Fluff wise i feel the guard should be most powerful. Baneblades should cost what russes do, russes what chimeras do and guardsmen should be free. They should also die the turn they come in, but hey theres 3,000,000 waiting to be placed.
Necrons / Tyranids. Hard to say witch one is stronger. Tyranids cant absorb Necrons. Both races entire forces haven't arrived yet.
I think if the Tyranid entire race was in 40k galaxy, it would take every race and I mean EVERY race to come together to even put up a resistance. Even then, they would lose.
If every single Tomb world awoken, same fate as Tyranids. Necrons have already wiped the galaxy clean once already. Hell, if the Necron use the full power of the Ctans...suns will fall.
Mark1130 wrote: Necrons / Tyranids. Hard to say witch one is stronger. Tyranids cant absorb Necrons. Both races entire forces haven't arrived yet. I think if the Tyranid entire race was in 40k galaxy, it would take every race and I mean EVERY race to come together to even put up a resistance. Even then, they would lose.
This. The Tyranids devour planets brah. And Necrons have near limitless numbers of regenerating undead Robots, and some of the most advanced and bizarre technology in the galaxy. Suck on that, Imperium.
I always thought that would be a fun boss fight in a 40k-themed game, something like Space Marine maybe. Going up against a single Eldar aspect warrior and trying desperately just to land a hit on them, and failing.
Anyway, this thread is kinda dumb because everyone's just going to post "Well my army, duh! My codex says right here my army is the best ever!" and copy/paste all the bullgak fluffwank GW put in every book to sell you on that army as "proof". And you can do that for literally every army, so...
lustigjh wrote: Daemons never die so they have all of eternity to wipe out any other race provided they find ways to and from the warp
Indeed - hence the Necron plan used to be (?) to seal the Warp away from reality - of course the Necrons currently look like they will all fall victim to the Flayer virus, eventually............Tryanids may run out of fleets, Orks can be beaten.
The races are all the best when the narrative says they are the best.
Depends if you mean in a particular battle or the race as a whole.
For example Eldar have the foresight, strategy, technology and martial prowess to pick (or avoid) any battle, manipulate the circumstances and win. They are are dying race however, and couldn't ever conquer the galaxy.
Mark1130 wrote: Necrons / Tyranids. Hard to say witch one is stronger. Tyranids cant absorb Necrons. Both races entire forces haven't arrived yet.
I think if the Tyranid entire race was in 40k galaxy, it would take every race and I mean EVERY race to come together to even put up a resistance. Even then, they would lose.
If every single Tomb world awoken, same fate as Tyranids. Necrons have already wiped the galaxy clean once already. Hell, if the Necron use the full power of the Ctans...suns will fall.
Being a bit biased I think the necrons would beat out the nids. Just because their biomass replenishes at a less efficient rate due to not absorbing biomass on necron death worlds. That and the null fields disrupting their connection to the hive mind. The only thing that goes against them is the in fighting which every race aside from maybe tau has as well.
-Necrons
-Daemons
One (Daemons) because they can't be killed and powerful individuals can just destroy Imperial battleships (Cherubael, Rau Keres, Ghargatuloth)
The other (Necrons) because of their insane toughness and firepower.
Sidstyler wrote:Anyway, this thread is kinda dumb because everyone's just going to post "Well my army, duh! My codex says right here my army is the best ever!" and copy/paste all the bullgak fluffwank GW put in every book to sell you on that army as "proof". And you can do that for literally every army, so...
Pretty much this.
Though I'd say that GW actually has a fairly balanced portrayal if you compare all the studio sources. It's the Black Library novels where things get really iffy.
Eldar or Necrons, both follow the same ideals that make them the strongest. They only fight where they win, if there is a battle they won't win, the battle won't happen.
A realistic battle between the Imperium and Eldar, the Imperium would have 500pts and the Eldar would have 1250 and first turn. If the Imperium survive past turn 3, you get 4000pts of reinforcements
jhe90 wrote: Space marines, in one book one was sent to deal with a dark eldar incursion from a crashed ship.
One.
I couldn't finish that book it was so bad. Abnett's portrayal of Space Marines in that book was so over the top and absurd I just couldn't finish reading it.
Not to mention multiple direct contradictions of Astartes lore and common military sense (e.g. you don't just send one guy, they operate as a cohesive unit, one guy, no matter how powerful, is too vulnerable to variable events and can't be everywhere or see everything at once).
Daemons worse enemy is… reality. Though not exactly the most scheming of foes, it still looks like something damn hard to beat into submission, and harder even to destroy.
Either Space Marines or Chaos Daemons. Chaos Daemons have feats for blowing up a star on accident. Space Marine Librarians can get so powerful they make some of the X-Men in Marvel feel inadequate.
Tyranids actually would probably be the worst army, as unless they were able to bring nigh infinite models, they only win because of numbers. Necrons and Chaos would be the only thing giving fluffy space marines a run for their money, and they'd still probably die to them.
It depends on one thing - which lore you are using.
According to SM lore - a 10-man Tac squad is nigh unbeatable (just don't send them into a Space Hulk infested with Genestealers).
According to IG lore - a small group of regular men are nigh unbeatable, they just need an awesome special character to lead them.
According to Ork lore - Orks never lose. Either they win, they die in battle (which doesn't count) or they run away so they come back for anuver go.
jhe90 wrote: Space marines, in one book one was sent to deal with a dark eldar incursion from a crashed ship.
One.
I couldn't finish that book it was so bad. Abnett's portrayal of Space Marines in that book was so over the top and absurd I just couldn't finish reading it.
Not to mention multiple direct contradictions of Astartes lore and common military sense (e.g. you don't just send one guy, they operate as a cohesive unit, one guy, no matter how powerful, is too vulnerable to variable events and can't be everywhere or see everything at once).
The Officio Assassinorum finds your lack of faith in the actions of one man disturbing.
jhe90 wrote: Space marines, in one book one was sent to deal with a dark eldar incursion from a crashed ship.
One.
I couldn't finish that book it was so bad. Abnett's portrayal of Space Marines in that book was so over the top and absurd I just couldn't finish reading it.
Not to mention multiple direct contradictions of Astartes lore and common military sense (e.g. you don't just send one guy, they operate as a cohesive unit, one guy, no matter how powerful, is too vulnerable to variable events and can't be everywhere or see everything at once).
The Officio Assassinorum finds your lack of faith in the actions of one man disturbing.
To be fair, the Assassinorum typically sends one person to deal with one target, not unknown numbers of hostile aliens with zero intel, and an Assassin is a much different being and an order of magnitude scarier than a single Space Marine.
According to lore? I would place my bets with Eldar. They are often dumbed down in stories by authors that either do not understand them or who want them to be fightable, but in reality they would be the nightmare of nightmares on the battlefield. They flow like water and they almost -always- know your every plan.
Barring Eldar I would give Necrons or Daemons my vote. A tough choice between the two all around (at least for me).
Nightwolf829 wrote: According to lore? I would place my bets with Eldar. They are often dumbed down in stories by authors that either do not understand them or who want them to be fightable, but in reality they would be the nightmare of nightmares on the battlefield. They flow like water and they almost -always- know your every plan.
Only if they've got divining psykers with them. Not all Eldar forces do, and they've been shown to have been wrong before (or only see visions of possible futures and the like). It's also one thing to know an opponents plan, it's another to have the means to properly counter it, and to trust than an opponent is unable to adapt or improvise.
DontEatRawHagis wrote: Orks can never be truly cleansed from a world. Short of exterminatus, ork spores are the most resilient life form in the Galaxy.
And no matter what Ork spores spread. When they fight, when they die.
