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The Imperium is a huge organization that is sieged from without and within. Assuming that the Imperium had a couple centurys of relief so to get itself sorted out so it can go out and bring its entire military might onto one foe at a time, who do you think would get canned?

Tau would be easy just because of how small there empire is.

Or eldar but they will probably die out.

Chaos is eternal

Orks and tyranids will never die just kinda held back.

Dark eldar will just run back to there little gak hole.

Necrons are a pain in the ass

Tau are the only ones. In a pitched battle they could win the Eldar but the Eldar out-play them at every turn, and if the Eldar wanted to they would simply never be found. Same with Dark Eldar, as Commaragh is one of the only truly safe (I use the term loosely) places in the galaxy, because there is slim to none chance of them ever being invaded or destroyed by anyone but themselves.

Orks would gak on the Imperium if they got together. Gak all over. Chaos traitors would die in a pitched battle due to numbers, but Daemons are eternal. We don't know how many Tyranids there are and Necrons at full force would make the imperium look so insignificant it's depressing. All in all, Mankind sucks :(

If it wasn't being attacked by everyone at once I reckon the imperium would be able to best any other faction in the 40k universe. It's just so immense and the vast forces it could muster. Yes that's not to say that they wouldn't lose trillions of lives fighting the likes of the tyranids or orks but the imperium is the perfect faction for raging total war seeing as all its infrastructure is designed for military purposes etc. Even the likes of Eldar (dark and craft world) could be assailed. The only faction that could truly not be eliminated would be chaos gods/demons however if the imperium wasn't besieged on all sides I reckon the general welfare and standards of imperium citizens would increase and the general discontent which feeds chaos gods would result in their power being greatly diminished.
The orks are not sufficiently organised to beat the imperium although they would be unbelievably difficult to root out and the wars would last for many years nor would I say they would truly be defeated I reckon they would just be made a miniscule threat as once the vast bulk is destroyed it would just be a case of regular purging on planets to ensure spores don't get out of control.
Although Eldar are numerous and advanced they would not be able to win a sustained war against the imperium. Even if you argued they could out whit the imperium I just think in the long haul they would be goners because loses are irreplaceable so it would get to a point where time would take them down.
Dark Eldar although living in the Web way could eventually be besieged I do believe non dark Eldar have made it into the Web way before into a library I'm sure it wouldn't take too much effort for them to find a way to the dark Eldar city then it would be a case of shoving as much assets as possible in until nothing is left.
Necron it would just be a case of invading dormant tombs and destroying them while they slumber and any active tomb world's would eventually fall over time.
Tau are miniscule and would fall fairly quickly although they would inflict heavy losses on imperium forces during battles
chaos traitor marines would eventually fall to numbers and like I said earlier once the imperium has dealt with most of its enemies the quality of most people lives I would like to think would increase diminishing power of the chaos gods meaning incursions would be less frequent and as devastating

Tau, easily.

Eldar, probably. Locating all their craftworlds and exodite worlds is a non-trivial task, and they can always melt away into the webway, but the Imperium could certainly shatter their military might.

Dark Eldar, probably. Commorragh would be a very tough cookie to crack, and it's probable that the Dark Eldar have taken precautions against the possibility of a large-scale invasion. They are rejuvenated by violence, and would be fighting on their own turf, so the losses to the Imperium would doubtless be grossly disproportionate. But if there's anything the Imperium does well, it's large-scale wars of attrition - I think that they would win in the end, and destroy Commorragh.

Necrons, unlikely. The Imperium might be able to destroy the currently awakened Necrons, and then systematically hunt for new tomb worlds and destroy them before they fully come online. The question is whether they can keep up with the rate of new tomb worlds coming online - and the fluff suggests that no, they cannot. They almost certainly could not beat a fully-awakened necron empire.

Orks, no. At best, they could try to break up big Waaaghs as they are forming, but they could never completely eliminate the ork threat.

Tyranids... depends on how many more hive fleets are lurking in the space between galaxies. If the bulk of the Tyranid force is already present in the galaxy, then yes they could. But if we're only seeing the tip of the spear (as the fluff suggests), then the Imperium is screwed, no matter how well they get their gak together.

Chaos... the traitor legions could be crushed, but chaos itself is more of a condition of life than it is a defeatable foe.

 Dshrike wrote:
The Imperium is a huge organization that is sieged from without and within. Assuming that the Imperium had a couple centurys of relief so to get itself sorted out so it can go out and bring its entire military might onto one foe at a time, who do you think would get canned?

All of the above.

