Adeptus Ridiculous - IMPERIAL NAVY SHIPS: TO PUSH BACK THE NIGHT. TO RULE THE STARS THEMSELVES. | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

 https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculous https://www.adeptusridiculous.com/ https://twitter.com/AdRidiculous https://orchideight.com/ https://www.collectiblesquids.com/ code: ADRIC The fleets of the Imperial Navy are made up of multiple vessels that can be divided into three broad size categories: Battleships and Grand Cruisers, Cruisers, and Escorts. The actual size of starships in the Warhammer 40,000 universe is debatable; however, it is worth noting that the upper size of an Imperial Escort mentioned is 30 kilometers from the Black Library story "Wolf Pack" by Gordon Rennie, though the HDMS Lord Solar Macharius is noted to be just 3 kilometres long. The general consensus is that in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Imperial Escort vessels are anywhere between 750 metres and 3 kilometres in length, Cruisers are anywhere between 5 and 6 kilometres long and Battleships anywhere between 6 and 8 kilometres. Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. My co-host is Bricky, and our co-co-host today is Kiryoth, and we are going to be learning about some 40K Navy ships and stuff like that, like we said in the previous episode. But before we do, if you enjoy today's episode of the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get lots of great stuff for supporting your favorite 40K podcast.

Bricky has some super fun stuff to do. Bricky, take it. Some people have made it very aware or made me very aware that I have missed a couple of our posters from Wayback Wham. Five, in fact, I have missed. I have missed the OG Guardsman gal one. I have missed the OG Sisters of Battle with the Doge Van Dyre in the background. I missed the for the Neanderer Catboy Guardsman one. How did you miss?

That, dude. Was that intentional? Be honest. The name of it or missing it? Missing it. No comment. I missed out on the Ultramarines one with the big ass legs loyal to the core. And most importantly, I missed out on the tech priest holding the toaster.

I'm actually shocked I forgot about that one. And I have received many emails to the merchandise support. email asking where is the toaster tech priest and i is all on my fault it is those are all now available once again um they're on their store orkidate dot com the description and there's a black friday sale for 20% off if you buy two or more don't want to chat on it too much because we had an ad this episode but yeah and uh and yeah okay um well oh oh shy shy has a thing surprise for you oh sorry sure A big surprise. Shai says, speaking of posters,

we have a new one for this month already. And I feel like this really continues the theme of being nice to Bricky. Because the last one was the yes boss one, is the Chad Ogren. And I feel like this one really blows that one out of the water. That is not what she typed in the chat. That is not what she's faced. Yes, that is exactly what she typed.

That has been extremely like nicified that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Shai, go ahead and go ahead and show it. Oh my God. Jesus Christ. Look at that. It's amazing.

Oh, no. Holy shit. This is just peak 40K. Wow. Wow. If this was the space wolves, then maybe I wouldn't aid them so much. Dude, that's that's something

whose idea was this this was all shy's idea once you told me about it I was like I was like chef's kiss this is brilliant this is really

this is really gonna make Brickie's day he's gonna see this and just snap that you really couldn't have gotten worse I'm trying to worse

you could have you could have gone worse but like worse enough to the point where it can be printed and sold. I don't know if you could have gone worse. That's going to sell like hotcakes and you know it. You want to bet on that one, D.K.? I bet it will.

I bet it will. You think that like furry big-boobed space world isn't going to sell? Are you telling me that furries had disposable income? Yes. Have you seen some of those fur suits that they play? Also, have you seen how much? much art for his commission. Jesus Christ.

Like, I reckon a good chunk of them will have already paid for something exactly like this anyway, which in some cases might mean the market has been harmed a little bit. I reckon though this needs to be made more interesting. Do the extras, but any that don't sell, D.K. has to buy and then wallpaper a room with.

Ooh. See, I would, but I'm renting where I live right now, so I can't really bust up the walls and, like, wallpaper it. That's a good point. You just use tape. Yeah, just use tape. Or just get like some sheets of,

sheets of plywood and put like the command strips up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's the thing, get sheets of plywood, you put them on the plywood, and then you just lean the plywood against the wall. If you've covered the whole thing, you won't even know that it's not the wall itself. So, really, there's no excuse for this.

To all of our furry fans, we have no issue with what you partake in. However, I do have an issue with what Shia has shown me. Yeah. Enjoy what you enjoy. Don't be, don't be, ashamed of the stuff you love as long as not legal. Well, you can be a little ashamed.

Um, okay, we're, we're, we're, we're getting off topic a little bit. We're something Xminus to the recording. We do, we do. You're so curious, I'm told that you're going to be covering every single imperial ship in full detail this episode, right? Wow, even the minute ones from the books that people have never heard of. Is it, are you allowed to quit this early in? Is that a thing?

No, if you were, if you were going to quit, it was going to happen when she showed poster. That's true, yeah. I feel like the limit has already been reached and we're sailing well beyond that point now. We're going to be covering quite a few ships. Not all of them. Not all of them. Because there's a lot. There's a lot. We're only doing the Imperial Navy, which by the way, doesn't cover the Space Marine fleets. So that's, they have their own ships. We're only covering the Imperial Navy and there's already a, I'm trying to, what is the best way to? A, a Shedload of these. And that's not including ones

that technically aren't even used anymore, including, and I'm just going to throw this out here now because we're going to come to it later, and I love the fact this exists. Battleships with no void shields. That was a thing once. But we're going to save that until a bit later. Yeah, it's...

Don't worry. They made up for it. It's fine. Okay. So yeah. Following last week, we're going to go through some of the more fun, the more interesting ships of the Imperial Navy and the ridiculous weapons that they have put on them. there were some stats that you guys gave last week so we'll just quickly reiterate a couple of them

there was one thing that didn't come up right I'm doing the thing that I said other people would do with missing stuff out are you telling me that I may have made something wrong not really no it's one of those version of the comment section yeah it's one of those cases where someone has been writing for games workshop or writing for black library and they got enthusiastic and they made

have got a number wrong. Because you are right in when you said that like battleships can be up to eight kilometres long. There was one book, the name of which I forget of the top of my head. Oh no, there we go. There, found it. It's a minute. It's the wolf pack by a Gordon Rennie. I've not read it myself personally. But it is described in there that an Imperial escort is 30 kilometres long. What? An escort ship? Yes. 30 kilometers?

