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Even though it's not something we presumably look out for, I think we'd notice 50 million alien creatures landing anywhere on earth. If they land in the middle of the wilderness somewhere sure, they can eat lots of stuff and make more Tyranids, but they're also easier to bomb without as much collateral damage.

Like I said, it's really hard to put into context how fast Tyranids or Orks can replenish losses, and I'm sure it varies in every story based on what makes for a better story. But at the end of the day, if an Imperial world can hold off a Tyranid or Ork invasion, I think we could.

And yeah, we don't know how good Power Armor is. But I can't imagine an autogun could possibly be all that different than any rifle we have now, and those can take down space marines.

So, I get that Orks might crash-land on Earth and, somehow, hit somewhere of merit (not a pole, not an ocean). Where do the new Orks get guns to fight us with?

M.

Sum gubbins, if it looks like a gun, it's a gun, ya git!

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Big Mac wrote:
Most of the replies here are pro modern human dominance against an OP modified 40k invasion; I think we’re on the losing end on most of if not all of the scenarios.
Orks: they’re stronger, everyone is a warrior, multiply quickly; we might find a way to combat their multiplying fungal ways but would still have to deal with all the warriors already present.

Sure they're strong, they also fight in ways are *really* easy to stop with modern small arms and are absolute cake for crew served weapons/artillery/aircraft/etc. It's also not like the modern world doesn't have tons of tools for dealing with fungus.

Necrons: every regular warrior is a ‘terminator’ or better, good luck!

1: They die just fine to all sorts of stuff. Heavily resistant to small arms fire, but not wholly immune, and small arms fire isn't what kills most things on real battlefields anyway.

Tyranids/gsc: we die from terror alone

2: Given all the things humanity has seen and endured, mostly inflicted on itself...probably not.

Eldar/dark Eldar: out teched, terror would subjugate everyone

3: Call me when Eldar tanks can match the feats of MBT's approaching 40 years old, call me, as thus far they have displayed no such capabilities. The Eldar's most advanced anti-aircraft systems that have ever been shown have basically been WW2 guns with laser beam skins, certainly nothing like modern BVR systems that can engage and destroy aircraft over a hundred miles away. Artillery is something almost completely foreign to the Eldar, especially proper long range artillery, which is what inflicts most casualties in ground based warfare.

Tau: watch gundam cartoons, suits would dominate, out teched and sly by the ethereal propaganda

4: Gundams are hilariously overcomplicated robots meant for rule of cool, with all sorts of (often inconsistent) hand-wavium as to why such humongous targets aren't easily taken out by long range weapons and why they need monstrously expensive legs and arms over much cheaper turrets and tracks (and why their pilots aren't turned into tomato paste when performing the maneuvers they are portrayed as engaging in, in real life their pilots would be killed instantly in half the melee engagements they're shown in from the G-forces ). Like the Eldar, they also don't really appear to have anything like modern artillery, BVR capabilities, etc.

IG: might be able to compete, scavenge enemy weaponry and develop tech might give us a chance, i’d give us no better than 40% chance

5: When you can actually fit into the turret and load a shell into a Leman Russ breach, let me know.

Marines: no chance even against their limited numbers, they can kill us with their bare fists, every marine beyond the first is a cumulative effect vs their opposition

6: Lots of things can kill a human with their bare fists, including other humans. Marines outside of infantry combat aren't all that impressive, marine tanks vs non-marine tanks aren't really at much of an advantage for instance (being an 8ft tall super soldier doesn't mean much for crewing a tank except that you probably cannot actually fit inside one). A chapter of 1000 marines could hold a small town and nothing else. You could maneuver entire armies around them and they simply couldn't be in enough places at once to stop that. They'd be surrounded, isolated, and destroyed in short order.

Chaos marines: same as above with even more terror and unpredictability
Renegades: if there was a bet where modern earth have the best chance, it’s chaos renegades; earth have better equipment for once

Chaos is about the only thing that would really have any standing here, and that's got nothing to do with battlefield capabilities.

IK/titan: no chance, we might stretch out the fighting, but no chance of winning

7: They'd be targeted by cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away or struck by aircraft and obliterated before they got to anything. They're big, easily seen targets that can't hide and will have gobs of ordnance thrown at them, and they're big enough that really big weapons can actually land relatively precision shots from long distances, engaging a knee joint to knock it over would be fairly trivial for tank guns or aircraft delivered munitions or even some cruise missiles. Simply *landing* a titan would be a monstrous task that could be easily engaged by all sorts of heavy ordnance.

Skitari/mech: out teched, not as much like by the Eldar, but we still lose.

8: Again, much like the Eldar, most of their stuff is basically re-skinned WW2 in terms of actual capabilities. Their infantry might have snazzier, more powerful guns than modern infantry, but they aren't displaying capabilities modern militaries have.

1:They dont die, at all, they are made of living metal if you damage them enough they teleport away, rinse and repeat, they can also completely reform from tremendous amounts of damage, and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.

