So how exactly does one beat *insert 40k race here*

[Texas_Ben]

I'm relatively new here, but I have noticed a trend in vs. threads concerning 40k races, and that trend is for people to scream NO WAI YUO CANUT KILL DEM COZ DEY ARE SOOOO AWESOME!
So, I figured we should explore this line of reasoning further. A sort of open-ended vs. thread, as it were.

Lets take, for starters, Ultramar. What would you have to do to take it over? Remember, whatever universe you decide to throw at them is fighting the SPACE MARINES of the EMPRAH so they will be slaughtered because marines are SO AWESOME.

[turkishproverb]

Beat them?

With a stick. While they slept.

But seriously, alot of these people are exaggerating even GW's claims.

As to Ultramar? Easy, I just send the Space Wolves on them.

[Rogue 7]

Moar Dakka. Dat iz all.

Seriously, 40K is intentionally overexaggerated. Attempting to compare it to anything is fairly futile.

[Innis Cabal]

We've brought up a couple groups that can beat the 40K verse.

But one thing people have to understand is the gameworld is built around the concept of near endless bloody war that rages everywhere you go. Its grimdark. If the universe you throw at it isn't equally as brutal then it probably won't stand to well against it.

[kpenguin]

The Culture isn't very brutal...

[Texas_Ben]

And here I was hoping we could have fun with this... ya'll are DOING IT WRONG.
:P

[toasty]

I'm relatively new here, but I have noticed a trend in vs. threads concerning 40k races, and that trend is for people to scream NO WAI YUO CANUT KILL DEM COZ DEY ARE SOOOO AWESOME!
So, I figured we should explore this line of reasoning further. A sort of open-ended vs. thread, as it were.

Lets take, for starters, Ultramar. What would you have to do to take it over? Remember, whatever universe you decide to throw at them is fighting the SPACE MARINES of the EMPRAH so they will be slaughtered because marines are SO AWESOME.

Well... ya... I can't think of any sci-fi army that could pwn Space Marines. Sorry, space marines are just that awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[kpenguin]

Well, what exactly did you expect? We've beat this dead horse with a stick so much that... its a dead horse that's been beat with a stick.

[chiasaur11]

Well, Pun-Pun and the TTGL tend to be able to pull off any "Who would wins" with aplomb. Discworld won according to most people if I remember right, if only because of DEATH. So... I guess you just get a whole lot of firepower and different basic laws of physics.

Marvel and DC could do the job too, come to think. If Richards and Doom teamed up couldn't outthink Tzeentch...

Nobody could.

[The_Snark]

Cynically speaking, Warhammer 40K is a universe designed to make the status quo absolutely unchangeable, so that they never have to contend with killing off a faction.

Therefore, the true weak point of all the universe's races is in fact Games Workshop itself. Observe the following plan to defeat any of the Warhammer 40K races... or all of them, if you prefer.

1. Become absurdly rich.
2. Buy out Games Workshop.
3. Proceed to enact actual change on the setting. In and of itself, this could be fairly dangerous, but you need not stop at moderate changes; enact extreme and absurd changes, killing off races, changing others, and trampling all over established canon. This will either kill off the race(s) you wanted defeated, or establish them as canonically weak. It will also set off massive Internet backlash, which you may or may not see as a good thing.
4. Profit. No, really. You own a massive company now; you don't need ????. Admittedly, step 3 has probably alienated a large portion of your customer base, but you've got other franchises. And people say versus threads are a waste of time...

[SmartAlec]

Cynically speaking, Warhammer 40K is a universe designed to make the status quo absolutely unchangeable, so that they never have to contend with killing off a faction.

As long as you don't count the Squats, as their whole race was eaten by Hive Fleet Leviathan.

[factotum]

As long as you don't count the Squats, as their whole race was eaten by Hive Fleet Leviathan.

Is THAT what happened to them? I have a friend who used to play Squats in WH40K and he never knew the "justification" behind them being removed...

[Fri]

Concerning space based sci-fi series, The Culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture) could easily beat any of the mortal races of wh40k. They're just that advanced. Even they'll think beating them up would be too easy, they would want them to be assimilated.

I never noticed that we say wh40k guys are too cool and always win. usually they're pitted with guys that more or less in their tier. But wh40 isn't the highest scifi tier out there.

[Ganurath]

To kill...

Imperium of Man, Space Marines, etc: The Advent from Sins of a Solar Empire. Not even the Thousand Suns have that much psionic firepower, and half the time they wouldn't need it with their ability to brainwash civilians from entire systems away. Deliverance engines, anyone?

Forces of Chaos: The Zerg. I doubt any cerebrate would have stipulations against acquiring the genetic knowledge on a Great Unclean One. Nevermind we're talking about a psionic race devoid of anger, hope, despair, and desire. Their motive is pure instinct, no matter how intelligently they strive to fulfill their goal.

Orks: Again, Zerg. All it takes is one successful fight with them, one infested Ork... and BOOM.

Eldar: The Borg. Mindrape won't prevent mechanical parts from working, and once they start assimilating Farseers...

Tau: The Mule from the Foundation books. He'll be running the place before the rent's due.

Necrons: The Vasari from Sins of a Solar Empire. Masters of phase space, they could probably screw up the Necron escape teleport. Since their leadership style tends to involve nuking the site from orbit, they don't need to worry about the tombs.

Dark Eldar: The Protoss have the technology to disrupt their attacks with temporal manipulation and, eventually, find a way to Commoragh to take the fight to them. Imagine the Dark Templar beating the Dark Eldar at their own game...

Tyranids: The Zerg, yet again. They're very similiar, but the Zerg have the advantage in initiative and infrastructure: The Tyranids are always on the attack, which means the Zerg just need to entrench. The reason that they have the edge in initiative is that the Tyranids, unlike the Zerg, wait until the entire planet is theirs before they start infesting. The Zerg go straight for the throat, and will combine the Tyranid's best tricks with their own before the first wave is over.

[toasty]

Is THAT what happened to them? I have a friend who used to play Squats in WH40K and he never knew the "justification" behind them being removed...

Actually... their never was much justification, eventually someone (I'm not sure who) came up with that answer. The truth is that no one could come up with a good idea for a new Squat Codex, so they dumped the idea of squats all together.

[Oslecamo]

Concerning space based sci-fi series, The Culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture) could easily beat any of the mortal races of wh40k. They're just that advanced. Even they'll think beating them up would be too easy, they would want them to be assimilated.


You see, the mortal races in WH40K probably were the culture itself several tens of thousands of years ago(dark age of technology). Humanity had uber science and the Eldar had nothing better to do than party all day and night trough the galaxy.

And then chaos hapened.

One of the things that makes the WH40K universe so hard to take down is chaos and the warp. If you don't have psychics, magic, or clear immunity to those effects of some kind to block them, chaos corrupts you from inside and when you notice it your best troops are waving chainswords at each other and screaming blood for the blood god.

If you are a race of soulless robots who can't be corrupted by chaos, then say hello to the machine spirit, aka the void dragon in disguise, with the ability to control all soulless machinery.

So even if the culture could in theory stomp the Emperium of Men, if they were fighting in the Wh40k universe, then the culture becomes corrupted by chaos and starts massive infighting. Of course, outside of the WH40K universe the emperium is screwed, but hey, they really have no reason to leave.

And then the emperor burps out another warp storm. :smalltongue:

And then we have the massive fanboy hordes wich swear that a SM can take down a titan legion with a pointy stick and an arm tied up their back.

[The Glyphstone]

What kinda wuss (space) Marine needs a pointy stick to take out one measly Titan?:smallbiggrin:

[puppyavenger]

Tyranids: The Zerg, yet again. They're very similiar, but the Zerg have the advantage in initiative and infrastructure: The Tyranids are always on the attack, which means the Zerg just need to entrench. The reason that they have the edge in initiative is that the Tyranids, unlike the Zerg, wait until the entire planet is theirs before they start infesting. The Zerg go straight for the throat, and will combine the Tyranid's best tricks with their own before the first wave is over.

didn't we havbe a 20-page vs thread about this?


and anyway




To kill...

Imperium of Man, Space Marines, etc: The Advent from Sins of a Solar Empire.
can't say, never played the game
Forces of Chaos: The Zerg. I

demons have genetics material now? also infinate amounts of demons, and any major chaos guy in the eye of terror>zerg
Orks: Again, Zerg. All it takes is one successful fight with them, one infested Ork... and BOOM.
it's what, a few systems of zerg? if you got a quarter of the orcs in the galaxy, they'd be able to crush under their weight or use WAAAGGHHH to blast them
Eldar: The Borg.
D-cannon, all the other nifty stuff eldar've got
Tau: The Mule from the Foundation books.
no arguments here
Necrons: The Vasari from Sins of a Solar Empire.
once again, can't comment
Dark Eldar: The Protoss have the technology to disrupt their attacks with temporal manipulation and, eventually, find a way to Commoragh to take the fight to them. Imagine the Dark Templar beating the Dark Eldar at their own game...
wait, portoss can control time now? why haven't they gone back a few hundred yearsand just killed the zerg before they became a threat?



Tyranids: The Zerg, yet again.

well, the tyranids have

a numerical advantage in the area of 1,000,000 to one

commanders who can fight

a composite hive mind

rather more efficvent planet eating.

oh and they start eating the planets as soon as they get their, the atmosphere just stayse till their done.

what, someone needed to take this way too seriously

[small pumpkin m]

As much as I don't want to get into this, I was under the impression that the Exalted universe was considered to "beat" the 40k universe, although a new influx of 40k fans would come in every week or so bringing up the same arguments as to why the ctan/chaos gods/The Emperor would pwnzer those anime munchkins, despite the fact that similar beings exist in Exalted and are considered kind of so-so in power.


Tyranids: The Zerg, yet again.
Getting killed off by your own expy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy) would be kind of sad, but as puppyavenger said, while the Zerg maybe or may not be smarter/better/cooler/their mommy loves them more, the since Tyranids have such a truly silly numerical advantage it's not really important. The Zerg would not stand a chance.

[Cubey]

This question is overused, so I'll give an overused answer.

We need just one high school girl: Haruhi Suzumiya. Who is also, unbeknowst to her, God with the power to subconsciously redefine every aspect of reality to suit her needs. Although in this scenario, I couldn't say she'd really beat WH40K. More like she and the SOS Brigade'd be tossed into a fantastic world of adventure (because that's what she wants), but unlike normal Warhammer, no one'd get seriously hurt, ESPECIALLY not the SOS Brigade (because she doesn't want that, despite being an egocentric jerk). Does that count as beaten?