What? It's fairly, it's kind of, it's fairly like, I think it's been decided on that that's not correct, that that was either a typo or an author misunderstanding the scale of the ships in 40K, but just for a minute there, just for a minute there,

there was talk of a 30 kilometre long escort ship, which is kind of impressive, given that previously, I think the longest, like, actual battleship would be the Gloriana, which is like 19 kilometers long, 19 to 20. So a 30 kilometers long one, bit ridiculous, bit mad. Generally speaking, though, battleships up to 8 kilometers,

which is still absurdly big. Like, it's still stupid, but it's not 30 kilometers stupid. It's not as wide as a planet. It's not like actually how does this thing even exist structurally? Like, that's gave to the point of themselves. Like, you have to build that in space. Oh, they're all built in space anyway. I was by saying, yeah.

They're all built in, like, in, like, docks, if I'm not mistaken, yeah? Yep, yep, they're all built in orbiting, like orbital shipyards. And they're put together there and then set out for presumably a life of death and destruction and everyone on board dying horribly, which is pretty, pretty standard for 40K. I might say that's a bit grim dark, eh? It could be... Okay I was gonna chip in there

It could be classed as ridiculous But then you went worse So I don't think we can even Finish that off now Which Nothing is worse than this podcast Come on now Let's not be crazy here

He's got a point The Discord has just found out About the new poster And they're going hand with it So it's completely acceptable Oh let's go They're excited to buy it, eh? That wasn't the word

I was going to use But I'm right 200 of them Ah Let's go. I reckon let's go small to big. Let's go small to big and do the really, really fun, gigantic, silly ships last, because I feel like it's worth kind of building up,

because you start out with really quite small ships when it comes to the escort ships. You've got frigates and you've got destroyers, which are little teeny, tiny things compared to the battleships. like two to six vessels in a squadron, and they are mainly there to serve as a screen for other capital ships against torpedoes and attack craft. So they're there to lessen the blow to try and get rid of some of the attack craft

and shoot down some of the torpedoes, or quite possibly just take a few hits to stop. I was going to say that sounds more reasonable for the Imperium, It's just like, ah, instead of actually trying tactics, let's just throw a bunch of ships at it. If they get hit, mah. Mah. That's what they're fearful. It's, I mean, I'm about to say, it kind of reminds me back in, like, Mass Effect 3.

There's this part where some of the geth, like, block the shots of the quarry fleet by using their smaller craft. That's where my mind first went, because I'm like, oh, the Imperium would do that willingly. But then I guess, I guess in a more realistic sense, they would fly around. and use their guns to shoot torpedoes and stuff, because torpedoes are massive problem when it comes to those really big capital ships, so I'm not mistaken. Yeah, torpedoes are a massive,

like a massive amount of damage to capital ships, and generally speaking, like, the... So the escorts are like between 750 to 1.5 kilometers in length. So when it comes to, like, torpedo broadside and stuff, they're not quite as bad as they could be, whereas if something like a full-on battleship is hit by a full spread, then it's going to cause a vast amount of damage and probably take a good amount of the armaments out at the same time,

making the battleship way weaker when it comes to actually dealing out damage. Oh no, my bloods and my crips. Yeah, the gunnery crews, they have a bad time of it. The indentured ones, the slaves. The gangers. Yeah. So to give a little bit of a, like an example as to the different weaponry, so in terms of like the destroyers and the frigates,

the cobra destroyer, which is something that is in Battlefleet Gothic, that has a torpedo tube. So that can get in quick, fire torpedoes off of capital ships, and then get out, whereas something like a firestorm frigate is armed with a lance battery. So instead of having like a bunch of guns on either side of the ship, It's got a land battery on the front, which has like a limited firing arc, but it's like a more powerful single-shot weapon. And the cobra is 15,000 crew, 1.5 kilometres long. The firestorm is 25,000 crew and 1.8 kilometers long.

So there's still, for like escort ships, for small ships that just are there to kind of screen, dive in, kind of some sit back in the gunline making sure that anything that breaks through, is hit with like a lot of firepower, they're still really big compared to literally... That's still massive. Yeah, it's still a lot and it's still like 25,000 people on what is effectively an escort ship. Yeah, Esport Cruiser, right? Yeah, yeah, it's just the numbers are because it's 40K, so massively inflated and crazy. Well, it's 40K and it's the Imperium who just don't give a fuck about losing 25,000 people.

That's not even a drop in the bucket. I was just about to say the Americans love. If there's anything the Americans love, it's to have sex. Because I just replaced the Imperium or humanity with the Americans, despite all. But there's always so many goddamn people that like, oh, yeah, it's just a light cruiser, you know. We'll throw it in the five feet. your crew range.

Yeah. Crazy. I mean, it's at the point now with the Imperium that people are they're just expendable. Compared to the machinery they have, compared to it's things like loading torpedo

tubes, which I know you covered last episode, but there are auto loaders. Like there are things that allow torpedoes to be loaded not by using, you know, thousands of indentured people that have been just taken off world against their will. But the fact is, it's way cheaper and way easier to maintain,

and way easier to just use a bunch of humans than it is to use expensive auto-loader machinery, because that stuff's rare, and it can't be manufactured as easily, and it takes more maintenance. Whereas if you lose 5,000 people, because the torpedo falls to the ground and blows up and wipes out, like, a room full of idiots, you just go to the next planet and pick up another 5,000. It's fine. Who cares? Has that happened, by the way, where a torpedo is just, whoops, we weren't doing it right? Blew up the ship.

