Land, Air and.....hmm. Something is missing.

[Mr Mystery]

This post is brought to you by [url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_St_Albans_(F83)]HMS St Albans[/url] which is presently parked out the back of my office.

Naturally, being a Nerd, it got me thinking 'oi! 40k! Where's the planet bound naval/water based stuff?'

We've got land battles aplenty, and of course increasing amounts of air power. More if you count Aeronatics Imperialis, despite its currently defunct nature (I say currently, because you never do know)....but nothing on the high seas.

And this is a shame, because it could prove an interesting take on 40k.

Me, I'd do it as two or three 'proper' ships per side, and numerous smaller boarding craft, which would ultimately be the key to winning. After all, the best way to deal with an opposing craft has been to board her, and take out her crew. Indeed this was preferred during the Napoleonic era, as it was cheaper by far to patch up and re-crew a captured enemy craft than build a whole new one. You even got paid for nicking stuff. They called it Prize Money, and it was shared amongst the capturing crew, making it an even more attractive proposition. You should read up on that, it's really interesting!

Hold on. I've digressed, and quite possibly waffled.

Where was I?

Ah yes. But how would this be portrayed? One thing that immediately springs to mind is that Dark Eldar are already fairly well equipped thanks to lots of cheap skimmer. Tau, Astartes, Necron and other Eldar would very likely have skimmer craft, and everyone else more conventional ships (oh, and Chaos could have skimmers. Would explain where they go when a new force of Astartes rebels. After they've been unceremoniously mugged by larger, better established renegade and traitor forces)

Beyond that, I dunno. So I turn to you BoLS.

Have at it!

[Tyrendian]

would the BFG ruleset not work pretty well for that (except ships obviously being unable to move through eachother)? differing armaments of craft are there, including fast torpedo destroyers and lumbering broadside brawlers, movements feel suitably sluggish, smaller craft are also represented (why should the rules for bombers not also cover an attack squadron of Falcons/LandSpeeders/whathaveyou)?

it's a strange hole in the fluff as well, altough that might partially be explained by them being even more vulnerable to orbital bombardment than ground forces (no need to hit anything, the waves will do the job)

[Kirsten]

it isn't in the fluff because the imperium always ends up polluting/using up all the water so there is nothing to float in

[Denzark]

I think with proper anti-grav technology in play, there is absolutely no advantage to machinery that can only travel as far as the coast and then stops. OK - you could have what UK military refers to as 'the littoral' - the coastal zone - with some land based stuff. But a ship would be locked in the same way a railway gun/armoured train would be locked.

I mean why have an attack boat if your landspeeder/storm raven can go at wave top height 100s of times faster?

As to underwater, full power armour can last in vacuum so I expect with minor mods (that would be so small as to not be noticeable in 28mm) they could just walk under water a la Pirates of the Caribbean.

[Tyrendian]

yeah there's repeatedly fluff for Astartes underwater operations floating around in various books, so that works for sure.
I actually have the team in my Deathwatch campaign doing an underwater mission right now - gave them modified jump packs for less-awkward movement and "special underwater bolt shells" that basically only say "you can't use special ammo" to keep it slightly simple - and then a whole new threedimensionality (dimensionalness? dimensity? 3Dity?) to the fights, which is fun.

[modelguyicmt]

Well in real life boats exist to project power and ferry troops. In 40K Thunderhawks, Drop Pods and Drop Ships do this. If a planet with 70% surface water like Earth were in 40K, and the natives had a huge navy, it would be taken out from orbit or the air, or just flat-out ignored. They'd be giant vulnerable artillery batteries and not much else. You wouldn't travel 1000 light years to invade a planet with space marines and titans and leman russ's, and also bring along a fleet of water vessels too.

Now, if it were a planet like Kamino from Star Wars, I could see a navy being slightly less useless.

Battletech has the same issue, there are rules for naval vessels, but the whole point of a navy is moot when you can drop your troops anywhere you want on the enemy's planet while you're invading.

Likely in the 30K period there were planets that had wet navies, but as soon as you reach the advanced space age, they become totally obsolete.

There are special circumstances where boats are useful in 40K though- otoh- Some Orks threw together some submarines to attack a city with on Armageddon, used to be an Apocalypse datasheet.

[40kGamer]

IIRC the Blood Angels used a submarine in the Black Tide novel... I don't remember any other mentions of naval craft.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Yeah, if you've got flight or orbital transport that can carry heavy loads like the Imperium does, the logistical use for seaborne navies is gone as it's much slower. Add on the fact that coastal defense is only necessary if your opponent is also using vessels - because ships are incredibly vulnerable from the air or obit - and the fact that they're not even particularly good at breaking a coastal defense line, (and worse at breaking an inland bastion,) and you have a lot of reasons why the Mechanicus simply wouldn't bother.

Vessels and seaborne vehicles definitely exist, but I don't think there's ever been a seaborne invasion in the Imperium. It's much more effective to blast a clearing into a forest and land the troops and tanks there.

[Mr Mystery]

There's naval stuff in the Mechanicus short stories, and the Cain audio story, so Imperium definitely has it.

Orks have a massive one in Deff Skwadron.

Surely all races would have stuff capable of fighting at sea?

[Arkhan Land]

theres several worlds noted as being sea-planets, like Talasaar (not prime) one could only assume that theres no real avoiding the water on that planet.