Yuuzan Vong vs. Imperium of Man

l33telboi · Post by **l33telboi** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 4:37 pm

This has been done on both SDN and SB before, but I thought it might be entertaining to do it again here. Due to freak warp-related phenomenon all the enemies of the Imperium of Man are whisked into oblivion. But this same phenomenon also caused the Yuuzan Vong to appear in the IoM galaxy rather then the NR held one.

The Yuuzan Vong decide to try to conquer the IoM galaxy. And the IoM naturally class the Vong as xenos in need of purging.

How goes the war?

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 5:20 pm

This means the IoM can freely wander through the warp without fearing anything about daemons and other gods of piss and hate?

Moves:
The YV probably got their intel well before even sending their fleet in. Starmaps, etc. It won't be the case here.

The IoM, on the other hand, has a good XP about the galaxy, and will attempt to settle new colonies.

If any battle were to occur, I'm afraid they'd be short lived for the YV.

In terms of infiltration it happens to go in great favour of the IoM as well, for all I've seen and be informed about.

On the ground, although their (yorrick?) armour is tough, the IoM have weapons massively powerful as well as far as infantry is concerned, and they can field the most powerful ground units on both sides.

Now, the rather obvious advantage the YV have is that a lot of the galaxy is untamed, and that's all the more worlds to transform into shipyards, but this will be pretty much limited by how many YV there are to pilot the coral skippers, which I don't even know if they'll be relevant against the IoM's battlefleets.

I'm afraid this could be a little bit curbstompatic.

Airlocke_Jedi_Knight · Post by **Airlocke_Jedi_Knight** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:36 pm

The ground armor is the Vonduun crab armor. Yorrik Coral is what makes up their ships. I recently read the entirety of the NJO and could easily offer tech analysis on the Yuuzhan Vong. However, I have zero knowledge of the Imperium of Man.

Mr. Oragahn · Post by **Mr. Oragahn** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:07 pm

From what I've seen, troops from the Republic barely striking as better than Imperial forces could still win against the Yuuzhan Vong.
Average WH40K numbers are just a few notches under the super wank of SW.
Super wank of WH40K is simply just too... super super wank.

If you take SW in the more moderate and normal way, then the Yuuzhan Vong aren't even worth the battle.
An unrestricted Imperium is just too much of a nightmare.

Cocytus · Post by **Cocytus** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:31 pm

I used to play Battlefleet Gothic a million years ago, it seems. I know it's branched out into a bunch of computer games, but I have zero experience of those. Regardless, the little stories in the various BFG books describe the standard Imperial cruisers as being 30 km in length. A full broadside from a Retribution-class battleship is described as being capable of shattering continents. The Nova cannon fires projectiles at relativistic velocities which can penetrate through multiple ships in a line. Lances can cleave ships clean in half. On and on.

The Imperium is also not very discerning when it comes to Exterminatus. Wherever the Yuuzan Vong set up bases or shipyards, it seems to me the IoM would just raze the place straightaway. They certainly have no shortage of methods by which to accomplish this.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:04 am

(By the way, you can download the current Battlefleet Gothic rules - quite a numbr of PDFs, actually - straight from the Games Workshop website.)

As I have said before, WH40K power is generally severely overstated using only the highest end examples by its fans. And YV tech is just... odd. Doesn't bear close examination well.

However, there are a couple points to consider. Even without the risk of demonic possession, IoM space travel is slow and unreliable compared to most other universes - serious strategic disadvantage - and its communications and command lines are sluggish. I'm not sure the IoM can react quickly enough to prevent the Vongforming of a rather large number of worlds, and if the IoM is using Exterminatus as a defense, they're probably losing out on the strategic scale.

I'm sure Space Marines can defeat typical Vong warriors, but it's the Guard that form the backbone of the military, and I'm not sure they would fare much better than SW ground forces on a per-head basis. It's possible; lasguns may well be ten times as powerful as a blaster rifle, but beating the Vong has seemed like a question of "WTF?" rather than "how much?" - at least, to me. To their credit, the Guard has a lot more bodies to throw at the problem, regardless of how well they do on a per-head basis.

I don't think the Vong would conquer the Imperium, mind; I just doubt the IoM as a whole would react quickly or competently, especially when something as remarkable as all its enemies disappearing happens. IMO, if that happened, the Vong attacks would actually help forestall the disintegration of the Imperium.

