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I wouldn't say the Imperium is weaker now, especially when you look at the force guarding Terra, let alone the Cadian sector

they are facing more enemies (tau, TYRANIDS, still waking necrons, more recovered eldar and dark eldar, traitor marines more solidly backed by/in favor with/full of gifts from/full of motivation from the gods, stronger demons who have thrived due to 10k years of absolute and total war, and so forth) They are tied up in multiple key places which are only draining their strength (armageddon and the cadian gate come to the mind...) It has been stated that the emperor is deteriorating, chapters keep dying off (heck even the BAs are gonna go down), ALL of the primarchs are either dead, missing, or out of commission, serious corruption on all levels... need I go on?
In contrast, you had all the primarchs, a whole swath of the galaxy that had ceased to worship any gods (apart from the spread of the cult of the god emperor) which meant weakened chaos gods, all the legions at full power and with serious momentum, much more technological understanding that has since been lost or broken... and so forth.

UrbanCowboy wrote:they are facing more enemies (tau, TYRANIDS, still waking necrons, more recovered eldar and dark eldar, traitor marines more solidly backed by/in favor with/full of gifts from/full of motivation from the gods, stronger demons who have thrived due to 10k years of absolute and total war, and so forth) They are tied up in multiple key places which are only draining their strength (armageddon and the cadian gate come to the mind...) It has been stated that the emperor is deteriorating, chapters keep dying off (heck even the BAs are gonna go down), ALL of the primarchs are either dead, missing, or out of commission, serious corruption on all levels... need I go on?
In contrast, you had all the primarchs, a whole swath of the galaxy that had ceased to worship any gods (apart from the spread of the cult of the god emperor) which meant weakened chaos gods, all the legions at full power and with serious momentum, much more technological understanding that has since been lost or broken... and so forth.

Almost all of these things can also be attributed to the forces of chaos which would be the ones we are talking about. Their primarchs are either dead or in seclusion/disappeared just as the loyalists. The forces of chaos are just as tied up/drained by the cadian gate/armageddon/black crusades/other failed+failing wars. Just as the blood angels have their figurative demons eating away at them and killing them off the chaos forces are fighting the same kinds of things. The world eaters are fighting each other to the death, the death guard are slowly losing all of their armor, the emperor's children are slowly losing their minds and end up becoming burned out wrecks from all the pleasure overloading their systems, etc.

Just as the forces of chaos have gained chaos gifts the forces of the imperium have gained new tech/ability to repair old tech (which csms greatly lack). Simply having mars under their control is an enormous boon to their tech.

I would say they are just as equal as they were during the heresy. The emperor is certainly shriveled , but we really don't know his psychic ability and whether he is running things. For instance the warp storms that have wiped out chaos fleets that are attributed to the emperor. We just don't have that info. The chaos gods fight amongst themselves just as much as the chaos marines do as well.

Has anyone heard of Chaos marines viral bombing a planet?

The Fallen Raven wrote:Has anyone heard of Chaos marines viral bombing a planet?

You make it sound like they can just do such a thing at will and unopposed.

I don't think the Chaos gods can ever be viewed as one whole, despite all being put under the label "Chaos".

Tzeentch for example probably hates Nurgle even more than any of the human factions.

Why does tzeentch hate nurgle?

orkylooter wrote:Why does tzeentch hate nurgle?

According to lexicanum: "Nurgle's main enemy is Tzeentch, the Lord of Change, because their power comes from opposing sources. Tzeentch is hope and ambition, while Nurgle is defiance born of despair and hopelessness. "

Chaos would have to get through ALL of the SMs, Including renegades that didn't turn to chaos (sould drinkers), every single man, woman, and child of the ENTIRE Imperium of Man. Every single person in the inquisition. The defense forces on Terra. Mars. All the titan legions. Eldar. Possibly Tau (They allied against Nids. They could team up to take out the daemons. Not on the same front, but a mutual cease fire), and infighting. Plus the Emperor and all the Primarchs. Oh, and that would all be AT THE SAME TIME!

No way in Hell would the make it in the force they did in the heresy. PLUS, Necrons hold off the eye of terror. If all the Daemons jumped to Terra, wouldn't it be in there best interests to jump in and kick some Chaos god behind?

Happygrunt wrote:Chaos would have to get through ALL of the SMs, Including renegades that didn't turn to chaos (sould drinkers), every single man, woman, and child of the ENTIRE Imperium of Man. Every single person in the inquisition. The defense forces on Terra. Mars. All the titan legions. Eldar. Possibly Tau (They allied against Nids. They could team up to take out the daemons. Not on the same front, but a mutual cease fire), and infighting. Plus the Emperor and all the Primarchs. Oh, and that would all be AT THE SAME TIME!

