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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.

Wyzilla wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
Necrons. Hands down no contest.

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.

Demons have already defeated the Eldar empire.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
Necrons. Hands down no contest.

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.

I know the Necrons are many in the fluff, but I was referring to tabletop numbers.

Individual Necron Warriors being better than Marines? I call BS.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 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.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 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.

Always remember, even if Orkz die, it doesn't count because they died fighting.

Therefore Orkz can never lose.

Therefore Orkz are the strongest, as they can never ever ever ever ever lose.

The end.

 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.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 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.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 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.

Easily the Imperial Guard.

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.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 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.

Necrons for one reason: the Celestial Orrery.

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.

Fishmen.

"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.

 Lucarikx wrote:
Necrons for one reason: Matt Ward.

Fixed dat for ya.

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.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
Necrons. Hands down no contest.

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.

If rules determined fluff, then any given Vindicare is a better swordsman than Jain fing Zar. So sometimes we get odd things in the rules.

Even if it were true, though, that shard could have been harvested from IoM vehicles (PotMS are Void Dragon shards according to some people).

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

I chuckled at this a little.

Idea for a mission!

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?