[Oslecamo]

What kinda wuss (space) Marine needs a pointy stick to take out one measly Titan?:smallbiggrin:

Well, that's why I said a titan legion. Of course if it was just one titan the crew would rather activate the self destruct sequence than face the wrath of the space marine.:smallsmile:

On the zerg vs Tyranids:

Tyranids don't have any way to quickly travel trough space. Zergs can use hyperspace to quickly cross big distances. Zergs win since the Tyranid numbers acount for nothing when they're moving at slugish speed trough space, so the zergs just have to win by a series of hit and run tactics, pretty much like the emperium does.

[BRC]

Be Petey AKA Emperorer Pius Die AKA The Fleetmind.

[kingworks]

The key to mastery of the 40K universe and all who inhabit it can be summed up in two words:

Loaded dice.

;-)

[Mr. Scaly]

I seem to recall someone giving out mathematical proof that the Star Wars universe and Star Trek could do it. Star Trek at least could, don't know about the latter.

[Llama231]

My mini list of things that should beat about any of these.


D&D
Epic Level Wizards
Epic Dragons
Pun-Pun

Nintendo
Samus (Bye bye races.)
Arceus
Giygas
Link


Dr. Who
The Doctor
The Master
Davros


BB5
Pretty much any of the first ones.

Star Wars
teh huumunz

Counter please?

[Mx.Silver]

I remember that The Exalted could take-out the Imperium, and probably any other single 40k race as well. Aside from the ubiquitous Culture and Xeelee though there probably isn't a huge amount out there that could really beat much other than the Tau or Dark Elder, aside from things that are actually omnipotent but then that should go without saying (barring cases of fanboy/girl behaviour). The old Systems Commonwealth from Andromeda might have had a fair shot at taking on The Imperium and weaker though, if they fought ruthlessly enough (i.e. spammed nova bombs and opened slipstream portals near inhabited planets a lot).


Tyranids don't have any way to quickly travel trough space. Zergs can use hyperspace to quickly cross big distances. Zergs win since the Tyranid numbers acount for nothing when they're moving at slugish speed trough space, so the zergs just have to win by a series of hit and run tactics, pretty much like the emperium does.

Pretty much useless given the size of the Tyranid hivefleet, unfortunately. In fact, iirc it was the Protoss that faired best out of the Star Craft V 40k threads (they were against the Eldar).

[Coidzor]

What one would have to be capable of accomplishing would be actually doing some real damage to the already off-kilter fabric of reality/existence in this universe. I can't believe that the Warhammer 40K universe has always been like this, otherwise humans would never have had the chance to claw their way out of the oceans, much less down out of the trees. So, judging from this, I'd have to say that either significant damage has already been done to the universe or else the universe itself is sickened, sickening, or currently dying.

Since it seems that the biggest foe here is the grimdarkness of the setting/the universe itself.....

Who's good at tearing rends in reality that actually mean something?

[Astrella]

Tyranids don't have any way to quickly travel trough space. Zergs can use hyperspace to quickly cross big distances. Zergs win since the Tyranid numbers acount for nothing when they're moving at slugish speed trough space, so the zergs just have to win by a series of hit and run tactics, pretty much like the emperium does.

*cough* The warp *cough*

(Also, the empirium doesn't win against the zerg by using hit and run tactics, their approach has been consolidate the most important planets.)

Also, for the zerg vs ork:
Infecting an ork to take over ork society is not effective. For one, there are to many different orc "factions". Two: orks kill of anything that doesn't appear suitably orky. That's why you never hear about chaos corrupting orks. (Not to say chaos doesn't manipulate orks)

[Oslecamo]

*cough* The warp *cough*

Nids can't use the warp to travel, despite having some psyker units. It's a well known fact. They have to move slugishly trough space.



(Also, the empirium doesn't win against the zerg by using hit and run tactics, their approach has been consolidate the most important planets.)


Actually, that's the second part of the hit and run tactics.

It goes something like this:
1-Spot Tyrannid fleet a bazillion quilometers away.
2-Evacuate as much as possible of nonmilitary personel from the planets in the way as possible. Burn down any present vegetation and wildlife.
3-Nids arrive. FIRE AT WILL!
4-Nids almost reaching frontlines for melee. Start evacutating military personel.
5-When Nids are about to start eating your troops, nuke the whole planet. Any troops of yours still left there will be condecorated as heros.
6-Congratulations, you've just forced the nids to expend a big amount of resources for an useless wasteland, stoping them from recouping their losses by eating the corpses of the fallen, since you incinerated everything.
8-?
9-Profit. Eventually, you'll wear down the fleet to nothing, since they can't replenish their loses.

Of course, this strategy is only valid as long as you're willing to sacrifice your planets, but some Imperium worlds are too valuable to sacrifice and it's in those the defensive forces are focused.

[Mr. Scaly]

Also, for the zerg vs ork:
Infecting an ork to take over ork society is not effective. For one, there are to many different orc "factions". Two: orks kill of anything that doesn't appear suitably orky. That's why you never hear about chaos corrupting orks. (Not to say chaos doesn't manipulate orks)

That's not how zerg work. They don't care about taking over a society, they care about integrating the DNA of its people. The first time orks are killed by zerg and any genetic material makes it back to...whatever processes that stuff, zerg-ork units WILL start appearing on the battlefield.

[Fri]

You see, the mortal races in WH40K probably were the culture itself several tens of thousands of years ago(dark age of technology). Humanity had uber science and the Eldar had nothing better to do than party all day and night trough the galaxy.

And then chaos hapened.

Actually that kinda make sense. A few minutes after typing that, I thought. Wait, what about the chaos?

[D_Lord]

The main trick I can I think of is disrope the Stasis Quo. Then the whole 40K univise tears itself apart. Sure you might have problems with Chaos, but then again, just power up Malal (possible the first and a renegade Chaos God), and have him destroy all of 40K.

[warty goblin]

That's not how zerg work. They don't care about taking over a society, they care about integrating the DNA of its people. The first time orks are killed by zerg and any genetic material makes it back to...whatever processes that stuff, zerg-ork units WILL start appearing on the battlefield.

That's also, more or less, how Tyranids/Genestealers work IIRC. Yet they have been unable to actually defeat the orks. Instead both sides just keep getting stronger. It's possible I suppose that ork genetics are simply so funky that Ye Olde Interstellar Genetic Monstrosity can't use them. Either that or Ork genes are in fact coded in dakka/choppa pairs, and only da boyz are hard enuf to contain them and not die.

[BRC]

That's also, more or less, how Tyranids/Genestealers work IIRC. Yet they have been unable to actually defeat the orks. Instead both sides just keep getting stronger. It's possible I suppose that ork genetics are simply so funky that Ye Olde Interstellar Genetic Monstrosity can't use them. Either that or Ork genes are in fact coded in dakka/choppa pairs, and only da boyz are hard enuf to contain them and not die.
I was under the impression that the 'nids grew their critters from scratch, while the Zerg modified other species to suit their needs.

[Mx.Silver]

9-Profit. Eventually, you'll wear down the fleet to nothing, since they can't replenish their loses.

Of course, this strategy is only valid as long as you're willing to sacrifice your planets, but some Imperium worlds are too valuable to sacrifice and it's in those the defensive forces are focused.
There is a slight practical issue with that though: Tyranid numbers are bordering on the ridiculous. They have been put together using the total organic matter of an entire galaxy at minimum before they even started arriving in the 40k galaxy. Any group going up against them is therefore going to need an awful lot of expendable habitable worlds to be able to pull this one off. The Star Wars rpublic/empire might manage, the old Systems Commonwealth from Andromeda could probably do so as well but there aren't many single factions out there that could as sooner or later they'd run out of planets to retreat too.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Ignoring the alien factions for a moment, wouldn't any interstellar nation like the Federation or the Galactic Empire, with instantaneous FTL travel, have a huge advantage over the Imperium? Since the Imperium's FTL methods still take centuries, sometimes millennia, of travel in "real-time," it's effectively thousands of functionally separate states. Meaning a coordinated invasion by more advanced sci-fi civs would be able to devastate whole systems before the Imperial Navy effected a coordinated response, if ever it did. Right? Or am I missing something here?

[puppyavenger]

I was under the impression that the 'nids grew their critters from scratch, while the Zerg modified other species to suit their needs.

well, they adapt any useful techniques or material found in the races, and develop counters to anything that seriously hurts them.

also, wasn't it left intentionally vague whether the nids had FTL? and how do the pose any major threat to the galaxy is it would literally take them millennia to get to the important stuff?

[kamikasei]

Ignoring the alien factions for a moment, wouldn't any interstellar nation like the Federation or the Galactic Empire, with instantaneous FTL travel, have a huge advantage over the Imperium?

The Federation en't got no instantaneous FTL, unless you count things like wormholes that they can't control. They've just got lazy writers who don't bother to keep travel times consistent. They tried to keep it to about 1kly/y at cruising speed when they were making an effort.

Also, is the Imperium's FTL really that bad? They can deploy between systems on day-to-week timescales, can't they?

[Ganurath]

what, someone needed to take this way too seriouslyOn the Advent: They were kicked out of the known galaxy, including their homeworld, for deviant practices that we in IRL refer to as religion. Roughly 1,000 years later they come back, having built an empire on making everyone in their civilization psionics comparible to a Bene Gesserit hivemind. They expand by using the cumulative power of their psychic gestalt to mindrape entire planets into joining, while using a combination of aggressive psionic powers and potent energy technology (beams weapons, shield modulation, lighter ships that can fling around bigger ships like a slingshot...) to press a military advantage.

On Chaos: The Great Unclean One hosts myriad diseases, and that includes mortal varieties of disease. As for whether there's genetic material itself, I'll concede demons but I'll have to lay claim to Chaos Spawn and Warped Champions.

On Orks: I was referring to Zerg assimiliating the Ork method of reproduction.

On Eldar and Borg: I didn't say it'd be easy, I just said it'd be doable. The Borg have a high capacity for adaption and assimilation, and more importantly can combine strength of numbers with a hivemind strong enough to at least match the precognitive abilities of the Farseers.

On the Vasari: Alien race that has immigrated from their native galaxy to the galaxy where the game takes place. They rule planets from orbit after blasting it into submission with orbital lasers, never setting foot on the ground if they don't have to. The strengths of their technology are in nanotech that can be used to repair their own hulls or eat away at the hulls of enemies, as well as the manipulation of teleportation/FTL technology both to augment their own hit and run abilities and disrupt enemy movement. Oh, and their missiles can teleport short distances just before impact to bypass point defenses.

On Protoss: Because they can only lock certain areas in Temporal Stasis... The Arbiter ability? Use the same Arbiters once you get to a craftworld, recall the legions...