I mean, he's got to, right? It's 40K. It's got to be like a daily occurrence, surely. I thought for a second you might be doing, like, the whole, like, this recruits is a ferric slug. Feel the weight, Mass Effect 2 thing, where you fire the torpedo, and it just goes right past the ship. And then, like, it misses, and then just a planet below. I said it's happened in real submarines more than one. Like, that's a real-life thing that happens where people fuck up loading a torpedo and,

congratulations, you sunk the submarine? I believe it. Oh, geez. It's a pretty, it's pretty big-ass, um, uh, bomb words. Yeah. Super heavy munition that you've got to get just the right spot. Like, it's, it's got to be. Oh, wow.

Oh, Kursk! Oh, no, it's a milk ship. I'd forgotten which one it was, but yeah. Oh, dear me. But this is the thing, right? The Kursk submarine disaster, 118 personnel on board were killed. That's the entire crew. 25,000 people on a frigate in 40K,

and they're just sent in, just go. In you go, let's go. You've got to get in there, do your job, and if you all die, then it's fine. there's like we have so many planets and so many people life is cheaper than literally anything else for the Imperium so the cause was a faulty weld on a 65 to 76 kit practice torpedo

leading to an explosion of high test peroxide and secondary detonation of five to seven torpedo warheads Jesus I'm not I must say like it's interesting because the mishandling of a torpedo in a sub like that is one thing. But considering that the heavy munitions on like a destroyer capital class ship in 40K

is the size of like a small train, I wonder how the mishandling of that ends up. Oh God. Takes out the whole ship and a couple of escort ships next to it. Then again, I don't know if it's given the sheer scale of them. Like given just the absolute size of a

of a, especially like a capital ship in 40K. Yeah, the torpedoes are the size of a train. but a battleship can be up to eight kilometres long. Like it would do a load of damage, sure. Probably blow out part of the hull and you'd lose a big chunk of crew. But then again, is it going to be that life-threatening for a ship of that size? It might not be that bad.

It might be like the smaller the ship, the worse it is. So if you do it in a cobra class, then that's it, you've lost a ship. You know, the torpedoes dropped, everyone's gone. But when you get up to something like a cruiser or a grand cruiser or a battleship, it's like, well, that sucks. Yeah. You got to go back to port for repairs, but it probably wouldn't be like the ship is destroyed type of deal. Why even bother having the gang? Why even bother having the gang warfare when the other gang could just drop the warhead and wipe out the entire clan?

A bit of sabotage from, I was going to say like low-level politics. I don't think that's really class as politics, is it? It's just gang warfare. But you know what I mean? Yeah, one of our guys went and decided to rub butter on all their hands. And then there's like, oh, no, butterfingers. Like, I need to wash this off commissar. And they're like, no, get to work.

And they slip and they drop the thing and they blow up. Whop, poop, pooh. I was what the fuck. I thought you were making a siren noise for a second, but I realized you were doing like the hot potato thing. like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, my goodness. All right, all right. So when we move up from the smaller, the smaller ships, the destroyers, the frigates, there's also corvettes as well, which are just kind of in between the destroyers and the frigates. There are heavy frigates. There's not a lot of

information on those. Those are like a midway point between the frigates and the light cruisers, which is where you start to get some of the, like a bit more in terms of their, in of their armament and their crew complement tends to be bigger. They are also quite a bit longer as well. So the dauntless class light cruiser, for instance, four and a half

kilometers long already. So you're already getting into like really significant ship sizes. Sixty-five thousand crew on that as well. The Endeavour, which is another class of light cruiser, you're up to 3.8 kilometres long and 67,000

crew. So it's like you're really quickly get into the point where you're like close to very close to like battleship sizes because there's a few battleships that are in like five kilometres long so by the time you've left the really small ships behind it's already getting to the stage where you have these like pretty sizable vessels

yeah there we go the dauntless it's just such a good looking ship it looks so good Even I've seen that one before. Well, before I saw the trailer anyway. Remind me, cruisers are much larger than Corvettes, right? Corvettes, the small ones. Yeah, yeah. So these are like about over half, over half, over two times the length of the smaller ships,

like the smaller escorts. And we're really getting to the stage where the Dauntless, the Dauntless is like, it's a scout craft. Really? But it's still covered in guns. So it's got weapons batteries on either side, like the screenshot there. You can see that there's, what, there's seven, is it six? Yeah, so there's six macro batteries on each side, and it has torpedo tubes as well. So it's technically a scout vessel, but it's still, it's still like heavily armed.

And it has lances, too. So it's like, it's fully kitted out to murder stuff. and a four and a half kilometers a long vessel is kind of the scout side of things which is why it's the same thing I guess as the

warhound scout titan technically yes it is a scout but also realistically it's covered in so many gums that it would reduce most things to just rubble immediately yes the warhound scout titan of course yeah I love

How it looks like the guns on the side would totally hit the front of the ship? It's best not to examine a lot of that stuff too closely. There are a lot of like tanks and stuff where it's like, I am almost certain the guns on the side would hit the front of that ship, but it's fine. It's 40K. Who cares? There are so many instances of weapon is a little too close to a part of whole. Yeah. Like across the board.

Yeah. Also, I love that a shipman by 65,000 people is a scout ship. That's insane. It's so many people to just send out to see what's happening. It's obviously still, you know, very, very capable in terms of actual fighting. But I just love it. I love that 40K has these absurd, like, gigantic ships by any other standard or gigantic vehicles. And they're just, you know, it's a scout vessel.

It's fine. It's not. It's not. Look at it. It's clearly not a scout festival. But 40K and Imperium Standards, that is a lightly armed scout ship. When, like, I'm sure some of the grander ships are just, like, blistering with guns everywhere. Well, within the same class, you've also got the Endeavour class light cruiser, which... It's kind of like a heavy escort for capital ships, and the Endeavour class has got so much in the way of large weapons that it's about the same firepower as a full cruiser.

Wow. So it's still like pretty much the same as the dauntless in some ways. It's actually a little bit shorter, but it has more crew because it has heavier weapons attached to it. So it's like... Yeah, it's kind of a threat to full capital ships despite being slightly smaller than the scout version. of that class.