If the Imperium could ignore all of the other threats that harry it, and focus its military might on just one target, it could end all of these, given enough time.

The Tau, especially, would be eradicated in a matter of months, including the travel-time it would take to get the crusade fleet there.

It's not impossible for an organised Imperium to beat the Orks and Nidz. If they were given a break by the other factions and were willing to go to any means to achieve it, they could take out both effectively in Orbital battles alone. With the orks they just need to grant exterminatus to all and any infested world they come across, and the same goes for the nids, if they ventured out to where they are coming from, built some decent space between the Imperium and the Nid threat, then proceeded to virus bomb any and all planets in the gap, any nids that would then breakthrough would be so weak/starving it would just be clear up duty till they finally die off.

Tau have a fairly standard Empire (i.e. an area of the galaxy where they control all the systems) so would get crushed if the Imperium could concentrate enough resources on them. This wouldn't even really require the entire Imperium imo.

Eldar wouldn't be able to fight a more unified Imperium, but that is no different from now and they would continue to use misdirection and avoidance tactics. The Imperium does not have mastery (or any real concept for the most part) of the Webway, so while they could reduce the influence Eldar have on the galaxy they wouldn't be able to eliminate them because they won't be able to find all of them.

Dark Eldar are in the same boat - the Imperium doesn't have the knowledge of the Webway it needs to get there. Every instance of non Eldar getting to Commorragh has been contrived by Dark Eldar, so even if the Imperium could mass a big enough force to crush Commorragh they wouldn't be able to get it there. In many respects I would think the Dark Eldar would be less likely to be wiped out than the Eldar, because Vect has complete mastery over the Webway leading in to Commorragh so could just seal himself off (or just seal the Imperial force into a section of the City and then let Daemons/the Warp into the section).

A unified Imperium would probably still lose to Necrons, they are passed the tipping point where they can contain them by destroying inert Tomb Worlds.

Orks they won't be able to ever completely eliminate becaus e of their physiology and the fact that they get stronger the more they fight.

Nids are coming in from outside the Galaxy so the Imperium has no way to deal with that.

Chaos would probably get weaker initially and then get even stronger than it is now - it ultimate mirrors what the Imperium does.

This guardsman says what every guardsman is thinking;

Everyone. Any other vote is heresy, and that last one is double heresy!

I'd say everyone, with the exceptions being Orks and Tyranids.

Orks - I don't think in totality, but I'm sure given enough time Humanity could break up enough Waaagh's and various empires so that the Orks became more of a random threat like pirates moreso than the semi-unified nastiness they currently are.

Tyranids - This is the only race I think that would really give Humanity a run for it's money. If the rest of the Tyranid race appears, I think if the Imperium hasn't gotten it's gak together by then it's over.

Honorable mention:

Necrons - Given their current state of a fracture empire, it would simply be a matter of time before Humanity wore them down in numbers. The Imperium has no problem annihilating planets to stop the Necrons and if the Imperium presented a united front, this could be done with abandon. Now, if the Necrons stopped warring/competing with each other for control, I think Humanity would be in for a world of hurt.

I agree with Frankenberry. With their technology, no matter how depleted it is and the sheer amount of manpower and firepower they can bring to bear, its really hard for me to imagine them losing. Unless something manages to out think them. Heck, with their numbers and technology, it's hard for me to imagine them as a stagnating regime.

None of the above - the Imperium is organised. It has its act together, as best as it possibly can.

The above scenario - "A few hundred years to rest and recouperate" - is a literary impossibility short of a DEM on the scale of a Madoka apotheosis.

The Tau, certainly.

The Eldar and DEldar can simply evade the Imperium.

The Orks are too many and widespread, and regrow too fast.

The Necrons are superior to the Imperium.

The Tyranids appear to be too many too.

Chaos is eternal and have a perfect safe haven the Imperium can't possibly invade with any hope of victory.

All the others I cannot be 100% sure but tau, there flattened under the treads of thousands of tanks, million upon million of boots, and the massive feet of titan legions.

The Tau are still contained within a relatively small area. The Imperium has more than sufficient manpower to annihilate the Tau. The reason they haven't is because they cannot bring the force to bear because of other commitments.

The Craftworld Eldar could also likely be eradicated, if not entirely then certainly the major Craftworlds could be destroyed and the Eldar scattered forever. The Dark Eldar are more or less untouchable though.

Chaos is untouchable within the Eye.

The Necrons are spread across the galaxy (and are hard to actually detect until it is too late) and it is debatable whether declaring an all out war on the Necrons could actually be won by the Imperium anyway.