1.) Tyranids/Necrons (tie)
2.) Chaos Undivided
3.) Eldar
4.) Imperial Guard
5.) Adeptus Astartes
This is about which of the factions are the straight-up strongest in a battle. The Tyranids/Necrons are tied because both have large numbers (practically infinite on the Nids), Necrons have the best tech in the Universe (tied with Eldar), and both are very tough and Tyranids have the ultimate war strategy (Hive Mind). Chaos Undivided second, because they are incredibly strong, large numbers, very tough, and have great divination, but the Necrons beat them by default, Tyranids win because infinity Nids. Eldar are third because they always know their enemies' battle plans before the battle and have fantastic, elite warriors, and the best tech in the galaxy (which makes up for their lack of numbers). Orks, because Orks have the toughness and strength and of the Astartes alongside the numbers of the Imperial Guard (though they have horrible training, very little skill, and primitive technology. Adeptus Astartes have very small numbers, which immediately put them at the bottom, but they are elitist warriors with great equipment, amazing training, and the best genes mankind can acquire.
jhe90 wrote: Space marines, in one book one was sent to deal with a dark eldar incursion from a crashed ship.
One.
Called it.
Much fluffwank. So impress. Amaze. Very badass. Wow.
Seriously, this is utter tripe, a fething 12-year-old could come up with gak like this in their sleep without even having to marathon the new Modern Generic FPS beforehand.
thing is on table top we're supposed to have points to address this. man for man a space marine is better then Imperial guard, and thus a SM is more points.
I think it's worth noting that the issues with the IoM and the Eldar the OP noted are two VERY VERY differnt things.
the wave serpant is trashed because it performs perhaps too well for it's point cost. (I guess, locally not many people play eldar and those who do don't spam the things)
meanwhile the IoM shinannagens is simply the IoM being able to deploy together, well there may be some rules that perhaps interact in ways they shouldn't but by and large I think most people accept the IDEA of IG with SM allies
1.) Tyranids/Necrons (tie)
2.) Chaos Undivided
3.) Eldar
4.) Imperial Guard
5.) Adeptus Astartes
This is about which of the factions are the straight-up strongest in a battle. The Tyranids/Necrons are tied because both have large numbers (practically infinite on the Nids), Necrons have the best tech in the Universe (tied with Eldar), and both are very tough and Tyranids have the ultimate war strategy (Hive Mind). Chaos Undivided second, because they are incredibly strong, large numbers, very tough, and have great divination, but the Necrons beat them by default, Tyranids win because infinity Nids. Eldar are third because they always know their enemies' battle plans before the battle and have fantastic, elite warriors, and the best tech in the galaxy (which makes up for their lack of numbers). Orks, because Orks have the toughness and strength and of the Astartes alongside the numbers of the Imperial Guard (though they have horrible training, very little skill, and primitive technology. Adeptus Astartes have very small numbers, which immediately put them at the bottom, but they are elitist warriors with great equipment, amazing training, and the best genes mankind can acquire.
While I'd love this if this was true, but Loyalist Astartes curbstomp the enemy virtually all the time because GW loves them as they make the most money. And let's not even get started on the Legion of the Damned, they're just broken.
DontEatRawHagis wrote: Orks can never be truly cleansed from a world. Short of exterminatus, ork spores are the most resilient life form in the Galaxy.
And no matter what Ork spores spread. When they fight, when they die.
They can be purged with fire, its mentionned twice in the Cain novels.
I refuse to accept Tau being on the bottom of the list. As far as "force concentration" goes they should definitely be above Space Marines at least, as there are a lot more Tau in the universe than there are Space Marines. Billions of Tau compared to maybe, what, a million Space Marines? Assuming that all of the 1,000 chapters are at full strength, anyway, which is kind of a stretch.
But no, never mind, I'm an idiot, because one Space Marine can kill like a billion other soldiers all by himself. Triple that number if he's a rookie Ultramarine.
Sidstyler wrote: I refuse to accept Tau being on the bottom of the list. As far as "force concentration" goes they should definitely be above Space Marines at least, as there are a lot more Tau in the universe than there are Space Marines. Billions of Tau compared to maybe, what, a million Space Marines? Assuming that all of the 1,000 chapters are at full strength, anyway, which is kind of a stretch.
But no, never mind, I'm an idiot, because one Space Marine can kill like a billion other soldiers all by himself. Triple that number if he's a rookie Ultramarine.
there are but how many Tau are UNDER ARMS?
Sides Space Marines may number fewer but given their warp travel technology they can cover a wider area then the Tau.
jhe90 wrote: Space marines, in one book one was sent to deal with a dark eldar incursion from a crashed ship.
One.
Called it.
Much fluffwank. So impress. Amaze. Very badass. Wow.
Seriously, this is utter tripe, a fething 12-year-old could come up with gak like this in their sleep without even having to marathon the new Modern Generic FPS beforehand.
1.) Tyranids/Necrons (tie)
2.) Chaos Undivided
3.) Eldar
4.) Imperial Guard
5.) Adeptus Astartes
This is about which of the factions are the straight-up strongest in a battle. The Tyranids/Necrons are tied because both have large numbers (practically infinite on the Nids), Necrons have the best tech in the Universe (tied with Eldar), and both are very tough and Tyranids have the ultimate war strategy (Hive Mind). Chaos Undivided second, because they are incredibly strong, large numbers, very tough, and have great divination, but the Necrons beat them by default, Tyranids win because infinity Nids. Eldar are third because they always know their enemies' battle plans before the battle and have fantastic, elite warriors, and the best tech in the galaxy (which makes up for their lack of numbers). Orks, because Orks have the toughness and strength and of the Astartes alongside the numbers of the Imperial Guard (though they have horrible training, very little skill, and primitive technology. Adeptus Astartes have very small numbers, which immediately put them at the bottom, but they are elitist warriors with great equipment, amazing training, and the best genes mankind can acquire.
While I'd love this if this was true, but Loyalist Astartes curbstomp the enemy virtually all the time because GW loves them as they make the most money. And let's not even get started on the Legion of the Damned, they're just broken.
I wrote what would seem most realistic. GW might make Loyalist Astartes like Primarchs in the gakky Black Library books, but realistically, they are just ten times stronger than humans, who are among the weakest races (physiologically) and thus an Astartes warrior is just an Ork with tan skin, better discipline, better tech, and better organization. Now that I think about it, Tau should be tied with IG on there, because they have the second best tech in the galaxy, and (realistically) they have the numbers that they would be able to actually make that technology count. Plus, they are far more dedicated than most humans are.
1.) Necron
2.) Imperial Guard
3.) Eldar
3.) The Forces of Chaos as a whole
4.) Tyranids
4.) Orks
5.) Space Marine
5.) Dark Eldar
6.) Tau
...aaaand that covers it.
A few issues with this.
1.) Tyranids threaten to consume the galaxy with just 2 Hive Fleets with (potentially) dozens or hundreds of Hive Fleets on the way
2.) Orks are nowhere near up to par with Space Marines, due to better tech, training, discipline, etc.
3.)Chaos as a whole is almost undefeatable. The only reason that Chaos has yet to conquer the Galaxy is because of in-fighting
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gunzhard wrote: I always thought it was Space Marines, then Tyranids...
Astartes can't deal with the 'Nids in a realistic battle.
Every army should be the strongest...in their particular combat style.
For example:
DE should be the strongest in hit and run attacks.
Orks should be strongest in all-out assault blitzes.
AM/IG should be strongest in static artillery gunlines.
Tyranids should be strongest in straight-up horde invasions.
Marines should be strongest with tactical insertion attacks.
So on and so forth. Each army should have a very specific focus that they are simply better at than everybody else.
Problems arise when a single army exceeds many others in multiple styles of warfare, thus beating the specialist at their own game. The flip side of this is when the army that is supposed to be the master of a certain style of warfare actually stinks at it.
1.) Necron
2.) Imperial Guard
3.) Eldar
3.) The Forces of Chaos as a whole
4.) Tyranids
4.) Orks
5.) Space Marine
5.) Dark Eldar
6.) Tau
...aaaand that covers it.
A few issues with this.
1.) Tyranids threaten to consume the galaxy with just 2 Hive Fleets with (potentially) dozens or hundreds of Hive Fleets on the way
2.) Orks are nowhere near up to par with Space Marines, due to better tech, training, discipline, etc.
