it (and no matter what they'll inevitably be blinged out in skulls and eagles). For the ranks of the aforementioned shell draggers at the bottom of the naval hierarchy they'd wear a motley collection of their old civilian clothes and whatever they could scrounge up and sew together.

=== Travel ===

The ships of the [[Imperium]] travel through the [[Warp]] using what's called a [[FTL (Warhammer 40,000)#Warp Drive|warp drive]] to get to where they're going. However, this isn't your happy, fancy tunnel-of-light like in Star Wars, or everything-moves-fast Star Trek, it is an alternate dimension full of [[Chaos]]. In order to avoid being turned inside-out (think Event Horizon) and getting hentai-raped by every daemon in the warp, the ships rely on what is called a [[Gellar Field]] to keep the [[furries]], undesirables, and various other evil beings out of their ship when traveling through. The Baroque decorations are also implied in helping to ward off said daemons. When traveling through literal Hell itself, turning an actual cathedral into an actual voidship is actually a pretty good actual idea. They rely on a [[Navigator]] that uses the [[Empra]] as a beacon to safely navigate the Warp, hence the title "Navigator".

=== Ordnance ===

* '''Macrocannons:''' Guns. Lots of guns. Macrocannons are gargantuan cannons firing equally gargantuan shells. On escort ships these are often mounted in turrets, while capital ships often feature broadside batteries manned by crews of tens of thousands. Generally used to saturate void shields with overwhelming volume of fire. Alternatively, its also used by capital ships to provide planet-side fire support (although due to it's size, its the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb on someone) or used en-masse against the planet's surface to [[Exterminatus|bombard it into oblivion]].
* '''Lasers:''' Smaller than true lances, lasers are common on escorts such as the Sword. Accurate but not overly powerful, their main virtue is that they don't require ammunition and are usually in turrets. They only need lens refocusing or repairing the actual gun itself, as by the time their "ammo" supply (the reactor) is compromised the ship has worse problems than going dry.
* '''Plasma Cannons:''' Powerful, but power hungry and finicky. Not every forge world can build them, but generally the Imperium is better at building ship sized plasma guns than they are at building handheld ones. Imperial ships with plasma tend to be all plasma like the tyrant instead of the normal lance and macro mix of the lunar.
* '''Lance Batteries:''' Lances are enormous particle/laser weapons designed to penetrate armor and inflict deep structural damage. Accurate and powerful but they don't recharge fast enough to defeat void shields unassisted. Their sheer size and power requirements typically limit them to capital ships; lance armed escorts are purpose built vessels like the Firestorm. The necessity to defeat void shields means that the preferred Imperial loadout for capital ships is macrocannons paired with lances. Lances do extreme damage, period, but recharge so slowly that the enemy shields will have mostly recharged by the time you shoot again, hence preference for pairing with macrocannon. Macrocannons either prevent recharge in small numbers or do that and take chunks out of void shields between lance shots.
* '''Torpedos:''' The standard Imperial torpedo consists of a unstable plasma reactor with an engine and a guidance cogitator. On impact, the reactor and its remaining fuel detonates with roughly the force of an escort ship's main drive exploding, but directed straight to the target like a shaped charge. A well placed torpedo allows even a lowly destroyer to threaten a battleship, although they are as often used by capital ships to force an enemy to turn to avoid a torpedo salvo.
** '''Melta Torpedos:''' What causes more damage than a reactor blowing up in a shaped charge? Said reactor blowing up inside the target after a melta charge has burrowed it's way through and more melta warheads exploding alongside, consuming the impact area in nuclear fire. That said, if the torpedo launcher receives a penetrating hit while they are loaded, there is a good chance they will detonate and take the ship with them.
** '''Boarding Torpedo:''' Essentially a torpedo version of an assault ship, boarding torpedoes are more often used by the Astartes due to the acceleration forces involved on both ends of the trip.

== Ranks in the Navy ==

While the Imperial Navy uses a lot of the ranks in similar fashion to modern militaries, they invariably hold to a more archaic form and are not equivalent to modern day ranking systems. Particularly since it's quite clear that commissions in 40k can often be purchased rather than earned, and that a "Warrant" would most likely hold to the original term and be an "officer by appointment" rather than an enlisted grade. Though considering the immense variety of units within the Imperium, this may not necessarily be the case galaxy-wide, so all options are equally valid. Also, the ship commander will generally be referred to as Captain internally for the sake of simplicity, except in Astartes fleets where they are called shipmasters to avoid confusion regarding the actual rank of Captain in the Astartes. Funnily, this practice among the Astartes is directly opposite to IRL Marine units, where Captains are known as Majors to avoid being confused with the actual Captain of the ship.

Like the Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy has Commissars. They serve the exact same role they do in the Imperial Guard. They're outside the chain of command, they maintain discipline and punish traitors and mutineers, and they can in theory overrule or execute anyone. Much like guard regiments, not every ship in the navy will always have a Commissar aboard, but the ones likely to need them typically will.

=== Officer Ranks ===

*'''Lord-High Admiral of the Imperial Navy''' - This person is a [[High Lords of Terra|High Lord]] and is the person responsible for the '''ENTIRE''' Imperial Navy, though likely the post holder doesn't do much other than delegate to their subordinates and attend tedious High Lord meetings.
*'''Lord-High Admiral''' - There are five of these guys, one for each Segmentum. While they're probably never anywhere near the front lines they probably have more to do, since its their job to oversee the deployment of fleets and materials from sector to sector. That said, the non-canonical Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 game has Lord-High Admiral Spire personally leading Battlefleet Gothic around the Cadian sector from his flagship, even taking down some of the top-dogs of Abaddon's inner council.
*'''Lord Admiral''' - The guy in charge of a sector fleet who gets direct command of vessels and formations. You see these guys in the fluff quite regularly when "key" worlds ''(like Armageddon)'' need defended or attacked.
*'''Solar Admiral''' - Often a ''terminal'' rank... no really. Occasionally regular Admirals who do good jobs can put themselves forward for promotion to this position, which needs to be approved by the Lord-High Admiral of their Segmentum, then the officer needs to travel to Terra be reviewed by the Lord-High Admiral of the Imperial Navy. Obviously this can take a very, ''VERY'' long time to approve. So they might often be [[Grimdark|dead before the paperwork gets rubber-stamped]]. If they do get approved they are likely to get promoted straight up to sector commander (see Lord Admiral) as a position will probably have opened up while he was waiting. More rarely, Solar Admirals can get sent on "detached duties" which is basically a license to do as they please with their independent fleets. The fact they get approved implies that those who died waiting were rejected without being told.
*'''High Admiral''' - Commands several group of naval fleets (e.g. Battlegroups), often the most senior Navy officer in a Crusade but the things these fucks usually do is just having snacks with their Imperial Guard counterparts and leaving the combat duties to their subordinate Admirals
*'''Admiral''' - Gets put in charge of a fleet and told to oversee some subsectors. He's usually the highest of the "front line" ranks and much of his time will be on active duty patrolling his assigned region.
*'''Vice Admiral''' - Fleets traditionally get split into three parts, with the highest Admiral taking up the portion containing the larger ships, while the "Vice" Admiral takes the "Vanguard" portion of faster moving ships.
*'''Rear Admiral''' - the third portion of a fleet would be the "Rearguard" and usually gets assigned to the youngest/least experienced Admiral in the fleet. His job is usually the quietest one as he gets the mop-up and repair duties.
*'''Commodore''' - an experienced Captain in command of a squadron of capital ships. It's traditionally only a temporary rank, as capital ships don't always get assigned to each other the same way that escorts do. But the realities of war often mean that ships stay together for extended periods, often well beyond the lifespans of generations of captains.
*'''Lord Captain''' - not actually a rank, but an honourific applied to Captains of detached vessels operating independently. The '''"Lord-"''' part implies that they operate with the full authority of the Imperial Navy when they act so they can deal with outside organisations (like planetary governors, Space Marines or Imperial Guard) on relatively even footing. Sometimes also known by the more archaic term of "Flag-Captain", since as the commander of a detached vessel they figuratively carry their own flag.
*'''Captain''' The commander of a single capital ship or the lead starship in an escort squadron.
*'''Commander''' - Usually the commander of an escort vessel. Is also the ranking officer on board orbital space stations. It also gets used as the terminal rank amongst Pilots, since small attack craft all fall under the remit of the Navy; so a '''Wing Commander''' would get command over all pilots based on a single carrier.
*'''Lord Lieutenant''' - The second-in-command to captains of capital ships, bizarrely Commanders don't hold that role and hold their own positions. Thankfully because a chain of command exists in any military, despite a Wing Commander holding higher "actual" rank over a Lieutenant on a carrier vessel he would not hold any higher authority on that ship than his duties allow for. [[Fail|Sometimes this rank is known as Flag Lieutenant, which allows GW to once again show their incompetence as a Flag Lieutenant is actually an Admiral's aide-de-camp.]]
*'''Lieutenant''' - a "working" rank. Either holds command over small system vessels or acts as second in command to Commanders of escorts, or as department heads on Capital ships. They are also Squadron leaders amongst pilots.
*'''Sub-Lieutenant / Ensign''' - Team leaders or attack craft pilots
*'''Midshipman''' - Apprentice officers who haven't passed any exams or earned any responsibility, they would exist below the Warrant Officers in terms of authority, despite holding a commission. Midshipmen are commissioned from Imperial Nobility as part of the [[Administratum|Imperial Tithe]] ''(which can mean virtually anyone gets the job if they send their useless heirs just to keep the best ones at home)'' but they are also assigned from the [[Schola Progenium]]. In addition, Midshipmen also may be taken on as a personal favour from the Captain of a vessel if he knows the family. This echoes the ancient real-world practice of young noblemen showing up while the vessel was in dock with a letter from their family and being granted a commission on the Captain's say-so.

=== NCO Ranks ===

*'''Ship Master''' - the most senior Warrant officer on board a starship, also quite possibly the busiest man on the starship. It's his job to maintain the logs, update stellar navigation charts, oversee ships stores and order supplies, and command a hangar deck if there is one. Basically he's the guy who knows the ship better than anyone. In real-world historical usage, this guy would have an authority equivalent to a Lieutenant on board a starship, and would "mess" ''(ie: occupy the same space)'' as the other officers do.
*'''Bosun''' - ''(Shorthand for Boatswain)'' The NCO directly responsible for all of the common crew members, including [[Commissar|maintaining discipline]]. Despite his position, his actual rank may vary depending upon the size of vessel or operational requirements, in practice it never really matters since he's unlikely to ever meet another Boatswain. ''(real-world Boatswains are typically petty officers or warrant officers, but could be of any rank. They held responsibility over all areas of the ship other than Engineering, which was left to the Chief Engineer, as if the bosun disciplined/executed/imprisoned a skilled crewman from that department the ship could be crippled because of it)''.
**Note that most Capital Ships, but not all Escort ships, may have an actual Naval [[Commissar]] on board in this role, tasked with maintaining discipline up to and [[Blam|including]] the Officer compliment.
*'''Chief Warrant Officer''' - Also called "Chief Petty Officer" on some vessels. Will often be given command of important ship sections ''(like Chief Engineers, helmsmen, or auspex control, as these are critical to ongoing operation of a starship)''
*'''Chief Enginseer''' - This one is complicated. The engineering section of Imperial Navy vessels falls under jurisdiction of the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]], which maintains their own byzantine system of ranks among [[Techpriest|techpriests]]. The ranking member of the mechanicus contingent will have shipboard authority equivalent to a Lieutenant. However, on capital ships or vessels featuring archaotech systems, the leading techpriest may well be a full [[Magos]]. Similarly, on ships traveling into unexplored space the leading techpriest might be an Explorator slumming it as an enginseer to ride along.
*'''Chief Navigator''' - Another complicated position. Imperial navy vessels invariably host a small contingent of [[navigator|navigators]] to guide the vessel through the warp. In practice, navigators aboard naval vessels answer ONLY to the commanding officer and show zero deference to any other member of the crew; it's not unheard of for navigators to give crewmen the warp eye for the slightest transgression, and the navy can do little but tolerate this (that said, if an individual is seriously problematic their house might remove and discipline them upon Navy request, else they might get a visit from the [[Inquisition]]). If a vessel has [[astropath|astropaths]] aboard, they too generally answer directly to the commanding officer, although they're usually less haughty about it.
*'''Chief Surgeon''': Leads the ship's medicae. Can't downcheck officers, that's the Commissariat's job. Usually a Militarum doctor, but occasionally will be a [[Sister Hospitaler]] if the ship is in a war, and even more rarely a [[Magos]] Biologis if they're exploring.
*'''Warrant Officer''' - You'll find lots of guys of equivalent rank on a ship, in command of various operational sections keeping the ship running at all times:
**Masters of Ordnance - make certain that Torpedoes and Attack craft (if any) are fueled and maintained.
**Master Gunner - have responsibility over all of the weapons batteries through the Gun Captains and make sure they are loaded and fired when required.
**Master-at-Arms - responsible for all "small" arms on board a starship, overseeing all Sergeants-at-Arms, as well as maintaining order over any barracked Guard regiments currently in transit.
**Master of the Vox - making sense out of the bazillions of messages that run through the bridge at any given moment both internally and externally ''(crews can get pretty massive, and a lot of traffic can come through at once)''.
**Steward - the guy who keeps everyone else well fed.
*'''Gun Captain''' - Funnily enough, the man in charge of a single gun crew. Makes sure that the weapon is taken care of, is reloaded quickly enough, and is accurate when asked to fire. All of that comes back to this guy.
*'''Sergeant-at-Arms''' - Man in charge of the weapons lockers and leader of boarding parties, as well as maintaining ship-board security. Usually they are transferred from [[Imperial Guard]] regiments so that they don't have any prior association with the crew.
*'''Armsmen''' - Crewmen trusted to carry weapons more than a standard issue Lasgun/Laspistol. They are not true soldiers as offensive boarding actions tend to be rare. So these guys still have their own regular responsibilities on board ship. Since they are trusted more, they have slightly more freedom to move around the vessel as well, though most Imperial employees really don't want the job, since it means they get scrutinised more, or they could end up beating up their buddies.
*'''Voidsmen''' - the lowest rank of crewman on board a Naval Starship above the [[Servitor]]s unless the Captain is cool with slavery. If they have a skill or a trade they may be referred to as '''Able Voidsmen''' which is an official rank that might require examinations. Additionally, if they show leadership qualities they might be promoted to '''Leading Voidsman''' and put in charge of work gangs and be considered for promotion to Warrant Officer if a position opens up.

== Notable Problems ==
These are problems some have with the Imperial Navy and their fluff....