No way in Hell would the make it in the force they did in the heresy. PLUS, Necrons hold off the eye of terror. If all the Daemons jumped to Terra, wouldn't it be in there best interests to jump in and kick some Chaos god behind?

One problem with that line of thinking is that you're instantly assuming all of the xenos(tau, eldar, dark eldar, necron, tyranids) would side with the imperial forces for some reason. It helps them just as much to wipe out the imperium and leave the infighting chaos forces to finish off later(that might possibly finish themselves off. There are also a ton of chaos-sided renegades so I think that is a moot point.

You also seem to think that they have to fight every single person on the side of the imperium to defeat terra which simply isn't true. A lightning strike on the "Sol" system would be possible and would catch them by surprise without involving the other forces. The side of chaos has many tools that can be used to squash inter-galatic transmissions so they might not be able to get out a distress signal to other systems.

None of this says that chaos would definitely win, but your argument has some big holes in it.

Of course the Eldar would side with the Imperium against Chaos; and how exactly could Chaos launch a lightening strike on the Sol system when they MUST go through the Cadian gate to leave the Eye, especially with enough force to defeat the armies of Terra?

Retribution wrote:Of course the Eldar would side with the Imperium against Chaos

The eldar are as fickle as they come. They might come to the aid of the imperium or they might not. It could depend on whether they have enough forces free to come to their aid or are willing to send their meager forces that are free into a fierce fight to save an imperium that for the most part hates and fears them. Or they might (as I said above) simply be willing to sacrifice the imperium to have one less enemy (and much of the imperium is their enemy, space marines + inquisition especially) and that enemy will be fighting over the remains of the imperium and thus easier to wipe out one at a time. I'm not saying they absolutely would not, but it certainly is not a guaranteed ally by any means.

Retribution wrote:
; and how exactly could Chaos launch a lightening strike on the Sol system when they MUST go through the Cadian gate to leave the Eye, especially with enough force to defeat the armies of Terra?

First, you need to research the arx gate. The cadian gate is not the only exit from the eye of terror. During the gothic war abaddon used this route to great effect and completely bypassed the cadian gate.

The next thing you don't seem to understand is that the only things stuck inside the eye of terror are those things that have gone into the eye of terror. This certainly isn't all of the forces of chaos. The forces that are outside the eye could make a lightning raid on the sol system to cut off transmissions (either through magical or physical means;there was a necron object in the hands of chaos that was capable of cutting planets off from the warp and thus astropathic communications. Which is the only way to communicate outside the sol system to send a distress call). They could then wait for reinforcements from the eye of terror that have left secretly from the arx gate (and they havent exactly been stopped at the cadian gate during the black crusades now have they?).

When you speak in absolutes you better be absolutely sure you know what you're talking about. I prefer to say what is possible because we simply don't know everything that is possible in this universe.

The Eldar can't abandon the Imperium as they act as a necessary bulwark against Chaos and Orks, otherwise they wouldn't have intervened during the 13th Crusade; there's also the Coven of Isha to consider.

Retribution wrote:The Eldar can't abandon the Imperium as they act as a necessary bulwark against Chaos and Orks, otherwise they wouldn't have intervened during the 13th Crusade; there's also the Coven of Isha to consider.

The eldar absolutely can abandon the imperium for the reasons I said above that you didn't make any argument against. Orkz attack anything and thus chaos would be just as much of a bulwark against them as the imperium. The imperium attacks eldar just as readily as chaos does. Even if the coven of isha was canon it is only effective for a small portion of both eldar and the imperium. There is also every single loyal space marine chapter that chants "Burn the Heretic Kill the Mutant Purge the Unclean" and is sworn to kill any xenos on sight thanks to the inquisition and their iron grip on the imperium.

As I said before, there is absolutely no guarantee that the eldar will be coming to help the imperium. They could or they could not, there is nothing that says they are allies and nothing that says they are enemies. They are the definition of neutrally aligned which should be all the answer you need when asking if they will help.

Even if we are going to surmise that the eldar come to the aid of the imperium. We could do the same and say the dark eldar would come to the aid of the forces of chaos to reap in heaps of slaves to feed to slaanesh and also simply for a good time.

I don't exactly see how the Orks could form a sufficient defense against Chaos forces if we assume they had already overrun the Cadian sector and taken Terra, at that point wouldn't it already be too late? And as fickle as the Eldar are they have always been willing to battle the "Great Enemy", as we see from the fluff, if the Cadian sector falls then it spells doom for the Eldar, otherwise they wouldn't have intervened against Abaddon's forces during the 13th Crusade. Now, if it was a more minuscule conflict or the Eldar didn't foresee a great harm to themselves then yes, I would agree with you.