3.)Chaos as a whole is almost undefeatable. The only reason that Chaos has yet to conquer the Galaxy is because of in-fighting
My reasoning is as follows
1.) Yes they did, however, they are currently stuck in a constant fight with a wide array of opponents. Also the dozens or hundreds of Hive fleets haven't manifested yet so... they don't matter.
2.) Orks have a pretty godly amount of feats dating even to the DAoT, If they ever reach that critical mass, which it has been hinting it is close to, not even a Million Space Marines could stop them
3.) Chaos is doing exactly what you are saying, in-fighting, so they crippled currently.
"potential" hive fleets does not count, any unknown factor can be nullified by an equal or greater unknown factor-you can only work with KNOWN factors.
And by known factors-necrons, by far. even nids got nothing on them.
They got a machine that can supernova any sun on demand, remotely (without moving the machine) by the simple act of touching it on a holographic map.
They consider it a high scale "gardening tool", not even a weapon.
The weapons they used in their war against the C'tan are so absurd its not even funny, one of them for example is a RETROACTIVE weapon, meaning that once you fire it, the next thing you are aware of is seeing the results of what appears to be that weapon's effect, but you don't even remember ever giving the order to shoot it, because the target never existed. these things brake the laws of space and time, and I don't mean like the warp in getting around them-they just shatter reality on a press of a button and rework the very laws of physics.
C'tan are equal to chaos gods, there were more of them-and the necrons broke them to pieces and enslaved them. by fluff they are so overpowered its no longer amusing, and if at any point they made a collective decision to wipe out everyone else in the most efficient way and without avoiding "distasteful" actions-they could wipe out all the "low edge" players within a few days. (IoM, tau, eldar, orks, non-deamon chaos, any minor race) entirely and massively cripple the "high edge" players (nids and deamons)
Afterwards you'll only ave cleanup duty on the remaining nids, and to finish building the warp seals to lock out the deamons who will eventually recover.
Just to make you realize the absurd gap between tabletop and fluff, if fluff if you somehow managed to destroy a doomsday arc (somehow), the explosion is probably taking out the entire planet with it.
bibotot wrote: This is tantamount to asking, which faction is the strongest, Terran, Zerg, Protoss or Xel'Naga.
The best answer would be NO ONE! Everyone has equal strength and weaknesses and all will win and lose at some point.
Does that answer your question?
Except there's several factions, namely Chaos, Necorns, and Nids, that would ROFLSTOMP everyone if the author wasn't holding back. Chaos especially considering their endgame is consuming the universe.
Would say choas because what ever they do in 40k reality is but a game they exist and control warp they control universes beyond the dimension on 40k real space infinite time infinite resources.
Then for tech its necrons by far
Dark eldar
Eldar
And then the rest by a distant margins
But would be orks just by sheer number and ability to adapt to environments and advance tech and just the love of war they have won already the dark millennium is there heaven no other race has adapted and thrived as much.
Tyranid can't be first because they are far to ponderous slow travel.
Tau have no chance havent got the numbers and there drive systems are inadequate for a large empire.
Imperium is lost already new tech is worse than there old tech and there empire is stifled.
Second place goes to Orkz. Their front-line soldiers are nearly endless brutes that spread as spores, and can be nigh-impossible to cleanse.
Eldar are first because their front line troops are Orkz.
On a more serious note, Eldar aren't that high on the list for open warfare. All their successes don't involve them fighting. If they take the field, they've already lost. The battle just determines how badly they lost.
Their technology does dwarf mankind (DaoT mankind was an 8, Eldar dialed it up to 11, but Necrons are hanging out around an easy 15). But their numbers are tiny, compared to most other forces. Eldar are in decline.
Numbers mean the winner is gonna be Necrons, Nids, Orkz, or IoM.
IoM is hamstrung by its bureocracy.
Orkz might be a match for Nids, but I think Necrons would beat them both.
Tyranid numbers are all but meaningless if they aren't engaged on the ground, and the Necrons would utterly crush the buggers in space. Same goes for Orks.
Chaos gets the Great Warding treatment.
The rest of 40k are too insignificant to matter.
bibotot wrote: This is tantamount to asking, which faction is the strongest, Terran, Zerg, Protoss or Xel'Naga.
The best answer would be NO ONE! Everyone has equal strength and weaknesses and all will win and lose at some point.
Does that answer your question?
Uh... dude, the Xel'naga curbstomp the lesser races.
Tyranid numbers are all but meaningless if they aren't engaged on the ground, and the Necrons would utterly crush the buggers in space. Same goes for Orks.
Chaos gets the Great Warding treatment.
The rest of 40k are too insignificant to matter.
bibotot wrote: This is tantamount to asking, which faction is the strongest, Terran, Zerg, Protoss or Xel'Naga.
The best answer would be NO ONE! Everyone has equal strength and weaknesses and all will win and lose at some point.
Does that answer your question?
Uh... dude, the Xel'naga curbstomp the lesser races.
Except the Necrons die instantly if the Emperor kicks it. Necrons can't dethrone him without killing themselves in the process, and by wiping out humanity they would probably just cause the Emperor to commit effectual suicide as a big middle finger to the Silent King for killing his species.
Quickjager wrote: ...what the hell alternate fanfic timeline did this info come from.
Am I the only person who even pays attention to the fluff? It's been in the BRB for years. The Chaos Gods are eldritch abominations straight from Lovecraft that retconned the timeline into always existing and have virtually infinite armies of smaller eldritch abominations that can even blow up stars. If they weren't horrendously powerful, then somebody's not doing their job right in the eldritch horror department. Generally if any setting includes horrific abominations from beyond the wall of sleep, they're almost always the top dogs. Only thing in 40k capable of going toe to toe with them is the GEOM. Who's turning into an eldritch abomination of his own and fighting them with his own lesser eldritch abomination minions.
Quickjager wrote: Necrons can make more pylons like they did on Cadia that make the warp null and void.
Once it is sealed there is nothing left to fear. Especially if everyone who feeds the Chaos Gods are dead.
The Chaos Gods are already sustained by what's in the warp, not to mention it's likely the warp is connected to other universes and the Chaos Gods either already are, or can just drift over and feast upon those. Not to mention the pylons again, are unlikely to do anything as they are only suggested means of blocking off the Eye of Terror. Chaos can still rip open holes to the materium across the galaxy, probably even the universe- you'd need to practically fill the universe with pylons, something the Necrons quite simply lack the logistical capability to do.
And again, if the GEOM's body is destroyed or he commits suicide upon the death of his race by the 'Crons, then there's nothing holding back Chaos and the universe is consumed by the immaterium. Thus causing the Necrons to immediately die due to lacking protection from the warp or being the playthings of the Chaos Gods. The only prayer the universe has (besides the eternal war continuing, as Chaos seems to have set the events up of the Horus Heresy to create a conflict that would last forever, not to mention that Konrad Curze, probably the greatest seer in 40k, saw unending eternal war) is the Eldar, Humanity, and Necrons teaming up together to fight off the warp or attempt to control it with Ynnead and the Emperor.
Plus I doubt the Chaos Gods could even be killed considering it's quite likely they possess time travel, and they already have altered the universe so after their date of birth, they retconned themselves into having always existing. Schrodinger states of existence for everyone!
So then... what you are saying is that all the theories and prophecies that the races all came up with over 10k years about the warp actually being beatable is BS?
We got a couple things confirmed.
Chaos needs living things to feed off of.
Chaos God Nurgle wants to commit suicide by killing every living thing, believing he will come back as soon as something to live off exists.
That living thing must have emotions.
So we know Chaos can be defeated by a non-living race that doesn't feel emotions.
Quickjager wrote: So then... what you are saying is that all the theories and prophecies that the races all came up with over 10k years about the warp actually being beatable is BS?
We got a couple things confirmed.
Chaos needs living things to feed off of. Chaos God Nurgle wants to commit suicide by killing every living thing, believing he will come back as soon as something to live off exists. That living thing must have emotions.
So we know Chaos can be defeated by a non-living race that doesn't feel emotions.