2: I think he is talking about the shadow in the warp, which we have absolutely no modern or historical comparison to, if its a hive fleet then we really do stand no chance, if its a splinter fleet, then it comes down to where they land and how they choose to come at us.

3: Ring Ring, they can FLY, not just hover and have a top speed of 800 KPH and weapons that make an utter mockery of even the heaviest armour, fluff wise Eldar anti air weapons are both insanely deadly and extremely long ranged, the TT stats really dont show this, shock there right, as for artillery, its on a falcon Chassis, so artillery that can fire on the move (up to 800KPH) and deny entire areas of land with monofillement weapons.... yep, they may not have our range, but they are better than our artilley in manuevrebility, durabilty and targeting.

4: um... yes they do have artillery the Tau'una, and G forces, one would assume they have inercial dampeners like most other races would for similar reasons, but on the whole I agree that mecha suits are pretty dumb.

5: So blame GW for not knowing how real tanks work, in universe they work and most likely dont look much like the stylized ones we have on the tabletop, other than that pedantic point the guard out tech us, can easily outnumber us if they wanted to, hell even if we killed 10 of there tanks for every one of ours, they would still win in pure numbers, we have millions of soldiers theoretically, they have trillions, we lose again.

6: so much wrong with this, marines run stupidly fast, are immune to our small arms mostly, barely need to eat, sleep etc. and are an elite strike force, they drop into important places without warning, level it before a real response (tank and air support) and get out, they could teleport a few termies outside whatever goverment building they wanted and level it, teleport away and suddenly were in disarray as people start to panic, rinse and repeat in several places in the world and move on for the guard to finish a weakened foe.

7: this is utterly laughable, void shields can withstand a nuke, missiles, constant bombardment, titans can also withstand A PLANET BEING ON FIRE around it and survive, these things are some of the most OP things in an OP universe, landing them may be an issue sure, but we dont know enough about the landers to know if they have void shields or not, if they do, cant stop it either.

8: I cant really comment on this one as I dont really know enough about Ad mech, Dark mech could release the scrap code into our internet though and that would cripple the world without a shot being fired.

 Formosa wrote:

1:They dont die, at all, they are made of living metal if you damage them enough they teleport away, rinse and repeat, they can also completely reform from tremendous amounts of damage,

Do they still always teleport away? I thought they mucked about with a bunch of that with the 2011 Retcon, I was under the impression they couldn't always necessarily do that. Regardless, it's possible to destroy them enough to consider them casualties, both in the fluff and in the game. If lasguns, Choppas, big monster fists, or tank treads can do it, then I see no reason why a modern high velocity cannon, 500lb aircraft dropped high explosive bomb, etc could not.

and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.

Yeah so are the Eldar, and they both still be killed by humans with bayonets.

2: I think he is talking about the shadow in the warp, which we have absolutely no modern or historical comparison to, if its a hive fleet then we really do stand no chance, if its a splinter fleet, then it comes down to where they land and how they choose to come at us.

The number stated at the beginning of the thread was 50 million Tyranids, In the face of that, humanity would survive without too much problem. That would be a very quickly contained threat, if by nothing else than through the liberal use of nuclear weapons. An entire hive fleet, sure, that would overwhelm earth, but then, it's pretty much overwhelmed everything in 40k too.

3: Ring Ring, they can FLY, not just hover and have a top speed of 800 KPH and weapons that make an utter mockery of even the heaviest armour,

They can fly, but they can't generally fight at altitude (that's always been portrayed as a limited/non-standard ability that does things like preclude firing or whatnot) nor operate at such speeds when in combat (though yes, they'd be faster than modern ground tanks). That said, their own armor has never been anything spectacular, modern weapons can track fast moving targets, and modern weapons can cut through enough armor that I don't feel uncomfortable assuming that they wouldn't have trouble if they hit an Eldar vehicle, unless we want to argue that Eldar vehicle armor (represented formerly as AV12 and currently as T7 3+) is so powerful that a full literal meter thick hardened steel plate isn't possibly comparable. Modern tanks can move and fire without any meaningful effect on accuracy, in 40k this is shown to be a relatively rare ability (this has been represented in different ways in different editions) that is not typically present on Eldar vehicles.

fluff wise Eldar anti air weapons are both insanely deadly and extremely long ranged, the TT stats really dont show this, shock there right,

Looking at the AA weapons portrayed, they're typically something along the lines of a jazzed up scatterlaser or bright lance. These are weapons that require line of sight, and have finite effective ranges. One may be able to make the case that they could be more effective than a 20mm vulcan fighter cannon, I might buy that. Eldar missiles however have never been portrayed as spectacularly long ranged or anything like that, they've been broadly similar to their human Imperial counterparts. There has been nothing ever portrayed for them that would match modern anti-aircraft networks. Like most stuff in 40k, they pretty much take WW2 imagery and reskin it, it's much more thematic and dynamic than computer systems talking to each other to hit something in another time zone.

as for artillery, its on a falcon Chassis, so artillery that can fire on the move (up to 800KPH) and deny entire areas of land with monofillement weapons.... yep, they may not have our range, but they are better than our artilley in manuevrebility, durabilty and targeting.

