[Creon]

So the dark eldars have the home field advantages . I imagine there be heavy damage on both sides but I think the legions have the advantage with the battle barges and battle ships. I mean if there was a path way to Commoragh why not just bomb the place like crazy and get out the same pathway?

Most of the Webway pathways to Commoraugh are not Shipways. Battleships and Battle Barges would most likely not be available to bombard it if the Legion only managed to breach normal webways, which are tank sized if not smaller. If a Legion breached a shipway, it would be difficult to hold off the Imperial Fleet, but even so, the DE have quite a significant fleet presence themselves.

 

[Warlock in Training]

Depends on the Legion.

I think the only Legions that could take current Commorragh would be....

1) Ultramarines. They have the highest numbers in 250,000 Marines. They also had the most versatile tactics back then too.

2) Word Bearers. They had 200,000 Marines and were already dealing with Possessed Marines and chaos knoweldge way before the Heresy.

3) Thousand Sons. The fractured version of the Legion has given the Webway hell. I imagine the whole Legion led by Magnus would take it. Add in the fact the Chaos entities they can bring with them through their powers, damn.

Thats it really. Most of the other Legions range from 80,000 to 150,000 Marines and have no real unique nich the DE cannot compensate for.

As others said as well, Commarragh is multiple Dimensions of varying size. DE can lock these dimensions down, as well use Captured Suns and Black Holes as weapons.

In short, the above three Legions IMO could take Commarragh, but even then not likely.

 

[Phoebus]

This topic really depends on what kind of primarch and legion show up in Commorragh. If it's Ferrus Manus from Fulgrim, for instance, then yeah... there's no hope of success for the Space Marines. But if it's Ferrus Manus as he apparently was supposed to be (in the vein of the apologies to his character that I've seen in subsequent novels and short stories), then it's a different matter altogether.

For one thing, this topic assumes that the Imperium has gained the ability to traverse the Webway. This addresses one of Commorragh's most significant advantages: its galactic and dislocated scope and scale. It's not as if the legion in question would automatically have to enter Commorragh and focus all its efforts though one specific gate. This would allow the theoretically superhumanly brilliant primarch the ability to plan and execute a multi-faceted approach to hitting the Dark Eldar.

Could one Legion destroy all of Commorragh at the height of its power? I don't know. The description from the Codex certainly seems to imply that attempting to do so would be folly. I have no doubt, though, that a determined Legion with access to the Webway and a properly brilliant primarch could stay for as long as they liked and do such damage to Commorragh that it would cease to be a power center for the Dark Eldar. For as long as 100,000-150,000 Space Marines roamed through their realm, supported by their fleets, etc., the Dark Eldar would always be on the back foot. They would always be forced to defend, to hit and run, and to watch as a realm that took them millennia to set up was systematically ripped apart.

And remember, the most permanent and destructive measures the Dark Eldar could unleash on their relentless foes would ultimately be unleashed on their own metropolis. The permanent sealing of passages simply reduces Commorragh and only slows down the onslaught. The destruction of everything within one of the "mini-realms" of Commorragh's also means the destruction of their own possessions, infrastructure, technology, and artifacts.

While all this is going on, the fractiousness of the Dark Eldar only plays against them. Failure at any turn simply ensures that more treachery will rip through their ranks. Solidarity only exists on one side of this struggle...

 

[MEQinc]

3) Thousand Sons. The fractured version of the Legion has given the Webway hell. I imagine the whole Legion led by Magnus would take it. Add in the fact the Chaos entities they can bring with them through their powers, damn.

Actually I think the Thousand Sons would be a bad choice. Using psychic powers in the Webway is an excellent way to breach it and when the warp rolls in I don't think it'll care who's there.

For one thing, this topic assumes that the Imperium has gained the ability to traverse the Webway. This addresses one of Commorragh's most significant advantages: its galactic and dislocated scope and scale. It's not as if the legion in question would automatically have to enter Commorragh and focus all its efforts though one specific gate.

Just because the Imperium has the ability to traverse the Webway and find Commorragh once doesn't automatically mean that they have the ability to traverse every part of the Webway and find all (or even several) doors to it.

This would allow the theoretically superhumanly brilliant primarch the ability to plan and execute a multi-faceted approach to hitting the Dark Eldar.