Tyranids vs Zerg:
Numerical Advantage becomes trivial when most of the Tyranids are floating through empty space. Having commanders who can fight is only a good thing when morale is an issue, those control units on the front line are just vulnerable. The composite hive mind is also a disadvantage, as the loss of a planet would feel relatively small and thus wouldn't warrant much reaction from the fleet, allowing the Zerg to develop through assimilation until the Tyranids lose the afforementioned Numerical Advantage. I don't know when they start eating, but I've read that they don't start assimilating genetic material from the fallen until the planet is won.

[Piedmon_Sama]

The Federation en't got no instantaneous FTL, unless you count things like wormholes that they can't control. They've just got lazy writers who don't bother to keep travel times consistent. They tried to keep it to about 1kly/y at cruising speed when they were making an effort.

Also, is the Imperium's FTL really that bad? They can deploy between systems on day-to-week timescales, can't they?

There is no consistent ratio of time spent in the Warp to years passing by, since the "currents" of the Warp don't follow any understandable pattern. Sometimes they get lucky and can get from Point A to Point B with just a few weeks or months passing in the real world, but a lot of the time it's centuries. The Warhammer books always make a lot about Imperial Guard regiments sent to defend some outpost that fell hundreds of years ago. Thus most Imperial systems are pretty much on their own--they pay tribute to the Imperial War Machine, but otherwise the Imperium is a nonentity for most.

[Oslecamo]

There is a slight practical issue with that though: Tyranid numbers are bordering on the ridiculous.

Luckily for us, nids suffer from extreme ninja syndrome: only send a small fraction of your force to attack at once while the others watch. Nids are sending their fleets one by one despite the failings, making them that much easier to grind down.



They have been put together using the total organic matter of an entire galaxy at minimum before they even started arriving in the 40k galaxy.

There are several pratical issue with that tought.

First, they had to fight over the organic matter on that galaxy, so a good amount of of that organic matter has been lost on the battles to power up the troops. Whatever civilizations they fought probably ended up resorting to scorched lands tactic by the end of the conflict meaning a good chunck of the organic matter on that galaxy was made useless.

Second, since they're living beings, they need to consume something to survive the loooonnngggg travel from one galaxy to another. More organic matter wasted.

Third, nobody says they actually haven't met some race wich managed to push them out of said galaxy. We've already seen nids can be manipulated, so perhaps the other galaxy got some way of diverting their atention at the WH40k universe, much like one throws a tasty morsel far away to divert that hungry predator's atention. It's also possible that other race turned eldar and put all their people in giant moving space ships wich the nids could never hope to catch.

So, in the end, they really have much less than a galaxy worth's of resources to fuel them. Heck, even the Tau, who're suposed to be the smallest faction, manage to drive nid attacks away.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Luckily for us, nids suffer from extreme ninja syndrome: only send a small fraction of your force to attack at once while the others watch. Nids are sending their fleets one by one despite the failings, making them that much easier to grind down.

The hive fleets have come in waves and keep splitting up. I'm not sure the Tyranids have the intelligence or desire to plan a galaxy wide war effort.


First, they had to fight over the organic matter on that galaxy, so a good amount of of that organic matter has been lost on the battles to power up the troops. Whatever civilizations they fought probably ended up resorting to scorched lands tactic by the end of the conflict meaning a good chunck of the organic matter on that galaxy was made useless.

Your science fails here. "matter" cannot be made useless. The Tyranid's planet stripping harvests chemical elements rather than meat or crops so they don't really care what state its in unless its poisonous (and I doubt anything is poisonous enough for them).


Second, since they're living beings, they need to consume something to survive the loooonnngggg travel from one galaxy to another. More organic matter wasted.

This is a better point but could be negligable if they drift through space in stasis.


Third, nobody says they actually haven't met some race wich managed to push them out of said galaxy. We've already seen nids can be manipulated, so perhaps the other galaxy got some way of diverting their atention at the WH40k universe, much like one throws a tasty morsel far away to divert that hungry predator's atention. It's also possible that other race turned eldar and put all their people in giant moving space ships wich the nids could never hope to catch.

Its possible that the Tyranids are fleeing from their home galaxy, in which case they wouldn't have destroyed their own galaxy at all but that would downgrade their threat level so much that they'd be a complete joke compared to other 40k races.

[warty goblin]

I would hesitate to say that any of the races from Sins of a Solar Empire could beat something, mostly because very little is known about them. The gameplay is pretty clearly just that, gameplay and clearly not representative of the actual powers of vessels. Specifically I'm thinking about how I can construct capital ships in less time than it takes for one to kill another, things like that.

This isn't to say I don't think they are powerful, because I do. I just don't have much good evidence to prove them powerful.

[ZeroNumerous]

On the Vasari: Alien race that has immigrated from their native galaxy to the galaxy where the game takes place. They rule planets from orbit after blasting it into submission with orbital lasers, never setting foot on the ground if they don't have to. The strengths of their technology are in nanotech that can be used to repair their own hulls or eat away at the hulls of enemies, as well as the manipulation of teleportation/FTL technology both to augment their own hit and run abilities and disrupt enemy movement. Oh, and their missiles can teleport short distances just before impact to bypass point defenses.

So they're the expy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy) of the Necrons, who kill everything in their native system and immigrated to go out into the galaxy to kill everything there. They don't rule planets so much as kill every living thing on them after blasting them into submission with Monoliths, always setting foot on the ground because it's fun to kill stuff with your hands. The strengths of their technology are in nanotech that can be used to repair their own metal bodies or quantum gauss technology that destroys enemies at the molecular scale, as well as manipulation of teleportation and the only true FTL technology in WH40k.

[Innis Cabal]

Its been stated that the 'Nids have infact devoured everything in their home galaxy, and that so far the Hive Fleets are nothing more then a precursor to something...bigger and much much worse.

As for the Zerg infesting the Orcs....the Nids can't even do it. The Zerg probably won't be able to either honestly. They are untaintable, not even Chaos can get them, well so we're told. There is rumor that there was an orc leader who was under Khorne but he was killed by the other orcs

[Oslecamo]

Your science fails here. "matter" cannot be made useless. The Tyranid's planet stripping harvests chemical elements rather than meat or crops so they don't really care what state its in unless its poisonous (and I doubt anything is poisonous enough for them).


Your grammar fails here. I said "organic" matter, wich surely can be turned inorganic, to a point it's useless to the nids as building material.

If the tyranids could indeed process any kind of chemical substance, then they wouldn't give a damn about habitated planets, and simply attack the giant nonhabitated gas planets, asteroids and other dead balls wich are ripe with basic chemicals needed to make life. But guess what? All those chemicals aren't properly combined and organized, so it's a pain in the ass to actually turn them in usefull organic matter, so the nids ignore them.

The tyranids need organic matter to keep going. Not just the base chemicals, wich is everything that's left when you glass up a planet with nukes.

Further, nids can't process necrodermis in any way, wich isn't even poisonous. Therefore nids avoid necron planets alltogheter, suporting that mineralizing all life in a planet will make it useless to the nids.

[Mx.Silver]

[QUOTE=ZeroNumerous;5674191]So they're the expy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy) of the Necrons, who kill everything in their native system and immigrated to go out into the galaxy to kill everything there. They don't rule planets so much as kill every living thing on them after blasting them into submission with Monoliths, always setting foot on the ground because it's fun to kill stuff with your hands. The strengths of their technology are in nanotech that can be used to repair their own metal bodies or quantum gauss technology that destroys enemies at the molecular scale, as well as manipulation of teleportation and the [b]only true FTL technology in WH40k.
Tau have FTL drives as well, but only on their larger ships. It's not quite the same as the Necron method though, wherein the Necron ship simply accelerates.


Luckily for us, nids suffer from extreme ninja syndrome: only send a small fraction of your force to attack at once while the others watch. Nids are sending their fleets one by one despite the failings, making them that much easier to grind down.
Although I gave up on 40k before 5th ed, 4th ed cannon outright stated that these were really just the first advance scouting wave of (what appears to be) the main hive fleet coming up from below the galactic rim (yes I know the term below is meaningless in space but you get what I mean). These are also on the increase both in frequency and in size. This will always be the case as Games Workshop are never going to advance the plot to the point where they do fully arrive (in the same way that the Necrons are never going to fully awaken, the Orks are never going to unite, the Black Crusades are never going to succeed etc.)





There are several pratical issue with that tought.

First, they had to fight over the organic matter on that galaxy, so a good amount of of that organic matter has been lost on the battles to power up the troops. Whatever civilizations they fought probably ended up resorting to scorched lands tactic by the end of the conflict meaning a good chunck of the organic matter on that galaxy was made useless.

Second, since they're living beings, they need to consume something to survive the loooonnngggg travel from one galaxy to another. More organic matter wasted.

Conceded.


Third, nobody says they actually haven't met some race wich managed to push them out of said galaxy. We've already seen nids can be manipulated, so perhaps the other galaxy got some way of diverting their atention at the WH40k universe, much like one throws a tasty morsel far away to divert that hungry predator's atention. It's also possible that other race turned eldar and put all their people in giant moving space ships wich the nids could never hope to catch.
This is the whole problem, there are only two known facts about the nids: they come from outside the galaxy and their numbers are so huge as to be, for all practical purposes, limitless. Anything else is going to be speculation.
Oh, minor note, Tyranids have caught and attacked Craftworlds before now.


So, in the end, they really have much less than a galaxy worth's of resources to fuel them. Heck, even the Tau, who're suposed to be the smallest faction, manage to drive nid attacks away.
Tau haven't faced a lot of nid attacks, and those that have are again not exactly large forces of them. I'm not trying to argue that the nids are invincible, a strong combined galactric front could probably fight them off, but they are powerful. The full might of the Tyranids is, according to the fluff, greater than that of the Imperium, most likely by quite a margin.



One race I'm struggling to think of more non-godlike opponents that could defeat them are the Necrons. This may well be because, unusually for 40k races, they're actually more dangerous if they're fighting somwhere which isn't linked to the warp (in fact this is would negate the greatest weakness of the C'Tan). I'm pretty sure The Culture or the Xeelee could do it (maybe Exalted too) but other than that I'm drawing a blank.

[Bryn]

On Squats:
Jervis Johnson once posted the following, explaining why Squats were removed from 40k...

I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist

Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed debate based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available.

Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.

First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of quantities that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.

No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc.) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realised what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regretted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.

Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.

Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tenancy to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.

In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homeworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet.

This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based on the Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more likely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain prejudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...