Praeothmin · Post by **Praeothmin** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:12 pm

JMS wrote:As I have said before, WH40K power is generally severely overstated using only the highest end examples by its fans.

Unlike SW... ;)

Dabat · Post by **Dabat** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:38 am

Hello, this is my first post on this forum. As far as Trek v. Wars goes, I have never posted to any debate, nor read much for that matter. I always thought it was interesting as an intillectual exercise, but never thought there was much interest in it. Intrestingly enough I came to many of the same conclusions you all did (including my disguest for the Incredable Cross-Section books). At one point I made a comparison of the abilities of the ships of several sci-fi realities (wars, trek, 40k, and bab5). It only exists in hard copy, but i'd be happy to dig it out if anyone is interested on the point of view of someone who has not been involved in the debate, nor someone who has an axe to grind for or against one setting or another.

On to the post.

Like JediMS (I was going to call you JMS, but I didn't want to commit blasphmey :3 ) said. The Empire of Mankind has orders of magnitude ships and soldiers to throw at it's enemies then Star Wars does. The owners/creators of 40k have made cannon statements of Hundreds of billions living on just one world, with two billion Arbites and a billion more Guard to watch over them.

I think it was in reffrence to Necromunda, but I am not sure (I don't have it on hand), I just remember reading the rule book that contained the quote a few days after seeing AotC, and thinking about what they would do if invaded by 1.25 million clones... After they finished cross checking the number of invaders several times to make sure they were not too small by four or five orders of magnitude.

The closest cannon (written by the owners/creators) numbers I have on hand are from an older White Dwarf I was reading when I stumbled across this site. It states that 580,000 Guard and an additional 3,000 MBT's were seen as an acceptable garrison force for a new colony (it wasn't). Other sources i've read but don't have on hand right now indicate millions dying in space battles that only involved warships (Battlefleet Gothic rulebook), 12 billion casualties during the battle of Ichar IV against the bugs (old Guard codex) and more billions during the 13th Black Crusade.

As for the cannon sources of the warships.... Much like the EU, the novels are a bad source for those. I was bored one day and decided to measure the ships shown in the art in the the BFG rulebook. In most of the art the scale of the ships to each other was pretty consistent, it was getting scale in regards to something I could measure that was a problem. However, there is one picture of Ratelings hauling a torpedo into place. Under the assumption that the torpedo depicted was one of the larger cruiser torpedos and not one of the smaller Cobra ones I was able to extrapolate a sense of scale for the rest of the pictures. the end result was the escorts being 800-1200 m long, the cruisers being 2500-3800 and the battleships being 4800-6500 m long. I had to make several assumptions, and try to compensate for rounding errors, which is where the wide size range comes in. Though my assumptions seemed to be fairly correct as in an interview Andy gave he stated that the intention was for the cruisers to be at or around 3 km in length (I am sorry, but I don't have it on hand where this was said, I am terribly poorly prepared to debate, I didn't intend to join this forum tonight, I just woke up around midnight and wasn't able to get back to sleep. In browsing randomly I stumbled in on this site and figured i'd jump in.)

PS, I'd ask you to forgive my spelling, I could say it is late, but I am afraid it never gets much better then this.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:44 pm

Welcome to the forums. I would be delighted to read your opinions on everything, especially coming from outside the VS debate. The VS community can often seem rather intellectually insular.

I always appreciate exact quotes and sources, since they're much more useful (and reliable) but I can believe WH40k cruisers are several kilometers long. 800-1200m is smaller than most of the figures I've heard tossed around in the VS debate before. The figures for the garrison for a new colony are especially interesting because they suggest the scale on which the Imperium starts new colonies. A fledging Federation colony is typically only thousands or tens of thousands of people total.

Dabat · Post by **Dabat** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:53 pm

Eek! Sorry about the double post, I must get stupid when I get hormonal.... ^_^; Am I looking over it, or is there no way for me to delete my second post?

800-1200 meters was the range for the Imperial Escourts, in fact the Cobra comes in at almost exacatly 800 meters long (assuming my numbers are correct). That 800 meter figure is sort of interesting as, given the size of Imperial torpedos, means that the Cobra is little more then a torpedo bay with a powerful engine attached. (which is what the stats on the ship suguest)

I will try to be more accurate on my quotes in the future, like I said, I was like totally unprepared for this.

As to the size of the colony. The story said "Ten million colonists had been brought in via Munatorium transport." The Guard assigned to the world were retiring vetrans, garrisoning a new colony was their reward for spending several years fighting in warzones. Too bad for them a large bug splinter fleet showed up.

