40k Transports

>>54527372

AFAIK, it looks like they're air/space capable transports, and could probably travel interplanetary if necessary, but otherwise they are far too small to have a Warp Drive. It takes a fuckhuge ship to have a functioning Warp Drive and the reactor and gellar fields to power and protect the ship from the Warp.

>>54527372
In 40k, anything smaller than an Escort ship (like a Sword-class frigate) is limited to interplanetary travel. The sheer size of a warp engine and gellar field generator make it impossible for smaller ships like Thunderhawks or Stormbirds to make warp jumps.

>>54527372

They ferry troops to and from the surface of planets, they're only capable of that. Thunderhawks are used to engage in inter-ship combat though.

>>54527372
>>54527455
The Forge World books have recently described Warp Runners as well, which are basically described as being warp and realspace engines strapped to a superstructure just big enough to house their sensor equipment and enough crew to run everything (minimal guns, shields, etc.). They were used for scouting duties during the Great Crusade.

And occasionally there have been special vessels described in the novels and such, in the use of Inquisitors, Assassins, and other special people. But nothing smaller than a mid-sized interplanetary ship

>>54527372
warp drives are yuge

>>54527455
Seventh Retribution said the Officio Assassinorm have ships not much bigger than Aquila Landers that can cross the galaxy in a week.
Granted, they're far far from the norm, but it's a mistake to say "it's impossible."

>>54527372
The Soul Drinkers used Thunderhawk-sized warp ships to travel between the stars for raids and insertion missions. They were xenos tech, but it proves the point.

How the fuck do the Deathwatch get anywhere efficiently, then? So they hitch a ride into a war zone, or does the Ordo Xenos operate a kilometer-long frigate with 20 thousand crew for each Kill Team?

>>54527735
It's not impossible but they are ludicrously rare to the point there may be a dozen or so in the entire setting. The ones used by the Assassinorum require approval from the Grandmaster, an actual High Lord. 99.9% of Assassin deployments are done by other vessels.

>>54527455
Anything 40k's autistic fanbase who missed the point of a sandbox setting says is "impossible" is a BL plot point waiting to happen.

>>54527817
They hich rides most places. A Sector may have a strike cruiser or two with some smaller escort craft if need be.

Prior to DW codex they only ever deployed as specialized killteams so being smuggled aboard a transport vessel and then getting to the surface via a lander was the norm for infiltration missions.

>>54527817
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Kill-ships

Though it doesn't say anything about them being warp capable, but it doesn't say anything that they can't.

>>54527455
>>54527632
>>54527735

There's a character in the NL omnibus, a dark mechanicum tech priest who has his own warp capable vessel.

The vessel is small enough to fit in a Battle barge landing bay. The ship is like 70-80% engines and shit and then there is one cargo bay with enough space to fit a thunderhawk and a half. Then there are few quarters, a control room and a navigator room. It has weapons served by slaved servitors.

Given that a thunderhawk is like 26 meters long, and it just fits in the cargo bay which is like 20-30% of the ship then the warp craft is probably like 120-140m at most which is real fucking small

In the prelude to the first Gaunt's Ghosts book there are scout ships that are as previously mentioned 90% engine sensor equipment and astropath sanctum with a crew of about a dozen. Although this is from the very first BL book ever published so take it with a grain of salt?

judging from all of this, seems like the smallest ship you could get without dabbling in xenos or heretek would be about half a kilometer long and be little more than engines, sensors and some crew compartments, with no guns shields or really anything else for fighting - I don't doubt that such things exist, but I suspect they are the sole preserve of inquisitors who have to get around quickly and covertly and have no intention of getting into space combats.

>>54528967
because of these limitations, it would explain why they don't show up in battlefleet gothic (no combat capabilities) or the Rogue Trader RPG (no cargo capacity), the two best sources of data about spaceships in the 40k verse.

>>54527831
>Anything 40k's autistic fanbase who missed the point of a sandbox setting says is "impossible" is a BL plot point waiting to happen.
I agree.

I'm actually running an RT game at the moment and this thread has me thinking about possibly letting the players find an incredibly small ship (relatively speaking) with its own warp drive as some sort of archeotech/xenotech relic.

File: 20170726_003837.jpg (111KB, 950x712px) Image search: [Google]

111KB, 950x712px

Can't think of a better thread to ask this in:
if i don't want my Rhino to be locked in combat, and since model is measured to base contact, is there any reason to attach these spikes to the front of my Rhino.
No more difficult terrain so i don't see a reason, but i wanted another opinion

They can travel in space, there's lots of examples of them operating int he void of space (mostly to ferry or board warships). However they dont have warp drives so you cant go very far with them

>>54529499
might wanna take that question to the 40k general