The Orks spread to quickly and aggressively for the Imperium to wipe out (unless the Imperium goes full scorched earth and actually implements Exterminatus on every Ork world, killing the Orks and making it uninhabitable to future Ork sporings).

The bulk of the Tyranids have yet to arrive, and the Tyranids are just as persistent as the Orks are when it comes to making a big comeback after a major defeat.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Chaos is eternal and have a perfect safe haven the Imperium can't possibly invade with any hope of victory.

Actually, you can beat Chaos without even touching it: just improve the general mood of people, bring spiritual enlightenment to them, and Chaos will cease to exist, or at least it will turn into something completely different than it is now. The Warp is just an echo of the material world, and the reason why daemons are so evul and powerful is the people believing in their evulness and power. If the vast majority of these people suddenly realize that daemons are in fact benign and powerless, then the daemons will turn benign and powerless as the Warp changes to reflect the mass of positive emotions coming from the material world - Khorne will become a samurai god, Tzeentch will become a wise mage-god, Slaanesh become a goddess of true love and romance, and Nurgle will become a god of fertility and life. Chaos is eternal, but far from invincible.

Question is: could an unified Imperium pull this off?

 Dshrike wrote:
The Imperium is a huge organization that is sieged from without and within. Assuming that the Imperium had a couple centurys of relief so to get itself sorted out so it can go out and bring its entire military might onto one foe at a time, who do you think would get canned?

Everyone.

It already happened. It was called The Great Crusade. If a disorganized Imperium can defeat two Hive Fleets, and organized one could dish out all kinds of pain.

Assuming they only have to concentrate on one at a time?

They would annihilate pretty much everything other than Necron and Tyranid.

Eldar and Tau would be dead without any effort at all.

Dark Eldar couldn't ever make a real threat, but the Imperium would struggle to get in and kill them too.

Orks could be contained without any real effort.

They could beat tyranid with serious loses.

They would probably struggle against Necrons.

I could see Necrons or Tyranids, myself. Throw enough man and material at a problem and it'll eventually go away. The problem is that such a victory will destroy the Imperium.

Everyone else besides Chaos and Dark Eldar will be easy. Chaos can't die unless all life dies and the DEldar have a hole to hide in. Now, if the Imperium could find a way to collapse the webway... The DEldar capital city would become one interesting place.

The only way tau could survive is if parts of their empire lie outside the light of the astronecropolythingmadon.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

Chaos is eternal and have a perfect safe haven the Imperium can't possibly invade with any hope of victory.

Actually, you can beat Chaos without even touching it: just improve the general mood of people, bring spiritual enlightenment to them, and Chaos will cease to exist, or at least it will turn into something completely different than it is now. The Warp is just an echo of the material world, and the reason why daemons are so evul and powerful is the people believing in their evulness and power. If the vast majority of these people suddenly realize that daemons are in fact benign and powerless, then the daemons will turn benign and powerless as the Warp changes to reflect the mass of positive emotions coming from the material world - Khorne will become a samurai god, Tzeentch will become a wise mage-god, Slaanesh become a goddess of true love and romance, and Nurgle will become a god of fertility and life. Chaos is eternal, but far from invincible.

Question is: could an unified Imperium pull this off?

Except there is no evidence anywhere of this ever having happened, or being possible. Meanwhile, Daemons can possess stars and detonate them in a supernova. Plus then there's other stuff, like the fluff stating Chaos to be omnipotent within the warp, how Slaanesh created itself before it even existed (and when the warp was fairly calm), and a general lack of any sort of causality.

During the Great Crusade the Imperium was at it's height. It had crushed an Ork waaaagh and had claimed much of the Milky way galaxy. Nids, Necron arguably didn't exist and chaos was not a power player just yet. So, if the Imperium aligned and was able to work as a unit then it'd be the destruction of the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau. Orks can be beaten back but I'd say it'd be next to impossible to stop them or the nids. Also the nids are supposed to be a small force of the actual army that is coming across into this galaxy. Necron are also very numerous and powerful and may give humanity a good run for it's money. As per chaos, chaos cannot be really defeated but the traitor legions can be stopped . Also in this scenario is the Emperor back or not?

They might not invade the Eye, but a united Imperium could just park all its force at the Eye and sit comfortably.

Can someone explain to me how the Imperium could possibly crush the Dark Eldar? Humans have little to no understanding of the Webway and the Webway itself actively tries to repel or misdirect intruders. The Humans outside of very few Inquisitors have no clue how to work the gates, no clue how to work the runes and would just blunder aimlessly around.

