IoM's Imperial Guard/SM vs GE's Carida

[TWF]

How many soldiers would it take for the Imperium to effectively take out the largest and most elite army/stormtrooper fortress world in the Empire?

[Wesley]

Is that that world that Kyp Durmoron blew up?

[TWF]

Who is Kyp Durmoron? Kyp Duron never blew up a world, he took out the entire Carida solar system.

[Wesley]

Well Cardia was being set up as the Center of Imperial Power when Kyp tripped out. It probably had decent planatery shields, which tend to be so troublesome that even Star Wars flotillas aren't usually large enough to take them down with bombardment.

It depends upon if the IoM can find a place to land and lay siege, if they can gain space superiorty to maintain supply lines, and generally that sort of thing. How they'd do it in Star Wars is how they'd have to do in 40k.

[TWF]

Just making sure you understand, but the planet is solely populated by soldiers and the military, which has a population of a couple billion stormies and army regulars.

Not too mention heavy anti-armor/anti-starfighter gun emplacements, how many losses are the IoM forces going to take to take them down?

[Wesley]

The Space Marines would probably be inconsequetional due to the scale of the conflict.

[TWF]

But I mean, how many soldiers of the IoM would it take to take out Carida?

[Wesley]

Who knows? I sure don't. I've heard ships in Star Wars and 40k are within the same weight class at any rate. Ground forces might be something else altogether, at least post Clone Wars.

[Darklyre]

Ground forces (excluding Space Marines) are roughly equal in strength, since neither stormtroopers nor your average IG trooper carry the kind of defensive gear needed to survive the others' weaponry, and they would both be bringing billions of soldiers to the battlefield. Naval support should be roughly equal, though I believe Imperial Navy ships have a slight advantage with melta torpedo bombardment (it can penetrate pretty much anything, and big enough ones turn into cyclonic planetkillers). The GE probably has slightly more powerful mechanized units, though if the IoM brings in Titans then they're sorely outmatched (those are rare enough to be nothing more than siegebreakers, though). According to the wanktastic fluff of the WH40K universe, Space Marines are able to fight off armies of traitor guard and other similar enemies up to like 10 times their number or even more. While there wouldn't be enough of them to win a war on their own, proper use would let them take key installations at will.

This is, of course, assuming the IoM doesn't just bombard the planet into melta heaven or the Galactic Navy doesn't simply nail the landing ships as they head to the surface.

[TWF]

Carida has a large fleet of ISD's and Frigates that support it, as well as Dreadnoughts. To my knowledge, don't IoM ships lack shields?

And does the average warship equal the minimum firepower of subluminal traveling plasma bolts that at do 200 GT damage in terms of firepower? And don't forget each ISD holds 9,300 Stormies as well as several divisions of armored and mechanized units.

[Darklyre]

They have void shields, which are basically meant to protect against the warp and minor protection against starship weapons, but their real defense comes from their ridiculously thick armor. Bigger IoM ships have adamantium armor over 10 meters thick, with the nose of the ship being over 30 meters thick (they're made to survive ramming actions).

As for weapons and personnel complements, it really depends on what division of the IoM you're talking about. Adeptus Mechanicus ships don't carry a lot of soldiers, except that they're the ones who transport Titan Legions around. Space Marine Battlebarges usually carry a few companies worth of marines, with enough room left for a ton of servants and a Imperial Guard regiment.

The nastiest thing the GE has to worry about are the psykers. The IG will sometimes bring along sanctioned psykers to use a shock troops and zone clearance (they'll literally kill every living thing in the area, prepping the way for the IG). Even more dangerous are Space Marine Librarians, who don't run the risk of being killed like sanctioned psykers do. Even relatively weak Librarians can do crap like rip apart fortress walls with ease.

[TWF]

So Space Marine Librarians are able to survive turbolasers from AT-AT's? Or Gunships? Blastboats?

[Wesley]

^ Luke Skywalker could.