The second point I'd like to make is about 'old moulds'. In the past, Mail Order in the UK and US used to be the place that we kept all of the retired moulds for Citadel Miniatures, and we used to offer a service where you could order any Citadel Miniature ever made from MO. However, there are now so many of these 'back catalogue' miniatures that it is simply impossible to keep all of the old moulds in Mail Order and offer this service. Instead, we pick and choose which back catalogue miniatures are kept available.

At present we're still struggling to produce special catalogues for these ranges (in the US there is the 'Phone Book' catalogue with everything in it, while the UK has special 'collectors guides' that are themed round a race). Once we've ironed out the kinks in the way we deal with the range of collectors models we want to keep permanently available, the plan is to offer up other parts of the back catalogue for limited periods of time. In effect this will divide the back catalogue into three parts: a range of classic models that are permanently available, a range of classic models we dip into and bring out for a limited release, and a range of retired models that will no longer be sold either because we've decided that they are embarrassingly bad, or because we are no longer allowed to sell them due to licensing agreement changes. So far we're still slowly working on deciding which classic models we want to keep permenently available, and its going to take several years to work through just those. The old Squat range is most likely to end up as retired models, I have to say, though there is a good chance that the Squat war engines they could simply into the limited release classic range. Once again, only time will tell...

I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with existing army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.

Best regards,

Jervis Johnson

Head Fanatic
In-universe, the squats were written out as being eaten by the Tyranids. The 'space dwarf' archetype lives on in the form of the Demiurg, who so far have a presence in Battlefleet Gothic but currently have no miniatures in standard 40k, Inquisitor, Necromunda, or Dark Heresy (and I can't remember if they're anywhere in Epic).

On 40k universe fighting other settings:
I'm fairly sure I'd be correct in saying that 40k wasn't really designed to have its characters be plucked out of the setting to fight other universes. It's supposed to be a bleak but dramatic - and awesome - backdrop to stories (particularly those told by the events of tabletop games).

I generally disagree with attempts to extract solid 'facts' from 40k, mostly because a great many things depend on the plot at the time. For most factions it is not difficult to find evidence supporting their weakness or strength.

In keeping with this, then, I'd say that any faction can win, provided a good story (or good laugh) comes out of it.

INQUISITOR'S EDITION
Do not be ridiculous, citizen! No being could threaten the immortal armies of the God-Emperor of Mankind, who will lead us to victory over the filthy xenos and heretics that surround us. Doubting this is defeatism, through which lies heresy!

[Astrella]

Nids can't use the warp to travel, despite having some psyker units. It's a well known fact. They have to move slugishly trough space.



Actually, that's the second part of the hit and run tactics.

It goes something like this:
1-Spot Tyrannid fleet a bazillion quilometers away.
2-Evacuate as much as possible of nonmilitary personel from the planets in the way as possible. Burn down any present vegetation and wildlife.
3-Nids arrive. FIRE AT WILL!
4-Nids almost reaching frontlines for melee. Start evacutating military personel.
5-When Nids are about to start eating your troops, nuke the whole planet. Any troops of yours still left there will be condecorated as heros.
6-Congratulations, you've just forced the nids to expend a big amount of resources for an useless wasteland, stoping them from recouping their losses by eating the corpses of the fallen, since you incinerated everything.
8-?
9-Profit. Eventually, you'll wear down the fleet to nothing, since they can't replenish their loses.

Of course, this strategy is only valid as long as you're willing to sacrifice your planets, but some Imperium worlds are too valuable to sacrifice and it's in those the defensive forces are focused.

Have you read the Tyranid Codex: Because there it clearly states that they do use the warp. Besides, tyranids have only been encountered for about 300-500 years, if they'd wouldn't use the warp, how would you explain that they've already gotten as far as segmentum solarum?

Also, the burned earth strategy is what Kryptman was using against hive fleet leviathan, exactly as you described it. But the problem is that the empirium doens't have a limitless supply of planets. Also, tyranid organism have been know to survive exterminatus (again tyranid codex), also not all planets are empirium controlled, tyranids just have to divert to for example an ork controlled section and boom! feasting a plenty. (like leviathan is doing at the moment).

Also, to the person who stated that even tau could defeat tyranids, they only defeated a splinter fleet of hive kraken (with no known numbers of tyranids, and seeing as splinter fleets can be as small as only a dozen hive ships...)

Also, I apologize if I come over to enthusiast.

[Innis Cabal]

Very well put Z-Axis. As always


As for Orks and the Nids fighting, its also been stated that the Nids are not winning that war, becomming bogged down by the Green Skins. Their DNA can't be used by the Hive Fleet to create new genes, so its ultimatly ended up as a loss so far for the Nids. The future has yet to be seen.

And the hive fleet that was comming from below the galaxy was thwarted and splintered.

[Astrella]

Yes, but both Kraken and Leviathan have been stopped at great cost to the empirium. And they were probably mere scouting fleets.

And for the tyranids showing no strategic intelligence, the manoeuvre by Leviathan caught the empirium completely of guard and if it hadn't been for Kryptman, the tyranids would have probably reached earth.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Your grammar fails here. I said "organic" matter, wich surely can be turned inorganic, to a point it's useless to the nids as building material.

Organic in the general sense just means "contains carbon", so yes you could take the carbon out of matter.


If the tyranids could indeed process any kind of chemical substance, then they wouldn't give a damn about habitated planets, and simply attack the giant nonhabitated gas planets, asteroids and other dead balls wich are ripe with basic chemicals needed to make life. But guess what? All those chemicals aren't properly combined and organized, so it's a pain in the ass to actually turn them in usefull organic matter, so the nids ignore them.

The tyranids need organic matter to keep going. Not just the base chemicals, wich is everything that's left when you glass up a planet with nukes.

The Tyranids don't harvest planets that contain life for the materials. They harvest them for the genetic material. I don't have the most recent Tyranid codex but I've never heard of Tyranids NOT mining uninhabited planets. There's no reason to invent illogical reasons why Tyranids would only be able to utalise proteins. They've absorbed the genetic material of millions of organisms so they'd easily be able to produce plants and bacteria in order to utalise mineral compounds.

It has been stated that there's a possibility that Tyranids can absorb genetic material from fossilised life. So there's no way you can really make a planet useless to Tyranids. You can make a planet less interesting to them so that they'll be distracted by bigger ones though.

Tyranids aren't known for attacking non-inhabited worlds because nobody cares if they attack them and there are so many inhabited worlds that the Tyranids might as well go after ones that have genetic material as well as minerals on them.


Further, nids can't process necrodermis in any way, wich isn't even poisonous. Therefore nids avoid necron planets alltogheter, suporting that mineralizing all life in a planet will make it useless to the nids.

Tyranids ignore Necron planets because they're dead worlds without the ability to support life. Some of them may have once been steralised life producing worlds but many of them never had the chemicals required to create life.

[puppyavenger]

Your grammar fails here. I said "organic" matter, wich surely can be turned inorganic, to a point it's useless to the nids as building material.

If the tyranids could indeed process any kind of chemical substance, then they wouldn't give a damn about habitated planets, and simply attack the giant nonhabitated gas planets, asteroids and other dead balls wich are ripe with basic chemicals needed to make life. But guess what? All those chemicals aren't properly combined and organized, so it's a pain in the ass to actually turn them in usefull organic matter, so the nids ignore them.


then why do they bore into and eat the mantle and strip the atmosphere of the planets the destroy?

[Innis Cabal]

Its stated that Nids leave behind barren rocks without atmospheres completly empty of any minerals, gas's, or life. They don't destroy a planet, but they do go after planets with atmospheres and non-sentient life. Any biological material is usable, as are gas's.

A documented history of a general invasion



Day 00: Initial mycetic spores are dropped, generally containing Lictors or Genestealers. Infiltration force led by a synapse creature of some kind; reproduction of Tyranid creatures likely begins immediately.
Day 09: By day 9, Tyranids will have expanded to around 200 km from the drop point, and will likely present a significant threat to PDF troopers and resident Imperial Guard.
Day 13: Tyranids will have expanded to 700 km from the drop point; may begin infesting local water sources.
Day 37: Tyranids control area within 2000 km radius of the drop point; basolithic infestation to 5000 km radius.
Day 48: Tyranid population growth skyrockets, with population doubling approximately every 2.5 days.
Day 50: Main Hive Fleet arrives, craft generally numbering around 1.5 billion. Psychic contact with planet is cut off by the shadow of the Hive Mind. Any attempts to escape are quickly stopped by the Hive Fleet.
Day 51: Primary consumption of bio-mass begins (resistance has generally been eliminated by day 51). Brood ships land, releasing Ripper swarms, which consume organic material and depositing them at the reclamation pools. Capillary towers (and the Brood ships) send the material into orbit. Any remaining surface life is eliminated by Gaunts.
Day 80: Ripper swarms board the Brood ships and return to the Hive Fleet. The hive ships descend into the upper atmosphere and begin collecting it. Reduction in atmospheric pressure causes oceans to boil away, which are also collected. Lack of oceans causes plate tectonic shifts, dramatically increasing volcanic activity. Upon completion, the Hive Fleet re-enters the Warp, in search of fresh prey.
Day 100: Imperial navy arrives in response to the distress call to find the world lifeless.

[Oslecamo]

Congratulations, you just proved the world of WH40K doesn't have any internal consistency.

1-Disapearance of oceans causes plate tectonic shifts...WTF?
2-Planets are mostly made of some bizzarre substance wich is neither mineral or organic.
3-High volcanic activity doesn't seem to hurt the nids in any way, wich is quite strange since they burn just like any other guy.
4-Said volcanos go completely out in less than 20 days. Quite impressive.
5-Imperium is unable to predict the arrival of Nid fleets. Wich means the anti nid strategy taken by the emperium of fortifying the planets on the path is impossible.
6-It takes more than 3 months for the Imperial forces to answer distress calls. Wich would mean that the emperium of mankind no longer exists. because all those battles where the SM and guard arrive in a matter of days to counter orks, chaos and other race's suprise attacks never hapened. Wait just a minute...

So we're running on the rule of "My side is the strongest because yes" that's so common in WH40k. Like the IG codex there are the tales of the regiments who stoped nid invasions on their tracks whitout need of reinforcments or anything else, or all chaos/ork tales on how SM die by rows.

[Emperor Tippy]

The Fourth Empire from David Weber's Heirs of the Empire series could take on any or all of the 40K races and win without breaking a sweat. The Fifth Empire could prolly do it as well, simply because nothing that any of the 40K races have could even get near their planets (where other races shield planets the fourth and fifth empires build planets as warships and shield stars (actually everything within about a 45 light minute radius of said star) and they have the capability of making stars goes nova. They also have a bio weapon that destroys all organic life on a world and persists for centuries to catch any new arrivals.