What makes you think we can't infiltrate and corrupt the inquisition? What makes you think we're not already on Holy Terra working from the inside to open a rift in the warp. How much does the mere presence of the golden throne and all of the psychers sacrificed to it tear weaken the boundaries between the physical realm and warp space?

schadenfreude wrote:What makes you think we can't infiltrate and corrupt the inquisition? What makes you think we're not already on Holy Terra working from the inside to open a rift in the warp. How much does the mere presence of the golden throne and all of the psychers sacrificed to it tear weaken the boundaries between the physical realm and warp space?

Because its been 10,000 years and they still haven't.

Halsfield wrote:

UrbanCowboy wrote:they are facing more enemies (tau, TYRANIDS, still waking necrons, more recovered eldar and dark eldar, traitor marines more solidly backed by/in favor with/full of gifts from/full of motivation from the gods, stronger demons who have thrived due to 10k years of absolute and total war, and so forth) They are tied up in multiple key places which are only draining their strength (armageddon and the cadian gate come to the mind...) It has been stated that the emperor is deteriorating, chapters keep dying off (heck even the BAs are gonna go down), ALL of the primarchs are either dead, missing, or out of commission, serious corruption on all levels... need I go on?
In contrast, you had all the primarchs, a whole swath of the galaxy that had ceased to worship any gods (apart from the spread of the cult of the god emperor) which meant weakened chaos gods, all the legions at full power and with serious momentum, much more technological understanding that has since been lost or broken... and so forth.

Almost all of these things can also be attributed to the forces of chaos which would be the ones we are talking about. Their primarchs are either dead or in seclusion/disappeared just as the loyalists. The forces of chaos are just as tied up/drained by the cadian gate/armageddon/black crusades/other failed+failing wars. Just as the blood angels have their figurative demons eating away at them and killing them off the chaos forces are fighting the same kinds of things. The world eaters are fighting each other to the death, the death guard are slowly losing all of their armor, the emperor's children are slowly losing their minds and end up becoming burned out wrecks from all the pleasure overloading their systems, etc.

Just as the forces of chaos have gained chaos gifts the forces of the imperium have gained new tech/ability to repair old tech (which csms greatly lack). Simply having mars under their control is an enormous boon to their tech.

I would say they are just as equal as they were during the heresy. The emperor is certainly shriveled , but we really don't know his psychic ability and whether he is running things. For instance the warp storms that have wiped out chaos fleets that are attributed to the emperor. We just don't have that info. The chaos gods fight amongst themselves just as much as the chaos marines do as well.

The only point I was making was that the imperium is weaker now than before.
As to your points... Angron, Fulgrim, and magnus are all alive and stronger than ever.
The dark mechanicum has been stated to be far more advanced than mars and has a whole other angle of warping demons and such with machines (soul grinders, obliterators, defilers ect.)

You are right about the gods actually hating eachother more than anyone else, but the topic is IF (a big if) they god together and got to the system solar, would they take out terra/the emperor? One point I am saying is the imperium is weaker compared to the heresy imperium and the chaos powers are stronger as a whole than during the heresy.
but as I posted before, I think the solid result would be a loss for chaos.


As to the eldar comin in, I think it is a moot point as they MUST intervene. Chaos is their ultimate enemy. They can not let chaos overrun the galaxy or they will be hunter down and devoured body and soul by slaanesh. The imperium is a lesser enemy, and this is where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Plus he is right about the imperium being a buffer against chaos. Why let the imperium fall when they are such a useful tool for manipulation? take armageddon even, not even associated with chaos, where they manipulated Mr. Thraka into invading in order to redirect the orks, to save eldar lives in favor of the loss of billions of human lives.
I think it is in the best interests of even the extremists like biel tan, but as you say they are fickle so the question is how many eldar would answer the call. As to the dark eldar... I dont think they would show up. They fear chaos more than anyone because they have no defense against slaanesh. They would rape the undefended parts of the imperium.

on the other hand, I think the post in question, way above, was indeed way too absolute. too many variables and loopholes.

schadenfreude wrote:What makes you think we can't infiltrate and corrupt the inquisition? What makes you think we're not already on Holy Terra working from the inside to open a rift in the warp. How much does the mere presence of the golden throne and all of the psychers sacrificed to it tear weaken the boundaries between the physical realm and warp space?

