According to the Lore; Which Armies Should be the Strongest?

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**dusara217**

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).

**Bharring**

DAoT is good, but not even as good as Eldar tech. Which isn't as good as Necron tech.

Modern IoM is a 4 out of ten. DAoT is an 8 / 10. Eldar dialed it up to 11. Necrons sit comfortably at a 16.

**fallinq**

madtankbloke wrote:

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.

**Kavalion**

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.

**Galorian**

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.

**Sgt_Smudge**

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.

**Zande4**

I feel Chaos is the biggest threat to the Imperium but Tyranids are the biggest threat to the Galaxy.

Necrons are no longer one unified race, also the Silent King himself recognizes Tyranids as the biggest threat.

**Galorian**

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.

**Big Blind Bill**

Nids, guard, daemons and orks all come to mind.

I'm not sure about crons, I guess it would depend on how many have survived stasis/haven't gone crazy/are not waging war against other dynasties.

**BoomWolf**

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.

**Big Blind Bill**

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.

**Inkubas**

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

My .02

**Ouroboros0977**

Because I'm bored, I will say squats, because they were so overpowered that GW had to remove them.

**Torga_DW**

1)imperials during the horus heresy.

The big E and his primarchs punched everything to death, including c'tan, avatars, very nearly the chaos gods, and everything inbetween.

Props to a faction for conquering the galaxy. Mad props by punching the galaxy into submission.

edit: typos

**Lynata**

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/

**Runic**

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**

Big Blind Bill wrote:
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.

**Bobthehero**

There's a million loyalist SM, not a million total SM.

**Mr Morden**

Of course the Necron race is also (currently) doomed to be consumed by the Flayer virus against which they have absolutely no defence..................

**Galorian**

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.

**Mr Morden**

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