=== General Logistical Problems ===

The big problem that the Imperial Navy has is that it's the only organised navy in the galaxy that's trying to defend its massive amounts of space. To do this takes vast numbers of ships but rather thinly spread out. Given the problems of warp travel it's also extremely hard to reinforce friendly fleets under attack. The foes of the navy come essentially in two flavours; raiders who might just manage to scrape together a few converted transports (building even escort-sized ships is a huge undertaking, akin to building damn near the entire American Navy combined from iron ore and making it fly) which take an escort squadron to murder, and huge organized invasion fleets that take a whole fleet to fight. These combine together to mean that outside of fleet bases and important strategic worlds there is nowhere in the Imperium that is actually well-defended. At best a fleet has to be formed and sent out and they could arrive months later. Travel takes a lot of time, and out in the void it can be extremely hard to know what you are actually fighting against, especially since the enemy tend to kill anyone who tries to look at them. So when there's a large enemy force that you absolutely must fight (not fighting is much preferable) you don't just band together whoever was within shouting distance of the flagship and go murdering, you pull together every single vessel in the sector and hope to the Emperor it's enough to do the job.

TL,DR: Acquiring a force sucks when command thinks paperwork and red tape are forms of worship and maintenance thinks the toilet needs a prayer before it is unclogged.

Warships genuinely are vast things and obscenely expensive and risking them at all in major actions is not something anyone does lightly. Each cruiser is larger and more complex than a fully-kitted titan legion. These things are MASSIVE. In the BFG book there's a fluff story of a cruiser being built at a shipyard that orbits a primitive world. The entire population of the planet were given over to mining the resources needed to build one single cruiser. It took them eleven years to mine the ore. Sure, that's a primitive world, but if you think about it that makes carving out the rocks for it the largest single project ever engaged upon without mechanization. If you add together all seven wonders of the world you aren't even close to the pile of rock we're talking about. So these things are a big fucking investment and the high lords really don't like risking them without a really good reason (makes you question why they wouldn't build 20 smaller ships instead).

So if you ever wondered why the Navy doesn't get more action, now you know. By the time the big, awesome ships get on the scene the invasion already probably finished and the bad guys moved on. Then you nuke the shit out of them from orbit or drop millions of poor bastards into the meat grinder. Far better idea all round. It's the reason that the enemy, even nutters like Chaos, don't fight in the void without reason. On the ground it's just a scrap, and maybe you win or maybe you don't. If you lose in the void then your campaign on the surface is dead. No reinforcements, no support and a massive constant orbital bombardment to kill everyone left (which sometimes doesn't happen, because, you know, plot armour). That tends to mean fleets hover around and not fighting, one ensuring the other can't directly interfere with the surface war. This is actually an excellent and realistic explanation for why there is significant ground warfare in 40k. Also, ground-based defenses, mobile theater-shields, etc. are common. So, attacking a planet worth anything is like attacking a planet-sized Death Star without the super-weapon. Your ground forces taking out shields and anti-space batteries is critical to achieving anything. But, by that point, most of the enemy is dead and the survivors have either moved to the next defended region or got so stuck-in with your dudes that you can't shoot without killing your own army. Unless you worship Khorne, in which case you really couldn't care less who you kill, even yourself.

Besides that, there are strategic locations to take in order to take or destroy the anti-orbit defenses. Those locations have strategic locations and so on and before you know it, you’re invading the whole damn planet.

So, the navies of the galaxy ultimately get pushed down into either raiders, escorts against raiders, raider-hunters, or babysitting and logistical duty for groundpounders. Which of course brings back the question of why the Navy has such a desire to get more interceptors and bombers for ship-to-ship combat when they rarely engage in combat in the first place and the attack craft are insufficient. Could be to weaken the enemy ships' ability to shoot at the surface, but by the point they would have a target it would have (as stated) gone to a new defended location or whatever else, defeating the point of sending attack craft to weaken the enemy ships' offensive power. They won't shoot at each other, and they can't shoot at the surface (or at least can't shoot anything worth shooting at). In exchange for packing in so many attack craft into hangars designed for countless atmospheric air support fighters and bombers, the Imperial Guard has to die in radically greater numbers than they have any need to since they have limited anti-air capabilities and all of their enemies have no problem sending massive swarms of fighters and bombers at them. That is without even getting to engage the enemy on the ground and not counting the countless soldiers killed as the transports are shot to pieces due to their escorts commonly ditching them to go after obvious bait tactics. Oh, and sending reinforcements from other worlds, let alone the loss of expensive and valuable drop ships and interstellar transport vessels, is far more expensive than just using damn atmo-fighters and bombers for the Guard. Heck, an escort ship variant was created specifically to resolve this problem as even the High Lords got pissed about it. A ship designed as an escort vessel specializing in carrying atmospheric fighters, bombers, etc. just to provide support for the Imperial Guard. The Navy promptly took the ships built, removed the atmospheric craft, and replaced them with Furies and Starhawks. They already have a light cruiser escort carrier and the number of attack craft they crammed in was abysmal.

Thus the rumor that the Navy has no balls. But who needs balls when you have a nova cannon sized dick and eighteen dice worth of fire power.

=== Ship Size ===

No one is quite sure how big the ships really are. One story claims the Retribution-Class is a mere 3 kilometers long, while another says it is 9 kilometers and up to 20 kilometers.

Your best bet is Rogue Trader, although going by those figures, anything bigger than a cruiser has an average density around that of hydrogen... Everything after Rogue Trader became much larger, though, so this is likely inaccurate (though pretty big vessels anyway). Given the constant references to “city sized” weapon batteries and hangars, perhaps take Rogue Trader ship sizes and multiply ten or even a hundred. From a helpful poster on [http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=63267&page=2 Heresy-Online] we have this:

For the most accurate scale, look towards the Battlefleet Koronus Expansion, as it is more a stat/rule book than a story. That and previous consensi, as well as cross referencing with the Horus Heresy rulebooks by Forge World (which places Battleships at 8-12km) place Cruisers just above 5 kms, and Battleships in the mid 8s. Please note that most ships above the size of 8ish kilometers are either a unique modified/purpose built flagship or a ship of a small class that is not in widespread circulation. For a sense of scale the largest warship in the world is currently the US Navy's Ford Class Aircraft Carrier measuring in at 337 meters long or 0.337km making the USS Ford the size of a cannon. They have guns literally the length of an Aircraft carrier!

*Transports and other Attack Craft, typically rated for atmospheric operation; also includes ships designed to be boarding torpedoes.
**<1 kilometer. That's the small ones, there are super transports in 40k as well. (A [[thunderhawk]] would go here).
*Escorts are "small" ships, like the Cobra, designed to flank foes and operate in squads.
**1-2 kilometers.
**Heavy Frigates
**Frigates
**Corvettes
**Destroyers
**Freighters
*Light Cruiser, a smaller Cruiser.
**3-5 kilometers.
*Cruiser, the standard fighting vessel; every Imperial fleet has them.
**5-6 Kilometers.
*Battle Cruiser, a beefed up Cruiser; generally more 'modern' than a Grand Cruiser.
**6-7 kilometers.
*Grand Cruiser; pocket-sized Battleship, very old.
**7-8 kilometers.
*Battleship; the biggest of the lot, simply put.
**8-12 kilometers.
**Battleships
**Fleet Carriers

The Horus Heresy novel "Know No Fear" had this to say about ship sizes, taken from [http://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/22848349/ /tg/] who quoted it from the book and written here is just the lengths and names of the ships, for simplicity and space:

*Macragge’s Honour. Twenty-six kilometers - Flagship
*Spirit of Konor. Seventeen kilometers - Battleship
*Antrodamicus. Twelve kilometers - Grand Cruiser
*Antipathy. Nine kilometers - Cruiser (note that the book said it had "six thousand lives" on board, which would be an absurdly small crew for its size by 40k or even 21st century standards, but it wasn't fully crewed at the time; maybe for an astartes or mechanicus vessel its a bit closer to reasonable but definite not for the Navy)
*Aegis of Occluda. Seven kilometers - Class unknown
*Gladius. Four kilometers - Escort
*Then there is the Abyss-class created by Lorgar that is said to match the Phalanx in size. He made three of them. In reality, they matched it in beam, but the Phalanx is round, so iut probably wasn't quite as big.

===Weapon Effects===

The calcs for Imperial Navy warships are one of the [[FAIL|''worst'']] things in GeeDubs' illustrious history. From Macrocannons [[Wat|outputting fewer joules than a punch from an 8-year-old child]] to [[Exterminatus|broadsides breaking continents]] [[Derp|making the existence of Cyclonic Torpedoes feel impotent.]] Calculating the strength of naval weapons have been one of the biggest pain in the ass for /tg/, not helping with the fact that many BL authors have no sense of fucking scale, let alone consistency.

Nevertheless, even if naval vessels shot out megatons per broadside, many newer folks around here may wonder, "Why can't the Imperial Navy do an orbital bombardment of a heavily defended position on land?". The answer is simple. Collateral damage. Yes, even the most incompetent of Imperial commanders recognize that too much collateral damage is a bad thing and would really affect the health of a good Crusade. After all, life is the Emperor's currency. '''SPEND IT WELL'''. This is not helped by the fact that the naval weapons of the Imperial Navy aren't the most accurate of the lot. Sure, fluff dictates that Macrocannons have an effective range in excess of tens of thousands of kilometres. But there is a BIG DIFFERENCE in providing suppressive fire against multi-kilometre spaceships and trying to hit a well-defended bunker that is only ten meters across. The only weapons that could be counted as 'accurate' are Lances and Nova Cannons. But firing them is overkill and the resulting shockwave will fuck up anyone indiscriminately, including ''Titan legions''. This is not counting into the basis of Void Shields and anti-orbital weapons like [[Defense Laser]]s for example.

As such, whilst it is theoretically possible to do orbital bombardment, in reality, most of the time it is just far more efficient to direct your naval assets to spar against ''other'' enemy naval ships, rather than risk a fleet that a) may or may not hit the target or worse, their allies due to inaccuracies, b) must come dangerously close to Defense Laser range or any other anti-orbital weapons and c) when they ''ARE'' given the chance to perform the role, the enemy has either become too insignificant to order a bombardment or have already captured and took hold of the entire planet plus its defences. Ergo, whilst it is tempting, orbital bombardment isn't really popular and just risks splitting your forces where it could have been better suited to, you know, deny the enemy of any potential orbital superiority in the first place.

=== Lack of Balls ===

It is well-known that most Imperial Navy Officers don't have em. Other times their balls are too big and get themselves and their crews killed in idiotic attacks.

An Imperial Navy fleet is most effective when Inquisitors take it over. [[Exterminatus|See Here]].

=== Carrier Hate ===

Back in M36, the Imperial Navy fought a lowkey civil war over fleet doctrine in Segmentum Tempestus known as the Gareox Incident. A cabal of chaos worshipers worked their way high enough in the navy to start designing ships that were ready-built to turn traitor, most of which were carriers. The battlefleet eventually figured out something was off and the result was a giant carriers vs battleships fight that went down the way the Battle off Samar would have if the Japs hadn't been scared shitless by three destroyers. The surviving carriers went openly traitor and since then building new carriers has been borderline heresy so far as the navy is concerned. Doesn't stop them from building a bunch of them anyway. Hating something has never stopped the Imperium from doing whatever is necessary to do its duty (or else).

Strangely, this battle is contradictory in how attack craft fare in any other battle. Normally, you read about bombers and interceptors ravaging and destroying ships with impunity unless you have a way to counter them such as dedicated anti-air ships and interceptors of your own. Which the attacking loyalists in this battle lacked. And the keel-built ships are faster so should have been able to stay out of range and cripple the Imperial ships’ engines and weapons and sensors easily.

== Music of the Imperial Navy ==

Not to be outdone by the Imperial Guard (as well as to compensate for their aforementioned lack of balls), the Imperial Navy has begun collecting music to either be blared on loudspeakers when not in active use, or in the case of battleship command decks, played live by orchestra. the first four are taken from [[Battlefleet Gothic Armada|Battlefleet Gothic Armada.]]

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DhAAGZVAVo [[Awesome|This one is by far the best.]]
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80QrqY_FgQ8
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is0I7M0W_Ig
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFREOz5CvDs
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AlLNITLk8A - A piece dating back to the Armada Imperialis' of the Great Crusade, but is still played regularly.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5STVoaxz8-Y - This instrumental is rumored to date back to some epic naval battle during the later dark age of technology.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJEgAFR9vDc - While not quite fitting for battleships and grand cruisers, this piece dates back to when humanity was just beginning to march upon the stars, and as such, is heard regularly in ships captained by sentimental officers.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUrSQNSN6_c - This fitting instrumental is often played in bastion fleets whenever they are mustered to put down [[Black Crusade|yet another temper tantrum.]]
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAw1KlZ8C-A - Battlefleet Gothic Imperial port theme.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlcUwUwjLrs - This ancient piece, a popular mobilization theme for the Imperial Navy, was apparently created during a time in which humanity was at war with a xeno species known as "Cylons". [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|No other records of this species can be found.]]
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so10dKbhorI - Another piece from the same era that the Cylons existed, it was created to commemorate a successful assault on a planet known as New Caprica, what is now an imperial hive world.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFEHCuSnun0 - This was commissioned by a very srs bzns admiral.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gii4e-h3DBc - This was commissioned by a very srs bzns admiral from Praetoria.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7qOJrT_lUg - One of the pieces Lord High Admiral Langsung ordered to be played during the Battle for Port Sanctus.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu_Lp51wyao - This dated back to the glory days of human stellar exploration, when the universe was less grimdark, but is still a favorite for exploratory fleets, or for trying to distract yourself from the fact that you're just one [[Gellar Field|energy field]] away from a level 99 rapefest.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLXNmKvLBQ - One of many favorites of those captaining Ironclads.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TXlJ5DMq5o - A favorite of Vostroyan admirals.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elK5iReyAMI - Played during ceremonial ship or fleet launches since the great crusade.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR5N0-DqZoU - One of many pieces played when the fleets return victorious.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm3q6dCeP7M - An orchestral litany created to aid in battles against chaos ships.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvriqdS3vsc - A common theme of blockade runners, more nimble imperial vessels, and rogue traders plundering xeno planets in the name of the God Emperor.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbh6HT7lLx8 - Popular among fleets in Segmentum Pacificus.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NDn6WtZBJY - Popular among fleets in Segmentum Pacificus led by admirals from oriental cultures.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvUVq-dVEjQ - Battle music that is popular among said admirals of oriental cultures, and also of those from Segmentum Pacificus.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KylMqxLzNGo - Music played whenever the Navy has to perform exterminatus.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcj56XXrPM - A personal favorite of an admiral from Armageddon.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3iwvG2ZKuw - The christening and launch of a new ship, straight out of the docks.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9mFPDRZIgE - Encountering a Tyranid Hive Fleet

== See also ==

* [[Famous_Spaceships_of_Warhammer_40,000#Famous_Imperial_Spaceships|Famous Imperial Spaceships]]

== External Links ==

* [http://www.darkreign.org/sites/default/files/BFG%20FAQ%202010_0.pdf/ A Comprehensive List of Ships]
* [http://yenlowang.free.fr/warhammer-forum/BFG/BFG_-_Additional_Ships_Compendium_1.4.pdf Battlefleet Gothic Additional Ships Compendium]
* [https://i.imgur.com/2q7J2Xv.jpg A big poster of fictional navies], with 40k in the center left
* [[Kor'Vattra]]

== Gallery ==

<gallery>

image: EMP-Class.jpg|The Lord Admiral's Love Shack

image: Avenger.jpg| The Grand Marshal's Summer Palace of PWNAGE

image: Lunar-Class.jpg|<s>Imagine how quick land battles would be if these things actually helped</s> They do help, but they can't do it too much or they risk fucking up the planet they came to save, also you try aiming a lance cannon at a spot a meter wide from orbit without hitting your mates on the ground

image: RapidStrikeVessels.JPG|The Bullet-Catchers of the Navy

image: Imperial Fleet Size Sca.jpg|Another demonstration of too much spare time

image: Flagship-mk2.JPG|One of the revered ships of Battlefleet [[/tg/]]: [[Flankitus]]

File:Warhammer Imperial Cruisers by mik.jpg|

File:M1130006 Gothic Art Cover.jpg|

</gallery>

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Battlefleet Gothic]]

[[Category: Imperial]]

[[Category: Imperial Navy]]

[[Category: Vehicles]]

[[Category: Ships]]

{{40k-Imperial-Ships}}

{{Template:Imperium}}

Adeptus Mechanicus Maintenance Ship

2021-11-12T02:00:20Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: Undo revision 796422 by 68.149.126.73 (talk)

Like the [[Imperial Navy Logistic Ships|Logistic ships of the Imperial Navy,]] the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] has its own form of logistical support ships. The majority of which, were design to construct, repair or maintain the vessels of the [[Imperium of Man]].