Assuming he can somehow scout the city/world/worlds without anyone realizing, which is highly unlikely. And assuming they realize that the Dark City is not in fact a single region but can be separated.

The permanent sealing of passages simply reduces Commorragh and only slows down the onslaught.

What about temporary sealings? How do you deal with the dead-end street you're not guarding actually leading on to a plaza brimming with enemy soldiers? Or chasing enemy raiders only to find yourself accidentally flanking your own team? You couldn't spread out to far for the risk of suddenly being cut off but you couldn't group up to tight for fear of loosing most of your army in one go. Then there's the risk of having enemy soldiers murder your reflection in the mirror or having your shadow straggle you in your sleep. The Dark Eldar are not limited to "cut and purge" with regards to their cities defense. Any invasion of Commoragh is an invasion of a place that can't be mapped, that doesn't have front lines or safe-zones. You'd have to be on full alert 24-7 and even Marines can't do that indefinitely. Invading the Dark City would be the worst kind of hell imaginable and while the Dark Eldar would bleed in defending it there is not a Marine who walks out of there with his body or his sanity intact.

 

[Nacho libre]

Hmm Maybe... But I think vect would go shaa dom on their asses.

 

[Phoebus]

MEQinc,

I really don't want to get into what could be an endless debate because ...

(A) ... it's hypothetical. We don't know the answers to many of the questions we're posing. Also, ...

(B) ... my time is limited, what with a 3-day old baby in my household. :wink:

Let me at least offer you this, though - just as food for thought, not as a rebuttal. I have no idea how much knowledge of the Webway the primarch in question would have prior to invading Commorragh. For this debate to even work, that question would need to be answered first. "None", "partial", and "total" all point to three completely different answers to this scenario. Hell, "partial" could encompass anything from "just enough to get in trouble" to "enough to ruin the Dark Eldar for the foreseeable future".

And, probably just as important when it comes to dealing with the unforeseen circumstances that the Webway can impose on travelers: the Adeptus Astartes defend the length and breadth of the known galaxy by means of a travel mode that involves going through Hell. The "sea" their starships "sail" on is sentient, and everything in it wants to kill them. The Legiones Astartes conquered the Imperium the Adeptus Astartes defend, under very similar conditions. I pose to you that Commorragh, despite being a place of enormous complexity and danger, does not exceed the size of the stellar territories a Legion would have conquered during the Great Crusade and mathematically cannot be more dangerous than the Warp and all its creatures, which it was constructed to avoid specifically.

 

[MEQinc]

I really don't want to get into what could be an endless debate because ...

(A) ... it's hypothetical. We don't know the answers to many of the questions we're posing.

Oh I agree, there's really no way to actually resolve this issue. I wasn't so much debating you as just posting my thoughts (your post being a convenient way to phrase my points).

(B) ... my time is limited, what with a 3-day old baby in my household. :wink:

Congratulations! :drinks:

Let me at least offer you this, though - just as food for thought, not as a rebuttal. I have no idea how much knowledge of the Webway the primarch in question would have prior to invading Commorragh. For this debate to even work, that question would need to be answered first. "None", "partial", and "total" all point to three completely different answers to this scenario. Hell, "partial" could encompass anything from "just enough to get in trouble" to "enough to ruin the Dark Eldar for the foreseeable future".

Agreed. All I'd say on this point is that it's more likely to be "partial" than "total", and more likely to be "just enough to get in trouble" than anything else.

I pose to you that Commorragh, despite being a place of enormous complexity and danger, does not exceed the size of the stellar territories a Legion would have conquered during the Great Crusade and mathematically cannot be more dangerous than the Warp and all its creatures, which it was constructed to avoid specifically.

It certainly isn't larger than the total territory conquered by any given Legion but I would expect it to occupy a greater area than most territory conquered at one time (or rather, be spread across a larger area). And it's a different beast from that simply because it's dimensions aren't really fixed. It's not like conquering a world or a system because it is both a world and a system, at the same time. You can cross the street and end up half-way across the galaxy, the Legions don't have any experience with that.

Certainly Commorragh is less dangerous than the Warp but then, the Legions have never made any attempt to conquer the Warp because it's impossible to do so. I imagine that fighting in Commorragh would be pretty much as close to fighting in the Warp as physically achievable though and would certainly be a far from mundane experience.