Damn. That was going to say I'm surprised because that screenshot, there's plenty of space on that forward battering ramp for more guns than to think that they have the restraint to not load up more guns

on that front battering ram is just amazing. Restraint, well done, Imperium. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You say that, but that front battering ram is in fact used for battering.

Ah. have any guns to cause the structural integrity of your battering ram to not work. I'm pretty positive. There is a genuine use of smash into enemy in order to rip apart ship and prow. I keep forgetting that in a lot of void battles, they do indeed ram their ship into others. I do forget that they are literal battering rams. Yeah, the Imperial Navy ships especially, they are made. with that prowl specifically because sometimes you just got to ram someone out of the way. You've just got to do it.

Some of them are better for it than others because they do actually have weapons that are protruding from the front of the ship, which obviously means if you ram someone when you've got a big old cannon sticking out of the front, then that cannon is probably going to be out of action. But a lot of them have got that kind of more recessed if there is a weapon like under the front of the prow so that when you slam into someone it's way worse for them than it is for you and yeah the Endeavour class looks weird

it looks like a gun that you would hold yeah it looks like a pistol or a shotgun it's not a good looking ship but it does you know it can potentially threaten capital ships so it's cool at least it's got that

going for it which is something bro it's a can opener oh you're know what? Yeah, you're right. It's a fucking can opener, dude. I'll be honest, I hadn't realized how can opener-y it was. That's pretty bad, in it?

Well, so you said the Endeavour is, like, a bigger threat than the Dauntless, right? Yes, just due to the type of weapons it's got. Okay, it's so weird, because it looks like the Daunless has way more guns and shit on it than the Endeavour does. So the dauntless has got, like, macro batteries along the side, whereas the Endeavour has got, like, they're basically just larger, larger versions of those weapons. So they're just more powerful.

I think it also is the fact that, like, the Dauntless has something going for it in that it got picked to be in something. So it got proper updated out, whereas the Endeavour did not get that. So it's still going off. I don't know if that's from Space Fleet or from Battlefleet. Gothic or whether that's shown up in a white dwarf somewhere that picture. But it's definitely, like, of its time. Like, I feel like the really, like, the ships that have really kind of lasted and have shown up in multiple games and have shown up in fiction and stuff, they tend to get better,

more updated artwork. Whereas there's a few, there's a few pictures where you can tell that it was drawn a long time ago and never really got any more love after that kind of initial first sketch put down. So the dauntless gets to look super cool and the Endeavour gets to keep looking like a can opener. Oh, there we go. So the Endeavour does look a bit better

in that form. A bit. A little bit. It's still a can opener. It's honestly the eagle head that kills it because it looks like it's going to open the can. Yep, it does. Yeah, it really does. Imagine the damage that eaglehead's

going to do when it rammed someone, though. It's gonna be great. You squawk at them as it's going through. I don't know if it will, it's eight pointed downwards. I think it's just gonna flip the ship end over end. If it ram something, though, that eagle beak could really grip onto stuff. And as you're like reversing out, it'll just grab stuff and just tear it out, you know? There you go.

That could cause a lot of damage in. Actually, you know what? It's shaped like a can opener, ram in, then like, orient the ship different so that it's like tilted up and then drive down so that it tears the hull open like a can. It was clearly planned that way. Yeah. We've solved it. Congratulations.

Oh, it's like, it looks like can opener because it's bricue when it rams the Eldar ship. A whole lot of opening is going to happen. That is impressive thinking that it's going to be able to ram an Eldar ship. It's an Eldar ship. Those things move so fast. I was going to say Eldar defenses and batteries are probably so good that the Endeavor would never actually make it to be able to ram into the Eldar ship, would it? Not even that. I think it's the speed. Well, yeah, there's the speed, sure.

They're pretty quick. The smaller ships are, well, I say they're pretty quick. They're not as quick as Eldar ships. But, like, the Endeavor has, like, the max acceleration is 3.9G. so it's not, it's not like horrifically slow, it's just horrifically slow compared to the Eldar who can basically just ignore physics, they don't care. The Eldar just fucking dab on you as they're doing

circles and shooting you with bright lances. Yeah, the Eldar do reliance speed quite a bit. Mocking you the entire time. They got that, um, uh, crap, what's the, what's the, what's the hoity-toity Japanese laugh again, DK? Oh, the Ojo Sama laugh? Yeah, exactly.

I can never imagine Craft World Eldart not laughing like that. Oh, ho, ho, and it's been around killing you. I got that, yep. So, if we move up from the light cruisers, which I know we've only talked about a couple, but there's, I mean, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. There's nine versions of those. We don't need to know what all of them do. It's all roughly that.

Somewhere between being fast and scouting and being able to take out a capital ship, that's what cruisers do. Like cruisers. Moving up to actual cruisers, there is again a significant number of these and the tonnage and the size goes way up at this point. So these aren't the battle cruisers, these are just the cruisers. The dictator class, which is very on the nose in terms of, like, what they've described that as. We're at like five kilometres long at this point, 85,000 crew,

and it is full of attack craft. So they've taken out the lance decks, which we previously used for. Lances are essentially gigantic Lasmus. So they've taken out the capacity for the lances, and instead they've refitted it so it's got hangars for more attack craft. It's still got macro weapon batteries along the side,

and it's still got torpedo capabilities, but it's there to vomit out a shedload of small ships to go and mess with people. I was about to say, these are the was nest ships, basically. Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. So what is that scepter-looking thing that's coming out of the front of it?

Is that just for more ramming damage, or is that actually like a gun? or what is that? I believe on the dictator that is that is like an actual ram because it doesn't have a front mounted lance on it so I think that's what that is some of this is going off my

kind of now a little bit rusty Armada knowledge to be honest also yeah, I put it up 15,000 pilots yep that's a lot of pilots I mean if the whole purpose of this thing is to like Bricka said just be like the was nest ship and just spit out and vomit attack craft.