==Maintenance Ships==
====Goliath====
[[File:GoliathTender.jpg|250px|right|thumb|The handyman's repair ship of the AdMech.]]
The Goliath-Class Forge Tender is Light Cruiser-sized vessels of the Adeptus Mechanicus Fleet. These ships perform maintenance repairs on capital ships, remote outposts, and Merchant Fleet vessels in deep space. In service for endless centuries, despite their size, they only have the holding capacity of a standard transport.

These ships are largely crewed by [[Servitor]]s and only maintain a small skeleton crew of [[Techpriest]]s which man the Tenders' machine shops and maintenance facilities. Today, Goliaths are relatively rare but their services are in great demand.

It is speculated by Imperial intelligence reports that some of these vessels, crewed by the [[Dark Mechanicus]], survive to this day within the [[Eye of Terror]] and help maintain the [[Fleets of Chaos]].

*'''Length:''' 4km
*'''Mass:''' 12 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 24,000 crew; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 2.1 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx
==Factory Ships==
====Goliath====
[[File:GoliathShip.jpg|250px|right|thumb|The Bunning's Warehouse of naval vessels.]]
[[Derp|Not to be confused by the abovementioned Goliath-Class Forge Tender.]]

The Goliath-Class Factory Ships are enormous, space-faring, energy-processing vessels used by the fleets of the Adeptus Mechanicus. As their name implies, these are mini-Forge Worlds with rocket engines strapped on one end.

They devour the solar plasma of stars to power their own fuel and goods production techniques, in order to sate the endless hunger of the Imperium's Hive Worlds. They are fragile ships treated with much respect, and the ships slowly plod their way through certain traditional trade routes. They are necessary for the survival of Hive Worlds, delivering vital goods and fuel to them on a regular basis.

If a Goliath factory ship takes any sort of damage, [[FATAL|it risks detonating in a catastrophic explosion that is capable of scouring the atmosphere from an entire world.]]

In the direst of emergencies when pursued by enemy warships, a captain may jettison the valuable fuel which forms a dense cloud of plasma that explodes with several megatonnes of force when ignited by the Goliath's engines.

*'''Length:''' 4.9km
*'''Mass:''' 16 megatonnes approx
*'''Crew:''' 41,000 crew, approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 1.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Battlefleet Gothic]]
[[Category: Imperial]]
[[Category:Adeptus Mechanicus]]
[[Category:Explorator Fleet]]

[[Category: Adeptus Mechanicus Navy]]
[[Category: Vehicles]]
[[Category: Ships]]

{{40k-Imperial-Ships}}

Imperial Navy Battlecruiser

2021-11-12T02:00:18Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: Undo revision 796421 by 68.149.126.73 (talk)

'''Battlecruisers''' are a type of warship used by the [[Imperial Navy]]. Somewhat larger than regular [[Imperial Navy Cruiser|Cruisers]], the Battlecruiser fills the need for a heavily-armored yet high speed ship class capable of carrying [[Imperial Navy Battleship|Battleship]]-grade weaponry. They take over the roles of the [[Imperial Navy Grand Cruiser|Grand Cruisers]] as these venerable ships are gradually phased out or moved to the Reserves.

Although sporting increased firepower, Battlecruisers are often times no more durable than a regular Cruiser, due to the design compromises needed to maintain its high speeds. As a result, Battlecruisers try to avoid sustained assaults if possible.

Imperial battlecruisers are one of the few examples of a correct use of the term battlecruiser in sci-fi, where it's often simply a generic big ship term. A real battlecruiser is a ship carrying firepower of a battleship but with mobility of a cruiser at the cost of protection, thus allowing it to outgun anything it can't outrun and allowing it to outrun anything it can't outgun.

== Battlecruiser Classes ==

=== Basic ===

==== Armageddon ====

[[File:BFGAArmageddon.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Still ready to serve.]]

Built out of recovered [[Lunar-class Cruiser |''Lunar''-class Cruiser]] hulls, the ''Armageddon''-class Battlecruiser was made to bulk up the numbers of the Imperial Navy in the lead-up to the Third War of [[Armageddon]].

While still possessing the [[Macrocannon|default]] [[Torpedo|weaponry]] of a Lunar Cruiser, the enhanced weapon systems and power relays added helped increase their range, with still enough power to spare to support a pair of additional [[Lance]] batteries.

On the flip side, all this additional equipment, plus the manpower ''needed'' to maintain them, and the supplies for the extra crew meant that the insides of the class were quite cramped. As a result, the Armageddon is not suited for operating independently for long periods of time.

*'''Length:''' 5km
*'''Mass:''' 30 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 98,500 crew; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 2.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration

=== Carrier ===

==== Dominion ====

[[File:DominionClass.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A ship so fucked over, you would think [[Angron]] designed that class.]]

A cautionary tale on not putting all your eggs under the decision making of a couple of sleazy bureaucrats.

A class designed to replace the Mars-class, the ''Dominion'' carried long-range [[Lance]]s to compliment its payload of [[Fury Interceptor|Assault]] [[Starhawk Bomber|Craft]] by the fleetlords of Bakka while also having Lance batteries to satisfy the [[Wat|"big-gun" lobby]] (Yes, we are as surprised as you are that [[Derp|lobbying still exists in the 41st Millennium]]). Would be a great platform for a nova cannon.

While it performed admirably as fleet support ships, especially during the First Tyrannic War on Macragge, they still suffered the same issues as the [[Gothic-class Cruiser]]s. [[Derp|After several of these ships were lost,]] construction of the class has ceased as a result. Because Emperor forbid a ship need support from other vessels. What do you think this is? A fleet?

*'''Length:''' 5km
*'''Mass:''' 31 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 95,000 crew, 17,500 pilots and support personnel; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 2.3 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

==== Mars ====

[[File:BFGAMars.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Needs more love.]]

Intended to replace the [[Exorcist-class Grand Cruiser]] as a fleet carrier and patrol ship, the ''Mars'' class didn't quite meet its designers' expectations, primarily due to its odd mix of weaponry. Aside from its Launch Bays carrying your typical mixture of [[Fury Interceptor]]s, [[Faustus Interceptor]]s, [[Starhawk Bomber]]s and [[Shark Assault Boat]]s, it features a [[Nova Cannon]], plus short-ranged [[Macrocannon]]s and [[Lance]] batteries. In theory, this allows the Mars Class to engage the enemy whilst out of range of their main weapon systems, or go closer to the enemy and use its attack craft to protect itself or make lightning raids against enemy ships.

However, in reality, the Mars Class is [[Skub]] reincarnated into an entire ship ''in-universe''. Captains have a love-or-hate relationship with the ''Mars'', with many thinking that its undergunned, but there's an equal number who respect its capability to operate at stand-off ranges (those guys should demand more Dominion-class ships then, with nova cannons). Still, [[Bitches|enough people bitched about the design]] that the shipyards of Mars stopped laying down Mars Class keels some 1,900 years before the Gothic War. Only a handful of shipyards continue to produce Mars in limited numbers ever since.

*'''Length:''' 5.4km
*'''Mass:''' 33 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 107,000 crew, 15,700 pilots and support personnel; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 2.3 gravities max sustainable acceleration

=== Ordinance-Boat ===

==== Chalice ====

[[File:Chalice_Class_Battlecruiser.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Flawed but a good ship nonetheless.]]

An attempt by enginseers in the Calixis sector to create a heavily-armored Cruiser, the ''Chalice'' was, in the end, unsuccessful, due to a combination of weak armor and plasma conduits that had an unfortunate tendency [[Fail|to break during assault.]]

Despite this, many vessels of the class still serve in Battlefleet Calixis. Because for all its flaws, it ''does'' have supposedly impressive armaments and is fast. So, while it might break, it'll at least do a lot of damage first and if your smart you can keep them safe enough for them to be useful.

Also, is it really an [[Macrocannon|ordinance boat?]] There looks like a pair of [[lance]] turrets on the top near the bridge in the Chalice-class's picture if you look at the image on the right. Come to think of it, this ship’s picture looks like an artistic impression of an Armageddon-class, so maybe it’s a purpose built version of that instead of an upgraded Lunar.

*'''Length:''' 5.1km
*'''Mass:''' 29 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 98,200 crew; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 3.4 gravities max sustainable acceleration

==== Long Serpent ====

[[File:LongSerpentCruiser.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Hur hur. Battlecruiser goes fwoosh!]]

Another attempt at a fast, heavily-armed Cruiser, this time from the Tech Priests of Hydraphur in the wake of the [[Gothic War]], the ''Long Serpent'' actually mostly succeeds at this task, thanks to being given what amounts to a Battleship engine on a Cruiser's frame.

The result is a powerful warship able to chase down the swiftest raider without that much difficulty, while delivering brutal firepower thanks to its 4 [[Macrocannon|Weapons Batteries]], single [[Lance]] battery, and [[Nova Cannon]].

Unfortunately, since they're not any more armored than a regular Cruiser, bigger ships won't have that much trouble punching through a Long Serpent's defenses (So? It shouldn’t be fighting bigger ships), and what's more, the catastrophic detonation of Battleship-grade Warp Drives [[FATAL|can also take out its Escorts.]] Despite this, small numbers of the class are now finding their way into other Segmentum fleets.

*'''Length:''' 5km
*'''Mass:''' 29.4 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 97,000 crew; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 3.4 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

==== Mercury ====

[[File:MercuryClass.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The more successful version of the Long Serpent.]]

Built upon request by the Tech Priests of Bakka (why is a planet named “stupid” so fascinated with weird ship desi- Oooh), the Mercury was yet another design that came in the wake of the Gothic War. Similar to the ''Long Serpent'', the ''Mercury''-class used a Battleship's engineering suite to boost its speeds so it could run down pirate vessels.

The [[Macrocannon|broadside weapons batteries]] and dorsal [[Lance|lance turrets]] mounted on the Mercury have a range comparable with battleship, along with a [[Nova Cannon]], allowing it to rapidly dispatch these smaller vessels. Its armor remained unchanged, however, so a Mercury is still relatively more fragile than other Battlecruiser classes. Which means nothing as its stupidly good armament means any cruisers will either be crippled by the nova cannon and finished off or just beaten to death by firepower and lances.

However, this speed is very useful even when not used as a battlecruiser. The battleship engine suite and all the requirements that come with it are likely the cause of its significantly increased length. This ship is a lot bigger than other cruisers. More like a smallish Grand Cruiser.

*'''Length:''' 6.4Km
*'''Mass:''' 35 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 99,000 crew; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 3.5 gravities max sustainable acceleration; approx

==== Overlord ====

[[File:BFGAOverlord.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Retribution in my pocket.]]

The Overlord-Class Battle Cruiser is a popular ship, both with Imperial Navy Captains and Admirals. Captains favour its long-range weaponry, good armour, and reasonable speed, whilst the Admirals like the fact it can dish out punishment at the range of a battleship, whilst being able to manoeuvre like a cruiser. It's more like a heavy cruiser than a battle cruiser but for some reason GW keeps heavy cruisers aside from the Cardinal class as a Chaos thing and battle cruisers are Imperial.

Descended design-wise from the [[Acheron-class Heavy Cruiser|''Acheron'' Heavy Cruiser]], the Tech Priests who designed the ''Overlord'' replaced the prow-mounted Weapons batteries with [[Torpedo]] launchers. This created a power surplus, which was then used to boost the ship's [[Lance]] array. The Overlord also incorporates respectable shield and turret cover, which allow it to survive incoming fire, and attack craft, respectively.

With this formidable firepower, it is often compared to the poor mans [[Retribution-class Battleship|''Retribution''-class Battleship]], and many Captains appreciate its ability to annihilate things at long range.

For some reason it does not have the Armageddon-class’s problems despite having twice as many manually operated weapons batteries.

*'''Length:''' 5.3km
*'''Mass:''' 31 megatonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 100,000 crew; approx
*'''Acceleration:''' 2.4 gravities max sustainable acceleration

== In Battlefleet Gothic ==

Much like the Grand Cruisers before them, Battlecruisers come in as a cheaper and faster alternative to a Battleship.

While they carry better and longer-ranged weapons, they're still barely more armored than a regular Cruiser. Always keep that little tidbit in mind.

A Battlecruiser may be included in a fleet list for every two Cruisers.

==In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 1 & 2==

Though you only have three options, Battlecruisers are a worthy addition to your fleet, able to mount stronger and heavier weaponry and generally much better-optimised for their intended roles than their standard cruiser equivalents. The addition of actual ''offensive'' turrets that allow 270-degree firing arcs is always welcome as well. However, this does come at a noticeable points bump.

The '''Mars''' is your carrier option, and arguably your first 'true' carrier. Thanks to its lance turrets it can still contribute to a fight when hanging back at carrier range, and these are the ranges where its Nova Cannon is a much better option than torpedoes. The only notably weakness is at close-range, where it's no more resilient than a normal cruiser and lacks strong direct battery output - but then, you shouldn't be taking fights at this range anyway. Against small ships that come after you, you can still defend yourself.