Hrm, the Night Spinner is really more of a fire support vehicle than real artillery, it's akin to a Wyvern in role and weapons range than something like a Basilisk which would be more akin to modern artillery (albeit dramatically more primitive than modern equivalents).

Even if we want to take that comparison however, ok, they have speed...on a platform that doesn't need tremendous amounts of speed (just enough to relocate and keep up). Could they make greater use of that speed? Absolutely, but not directly in support of its role as an artillery platform (more in a strategic sense of moving as a cohesive fighting force at high speed). Given that modern artillery can fire GPS or laser guided shells that will put a 70lb shell through a window at 25 miles, and or can drop an unguided indirect fire round (with a 35 meter kill radius) within a cars length of the target 15km away, I'm not too worried about accuracy. Modern artillery can also fire a wide variety of different rounds for different purposes. As for durability, Eldar vehicles seem to go down to artillery shellfire just fine, big explosions with shockwaves would do very nasty things to stuff flying around at high speed even without direct hits.

4: um... yes they do have artillery the Tau'una

If their only artillery is a variant of an astoundingly valuable and very rare superheavy monster suit, that is going to be hard to hide high priority target, I'm going to feel safe in assuming that their artillery is not going to be a consistent concern.

and G forces, one would assume they have inercial dampeners like most other races would for similar reasons, but on the whole I agree that mecha suits are pretty dumb.

Yeah they're pretty silly.

5: So blame GW for not knowing how real tanks work, in universe they work and most likely dont look much like the stylized ones we have on the tabletop,

Sure, but that sort of thing was even in their "faux realistic" technical drawings of the Leman Russ. If we're going to have to assume everything about the tank is different from how it is consistently portrayed, I'd argue that we're ultimately having to accept my point here

other than that pedantic point the guard out tech us,

It's not just that, the vehicles as a whole are built around WW1 paradigms. Sponson and hull guns? that's just another weak point and another dude in the tank that's doing nothing 99.99% of the time except taking up space and fuel. They appear to have little or no functional suspension. Armor sloping is atrocious (materials shouldn't matter here really). The center of gravity is super high and liable to tip over easy. Night vision equipment that's been standard for decades in real world armies is not on Guard vehicles. Russ weapons are fired through WW2 style optical sights and there has never been any description (that I can recall) of sophisticated computerized fire control systems that do things like measure barrel wear and humidity and whatnot to compute a firing solution. The real world shows tremendously larger capabilities in such light.

can easily outnumber us if they wanted to, hell even if we killed 10 of there tanks for every one of ours, they would still win in pure numbers, we have millions of soldiers theoretically, they have trillions, we lose again.

If we're talking the entirety of the Imperial Guard, sure, but the thread has broadly been considering 30 regiments. I don't think we'd have a problem.

6: so much wrong with this, marines run stupidly fast,

They run fast, they're not Superman fast. Certainly not fast enough in a combat situation for GW to have ever seen fit to differentiate them with rules from normal human combat troops (though they have for races like Eldar and Orks).

are immune to our small arms mostly

So's a Humvee, those die plenty.

barely need to eat, sleep etc. and are an elite strike force,

I'm not denying that they would have dramatically superior operating parameters in these regards.

they drop into important places without warning

Radar is a thing, we detect all sorts of stuff into the atmosphere travelling as fast or far faster than Drop Pods have been described as going, usually much smaller than a drop pod by orders of magnitude.

More to the point, how do they know where they need to be?

level it before a real response (tank and air support) and get out

So we're going to assume that the Space Marines somehow know exactly where they're foes are and their entire order of battle showing them whats what, are able to evade the myriad of electromagnetic detection devices in use and don't see them coming, land with a veritable air armada of transports bearing heavy armor, no response is ever formulated on the ground, no anti-aircraft weapons are brought to bear from ranges of potentially several hundred miles away and the many literal *thousands* of fighter aircraft that exist on this planet (compared to what, a few dozen aircraft available to a Space Marine chapter?) and which often are in the sky patrolling constantly can't possibly intercept, that there's no fire support available and nobody can call in artillery or airstrikes, and they're going to successfully repeat that for thousands of military installations worldwide over and over with just a thousand dudes? A JROTC team could probably win under those conditions

they could teleport a few termies outside whatever goverment building they wanted and level it

Ok, how do they know which building to teleport to? How many thousands of buildings across hundreds of governments and their associated militaries are they going to have to hit this way with a few dozen teleporting warriors?

7: this is utterly laughable, void shields can withstand a nuke

A direct hit? What's the reference there (can't remember everything ) Either way, we have many thousands of nukes, we could try again

, missiles, constant bombardment,

We have ample evidence of Titans being destroyed, often by exactly these kinds of weapons. Yeah, it's not just one and done, they take wearing down, but they do go down, and void shields do degrade and fail.

8: I cant really comment on this one as I dont really know enough about Ad mech, Dark mech could release the scrap code into our internet though and that would cripple the world without a shot being fired.