I wonder where we can get one of those.
Except there's enough people in the warp to sustain them. Chaos devouring the universe doesn't kill everyone, it just turns the universe into the eye of terror and everyone gets to be a daemon's pet.
And again, Necrons can't win. It's physically impossible as the only thing that's keeping everyone alive is the GEOM. If he kicks it then everyone immediately dies or is enslaved for eternity and the warp consumes realspace. Have you truly bare so little attention to the fluff that you didn't know this?
In the numbers you are likely to see on the battlefield, SM, CSM and Eldar are on top. Then Necrons, then Tyranids, then DEldar, then Tau, then IG.
Seriously, in the numbers you can field on the battlefield, IG don't stand a chance against the other factions. Marines are few but in the tiny battle scale of the tabletop they're damn near unstoppable. Eldar aspect warriors are about as good but rely on evasion instead of resilience for survival, which makes them better at tanking slow stuff like Carnifex but worse at tanking fast stuff like smaller tyranids.
I would reject the initial hypothesis of this thread, in that there must be a critical imbalance.
Some things can be powerful and scary, others less impressive and weak, some may have incredible abilities, and others may simply be huge. We have points costs and (well, used to) have FoC restrictions to account for these things so that, in theory, both armies in any given game *should* be at least relatively balanced against each other. Poor balancing of that aspect aside, given such tools, there's no reason certain factions *should* just be better on a table.
Additionally, if you're looking at fluff, most 40k games aren't great indicators of how these forces actually fight. For instance, Dark Eldar aren't going to frontally attack a mechanized Imperial Guard formation, that would be suicide and they'd know it, they'd attack from flanks while the column was en-route (if they had the means and information) or bypass it entirely and try and lead it on a wild goose chase while most of the Raiders went about doing their thing, yet the game basically forces the frontal attack scenario. Likewise, the circumstances under which an Eldar Farseer is going to directly attack an Ork horde in close quarters battle will be exceptionally rare indeed. Likewise, the Imperial Guard aren't going to have their self propelled artillery sitting there on the front line, they're going to be miles behind in large batteries raining shells on anything and everything that any guard unit with a Vox can relay coordinates for before they can get to ranges where bolters or splinter weapons are relevant, most of the time anything facing an IG force would be under constant artillery fire.
Trying to judge what armies should be supreme based on their larger strategic traits is somewhat silly as a result.
SGTPozy wrote: Many people don't like how powerful Eldar are, yet they're okay with IoM shenanigans, so which army/armies should be more powerful than others?
(Don't say that all armies should be balanced as they shouldn't. Certain armies should have an advantage/disadvantage against other armies)
I like the Eldar being the most powerful faction is ok per lore. That doesn't mean that per battle they should win more often, though, because it is after all a game. If this were like Babylon 5 where the humans had no chance against the Mimbari (couldn't even hit them), it would be a boring war game
The balance, of course is between larger numbers of less powerful units versus more scarce powerful units.
And yeah, this makes little sense in fluff, as the galaxy should be like a microcosm of our world, where a dominant species essentially, eventually, subjugate and controls inhabitable worlds, and over time widens the gap.
Then again, 40,000 years isn't even a drop in the bucket in a cosmic scope of time.
Ashiraya wrote: In the numbers you are likely to see on the battlefield, SM, CSM and Eldar are on top. Then Necrons, then Tyranids, then DEldar, then Tau, then IG.
12 guardsmen or so can take out 5 CSM, so long that they have some scrubs playing the diversion, fairly sure the IG can mass more numbers than that.
Tyranid numbers are all but meaningless if they aren't engaged on the ground, and the Necrons would utterly crush the buggers in space. Same goes for Orks.
Chaos gets the Great Warding treatment.
The rest of 40k are too insignificant to matter.
bibotot wrote: This is tantamount to asking, which faction is the strongest, Terran, Zerg, Protoss or Xel'Naga.
The best answer would be NO ONE! Everyone has equal strength and weaknesses and all will win and lose at some point.
Does that answer your question?
Uh... dude, the Xel'naga curbstomp the lesser races.
Except the Necrons die instantly if the Emperor kicks it. Necrons can't dethrone him without killing themselves in the process, and by wiping out humanity they would probably just cause the Emperor to commit effectual suicide as a big middle finger to the Silent King for killing his species.
Yea, the entire SC2 plot of the whole massive war thing is going to end wth all three races united bearly winnig,
And they are fighitng angainst a SINGLE xel'naga who got banished, safe to assume he does not represent even a shard of the power of the actual race.
And what makes you think the emperor has got anything against the necrons? he is powerful and all-but he was no C'tan-these just could literally alter the rules of the universe, and they necrons beaten multiple of them at once.
Ashiraya wrote:In the numbers you are likely to see on the battlefield, SM, CSM and Eldar are on top. Then Necrons, then Tyranids, then DEldar, then Tau, then IG.
Seriously, in the numbers you can field on the battlefield, IG don't stand a chance against the other factions. Marines are few but in the tiny battle scale of the tabletop they're damn near unstoppable. Eldar aspect warriors are about as good but rely on evasion instead of resilience for survival, which makes them better at tanking slow stuff like Carnifex but worse at tanking fast stuff like smaller tyranids.
Necrons don't have the numbers to field? they got millions of tomb planets, each containing billions of necrons. EACH a soldier of a higher scale than a space marines.
The overlords, who there are probably tens of thousands of are near the power of a primarch judging by their power demonstrations that include anniallating an entire terminator team instantly.
You guys should really read again the necron codex, and preferably IA12 too.
They are written as so overpowered its not even an amusing read any more, there is literally no competition other than the necrons not using even a fraction of their power becase the IoM has a plot shield.
The got the technology, and got the resources to wipe out everyone with ease. even if the emperor awakens and joins forces with all primearchs, includign the "erased" two, the demon ones and reviving the dead-they will get crushed, by a single dynasty.
Eldar would beat most if it were equal numbers (100 vs 100), provided its Aspect Warriors and such vs Battle Brothers and such. Or equal naval assets (cruisers v cruisers, battleships vs battleships).
In the first, they'd probably be second to Grey Knights. In the second, they'd only be second to Necron naval technology.
Unfortunately for the Eldar, they probably have as many Eldar as the IOM has Marines. And most factions can drown them in bodies without noticing the cost.
Tyranid numbers are all but meaningless if they aren't engaged on the ground, and the Necrons would utterly crush the buggers in space. Same goes for Orks.
Chaos gets the Great Warding treatment.
The rest of 40k are too insignificant to matter.
bibotot wrote: This is tantamount to asking, which faction is the strongest, Terran, Zerg, Protoss or Xel'Naga.
The best answer would be NO ONE! Everyone has equal strength and weaknesses and all will win and lose at some point.
Does that answer your question?
Uh... dude, the Xel'naga curbstomp the lesser races.
Except the Necrons die instantly if the Emperor kicks it. Necrons can't dethrone him without killing themselves in the process, and by wiping out humanity they would probably just cause the Emperor to commit effectual suicide as a big middle finger to the Silent King for killing his species.
Yea, the entire SC2 plot of the whole massive war thing is going to end wth all three races united bearly winnig,
And they are fighitng angainst a SINGLE xel'naga who got banished, safe to assume he does not represent even a shard of the power of the actual race.
And what makes you think the emperor has got anything against the necrons? he is powerful and all-but he was no C'tan-these just could literally alter the rules of the universe, and they necrons beaten multiple of them at once.
Ashiraya wrote:In the numbers you are likely to see on the battlefield, SM, CSM and Eldar are on top. Then Necrons, then Tyranids, then DEldar, then Tau, then IG.
Seriously, in the numbers you can field on the battlefield, IG don't stand a chance against the other factions. Marines are few but in the tiny battle scale of the tabletop they're damn near unstoppable. Eldar aspect warriors are about as good but rely on evasion instead of resilience for survival, which makes them better at tanking slow stuff like Carnifex but worse at tanking fast stuff like smaller tyranids.