The '''Armageddon''' is the first of the two ordnance-boat options, and arguably your 'standard' battlecruiser option. In every respect, it's essentially an up-gunned Lunar, boasting the same weapons layout with improved damage and range. This is your most versatile option and arguably the truest to the overall battlecruiser philosophy, being able to outgun lighter vessels at close range and outrange many heavier threats, while still being light enough to outrun a losing fight.

The '''Overlord''' is your long-range option and everything the Tyrant wishes it was. With four plasma macrobatteries there's no wasted slots on mixed-range weapons, and the massive range on said batteries and its lance turrets means it can lurk well beyond the range of most enemy vessels and still contribute in full. Perhaps the only notably weakness is in its lack of a Nova Cannon, but that's a small price to pay for such an otherwise efficient sniper vessel.

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Battlefleet Gothic]]

[[Category: Imperial]]

[[Category: Imperial Navy]]

[[Category: Vehicles]]

[[Category: Ships]]

{{40k-Imperial-Ships}}

Caryatid

2021-11-11T08:08:21Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: Don't put political crap here please

--If looking for the [[Dungeons & Dragons]] [[construct]] known as the Caryatid ''Column'', see '''[[Golem]]'''.

[[File:Cryatalid.JPG|270px|right|thumb|So ''that's'' where the Imperium got the idea of the Cherub from.]]
Caryatids (''Homo sapiens caeruleum'' - caeruleum as in blue, [[Derp|''get it?'']]) are a ''bizarre'' looking creature that bears way too much resemblance to a [[Cherubim]] than any rights necessary. Whether they were the ones who spawned the idea of Cherubs are unknown. Weirder still is whether they are classified as a [[Xenos]] or an [[Abhuman]], we aren't too sure where to put these flying Buddhist babies to be honest.

==Overview==

Native to [[Necromunda]]. Caryatids are found infesting the many air-ducts and vents in great numbers.

Caryatid is seen as good luck charms by many hivers, as they tend to attach themselves to charismatic, powerful and successful individuals: for example, very successful gang leaders and their henchmen are often attended by several Caryatids and Necromunda's Planetary Governor Lord Helmawr was known to have at least one.

Mildly psychic, they are particularly attracted to the soon-to-become-powerful and can penetrate human minds, usefully recognising malicious intentions against their companions and sometimes even fighting alongside those they latch onto. Although they are a sign of good fortune of those they adopt, an individual whose 'pet' caryatid leaves them is regarded as waiting for death, as the departure is seen as an omen of doom

Caryatids' blue skin is generally covered by an intricate, tattoo-like pattern, and some are known to paint their faces (such as Lord Helmawr's) and wear bracelets, bangles, anklets and earrings. As well as fighting with small [[Autopistol|auto weapons]], they have also been seen to carry light sources, such as a candle.

{{Imperium}}
[[Category:Abhumans]]

Autogun

2021-11-11T08:07:10Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: Not funny

[[File:Autogun4.jpg|350px|thumb|right|Note the [[C.S. Goto|heretical sorcery]] shrinking its capacity to below an [[Bolter#Astartes Boltguns|Astartes bolter]]]]

{{Topquote|Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.|General Douglas MacArthur}}

An '''Autogun''' is a [[firearm|chemically-powered projectile throwing weapon]] (a slug thrower, durr), that can be compared to late 20th to early 21st century fire arms. Autoguns are (probably) slightly more powerful, which is why it avoids the title of [[Stubber]] (which have basically no improvements on World War II firearms) which are even worse than [[lasgun|Lasguns]] (there is not a single part of a suit of flak armor that a rifle-sized Stubber can pierce at any range according to some sources, even though WWII Rifles were pretty powerful, and special ammo is always a thing). Alternatively, since [[Stubber#Stub_Gun|Stub Pistols]] are more powerful than Autopistols, it's possible the difference has more to do with calibre and/or tech level. Simply put, these weapons use a propellant to accelerate a metal projectile to punch holes in things.

Oh, and if the Lasgun is a 'Flashlight' then the Autogun is a 'Stapler'; similar power, more weight and less reliability.

== Autoguns versus Lasguns ==

It is a significantly older weapon than the [[Lasgun]], and does not see quite as much use due to the [[Administratum|Departmento Munitorium]] saying it's a bad idea. So if a young and curious Guardsmen tries to ask a superior, likely a Commissar (yes, reasonable Commissars do exist) on why a Lasgun is preferred over an Autogun by Imperial Standards, they will tell you a whole list of things such as the following... Lasgun Power Packs weigh significantly less than Autogun magazines and are far more sustainable (rechargeable via heat, light, or wall outlet); Lasguns are also significantly more accurate and require notably less maintenance than Autoguns; and Lasguns have no recoil, meaning even the 8-year-old baby-faced kids and 98-year-old dusty seniors that get conscripted into the Imperial Guard can fire it straight. The big reason that Autoguns were phased out was a matter of logistics, but there are two thing the Autogun has that the humble Lasgun doesn't. The first is the large amount of different types of ammunition they can utilize. From Incendiary to Armor-Piercing rounds and even High-Explosive rounds that makes the Autogun a ''[[Awesome|miniature Bolter]]''. This means that while the Lasguns are far and away the more common infantry gun, the vast selection of different ammunition makes the Autogun a kind of highly-flexible ''tactical weapon''. The other thing an Autogun can do that a lasgun can't is punch through light cover. A laser will react with things like foliage or even fog between it and the target, a physical bullet just punch through such light obscurement. That said sheer logistcal advantage of not needing to ship bullets around must have been a win out to be worth such a massive drawback. Though /tg/ rather enjoys musing that the *real* reason Autoguns were phased out was the cost (all that [[grimdark]] spent ammunition came from somewhere, after all). In spite of the ammunition problem, the Autogun still sees use throughout the Imperium (particularly among PDF forces, as they do not have the overwhelmingly-massive logistical issues the Imperial Guard does), and its removal from large parts of official service hasn't stopped its development...the Adeptus Mechanicus is what has stopped its development!

== Autoguns versus Stubbers ==

There is [[Skub|significant debate]] over the actual power of Auto and Stub weapons, with the "higher power" team citing higher tech level and advanced materials, and "modern power" team citing no mention of any kind of recoil compensation (limiting power) and less innovative designs. Modernist evidence implies some or even most autoguns may actually be less advanced than modern firearms. After all, 21st century cannon rounds are definitely more advanced than the average autogun, and autoguns are meant to be built on all sorts of backwater worlds. Regardless, it is more than likely that both sides are right, since strictly speaking an Imperial autogun is generally any type of automatic rifle, firing solid slugs. As such, there are great many models and patterns in existence, different in both internal mechanics of their action and the ammunition they use. While some autoguns *are* just a backwater-colony's locally-designed crude weapons, using black-powder-filled cartridges and prone to jamming, *other* autoguns may be high-tech products of AdMech factories, firing hypervelocity discarding-sabot needle-bullets, capable of easily punching through carapace armour. The debate rages on, with the question being what is considered average or typical for the weapon, with both sides for the most part aware that all types exist.

There is also a third possibility, which involves the Dark Age of Technology. It's conceivable that "Stubber" is a derogatory term for old gunpowder weaponry made before the Dark Age, and "autogun" was a Dark Age classification created to delineate the super-futuristic projectile weapons of the then-modern era from Stub Guns. The difference was only significant during the Dark Age of Technology, when "autogun" meant something more akin to a [[Eclipse Phase|Smart Assault Rifle]] and a Stub Gun meant an M1 Garand. But that's not a great theory since the original autoguns were made well before the Dark Age of Technology, sometime early in our current millennium. Bizarre high-calibre low-velocity weapons firing brass bullets.

Another theory is that the main difference would seem to be it's complexity. The heavy stubber, while automatic, relies on size for it's lethality and reliability and is simple for an automatic weapon. It's rate of fire is largely due to the fact that it can fire in long bursts. A high calibre autogun, while firing fairly powerful stubby rounds, is harder to design and build in a functional form. But the Mechanicus' "stub" weapons defy this trend.

The final theory has it come down to ammunition used as opposed to the gun itself, that being a futuristic rifle the weapon can take different sized ammunition, meaning it could be equipped with thirty regular gunpowder rounds no different then a AK-47 or twelve big ass canister rounds filled with jet propellant and in theory act just like a bolter but with a solid slug instead of a explosive round. It also answers the question why local PDF forces in some primitive backwater can field the weapon en mass while the guard (requiring more complex devastating rounds for what they fight) got rid of it for logistical reasons.

For further comparison between Stubbers and Autoguns, [[Stubber#Disambiguation|click here]].

==Imperium Variants ==
===Autopistol===
[[File:Autopistol.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Autopistol]]
Most often a machine pistol or submachine gun, the <s>Uzi</s> Autopistol is a single-handed submachine gun which is frequently used by Chaos heretics (and on occasion, traitor guardsmen) and cultists who don't particularly care about accuracy or expenses and wish to be able to make noise and cause death at a close distance (the former is done better by an Autogun than a Lasgun) as they close in to use their swords. Quite fittingly, many of the autopistols manufactured by the Imperium are based off the MAC-10/MAC-11 weapon series.

Autopistols are still in massive use throughout the Imperium and can be found even on low-tech worlds. Like the larger Autogun it is very easy to construct and usually available in large numbers. The autopistol is a common weapon amongst renegades, gang members, and lowly criminals, being as easy to use as it is to construct. They are not generally considered a military issue weapon, but are a favorite amongst many military veterans as a supplement for their standard lasgun or as a backup weapon, especially by the ones using unreliable melta or plasma weaponry. Some regiments, including the Cadian 8th, often equip all their troops with autopistols as sidearms, improving their combat firepower. Other commanders allow their troops to acquire spoils from the battlefield for their own use and autopistols are popular choices. It's not hard to imagine why, as while the laspistol wins out for utility, sometimes your life depends on how quickly you can down a charging ork. A weapon that's likely to save your life once or twice is probably better than one with a slim chance but can do it multiple times. Carrying one of each would be ideal.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Autopistol|r7=12|s7=3|ap7=-|type7=Pistol|r8=12|s8=3|ap8=0|d8=1|type8=Pistol 1}}
 

===Autogun===
[[File:Autogun.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Autogun]]
There are dozens of other Autogun models that have been created since, including more-advanced versions that use caseless ammunition. One common variety is an assault-rifle sized version formerly used by Imperial Guard regiments, known as the Agripinaa Type-II pattern Autogun (the one specifically noted to achieve stopping power on par with modern Imperial Guard-issue [[lasgun]]s). While pretty heavy at 6.2 kg / 13.6 lbs (with loaded magazine), this gun fires powerful (but having somewhat heavy recoil) 8.25mm rounds, accelerated to muzzle velocities of 825 meters per second while traveling through the autogun's 540mm (21.25 inch) long barrel. That's more powerful than NATOs 7.62 round but less powerful than a dedicated sniper round. It sounds a lot like a slightly stronger version of the 7.92mm Mauser (actually 8.22mm), the rifle cartridge of German G98 and Kar98k fame. 

Autoguns are commonly employed by pirates, rebel groups, [[Cultist|Chaos cultists]], [[Death_Korps_of_Krieg|Kriegers]], [[Planetary Defense Force]]s, [[Necromunda|Hive Gangers]], [[Adeptus Arbites]] and low-tech civilizations/Imperial planets that are too underdeveloped to create even a simple Lasgun, which puts into perspective just how poor these people are. (Hey, that includes us...) On the Tabletop, they're basically [[Rule 63]] versions of lasguns, with the same exact specs.

In [[Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior]], the Stormtroopers used by the Guard detachment on-planet uses Autoguns that have been given special armor-piercing rounds (also known as "Man Stopper" rounds, featuring a penetrator-tip of hardened adamantium alloy embedded in each bullet) to improve their damage output, essentially putting them [[wat|on-par with]] [[Hellgun]]s (which is ridiculous, since when it comes to materials like adamantium, even an adamantium penetrator is just going to bounce off unless it's fired with very high power, kind of like trying to [[Katana|cut through a steel beam with a steel sword]]). Paired with the weapon's fast fire rate, they're probably the earliest weapon you can reliably take down a [[Space Marine]] or [[Chaos Space Marine]] with, though clearly better options are available.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Autogun|r7=24|s7=3|ap7=-|type7=Rapid Fire|r8=24|s8=3|ap8=0|d8=1|type8=Rapid Fire 1}}
 

===Rotor Cannon===
[[File:Rotor_Cannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Rotor Cannon]]

In previous editions, it should probably have been named Rotor Gun instead to avoid insulting the true cannons. The ancestor (read: feeble grandparent) of the Assault Cannon, firing smaller-caliber, less-capable ammunition and to date only seen in 30k. (Kill Team: Rogue Trader sees Voidsman Stromian Grell use a Rotor Cannon as his primary weapon) Unfortunately it was much weaker than its more recognizable descendant, with only half the stopping power (in fact it was on par with the standard autogun and outclassed by the ''Heavy Stubber'' of all guns) and much less armour-piercing ability, despite having the same shot output most of the time. About the only advantage it had over the Assault Cannon was the fact that it is man-portable by both Power-Armoured Astartes and unaugmented humans and can be fired on the move by both, whereas the Assault Cannon requires the user to wear Terminator armour, or for the Assault Cannon to be mounted on a vehicle. Based on the stats, it presumably fired similar rounds to an autogun (which is analogous to a modern battle rifle) but at a much higher cyclic rate, so it probably had some similarity to the real-life M134 minigun, which in technical terms would similarly classify the Rotor Cannon as a Rotary Machine Gun.

Even with the Rotor Cannon's poor stats and lack of special abilities, a few forces such as the Mechanicum and the Thousand Sons Space Marine Legion have improved the Rotor Cannon's utility by loading it with more useful ammo, such as Biocorrosive ammunition for the Mechanicum and the Thousand Son's own Asphyx shells that both allow for this humble weapon to be able to successfully wound its targets much more often. However, the Rotor Cannon's limitations against tougher opposition eventually led it to be phased out millennia before the 40k era, as Imperial Guard infantry forces eventually got access to crew-served versions of Astartes-grade Autocannons, Heavy Bolters, and Missile Launchers for their heavy weaponry, against which the Rotor Cannon could not compete even with its ability to be fired on the move by unaugmented humans.

