Higher Level Organisation

[Eddie Orlock]

A buddy and I are planning an Epic campaign over the summer which will involve elements from Our Lady of Perpetual Ammunition (As Seen in The Battle at the Cross Roads).

 

As part of this we are working to adapt some simplified logistics rules to track unit readiness between engagements.

 

This endeavor is made considerably easier with a method to refer to groups of units within the context of the forces in the theater.

 

So, just as Guardsmen belong to squads, which in turn belong to platoons, which belong to companies, which belong to battalions, which belong to regiments, brigades and so on, a Sororita belongs to her squad, which belongs to a Mission, then it gets kinda fuzzy.

 

Is anyone aware of some material on this subject, that I may have forgotten, or just never seen in the first place?

[Kabbala]

It's been awhile, but the Dark Heresy RPG Inquisitor's Handbook details it I believe.

[*Furyou Miko]

In the Sororitas, it depends on the situation. Normally, it goes Squad -> Mission or Convent -> Order.

 

Whether they're a Mission or a Convent is basically down to how many of them there are. If it's less than a hundred Sisters, its a Mission.

 

If the Sisters are crusading, or have a specific job to do, the Convent will split its Squads up into Missions, which are then grouped together under Commanderies, I believe. At this point, they are cut out from the Convent - although the difference is mostly semantic, as the Canoness of a Convent may well become the Canoness of a Commandery if that many of her Sisters are marching to war.

 

That's what it says according to the older Codices, anyway. What's in Dark Heresy, I don't know, because Dark Heresy is really bad at writing about Sisters.

[BlackTalos]

Yeah, the very little fluff i have read seems to point to a very simplistic system:

Sister > Squad > "current number of sisters and the name for it" > Order

So if an entire Order is out in battle, The chain of command would be(from the lexicanum):

- Prioress - the overall commander of a single convent.

- Canoness - command rank, there are several subdivisions-

•     Canoness Superior - In command of an entire Order
•     Canoness Preceptor - In command of a Preceptory
•     Canoness Comander - In command of a Commandry

- Palatine - command rank below Canoness

- Sister Superior

But as i say, from the fluff it can be Canoness > Superiors (Squads) and that's it. With the Palatine helping out logistics, essentially making it a 2 person job of commanding the campaign.
If you get numbers that are 10 000+, i could easily see a Canoness Superior in charge of multiple Commanderies, as Miko says. But it would still be only a 3-step command, rather than the 25 levels of rank that the Guard have.

A bit like space marines back in the HH days:
Primarch > Commanders > Sergents and you're done :P

And Miko, from the lexicanum it seems like Orders belong to convents, rather than Covents being part of orders?

[Jacinda]

Adepta Sororitas do not have a typical military structure. This is largely because an Order is even more ill-defined than a modern regiment. How many are in an Order? 1 to 10,000? It's rather loose. Also, what we think of when we say an Order is only a part of the army. They are just the ones carrying weapons in active combat as a daily role. What would be an army as a military formation today would consist of several Orders Militant of various sizes plus other Orders for logistics and support. We can then add to the confusion by bringing in the Ecclesiarchy. What is the structure of the church and where do Orders Militant fit within that structure?

 

Eddie, my best advice is to make it up.

 

How many organizational levels do you need and where do you want your Order to fit?

My first impression would be something like

Battle Sister

Squad

Choir (platoon)

Commandry (company)

Preceptory(battalion)

Mission(regiment/brigade)

Order(division)

Diocese(corps)

Convent(army group)

[Eddie Orlock]

Does anybody have the Armageddon book, or another campaign supplement handy. I seem to recall they had some fluff about Imperial forces in those theaters.

... Eddie, my best advice is to make it up. ...

I kinda figured I was going to have to, just wanted to double check that I wasn't contradicting some existing material.
 
Squad (5-20 sisters, or 1 vehicle) < [Goes by a variety of names, incl: Mission, Choir, Battery, Ministry, etc.] (3-10 Squads) < Commandry (up to 10 formations). Given that Our Lady of Perpetual Ammunition is a relatively new Order Minorus, and this is all the models, I think I can truncate it here.
 
This would reflect Squad<Company<Regiment (Chapter) used by the modern Astartes* and skips over the Platoon and Battalion organizational levels, but provides me with enough layers to make things crunch properly. As it stands, my invasion force has over 10k points in Guard assets, with my 3k in sisters forming up an elite vanguard along side the Titan Legion.
 
Yes, a division can take a planet, sci-fi writers have no sense of scale. It is just an Agri-world though.
 
_{* If you check old source documents you'll find references to various ranks between Captain and Sergeant.}

[*Furyou Miko]

The Armageddon book only mentions that there were "company-equivalent" deployments of Sisters to the various theatres.

 

Convents and Orders are complicated - Ophelia VII(I) and Terra both host three Orders apiece, but most Convents are dedicated to a single Order. The confusion arises because a convent is as much a physical building as it is an organisational unit.

[Zaemie]

Paraphrasing from Codex: Witchhunters, I didn't check the page number, just skimmed through until I found the relevant data.

 

A Mission is a deployment on anywhere from one sister (rare) to a handful of squads. Led by a Palatine or Canoness.

A Commandery is a Company equivalent formation numbering up to 200 Sororitas, led by a Canoness

A Preceptory is the largest formation of Sororitas seen in practise. Numbers up to 2000. Led by a Canoness Commander.

[Eddie Orlock]

Paraphrasing from Codex: Witchhunters, ...

 

A Mission is a deployment on anywhere from one sister (rare) to a handful of squads. Led by a Palatine or Canoness.

A Commandery is a Company equivalent formation numbering up to 200 Sororitas, led by a Canoness

A Preceptory is the largest formation of Sororitas seen in practise. Numbers up to 2000. Led by a Canoness Commander.

Oh how I wish the books weren't all stuffed away, for then I'd be citing chapters and verses.

 

I think I'd shuffle the Cannoness ranks by one and have Commanderies commanded by Cannoness-Commanders and Preceptories commanded by Cannoness-Preceptors.

 

I further suspect the implication is that a 'Mission' isn't a useful organizational level, but it's a bit more like 'KampfGrupe', an ad hoc collection from available for application.

 

So, the force is drawn from the substantial strength of a Preceptory (Regiment) which is divided into Commanderies (Battalions) which have various Missions (Companies and smaller) subdivided off from them as required.

 

I think Val may have just acquired a promotion.

[BlackTalos]

The Armageddon book only mentions that there were "company-equivalent" deployments of Sisters to the various theatres.

 

Convents and Orders are complicated - Ophelia VII(I) and Terra both host three Orders apiece, but most Convents are dedicated to a single Order. The confusion arises because a convent is as much a physical building as it is an organisational unit.

Ah i see, I had no idea we had more than 2 Convents, i thought that the 3 Orders each + "Minor Orders" covered the entirety of the orders in existance. And i would not be refering to "convent" as a building as we were purely discussin Ranks, but of course that could be confusing.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I further suspect the implication is that a 'Mission' isn't a useful organizational level, but it's a bit more like 'KampfGrupe', an ad hoc collection from available for application.

That's more or less how I've always understood it.

 

I would think of temporary task forces as being usually drawn from a nearby mission, with the mission being a semi-permanent garrison. Some missions might be tiny, like a handful of Sisters living in a church on some backwater planet who take turns guarding a minor shrine, to a large garrison in a strategically important system that routinely sends out more substantial battle groups in a defined area of operations (nearby systems.)

[*Furyou Miko]

Anywhere an Order sets up a permanent base is a Convent.

[Eddie Orlock]

Anywhere an Order sets up a permanent base is a Convent.

Does it count if it rolls?

[*Furyou Miko]

The Shield of Bhaal material mentions a "mobile fortress-convent", actually, so yes.

[Eddie Orlock]

As an epilogue, to the episode, my buddy got a job in the next major city and we had to draw the campaign to a rather more rapid close than we'd planned, skipping from the opening landings through one intermediary battle and straight onto the final assault at the capital.