All the Dark Eldar would have to do is close the gates big enough to allow the Imperiums big ships through (Of which there aren't many) from the inside and continue their piracy from the Webway on the Millions of under defended worlds while the entire Imperial Navy waits at the Dark Eldar front door asking to be let in.

 Inkubas wrote:
Also in this scenario is the Emperor back or not?

In this case, negative.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Except there is no evidence anywhere of this ever having happened, or being possible. Meanwhile, Daemons can possess stars and detonate them in a supernova. Plus then there's other stuff, like the fluff stating Chaos to be omnipotent within the warp, how Slaanesh created itself before it even existed (and when the warp was fairly calm), and a general lack of any sort of causality.

Of course there is an evidence of this happening: Slaanesh, the god(ess) of pleasure was created by the debauchery of the Eldar. There were lots of pleasure centric emotions in the Warp and *Boom!* Chaos God(ess) of Pleasure! Yeah, the daemons are powerful, but it is because everyone and their kittens believe in their power - it is reflected in the Warp, resulting in omnipotent daemons. It is written all over the lore that daemons are feeding on emotions, and that's their sole source of power, and they are shaped by these emotions just as the Warp is shaped by these emotions leaking from the real world.

ALEXisAWESOME wrote:Can someone explain to me how the Imperium could possibly crush the Dark Eldar? Humans have little to no understanding of the Webway and the Webway itself actively tries to repel or misdirect intruders. The Humans outside of very few Inquisitors have no clue how to work the gates, no clue how to work the runes and would just blunder aimlessly around.

All the Dark Eldar would have to do is close the gates big enough to allow the Imperiums big ships through (Of which there aren't many) from the inside and continue their piracy from the Webway on the Millions of under defended worlds while the entire Imperial Navy waits at the Dark Eldar front door asking to be let in.

The Webway is already breached. Eldar had to close parts of it. Necrons forced their Way in too IIRC. It is not impossible to get in.
Imperials don't have to cleanse the hideout, just damage it so badly the DE can't stop the incoming hordes of Demons....

AtoMaki wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Except there is no evidence anywhere of this ever having happened, or being possible. Meanwhile, Daemons can possess stars and detonate them in a supernova. Plus then there's other stuff, like the fluff stating Chaos to be omnipotent within the warp, how Slaanesh created itself before it even existed (and when the warp was fairly calm), and a general lack of any sort of causality.

Of course there is an evidence of this happening: Slaanesh, the god(ess) of pleasure was created by the debauchery of the Eldar. There were lots of pleasure centric emotions in the Warp and *Boom!* Chaos God(ess) of Pleasure! Yeah, the daemons are powerful, but it is because everyone and their kittens believe in their power - it is reflected in the Warp, resulting in omnipotent daemons. It is written all over the lore that daemons are feeding on emotions, and that's their sole source of power, and they are shaped by these emotions just as the Warp is shaped by these emotions leaking from the real world.

Yes.

Change the diet an thus change the Warp.


If the Imperium got its act together, who would they be able to crush?

- Tau and other upstart Empires are obviously walzed flat in no time
- Eldar would most likely flee ( ie the Standard "leave this realm" procedure of any type of elf )
- Chaos loses its mortal forces and is contained.
- Orks are hard to exterminate, I'd guess they survive somewhere in a feral state
- Tyranids are either presented to many costs in biomass and look for another food source ( Galaxy ) or they are out of choices already and crash'n burn out.
- Dark Eldar would get caught too often and die a very very slow death
- Too many inactive and Necrons get deactivated. Enough of them around and its Necrons fought to a standstill. Driven back they would rather opt to sign up for "zones of interest" and the Galaxy split into Imperial and Necron Territory.

 Dshrike wrote:
The Imperium is a huge organization that is sieged from without and within. Assuming that the Imperium had a couple centurys of relief so to get itself sorted out so it can go out and bring its entire military might onto one foe at a time, who do you think would get canned?

even a couple centuries of peace, not sure it would get things together. 50 centuries, maybe.

The correct answer is "all of the above"

The Tau could be crushed even if the Imperium didn't get their gak together. A crusade with any serious effort would wipe the Tau out very quickly. They're basically a little mouse nibbling on an elephant's toes. If the elephant made any effort, the mouse would be dead, but ultimately isn't worth the elephant's time.

Everyone except Orks. Orks can be reduced to a manageable level probably, but they'[re the only alien faction that it's probably impossible to wipe out without crippling the Imperium itself.