In the 42nd Millenium, the Rotor Cannon appears to have been lifting, as it's now got an addition point of strength, a degree of AP and (bizarrely) 2 damage, turning it into (if the Assault Cannon is an automatic 20 mm cannon) basically a 50cal minigun. Really though, that 2 damage makes for a strange statline, as many related and much more powerful weapons lack 2 damage. This includes weapons like assault cannons, reaper autocannons, and even the Avenger bolt cannon. Combined with its less-than-impressive rate of fire this also means it's a portable rotary gun that ''doesn't'' specialize at horde-munching, instead being able to punch bigger holes in an ork Nob than a heavy bolter does (used to, 9e buffed Heavy Bolters to D2 as well), while also having a harder time actually wounding said Nob. Simply halving it's damage and doubling its rate-of-fire to 8 would've made a weapon that would've been the natural rotary version of an ironhail heavy stubber. Possibly the only logical way to resolve this would be to reason that its aim can only be changed very slowly while firing, and so can't be swept across hordes but can be held on a single target for more damage, but even that makes no sense when you roll badly and fail to kill a single ork boy with a burst of fire. A case of GW taking something weird and bad, and making it less bad and more weird.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Rotor Cannon|r7=30|s7=3|ap7=6|type7=Salvo 3/4|r8=24|s8=4|ap8=-1|d8=2|type8=Heavy 4}}
 

===Autocannon===
[[File:Imperial_Autocannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Autocannon]]
The Autocannon is the big-cheese of the Autogun family (and possibly related to the <s>88mm Flak gun</s> <s>Bofors 40-57mm</s> <s>20mm Hispano-Suiza</s> GW couldn't tell which is which anyway and they differ based on their world of production and pattern most likely), firing massive projectiles quickly enough that it can infatuate and butcher a group of Orks at the same time. Unlike personal autoguns, the Imperial Guard actually does use it despite the logistics because it splits the difference between the lascannon and the heavy bolter. Most commonly mounted on vehicles, but also seeing use in [[Imperial Guard]] heavy weapons teams, it possesses a frightening rate of fire and good armour penetration. Much like a heavy stubber, the autocannon proves that even older tech can work when scaled up in size. [[Great Crusade| Before]][[Horus Heresy| a certain temper tantrum]] and its aftermath, it used what were approximately [[Awesome|up-scaled Heavy Bolter shells]] to literally kill anything. Basically, ''these'' autocannon shells were to 40k's autocannon shells what Baneblade cannons are to battle cannons. Yeah. By the way most modern cannons actually use advanced shells like this.

The standard Autocannon makes a satisfying ''POM-POM-POM'' sound as it chews up targets up to four feet away. It hits at S7AP-1 and is a Heavy 2 weapon that deals D2, making it statistically better than the Heavy Bolter against everything except Toughness 4 and less models. The long-barreled Hydra variation is used on the [[Hydra Flak Tank]], and is designed to serve as anti-air support but used to chew up any cocky infantry that gets too close. Nowadays it gives warning shots that may clip an enemy if that enemy is standing right in front of it and jumps up and down screaming "SHOOT ME" (and even then might miss). Fortunately, it has an additional two feet of range, so while it only has one job, it tends to do it pretty well.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Autocannon|r7=48|s7=7|ap7=4|type7=Heavy 2|r8=48|s8=7|ap8=-1|d8=2|type8=Heavy 2}}
 

===Assault Cannon===
[[File:Assault_Cannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Assault Cannon]]
The Assault Cannon is a rotary ballistic cannon with an [[Dakka|outrageous rate of fire]], meaning it has to have rotating barrels to stop them from overheating. Although it falls rather short of its terrifying fluffy firepower (consistently going through several ranks of Astartes with each bullet) on the tabletop, the Assault Cannon was buffed up somewhat in 8th Edition. In-lore, this weapon fires unique, diamond-hard rounds at high velocity, resulting in far greater stopping power and armour penetration than might otherwise be expected. Early prototype versions were exclusive to the Imperial Fists and Blood Angels Space Marine Legions, but did have a rare tendency to jam and become useless without some involved repair work. Upgraded jam-free versions were implemented post-Heresy, meaning that Chaos doesn't get these meat-grinders (although [[Obliterators]] do).

Assault Cannons are primarily used by [[Space Marine]]s as anti-infantry weaponry on [[Terminator|Terminators]], [[Dreadnought]]s, and various other vehicles and aircraft. The assault cannon might actually be a stub-weapon, as some art shows it ejecting spent casings. [[Only War]] and several other sources show that there is a difference. Auto-weapons are (usually) caseless and can be anything from merely caseless, chemically-propelled rounds, to railrifles and gravitic-accelerated projectiles. Of course, knowing the Mechanicus, there are probably examples of both auto-weapons and stub-weapons for all solid-projectile weapons of the Imperium.

Being Rotary Cannons, Assault Cannons should in theory be able to spin at different speeds to deliver higher or lower firing rates depending on whether the target is a squishy 'umie or even a vehicle, but this isn't possible in the game. It's possible that the Mechanicus, being the hidebound institution it is, hardwired a one-size-fits-all maximum firing rate in all models of Assault Cannon to make maintenance easier and to keep these weapons from wearing out and overheating too fast, with the ideal firing rate being what a Terminator-armoured Astartes could effectively aim, control, and still be able to carry enough ammunition for in one battle (since faster firing rates also deplete ammunition more quickly). This hypothesis is made more plausible given how the Blood Angels had to resort to mounting twin-linked Assault Cannons in the turrets of their [[Predator_Tank#Baal_Pattern_Predator|Baal Predator Tanks]] to get more of this weapon's firepower in one mount, instead of just spinning one Assault Cannon's barrels faster to achieve the same result as in real life.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Assault Cannon|r7=24|s7=6|ap7=4|type7=Heavy 4, Rending|r8=24|s8=6|ap8=-1|d8=1|type8=Heavy 6}}
 

===Ironhail Skytalon Array===
[[File:Ironhail_Skytalon_Array.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Ironhail Skytalon Array]]
An overglorified Flak Gun and the main weapon for the [[Impulsor]].

Get two [[Stubber#Heavy Stubber|Heavy Stubbers]], mount them on a turret, duct-tape them and then twin-link it. Congratulations, you now officially have the Ironhail Skytalon Array, the most generic turret weapon of the [[Primaris Space Marines]]. Yes, it is as underwhelming as it sounds. You would think that these upgraded SPESS MEHREENS would be given something awesome like a [[Awesome|twin-linked assault cannon]], but nope, [[Roboute Guilliman|Papa Smurf]] seems to be running on a tight budget.

The Ironhail Skytalon Array on tabletop, is as unimpressive as it is in the fluff. With a range of 36", the glorified flak gun won't be sniping birds off a tree anytime soon. At Heavy 6, Strength 4, AP-1, D1, the Array is relativley mediocre against ground troops, scoring the occasional kill off a GEQ and MEQ.

The one saving grace of this weapon is the fact that it is an overglorified Flak Gun. The Ironhail Skytalon Array has a rule that allows it to get +1 to hit and wound vs flyers. For most bog-standard flyers, it’s wounding on a 4, which actually makes the Skytalon not that bad in harassing and taking down those annoying ass flyers. Unfortunately, the Impulsor also gets the [[Missile Launcher#Bellicatus Missile Array|Bellicatus Missile Array]], which, despite its jack-of-all-traits, is far more versatile than the Skytalon ''AND'' is able to target and hit aircraft just as well, if not, even better than the Flak Gun. Suffice to say, if you have the points, change the Impulsor's gun to something better and if you can't squeeze the points in and have to take this just shoot at jetpack infantry.

[[Tl;dr]], it is basically the limp dicked and far more disappointing cousin of the Icarus Stormcannon Array.

===Anvilus Snub Autocannon===
[[File:Anvilus Snub Autocannon.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Anvilus Snub Autocannon]]
The Anvilus Snub Autocannon is one of the three primary weapons of the newly revamped [[Sabre Strike Tank]].

The bigger cousin of the regular old Autocannon, the Anvilus Snub Autocannon is a twin-linked weapon mounted on the front hull of the Sabre. Of all the primary weapons that the Sabre could take, the Anvilus is the vanilla of the vanillas.

The twin-linked nature gives this Autocannon a sustained and consistent firing rate, in contrast to the semi-automatic nature of the smaller Autocannon. This gives the Anvilus a much higher rate of fire, which is great against fast moving light to medium armor. The Anvilus gets its snub name due to its relatively short barrel length for a weapon its size. It can be reasoned that the reduced length is there to balance the center of gravity for the Sabre so it could fire on the move.

===Taurox Gatling Cannon===
[[File:TGatling.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Taurox Gatling Cannon]]
The kid brother to the Punisher, in the same vein as the [[Taurox Battle Cannon]]'s role to the [[Battle Cannon]]. Although, unlike its big brother, this one ups it by having [[MOAR DAKKA|''two'' gatling barrels.]] This nasty little bugger is a weapon mounted on the [[Taurox Prime]] in situations where the Taurox Battle Cannon is insufficient against large hordes.

Though smaller than the Punisher Cannon from which it was adopted, the Taurox Gatling Cannon is a still a fearsome weapon. These weapons lay down an impressive curtain of anti-infantry fire [[Dakka]] all for a relatively cheap price compared to the Leman Russ.

Crunchwise, the Taurox Gatling Cannon is a 24" ranged, Strength 4, Heavy ''10'' tarpit cleanser of goodness. In total, on a single round, you are outputting on average, [[Dakka|20 shots at Strength 4.]] Blob armies cry when they see this thing paired up with a Leman Russ Punisher.

===Punisher Gatling Cannon===
[[File:Punisher_Gatling_Cannon.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Punisher Gatling Cannon]]

The Punisher Gatling Cannon is the primary armament of the Leman Russ Punisher tank and one of the Vulture Gunship's variants, and is a recent addition to the Imperial Guard armory. Design-wise, the weapon looks like someone was impressed with the Assault Cannon's firepower, but became increasingly frustrated with the inability of Imperial Guard forces to procure it and its unique ammunition, and so decided to resurrect the concept of the long-discontinued Rotor Cannon (see above) and improved on it in most respects. The Punisher Gatling Cannon thus ends up as an intermediate step between the older Rotor Cannon and the much-vaunted Assault Cannon, possessing stopping power almost at the level of the latter weapon while not improving on the former's lackluster armour-penetration ability (likely a conscious design choice to keep manufacturing and ammunition costs down, below even what Heavy Bolter shells might require since Heavy Bolter shells have better armour-piercing ability compared to the Punisher's own ammunition).

Where the Punisher truly shines lies in the fact that it is vehicle-mounted only; since it's not bound by the need to limit its firing rate to allow a single Terminator-armoured Astartes to both effectively control and still carry sufficient ammunition for, the Punisher can instead achieve ''quintuple'' the firing rate of an Assault Cannon. This is a literal torrent of anti-infantry firepower, and puts the Punisher squarely among the fastest-firing weapons in the Imperial arsenal, <s>outstripping even</s> going toe-to-toe with the Vulcan Mega-Bolter (as of 8th edition, both the Punisher and the Vulcan have the same rate of fire) which is restricted to being mounted on superheavy tanks or Titan-scale walkers. In fact, the Punisher doesn't so much as go DAKKADAKKADAKKA, it instead goes BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT. Able to churn out more shots than a squad of Tactical Marines at even greater strength, this baby will swiftly ventilate any block of infantry it comes across and can even threaten Monstrous Creatures by sheer weight of fire even with its unsophisticated non-armour-piercing ammunition. The Punisher Gatling Cannon also has a kid brother in the form of the Taurox Gatling Cannon, which has less strength and half the shots.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Punisher Gatling Cannon|r7=24|s7=5|ap7=-|type7=Heavy 20|r8=24|s8=5|ap8=0|d8=1|type8=Heavy 20}}
 

===Punisher Rotary Cannon===
[[File:Punisher_RotCannon.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Punisher Rotary Cannon]]
A souped up version of the above for the [[Space Marines|Emperor's finest]]. Like all things originating from the [[Great Crusade|good ol'days of the 31st Millennium]], the Punisher Rotary Cannon is far and above of higher quality than its 41st Millennium counterparts. Interestingly enough, the Punisher Rotary Cannon was the main armament of the once common [[Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer|Cerberus Pattern Main Battle Tank]], but the discovery of a Neutron Laser Projector and the [[Derp|general stupidity of placing a anti-infantry weapon on a fixed-hull mounted vehicle]] meant that it was eventually replaced as the Cerberus' go-to primary weapon. Loses out on two shots, but gains -1 AP and 50% more range to compensate. Later equipped on what else? The [[Sicaran Battle Tank#Sicaran Punisher|Sicaran Punisher]].

Due to its natural ability in [[Dakka|unleashing a torrent of unrelenting]] [[Steel Rain]], the Punisher Rotary Cannon quickly rose to fame among /tg/ of being an absolute [[Rape|rape machine]] against blob armies of infantry and ''even vehicles'' when it first came out. And that is just the weapon firing simple solid ferro-carbide slugs, imagine them with actual Bolt rounds....Seriously, nobody is going to go out okay when they face [[FATAL|18 Heavy Bolter shots in the face that can re-roll failed hits on a 1.]]

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-8|name=Punisher Rotary Cannon|range=36|strength=5|ap=-1|type=Heavy 18|}}
 

===Onslaught Gatling Cannon===
[[File:OnslaughtGatling.jpg|150px|right|thumb|Onslaught Gatling Cannon]]
The latest weapon for the Adeptus Astartes, and currently restricted to use as a secondary weapon on the [[Repulsor Tank|Repulsor Hover Tank]] and [[Redemptor Dreadnought|Redemptor Dreadnought.]] As such, it is ''another'' weapon exclusive to the [[Primaris Marines]]. Why in the Emperor's mummified nipples a gun such as this cannot be wielded by the more common Space Marines just begs the question. Why?

This weapon was found thanks to the reintroduction of [[Roboute Guilliman|Robot Gullytan the Third]] and Uncle [[Cawl]]. It has the strength and armour penetration of a heavy bolter at two thirds the range and twice the rate of fire.

On the Redemptor Dreadnought, due to its size, the Onslaught is wielded much like an oversized Powerfist lugging a hand-held autocannon. The sheer size of the Dreadnought's fist in contrast to the comically small Gatling Cannon is bound to spawn a few compensation jokes. Suffices to say, this eventually led to the creation of the Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon as shown below.

On the Repulsor, it is notorious for being one of the primary weapon choices on a vehicle ''infamous'' for its [[Dakka|weapon placements and the amount of guns it carries along on the battlefield.]]

Given it's a Heavy Bolter but better, don't be surprised if this weapon ends up being wielded by the Chad's Devastator equivalents.

===Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon===
[[File:HeavyOnslaughtGatlingCannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon]]
Maximum dakka for the Astartes, the Heavy Onslaught is the primary weapon of the Repulsor Hover Tank and Redemptor Dreadnought and one of the coaxial weapons of the Repulsor's Executioner variant. Basically the Dreadnought's equivalent of a penis extension or a [[Rape|metaphor for the foreboding erection the Dreadnought pilot is about to feel before being let loose.]]

Like its smaller brother, the Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon is a weapon exclusive to the Chadmarines and like its smaller brother, it came to fruition thanks to the management of Grandpa Smurf and Uncle Cawl.

It has the same strength and armour penetration as its smaller brother, but a 30" range and an incredible 12 shots. Interestingly inferior to the Punisher gatling cannon against everything that doesn't have heavy (2+) armour.

===Anvilus Autocannon Battery===
[[File:DEREDEO-PATTERN-DREADNOUGHT-Side.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Anvilus Autocannon Battery]]
You take a normal Autocannon, get three of its brothers and than duct taped them together. Congratulations! You now have the Anvilus Autocannon Battery.