Post by **Jedi Master Spock** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:22 pm

The double post has been taken care of. You can usually delete your post with a button right near the edit button (upper right hand corner), at least if it's the most recent post in the thread. I have the delete button active on all posts, thanks to moderator powers, so I can't recall how it's set for regular users right now.

Take your time. We're never in a hurry here.

Airlocke_Jedi_Knight · Post by **Airlocke_Jedi_Knight** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:11 am

I am aware that this isn't related, not really, but I just made a baffling realization.

It was stated that some worlds in the imperium have populations of hundreds of billions of inhabitants with over a billion guard members to defend them. My first reaction upon reading this was that Coruscant has been stated to have a population of well over trillion, so those population number were not all that impressive. Then I thought about it, and realized that there were only 20 million clones mentioned in the prequel movies for the purpose of fighting a war over the entire galaxy. It just seems to be a ridiculously low number. A laughably low number. I do realize that all planets have a planetary guard, but it is almost strictly a naval guard, and their ground forces would be entirely composed of volunteers and planetary security forces, which are more similar to local police than anything else, but the size of these forces are unknown and certainly not significant enough to battle off clones or battle droids deployed in very low numbers. My reaction can only be WTF?

Just baffling. Also, I would like to make it clear(completely unnecessary, I am sure) that I am a Warsie, and this still just seems ridiculous.

l33telboi · Post by **l33telboi** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 11:41 am

Airlocke_Jedi_Knight wrote:Then I thought about it, and realized that there were only 20 million clones mentioned in the prequel movies for the purpose of fighting a war over the entire galaxy. It just seems to be a ridiculously low number. A laughably low number.

Welcome to the beautiful world of Sci-Fi, where authors and writers most of the time have no sense of scale. Oh, and it was actually 1.2 million, but bumped up to 3 million in the EU.

Still, this is about the Vong. So we'd need their numbers.

Dabat · Post by **Dabat** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:02 pm

It's not all that ridiculous when you think about it. The Republic had been at peace for three thousand years, assuming an average generational cycle of 25 years, that is 120 generations since that last period of relative non-peace through the galaxy.

Think of it from the point of view of the the people in the Republic, even a mere hundred years after the last major war. "We've been at peace a century, we don't even have any soldiers left serving who can remember the war. Do we really need five million soldiers per world, when four million will do?" Or "Do we really need this giant ship when we can build one that is three quarters as long, and almost as good for half the cost?"

translate that out over a few more generations, and you are likely to see military grade equipment start to disapear entirely. After all, why pay more for two different types of equipment when you can save money and equip everyone with the same thing? After all, that level of equipment is all anyone ever can recall having needed. Over time you will see smaller and smaller planetary armies which will look more and more like police units. In several you will likely see the military disapear entirely, or at the very least be folded in with local police forces.

I am not saying that is what had to have happened in Star Wars. But it does go a long way towards explaning the lack of any significant military in the end of the Old Republic. It would also explane some of the glaring flaws in some of their ships (Notably the Star Destroyer needing massed cannon fire to hit a 150 m long ship barely 3 km away, not being able to shoot behind itself, etc..). Remember the golden rule about technology. It doesn't have to be the best that ever existed, it just has to be better then what the other guy has. You and I have are able to sit back and comment on the whole of their reality, but if we were someone to be living in that reality, and suddenly see an ISD for the first time? I bet we'd surrender without a fight. It is doubtful our home system has any dedicated military ships other then fighters, and even if we do, they can't stand up to that.

Sean0931 · Post by **Sean0931** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:44 am

Another newcomer here.

As with most SW vs 40k debates it ends up with "Vong win, because of vastly superior FTL". 40k may have equal (IMO greater than, if it wasn't for that POS ICS, Star Wars wouldn't even be in the same order of magnitude) firepower, but having FTL with over 1000x the speed, Vong can concentrate their forces wherever they need too.

Although vong shields might not be very useful against 40k weaponry, weapons batteries essentially put out masses of firepower, so the shots would be too spread out for the vong to intercept them all (And are also highly relavistic)

Only major problem for the vong is that their world ships are screwed, first time a ship with a nova cannon comes in range... BOOM! (IIRC the calc for a nova cannon shell was 5 pentatons, assuming the projectile was 99% empty and made of iron and not ubedubuduberum [its a building sized projectile at .75c] The blast is also moon-sized IIRC.)