[TWF]

The average IoM Psyker doesn't touch on Luke's power.

[Wesley]

Not according to Tim Zahn. Luke and Mara usually ran into situations where the both of them would have died, usually because of droids, if it weren't for some clever thinking.

[Arishem]

Vortex grenades and missiles will really mess up AT-AT's and other heavy armor. They create spherical portals to the warp, which dump everything caught in them into that hellish dimension regardless of what it's made of. A Baneblade super-heavy tank or one of its variations should be able to take out a heavy walker as well. Nothing needs to be said of Titans.

Edit: I think I have a really badass picture of a Titan somewhere on my comp.

[TWF]

Not according to Tim Zahn. Luke and Mara usually ran into situations where the both of them would have died, usually because of droids, if it weren't for some clever thinking.

NJO disagrees. Luke stops and withstands black holes, he can also destroy or shield planets.

[Arishem]

This is a heavy Warlord Titan.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/6987/warlordtitanqx0.png

This is a light/scout Warhound Titan.
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/3343/warhoundtitanxd6.jpg

There's also the middle weight Reaver and super heavy Emperor, but there are no good pictures of those two.

[Wesley]

NJO disagrees. Luke stops and withstands black holes, he can also destroy or shield planets.

That's only because they'd given up on giving him any more worthwhile character developement.

[TWF]

Luke's character can't get any more developed. He shielded several planets and his planets Force Illusion would only fade away when he dies, wills it too or the natives wanted to reveal themselves.

Point is, the average Marine Librarian or Guard Psyker doesn't come close to his feats.

[Wesley]

Well, Dark Empire Luke could defend against and AT-AT and then crush it and I don't know how he compares to Train Wreck in NJO.

[TWF]

Dark Empure Luke couldn't leave several dozens of dozens of afterimages while appearing like he wasn't moving and or use a Force power that will always kill on contact.

[Darklyre]

Who cares about Luke? He's not on the planet right now. Assuming the Imperial Navy clears a proper landing zone and the Librarians get on the ground properly, they can pretty much wipe out entire buildings by themselves. If it's a fullscale invasion then the AT-AT walkers will have their hands full with Baneblades, Shadowswords, and Land Raiders.

You kind of need to set the requirements for an attack. Are they invading from orbit? Do they already have a landing zone? Are they allowed to wipe out key installations or do they have to take control of them intact?

[Estrecca]

NJO disagrees. Luke stops and withstands black holes, he can also destroy or shield planets.

Interesting. Where it is stated that NJO Luke can destroy planets? Considering that he was trained in Dark Side teachings by Wankatine and can probably pull a Force Storm if he actually puts his mind to it, it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility if he ever goes Dark Side again, but I don't know anything about this alleged planet-destroying power.

As for the cloaking of planets, I take it that you mean the cloaking of the Yavin Praxeum? If so, that illusion was not nearly as good as you suggest. When he left Yavin Four to visit Coruscant, the work of maintaining the illusion was left to the remaining Jedi and it was so frail that it collapsed when the Peace Brigade came to observe the area.

[Wesley]

He's probably talking about that one planet Lando found by chasing an alien craft clear across space. Luke dropped by and hide the inhabitants until they were ready to join the galaxy at large.

[Estrecca]

He's probably talking about that one planet Lando found by chasing an alien craft clear across space. Luke dropped by and hide the inhabitants until they were ready to join the galaxy at large.

This is wrong. We are talking, I think, about the events at the end of Tyrant's Test, when Luke & Lando find out that the allegedly extinct inhabitants of Brath Qella are actually in hibernation and that the ghost-ship known as the Vagabond of Teljkon was meant to help in the reconstruction of their world (which had been thrown into an ice age as a result of a moonstrike).

Luke didn't cloak the planet. Rather, he cloaked the Vagabond after it began the re-terraforming work, which is still rather impressive considering that the damned thing was about as big as an ISD and that Luke just copied an ability that he had seen less than half a dozen times in use.