Not to be confused with the abovementioned Anvilus Snub Autocannon, although it could be due to the fact that they are made by the same company/forgeworld. The Anvilus Autocannon Battery, also known as the Anvilus Pattern Autocannon Battery, was the main ballistic weapon system used by the ancient [[Dreadnought#Deredeo Pattern|Deredeo Pattern Dreadnoughts]] of the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. The Anvilus Autocannon Battery was a set of two Anvilus Pattern Autocannons that shared a mount and firing system.

The Deredeo Dreadnoughts were armed with two such batteries that were then twin-linked together. The Anvilus Autocannon Battery was a fearsome development of the Autocannon that was able engage and destroy enemy armored targets with a punishing salvo of [[Dakka|BRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT.]] The Anvilus Autocannon Battery is still found in use by the various Space Marine Chapters and possibly the Traitor Legions that still maintain functioning Deredeo Dreadnoughts in the 41st Millennium.

===Leviathan Storm Cannon===
[[File:99550101483_LeviathanPatternStormCannon01.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Leviathan Storm Cannon]]
The [[Hurricane Bolter]]s of Autoguns. The Leviathan Storm Cannon is the Anvilus' somehow ''MORE'' [[Dakka]] cousin.

The weapon is a heavy ranged ballistic weapon usable only by Imperial [[Dreadnought#Leviathan Pattern|Leviathan Pattern Siege Dreadnoughts.]] It is used when the Leviathan Dreadnought ''really'' want that horde army dead in its tracks.

Similar in design and function to the ubiquitous Autocannon, the Storm Cannon is a [[MOAR DAKKA|quad-linked rapid-firing weapon,]] purpose-built to scythe down infantry and clear out the defenders of tactical objectives.

On the [[Horus Heresy]] tabletop, this monster is a 24" range [[Awesome|S7 AP3, Heavy 6 horde cleaner with the Sunder rules.]] While the range is mediocre, its sheer rate of fire and high AP value makes sure that even TEQs stay the fuck away from this thing.
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===Hydra Autocannon===
[[File:Hydra_Autocannons.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Hydra Autocannon]]
In-between the Anvilus Autocannon Battery and the Icarus Stormcannon Array. The Hydra Autocannon is the primary weapon battery mounted on the [[Hydra Flak Tank]]. It is made up of four long-barrelled modified Autocannons with a modified reciever and beefed-up barrels to withstand a unholy amount of [[Dakka]].

Its [[Machine Spirit]]-assisted automated turret contains targeting and tracking equipment, including a predictive logic-engine, which allows it to lock onto and track enemy aircraft regardless of any evasive maneuvering. These control the four long-barreled Autocannons firing heavy calibre, high velocity explosive rounds capable of firing six hundred rounds a minute, shredding through enemy aircraft fuselages like papermache thanks to their high rate of fire. When used against infantry and light vehicles these rounds would change from papermache maker into [[Meatbread|mincemeat blender,]] allowing even a single Hydra to decimate entire formations in a heartbeat.

In 8th Edition, the Hydra Autocannon can hit ground troops on 5s and FLY units on 3s, and with its 6 feet of [[MOAR DAKKA|8 S7 AP-1 D2 shots,]] it's a potentially good investment even if you didn't expect FLY from your opponent.

===Icarus Stormcannon Array===
[[File:StormcannonArray.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Icarus Stormcannon Array]]
The big brother of the Anvilus Autocannon Battery for the sole basis of having a bigger bore-size.

The Icarus Stormcannon Array is a Space Marine anti-aircraft platform mounted on [[Space Marine Stalker|Stalker vehicles.]] Made up of two independently traversing turrets of triple-barreled cannons and a large radar dish, the Icarus Stormcannon Array can track and fire at two separate aerial targets simultaneously.

The Stalker mounts an array of two Icarus Stormcannons granted a capacity for independent targeting by the servo-mind conclave (Cogitator array) to which they are shackled. The cannons have a high rate of fire and can launch hundreds of solid rounds into the sky.

Each servo-mind can direct the Stormcannons to track separate targets with a lesser degree of accuracy, or when faced by more potent foes the array can concentrate fire in a single, withering salvo that will tear even the mightiest winged beast or enemy aircraft from the skies.

===Siegebreaker Cannon===
[[File:Siegebreaker_Cannon_2.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Siegebreaker Cannon]]
The main secondary weapon of the new Imperial Knight Dominus. The Siegebreaker Cannons can come in a configuration of either one or two depending on your preferences. They are mounted on the back or the shoulders in order to resemble the Warlord Titan.

The Siegebreaker Cannon is an automated turret that is aimed at demolishing light vehicles and MEQs and even TEQs if the going gets tough. Nevertheless, its nature as a secondary weapon is meant to pick off stragglers when the primary weapons are busy dueling out with some big ass units.

Crunchwise, the Siegebreaker Cannon is basically a more random version of the Autocannon. Each one is a Heavy D3 gun with a range of 48", s 7, ap -1, damage D3 and is capable of doing a maximum of 9 damage if you rolled perfectly, but on average will be [[Fail|exactly the same as the Autocannon]]. Do note that being d3 instead of a flat 2 damage like the standard Autocannon actually makes it worse against 2 wound models, however.

Ironically, while GW tries to claim that "If siegebreaker cannons were mounted on mainline battle tanks, you’d take them in every game", the Siegebreaker Cannons are [[Derp|shittier version of a Battle Cannon, aka the main gun of the most spammed tank in the galaxy.]]

===Ferrumite Cannon===
[[File:Ferrumite_Cannon.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Ferrumite Cannon]]
The Ferrumite Cannon is one of the two primary weapons for the giant rubber duck known as the [[Skorpius Hover Tank#Skorpius Disintegrator|Skorpius Disintegrator]]. Essentially looking like a normal tank gun with a disproportionately enlarged muzzle break, the Ferrumite Cannon is the 'vanilla' weapon of the Skorpius Disintegrator as much as the Battle Cannon is the 'vanilla' of the Leman Russ Battle Tank.

Judging from its name ("Ferrum" being latin for iron, and "ite" meaning rock or stone. ), the Ferrumite Cannon probably shoots out a solid slug of pure iron at its targets which, if true, is strange given that depleted uranium is a thing both in real-life and in 40k and is a denser and much better penetrator than conventional iron. Another option might be GW half assing the latin and splicing "Ferrum" and "thermite", perhaps implying it's suppose to be shooting Red Hot or even molten Iron/Steel at the target, making this more like a lava cannon in practice. Or it fires ceramite projectiles, being a hybrid of metal and stone and “ferrumite” basically meaning metal-stone.

On tabletop, the Ferrumite Cannon is your heavy hitter and is a threat to enemy heavy armor. Considered an Autocannon on steroids, it’s got a fixed damage of 3 with a fixed rate of fire of 3 – [[Awesome|that’s a possible 9 damage.]] That, and it is Strength 8, AP-3, which means it is gonna be reliable in punching a straight hole towards a Leman Russ Tank.

===Battle Cannon===
[[File:Battle_Cannon_Leman_Russ.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Battle Cannon]]
The big cheese of the Autogun family without going full on Titan. The Battle cannon is a larger and heavier version of the autocannon, its size restricting its use to vehicles only. It is the primary weapon of the [[Leman Russ Battle Tank]], where its explosive shells can decimate both infantry and other armor. It is also common armament on [[Imperial Knight|Imperial Knights]], though for these mighty machines are used special Rapid Fire Battle Cannons with improved rate of fire. Fulff says it's a standard 120mm cannon, but just look at that thing, that 200mm easy. Perhaps it uses sabot and so has a 120mm shell but the barrel is around 240mm. It is likely that either it is not sabot (despite some sources saying it is) or the 120mm refers to the projectile itself and not the barrel, unlike the modern method, and so the covering for the projectile might not be included in the 120mm measurement thereby resulting in a much larger barrel than a 120mm shell should be used in. Due to it being of Autogun in function, it has a wide variation of different ammunition that it can use. such as:

'''High Explosive:''' The standard round fired by Leman Russ battle cannons, HE shells like the Leman Russ Mk4 G4 round contain a highly explosive material such as Fyceline which detonates upon impact with the target. Since a high velocity is not necessary for the shell to work, a small amount of propellant allows for a larger amount of explosive material than in other shells. The explosion causes a blastwave lethal to anyone close by and shatters the thin shell casing into deadly high-speed shrapnel, making them deadly when used against infantry and light vehicles. While the sheer size of the blast can cause minor damage to armored vehicles, even stun or kill the crew within, HE shells lack the penetrative power of true anti-tank shells.

'''Anti-Tank/Armour Piercing:''' Anti-tank or armor piercing shells like the standard Leman Russ Mk12 G4 round are used to destroy hardened targets such as enemy tanks or bunkers. They consist of a solid round topped with an adamantium tip covered by a soft metal cap. A large propellant charge launches the round at high velocities, where upon impact the metal cap melts and creates a "sticking" effect so that the adamantium tip does not slide off of sloped armor or break. Most AP shells cause damage through kinetic energy, the sheer violence (and mass) of a penetrating hit causing spalling within the enemy tank's interior to damage internal systems and kill crew. Others include a small high explosive charge which detonates upon impact, causing additional secondary damage.

'''Infernus:''' Inferno shells like the standard Leman Russ Mk7 G4 round, also known as incendiary, phosphorine or thermite shells, work in similar principle to HE shells. However instead of an explosive charge these shells are filled with a combustible substance which instantly is scattered upon impact. The substance burns instantly and is particularly deadly when used against infantry.

'''Smoke:''' Smoke shells are used to create an instant smoke screen, hiding the tank or other friendly forces from enemy observations.

'''Hunter:''' Hunter shells are very rare tank rounds which can be fired by a battle cannon or Conqueror cannon. They contain a small logic-engine similar to the one found on Hunter-Killer Missiles which locks onto a target and directs the path of the shell towards it. Just before impact the shell's Machine Spirit causes it to rise above and hit the enemy vehicle on it's thinner top armor. Only ever produced on the Forge World Tigrus, the knowledge to construct Hunter shells was lost when the world was overrun by the Orks. Most tank crews will therefore never even see a Hunter shell, much less have the honor of firing one.

===Skyreaper Battery===
[[File:Skyreaper_Battery.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Skyreaper Battery]]

The Ironhail Skytalon Array's and Icarus Stormcannon Array's bigger brother.

The Skyreaper Battery was a type of anti-aircraft system used by Space Marine [[Mastodon|Mastodons]] during the [[Great Crusade]] and [[Horus Heresy]]. Resembling two giant Assault Cannons that has been duct taped and twin-linked, these weapons allow the Mastodon to have an effective deterrent against would be enemy attack planes. With how large of a target the Mastodon is, having a dedicated anti-air platform was a pretty smart design all things considered.

On the Horus Heresy tabletop, the turret-mounted Skyreaper Battery is a 48" Interceptor autocannon-analogue with a Strength 7, AP 4, Heavy 5 stats with both the Skyfire and Twin-linked rules. This makes it more than enough to threaten almost any conceivable aircraft short of super-heavy transports like the [[Stormbird]].

===Avenger Gatling Cannon===
[[File:Avenger Gatling Cannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Avenger Gatling Cannon]]

The Avenger Gatling Cannon is a six-barrelled (Though it can also come in triple, quad and [[Dakka|eight-barrelled]] versions) Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon firing high velocity mass-reactive bullets bigger than Autoguns, not to mention being much larger as well overall. It is an available option for the [[Imperial Knight#Knight_Patterns|Imperial Knights Warden and Crusader]] in place of their standard-issue large-ass [[Chain_Weapon#Reaper_Chainsword|chainsaw]].

The highly feared avenger gatling cannon is like an oversized assault cannon, though its larger calibre shells are more destructive and its rate of fire is even more prodigious. A single blazing volley from the rotary weapon can stitch a pattern of death across the foe’s battle lines, causing charges to falter and fail or destroying entire attack columns of light vehicles. Well-placed shots from the weapon also has the capability to destroy heavily armoured infantry and put a heavy dent into battle tanks.

There has been some confusion between this weapon and the [[Bolter#Avenger Bolt Cannon|Avenger Bolt Cannon]] due to the fact that both of them look like oversized miniguns as well as [[Derp|having the names 'Avenger' in them.]] However, it can be assumed that the Avenger Bolt Cannon's internal mechanics is more suited and specialized towards the gyrojet nature of the bolt rounds, whereas the Avenger Gatling Cannon is a more conventional rotary machine gun that just have a enlarged bore-size for it to fire massive bullets.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile-7-8|name=Avenger Gatling Cannon|r7=36|s7=6|ap7=3|type7=Heavy 12, Rending|r8=36|s8=6|ap8=-2|d8=2|type8=Heavy 12}}

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===Thunderhawk Cannon===
[[File:Thunderhawk_Cannon.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Thunderhawk Cannon]]

A Battle Cannon given a [[/d/|penis enlarger]].

The Thunderhawk Cannon is a powerful, oversized, ballistic Battle cannon mounted on a Space Marine [[Thunderhawk|Thunderhawk Gunship]]. It is an over-sized version to allow it to be fired from the air at the most vulnerable parts of an enemy position or for clearing an area to land troops in.

However, despite the power coming from this weapon, most Space Marines would rather just replace the Cannon with the more destructive, accurate, ammo effecient, recoil friendly, longer ranged [[Superheavy Laser Weapons#Turbo-Laser Destructor|Single-Barrelled Turbo-Laser Destructor]] instead.

How the hell the Thunderhawk manage to stay stable without the cannon's immense recoil tearing the plane apart is unknown.

===Accelerator Autocannon===
[[File:AcceleratorAuto.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Accelerator Autocannon]]
Back when the Emperor still walked, the Imperium was capable of developing new and improved weapons, and the Accelerator Autocannon was one of those. Basically a cross between the Autocannon and a Rail Gun, the Accelerator Autocannon coupled a high rate of fire with a powerful shell and high accuracy. It shares it name with the Accelerator Cannon used on the [[Fellblade]] and [[Astraeus Super-Heavy Tank]]. Which would imply that this is a downsized version.

Currently the Accelerator Autocannon is primarily mounted on the main variant of the [[Sicaran Battle Tank]]. Each Sicaran has two of them. Why Tech Marines didn't bother mounting them on the [[Dreadnought#Contemptor_Pattern|larger]] [[Dreadnought#Leviathan_Pattern|more advanced]] [[Dreadnought#Deredeo_Pattern|Dreadnaughts]] is because they don't know how, [[Games Workshop|lazyness,]] or they have so much recoil it's impracticable. However individual [[Space Marines|Space Marines,]] [[Suppressor|with JETPACKS,]] [[Rape|can carry them now.]] Though only Suppressors so far. Looks like [[Cawl|somebody actually remembered]] these things still exists during M42.

