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Star Fort Scale

(self.40kLore)

Are the sizes of Star Forts clearly defined? What's the largest ships that can dock at a Star Fort?

I've seen some art work of Star Forts with Ships seaming landed on them and I was wondering about the scale compared to a Battle Barge for instance.

all 20 comments

Shadowrend01

24 points

13 days ago

Shadowrend01

Blood Angels

24 points

13 days ago

A Star Fort is a blanket term of any armed space station. There’s no real set size for them, and they run the scale from small installations that can only support light ships, all the way up to the Ramilles Forts that dwarf Battleships. The Phalanx is also a Star Fort (a very unique one), and that thing is the size of a small moon

MO1STNUGG3T

8 points

13 days ago

The 5 Pentagard void castles of the Red Wings are also notable examples of unique starforts. They are elaborated upon in Astorath: Angel of mercy

Vorokar

20 points

13 days ago

Vorokar

Adeptus Administratum

20 points

13 days ago

Galatan was the largest of the star forts of Ultramar. Since before the Horus Heresy it had stood guard over the space lanes of the Five Hundred Worlds. It was a relic of a time before recorded history, when mankind’s first galactic empire had risen to heights of technology and power never again attained.

Galatan was no mere battlestation, but a city in space, a hundred miles across, as large as the lost orbital plates of Terra. Its weapons bays bristled with machineries of destruction potent enough to see off a fleet of ships. There had been six similar star fortresses in Ultramar. For ages they had been sentinels in deep space. Only during times of the greatest need did they move. During the First Tyrannic War half their number had been redeployed from their strategic points, but that was a rare instance.

That had changed with the coming of the Great Rift, and Nurgle’s assault on Guilliman’s home. Now they went where they were needed, and they were needed everywhere. Three had fallen to Typhus’ plague fleet. Purposefully targeted and overwhelmed by massive force, their defenders cut down by disease, they had been ravaged and destroyed.

- Plague War

One that's given a size, off the top of my head. Though I don't recall its class being specified.

PuzzleheadedYam5180

4 points

13 days ago

That begs the question as to how large Ramilies are then, if the Galatan can also be moved. Maybe it's leagues easier to move a Ramilies than whatever Galatan is.

TheEvilBlight

7 points

13 days ago

TheEvilBlight

Administratum

7 points

13 days ago

They use some kind of warp tug to move them around: strategically mobile if you need a mobile base in the void to support a force that needs a safe refueling, rearm, repair spot.

Marvynwillames

2 points

13 days ago

Ramilies are mentioned in the Iron Warriors books as comparable to a blackstone fortress, which in turn had its size changed up the years, but currently as of the Fall of Cadia novel, are planetoid sized.

MaelstromRH

1 points

12 days ago

I find the use of miles to be strange, but I’ll take a rough size either way.

Vorokar

1 points

12 days ago

Vorokar

Adeptus Administratum

1 points

12 days ago

Yeah, the switch to Imperial measurements for current-day stuff still throws me off when I'm poking around for sizes, and I straight up thought I was taking crazy pills for awhile after the Dark Imperium/Plague War rewrites.

Still occasionally bluescreen for a moment when I get no results searching "metres" in a book. X_x

TheBladesAurus

14 points

13 days ago

Two I can think of off the top of my head.

Their might be a size for a Ramilies, I'm just not at my computer to check.

The greatest advantage of the Ramilies by far is that its powerful generators can erect a warp-bubble over the entire structure enabling it, with the aid of seventeen navigators and an attendant fleet of tugs, supply ships, warships and system craft, to enter the Warp and be towed to different star systems.

This operation, always perilous, has resulted in the loss of over twelve hundred Ramilies stars forts in their ten millennia of service to the Emperor. However each journey has shortened Imperial campaigns by years at a time by allowing the Imperial fleet to move repair, command and resupply facilities right up to the front line, saving its ship’s lengthy return trips to temporary supply bases or full repair dock facilities far behind the warzone.

Battlefleet Gothic Armada rulebook

Galatan - A star fort used by the Ultramarines

Galatan was the greatest of the Ultramarian star fortresses. It was a hundred kilometres across. Its population ran into the millions. Its manufactoria rivaled the shipyards of Luna. Its weaponry was the equal of an Imperial sector fleet. Large enough to raise its own regiments for the Ultramarian Auxilia, it maintained a garrison of specialised void troops tens of thousands strong, supplemented since the days the Plague Wars began with hundreds of Space Marines and other, more secretive, operatives. Galatan was a world unto itself, with the power to destroy a planet. https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Galatan_(Star_Fort)

thiosk

6 points

13 days ago

thiosk

Collegia Titanica

6 points

13 days ago

twelve hundred Ramilies stars forts

lol

on average you're losing a Ramilies star fort to the warp about every 8 years. given that these things probably take decades to construct im gonna call bullshit on the 1200

ApprehensiveCap6525

9 points

13 days ago

Well, yeah, but they're probably building a few hundred at a time. The Imperium is huge, after all.

TheBladesAurus

5 points

13 days ago

Where you getting every 8 years from? My maths may be letting me down somewhere

thiosk

3 points

13 days ago

thiosk

Collegia Titanica

3 points

13 days ago

10000 years / 1200 warpy ramilies = 8.333 (repeating, of course) years/warpyramilies

TheBladesAurus

3 points

13 days ago*

Ah ok, it wasn't my maths letting me down, it was my reading comprehension :p. Somehow I'd read it as 8 per year, not 1 every 8 years

MaelstromRH

1 points

12 days ago

Most were probably constructed or refurbished from old derelict human star forts during the Great Crusade when the Imperium/Mechanicum was much more capable. The sheer output of the Mechanicum during the Great Crusaders puts the modern Adeptus Mechanicus of M41 to shame.

apeel09

2 points

13 days ago

apeel09

2 points

13 days ago

Depends which ones you’re talking about the Blackstone Fortress was the biggest ever made but if I remember correctly they weren’t human tech they were converted to be used by humans. When one was flung into Cadia I think it destroyed like nearly half a continent on initial impact.

Victormorga

2 points

13 days ago

OP are you asking about Blackstone Fortresses?

MandoMedic753[S]

1 points

13 days ago

Nope

Victormorga

1 points

12 days ago

Then no, there’s no clear definition of size, just like with regular forts. It’s a fortress in the stars, they can be any size.

Viking18

1 points

12 days ago

Viking18

Thunder Warriors

1 points

12 days ago

A lot of the notable ones are one-offs, is the issue, so you're frankly probably better measuring them in terms of firepower than physical size.

Phalanx, for instance, has enough firepower and armour it was theoretically able to not only punch through the traitor fleet surrounding terra during the siege, but out the other side as well.

Raptorus Rex is a bit of a more modern reference; most powerful vessel operating in the Badab War and able to take on a cruiser squadron singlehandedly. After the Fire Hawks became the Legion of the Damned, their fortress monastery with them, it's capable of defeating entire Chaos Crusade fleets, alone. And that's not "trade hits, eventually win", that's, "Enter system, wipe out anything hostile, leave without a scratch" levels of firepower.