I mean, that makes sense that there's 15,000 pilots on it. Yeah. But it seems like the ram thing is a little wasted on this ship, because it doesn't seem like this thing is supposed to be, like, ramming stuff. It's just supposed to vomit out attack ships, right? So why would you put a big old ram thing on this ship? Why wouldn't you put it on, like, the can opener ship?

I feel like with this, it's a case of, because it's lacking, lances because it doesn't have that same kind of armor piercing capability that quite a few of the other ships do. If something gets close enough to it, then your best bet is to torpedo it and ram it if it's in the right position

for it. Because one of the things I quite like about the design of all these ships is that it's relatively sensible in a way. Like if you want to have a bunch of attack craft, you have to lose a weapon or two because you can't fit both. And I would guess if it's like a

if a bunch of the cruisers are essentially the same template, if you're going to take off everything that would power the gun on the front to fit more attack craft, you may as well stick something on there because it's not going to have any effect on it other than if you

really need to ram someone, then you've got a big old spike on the front which is only going to help that. So, disagree, Keriath. Instead, you remove the battering ram section and you just make it this giant gaping mouth. Put the gun that. on it and then it's like giant

bay doors that just open up and it literally vomits craft All right, that would be, no, you're right, that'd be cooler. That'll be way back on the front. So it's literally vomiting crafts? Oh, that'd be great. It can still broadside people,

but then it just opens the front up and it's just like, it's all just fucking fighter decks, like 19 floors of ships. And you could make it super imperium like and make that just like a big, eagle head, but the beak opens

and... The beak opens all that? Oh, no, but no, even better. The actual bay doors that open are shaped like wings. So when it opens up, it's got this giant dual wing thing on the sides. Oh, and it's like literally coming out of an aquila? Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's go. I love humanity. Praise the emperor.

I was just going to say, Shyhouse pointed out as well, that aircraft depending on the aircraft, not much in the wave range. And like attack craft, probably not able to just fly across half a, half a, I was going to say battlefield.

You know what I mean? Halfway across like an engagement to be able to get to the enemy, so getting close, then chucking them out, and then probably need to hang back a little bit, but also be close enough that they can come back

and refuel and rearm and so on and kind of a mix of a mix of all different stuff. Yeah. As to why you want to stick a big. little um do one of those little fighters have like uh how long can they fly around and so the fury which is an interceptor as opposed to a bomber um oh i could i swear i had this written down no this is one of the things i couldn't find out when it comes to like super technical like fuel consumption and stuff there isn't a huge amount of information out there oh okay but

Because I did genuinely try and find that. It's like, you know, like in real life fighter jets. It's not like they have infinite fuel where they can go cross-country. It's like you kind of got to stay near-ish a base so you can refuel because obviously, you know. Yeah, you got to get close where you're going to end up running out of. What the fuck is that, Shai? Yeah. What the fuck is that?

It's not great. Let's be honest. Great was not the first word that came to mind when I looked at that. This entire time I was thinking of some kind of like comparison for it. That looks like this ex-dum thing, and I genuinely can't think of anything right now. It looks like a termite with claws to me. It's really... I've genuinely forgotten which cruiser I was going to go on to next, purely from looking at that.

It's actually destroyed my brain. It is mind-boggling. Why has it got pincers? I mean, I suppose in that way, hey, at least they've kept, like, the ram faithful. Clearly that wants to get real close to things, doesn't it? Look at it. It's the catch those pesquielder.

They fly away from your ram, and you're like, and you got them, grab it. Oh, my God. I like the drill, though. I kind of wish that they kept the drill on the dictator instead of just the... I mean, I guess that thing on the front in the good picture could, like, just spin around.

rapidly too, but it doesn't look like a drill to me. I'm going to choose to believe that it does and just take that as a blanket upgrade on the flying lobster or whatever the hell. Oh my God. It kind of is a flying... Hell yeah, Mr. Crams. Is that a crampy panting? Oh, God.

Right, we're going to... Okay, we're going to move on. I hate to think what the old model for the... Oh, no, no. one isn't too bad. No, I was incorrect. I forgot that this does have an odd model and it is terrible. So the Dominator Cruiser

which has nothing in the way of like the whole attack craft thing. Instead it has a Nova Canon. What's the Nova Canon? So the Nova Canon is an amazing weapon.

It does like a kind of gravity acceleration thing to force whatever projectile it's firing to close to the speed of light and then when it hits something

it obliterates it. Holy shit. That's like the kind of the cliff notes. The Nova Canon is one of the most exceptionally powerful starship weapons employed by the military force of superior man. They fire massive, gravitically impelled warheads that can unleash fleet-consuming

plasma explosions gravitational disruptions, or even warp riffs. Wow. They're pretty good. Hey, what's up, God? What's up, Eldar? Can't catch you?

That's fine. I'll just let the gates of hell go and kill you for me. That's what happens when you fire this thing? I'm assuming that's the plasma one, where it's like fires a torrent of plasma. There's a few different versions. So there's a Mars-Patter-Nova cannon, which is, it's just,

one long, like literally hundreds of meters long gun that fires a shell at like relativistic velocities. And then when it hits it, it explodes with more force than dozens of plasma

warheads. So that's one version of it. Then there's the riser pattern Nova Canon, which has got like an unstable plasma based bomb attached to it. So it's basically various flavours of awful, but it does have, it does have different ammunition.

So there's Doppler shells, so you can fire it, and it will bounce waves off the holes of ships and expose things that are hidden or cloaked. There's electromagnetic shells, which are designed to wreck sensors and enemy communication. There are grav shells, which implode in on themselves and create a miniature black hole, which might actually be what that picture is showing looking at it. And then there's rift shells. So those are like a vortex torpedo, but worse,

they create a temporary rift in the warp. So you can have a Nova Canon firing miniature warp rifts if you really want to. Jesus. For a second there, I thought you said the first cannon was a marzipan, and I was like, ooh, almond. That's my terrible pronunciation.