Necrons don't have the numbers to field? they got millions of tomb planets, each containing billions of necrons. EACH a soldier of a higher scale than a space marines.
The overlords, who there are probably tens of thousands of are near the power of a primarch judging by their power demonstrations that include anniallating an entire terminator team instantly.
You guys should really read again the necron codex, and preferably IA12 too.
They are written as so overpowered its not even an amusing read any more, there is literally no competition other than the necrons not using even a fraction of their power becase the IoM has a plot shield.
The got the technology, and got the resources to wipe out everyone with ease. even if the emperor awakens and joins forces with all primearchs, includign the "erased" two, the demon ones and reviving the dead-they will get crushed, by a single dynasty.
The Emperor defeated the Void Dragon. A C'tan. Not a shard. A whole C'tan. So.... yeah.
Ashiraya wrote: In the numbers you are likely to see on the battlefield, SM, CSM and Eldar are on top. Then Necrons, then Tyranids, then DEldar, then Tau, then IG.
12 guardsmen or so can take out 5 CSM, so long that they have some scrubs playing the diversion, fairly sure the IG can mass more numbers than that.
Lol, and people complain on Brothers of the Snake?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Fwiw, I think all armies should be balanced in the actual game. It is after all an 'arcade' game that is not representative of the actual lore.
Mark1130 wrote: Necrons / Tyranids. Hard to say witch one is stronger. Tyranids cant absorb Necrons. Both races entire forces haven't arrived yet. I think if the Tyranid entire race was in 40k galaxy, it would take every race and I mean EVERY race to come together to even put up a resistance. Even then, they would lose.
This. The Tyranids devour planets brah. And Necrons have near limitless numbers of regenerating undead Robots, and some of the most advanced and bizarre technology in the galaxy. Suck on that, Imperium.
For now, until the Ward cleansing is complete. having billions of unstoppable necrons is why Wards fluff was so atrocious.
Yeah, because the guardsmen used hotshot weapons, relic power sword, demo charge, point blank bolters and a lot of a shot to an exposed head to kill the marine, it makes sense, its not like they go in with lasgun and fry e'm all.
Bobthehero wrote: Yeah, because the guardsmen used hotshot weapons, relic power sword, demo charge, point blank bolters and a lot of a shot to an exposed head to kill the marine, it makes sense, its not like they go in with lasgun and fry e'm all.
No, it doesn't make sense because the Guardsmen would be lying dead on the ground before they could pull off that strategy. I think you underestimate just how fast they really are.
Sneaking up won't help when the Lyman's Ear can hear your heartbeats.
Yeah, see, its that kind of bullgak that keeps me away from SM books, its so utterly ridiculous. The SM were busy shooting at people, they got ambushed, they ded, gak happens.
Bobthehero wrote: Yeah, because the guardsmen used hotshot weapons, relic power sword, demo charge, point blank bolters and a lot of a shot to an exposed head to kill the marine, it makes sense, its not like they go in with lasgun and fry e'm all.
No, it doesn't make sense because the Guardsmen would be lying dead on the ground before they could pull off that strategy. I think you underestimate just how fast they really are.
Sneaking up won't help when the Lyman's Ear can hear your heartbeats.
This also assumes that there isn't gunfire, explosions, engines running, commands and conversations, that they're not wearing helmets, vox static, etc or any number of other things that may be distracting them. And if their hearing is really that sensitive, then rustling leaves are going to sound like a thunderstorm, their squadmates heartbeats, the servos of their armor, etc are all going to be major issues. The sonic noise would be mind-numbing.
I'm all for Space Marines being incredible, but that suspension of disbelief starts to break down real quick when stuff like this gets involved.
Bobthehero wrote: Yeah, because the guardsmen used hotshot weapons, relic power sword, demo charge, point blank bolters and a lot of a shot to an exposed head to kill the marine, it makes sense, its not like they go in with lasgun and fry e'm all.
No, it doesn't make sense because the Guardsmen would be lying dead on the ground before they could pull off that strategy. I think you underestimate just how fast they really are.
Sneaking up won't help when the Lyman's Ear can hear your heartbeats.
This also assumes that there isn't gunfire, explosions, engines running, commands and conversations, that they're not wearing helmets, vox static, etc or any number of other things that may be distracting them. And if their hearing is really that sensitive, then rustling leaves are going to sound like a thunderstorm, their squadmates heartbeats, the servos of their armor, etc are all going to be major issues. The sonic noise would be mind-numbing.
I'm all for Space Marines being incredible, but that suspension of disbelief starts to break down real quick when stuff like this gets involved.
...Do you have any idea of how the Lyman's Ear actually works?
The Lyman's Ear, also called the Sentinel, is the 11th of the 19 genetically-engineered gene-seed organs that are implanted into a Space Marine Neophyte to produce a new Astartes. Not only does this implant's improved inner ear structure make a Space Marine immune to dizziness or motion sickness but it also allows Space Marines to consciously filter out and greatly enhance certain sounds over the capabilities of normal human hearing. The Lyman's Ear completely replaces one of a Space Marine's original ears. It is externally indistinguishable from a normal human ear in size and shape. Lyman's Ear is named after one of the scientists who worked in the Emperor's gene-laboratories on Terra in the 29th Millennium who aided in the project to produce the first Astartes using the Emperor's own genome as the starting point.
Emphasis mine.
A Marine won't have any troubles with ambient noise while he is capable of filtering out which sounds he wants to hear.
And just for extra proof:
The First Heretic page 612 wrote:She knows you lie. You hear her heartbeat, as I do. She is terrified, and she knows you are lying to her.
As for how the hell that filtering works?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's sci-fi, ask the Mechanicus.
Yeah, see, its that kind of bullgak that keeps me away from SM books, its so utterly ridiculous. The SM were busy shooting at people, they got ambushed, they ded, gak happens.
That kind of thing would be so rare as to almost never happen - they simply can't afford to be ambushed when they are so few.
Well they got ambushed, and how are they going to distinguish which heartbeat belongs to who, when there are people shooting at them right now. They don't know the Ghost are there, they have no reason to filter out sounds to look for heartbeats they never heard.
The most diverse fighting force in the Galaxy. The most varied minds, skills and equipment any force can bring to bear making them the most adaptable fighting machine.
Ranging from ill trained to elite, these men can bring death in the form of Drop Assaults, Siege armies, line Infantry, Mechanized, Tank battalions, Guerrilla Forces, Combined arms and any mix of any formation imaginable.
Terrain, enemy and weather matters not for the biggest tool box in 40k will have the right set of tools for the job.
The only flaw of the Imperial Guard is also their biggest strength. Their vast differences can often work against them. But the benefits clearly outweigh the negatives.
According to the fluff, Guardsmen are the best, for without them the Imperium would not stand and many players would not play 40k. But they win at a cost and its the very cost they pay (their lives) that make them one of the better armies in 40k.
Orks are a close contender bias aside. You cant beat someone who refuses to loose and enjoys it.
Bobthehero wrote: Yeah, because the guardsmen used hotshot weapons, relic power sword, demo charge, point blank bolters and a lot of a shot to an exposed head to kill the marine, it makes sense, its not like they go in with lasgun and fry e'm all.
No, it doesn't make sense because the Guardsmen would be lying dead on the ground before they could pull off that strategy. I think you underestimate just how fast they really are.
Sneaking up won't help when the Lyman's Ear can hear your heartbeats.
This also assumes that there isn't gunfire, explosions, engines running, commands and conversations, that they're not wearing helmets, vox static, etc or any number of other things that may be distracting them. And if their hearing is really that sensitive, then rustling leaves are going to sound like a thunderstorm, their squadmates heartbeats, the servos of their armor, etc are all going to be major issues. The sonic noise would be mind-numbing.
I'm all for Space Marines being incredible, but that suspension of disbelief starts to break down real quick when stuff like this gets involved.
...Do you have any idea of how the Lyman's Ear actually works?