The various Honorverse powers might be able to do it if they were willing to go scorched earth to win (fly a super dreadnought with its wedge up into a world when it's traveling .99c and see what happens to the world).

Most of the major powers (and especially the Fleetmind) from the Schlockverse could do it without any real trouble.

The original Systems Commonwealth from Andromeda could do it as well.

Depending on exactly what they can do, the Vorlons and Shadows from Babylon 5 (and prolly the other First Ones) could do it.

The Ancients and Ori (either pre or post ascension) from Stargate could do it if they employed their tech competently. The Replicators (both types) could also do it (with the caveat that the human form ones employ their tech competently). The Asgard could do it if they employed their tech competently.

The Culture and Xeelee could do it.

If the Empire from Star Wars actually had access to all of their toys and was competent about it they could also win.

There are a fair number of other races and cultures that could prolly do it, depending upon the particulars.

[Mr. Scaly]

That's also, more or less, how Tyranids/Genestealers work IIRC. Yet they have been unable to actually defeat the orks. Instead both sides just keep getting stronger. It's possible I suppose that ork genetics are simply so funky that Ye Olde Interstellar Genetic Monstrosity can't use them. Either that or Ork genes are in fact coded in dakka/choppa pairs, and only da boyz are hard enuf to contain them and not die.

...Wow. Okay, orks are even more impressive than they were a few minutes ago. If the nids can't absorb their DNA then I doubt that the zerg are going to be able to do it. Which means it comes down to a slugging match between the two that the orks would...well, just win.



Anyway, my own candidate is the Phyrexians. Maybe they couldn't take on the whole universe but they'd happily carve out a nice chunk of the galaxy for themselves and start competing with the Necrons as to who can be the first to erase all organic life in the galaxy.

Hmm...which sounds pretty good too. Robot zombies and their star gods vs bio-mechanical freaks led by a hi-tech version of Asmodeus?

[Mr._Blinky]

1-Disapearance of oceans causes plate tectonic shifts...WTF?
2-Planets are mostly made of some bizzarre substance wich is neither mineral or organic.
3-High volcanic activity doesn't seem to hurt the nids in any way, wich is quite strange since they burn just like any other guy.
4-Said volcanos go completely out in less than 20 days. Quite impressive.
5-Imperium is unable to predict the arrival of Nid fleets. Wich means the anti nid strategy taken by the emperium of fortifying the planets on the path is impossible.
6-It takes more than 3 months for the Imperial forces to answer distress calls. Wich would mean that the emperium of mankind no longer exists. because all those battles where the SM and guard arrive in a matter of days to counter orks, chaos and other race's suprise attacks never hapened. Wait just a minute...

1. No idea of the validity of the science, so I can't really comment.
2. "Some bizzarre substance wich is neither mineral or organic". Okay first, science failure, second the stuff that isn't mineral or organic just doesn't get consumed, which is why it leaves behind a lifeless rock. But there still is a lot that is mineral and/or organic.
3. Um, no, it does hurt them. The thing is that by this point in the invasion there's no Tyranids left on the planet to be hurt. The closest Tyranids are the Hive-ships sucking up the atmosphere, and considering that they can withstand Imperium warheads, lasers, and plasma bolts, I don't think it's too much of a stretch for them to be able to survive being a few miles above some volcanoes.
4. When did it ever say that? The volcanoes are still around when the Imperium arrives.
5. No, the Imperium can predict a Nid attack if other planets or systems in the area have suffered the same fate. If the attack catches them by surprise, it likely means they're isolated, or are the first world in the region to be hit.
6. You really don't pay attention at all to how 40K works, do you? It can take any amount of time, from days to months to centuries, for the Warp to get you somewhere. Generally it takes less time if you're closer, but not always, and any cases where it took the guard or SM 3 days to get somewhere would have required them to already be close by. And actually, I don't remember ever reading a story where it took them 3 days to respond to a surprise attack. It's pretty consistent that even for close regiments it's usually a matter of weeks, at least.

[Ganurath]

...Wow. Okay, orks are even more impressive than they were a few minutes ago. If the nids can't absorb their DNA then I doubt that the zerg are going to be able to do it. Which means it comes down to a slugging match between the two that the orks would...well, just win.



Anyway, my own candidate is the Phyrexians. Maybe they couldn't take on the whole universe but they'd happily carve out a nice chunk of the galaxy for themselves and start competing with the Necrons as to who can be the first to erase all organic life in the galaxy.

Hmm...which sounds pretty good too. Robot zombies and their star gods vs bio-mechanical freaks led by a hi-tech version of Asmodeus?Phyrexians! I forgot those... Considering Yawgmoth is essentially a fifth (sixth?) Chaos God in regard to power and can only be supressed by the physical manifestation of the power of the ideals of order and community and is able to physically enter the world whereas the actual Chaos Gods need champions and daemons, they are capable of fabricating entire planes of existence that steadily increase their own mass through nanites that obey mental commands of Yawgmoth's favored while grossly violating the laws of matter conservation, can infiltrate societies better than Genestealers with extraordinarily disguised undead cyborg sleeper agents, can engineer and unleash plagues so potent they could overcome the immune systems of a champion of Nurgle, can call upon an infrastructure of fleet production that spans uncounted planes of existence, can turn the fallen of friends and foes alike into new and deadlier soldiers after every battle, and have Crovax of Urborg (Imagine if Kenpachi Zaraki became a Necron,) Phyrexians win against all comers.

[Gavin Sage]

Ignoring the alien factions for a moment, wouldn't any interstellar nation like the Federation or the Galactic Empire, with instantaneous FTL travel, have a huge advantage over the Imperium? Since the Imperium's FTL methods still take centuries, sometimes millennia, of travel in "real-time," it's effectively thousands of functionally separate states. Meaning a coordinated invasion by more advanced sci-fi civs would be able to devastate whole systems before the Imperial Navy effected a coordinated response, if ever it did. Right? Or am I missing something here?

A fair point but this depends on the particular opposing system. First off you are over-estimating the problems posed by the Warp. The fluff deliberately plays up the horrible problems, but the Imperium could not exist if the percentage of all problems wasn't very small. Also travel across the galaxy is not a multi-lifetime affair, every single astropath comes from Holy Terra itself. The Guard arriving centuries is more often the result of the inertia of the Munitorium. We have canon characters crossing the galaxy in relatively short order. Now given a month or even a year is moving extremely fast given how big the galaxy really is, thus is in short order. The more serious limitation to the Imperiums transit is how it relies on psykers and mutants. And of course the ongoing grace of the Emperor

However you are also right in that the Imperium is fairly slow and takes a long time to do things.

The comparasion depends though on what faction you wish to compare the Imperium to though. The Federation has more reliable travel, but not particularly faster given. Case in point, Voyager needed multiple short cuts for a one way trip across the galaxy. The Federation itself can be said to make up a fairly limited piece of the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, though given this can still mean hundreds of worlds. Starways Congress from the later Ender series, has a mighty weapon in the Little Doctor, but doesn't even have FTL capablity unless Jane decides to work for them.

In contrast the Galatic Empire while not spanning the entire galaxy does control a considerable portion of it. And ships cross it routinely in a matter of days and weeks. And the Marvel and DC comics universes put SW to shame, as travel between Galaxies is reality. And for that matter not abnormal or time-consuming. So it all depends on the setting for how well this argument works.

[Rutskarn]

Congratulations, you just proved the world of WH40K doesn't have any internal consistency.

So we're running on the rule of "My side is the strongest because yes" that's so common in WH40k. Like the IG codex there are the tales of the regiments who stoped nid invasions on their tracks whitout need of reinforcments or anything else, or all chaos/ork tales on how SM die by rows.

Okay, Oslecamo, I'm sensing more than a little hostility here.

On the one hand, I can kind of see why. Yeah, W40K does pretty much always have the fans saying, "My side wins." Unfortunately, that's because...well, their side almost always wins. The setting supports it.

Warhammer 40K does not go in for tales of wars between nations, or planets, or even solar systems. Warhammer 40K is designed to be a backdrop to an epic, breathtakingly massive, shockingly brutal struggle of immeasurable proportions and infinite duration.

In short, even a single force for W40K is insanely large and deadly in its scope compared to other settings, which typically (and for the purposes of the story they tell, sensibly) stick to a somewhat smaller scale. Unfortunately for the purpose of this debate, StarCraft is one such setting.

As someone stated in a previous StarCraft vs. W40K thread, "The conflict that takes place in the StarCraft setting is not only smaller than the conflicts in W40K, it is so comparatively trivial that had the events of the former taken place in Imperium territory it would not even register as a footnote to a page in a single chapter in the hundredth volume of the ledgers of the Imperium's bureaucrats."

Using wolfpack tactics on the tyranids is like attacking a brick wall in strategic locations using a small reflex-testing mallet. While a tractor-trailer slowly pushes the wall over onto you.

[Innis Cabal]

Very well put. 40K is a brutal and bleak world, its been that way for a very long time. Its grim, dark, and utterly hopeless for the human species. Thankfully the plot is inching forward in 5th edition.

Also, if your asking about science and realism in a table top army game, your going to be let down, it just dosn't happen.

[toasty]

Also, if your asking about science and realism in a table top army game, your going to be let down, it just dosn't happen.

This is true. I've seen people attempt to put science to 40k... it doesn't work. Well, it works, but its a very crude, "look! Science does make sense in 40k! You just need to smash it (science) with a hammer a few times!"

[Mr._Blinky]

This is true. I've seen people attempt to put science to 40k... it doesn't work. Well, it works, but its a very crude, "look! Science does make sense in 40k! You just need to smash it (science) with a hammer a few times!"

Still, it's better than Star Wars or Star Trek. Especially Star Wars. All three do things that are blatantly physics defying, but 40K usually passes most of it off as what is essentially magic (though there is still a fairly high amount of just bad science) and Star Trek revels in technobabble that any fan will cheerfully admit is bull. Star Wars fans I've discovered (and for some reason it's almost always Star Wars fans) tend to desperately cling to the idea that the setting is scientifically sound, and are as hard to convince otherwise as it is to convince 40K fans that things can beat the tyranids or necrons. Of course, 40K does actually have some justification, unlike Star Wars, but I digress.

Of course, this can apply to most of the settings: very little sci-fi is actually scientifically sound, especially when you're getting into games like 40K and Starcraft.

OTOH, I have a universe that I believe could likely beat 40K in terms of technology (and actually happens to be pretty good science-wise), though the warp might give them some problems (as it would almost anyone): tech in the Schlockverse (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/index.html) is very advanced, including ridiculously heavy firepower and instantaneous FTL. Especially if you throw the Fleetmind into the mix, I think they could give the 40K universe a run for its money. This of course assumes you can actually unite it, since while it isn't in the same level of conflict as 40K, it is if anything even less united, with hundreds of sentient races.