I'd consider that basically more Chaos-ey stuff in general. By definition it's a dimension of unreality so it can basically break whatever it wants and military comparisons become meaningless.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Of course, the biggest problem for SMs is that they're uniformly dumber than rocks.

Why be smart when you have plot armour?

Small nitpick: Tau actually have demonstrated BVR/artillery capabilities with things like pathfinders designating targets for over-the-horizon seeker missile shots. And they're specifically stated to use modern-style targeting systems, have the ability to fire on the move with railguns from miles away, etc. If they don't do it regularly it's probably because such things are beyond the scope of a normal 40k tabletop game, and are left for the background rather than given rules and prominence in the fluff.

And in general the Tau would probably be the biggest threat, as essentially a modern-style force with better hardware. The giant anime robots (which shouldn't even exist, crisis suits are power armor, not giant robots FFS) would probably suck and fail hilariously, but the tanks and infantry and aircraft would be dangerous. How do you deal with invisible stealth suits/Remora drones/etc that can kill you without ever letting you shoot back, or call in cruise missile strikes on anything within line of sight? How do you deal with airborne units that can threaten anything on the planet within minutes? Sheer numbers would help, but we'd be fighting an enemy that has the ability to pick every fight and slaughter us at will.

 Peregrine wrote:
How do you deal with invisible stealth suits/Remora drones/etc that can kill you without ever letting you shoot back

Thermals, probably. You can get them on your cell phone, now.

M.

I think too much is being read into the tabletop rules.

CWE vehicles are Wraithbone, which is really, really strong. It's one of those not-physically-possible materials, even in-universe.

All ranges are screwy on the tabletop.

Also, the 50mil number is not 50mil Gaunts. How many soldiers, do you think, some Venom Cannon Warriors can walk through? How many Tervigons could a real-world brigade survive? How many humans could push back on a Zoanthropes will?

 Infantryman wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
How do you deal with invisible stealth suits/Remora drones/etc that can kill you without ever letting you shoot back

Thermals, probably. You can get them on your cell phone, now.

Assuming the same stealth field that stops visible light doesn't stop the IR spectrum as well. Given the fact that even 40k has IR targeting and Tau stealth fields are still effective, I think that's a poor assumption to make.

We would be slaughtered, of course.

Both marine flavours should be obvious. Giants in mega advanced armour and with mega advanced weapons s vs men. No thanks.

Orks and Nids are too hardy and suicidal to fight effectively with our current weapons.

Fighting Eldar and Tau would be similar to fighting the aliens from independence day but without the convenient virus upload. Flying tanks?! Rail guns?!

This is assuming humanity (for some reason) does something it's never done before and actually bands together as a cohesive group rather than (the more likely) infighting and defensive posturing around key resources.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Both marine flavours should be obvious. Giants in mega advanced armour and with mega advanced weapons s vs men. No thanks.

Until they run out of ammunition and are overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Real-world weapons can hurt marines, and when you have millions of anti-tank missiles for every marine eventually they're going to die. TBH you could probably drop that chapter into a real-world war and nobody would even notice, they're just too few in number to have any effect.

Orks and Nids are too hardy and suicidal to fight effectively with our current weapons.

I don't think you appreciate the levels of destruction real-world weapons can inflict. Real-world artillery against a horde is going to mow them down by the thousands, not inflict a casualty here and there like on the tabletop. Real-world heavy machine guns in defensive emplacements (minefields, barbed wire, etc) will slaughter them as they try to run across open fields. Real-world air strikes will cripple their logistics (a factor 40k tends to ignore), so those hordes will be fighting on starvation rations with limited ammunition. And that's without considering tactical nuclear weapons, the perfect solution to an enemy that depends on sheer numbers and mindlessly running towards melee combat.

Fighting Eldar and Tau would be similar to fighting the aliens from independence day but without the convenient virus upload. Flying tanks?! Rail guns?!

Remember that these advanced armies are beaten in canon by WWI-era tanks and human wave infantry attacks.

Does the modern military have an answer to terminator armour? I understand it is supposed to be stupidly durable, but I'm not sure of any fluff examples other than the whole "walking through a nuclear reactor" thing

Orks would actually benefit from our resistance. Depending on where they land, small arms fire from angry/scared civilians and police would create more orks than it kills, as every non-fatal bullet would spread spores for more crazy space gorrila soldiers. If the heavily reinforced world of Armageddon cannot fully remove the orks, no way are we shifting them.

As for chaos, halfs of the legions (depending on which one invades) would pose a interesting problem, due to their unconventional methods of warfare. DG, TS, AL, WB and NL all use forms of warfare that are a tad smarter than WW2 bum rush. How durable is a rubric marine, and what does a warp flame bolter actually do? What is our response when the WB summons a bloodthirster? How do you fight an army composed of soldiers akin to batman? Surely all typhus has to do is teleport onto the planet, wait a few seconds for the various creeping deaths to fall out of his orifices and infect the poor bastards he landed next to, teleport back to the ship and wait for most of the plane to fall. What is stopping the TS and their many sorcerers from carrying out some crazy doomsday ritual/spell?

I think in most situations we can kiss the planet goodbye, there are too many skew tactics in the 40k universe for our TAC planet to not get tabled.

I'd say a chapter of Space Marines is the weakest foe we could face, as it's still ridiculous that they are only 1000 Marines. They couldn't hold any region, even if they dropped one drop pod onto every larger parliament in the world and killed the governments, the following riots and existing military would simply mow them down. Same for a renegade chapter. A Legion would be more interesting. The plagues of the death guard/ Nurgle Daemon invasion would probably create a pandemy killing the population in a short time. Tzeentch could start the world revolution and I'd probably join in. Khorne followers are too stupid and with their CC focus no danger and far too slow. Slaanesh... well, capitalism rules the world so obviousely Slaanesh controls earth already.

We have no chance against any Xenos but Dark Eldar, as they are pretty stupid with all their stabbing, poisoning and taking people for torture. Same with Harlequins probably.
Tau fight like we do, but with better tech in anything, so even though they don't have the numbers like Orks or tyranids, their technological advantage and being the only reasonable faction that wouldn't cause riots against their rule immediately, I can still see them win.

 Infantryman wrote:
So, I get that Orks might crash-land on Earth and, somehow, hit somewhere of merit (not a pole, not an ocean). Where do the new Orks get guns to fight us with?

M.

Exactly. They only have the logistics they brought with them. Without a supply tail they're just angry bears.

I would think the IG would bring more.

Any mek worth his salt could simply take the raw materials that "da umies" possess and make a dakka gizmo out of it.

One things orks won't run out of: weapons

 Peregrine wrote:

I don't think you appreciate the levels of destruction real-world weapons can inflict. Real-world artillery against a horde is going to mow them down by the thousands, not inflict a casualty here and there like on the tabletop. Real-world heavy machine guns in defensive emplacements (minefields, barbed wire, etc) will slaughter them as they try to run across open fields. Real-world air strikes will cripple their logistics (a factor 40k tends to ignore), so those hordes will be fighting on starvation rations with limited ammunition. And that's without considering tactical nuclear weapons, the perfect solution to an enemy that depends on sheer numbers and mindlessly running towards melee combat.

We cannot cripple space logistics. What are we going to do, shoot anti-satellite missiles against their spaceships? even nukes are near useless against space targets.

Similarly, our logistics are very exposed from space. Our entire concept depth defense is useless against orbital assaults. Refineries, industry, agriculture, bases, fleets, cities, etc. all very vulnerable to having an army dropped on them.

And artillery and nukes are a thing in 40k. That has never stopped Orks or Tyranids.

Orkz wouldn't need a Mek to make their guns. If it looks like a gun and feels like a gun, it fires like a gun.

Although, the newborn's understanding of guns would be mostly of modern weaponry. So after the first WAAAGH gets blunted, their Shootas will be the equivelent of modern weapons.

But their numbers would continue to swell for as long as there' something to fight. We'd lose eventually.

Bharring wrote:
Orkz wouldn't need a Mek to make their guns. If it looks like a gun and feels like a gun, it fires like a gun.

Although, the newborn's understanding of guns would be mostly of modern weaponry. So after the first WAAAGH gets blunted, their Shootas will be the equivelent of modern weapons.

But their numbers would continue to swell for as long as there' something to fight. We'd lose eventually.

Their manufacturing ability would be minimal. You're talking cottage level industry vs. mass production.
Its the problem with the whole 40K invading worlds thing. You would need vastly larger numbers of orks than presented. Who's going to mine ore, refine fuels, make the steels?

 Frazzled wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Orkz wouldn't need a Mek to make their guns. If it looks like a gun and feels like a gun, it fires like a gun.

Although, the newborn's understanding of guns would be mostly of modern weaponry. So after the first WAAAGH gets blunted, their Shootas will be the equivelent of modern weapons.

But their numbers would continue to swell for as long as there' something to fight. We'd lose eventually.

Their manufacturing ability would be minimal. You're talking cottage level industry vs. mass production.
Its the problem with the whole 40K invading worlds thing. You would need vastly larger numbers of orks than presented. Who's going to mine ore, refine fuels, make the steels?

I feel like you're seriously underestimating ork ingenuity. Who needs industry when you can pillage and loot the nearest developed area for scrap? Why even bother, when orks are perfectly dangerous with primitive spears and sharp stones (ala snakebites)? Orks fight through aggression and numbers, the latter of which swells with conflict. The only way to remove them is conflict, so no matter what you do there will always be more orks.

And that's if they LOSE the fight. Mork/gork help you if they win

They don't need to build Kalishnakovs to have a working gun. They just need to bang bits of scrap together into something that *looks* like a gun. Their 'tech' is mostly nonfunctional as is.

But the big thing that'd hose us is that, every time we fight them, there'll then be more of them. And not fighting them won't be an option.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Of course, the biggest problem for SMs is that they're uniformly dumber than rocks.

Unless they are the Raptors Chapter. Those dudes are basically USSOCOM in powered armor.

 Vaktathi wrote:

and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.

Yeah so are the Eldar, and they both still be killed by humans with bayonets.

The same also holds for humans with clubs vs Space Marines.

Eldar can be killed by bayonets, but why would the Eldar "take the field"?

In the 40k era, CWE are hard pressed to even survive. Even with being able to read the future, there are almost no viable paths to survival. So they usually have to pick the best of their bad options - which in turn involves fighting pitched battles with lesser races.

In the modern era, what would force the CWE to meet mankind on the field? Especially a field of mankind's choosing, where all their forces are united and deployed?

A bayonet could kill an Eldar. A pitched battle between a Craftworld and Mankind could be argued:
Earth has ~7 billion, Eldar have billions.

Human militia is ws/bs2, well-trained troops are ws/bs3. CWE militia is ws/bs4. CWE basic weapons are stronger than human basic weapons. Even just assuming Guardian Warhost-style forces (CWE Guardian infantry with emplaced weapons, artillery, scout vehicles and some tank support), they aren't significantly outnumbered, and are a lot more skilled.

Craftworlds have a central authority, Earth does not. So they can more readily leverage their entire population than Earth.

Craftworlds manifest the resources they need from the Warp. So they have no supply deficiency.

CWE have much faster transit. Webway access. Holofields. Faster reactions. Telepathy. Their logistics are way beyond mankinds. We wouldn't be able to meaningfully degrade their logistics.

CWE is virtually free to do whatever it wants to mankind's supply chain (holofields, much faster speeds, reading minds, etc).

CWE could nab anyone who knew anything (launch codes, deployment plans, locations) and read their mind.

Lets stipulate that Craftworlders still need to fear She Who Thirsts, and can't be assisted by this-timeframe forces (Eldar were in the Sol system pre-fall, all their gods are still alive and healthy, the Empire still exists, etc).

The only thing humans have going for them is they number about twice as many. But in every category, they'll be outperformed by at least twice as much.

I don't see even a pitched battle going in Mankind's favor.

But why would they fight a pitched battle? They have the supply advantage. They don't need to just fight one big battle and take the earth. They can play the long game. They could convince some powers to serve them. They could nuke a few areas at a time to force people to capitulate. They could play the part of benelovent visitors while taking over. I think they'd conquer Earth by diplomacy, not warfare. Fewer Eldar dead that way.

Bharring wrote:
They don't need to build Kalishnakovs to have a working gun. They just need to bang bits of scrap together into something that *looks* like a gun. Their 'tech' is mostly nonfunctional as is.

But the big thing that'd hose us is that, every time we fight them, there'll then be more of them. And not fighting them won't be an option.

Thats what antifungal herbicide is for.

What are the odds we're advanced enough a species to produce a herbicide that is hostile enough to Ork spores to kill them, when they survive in so many wretched and horrid environments without issue?

If we could produce such a herbicide, why couldn't the Eldar or Necrons or Renegades or Cawl or Nids, or even the Emperor?

And then, if we do produce it, how do we disperse it sufficiently? We haven't been able to kill off mosquetoes. We might be able to spread enough over a small engagement, but at great cost. We couldn't coat our planet.

Also, it'd have to be toxic enough for Orkz, but not toxic to humans.

Bharring wrote:
What are the odds we're advanced enough a species to produce a herbicide that is hostile enough to Ork spores to kill them, when they survive in so many wretched and horrid environments without issue?

If we could produce such a herbicide, why couldn't the Eldar or Necrons or Renegades or Cawl or Nids, or even the Emperor?

And then, if we do produce it, how do we disperse it sufficiently? We haven't been able to kill off mosquetoes. We might be able to spread enough over a small engagement, but at great cost. We couldn't coat our planet.

Also, it'd have to be toxic enough for Orkz, but not toxic to humans.

Also worth considering, during the octarius war the ork spores and tyranid phage cells literally fought each other. So good luck to any herbicide that wants to 'av a piece

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

1:They dont die, at all, they are made of living metal if you damage them enough they teleport away, rinse and repeat, they can also completely reform from tremendous amounts of damage,

Do they still always teleport away? I thought they mucked about with a bunch of that with the 2011 Retcon, I was under the impression they couldn't always necessarily do that. Regardless, it's possible to destroy them enough to consider them casualties, both in the fluff and in the game. If lasguns, Choppas, big monster fists, or tank treads can do it, then I see no reason why a modern high velocity cannon, 500lb aircraft dropped high explosive bomb, etc could not.

and are MILLIONS years ahead of us in terms of technology, literally reforming the laws of physics as they see fit, you may have a point with other armies, but here you are flat wrong on every level.

Yeah so are the Eldar, and they both still be killed by humans with bayonets.

2: I think he is talking about the shadow in the warp, which we have absolutely no modern or historical comparison to, if its a hive fleet then we really do stand no chance, if its a splinter fleet, then it comes down to where they land and how they choose to come at us.

The number stated at the beginning of the thread was 50 million Tyranids, In the face of that, humanity would survive without too much problem. That would be a very quickly contained threat, if by nothing else than through the liberal use of nuclear weapons. An entire hive fleet, sure, that would overwhelm earth, but then, it's pretty much overwhelmed everything in 40k too.

3: Ring Ring, they can FLY, not just hover and have a top speed of 800 KPH and weapons that make an utter mockery of even the heaviest armour,

They can fly, but they can't generally fight at altitude (that's always been portrayed as a limited/non-standard ability that does things like preclude firing or whatnot) nor operate at such speeds when in combat (though yes, they'd be faster than modern ground tanks). That said, their own armor has never been anything spectacular, modern weapons can track fast moving targets, and modern weapons can cut through enough armor that I don't feel uncomfortable assuming that they wouldn't have trouble if they hit an Eldar vehicle, unless we want to argue that Eldar vehicle armor (represented formerly as AV12 and currently as T7 3+) is so powerful that a full literal meter thick hardened steel plate isn't possibly comparable. Modern tanks can move and fire without any meaningful effect on accuracy, in 40k this is shown to be a relatively rare ability (this has been represented in different ways in different editions) that is not typically present on Eldar vehicles.

fluff wise Eldar anti air weapons are both insanely deadly and extremely long ranged, the TT stats really dont show this, shock there right,

Looking at the AA weapons portrayed, they're typically something along the lines of a jazzed up scatterlaser or bright lance. These are weapons that require line of sight, and have finite effective ranges. One may be able to make the case that they could be more effective than a 20mm vulcan fighter cannon, I might buy that. Eldar missiles however have never been portrayed as spectacularly long ranged or anything like that, they've been broadly similar to their human Imperial counterparts. There has been nothing ever portrayed for them that would match modern anti-aircraft networks. Like most stuff in 40k, they pretty much take WW2 imagery and reskin it, it's much more thematic and dynamic than computer systems talking to each other to hit something in another time zone.

as for artillery, its on a falcon Chassis, so artillery that can fire on the move (up to 800KPH) and deny entire areas of land with monofillement weapons.... yep, they may not have our range, but they are better than our artilley in manuevrebility, durabilty and targeting.

Hrm, the Night Spinner is really more of a fire support vehicle than real artillery, it's akin to a Wyvern in role and weapons range than something like a Basilisk which would be more akin to modern artillery (albeit dramatically more primitive than modern equivalents).

Even if we want to take that comparison however, ok, they have speed...on a platform that doesn't need tremendous amounts of speed (just enough to relocate and keep up). Could they make greater use of that speed? Absolutely, but not directly in support of its role as an artillery platform (more in a strategic sense of moving as a cohesive fighting force at high speed). Given that modern artillery can fire GPS or laser guided shells that will put a 70lb shell through a window at 25 miles, and or can drop an unguided indirect fire round (with a 35 meter kill radius) within a cars length of the target 15km away, I'm not too worried about accuracy. Modern artillery can also fire a wide variety of different rounds for different purposes. As for durability, Eldar vehicles seem to go down to artillery shellfire just fine, big explosions with shockwaves would do very nasty things to stuff flying around at high speed even without direct hits.

4: um... yes they do have artillery the Tau'una

If their only artillery is a variant of an astoundingly valuable and very rare superheavy monster suit, that is going to be hard to hide high priority target, I'm going to feel safe in assuming that their artillery is not going to be a consistent concern.

and G forces, one would assume they have inercial dampeners like most other races would for similar reasons, but on the whole I agree that mecha suits are pretty dumb.

Yeah they're pretty silly.

5: So blame GW for not knowing how real tanks work, in universe they work and most likely dont look much like the stylized ones we have on the tabletop,

Sure, but that sort of thing was even in their "faux realistic" technical drawings of the Leman Russ. If we're going to have to assume everything about the tank is different from how it is consistently portrayed, I'd argue that we're ultimately having to accept my point here

other than that pedantic point the guard out tech us,

It's not just that, the vehicles as a whole are built around WW1 paradigms. Sponson and hull guns? that's just another weak point and another dude in the tank that's doing nothing 99.99% of the time except taking up space and fuel. They appear to have little or no functional suspension. Armor sloping is atrocious (materials shouldn't matter here really). The center of gravity is super high and liable to tip over easy. Night vision equipment that's been standard for decades in real world armies is not on Guard vehicles. Russ weapons are fired through WW2 style optical sights and there has never been any description (that I can recall) of sophisticated computerized fire control systems that do things like measure barrel wear and humidity and whatnot to compute a firing solution. The real world shows tremendously larger capabilities in such light.

can easily outnumber us if they wanted to, hell even if we killed 10 of there tanks for every one of ours, they would still win in pure numbers, we have millions of soldiers theoretically, they have trillions, we lose again.

If we're talking the entirety of the Imperial Guard, sure, but the thread has broadly been considering 30 regiments. I don't think we'd have a problem.

6: so much wrong with this, marines run stupidly fast,

They run fast, they're not Superman fast. Certainly not fast enough in a combat situation for GW to have ever seen fit to differentiate them with rules from normal human combat troops (though they have for races like Eldar and Orks).

are immune to our small arms mostly

So's a Humvee, those die plenty.

barely need to eat, sleep etc. and are an elite strike force,

I'm not denying that they would have dramatically superior operating parameters in these regards.

they drop into important places without warning

Radar is a thing, we detect all sorts of stuff into the atmosphere travelling as fast or far faster than Drop Pods have been described as going, usually much smaller than a drop pod by orders of magnitude.