But yeah, the Dominator Cruiser has got one of them. It's got one of those on, and it's flanking weapons. It seems like a very important thing, this Nova Canon, and it seems very... Why are you putting it at the front where it is most vulnerable? You need vast amounts of power to use it. It's like, it requires a lot of power to be able to fire. I was going to say, it's so exposed.

Why is that mean it should be in the front then? Yeah, can't you put that anywhere on the ship? we'd be better put it in the back where all the plasma reactors are? Yeah. It's probably down to the complete inability or refusal of anyone to deviate from any design ever. That's true. There's always the cop-out answer of this is the way the STC built it, so we're not going to change it. You would probably really put that in the middle of like a weird shaped ship so that it was protected at all times, given how incredibly powerful and dangerous and,

rare and all of that stuff it is and put it a bit closer to the power source and stuff, but I don't think there's any STC for that, so what you get is the gun sticking out of the front of the prow which was designed specifically for ramming things, and you're going to like it

because you've got no other choice, basically. Shai says it's also insanely dangerous to even the ship itself, because of the destruction it can cause over a vast area, a nova cannon projectile is not armed until a fraction of a second after firing, though by that time it will have already traveled tens of thousands of kilometers through space.

For those captains which do mount them, a will-use Nova Canon can be a terrifying weapon and a psychological tool. It's quality. Crazy. Yeah, they're amazing. They're one of the coolest weapons. They do come on the Dominator Cruiser, which also has a ridiculous broadside case.

So there's something that I noted down for this, where there was a dominator cruiser called the Hammer of Justice, which found itself between two chaos cruisers, and it fired its broadsides at both and crippled both of them immediately. Wow. So the one ship was being flanked by two other ships, fired its broadsides at them, and annihilated them. They basically have a similar kind of broadside capability as full-on battleships, the retribuse of battleship, battleship specifically. And it's just a cruiser. It's just a cruiser. It's not even like one of the biggest ships out there. But it's got a Nova Canon and it can destroy equivalent cruisers easily, which is solid. Jesus. So why don't they use more of these? Like they should just make a fleet of these things if they take out chaos. ships that easily and it has a fucking singularity cannon on it.

Like, this seems like it should be like the hallmark of the fleet. Nova Canon, larger, like longer recharge rate. And also, if something's faster and it has more escort, then it makes it more difficult to hit the ships that could hit the dominator. And it's all the usual thing of, you could just send one thing in, but depending on the formation of the enemy, fleet and what they've got access to, you could have a really good ship or like 10 really good ships, but if there's something in there that counters it just a little bit, then you're

in serious trouble. Yeah. Damn. Still very cool, though. We do have to mention quickly the Gothic cruiser, because it's, I mean, the name is legendary. They are extremely slow, really slow, but they do have lances on them. So they've got Lanz Decks and they are able to do a shedload of extreme damage with those.

They're not as long range or as devastating as the Novick Canon, but they are longer range than like the macro batteries. And they do a horrendous amount of like whole damage and stuff. And yeah, the Gothic is a little bit different because it has lances on either side of the ship. A lot of the ships seem to have lances either on turrets or affixed to the prow, so they have a limited firing arc, whereas the Gothic can hit a lot more stuff on either side of the ship with those weapons, which makes it a little bit different, a little bit special. And lances are just like, pew-pue space lasers, right?

Yeah, they're basically gigantic las cannons. Yeah, yeah, okay, cool, just making sure. Longer range, more damage, just more hardcore. The same way that, like, when we were talking about the Titans, where it's like, this is, a Titan weapon and then the bigger the Titan gets just the bigger the weapon gets but it's basically the same thing. It goes all the way up to

gigantic lances with incredible long range that are basically super sized last cannons. Lucky for us, there's no such thing as a laser that can be too big. You could always make a bigger laser.

Yeah. Shai said they're also kind of sniper ships because apparently lances are long range specific and reload real slowly, so if you get real close to gothic class, it's kind of fucked. Yep, that's, if you remember, D.K., the night lord ship was a strike cruiser that had a massive front forward lance. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was what they did to deal with, if I'm not mistaken, the battleship,

because they fired the lances among other things at it, which popped its void shields and then sent all the drop pods in. Got to set, got to get the drop pods in. That's your Astardis craft. You got one major benefit and that's your dudes. Yep. Go get in there quick. All things are going to go bad for you. Yeah, especially like when a Knight Lord's drop ship ends up on your ship, it's like, oh no. Oh, no. All right, yeah, next boat.

Everyone looks at a visit by the Nightlords. It's fine. So we've then got the Battle Cruises and the... Grand Cruisers. So Battle Cruisers are sort of between the Grand and normal cruiser sizes, and it's kind of a similar thing, but they're not, like, they're not, they're not, they're not escort class, but they're not quite full, they're not quite like full battleship size vessels. Well, they're that sort of size, but in terms of their armaments, they're not a vast amount different to the cruisers themselves. So things like the Armageddon class, it was based on things from the cruiser class. So it's a battle cruiser, but it's not that much bigger than

an actual normal cruiser because they used the lunar hull from the previous classification of ship. So these are like five kilometres long, about 100,000 crew roughly. And again, it's that kind of mix of There's a few that have got really good kind of ranged ability, having multiple lances on either side. There's a few that have got like really good close range ability or nova cannons. The Mars class is really good for long range because it has two lances, it has a nova cannon, and it has attack craft to support it from a distance, and the Armageddon cannon lance positions and also torpedoes as well so it's still got like a good amount of range

these are kind of like they're still like getting close to capital ship but they're kind of a mid-ground between the two sounds very well weaponized that's a shitload of weapons it's just one of them it's like it literally says in the like a couple of places I found that

it was referred to as like the poor man's retribution class battleship which is the overlord battlecruiser. Wow. So it's got a bunch of weapons on it, and it's kind of good, but he'd still want... It sounds like a wrecking ball.

You still want to have an actual proper retribution class, because it's just better. It's just better doing it that way. But unfortunately, battleships are massively expensive and difficult to build, and really rare. So sometimes you've just got to go with the not quite as good option. Are battle ships and destroyers similar?

