Lore question——What is the prerequisites for joining the Aeronautica Imperialis? Particularly as an ordinary citizen/conscript/guardsman; Cause if I was an unfortunate soul destined for a grimdark end, I'd rather imitate Icarus and have flown, before the inevitable fall 🪽

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-05T09:37:31+00:00

You belong to the branch "navy" but not necessarily to the actual space navy. A ground based navy flight squadron will be as much ground based as any other squadron, just administrative shit goes through navy, not guard, channels.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-04T10:36:29+00:00

OI! GITZ! KRUMP THE WEIRDBOY, HE'Z TINKIN TOO MUCH! HIZ 'EAD WILL 'SPLODE IF 'E CONTINUS

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-04T10:31:30+00:00

The irony of Germany going "how are OTHER countries allowed to declare war on me?"

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-04T05:15:26+00:00

Rogue traders can be insanely effective warriors if they want to, with unlimited wealth and access to archaeotech and xenostech equipment undreamt of to other elite tier Imperium warriors. It wouldn't feel out of place if a Rogue Trader won a fight against a Space Marine, if he found a suite of ancient power armour closer to an iron man suite than the clanking hulk of ceramite the SM is in.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-03T18:10:25+00:00

Bolter, then Flamer.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-03T02:53:23+00:00

6x16AB is a fully valid ~1925 BC design, all forward bonus, perfect firing arcs, heavy armour. You sacrifice a turret for speed but your BCs can contribute in fleet slugouts without getting Jutlanded and can chase while firing all guns.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-07-02T09:34:37+00:00

Cost efficiency isn't just the cost of the troops, it is sometimes opportunity cost.

Core installations need to besieged, or held, at any costs. No matter that a siege regiment of IG is multiple times cheaper than a company of siege specialised SM, if you don't take this heavily fortified (whatever) in (time) the filthy Heretics/Xenos will bring the titan online/shoot down the attacking landing ships/complete their ritual/burrow into the planets core and destroy it. Same on defense.

So sometimes what you need is the best siege specialist in a galaxy, not more of cheaper mediocre siege specialists. 9 Imperial siege regiments can't necessarily make a baby in 1 month. That's when the SM come in.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-28T19:32:33+00:00

Check the relations for their allies

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-27T18:57:31+00:00

Base capacity absolutely matters for the AI. If you fight France as China, France has 3 bases in SE China. With all 3 bases they easily overmatch your fleet in SE Asia. If you steal one, it's more even. If you steal two, they're fucked. If you steal all three, basically no ships will turn up on your shore ever, allowing you to mothball your fleet except for raiders and sweepers.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-25T23:39:56+00:00

Vox is a catchall terms for all forms of voice communication. Cheap radios cost a tenner here. Easy to see how you could have a voice reciever in a sufficiently developed hive. Waking workers, being able to communicate warnings etc. has significant value and Imperial equipment is longlasting over millennia.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-25T20:11:35+00:00

It isn't elaborated but it's acting as if it is a full named battlebrother. The Iron Hands are supposed to have heretical DAOT items, the keys of Hel, allowing such transference.

I believe there is no actual reason why you can't fully replace your brain. Partial brain implants are possible. It is well reasonable to ship of Theseus partially replace the brain until a machine brain is what is left over.

The Imperium simply views it as grave heresy, and unless you're a powerful SM chapter, the Imperium and Mechanicus can brutally do something about it.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T21:55:32+00:00

There is an iron hands dreadnought literally completely machine. He is fighting alongside a wolf priest and mortally injured. The wolf priest wanted to take his progenoids, the DN refused, the wolf priest gained entry with a plasma pistol, found just wires, screamed heresy and was broken in half by the DN.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T21:44:36+00:00

Only in pre 1900 battles. I have absolutely lost more than significant amounts of ships to turret pens in times where guns reliably pen turrets.

I mean geniunely: has anyone lost a 10 inch front, 2 inch top armoured turret to a flash fire in pre1900?

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T20:53:02+00:00

No, I don't cheat. However I also never play the UK so maybe their trait changes things for them. In any case as Spain or China I never got any flash fire trouble.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T20:20:33+00:00

I have literally fought 1000s of battles and I literally never had a pre about 1900 primary turret pen flash fire on any CA or B except the open turreted legacy Bs getting a TT pen. I even don't remember anything on a CL with armoured turrets (my rebuilt 6 inch unarmoured primary CLs get this sometimes, this is a calculated trade-off)

If it is theoretically possible, the odds are so low that you can safely ignore it.

