The Covenant (Halo) vs The Grand Imperium of Man (Warhammer 40k)

[ChaosLord29]

Did some poking and if this is accurate:



I'm now going with the Imperium being screwed in space save by weight of numbers committed.

At least without some kind of verifiable massive advantage. Both factions are capable of orbital strikes, what does the Imperium have that puts them on a higher scale? It needs to be pretty big seeing as I'm getting numbers in the hundreds for individual Covenant fleets. Sure the Imperium has more but short of Holy Terra where do they them with that density?


EDIT: Also fun fact apparently Covenant ships are as big to even bigger then Imperium ones. Apparently Covenant supercarriers go up to 28 kilometers in length, while the battleships of the Imperium are pegged at 8 kilometers.

A lot of those facts seem to conflict with the other information in the series, particularly what you see in the video games and at least what I have read from the novels (Fall of Reach, Halo, The Flood). Not once during the Battle of Reach or any of the other space battles described do the Covenant use slipspace jumps to evade UNSC Missiles, and they make it very clear that after Slipstream jumps ships are more or less vulnerable while their primary combat systems power up (even the Covenant, though somewhat less so than the UNSC).

This is somewhat distressing as the cited source in the article is a book by the same author who wrote Fall of Reach! The exact same source I am relying upon for my knowledge of Space Travel and combat in Halo.

It seems that Supercarriers are indeed larger than anything save Imperial Orbital Defense Platforms or Ramiles Class Starforts (which are roughly the size of High Charity itself).

Now, I can't presume that a Starfort would indeed be deployed at any time during the conflict, since they are fairly rare, but it is safe to say that if the Covenant do attempt to a massive invasion of any well defended Imperial Sector, they will be facing the full might of the Imperial Navy that can be deployed against them. That means Space Marine Battle Barges, Emperor Class Battleships, and almost certainly a Starfort (especially if they choose to engage a Forge World or other Adeptus Mechanicus Planets).

I believe this is once again though a moot point, since we've established a boarding party of Terminators would more than likely cripple or outright destroy any Covenant Craft they boarded.

That's assuming an Inquisitor or some other psyker doesn't do a reading of the Imperial Tarot and says "they are here".

With regard to defences, does the Halo-verse have ground based anti-orbital defences? A quick check on the wiki indicates they have space stations, but 40K also has signifiant ground based defences (the Space Marine game has a good example of one) that's powerful enough and has sufficient range to prevent Imperial ships from getting close enough to bombard it or start large scale landing of reinforcements.

I'm also fairly sure the larger titans also double well as anti-orbital weapon platforms.

Both excellent points.

If I recall, one of the primary advantages the Covenant have against the UNSC is that they could strike without warning by jumping in past UNSC defenses unpredictably (in part because they were more interested in Forerunner technology and artifacts). Any significant engagement by the Covenant is likely to be predicted by Imperial Psykers (Like Hive Fleet Leviathan, or the Black Crusades, or any number of Ork Waaaghs).

And you're absolutely right, any Imperial World of sufficient development is going to have planetary defenses capable of targeting orbiting space craft. Laser Canon Batteries, Orbital Missile Launchers, the whole shabang of the larger and badder Imperial arsenal (including Titans) is going to be directed upward towards any Covenant Craft who even thinks about trying to glass a Forge World.