[kpenguin]

Interestingly enough, TV Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekov7423el8ye) lists WH40k as a being softer than Star Trek and Star Wars, perhaps because there has been more effort in those respective fandoms to justify their setting

[The_Snark]

I think it's more likely that the explicit presence of demons and magic, as well as the whole practice of catapulting fantasy races 40,000 years into the future, is what places it there on TV Tropes. Star Wars has a very thin veneer of meaningless terminology atop the fantasy elements, and they avoid saying the word magic. To my almost nonexistent knowledge, Star Trek is the same way, possibly minus magic (unless they have psychics or something).

Really though, TV Tropes has some odd ideas about what is hard science fiction; entries near the bottom still include psychic powers, humanoid aliens, and FTL (as well as its cousin the ansible). I suppose this is more because those are so common in science fiction that media with only one of those is reasonably hard, but still.

[Mr. Scaly]

Meh, science fiction is more fiction than science. I don't know whypeople make such a big deal over it.

[Winterwind]

Meh, science fiction is more fiction than science. I don't know whypeople make such a big deal over it.In television and movies, yes - I imagine people who want 'hard' science fiction want it to be more like, well, what passes for 'hard' science fiction in literature. So, Asimov, Clarke and consorts. And those do contain a fair amount of science (or, at the very least, provoking thoughts and playing around with them, investigating what might be, and so forth, as opposed to focusing on action and a story which, for all purposes, could as well be told in a non sci-fi setting).

[Oslecamo]

Also, if your asking about science and realism in a table top army game, your going to be let down, it just dosn't happen.

I'm not asking for science and realism, I'm asking for internal consistency. And as far as WH40K goes, we could as well be rolling dices to see who wins, since it's basically the way it goes.

Space marines are eating tank shots for breakfast in one day, and being killed by arrows on the other.

Nids have in theory endless numbers...But guess what? They have been repelled every single time.

Chaos corrupts half of manking in one swoop... and then they get their asses handed to them by the emperor. Wich however had trouble fighting warbosses solo.

And then we have the Taus. They're just what, 4000 years old, horribly outnumbered, they suck at melee and yet the Taus kick everybody else's asses! You can claim they have the best technology available, but hey, the eldars are the ones who're suposed to have best technology with all the gateway and wraithbone thingies. Oh, wait, I meant the necrons and their metal bodies, super teleporters and disintregators. Wich both grossly outnumber the Tau. So, how do the Tau hold on? Dice luck of course.

If you roll well enough in the WH40K universe, you can become CEPHIAS CAIN, HERO OF THE EMPERIUM, and come out of any situation no matter how bad the initial odds may be against you, and actually end up dying of old age.

Rutskarn: With all due respect sir, you don't know anything of Starcraft. Or Warhammer 40k for the matter. The emperium works day and night to register every battle, every heresy, every traitor, every acident, every "minor" thing that catches their eye, since it's the only way to stop chaos from taking over. Also, no matter what the faction, planets are still attacked one at a time, showing that the battle scale isn't that diferent from Starcraft.


WH40K isn't only grimdark and ultra big battles. It's also about small groups of named guys overcoming all the odds and stoping entire enemy campaigns on their tracks.

So, any universe who has named characters with guts has a chance of giving WH40K a run for his money, since we see it happen all the time in the WH40k universe itself. The emperor in particular.

[chiasaur11]

I'm not asking for science and realism, I'm asking for internal consistency. And as far as WH40K goes, we could as well be rolling dices to see who wins, since it's basically the way it goes.


Huh.

Funny, that is how 40k battles work.

Unless CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM is involved, of course.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Most Guy Ritchie characters stand a pretty good chance. Their clever, charming cockney street smarts unite the orks, in a criminal empire behind them. The dramatic finale features Vinnie Jones killing the Emperor by slamming his head in an airlock over and over after the Emperor tries to use his cute, adopted orcish son as a hostage. Brad Pitt, meanwhile, uses his traveller wiles to trade all of Chaos' power for a "dag".

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in universes that work on a sort of black-comedy rule of cool, the GuyRitchieverse simply has more power behind it.

[Blue Paladin]

How to defeat most things: Take Wally West Flash. Steal all speed of threat. Brush inert whatever-it-was under rug.

How to defeat everything else: Take Prepared Batman, Telepathic Network Martian Manhunter, and Wally West Flash. Threat appears. Batman remembers perfect plan to defeat said threat because yes, he thought of it already, MM delivers plan to Flash, Flash executes said plan. Instantly.

Also, God-like being: Kyle Rayner Ion. Before he started splitting himself into thousands of Kyles and fixing the universe by himself.

That's just DC, and doesn't even mention Superman (or Kandorians, Power Girl, Mon-El), Wonder Woman (or Captain Marvel), any direct magic users/reality manipulators (eg Zatanna, Jakeem Thunder). Besides, DC has a much smaller cosmic family than Marvel:

God Expy: One-Above-All
God-like being: Living Tribunal. Agent of above.
God-like beings: Infinites. "Greater than any single reality". Seems to be outside the purview of the Living Tribunal (and thus OAA?).
God-like beings: Celestials. Each with power many orders of magnitude greater than the reality-changing Cosmic Cubes.
God-like being: Franklin Richards. Created a universe in his daydreams. Explicitly equal in power to Celestial. Pals around with them.
God-like being: Jean Grey, Phoenix of the White Crown. Time. Space. Reality.
God-like being: Hyperstorm. Future son of Franklin Richards (Omega-level mutant) and Rachel Summers (Omega-level mutant). Grandson of Jean Grey (Omega-level mutant). Nephew of X-Man (Omega-level mutant). Grand-nephew of Vulcan ("beyond" Omega-level mutant). Genius on par with Reed. Wields hyperspace powers a la Sue. A little much, don't you think?
In terms of magic: Dr. Strange. Sorcerer Supreme.
In terms of sheer strength: Hulk. Hulk smash. [Thor's no slouch either, especially Odinforce Thor.]
In terms of pure badassery: Blackagar Boltagon. Made a Celestial flinch by breathing in.
Runners-up: Nova (who pulled an Ion and got the entire Novaforce). Silver Surfer (who got a major upgrade from Galactus following the events of Annihilation). Galactus himself. Any number of other beings and deities, from the Skyfathers on down.

[chiasaur11]

How to defeat most things: Take Wally West Flash. Steal all speed of threat. Brush inert whatever-it-was under rug.

How to defeat everything else: Take Prepared Batman, Telepathic Network Martian Manhunter, and Wally West Flash. Threat appears. Batman remembers perfect plan to defeat said threat because yes, he thought of it already, MM delivers plan to Flash, Flash executes said plan. Instantly.

Also, God-like being: Kyle Rayner Ion. Before he started splitting himself into thousands of Kyles and fixing the universe by himself.

That's just DC, and doesn't even mention Superman (or Kandorians, Power Girl, Mon-El), Wonder Woman (or Captain Marvel), any direct magic users/reality manipulators (eg Zatanna, Jakeem Thunder). Besides, DC has a much smaller cosmic family than Marvel:

God Expy: One-Above-All
God-like being: Living Tribunal. Agent of above.
God-like beings: Infinites. "Greater than any single reality". Seems to be outside the purview of the Living Tribunal (and thus OAA?).
God-like beings: Celestials. Each with power many orders of magnitude greater than the reality-changing Cosmic Cubes.
God-like being: Franklin Richards. Created a universe in his daydreams. Explicitly equal in power to Celestial. Pals around with them.
God-like being: Jean Grey, Phoenix of the White Crown. Time. Space. Reality.
God-like being: Hyperstorm. Future son of Franklin Richards (Omega-level mutant) and Rachel Summers (Omega-level mutant). Grandson of Jean Grey (Omega-level mutant). Nephew of X-Man (Omega-level mutant). Grand-nephew of Vulcan ("beyond" Omega-level mutant). Genius on par with Reed. Wields hyperspace powers a la Sue. A little much, don't you think?
In terms of magic: Dr. Strange. Sorcerer Supreme.
In terms of sheer strength: Hulk. Hulk smash. [Thor's no slouch either, especially Odinforce Thor.]
In terms of pure badassery: Blackagar Boltagon. Made a Celestial flinch by breathing in.
Runners-up: Nova (who pulled an Ion and got the entire Novaforce). Silver Surfer (who got a major upgrade from Galactus following the events of Annihilation). Galactus himself. Any number of other beings and deities, from the Skyfathers on down.

Hey, don't leave Reed out of the fun entirely. Man killed the Black Celestial. AKA marvel's closest thing to an evil version of god. And he invented a computer virus that ripped up the time space continium. Within, like, five minutes.

Beta Ray Bill also could use a mention, what with being Thor's equal in the field of battle and the single best fighter in the entire burning galaxy.

Even a guy with an infinity gem needed crotch punches to take him down.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

On a slightly more serious note, things that simply happen not to have to answer to firepower (Dorian Grey) stand a decent chance with most things. Some of the more surreal characters in David Lynch movies seem to be pretty physically untouchable (and psychically indomitable, with it). Postmodern literature, if allowed into the fray, crushes just about anything with a wave; the protagonist of Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading simply wishes away most of the reality around him.

[Rutskarn]

Oslecamo, I think that once again you have a very skewed view of the franchise. Although occasionally one side is misrepresented as being far more powerful or more advanced than any other, especially by the fans, the most important thing to remember is that the W40K factions exist in an almost eternal gridlock. Victories are won--sometimes even sweeping, lucky, incredible victories--and yet the end is still never in sight. Often, it's more chance than anything that cedes one territory or another to whatever unspeakable horror is fighting over it--who gets there first, who gets the best positions, who has decent commanders, etc.

It's very possible that some sides will eventually be defeated for good. In fact, some theorize that humanity basically has no hope of winning, doomed to completely die out within a couple dozen millenia. Also, races like the Tau have managed to get some traction, mostly because they are small, have some edges (immune to Chaos), and are impeccably organized.

And still, the war goes on.

[Astrella]

Also, it's a large galaxy, with large travel times. Tau just have the advantage that their empire is still small enough to be controlled. (Though tau have been smarter then the empirium that they allow their septs almost complete independence contrary to the empirium that still tries to maintain full control over it's entire empire.

Also, tau haven't encountered large forces of necron or eldar yet. Their dealings have mostly been with the empirium and orks.