More to the point, how do they know where they need to be?

level it before a real response (tank and air support) and get out

So we're going to assume that the Space Marines somehow know exactly where they're foes are and their entire order of battle showing them whats what, are able to evade the myriad of electromagnetic detection devices in use and don't see them coming, land with a veritable air armada of transports bearing heavy armor, no response is ever formulated on the ground, no anti-aircraft weapons are brought to bear from ranges of potentially several hundred miles away and the many literal *thousands* of fighter aircraft that exist on this planet (compared to what, a few dozen aircraft available to a Space Marine chapter?) and which often are in the sky patrolling constantly can't possibly intercept, that there's no fire support available and nobody can call in artillery or airstrikes, and they're going to successfully repeat that for thousands of military installations worldwide over and over with just a thousand dudes? A JROTC team could probably win under those conditions

they could teleport a few termies outside whatever goverment building they wanted and level it

Ok, how do they know which building to teleport to? How many thousands of buildings across hundreds of governments and their associated militaries are they going to have to hit this way with a few dozen teleporting warriors?

7: this is utterly laughable, void shields can withstand a nuke

A direct hit? What's the reference there (can't remember everything ) Either way, we have many thousands of nukes, we could try again

, missiles, constant bombardment,

We have ample evidence of Titans being destroyed, often by exactly these kinds of weapons. Yeah, it's not just one and done, they take wearing down, but they do go down, and void shields do degrade and fail.

8: I cant really comment on this one as I dont really know enough about Ad mech, Dark mech could release the scrap code into our internet though and that would cripple the world without a shot being fired.

I'd consider that basically more Chaos-ey stuff in general. By definition it's a dimension of unreality so it can basically break whatever it wants and military comparisons become meaningless.

God damn I wish I knew how to use multi quote.....

 Vaktathi wrote:

The number stated at the beginning of the thread was 50 million Tyranids, In the face of that, humanity would survive without too much problem. That would be a very quickly contained threat, if by nothing else than through the liberal use of nuclear weapons. An entire hive fleet, sure, that would overwhelm earth, but then, it's pretty much overwhelmed everything in 40k too.

Not sure about 50 million Tyranids being that easily brushed off. The Hive Mind can be subtle and bide its time when it wants to, such as the case on Ghorala. It's never stated that all 50 million have to land in one spot. If they are seeded around the world, the ones in wildernesses could keep a relatively low profile and grow their numbers first. There may not be an easily bombed or nuked concentration of Tyranid forces. Wildlife being consumed and isolated villages going quiet might not be immediately noticed. The proposed scenario doesn't state whether the world is aware of the invasion, so if it isn't, the Tyranids could grow their numbers immensely before anyone realizes and understands what is happening and its magnitude. Without such understanding, no government is going to drop a nuke on a forest where 50 Hormagaunts landed.

Tyranids have also survived the firestorms of Exterminatus before, either by burrowing, or by being so tough they survived and started to regenerate. Use of nuclear weapons would kill many, but the question is whether you really get them all, or are you just selecting for radiation resistant survivors? If any Rippers survive, they can regenerate the Tyranid consumption ecosystem. The Anphelion Project showed the full range of Tyranid forms appearing despite initially starting from only a few basic forms.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'd say a chapter of Space Marines is the weakest foe we could face, as it's still ridiculous that they are only 1000 Marines. They couldn't hold any region, even if they dropped one drop pod onto every larger parliament in the world and killed the governments, the following riots and existing military would simply mow them down. Same for a renegade chapter. A Legion would be more interesting. The plagues of the death guard/ Nurgle Daemon invasion would probably create a pandemy killing the population in a short time. Tzeentch could start the world revolution and I'd probably join in. Khorne followers are too stupid and with their CC focus no danger and far too slow. Slaanesh... well, capitalism rules the world so obviousely Slaanesh controls earth already.

We have no chance against any Xenos but Dark Eldar, as they are pretty stupid with all their stabbing, poisoning and taking people for torture. Same with Harlequins probably.
Tau fight like we do, but with better tech in anything, so even though they don't have the numbers like Orks or tyranids, their technological advantage and being the only reasonable faction that wouldn't cause riots against their rule immediately, I can still see them win.

I think the dark eldar are the most dangerous of all the 40k factions the OP listed, as much as I like to think that the modern human psych is strong and unmovable, after listening to the 'carrion throne', I think we vastly underestimate the weapon of terror as well as many other 40k opposition, modern arty>mobile eldar/tau disposition is a laughter of a argument; not to mention how tough the orks are to rid of in local vicinity, which many other posters have made in detail.

I can see the twisted haemoculus stitching together the most outspoken world leaders among the world and their families together and make a mockery of them and vid pic them all across the world to terrorize all opposition, we lose before we even track down where the dark eldar are operating from.