The Lyman's Ear, also called the Sentinel, is the 11th of the 19 genetically-engineered gene-seed organs that are implanted into a Space Marine Neophyte to produce a new Astartes. Not only does this implant's improved inner ear structure make a Space Marine immune to dizziness or motion sickness but it also allows Space Marines to consciously filter out and greatly enhance certain sounds over the capabilities of normal human hearing. The Lyman's Ear completely replaces one of a Space Marine's original ears. It is externally indistinguishable from a normal human ear in size and shape. Lyman's Ear is named after one of the scientists who worked in the Emperor's gene-laboratories on Terra in the 29th Millennium who aided in the project to produce the first Astartes using the Emperor's own genome as the starting point.
Emphasis mine.
A Marine won't have any troubles with ambient noise while he is capable of filtering out which sounds he wants to hear.
That assumes a marine is actively listening for certain things, you'd have to be consciously aware of it in the first place. Again, if there's other things going on, it's entirely possible he won't notice it from hearing alone. IIRC it's also one of those things that not all chapters have successfully retained, along with the sus-an membrane and betchers gland, and there's all sorts of fluff where Marines encounter stuff at close ranges and never heard them coming until they burst through a wall or something.
1. Tyranids, small fractions of their race crossing the void between galaxies is decimating to large sectors of the galaxy, if several fleets arrived within even a relative close time frame they would over run the galaxy. But they explore and consume in smaller fleets, multiple small fleets entering the galaxy could happen but a large portion of their entire population would be very unlikely. As a race though they are imo the strongest.
2. Necrons would be second imo, but it would require a mass awakening and because of their infrastructure that's very unlikely, even fully awakened I kinda doubt they could hold back a largish portion of the Tyranid race. If the necrons could turn the bulk of the worlds in the galaxy into a tomb worlds maybe then, but there would still be plenty of biomass out there to keep the Fleets going. And Tyranids bring in a lot of biomass from other galaxies.
3. Imperial Guard / Navy etc. for volume and willingness to fight and die in billions regularly.
4. Space Marines / Eldar (similar reasons)
I think Space Marines are the pinnacle of martial ability in 40k, even stacked against eldar who's elite are more skilled but as a whole nobody really holds a candle to Space Marines. If it were who's stronger in 30k list, Space marines would be a toss up with nids. They crushed their way across the galaxy with very little real opposition. Post heresy with such massive restrictions on their numbers and the lack of upper leadership to coordinate their efforts on a large scale bumps them down the list quite a bit. Pre-heresy Space Marine legions would have been a match for Tyranids / Necrons.
Similar for Eldar, very skilled, especially the aspects but those are pretty rare. But as whole they are a fractured and in decline race. They've never been able to effectively oppose the imperium and they just keep getting weaker. They try to push events in a better direction but in general stay out of the way or join the huge list of alien races exterminated by the Imperium. In 40k, very skilled and advanced, but most of their time is spent dodging bullets. Even the bulk of their offensive actions are forseen disaster prevention.
5. Chaos - Really they should be higher, they have space marines in large numbers and in a lot of cases improved ones, lots of fanatical followers, support from the immaterium. But they seem to be the galaxies whipping boy. Everyone always stops them, as strong as they should be they never gain ground maybe it's all the infighting, or the demons who empower them in fact just want to get a few followers and watch them fail repeatedly, not take over everything like they claim. Who knows. Would love to see some story where chaos actually gains some traction instead of huddling in the eye of terror sending out sporadic warbands to sort of cause problems and any major effort is always stopped dead. Someone should have killed and replaced Abaddon by now. To fail so much with all they have going for them.
6. Orks are like the most frustrating enemy for the xenos hating humans, they aren't really all that powerful, their greatest trait isn't that they can put up a serious fight against any of the major races it's their resistance to being exterminated. Every time they wipe out an incursion 3 more pop up, waaghs can grow into a real threat but generally they can be put down pretty easily, problem being they always just come right back.
7. Dark Eldar - I kinda feel like they don't really try compete. They are just happy raiding and having hobbies like arena dueling, refining the arts torture and flesh experimentation. Webway mastery keeps them fairly safe to pursue their leisure activities. Their low rank on my list isn't to do with capability.
8. Tau - I actually don't really like the lore for them, a warpstorm allowed them to grow just big enough that it would take some work to wipe them out, but any of the other playable races could, with a little effort, remove them from the galaxy. The only reason nobody has bothered to is because the models sell so well. Would have preferred it if their back story made them more relevant. I think Tau are great and fun in the game, I don't get why the imperium allows them to still exist in the lore though when they do a great job of exterminating every upstart xenos race they come across normally.
"But Fishmen don't exist!" I hear you cry, but would not the reason we haven't heard of their existence be because they have yet to make a single mistake?
Believe me, when the time comes, the Fishmen will come.
Tyranids seem to have the best manufacturing capability? They should probably be the strongest, since they can just pump out whatever units they want and have some massive fleets ready for that purpose.
I mean, according to the lore, most other factions have issues with the rarity of their soldiers and equipment. If we had to start rolling for the availability of plasma weaponry or whatever other rare thing, I can see a lot of armies becoming weaker. Here we go, gotta roll a hard six to see if a Space Marine company is even available for this mission, or else forfeit!
As for raw power, eh... the Officio Assassinorum, I guess? I think the lore has them as the top dogs when it comes to quality gear and training.
Ok, a few things here. One, Necrons are rediculously OP in Matt Ward's depiction because he is a biased, horrible writer. I mean, seriously. GW really needs to bring in some good writers, people like Stirling, Card, etc.
Secondly, the Emperor is far more powerful than a C'tan. He imprisoned a C'tan without even having to try as hard as he did when fighting that one gargantuan ork that was able to almost kill him. The C'tan were originally only about as powerful as a very minor Chaos God, and didn't become as powerful as one of the big 4 until after they fed on eachother and heavily reduced their numbers, and one of these C'tan that was as powerful as a Chaos God was defeated single-handedly by the big E. So think about that.
Also, as far as Marine's senses go, most marines would just (realistically) tune everything out in the middle of a large-scale firefight. There would be dozens or hundreds of hearts pounding, dozens or hundreds of guns blazing, etc. The Marines would risk going deaf. The only Marines that I can think of that would be able to track a human heartbeat during a battle would be Space Wolf (who's senses are already stronger than ordinary Astartes) Wolf Scouts.
Also, a 12-man veteran squad with a bunch of non-standard and high-powered equipment that isn't given to your average IG soldier is CLEARLY not an accurate depiction of the IG as a whole.
@Epitath. I agree with you completely on 90% of your points, especially on the T'au part. I wish they had at least given the T'au ordinary FTL travel and made it so that they had a decent-sized chunk of the Galactic South-west so that it would be excusable for the IoM not to exterminate them.
Tyranid numbers are all but meaningless if they aren't engaged on the ground, and the Necrons would utterly crush the buggers in space. Same goes for Orks.
Chaos gets the Great Warding treatment.
The rest of 40k are too insignificant to matter.
bibotot wrote: This is tantamount to asking, which faction is the strongest, Terran, Zerg, Protoss or Xel'Naga.
The best answer would be NO ONE! Everyone has equal strength and weaknesses and all will win and lose at some point.
Does that answer your question?
Uh... dude, the Xel'naga curbstomp the lesser races.
Except the Necrons die instantly if the Emperor kicks it. Necrons can't dethrone him without killing themselves in the process, and by wiping out humanity they would probably just cause the Emperor to commit effectual suicide as a big middle finger to the Silent King for killing his species.
Yea, the entire SC2 plot of the whole massive war thing is going to end wth all three races united bearly winnig,
And they are fighitng angainst a SINGLE xel'naga who got banished, safe to assume he does not represent even a shard of the power of the actual race.
And what makes you think the emperor has got anything against the necrons? he is powerful and all-but he was no C'tan-these just could literally alter the rules of the universe, and they necrons beaten multiple of them at once.
Ashiraya wrote:In the numbers you are likely to see on the battlefield, SM, CSM and Eldar are on top. Then Necrons, then Tyranids, then DEldar, then Tau, then IG.
Seriously, in the numbers you can field on the battlefield, IG don't stand a chance against the other factions. Marines are few but in the tiny battle scale of the tabletop they're damn near unstoppable. Eldar aspect warriors are about as good but rely on evasion instead of resilience for survival, which makes them better at tanking slow stuff like Carnifex but worse at tanking fast stuff like smaller tyranids.
Necrons don't have the numbers to field? they got millions of tomb planets, each containing billions of necrons. EACH a soldier of a higher scale than a space marines.
The overlords, who there are probably tens of thousands of are near the power of a primarch judging by their power demonstrations that include anniallating an entire terminator team instantly.
You guys should really read again the necron codex, and preferably IA12 too.
They are written as so overpowered its not even an amusing read any more, there is literally no competition other than the necrons not using even a fraction of their power becase the IoM has a plot shield.
The got the technology, and got the resources to wipe out everyone with ease. even if the emperor awakens and joins forces with all primearchs, includign the "erased" two, the demon ones and reviving the dead-they will get crushed, by a single dynasty.
The Emperor defeated the Void Dragon. A C'tan. Not a shard. A whole C'tan. So.... yeah.
Actually a shard, because a modern Necron army can have a Shard of the Void Dragon as one of their Pokeball tricks, if they want to pay for it. The Void Dragon was sharded millions upon millions of years before the Emperor existed.
The imperium would win, duh. cause they have a girl worth fighting for. well maybe the salamanders at least because they interact with their 'citizens' more or whatever. mostly an excuse to post this:
ALEXisAWESOME wrote: Eldar or Necrons, both follow the same ideals that make them the strongest. They only fight where they win, if there is a battle they won't win, the battle won't happen.
A realistic battle between the Imperium and Eldar, the Imperium would have 500pts and the Eldar would have 1250 and first turn. If the Imperium survive past turn 3, you get 4000pts of reinforcements
yukondal wrote: The imperium would win, duh. cause they have a girl worth fighting for. well maybe the salamanders at least because they interact with their 'citizens' more or whatever.[/youtube]
False, the Imperium win because humanity draws its strength from action montages which train inept soldiers into fearsome fighting machines all in the space of a few minutes, observe:
according to the lore, the imperium is the strongest because of plot armour. otherwise they are a mediocre faction that uses poorly designed equipment, has weak weapons. Their elite shock troops (space marines) are horribly vulnerable to attrition, and given their standard operating procedures, it would be laughably easy to just bait them into an attack, and just nuke them.
Necrons are the most technologically advanced race (scarily so!) with control over space and time (but thanks to matt ward no FL ships (seriously???) ) and scary scary weapons, not to mention they can teleport, manipulate alternate dimensions, stop time, and all that!
Eldar can predict, and manipulate the future, to such an extent thatif the imperium were to decide to attack, they would know hundreds of years in advance, and by being devious could stop the attack before it happened
Tyranids.... they eat planets, enough said
Chaos, chaos marines are just angry dudes who are annoyed they lost a war thousands of years ago, get over it already, get some counselling. chill out and watch some TV!!
Chaos daemons, more of a threat, but only because the warp is the one dimension Necrons just don't 'get' seriously, you can build a tesseract Labrynth, but another alternate dimension is beyond them, consistency, please!
Tau, full of themselves, probably more advanced than the imperium, but thats not exactly sayng much now, is it?
Orks. these guys generally struggle to agree about anything, including who to beat up. i would be suprised if they could get drunk in a brewery!
SO, the strongest army, in terms of numbers that can be brought to bear, probably the imperium.
Strongest, or most powerful (in that they can defeat said imperial army) Necrons, and Eldar could do it with about as much trouble as swatting a fly, and orks can do it, which says all you really need to know about the imperium, doesn't it?
madtankbloke wrote: according to the lore, the imperium is the strongest because of plot armour. otherwise they are a mediocre faction that uses poorly designed equipment, has weak weapons. Their elite shock troops (space marines) are horribly vulnerable to attrition, and given their standard operating procedures, it would be laughably easy to just bait them into an attack, and just nuke them.
Necrons are the most technologically advanced race (scarily so!) with control over space and time (but thanks to matt ward no FL ships (seriously???) ) and scary scary weapons, not to mention they can teleport, manipulate alternate dimensions, stop time, and all that!
Eldar can predict, and manipulate the future, to such an extent thatif the imperium were to decide to attack, they would know hundreds of years in advance, and by being devious could stop the attack before it happened
Tyranids.... they eat planets, enough said
Chaos, chaos marines are just angry dudes who are annoyed they lost a war thousands of years ago, get over it already, get some counselling. chill out and watch some TV!!
Chaos daemons, more of a threat, but only because the warp is the one dimension Necrons just don't 'get' seriously, you can build a tesseract Labrynth, but another alternate dimension is beyond them, consistency, please!
Tau, full of themselves, probably more advanced than the imperium, but thats not exactly sayng much now, is it?
Orks. these guys generally struggle to agree about anything, including who to beat up. i would be suprised if they could get drunk in a brewery!
SO, the strongest army, in terms of numbers that can be brought to bear, probably the imperium.
Strongest, or most powerful (in that they can defeat said imperial army) Necrons, and Eldar could do it with about as much trouble as swatting a fly, and orks can do it, which says all you really need to know about the imperium, doesn't it?
Imperium is strong because of numbers and elite units. Its best fighting men are horribly vulnerable to attrition yes, but they don't generally lose more than a single Astartes in an average mission (fluff-wise) and in large-scale engagements, they still suffer minimal casualties because armor and toughness. The Imperial Guard have limitless numbers of expendable infantry, which can destroy almost anything through sheer force of numbers, the Imperium also has access to DAoT artefacts like the Arks Mechanicus and the Phalanx, which are used in critical battles that can decide the fate of the Galaxy, which the Imperium uses to win those battles, because DAoT tech is just about superior to Necron tech. The most powerful is the Imperium, because they have mediocre tech, insanely zealous troops (which completely makes up for the tech deficiency) and some of the best fighters in the galaxy (space marines).
Chaos daemons, more of a threat, but only because the warp is the one dimension Necrons just don't 'get' seriously, you can build a tesseract Labrynth, but another alternate dimension is beyond them, consistency, please!
Welcome to the Warp, Crons. Your super science won't work here. The gods rewrite reality on a whim. You have a cool gadget that helps you control the flow of time? You're going to use it to freeze that daemon in place? Oops! Looks like it stuck you in an endless loop of the last two minutes for the next gazillion years instead. And you'll grow an extra head every time you repeat the loop, just cuz I feel like it. Pretty soon your body will be crushed under the bulk of your own heads. How'd I do that without ever touching your time gadget? No idea! I felt like doing it, and the Warp currents were favorable, so it happened! How was that billion years of research it took you to invent that thing?
Necrons use incredibly advanced science to manipulate the physical laws of the universe. At some point, they had to study those physical laws and understand them well enough to manipulate them. That's what technology and science are. But there are no physical laws in the Warp, just whirling emotions. There's no laws, no consistency, no rules. You just can't understand the Warp the way you can understand the physical world. And not being able to understand it means that you can't control it with technology. It makes perfect sense for Necrons to not "get" the Warp because YOU CAN'T "GET" THE WARP. It's ungetable. Stuff happens, and you either avoid it, work around it, or roll with it, but you NEVER understand HOW it happened.
Well, the Imperium is actually fairly advanced. It's just that advanced knowledge became fragmented and spread out across small bits of the Imperium. Probably the unfortunate result of never getting their webway travel set up.
They have quite a bit of looted tech, too, despite having to distrust a lot of it. Usually snatched up by the Inquisition, but there are plenty of rogue traders and planetary governors with vaults of the crap, some of it quite advanced. All of them happy to set up some special units under their command using it, seeing as how there's only war.
That's why it would take a force like Tyranids to break their backs. The smaller, advanced factions will just get randomly owned by some secret weaponry in the hands of veterans that were carefully selected from a group of millions of potentials. Even if it could be foreseen and avoided, it drastically limits what can actually be done against the Imperium.
Funny thing is that, given the stated numbers of still sleeping Tomb Worlds, if the Necrons were to somehow all awaken they'd probably outnumber the humans in the galaxy (and keep in mind that following biotransferance there aren't any Necron civilians).
Imagine a war where the Guardsmen are hopelessly outnumbered by Necron Warriors and Immortals.
Here's how I see it at the moment:
The Imperium is resisting (albeit barely) ALL of the Chaos and Xenos races in game. So as well as dealing with only Chaos Space Marines, they have Daemons, Orks, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons and Nids to deal with, including human renegades. Against any other single faction, in any fair test, the Imperium win. The only reason they aren't successful is because their might is divided and spread out. If this wasn't the case, such as in a fair test such as this (one faction's power vs another), Imperium take the crown.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Here's how I see it at the moment:
The Imperium is resisting (albeit barely) ALL of the Chaos and Xenos races in game. So as well as dealing with only Chaos Space Marines, they have Daemons, Orks, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons and Nids to deal with, including human renegades. Against any other single faction, in any fair test, the Imperium win. The only reason they aren't successful is because their might is divided and spread out. If this wasn't the case, such as in a fair test such as this (one faction's power vs another), Imperium take the crown.
The only reason the IoM is holding on is the fact its enemies are all either extremely disorganized and prone to infighting (Orks, Chaos), too small in their current scale to do any real damage on the galactic scale (Tau, Eldar, DE) or just plain aren't there yet (Tyranids, Necrons).
If the Necrons awaken in greater numbers the IoM couldn't hope to stop them, even if they opt to form numerous unaffiliated dynasty kingdoms rather than any unified front or system of alliances they'd just end up carving the Imperium up between themselves.
Likewise, if the main hive fleet arrives the Imperium is done for.
Problem is, even a crazed cron is as lethal as a space marine, and these guys comes in millions of millions.
As for the joke how space marines "don't generally lose more than a single Astartes in an average mission", that applies against orks, random rebellions and such, not against chaos marines who are equals or superior (besides plot armor), not against eldar who can out-do them, and definatly not against necrons (recorded fluff, a SINGLE necron overlord took out the entire honor guard of the minotaurs practically instantly)
Heck, even tau manage to give them a hard time and destroy whole companies of them, and tau are so horribly out-manned and out-gunned its not even funny, they just got a semi-sane mindset and some good tech guys.
BoomWolf wrote: Problem is, even a crazed cron is as lethal as a space marine, and these guys comes in millions of millions.
I don't think millions and millions would be an accurate number for most necron armies though. Necron armies would have such a variety in numbers and combat ability. Even then, millions in one army does sound too much. I would guess that all the necrons in a tomb would be split into different detachments. The question really depends on what you determine "Armies" to mean.
If we were to look at the bigger picture, and count all armies of a race, then I would say Nids, as they have vast numbers, but also a single consciousness, something that is incredibly potent and that none of the other races have.
1)Necrons - They already conquered the galaxy once
2) Nids - When your defensive strategy is to blow up your own planets to SLOW DOWN your opposing force, it's saying something. Besides based on lore these hives are scouts
3)Deamons - They can't die and are limitless a full scale incursion would be game over
4) TIE: Orks/IoM - Both can take over the galaxy if they have enough men/cohesion
5)Eldar - They're on the verge of extension and can't constructively hold out in a full blown war against any faction
6) Chaos Space marines - Can't see it happening
7) Tau - Too young and slow in travel to be any real threat against anything out there
Torga_DW wrote:The big E and his primarchs punched everything to death, including c'tan, avatars, very nearly the chaos gods, and everything inbetween.
Well, depending on the sources, fortunately.
If you are referring to the novels, that sounds like a perfectly accurate description.
If we look at GW's Index Astartes, on the other hand, we get an Emperor almost choked to death by an Ork, and Horus getting incapacitated by a mook with a plasma gun.
The good thing is, we get to pick what we like more, so everyone can be equally happy. \o/
Necrons have a "scale model" of the 40K universe in one dynastys can´t remember which ) archives. Removing a planet/star from said model causes the real counterpart to be destroyed.
So they could basically crush Terra for example with a flick of their finger. However they don´t do it due to "cosmic balance" - doesn´t make them any less powerful though. This bit of lore is in the current Codex: Necrons somewhere.
BoomWolf wrote: Problem is, even a crazed cron is as lethal as a space marine, and these guys comes in millions of millions.
I don't think millions and millions would be an accurate number for most necron armies though. Necron armies would have such a variety in numbers and combat ability. Even then, millions in one army does sound too much. I would guess that all the necrons in a tomb would be split into different detachments. The question really depends on what you determine "Armies" to mean.
If we were to look at the bigger picture, and count all armies of a race, then I would say Nids, as they have vast numbers, but also a single consciousness, something that is incredibly potent and that none of the other races have.
They have officially millions of tomb worlds, the smallest of them contain millions of necrons.
Therefor millions of millions is the LOW count, some tomb worlds count in the billions of necrons.
And given that the lowliest necron is a "warrior" class one, that's an absurdly large fighting force of absurdly good fighters. remember-they are SUPERIOR to space marines, and you only have about a million of these, and a large number of said million is on the side of chaos.
Even given that the necrons are not a single solid army, but multiple dynasties that at times even get into inner conflicts-even a minor dynsty can crush its way though other races with ease, that's pretty much the entire plot of IA12-the dynasty that is under the WORST conditions of flaying has decided to declare war on an entire sector, and they are simply toying with the IoM forces, quite literally.
Of course the Necron race is also (currently) doomed to be consumed by the Flayer virus against which they have absolutely no defence..................
The fleet of a single Necron Dynasty trivially cubstomped an Imperial fleet made up of an entire sector fleet plus everything that answered said sector's call for help over the course of an entire year (the Necrons literally gave them a full year to prepare for that battle).
The Necron fleet was outnumbered 4 to 1 and was composed of smaller ship classes yet they managed to destroy a full quarter of the Imperial fleet during their first pass, and by the time the battle was over (a few minutes later) more than 90% of the IoM fleet was destroyed while the Necrons suffered only negligible casualties.
During this battle the Minotaurs Chapter sacrificed most of its chapter fleet and a fair number of marines to get their honor guard into the bridge of the Necron's flagship. The Overlord in command shrugged off a lascannon shot, slaughtered its way through the honor guard with contemptous ease, bisected a contemptor dread that dared to try and hit him with its power fist (the dreadnaught power fist exploded when it came into contact with the Overlord's warscythe btw), tanked a cheap shot to the back delivered by the Minotaur's chapter master wielding a relic power spear and then proceeded to stomp all over said chapter master in single combat, destroying his relic storm shield before circumstances forced them to disengage.
Galorian wrote: The fleet of a single Necron Dynasty trivially cubstomped an Imperial fleet made up of an entire sector fleet plus everything that answered said sector's call for help over the course of an entire year (the Necrons literally gave them a full year to prepare for that battle).
The Necron fleet was outnumbered 4 to 1 and was composed of smaller ship classes yet they managed to destroy a full quarter of the Imperial fleet during their first pass, and by the time the battle was over (a few minutes later) more than 90% of the IoM fleet was destroyed while the Necrons suffered only negligible casualties.
During this battle the Minotaurs Chapter sacrificed most of its chapter fleet and a fair number of marines to get their honor guard into the bridge of the Necron's flagship. The Overlord in command shrugged off a lascannon shot, slaughtered its way through the honor guard with contemptous ease, bisected a contemptor dread that dared to try and hit him with its power fist (the dreadnaught power fist exploded when it came into contact with the Overlord's warscythe btw), tanked a cheap shot to the back delivered by the Minotaur's chapter master wielding a relic power spear and then proceeded to stomp all over said chapter master in single combat, destroying his relic storm shield before circumstances forced them to disengage.
yep all true it was a bit over the top IMO
Necron Tomb Worlds have been destroyed outright and they are all subject to slow death by Flayer virus