Also, it unlikely that one side will be eliminated, because people who play this invest a lot of time and money in their hobby. (And won't be happy when the race they're playing in destroyed / cancelled)

[kpenguin]

Also, it unlikely that one side will be eliminated, because people who play this invest a lot of time and money in their hobby. (And won't be happy when the race they're playing in destroyed / cancelled)

What about the aforementioned squats?

[Innis Cabal]

He did say it was unlikely. Not impossible.

[Seraph]

The problem with 40k, I think, is that it apparently started as fundamentally a parody and satire of the ridiculous plot contrivances of common science fiction, but GW later decided that playing it seriously would make them more money. hence, you have all these forces with intentionally ridiculous and laughable elements that try to be taken seriously.

as for Sins of a Solar Empire races, its sort of a yes and no thing. on one hand, they apparently dont have really powerful FTL drives. on the other hand, you have the Advent, who can mindrape entire planets into submission, and the Vasari, who live on planets made of lava and can hotfix their DNA for whatever situation arises.

[Gavin Sage]

Interestingly enough, TV Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlekov7423el8ye) lists WH40k as a being softer than Star Trek and Star Wars, perhaps because there has been more effort in those respective fandoms to justify their setting

SW and ST don't have the gun that fires snotlings through hell. That is why its softer, among other things.

[Erloas]

Although its basically been said, I'll say it again anyway in my own words.

The biggest reason why its next to impossible to really beat any army is because that is how all of the lore is designed. The lore was designed from start to finish to show that while different, all sides are powerful, and even against seemingly unwinnable odds any side can end up winning against any other side.

If you look at a lot of other settings, such as Star Wars or Star Trek, they build into the stories the fact that they can almost loose and come back from it, so all you need is something to get past that almost part. Can the force wielding jedi be wiped out? Sure they can, it was built into the lore that they were wiped out to almost none left. The Empire was seemingly all powerful, but they built into the lore the fact that on a galactic scale they could still be beaten.
With Star Trek, they have a lot of things going for them, but every time they run into something new its another almost loss with some minor thing proving to be the pivitol factor.

That is what you will get with anything that was first and formost a story that needed big galactic changing events to drive the epicness of the story. They have to build in weaknesses and keep the numbers down to make a win or loss for both sides a real possibility.

40k doesn't have that problem because they make it clear that any event could be huge to a given campaign or set of characters, but is ultimately trivial in the grand schemes of the universe.


As for the internal consistancy of 40k, almost every story can be put into the category of propaganda by whichever race did it, rather then truely what happened. Every army book you read will talk about how in so many ways they are so much better then everyone else. Everyone has better technology, everyone has superior leadership and tactics and everyone wins by the grit and a bit of luck of their soldiers. They can't all be right, but its what they all claim anyway.

Its also built into the lore that just about anything you hear from the imperium (which most of the books are writen around) can't be trusted as accurate because anything that doesn't show them as superior then their enemies is herasy and would not be uttered on the high probability of a quick and messy death.
And even the campaign turning individuals that seem nearly unstoppable do occasionally run up against their counterparts from other races and get held to a standstill. There are also only a hand full of these type individuals in any race and there is no possible way for them to be in enough places all at the same time to win on such a massive scale as a campaign against an entire race in 40k would require. And usually in the case of individuals stopping a campaign, it is always after the point where the normal troops have been worn down to the point of not being able to continue the campaign anyway.

[Rutskarn]

The problem with 40k, I think, is that it apparently started as fundamentally a parody and satire of the ridiculous plot contrivances of common science fiction, but GW later decided that playing it seriously would make them more money. hence, you have all these forces with intentionally ridiculous and laughable elements that try to be taken seriously.

Source? I've never encountered that little historical tidbit before.

Also, I dunno if I'd call the elements of 40K "ridiculous" or "laughable", per se. Some of it is over the top, sure (okay, mostly just the chainsaw swords) but the rest of it is only laughable where intentional, such as with parts of the Orkish culture. The rest of it is honestly a pretty damn grim and captivating universe, at least in my opinion.

[Innis Cabal]

Its actually sort of true. Not fully, look at some of the old ork (Squats have been stated as a joke of sorts) and chaos legions there are some very...silly things.

Space Hulk is really where it all started, and it was centered on the SM's fighting genestealers, and is part of the "internal storyline" of it all. Was it fully a joke? No. But they were clearly less serious when it started getting more popular

[Rutskarn]

Well, yeah, but there's a big difference between Not Taking it Seriously and A Parody of the Ridiculousness of Sci-Fi.

[Seraph]

Source? I've never encountered that little historical tidbit before.

Also, I dunno if I'd call the elements of 40K "ridiculous" or "laughable", per se. Some of it is over the top, sure (okay, mostly just the chainsaw swords) but the rest of it is only laughable where intentional, such as with parts of the Orkish culture. The rest of it is honestly a pretty damn grim and captivating universe, at least in my opinion.

are you kidding? the humans solution to everything is to set fire to the planet until the problem stops. the space elves are chaste because they nearly ended the universe by ****ing too enthusiastically. the Elite Space Marines fanatically devoted to destroying the xenos and guarding against mutation are, themselves, mutated to the point of only really being human by a vague definition. the necrons are an army of Space Terminators. the Holy and revered Golden Throne of the God Emperor of Mankind looks like This (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Image:Sanctum.jpg). If you honestly think any of this was intended to be taken seriously from creation, there is something wrong with you.

[Innis Cabal]

I wouldn't call it an outright parody, I mean..its not Space Balls the table top game.

And its clearly not now in its current rule set. But there was a time that it was a more light hearted game, which to some might read as "Parody". Orcs are always mentionable in this regard, also the Sonic Marines of yore (awsome mini's really). Just taking a look at some of the back models on the GW site will give you some chuckles. There are some really far out minis

[Rutskarn]

are you kidding? the humans solution to everything is to set fire to the planet until the problem stops. the space elves are chaste because they nearly ended the universe by ****ing too enthusiastically. the Elite Space Marines fanatically devoted to destroying the xenos and guarding against mutation are, themselves, mutated to the point of only really being human by a vague definition. the necrons are an army of Space Terminators. the Holy and revered Golden Throne of the God Emperor of Mankind looks like This (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Image:Sanctum.jpg). If you honestly think any of this was intended to be taken seriously from creation, there is something wrong with you.

The throne thing, I'll grant you as an example of not taking things seriously. The other things actually can be quite dramatic...unless taken out of context for the purposes of mockery, which, admittedly, can yield quite amusing results.

I mean, would you say that none of these things are meant to be taken seriously?

In Citizen Kane, a ruthless man of power dies bawling about his sled.

The Borg from Star Trek travel around in gigantic boxes that look like techno ice cubes.

The spice from Dune amounts to worm excrement.

Oedipus marries his mother in a case of wacky mistaken identity.

The point is, all the things you mentioned do, in fact, make sense.

The Imperium is immeasurably vast. They have around one million inhabited planets, in fact. It's important to note that at one time, when a couple choice people got seduced by Chaos, what was the grand unification of mankind into a great and noble empire turned into about 10 thousand years of bitter warfare. As you might imagine? They're pretty damn paranoid about Chaos. Sacrificing one planet means absolutely nothing to the Imperium, and they can't afford giving their enemies another inch of ground.

The Eldar descended into a race of utter debauchery, not merely fornication. For their sins, they created a dark, perverted god that has plagued the galaxy for aeons. Yeah, they're pretty damn paranoid too, thanks.

Mutants are basically people who have a connection to the Warp, which is a connection to Chaos. See the paranoia, here.

Calling the necrons "space terminators" is entirely inaccurate. They look kind of like them, they're dedicated to killing, but their motives (such as they are) and their history are completely unique. It's not like Skeleton is exactly a bold and original design.

[Selrahc]

Warhammer 40,000 started off at a level of seriousness akin to Judge Dredd. Parody and humour intermingled with serious content and world building.

Over time the parody and humour have shifted into the background more and more. There are still touches of it around (For example, in Dark Heresy the sanctioned psyker table has a reference/parody of Dune) but the big factions have cast off the sillier things. Except for the Orks.

[Avilan the Grey]

That's also, more or less, how Tyranids/Genestealers work IIRC. Yet they have been unable to actually defeat the orks. Instead both sides just keep getting stronger. It's possible I suppose that ork genetics are simply so funky that Ye Olde Interstellar Genetic Monstrosity can't use them. Either that or Ork genes are in fact coded in dakka/choppa pairs, and only da boyz are hard enuf to contain them and not die.

I was under the impression that the 'Nids use the gene material different than the Zerg; they use the parts, to make them stronger, but you do not see "Orkish" units on the battle field.
Also, The Orks genes are funky; but I don' think they are funky in that way. I just think they adapt as quickly as the 'Nids do.
As an earlier discussion about 'nids and orks fighting points out, in the middle of that 'nid infested ork quadrant there are probably orks of a size and ferocity that no human has ever seen before (and 'nids to match them).

[Avilan the Grey]

Star Wars fans I've discovered (and for some reason it's almost always Star Wars fans) tend to desperately cling to the idea that the setting is scientifically sound,

???????????????????????????????????????????????

I stopped thinking about Star Wars in science terms when I was 12... :smallbiggrin::smalltongue::smalleek: <- not sure if I should laugh or cry at the people you describe).
Of course I admit I have not had the "luck" to spend time with the Star Wars super fans, only other geeks who enjoy the movies very much.

[Bryn]

In general, I'd say it is unwise to judge fans of any sort by their crazier members. I don't actually know any Star Wars fans, but I would be willing to be that most of them are perfectly reasonable people and have little in common with the aforementioned 'scientific' fans. On a similar note, not every 40k fan is going to spend days arguing that their universe can beat all others in a vs. thread.

I'm going to generalise generalisations and say that generalising is always bad. :smallamused:

[Erloas]

A lot of the inconsistencies all go back to Paul Barnett's line about how Warhammer is Batman. If you look at Batman there are a lot of different versions of Batman with entirely different levels of seriousness and grimness, but they are all unmistakably Batman.

Warhammer (both versions) is the same way. Warhammer is a mix of dark comedy, parody, realism, and grimdark grim darkness. It is all of these things at the same time. Some races embrace some aspects of that to different levels. Most of the books focus on the realism and grim dark aspects of the world. The realism is there, just not strong, things like leadership and morale are fitting in some aspects of realism that are often left out of games based on combat, some of the aspects of the xenophobia aren't really that much more extreme then what has happened during some times in history (and then some of it is pushed that bit over the top into parody).

The over-the-topness of the setting was always on purpose, with soldieries carrying around more gear and trophies then there is soldier underneath. With weapons that are just a bit too big for realistic practical use, with swords that are more powerful then guns. Of armor and trophies that would make it totally impractical to move or fight in it without hurting yourself more then your opponent.