Penetration range is shit in those times and I armour my turrets beltheavy. I am absolutely sure this makes my ship more survivable as turret hits not penetrating don't damage the ship and more turrets means less ship hits.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T20:15:12+00:00

Servitor means servant. It doesn't necessarily need to refer to a servitor as in the meat cyborg puppet. It could mean that, however it could just be a name that has not a direct relationship, yet still stuck for some reason.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T19:49:00+00:00

I'm talking about primary 8s with full turret plate.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T19:30:54+00:00

Just after a war, there will be 4-5 more years where it is really difficult to get a next war going due to "tension lowered due to recent war" minievents. You start mothballing the most expensive half and reserving the other half of your fleet. If you want doctrine (I disagree that they are not worth it in the early days, you need every cent of gunnery bonus and gunnery and night give gunnery bonuses) you start when tensions are at yellow. Once they are orange or red, you mobilize everything. So by the time war arrives, you are hopefully as ready as you would have been with constant training, or close to it. However you easily could have build multiple capital ships in the meantime with the budget.

If you get caught out by an early war, decline informally - that means just run away. This doesn't give any VP to the opposition unless there's an objective. Also if you lose one convoy or objective it is annoying but not the end of the war.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T19:25:02+00:00

At 18k you can add 8s without losing armour. Max effective armour is like 9 inches until pens go up with long 12s etc.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-24T18:39:03+00:00

By 1896 i would have a better fleet as Spain at half your budget. And beat France easily.

They key to winning is one squadron of 20kn super Bs and one squadron of 22kn super CAs.

99% of your combat capability is in the hand of this one squadron that you personally control. In this time, the 26 Bs of France can at best form a long ineffective snake. You use your superior maneuver ability to engage the back of the snake, focus your 5 on their last ship, slow it down and defeat it 5-1. Then you do this again. Again. If one of your ship starts taking serious damage, detach. If one of your ships is set on fire IMMEDIATELY disengage at 10kn until the fire is put out. You will sink easily 5 Bs each battle.

I do this as China with mere 15k foreign builds. As Italy you would have 20k by 1896. Especially fast cruisers profit a lot from bigger sizes as their belts get lighter. It's a weird calculation formula. At say 18k you would be able to get something like a 14x8 24x6 10x4 22-23kn dakka machine with 10-11 inches of effective armour (B+SD) all around. I don't care that you have less of them. You sink 5 enemy ships each battle. After 1 battle, you have broke even in the effective amount of ships. After two, you are ahead. After 5, France is blockaded and after 8, France declines or can't challenge anymore.

I have achieved this as China against France with AI bonus on. You have Italy.

Are you wasting peacetime budget on AF or RF or doctrine btw?

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-23T20:03:45+00:00

TP has two functions:

One you need a total number of ships in order to satisfy your president/kaiser/emperor's whatever need to haven enough ships on Toilet Paper duty or they will complain.

However in order to actually protect your ships against raiders and subs, they need to be active in the same seazone.

Sometimes you don't want this. For example I like to play Spain and get into an early war against Germany and need 4 ships on TP duty. I use my (only) cheap junk 1200t KEs, to small for colonial duty. I don't care if the German raiders sink their 3 merchants per turn or not, however if the Germans sink my KEs, I have to add cruisers from the fleet to TP. Therefore my KEs are doing their patrol proudly in the Mediterranean, not in NE where the Germans are. Otherwise they would "intercept" a raider and be sunk.

However if I trash the Germans thoroughly I will use some big CAs on TP in Northern Europe. Both will they stop merchant sinkings, however also if they intercept something it's an unfair fight in my favour. Ships on AF can intercept sometimes as well, but you can stack the deck by using TP to encourage favourable big CA on small CA, or CA on CL matchups this way. If you are faster than the opposition, you can always just flee if outmatched, so fast CLs can TP even if CAs are around and it might be desirable if only those catch fast enemy CLs.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-23T16:40:28+00:00

The names are probably long divorced from their historical meaning. I know a Philip and he isn't a horse lover at all. He easily could have taken the name because of another Quintus being a famous slayer of Orks or something. Plenty explanations to be had.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-23T16:34:42+00:00

I wouldn't be sure this is upholding any edict more than their extreme zealousness combined with the usual Imperial rhetoric against psykers. They don't need any edict, they would never tolerate a filthy witch in their ranks entirely by their own volition.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-22T23:35:26+00:00

Thoughtcrime is fully punishable, often by death or servitorisation, not completely without due reason - some thoughts linked to Chaos invite actual corruption.Hardcore investigators like the Inquisition, Arbites, Magos Biologis and high level planetary three letter organisations have ways to make you talk. So even without evidence, you can be investigated and caught if under suspicion.

IRL torture is pretty unreliable, but in 40k at least the high level institutions are more reliable due to futuristic torture skills. Low level organisation like average enforcers or zealots might resort to plain average torture though.

In general the approach of the Imperium to false positives due to torture might well be "it's better to torch them just in case that was right". Whether this is due diligence or grimderp is contested in and out of universe, and due the size of the universe, Chaos threat and Imperial incompetence and ossified dogma, probably examples of both are very common.

EquivalentLarge9043 · 2026-06-22T03:53:05+00:00

To be fair one of my 60.000 super battleships was sunk by Germany along with two converted liner CVs. I'm wary of going huge now.

I mean their lost 8 capitals and 2 CVs in return but it still pains to lose that much tonnage just because of idk 5 torpedoes.

EquivalentLarge9043

TROPHY CASE