===Quake Cannon===
[[File:Quake_Cannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Quake Cannon]]
The Quake Cannon is a gigantic artillery piece mounted on Imperial Titans and Super-Heavy Tanks. The Quake Cannon is used to engage targets at extreme range. Each Quake Cannon shot contains a [[Wat|fragment of a planet that has been subjected to]] [[Exterminatus]], which is to say the '''energy''' of the Exterminatus is harnessed and then weaponized....which is....unnecessarily complex to say the least....anyways, the weapon draws the contained earth-shattering power out and containing the blastwave within a Quake Shell.

On Titans, the Quake Cannon is commonly found on Warlord Battle Titans. The Imperator class titan can also carry one or more Quake Cannon on its carapace hard-points.

On Superheavies, the Imperial Guard Banesword Super-Heavy tank is also equipped with a Quake Cannon.

{{40k-Ranged-Weapon-Profile|name=Quake Cannon|range=180|strength=9|ap=3|type=Ordnance, 10" Blast|}}
 

===Cruciator Gatling Array===
[[File:Cruciator_Gatling_Array.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Cruciator Gatling Array]]
Imagine the Skyreaper Battery grown a tad bit too large.

The Cruciator Gatling Array is basically the Gatling Blaster's little brother that has been twin-linked. As its name suggests, the Cruciator Gatling Array seems to be aimed towards an anti-aircraft role, as it is placed too high for it to be considered as an anti-infantry weapon.

This weapon system is the main secondary weapon of the [[Warmaster Iconoclast Heavy Battle Titan]]s. They are hull-mounted and fixed on the top of the lumbering giant, which is an odd design choice given that it is meant to target aircraft, so a full rotary turret should suffice. Therefore, the [[Revelator Missile Battery]] would actually be a much better choice than the Cruciator. The shells might be guided, or it is a specialist weapon against aircraft swarms.

{{Clear}}

===Gatling Blaster===
[[File:Gatblaster.jpg|200px|right|thumb|The child of an [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger Avenger] and a battle cannon]]

Strapped to the mighty [[Reaver Battle Titan]] and above, this is the weapon you field when you need the biggest dakka the Imperium of Man has to offer, it's basically an Assault Cannon, [[Awesome|except that it fires Battle Cannon shells rather than bullets]], yeah... this is what you get if you thought about the Schwerer Gustav using Gatling Technology. Now if only they had some kind of Macro Gatling, ridiculous as that would be (Good news! Forgeworld has decided that Warlord titans do, or at least did during the Horus Heresy).

By function, each of the Gatling Blaster's six barrels fires once in turn during each revolution of the barrel cluster. The multiple barrels provide both a very high rate of fire and contribute to long weapon life by minimizing barrel erosion and heat generation. The Gatling Blaster is pneumatically-driven and electrically-primed. The gun rotor, barrel assembly and ammunition feed system are rotated by a hydraulic drive motor through a system of flexible drive shafts. The round is fired by an electric priming system where an electrical current from a firing lead passes through the firing pin to the primer as each round is rotated into the firing position. One of the drawbacks of the initial design was that the ejection of spent links created considerable (and ultimately insufferable) problems. The Adeptus Mechanicus compensated for this issue by creating a linkless feed system.

This is actually a pretty [[Reasonable Marines|reasonable and practical]] solution; a rarity in the AdMech. As what kind of sane Guardsmen would like to die from [[FATAL|giant empty bullet casings?]]

Galting Blasters can be mounted on the weapon limbs of Reaver and Warlord Battle Titans and the carapace mounts on Imperator Titans. It is too large to be fitted to Warhound Scout Titans however.

===Nemesis Quake Cannon===
[[File:99560108206_WarbringerTitanQuakeCannon01.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Nemesis Quake Cannon]]
The Quake Cannon on steroids, or the holy lovechild between a Quake Cannon and a Gatling Blaster, [[Skub|whichever you ask.]]

The Mars-Alpha Pattern Nemesis Quake Cannon or the Nemesis Quake Cannon for short, is a [[/d/|larger, thicker and longer version of the standard Quake Cannon with more ''girth''.]] [[Tl;dr]][[Slaanesh|, its a literal ''penis extension''.]] We in /tg/ like to joke that the [[Basilisk Artillery Gun]] and the [[Goliath Mega-Cannon]] are nothing more than a [[Dick|compensation weapon,]] but it seems that GW had forgotten the memo and took this shit [[Derp|''seriously''.]]

Mounted on the new and shiny [[Warbringer Nemesis Titan]]. This giant six-shooter of doom is designed to kill enemy Titans on sight, thus in any sensible usage, this weapon is regulated at the back lines as a giant sniper, unfortunately the Imperium [[Herp|lacks any sensibility]] and uses these as front line weapons instead. Nevertheless, having a fast firing Quake Cannon '''''is''''' a boon to any forces as now you have a very quick way to whither down the [[Void shields|Void Shields]] of enemy Titans in a quick and efficient manner rather than risking the time reloading. And seeing how this Titan gained prominence during the [[Horus Heresy]] when [[Emperor Battle Titan|Emperor Battle Titans]] were common enough to be thrown left and right like normal battle tanks, the nature of this weapon makes a whole load of sense. This cannon also works wonders against heavily fortified encampments and any forms of fortifications in general due to the monumental concussive force unleashed as its shell impacts the ground setting off powerful localized earthquakes.

Even if it doesn't directly hit its target, the concussive force from that cannon could still indirectly halt the advance of nearly anything on the battlefield up to and including battalions of Superheavy Tanks and enemy Knights.

===Deathstrike Cannon===
[[File:Deathstrike_Cannon.JPG|250px|right|thumb|Deathstrike Cannon]]
[[Derp|Not to be confused with the similarly named]] [[Deathstrike missile]].

The Deathstrike Cannon is a starship-grade Macrocannon that is fitted on a [[Warlord Battle Titan|Warlord-class Titan.]] A rarely-fielded and obscure conversion, [[Wat|it requires the whole head of the Warlord to be removed,]] [[Herp|and the cockpit to be installed on the top of the Titan's carapace instead]] ([[Lolwut|Usually exposed]]), [[Fail|it is as stupid as it sounds.]] One of the Titan's carapace hard points is then fitted with an advanced fire control system tower. This configuration opens two additional hard points that can be used to mount additional Titan-grade weapons.

The cannon's recoil is so powerful that it needs to be mounted along the centre line of the Warlord Titan. Despite the severe limitations, this imposes on the Warlord, the Deathstrike Cannon's colossal range and power make it a useful artillery weapon, able to obliterate fortifications or harass an enemy's rear lines and staging areas at extreme long range.

It is assumed that the Nemesis Quake Cannon is a more modern iteration of the Deathstrike Cannon. (An iteration is like a different model or version, while an alliteration is a literature term.)

===Macro Cannon===
[[File:Macrocannon.jpg|280px|thumb|right|A voidcraft Macrocannon, why the Mechanicus decided it was a good idea to use slaves to manually reload a EXBOXHUGE Cannon, despite already having auto-loaders is beyond our moral understandings.]]

The [[Dakka|Biggest of the Big]]. 'Macrocannon' seems to be a catch-all for any auto-type weapon larger than a Gatling-Blaster, ranging from [[Aquila Strongpoint|fortress-mounted field artillery]] to the literally apocalyptic, cathedral-sized weapons found on [[Imperial Navy|voidcraft]]. As is clearly evident, it causes a quantity of [[Rape]] proportional to its size, but even the smallest land-based Macrocannons are capable of laying waste to mostly everything, including [[Awesome|flyers]]. It is at its basest an autocannon that fires bullets ranging in size from that of a man all the way up to the size of a [[Baneblade]], depending on the weapon's calibre (no, seriously), and since this is the Imperium, instead of an automatic reloader, they need [[Grimderp|dozens of slaves to move each bullet]] for the ship-mounted Macrocannons (heretical theories suggest this is either because it is actually cheaper for the Imperium, which is overloaded with humans and not resources, or because they are stockpiling resources, or they are cutting down on chances of daemonic incursions through humans by putting more of them in the killzone, or they are testing to see just how far people will comply with slave labor in a totalitarian state, or - most heretical of all - some suggest it is a bureaucratic screw-up with paperwork or that the AdMech doesn't know how to repair the loading cranes).

Provided yields for these weapons can go from 42 exajoules (about 5.297 times more powerful than [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Valdivia_earthquake the most powerful earthquake ever recorded]; a 42 exajoule earthquake would be approximately magnitude 9.98) right down to the measly [[What|15 tetrajoules]]...[[Derp|*sigh* Games Workshop never fails to surprise us]]. Seriously believe us, we know that tetrajoules isn't an official unit of measurement, but since tetra is Latin for four this essentially gives us....<s>[[Fail|4 joules]]</s> 60 joules of power....[[Herp|which is almost twice the force of a child's punch]].... Don't believe us? We got that from [[Rogue Trader (RPG)|Rogue Trader rpg: BattleFleet Koronus pg. 31 & 20]] which is quote on quote:
:''"Look at her, son. Isn’t she a beauty? Over two hundred Vulcan mega-bolter defence turrets, '''[[Wat|fifteen tetrajoule Sunsear las-broadsides]]''', prow plating ten metres thick, the finest auspex masts in the battlefleet… And the lines on her! Fluted prow, elegant statuary… those xenos scum won’t know what hit them!” – Bosun Phineas Jhule tempts fate at the embarkation of the Fire of Heaven''
:''"The Avenger dates from an earlier period of fleet tactics, when, squadrons of grand cruisers were employed as “line-breakers.” Traditionally, they were thrown into the midst of massive fleet engagements, soaking up enemy fire while racing into the middle of enemy formations, '''[[Bullshit|then crushing their opponents at short range with tetrajoules of energy from their oversized broadsides.]]'''"
''
Yeah...we in [[/tg/]] aren't sure whether this was [[Troll|intentional]] or a [[FAIL|gross example of a severe typo.]] So...um....[[Lulz|FEAR THE 60 JOULE BROADSIDE BATTERIES!]]. A possible explanation for this stupidity is that GW forgot that the term "quadrillion" is a thing and is using "tetrajoule" to mean 1 000 000 000 000 000 joules (as the word "billion" comes from the latin word for two, "trillion" for the latin word for three and so on.). This gives a result of 15 quadrillion joules in a broadside, which is 15 trillion times as powerful as the world's largest laser and '''well over 3 times''' the amount of energy released in a 1 megaton explosion. Much better.

Jokes aside, if we use the picture to the right as a reference for size, and estimate the shell as a solid slug of density equivalent to lead, launched at a planet from geosynchronous orbit above an Earth-like planet (36,000km), you're looking at somewhere in the region of 50 Tera-Joules of energy when it strikes the ground, or slightly less than the Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima (and that's just from gravity, not including launch energy). About fifty or so of the land-based Macrocannons would equate to one ship-mounted Macrocannon, or one point of firepower in [[Battlefleet Gothic]]. Oh yes.

==Chaos Variants==
===Reaper Autocannon===
[[File:ReaperAutocannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Reaper Autocannon]]
There is the regular Autocannon and then there is the Reaper variant, which only the [[Chaos Space Marine]] [[Havoc]]s get because Assault Cannons were discovered after the [[Horus Heresy]], and everybody Imperial promptly thought they were cooler than the Reaper Autocannon. The reaper is an infantry-portable twin-linked Autocannon that wants to put its shells in your face at 36" or less. The reaper is effective against light vehicles and monsters, but the Imperials switched to the other gun for its boons against infantry. The current Imperial gun is mostly popular due to its reliability and durability, capable of operation for years without much care even if [[Ogryn|someone]] used it as a club. By comparison, the reaper autocannon [[Fail|needs its barrels to be replaced after each battle or else it loses reliability or even explodes]] (maybe the admech were drunk that day).

Then at some point, the Traitor Legions and their Dark Mechanicus pals looked at the Reaper Autocannon and asked, "How can we make this even more rapey?" So they came up with the Helstorm Autocannon, which apparently can only be fitted to vehicles and aircraft such as the Hellblade due to its sheer rate of fire. It has the same profile as the Reaper except for firing an extra shot per attack and adding delicious Rending because fuck assault cannons. Now if only GW would let the forces of Chaos get their collective shit together and replace every vehicle mounted heavy bolter with S7 AP4 Heavy 3, Twin-linked, Rending.

===Soulreaper Cannon===
[[File:SoulreaperCannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Soulreaper Cannon]]
You remember how we said earlier that the [[Thousand Sons]] AKA The Prodigal Bookworms found a way to make the god awful Rotor Cannon somewhat viable? Yeah, here is the end result of it all.

The Soulreaper Cannon is a type of gatling Inferno Weapon used by the Thousand Sons. This heavy weapon bears a strong resemblance to the Space Marine Assault Cannon, but since it is basically a modified Rotor Cannon, the Sons of Magnus can basically lug around this gun with their normal [[Rubric Marines]]. This actually increases the effectiveness of these walking tin bins as it [[Dakka|boosts their firepower to a ungodly amount.]] [[Awesome]].

As the Soulreaper is an Inferno weapon, it uses literal magic to further boost and enhance the weapon's lethality. Who says that mixing science and sorcery is an absurd idea eh? [[Necron|Suck it Crons!]]

===Reaper Chaincannon===
[[File:Reaper_Chaincannon.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Reaper Chaincannon]]
''Not to be confused with the similarly named [[Derp|Reaper Autocannon.]]''

The Reaper Chaincannon is basically an upgraded Rotor Cannon that has been tinkered for 40,000 years by the [[Chaos Space Marines|Spiky Bois]] because the [[Fail|original was so shit in everything.]]

Sporting [[/d/|longer, thicker barrels]], beefier rotary cyclic mechanism and upscaled ammo that might as well be ''bolter shells''. The Reaper Chaincannon does what the Rotor Cannon failed to do, which is to [[Get shit done|get shit done.]] Compared to the Soulreaper Cannon, the Reaper Chaincannon is more ungainly, unwieldy and lacks the unique attributes of Inferno weapons, but it is also more utilitarian and can be used by non-Thousand Sons units. In contrast to the Reaper Autocannon which fires heavier rounds but with a slower rate of fire, the Reaper Chaincannon can rival even an Assault Cannon in its [[Dakka|BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT-ness.]]

On the tabletop, this thing shreds through MEQs like paper mache. It is able to fire 8 shots in one round, all at strength 5 and AP-1 but, [[Derp|''for some reason'']], despite having a longer barrel, it only has a [[FAIL|underwhelming 24" range.]]

Fun fact, the Reaper Chaincannon apparently uses [[Wat|''two belts'']] of bullets in its ammo feed. How the fuck ''that'' is able to fit inside the gun, let alone properly fire without the two ammo belts interfering with the firing mechanism, [[Herp|we have no clue.]]

===Hades Autocannon===
[[File:HadesAutocannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Hades Autocannon]]
The bigger version of the Reaper Autocannon.

Also because Chaos likes to add daemons to things, and daemons make things goofy, Chaos Space Marines have access to ''another'' vehicle-mounted variant, the Hades Autocannon, which bafflingly can only be mounted onto a dinobot (probably because it's propelled by warp-flame or something). Fielded onto a Heldrake for air support or in pairs on a Forgefiend for heavy support, the Hades Autocannon (R36", S8, AP4, Heavy 4, pinning) suffers the Reaper's slightly gimped range compared to the vanilla autocannon, but is slightly stronger and can pin units (but don't count on pinning too much); while it's not twin-linked like the reaper, having double the firepower more than compensates.

A Forgefiend can mulch most infantry short of [[Terminator]]s, pounding through power armour on sheer weight and power of fire, can make most Monstrous Creatures' lives flash before their eyes, and can hurt even a [[Land Raider]] or [[Monolith]] if the dice gods are in your favor. It's <s>almost</s> really/absolutely a real shame that the average Forgefiend isn't known for being a phenomenal shot.

===Skullshredder Cannon===
[[File:Skullshredder.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Skullshredder Cannon]]

The smallest of the weapons in the ridiculous [[Tower of Skulls]] Daemon Engine.

The two sponson-mounted twin-linked Skullshredder Cannons is used primarily for anti-infantry defense and it behaves similiar to a twin-linked Autocannon. Because it is mounted on the side, it can only target opponents in its field of view.

The Skullshredder is often seen as the least important weapon especially when there is the Doomfire Cannon situated just above the Skullshredder. Thus, it is often used to pick off any stragglers or provide additional wounds to would-be attackers.

Like all weapons from the Daemon Engine, it is powered by pure hatred.

===Skullreaper Cannon===
[[File:Skullreaper_Cannon.JPG|150px|right|thumb|Skullreaper Cannon]]

The Reaper Autocannon's father.

The Skullreaper Cannons is found only on the ridiculous [[Tower of Skulls]] Daemon Engine and is the primary hull-mounted weapon of the Tower itself. It is located further up the tower's height, and it is where the two hull-mounted Skullreaper Cannons is situated.

The Skullreaper Cannons resemble large hexa-barrelled weapons akin to a Hurricane Bolter, although it is not known whether the Skullreaper itself is a type of Bolter weapon, other than it fires large shells of pure hate. It is by far one of the most devastating anti-infantry weapons on a vehicle brimming with anti-infantry weapons, this is thanks in no part for simply having more barrels to load bullets in.

Due to its nature, it can be assumed that the Skullreaper is powered by the pure hatred of the Daemon Engine and uses the aforementioned shells of pure hate. It is unknown where the Daemon Engine supply the ammunition from, although it could be noted that the sheer size of the Tower of Skulls would mean that there should be ample room for stored ammunition, or we could just use the Warp simply whisking free ammunition like candy from a white van.

Nevertheless, because it is a six-barrelled weapon, the Skullreaper [[Count as]] a heavy weapon that can mulch most infantry trying to charge and attack the Tower of Skulls. Its unusual height advantage means that it can target enemies hiding behind cover with ease.

Unfortunately, the less can be said for its firing field of view, you could thank the stupid ass tower for being in the way.
{{clear}}

===Doomfire Cannon===
[[File:Doomfire_Cannon.JPG|200px|right|thumb|Doomfire Cannon]]

A giant fuck off gatling cannon that resembles a lot like the Space Marine's [[Thunderfire Cannon]] (Some may even accuse it of even being part of the Thunderfire kit, proving that GW can to, kitbash), heck it even behave like the Thunderfire Cannon, creating large explosions to shred infantry akin to a Bolter.

It is one of the secondary hull mounted weapons of the ridiculous Tower of Skulls Daemon Engine. Because it is mounted on a turret, the Doomfire Cannon is given a near 360 degree firing position. This makes it ''far'' more reasonable than the hokey Skullreaper Cannon whose very design seem to mimic the [[Warhammer Fantasy|Arrowslits found in medieval castles.]] [[Lolwut|Yes, you heard us right,]] [[Derp|GW]] and [[Herp|Khorne]] [[What|thought ''that'']] [[FAIL|was a 'good' design choice.]]

Of course, because it is lower to the ground, it has less range than the Skullreaper Cannon and is meant to rip apart closing infantry. Due to its explosive nature, it is unknown whether it is a Bolter, although Battle Cannons are known to have a blast template, so it could be assume that it just fire ''that'' big of a shell at such a rapid rate that it creates small blast templates in its wake.

Seriously, look at that ''bore size'' and tell me it doesn't fire fucking huge bullets?
{{clear}}

===Scorpion Cannon===
[[File:Scorpion_Cannon.PNG|200px|right|thumb|Scorpion Cannon]]
The Scorpion Cannon, also known as the Sting Cannon, is a large, multi-barrelled weapon that is wielded by [[Brass Scorpion]] and it is what happens when you have a Hades Autocannon mounted on a giant scorpion.

The weapon is mounted upon the Brass Scorpion's tail, giving the weapon a full 360 degree arc of fire, making it perfectly suited to unleash rapidly fired torrents of ballistic projectiles upon enemy infantry at close range. The cannon fires heavy caliber shells that are effective against most lightly armored infantry and vehicles.

The Scorpion Cannon features a set of blades allowing it to be used as a backup melee weapon against enemy aggressors. The weapon receives its ammunition from thick, semi-organic cabling that travels up the rear side of the creature's tail. It is basically Mortal Kombat's scorpion given more of a Khornate feel. Hence it receives the seal of [[Awesome]].

===Harvester Cannon===
[[File:Harvester_Cannon2.png|200px|right|thumb|Harvester Cannon]]
Take an [[Obliterator]]'s hand cannons and than multiply this by a hundred. You get the Harvester Cannon.

A Harvester Cannon is a large, multi-barrelled, rapid-firing weapon that is wielded by [[Soul Grinder]] Daemon Engines. The Soul Grinder is usually armed with a single Harvester Cannon on one arm, used in conjunction with an Iron Claw close combat weapon located on its other arm.

The weapon is attached to the daemon's wrist, on its right arm and can be used with an organic pincer version of the Iron Claw that it wields on its other arm or with a daemonic Warpsword. The Harvester Cannon is capable of firing large caliber solid shells that are effective against infantry and light vehicles and can also fire specialized flak shells to engage enemy aircraft. This thing is a very versatile form of [[Dakka]] and it can mow down both infantry, aircraft and vehicles alike.

===Butcher Cannon===
[[File:Butcher_Cannon.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Butcher Cannon]]
A Butcher Cannon is a heavy caliber, rapid-firing gun used by the Forces of Chaos. Think of it as the Reaper Autocannon on steroids.

The Butcher Cannon is commonly found on Chaos combat walkers and it is another primary weapon of the Decimator Daemon Engine as well as a weapon of choice for Chaos Contemptor Pattern Dreadnoughts. The shells fired by the Butcher Cannon are bound with sorcerous Chaos runes of anathema and bloodletting which causes severe blood loss. When used by Chaos walkers, the Butcher Cannon usually features a large blade that is attached beneath the weapon's twin barrels; this allows the walker to engage enemy forces in close combat if they get too close for it to effectively use the weapon at range.

It is not recorded in Imperial records if any other Chaos walkers such as Chaos Dreadnoughts or Helbrutes, Daemon Engines such as Defilers or Soul Grinders, or Chaos Space Marine tanks such as the Predator or Land Raider are able to be armed with a Butcher Cannon, although it is presumed to be possible.

<gallery>
File:Storm_Laser_2.JPG|Side view.
</gallery>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:11 - Infiltrator.png|Autoguns - Better Than Your Crap Flashlights!
Image:Autogun01.jpg|A typical mass produced model.
Image:RenegadeArms.JPG|Traitor Guardsmen armed with Agripinaa-pattern Autoguns and Autopistols. You know you want 'em.
Image:LRPun.jpg|The Punisher Gatling Cannon and its tank. Sometimes you just need a little more gun.
Image:Gatling Blaster.jpg|The Gatling Blaster. For when you need big dakka.
</gallery>

{{Template:40k-Imperial-Weapons}}
{{40k-GenestealerCults-Weapons}}
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]][[Category: Imperial]][[Category: Chaos]]
{{40k-Chaos-Weapons}}

Oxyotl

2021-11-10T06:47:14Z

2001:8003:1D0D:301:3924:32BD:EEB1:E9E7: Undo revision 796101 by 2001:56A:78FD:6A00:DD02:48D7:E3A0:EED0 (talk)

{{stub}}
[[File:Oxyotl.jpg|thumb|right|500px|"FUCK YO SHIT, YOU CHAOS MUTHUHFUCKUHS!!"]]
{{Topquote|"Against all the evil that Hell can conjure, all the wickedness that mankind can produce, we will send unto them... only you. Rip and tear, until it is done."|King Novik, Doom Eternal}}
{{Topquote|I once saw him take down 10 Bloodthirsters with a blowpipe. A fucking blowpipe.|Kislevite Hussar}}
'''Oxyotl''' also known as '''He who hunts unseen''' is a [[Lizardmen]] character from [[Warhammer Fantasy]], and is the original badass to invade the [[Warp|Realm of Chaos]] and run amok for thousands of years (which in the timelessness of [[Chaos]] could have very well been billions or more) while causing a massive mess in all the realms and plans of the [[Chaos Gods]]. Whether or not he ever met [[Kaldor Draigo|the second guy]] to do it is a popular subject of speculation among the Warhammer fanbase, though Oxyotl's twice as badass for that fact that he's doing all this [[awesome|without being a bio-engineered psychic superman with high-tech power armor, weapons AND with but his trustworthy blow pipe. A FUCKING BLOW PIPE AGAINST 10 FOOT TALL LIVING NIGHTMARE MADE OUT OF ENERGIES]]. To put it in detail, the properties of his blowpipe (a magical weapon) only state that it launches projectiles at high speed at the slightest exhalation. As for the poison, it's stated that he makes his own from what he can find in the warp. Yep, you read that correctly: Oxyotl makes poisons strong enough to kill Great Unclean Ones out of literally nothing.

TL;DR Oxyotl is an [[awesome]] combination of [[Doom|Doomguy]], [[Sly Marbo|Rambo]], and a chameleon skink.

==The Legend==
Oxyotl's legend actually dates back to the first Chaos incursion. Back then he and his fellow Skinks took on interceptor roles, ambushing Daemon legions and weakening them before the main forces could take them down.

Unfortunately this became a war of attrition the Lizardmen could not win, and his forces were pushed back into the temple city of Pahuax. It wasn't much longer before the Daemons were inside the city, slaughtering Lizardmen by the truckload. The city's Slann, Lord Pocaxalan, opted to try and blow them up in a massive explosion of magical energy. Unfortunately this [[Not as planned|backfired and tore open a portal to the Warp and sent the entire city of Pahuax into it. The city aged to dust in a matter of seconds and Lord Pocaxalan was eaten by daemons]].

Oxyotl soon found himself trapped in the realm of Chaos. Rather than succumb to the madness like a little bitch, Oxyotl decided that he would just keep doing what he was literally born to do: Killing Daemons and taking names. Unlike Draigo however, Oxyotl didn't rely on plot armor and bullshit psychic abilities. Nope, he just picked up his trusty blowgun and went to work. For countless years he remained there, due to the nature of the Warp it's not really clear exactly how long he was trapped, but by his own perspective he returned to Lustria about 7000 years after he had left. Exactly ''how'' he escaped is still a mystery; he never spoke of how he managed it, and the Slann were (rightly) afraid to scan his mind for fear of what they might find.

While Oxyotl was in the realm of chaos, he glimpsed into many horror that would drove a mortal mad, [[The End Times|especially visions about the end times where the dark gods destroy the world]]. He eventually found a way back to the mortal world, probably a distortion fabric of reality caused by the chaos gods or whatever random event happens in the warp. He got out. We can assume that Tzeentch was pleased with the changes he caused to the realm, and decided to warp him back.

His return was took as a sign of the End Times, and well... turns out they weren't all that far off as those events kicked off not too long after he had returned.[[awesome| Though he still had enough time to solo a Lord of Change.]]

Oxyotl had a brief role in the Thanquol End Times book, killing Skaven and Chaos alike as usual. However he was last seen disappearing into the Jungles to resume his hunt. It's not really clear if he was killed after that, but he wasn't mentioned to have boarded the ships when the Slann evacuated (At least not by name. Most likely however, he survived by staging Guerilla warfare against the forces of Chaos up until either the pieces of the Chaos moon smashed Lustria to ruin or the world was swallowed up into the Warp.)

If the latter, he probably sighed "Sotek damn it, here we go again!" and went back to hunting Daemons in the warp again, this time in search of a path to Azyr (which he may well have found, considering there are still rules for a "chameleon skink stalker" in the Lizardmen section on the AoS app). Though he was dropped from the Seraphon army list (Because otherwise Draigo would be much less of a special snowflake), so who really knows.

== [[Total War: WARHAMMER]] ==
Once again, CA turning a named hero option from the tabletop into a lord like they've done so many times before (Gor-Rok, Tiktaq'to). This time in the '''The Silence and the Fury''' DLC, the orange badass is called back from his usual guerrilla warfare at the chaos realm to find an artifact called the '''Heart of Darkness''' before his rival: [[Taurox The Brass Bull]] could use it to seal the vulnerable part of his throat.

In the official trailer, Oxyotl can be seen holding and sitting on top of a wooden stick just so it could gives him height advantages. Kind of goofy, but a pretty smart idea when you think about it, since he has to deal with Greater Daemons all the time, and height advantages is really important.

While he survived in the Realm of Chaos, it clearly has left some psychological scars. Never the less his campaign is all about stopping Taurox and various Norscan, Beastmen, Chaos and Skaven Incursions around the map. In the final battle he frees a bunch of humans who'd be sacrificed to the Chaos Gods so they'd help them turn Taurox's crew into steaks. Despite his baggage, he's pretty bro-tier by Lizardmen standards.

For some reason, his role as a daemon killer is somewhat disappointing in game, for it took him a lot of time and missile to kill his target, especially monsters, despite dealing damage with armor piercing, poison, magic attack and the fact he could shoot three times in one shot. Not to mentioned having the same scaling damage as Snikch.

==On The Tabletop==

<s>Nope, no model. It's annoying isn't it? Failing that, get a Skink and give him a Necron sword.</s> He got a model in the 8th edition and he has an unique magic item called "The Golden Blowpipe of P'Toohee". GW has brought him back for a limited time.

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
File:Oxyotl Miniture.jpg|You thought his color is orange? that's what he WANTS you to think! Even daemons fall for that trick mind you.
File:Chaos killer ft Oxyotl.jpg|Alongside Warrior of Light, Vergil and Jose Gallard, Oxyotl is their comrade in their fight against Chaos.
</gallery>

[[Category:Lizardmen (Warhammer Fantasy)]][[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]