Destroyers are way down the list. Destroyers are down with like corvettes and frigates. Crap. Am I thinking of battle barges? Or is that an Astardis thing? Yeah, battle barges are the Astartis capital ships. Okay, okay, never mind them. They literally have their own entire section of ships.

The amount of variety that the Imperium has when it comes to spacecraft is kind of insane because the Imperial Navy has got just a ton of them, and then space marines have got their own lot, which kind of have similar armaments but different focuses, and there's more focus on boarding and stuff like that, due to them having so many space marines around, but it like changes the function of the ships and stuff.

It's, there's so much. There's so much and there still isn't a tabletop battle fleet gothic game again. Anyway, I'm just going to not go into that rant because that's not what we're here for. They should have one now. They should, absolutely. They're missing out of money, mine specifically.

That's not true. They're not missing out of money. They've got loads of it. No. So between the battles, battle cruisers and the full battleships we have Grand Cruisers which are full capital ships

and it's this is where you start getting into like seven and a half eight kilometers long they are basically battleships but just a little bit smaller a little bit different like two decks of weapon batteries instead of a single

deck so the Avenger Grand Cruiser is one of the examples and it doesn't have a lot of like frontal armor, but it does have two decks of weapon batteries. So once it gets alongside something, it has so many guns that it can just pummel it into submission as long as it gets close enough. Wow, that is absolutely a stupid amount of guns on the side of this thing. Holy shit. Stupid is not if it works, buddy.

Oh, just in general, that is a silly amount of guns that this thing has, like all of those little, I mean, they look like pirate ship cannons to me, but I know they're not, but there's just so many of them. I must say, it was a really interesting choice for the Imperial to put a butt plug at the front of their ship, nose. Ah, yeah, that's the drill, man, that's the drill. Look at that shit. It looks like he's sticking in your ass. Oh, hey man, whatever floats your boat, that's none of my business. Before we go into a couple of different battleship types, we should talk about the ironclad. And I want to mention this because I love the fact that this exists. So an ironclad is like a, there is a point between like sail-powered ships and steam-powered ships

where there was a bit of experimentation in terms of using metal on hulls and armouring up ships and the like, and ironclads effectively ships that have either a metal superstructure or have metal plating to give it extra armour. There was a point for the Imperium where Void Shield technology didn't exist. Now, every ship that we've talked about has got Void shields of some capacity. Some have got a couple, some have got loads. Now, when you get up to battleships, then Void Shields are super powerful. but it depends on the power source being used and all that kind of thing. Ironclads were made before void shields existed.

So they are like eight kilometre long battleships with no void shields whatsoever. So anything that hits it is just going to hit the ship. It's not going to hit the shields. The shields aren't going to wipe out and then stuff hits. They just take the hits and they are ironclads because instead of having Void Shield, they have

meters worth of adamantium plate armour. So they're just it is, as its name says, it is clad in iron. Yes, it has just got meters thick armor all over it because

no shields existed at that time. Yeah, how did that work out? I imagine there were a lot of iron clads that went down like that. Like, they've, from everything that I could find,

they don't seem to really make them anymore for some reason. I can't imagine why. Oh, yeah. Wow. Seems like such a good design choice that, why wouldn't you? Especially when you've got, you know,

all these Zenos and Tao and Eldar and it's not, it's not great when everyone else has got void shields and you've just got more metal. They have been refitted a little bit, so some have got like planet killers

or ship or station killer weapons that have just been attached to them because from a significant enough range no void shields shouldn't matter too much. But they have also just been braced and reinforced and thrown at enemy ships on the basis that if it dies, it was going to die anyway.

So we'll try and take someone out with it on the way down I just, I love it I love the fact that they did include that point before Void Shields became a thing they just had these I'm assuming extremely heavy ships I can't imagine

I can't imagine that they were like maneuverable in any way but given that all their protection against enemy fire was just well we have like 10 metres of metal between us and them I'm sure it's fine we'll be okay

We can survive this You imagine being stationed on an ironclad It's like, ah yes, you've been You've been designated to the ironclad It's like, oh, fuck I'm so dead I am dying What's that noise?

I don't worry about it You'll get used to it It's just the ship itself falling apart around us It's fine Gun shells ricketing off the hole Yeah, you have new house You know, you have like your classic like new house noises where you hear the creeks and it's just that you know don't worry about it

yeah the house is just settling you know the ship is just settling don't worry it's so those are the old those are like the old battleships the ironclads they're the ones that don't get don't really get used anymore uh for good reason the actual battleships though are where we get into the things that are like eight kilometers long and have you know up to like 3 million crew or whatever there's it's also where you start getting just

absurd amounts of of weaponry so like the Retribution Class Battleship which is class as a ship of the line so the design is all about

getting alongside the enemy and giving it massive broadside fire so it is absolutely plastered in guns. Yeah, that's a cool looking chip. That is a... I actually don't want a lot.

Yeah. Is that a gun hanging from the bottom or is that like on the side and there's another one on the other side? It looks like it might be like a wing thing, yeah. Yeah. I believe that's off to the side. I believe that's off to the side.

That looks really darn cool. That might be my favorite ship. But I also like just gigantic fuck-off ships. I'm surprised they're not. have any dreadnots. You know, that's kind of a common word for the big one. Yeah, that's true. I hadn't actually

thought about that, but yeah, it's kind of weird they've missed that out, especially given that, although then again, given they've already used that for space marines stuff, it might be that even early on they were keen to keep terms separate, like, maybe. I really like the

stylized aquila at the front, too, on the ram. That looks very cool. Yeah, that I mean, the battleships are... They're just the coolest imperial navy ships. They all follow similar... What in God's name would you ram this?

Like, what would need to be rammed by a titan of a ship like this? It's still got to have a big ram in the front, but like, whew, as a... There's a... Oh, my God, what the fuck is that? An Emperor Class? What, though? What happened to the front? It's no longer for ramming, that's for sure. I don't think it's fast enough to ram anything.

I think it's more... I'm like, God, there's so many goddamn guns. Yeah. Look at all the guns on the front! The Emperor Class is really cool because it's got a bunch of attack craft so it can store like eight squadrons within it. And then on the front of it,

It's got a shedload of weapons attached. So, like, the Retribution Class has got a load of weapons down the side. It's also got a couple of, like, lance turrets and stuff. The Emperor class has got weapons batteries just stuck all over the front of it. It can't really ram, but if it's facing you, then you are in a lot of trouble. You're in a lot of trouble. Wow, the artwork that Shai just posted. Oh, my fucking amazing.

Looks like a porcupine given flesh or metal, whatever. Look at the, every gun looks like a little spike coming out of it and just, oh, Jesus. Yeah, that ship doesn't need to ram, but yeah, like you said, if you're facing, if it's facing forward at you, you're done. Hoof. It's amazing. I love that. I've literally just made up my wallpaper. Anyway.

That is like imperial aesthetic. Yeah, it's so good. So that's like an overview of the Imperial Navy. We have talked about weapons a few times. It's worth just mentioning what a couple of those are. So we've talked about the Nova Canon, the Nova Canon having the ability to create temporary warp rifts in the middle of enemy ships and the like, horrific weapon.

We've talked about lances, which are essentially just vast, souped-up, louse cannons able to fire across extreme distance. they're like sniper weapons but we have mentioned macro cannons a few times macro cannons are basically like the biggest form of auto weaponry so you know how the Imperial

girl have got auto guns and auto cannons and auto pistols a macro cannon is kind of the same thing but a lot bigger and there's different types of shells they can fire so generally speaking when we talk about like broadside weapons on the different Imperial Navy ships.

It's usually macro weapon batteries which can fire either just massive shells that have adamantium cores that cut through armor. There's ones that can overload and shut down electronic systems. There's stuff that fires like plasma-based macro weaponry as well.

It's kind of a... I really like the macro cannon strong point. If there's a... 40K book and they're on a ship and they're like, oh, fire the broadsides. They're basically firing just like all of the macro cannons on the side of the ship, I'm assuming? Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

It's just row upon row of these massive, massive guns that fire physical shells for the most part and that's also a lot of like the kind of auto load of stuff comes in. So if you've got like a particularly, a particularly valuable ship that's, like a relic of a certain age or is particularly difficult to repair. The mechanic might fit things like auto-loaders to be able to load torpedoes or reload the macro cannons. Whereas, for the most part, it's fire a shell.

A bunch of people who have been taken against their will from some Godforsaken planet or our prisoners, then loads another shell in and then it fires again. That cool. is very 40K It really is It's great Oh, Shai has a good point What are the

The torpedoes? Do you have a nature One or two of those might be out of the 20 So it's honestly It's not Yeah There's so many There are so many different torpedoes

Let me get my list up I get my spreadsheet of torpedoes actual, an actual list, which I've now lost. Honestly, it's not that dissimilar to the macro canon stuff. If you can think of a thing that you want to be able to do to an enemy ship, there is usually some form of torpedo for that. There's usually something that you can find that will do the job. I mean, even like, even like the lances are, like, ridiculous.

They are basically just gigantic last-calculpt. But there's different types. So there's like archaeotech versions that have got like stupid range to the point where the beam can scatter too much to really be all that useful. And also requires a vast amount of power to be able to be able to use. So torpedoes, you've got plasma warheads. You've got melter warheads. You have, if you really want to be an absolute arsehole, virus warheads.

Oh, yes, the virus bombing. Yo, let's go. Catch up gas. Yeah, you want to make sure that you were. Mustard is too mainstream. You want to make sure that you capture the ship hole, but get rid of all the crew. Virus warhead. Yeah, brilliant. Murder everybody on there.

Vortex warheads, which we did touch on briefly, just chuck out a little torpedo that rips apart the fabric of reality. And we can't forget boarding torpedoes. Yes, put people in them and just send them. Put people in the torpedoes? Yep, yep, that's... I... To think we could have just glossed over boarding torpedoes when there's a...

I know. Also, that picture, Shy post of the size of the torpedoes is just hilarious. Do you mind if I rew... Yeah, no, go for it. Okay, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and I quote exactly what Shy says, I'm sorry, what the fuck.

Sike-out torpedoes containing the remains of multiple... perias and devastate the powers of the warp within their radius. They shoot corpses of blanks at demon ships to destroy them. It's like, oh shit, this person has the genetic mutation of being a pariah. Let's take their body and fling them. Hell yeah. That's so, that's so Imperium. It's peak.

It's peak 40K, that. We hate psychers, we hate blanks, whatever, stuff their corpses in a torpedo and shoot them at demons. Send them away. Let's go. Dan, the psychers making me feel uncomfy. I have an idea. Shoot it at the enemy and make them uncomfy instead.

Damn. I feel like that's the best note to end on, right? Firing the corpses of psychic pariahs at the enemy? Yeah, let's go. Is it called the psychout torpedo? Because they go up to the blank, like, hey, you're going to be in great service to the emperor, you're going to have a great life. I'm like, really?

Psych. Stuff them in the torpedo and shoot. All right. Okay. Oh, no. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, okay.

No. Please don't buy the furry poster. Oh, buy all of them. Buy, there's, what, 200 of them, you said? There's going to be? Yeah. I'm really tall. I think one person is going to buy 200 of them.

I don't know whether I want you to buy them so that Brickie's wrong, or whether I don't want you to buy them so that D.K. has to buy all the ones that haven't been bought. I've really put myself in a really difficult position here. No, those are going to sell out. Even the 200 are going to sell out. How about you all coordinate with yourselves to buy exactly 100? DK is the amount of a normal room. DK.

Trues, truce, we send the rest of the Macrioth. No, I don't want that. I don't want that. No, that's fine. Shai, stop the thing now. Stop the thing. We're done now. Let's go.

Wow, I love it. I love it. Cut that last bit.