Its a world where gods are created because people believe in them and where things happen because people believe they do. Vehicles going faster because they are painted red, because red is a fast color. Of every day items that are believed to have power that grow into the power the person using thinks it has (less of an thing with 40k, but its common in fantasy). Warhammer has never simply been one thing, it has always been a mix of different ideas, its just that some people only focus on the aspects they find the most interesting and ignore (or pretend it is no longer "true") what they don't think fits with what they want the world to be.

[xanaphia]

The Ork codex is completely black comedy.

For instance, on Ork Madboyz, "It is sometimes annoying to have madboyz around, for instane when they become convinced that their best hat is in your house."

The Orks love doing what they do.

Also, I don't think Chaos is actually evil, for most of the cultists.

I think that GW ignores the fact that there are probably way more Chaos Cultists in the Eye of Terror than Chaos Marines. I imagine that there would be a fully functioning society on these worlds.

Imagine you were a Nurgle lord who wants power and favor. You get to an Imperial world, and capture the city. At this point you ask the citizens whether they would rather stay where they are, or come to live in the eye of terror.

A lot would agree. You'd load them onto your spaceship, go home, and set them to colonising the worlds in the Eye of Terror. They become your citizens. You ask them to come on raids with you for at least one month a year, and give them a share of the treasure and slaves. You would end up with a massive army.

Most of them wouldn't be particularly obsessed with killing, it's just their duty. They might go to the Temple of Nurgle on a Sunday, but they don't really feel it. They are pragmatic, rational people.

This is just my crazy theory of Chaos. Feel free to think it's crazy and annoying.

[hamishspence]

Barrington J. Bayley's Eye of Terror, while not a very good novel, does have Chaos societies on planets in the Eye. They tend to be somewhat dyfunctional, with daemonic masters demanding sacrifices.

[Dervag]

In short, the problem with Chaos societies is that they are in fact ruled by Chaos. Warhammer-style Chaos tends to grant power to the most selfish, unstable, and antisocial members of society. And it doesn't just give them the kinds of power real world societies are familiar with. It gives them power over the laws of nature.

These are exactly the people you do not want in charge. You don't even want them having power over the tax system. You certainly don't want to give them the power to change the oceans of your planet into "Blood for the Blood God!" Or to forcibly conscript you for testing of their new mutagenic super-soldier serum.

And those are powers a Chaos Lord probably has.

[hamishspence]

in Eye of terror, its implied that its Daemon Princes (minor ones) that rule over big regions of a planet in the Eye. Bloodquest also has this theme.

there is a element of Ordinary People, but they are minions to very ruthless masters- they aren't obsessed with killing, but they are like the Fair Folk- not safe to be around.

[chiasaur11]

Huh.

I thought Nurgle, assuming one was on his side and didn't mind massive amounts of hideous diseases, was an alright enough dude.

[Innis Cabal]

Papa Nurgle is, according to the fluff. And his daemons are said to be like "drunk puppies wanting to be petted".

Papa Nurgle loves his children, and his "blessing" is how he shows it. Not my idea of love but hey. Who'se to judge

[warty goblin]

In short, the problem with Chaos societies is that they are in fact ruled by Chaos. Warhammer-style Chaos tends to grant power to the most selfish, unstable, and antisocial members of society. And it doesn't just give them the kinds of power real world societies are familiar with. It gives them power over the laws of nature.

These are exactly the people you do not want in charge. You don't even want them having power over the tax system. You certainly don't want to give them the power to change the oceans of your planet into "Blood for the Blood God!" Or to forcibly conscript you for testing of their new mutagenic super-soldier serum.

And those are powers a Chaos Lord probably has.

Although if they had power over the laws of nature, the chaos lords might be able to make the tax code comprehensible to normal human beings...

But I doubt it.

[Dervag]

Although if they had power over the laws of nature, the chaos lords might be able to make the tax code comprehensible to normal human beings...

But I doubt it.I'm sure they could, but that brings up another problem- no incentive. The Imperium's government is a mess because there's no incentive to reform anything too, but at least the basic goals of their government aren't as absurd and surrealistic as those of Chaos.

Which isn't really saying very much, of course.

[small pumpkin m]

Meh, science fiction is more fiction than science. I don't know why people make such a big deal over it.

Because people confuse the terms "science fiction" and "hard Science Fiction", so when someone describes Star Wars, Halo or Terminator as "Sci Fi" what they mean is it involves tech beyond our own, whereas other people think it means "proper" or "hard" science fiction, which is stuff like Gattica, Planetes, or to a lesser extent Primer, stuff which actually about technology, and how it might affect our lives, or about using an alternate setting to discuss the human condition, instead of, you, know, an action movie with robots and lasers.

They're two very different genres, and confusing them just annoys people.

[Avilan the Grey]

Because people confuse the terms "science fiction" and "hard Science Fiction", so when someone describes Star Wars, Halo or Terminator as "Sci Fi" what they mean is it involves tech beyond our own, whereas other people think it means "proper" or "hard" science fiction, which is stuff like Gattica, Planetes, or to a lesser extent Primer, stuff which actually about technology, and how it might affect our lives, or about using an alternate setting to discuss the human condition, instead of, you, know, an action movie with robots and lasers.

They're two very different genres, and confusing them just annoys people.

Not to mention that many fans of "Hard Sci-Fi" do expect the stories to really be about our time (which is the time the story was written), and reflect on some issue. Or at least take some idea and go with it to it's extreme. Or stuff.

Of course there are levels of "Soft" Sci-fi too, everything from Space Opera (which is basically fantasy in Sci-fi setting), via Story-Based (my own term) like Star Trek (slightly less fantasy setting, more Drama Series In Space), to "Low budget alegory of Marsians being Nazis / Commies / People who shop at Walmart / Neocons / Canadians" to "Hey, look at all those sexy aliens in bikinis!" etc.

[Dervag]

Thing is, space opera is the root of the entire science fiction genre. What we now consider hard science fiction evolved over time as we figured out stuff like "the mysteries of The Atom." As our ideas about what technology could and couldn't do in the future evolved, a lot of old science fiction elements like disintegrator rays and antigravity belts didn't seem plausible any more.

The problem with defining space opera as "fantasy in a science fiction setting" is that the boundary between the technology we can dream of having and the technology we can honestly predict we'll have is blurry. Most of the important innovations of the past fifty years were not easily predictable fifty years in advance. Likewise for the fifty years before that, and the fifty years before that.

[warty goblin]

Thing is, space opera is the root of the entire science fiction genre. What we now consider hard science fiction evolved over time as we figured out stuff like "the mysteries of The Atom." As our ideas about what technology could and couldn't do in the future evolved, a lot of old science fiction elements like disintegrator rays and antigravity belts didn't seem plausible any more.

The problem with defining space opera as "fantasy in a science fiction setting" is that the boundary between the technology we can dream of having and the technology we can honestly predict we'll have is blurry. Most of the important innovations of the past fifty years were not easily predictable fifty years in advance. Likewise for the fifty years before that, and the fifty years before that.

Nevertheless I think small pumpkin highlights an important difference between 'hard' and 'soft' sci-fi, namely that the first focuses more on the impact of technology on humanity, or on the technology itself, as opposed to simply wanting cool looking gizmos. Both are obviously fine, but they are fundamentally different, albeit in ways that are not neccessarily easy to pick apart.

Specifically I'm thinking about George RR Martin's sci-fi work, which is generally based on a healthy dose of handwavium, which would tend to make it soft sci-fi. On the other hand it is pretty unarguably about people and the effects of their environment on people. I'd probably put it in 'hard' sci-fi if pressed, but it's not neccessarily an easy fit. It's clearly not pulp sci-fi or space opera though.

[GoC]

Has my beloved Schlock Mercenary been mentioned yet?

[chiasaur11]

I think so. I'd be surprised if the good Post Dated Check Loan didn't get a look in.

[Thangorodrim]

Man, I promised myself I wouldn't bite....


Nids have in theory endless numbers...But guess what? They have been repelled every single time.

This isn't the inconsistency you seem to think it is, in theory, any race would have endless numbers, the Nids happen to do it quite well, and concentrate their forces quite a bit more, but the Imperium and the Orks effortlessly outnumber the Nid forces currently floating around the galaxy.

The Nids have also destroyed easily hundreds of worlds in the Imperium, so much for being repelled every single time :smallsmile:



Chaos corrupts half of manking in one swoop..

Nope, Chaos corrupts a significant portion of the Imperial armed forces, with various sneaky tricks, the vast proportion of mankind isn't tainted, and some of the "traitors" are dupes or "innocent" victims, not willing conspirators.


and then they get their asses handed to them by the emperor. Wich however had trouble fighting warbosses solo.

Its often mentioned that theres a lot of mythology and storytelling at play, particularly with the Heresy stuff before the novel series, and the Emperor in particular was not beyond convoluted setups to prove loyalty and so on and so forth.


And then we have the Taus. They're just what, 4000 years old, horribly outnumbered, they suck at melee and yet the Taus kick everybody else's asses! You can claim they have the best technology available, but hey, the eldars are the ones who're suposed to have best technology with all the gateway and wraithbone thingies. Oh, wait, I meant the necrons and their metal bodies, super teleporters and disintregators. Wich both grossly outnumber the Tau. So, how do the Tau hold on? Dice luck of course.

While I'd certainly agree that other races tend to job to the Tau, they certainly don't kick everyone elses arses.

GW writers have made an effort to explain their successes by sticking them in a very handily isolated area, with weak polities for the Tau to absorb, and unknown benefactors. The Tau certainly don't have the best technology either, even the orks can put them to shame.

The Tau home territories BTW, are actually under heavy siege by an Orkish waagh at the moment.


With all due respect sir, you don't know anything of Starcraft. Or Warhammer 40k for the matter.

I'm not sure you know that much either mate, certainly not about 40k, didn't you just claim the Nids can't use FTL travel ?


Also, no matter what the faction, planets are still attacked one at a time, showing that the battle scale isn't that diferent from Starcraft.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean frankly, because its not like there aren't multiple examples of entire sub-sectors being attacked at once.

Hell, the freaking TAU started the Damocles conflict by putting starships in orbit around dozens of planets.



Calling the necrons "space terminators" is entirely inaccurate. They look kind of like them, they're dedicated to killing, but their motives (such as they are) and their history are completely unique. It's not like Skeleton is exactly a bold and original design

I kinda wish they hadn't gone with the sleeker new Necron models, the old John Blanche artwork for them is much more evocative. Ornate alien robots of doom!


Phyrexians win against all comers.

Heh, don't make me laugh. :smallamused: