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Just a slight necro?

Yesh, only two months or so. People's tastes rarely change a lot over such a short time.

It's not like I dug up a thread from 2011.

The worst universe ever, makes Nazi Germany look like a great holiday destination

 Ashiraya wrote:
There is no true 'official' canon in 40K, as Lynata kindly pointed out.

With this in mind, in a setting with tons of contradictory sources where we are allowed, even encouraged, to cherrypick, what is your own personal interpretation of 40K's setting?

I deliberately choose not to try and conceptualize an overall interpretation of the 40k setting. Everything about 40k is ridiculously big, and at the same time shrouded in mystery. If it was neatly and completely revealed and set down, it would probably be even more over-the-top that it appears now and probably less enjoyable. I like that about the setting, so I just try to enjoy the stories that are presented in the setting in which they are presented. I don't mind that Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenstein seem to exist in a somewhat different setting than Ciaphas Cain or whatever Bolter-Porn novel is coming out next, or the Horus Heresy, or whatever. I'm content that it's a "big universe…" and one big enough to contain these disparate points of view and experiences.

As to some of the big questions regarding faction size, age of characters, etc, these are great meta-mysteries that will probably never be completely revealed and I like it that way.

This is not to say that I like opacity in all my sci-fi universes. I'm also a big fan of the Battletech universe. By no means perfect, it's still one of the largest, best developed, most carefully curated and cohesive fictional universes in existence. There are still mysteries waiting to be explored, but you can track 150 years of it's history in great depth and detail. Further, the timeline is continually moving forward as well as the periodic revealing of various parts of the history previous to that 150 years. Every couple of years, the timeline advances another 5-20 years, lots of new stuff happens, a bit of history is also revealed and nothing that went before get's invalidated.

Both approaches to a fictional universe have their place, but I approach them in very different ways.

 Ashiraya wrote:

How powerful are the troops of each faction really?
Guardsmen aren't the useless human tide they're painted as. Space Marines are almost unstoppable to anything short of a lascannon. Orks are stubborn enough that they'll keep fighting headless for almost a minute. Gaunts are fast but pitifully weak. Necrons are unkillable and self-repair within a minute of-near destruction.

How bad is the Imperium's current situation?
The majority of the worlds in the Imperium have no idea what Chaos is. Most of them are at peace, although all raise regiments for the Imperial Guard if required.

How old can Marines become? Can the traitor Legionnaires really be 10K years old?
Bleedin' ancient. Dante's 1000-year lifespan is pretty attainable for all of them. Traitors can live for millenia.

What about the Void Dragon?
I choose to ignore it as anything other than a dead god.

How large are Titans? How large are spaceships?
All of them are larger than they're shown in models. Imperators have heads the size of a house. Some of the older spaceships are bigger than current-day earth cities.

How effective at corrupting is Chaos actually?
Not very effective at unwilling corruption, but fantastic with even the smallest spark of willingness.

How large are the Hive Fleets?
Literally without number in terms of aliens contained, hundreds of ships in a hive fleet

 Ashiraya wrote:
Yesh, only two months or so. People's tastes rarely change a lot over such a short time.

It's not like I dug up a thread from 2011.

That's not even a necro. A Necro is when you resurrect a thread from 2001 or 1999.

I once resurrected a thread from during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. That led the Mods a merry dance, I can tell you.

The C'Tan are laughing at the weaker (read: all other) races, spreading lies about them and their adorable little struggles among them while they themselves see their mindless Necron minions re-awakening to full force, ready to crush the galaxy once and for all.

My head canon is largely unchanged from before. Everyone can die to a big enough gun. Hell, a Lasgun can take down a Space Marine. Good luck getting into a position where you would be able to get enough Lasgun shots off on him though. They are the masters of warfare.

Tau Firewarriors are pretty crappy physically. Inferior to a human in every way. Earth caste and water caste are even worse. However, they have so much fancy gear that any physical short comings are easily negated.

Yes, I'm an Imperial fan. Bugger off.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Soloed one arena and a half of Chaos Exterminatus in Space Marine as a Raptor. I would have gotten further but it was practically impossible to kill the 6 man melee squad of Space Marines- when I tried to separate one from the group, he was just too tough for me to kill before his buddies could come and tear me to pieces.

Still, before that, I managed to kill over 650 enemies, including dozens of Nobs, 16 Primaris Psykers, and various other Imperial and Ork foes without dying a single time.

Don't you agree that Space Marine is wonderfully fluffy, Melissia?

But for some reason things like that never happen in the tabletop... Strange, very strange.

Not saying Space Marine should be taken as canon, but this is a fun tidbit.

Ooo, I have one! Terminator suited space marines can be killed in one shot by pulse weapons. That's written fluff! Admittedly the slaughtered squad were each shot through the eye-piece, but it's still pretty impressive.

Oh, and!

This is Guardsmen versus basically everything ever. (Replace Tau with IG and SM with basically everything ever)

I always imagined the Warhammer setting to have a bit of everything. Its set in the future, so society has to be very advanced. Its been at war for the last 10,000 years. So advanced, but everything is worn down. Society is terrified and tired by war. Economy is stressed, with The Imperium constantly needing larger and larger quantities of resources to fuel its defenses and war machines. However, 10,000 years of it has made them very efficient and skilled in regards to that area. To fuel a war engine spanning an entire galaxy for 10,000 years, you'd need more than a million worlds and billions of guardsmen. You need a billion worlds and billions of guardsmen from each world. It just seems logical to me, so that's the way I interpret the fluff. Factories spew out millions of guns per day, gazillions of ammunition, and hundreds of thousands of vehicles. I've always deemed the Imperium to be very cultured, if a bit old fashioned. A bit of Star Wars, a bit steampunky. Very victorian, 17th to 19th century art style, themes, and dressing. The dressing would be more modern though, not too much frillings, trimmings, and decoration. People must have a bit of electronics with them when they go out, like a device that tells the current time of 1000 worlds across the Imperium. It probably has a communication device, maybe virtual intelligences. On the black market, probably even AI's. The black market is also probably very prosperous, widespread and has a comparable measure of power. You cant control markets to the extent that you can here on modern day Earth as you can in space. I don't think you can at least. You'd need the same amount of security that my interpretation of the Imperial Guard provides. And a whole lot of prison ships.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Oh, and!

This is Guardsmen versus basically everything ever. (Replace Tau with IG and SM with basically everything ever)

Why do you hate them so much ?

What Blaxican said. Do you have something against the Imperial Guard, Ash? Sometimes I wonder.

Though if you're talking about their close combat ability I agree. Imperial Guardsmen do not want to be in close combat.

When building my own personal headcannon I have a hierarchy sources* liberally mixed with common-sense mitigations, and lots of adjustments for 'unreliable narrator' & 'obvious propaganda'.

That said; let me answer some of the OPs direct questions:

 Ashiraya wrote:
How powerful are the troops of each faction really?

As to the power of 'troops' I take the table-top as a good source for relative strengths of different things. Sometimes this falls down, or runs up against a wall of 'I just can't accept that', but usually it is fine. It's certainly more consistent than the novels or third party material.

 Ashiraya wrote:
How bad is the Imperium's current situation?

If I could sum it up in one word it would be 'Precarious'. The Imperium is one of, if not 'the' most powerful faction, but it is 'besieged on all sides', if it falters, or fails too far, the cascade effect would see everything fethed pretty quickly.

 Ashiraya wrote:
How old can Marines become? Can the traitor Legionnaires really be 10K years old?

A regular space marine, left to die of old age, would die somewhere between 300 & 500, depending on geanseed, personal biology, and lifestyle. Chaos Space Marines are a whole different kettle of fish, the Warp & Chaos itself let rules be broken. There a almost certainly CSM who fell the weight of 10000 years, but there are others who still have the dust of Istavan clinging to their boots.

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about the Void Dragon?

Ehhhhhh, the business with Necron fluff I largely leave alone, I have a love-hate relationship with both versions, so it sits in a box until can resolve it.

 Ashiraya wrote:
How large are Titans? How large are spaceships?

Titans are probably as big as they were in Epic. Starships are another matter, I wish they were smaller, just so as they made more sense (I once did a calculation on a troop carrier, when, with even only 20% of the ship given over to barracks, each soldier gets a football field worth of space), but I've heard good ideas about how they work that makes me more amenable to the listed sizes. (That and 40K is not alone in Sci-fi settings with scale issues.)

 Ashiraya wrote:
How effective at corrupting is Chaos actually?

Totally terrible don't trust your friends at it. Seriously they are plotting against you I don't know why anyone you must strike first think they are any we will give you that power good at it at all.

 Ashiraya wrote:
How large are the Hive Fleets?

We don't really know how many more are lurking beyond the edge of the galaxy, maybe they are all already here, maybe there are so many they could blacken the skies of every world in the galaxy. We don't know. And nothing is more terrifying, than the unknown.

*Don't tempt me to explain the whole thing.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Oh, and!

This is Guardsmen versus basically everything ever. (Replace Tau with IG and SM with basically everything ever)

Why do you hate them so much ?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
What Blaxican said. Do you have something against the Imperial Guard, Ash? Sometimes I wonder.

Though if you're talking about their close combat ability I agree. Imperial Guardsmen do not want to be in close combat.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not actually hate the Imperial Guard. I really like them. I just think them having the role of the ultimate uber-grimdark meatgrinder faction is cool. The assault succeeded? Who cares if we lost twenty million men in the process? Far, far, FAR more where that came from! Need recruits? Just conscript some farmers or hive citizens, slap on some mediocre wargear on them, give them some mediocre training on the way to the warzone, and use them with less care than you do with ammunition. Life is cheap! Cheeeeeeap!

Hey, someone needs to be worfed in order to show how cool others are, right? Guardsmen take that spot and get a nice unique role for themselves in the process.

And by having almost everything else making quick work of us normal humans (Who are the only ones we somewhat know the capabilities of), we make the enemies of Man seem really dangerous and nasty, adding to the grimdark.

Yes, in my headcanon a Tactical Marine can basically kill Guardsmen indefinitely since they just can't penetrate their armour in either melee or at range.

I mentioned my love for crazy scaling earlier, which Oxayotl complained on with a Carnifex example. But the scaling is crazy just because it is not only extreme but also irregular.

Not only Marines are awesome™. We also have Eldar, Daemons, Tyranids, Necrons etc., even if Marines naturally fit best in the role because, well, with the way they are designed they are pretty much begging for it!

So Guardsmen basically take the role of the ultimate mass punching bags, a role they should hold with respect and pride.

 Pendix wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
How effective at corrupting is Chaos actually?

Totally terrible don't trust your friends at it. Seriously they are plotting against you I don't know why anyone you must strike first think they are any we will give you that power good at it at all.

I felt a strange compulsion to Exalt this and can't say why.....

 SisterSydney wrote:
I felt a strange compulsion to Exalt this and can't say why.....

I really have no idea what give in to it could be causing that.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I just think them having the role of the ultimate uber-grimdark meatgrinder faction is cool.

Well, you know, the guard is very varied (actually much more so than rainbow snowflake marines), and some regiments explicitly and very efficiently fill this trope. But “meatgrinder faction” does not fit the Catachans, or the Mordians, or…

 Ashiraya wrote:
Just conscript some farmers or hive citizens, slap on some mediocre wargear on them, give them some mediocre training on the way to the warzone, and use them with less care than you do with ammunition. Life is cheap! Cheeeeeeap!

Except the fluff has always insisted that Imperial Guard are not like that, except for a few exceptions like penal regiments. Mediocre wargear, mediocre training has always been a PDF thing.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Hey, someone needs to be worfed in order to show how cool others are, right?

Not if you are doing it right . But if you want to, the official weaklings of 40k are the PDF. The grots do not count.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I just think them having the role of the ultimate uber-grimdark meatgrinder faction is cool.

Well, you know, the guard is very varied (actually much more so than rainbow snowflake marines), and some regiments explicitly and very efficiently fill this trope. But “meatgrinder faction” does not fit the Catachans, or the Mordians, or…

 Ashiraya wrote:
Just conscript some farmers or hive citizens, slap on some mediocre wargear on them, give them some mediocre training on the way to the warzone, and use them with less care than you do with ammunition. Life is cheap! Cheeeeeeap!

Except the fluff has always insisted that Imperial Guard are not like that, except for a few exceptions like penal regiments. Mediocre wargear, mediocre training has always been a PDF thing.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Hey, someone needs to be worfed in order to show how cool others are, right?

Not if you are doing it right . But if you want to, the official weaklings of 40k are the PDF. The grots do not count.

The same goes for traitor guard, actually, and even more so for cultists.

Catachans are a rare, almost one-of-a-kind regiment.

Mordians may have decent enough training but that is nowhere near enough on the hellish battlefields of 40K. You're going to need something like Kasrkin or Stormtro- Scions for that, and even then their mere humanity makes them severely outmatched against many foes.

But manpower is just so cheap so the Guard as a whole survives anyway, and so do the traitor guard. If I am a Chaos commander and I notice that there's an annoying Space Marine up to stuff over there, I 'distract' him a bit with 888 or so (KHORNE!) cultists.



(Yes, they are actually exactly 888. Could not even fit them all onto the screen.)

There is no shame in being the cannon fodder faction!

But, as far as I know, throwing a gak ton of incompetent men at a competent enemy in a setting featuring too many ways of evaporating those gak tons of men isn't practical. It's a waste of the Emperor's currency, his equipment and ammunition. Sure, throw enough men at the problem and you'll win but by that point if you actually trained those guys and gave them decent equipment you would have been far better off logistics wise.

Then you have to consider how difficult it would to transport all of those guys. You have to feed and equip every single man. Even if you have the guy running around in gakky equipment and feed him rat meat you still have to transport them. Ship travel isn't cheap or easy in the 41st Millennium. So, as a High Lord of Terra, wouldn't it make more sense to actually train these these men and give them proper equipment so you can ultimately save on logisitics? It's not like it's that hard anyway. If you give each squad a Meltagun, an easy thing to make, and knows how to shoot right congrats. You have a squad that can down a Space Marine and you only need 10 guys. Seems like a better better deal than throwing 1,000 cheap men at the issue.

I can see the sense of having supeiror numbers. After all, the AdMech is weird about producing good gak for the Imperium. Sure, they'll devote centuries of work to a big warmachine than can die in seconds but make enough Bolters to equip the entire Guard? Blasphemy and a waste of resources. So, since Lasguns aren't all that effective you'll need more.

I see the Guard either operating like black powder era line infantry or using their troops as buffers for the good stuff like the WW2 Germans did.

The problem here is that you are assuming the Imperium is reasonable or logical.

Fair point.

The Imperium's irrational, inefficient, but effective: It's survived 10,000 years, after all. I'd say the genuinely crap troops are represented on the table by those WS:2 BS:2 Ld:5 Conscripts and that regular Guardsmen are pretty respectable soldiers -- it's just that the situations they face are so fething horrific that they die in droves anyway.

 SisterSydney wrote:
The Imperium's irrational, inefficient, but effective: It's survived 10,000 years, after all. I'd say the genuinely crap troops are represented on the table by those WS:2 BS:2 Ld:5 Conscripts and that regular Guardsmen are pretty respectable soldiers -- it's just that the situations they face are so fething horrific that they die in droves anyway.

Oh, I think the basic 3s-in-almost-everything statline for IG is great as a baseline. Just that almost everything else has unfluffy stats.

The Imperium is inefficient but effective? Ok.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Catachans are a rare, almost one-of-a-kind regiment.

Why? Because they come from a very dangerous world?
Really, most regiment are described as competent and well-trained. Chem dogs are not, obviously, but that is the exception rather than the norm.
Let me remind you of Armageddon's Ork Hunter. They fight orks. With knifes. And somehow, they manage not to die at every encounter. They are described as really badass.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Mordians may have decent enough training but that is nowhere near enough on the hellish battlefields of 40K.

That is just, like, you opinion, woman .

 Ashiraya wrote:
There is no shame in being the cannon fodder faction!

Yeah. Some people love playing special character with rules like “Send in the second wave” that says unit destroyed can enter the game a second time because the tactics of their regiment involve blindlessly sending people to the meatgrinder without any regard for human life. And that is cool, really. But there is way more than just that to the Imperial Guard.


[edit]Cultists are usually like PDF, very incompetent and very weak compared to about anything.[/edit]

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

That is just, like, you opinion, woman .

You finally understood the thread!

Yeah, I know. But that image you posted was quite gratuitous . I mean, we already know your position on this now it is starting to feel like bashing .

Eh, everyone is free to their own interpretations. If Ash here thinks a Guardsman is no better than a blade of grass before a lawnmower, then she is free to do so.

Like I think that a Leman Russ tank (Depending on load out) is the best main line tank out there outside of the Necrons. Superbly armored, packs a really mean punch, easy to use and cheaply replaced.