Because of GW

well if Gav Thorpe had his way, chaos would rape the emperor right now.

Caidian Gate needs to fall first if chaos can suceed they will uterly rape terra up the bum!

bigmek35 wrote:Caidian Gate needs to fall first if chaos can suceed they will uterly rape terra up the bum!

Please read my post a few posts up about the arx gap or look at the cadian gate page on lexicanum. It is not the only way for the forces of chaos inside the eye of terror to get in or out. It is simply the most stable.

UrbanCowboy wrote:

The only point I was making was that the imperium is weaker now than before.
As to your points... Angron, Fulgrim, and magnus are all alive and stronger than ever.
The dark mechanicum has been stated to be far more advanced than mars and has a whole other angle of warping demons and such with machines (soul grinders, obliterators, defilers ect.)

And my point was that the forces of chaos have gone through many of the same changes you listed so are thus just as weak or strong in comparison.

As to the fates of the chaos primarchs: Angron = banished after his defeat @ 2nd armageddon and is licking his wounds somewhere in the warp probably. Fulgrim/daemon spends his days ruling over his pleasure planet instead of dominating others in battle atm. Magnus is currently wallowing in despair inside his tower and still mourns the loss of his council and space marine legions. Are they alive? Certainly. When would they be willing to leave their own plans behind to attack terra? Who knows? It is the same question as when is russ going to come back? When is Cyrax going to return? When is guilliman going to revive himself completely? I am 100% certain if terra was threatened all of the primarchs not outright slain would return to fight the ultimate battle again.

UrbanCowboy wrote:
You are right about the gods actually hating eachother more than anyone else, but the topic is IF (a big if) they god together and got to the system solar, would they take out terra/the emperor? One point I am saying is the imperium is weaker compared to the heresy imperium and the chaos powers are stronger as a whole than during the heresy.
but as I posted before, I think the solid result would be a loss for chaos.

I still disagree. Both sides have lost some things and gained some things. The imperium is constantly expanding and bringing new planets under their control. They are constantly recruiting and building new chapters of space marines and new imperial guard regiments. Again, their possession of mars and the dragon ctan lets them build new tech (and repair old tech) while chaos is relying on old technology and does not possess great repair ability.

UrbanCowboy wrote:
As to the eldar comin in, I think it is a moot point as they MUST intervene. Chaos is their ultimate enemy. They can not let chaos overrun the galaxy or they will be hunter down and devoured body and soul by slaanesh. The imperium is a lesser enemy, and this is where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Plus he is right about the imperium being a buffer against chaos. Why let the imperium fall when they are such a useful tool for manipulation? take armageddon even, not even associated with chaos, where they manipulated Mr. Thraka into invading in order to redirect the orks, to save eldar lives in favor of the loss of billions of human lives.
I think it is in the best interests of even the extremists like biel tan, but as you say they are fickle so the question is how many eldar would answer the call. As to the dark eldar... I dont think they would show up. They fear chaos more than anyone because they have no defense against slaanesh. They would rape the undefended parts of the imperium.

Their ultimate enemy are the necrons. The necrons were what caused the old ones to create races like the orkz and eldar to combat them. Chaos came along later when the humans came to the fore and started creating them with their extreme emotions. Even if chaos did overrun the galaxy they would immediately revert to fighting each other in order to see who gets what pieces of the empire to rule over. As long as khorne hates slaanesh there will be multiple forces fighting slaanesh to keep him (and chaos) from turning wholly towards fighting the eldar.

The imperium is not the only buffer against chaos(and it should be noted that chaos is also a buffer against the imperium). Chaos is a buffer against chaos. Orkz are a buffer against chaos. Tyranids are a buffer against chaos. Necrons are a buffer against chaos. Even if the imperium was the only buffer they are also hell bent on wiping out all xenos and that includes the eldar. If chaos was ultimately destroyed the imperium would expand to fill in the gaps left by chaos and would be an even greater threat to the xenos because chaos would no longer be a buffer against the imperium.

Also, how is armageddon completely unrelated to chaos? The 1st war was all about cultists on armageddon worshiping khorne that drew the attention of angron in a space hulk who then nearly took over the planet. At the last minute he was banished to the warp by the grey knights.

My point about the dark eldar was that if we somehow agree that the eldar are going to come to the side of good, even though they are incredibly aloof and could literally do anything when terra comes under attack, we could just as easily say the dark eldar would come to fight for chaos or at least fight against the imperium. The point was that we have no idea what either the eldar or the dark eldar would do in this situation which is why they are neutral and not allies or enemies of either chaos or the imperium.

UrbanCowboy wrote:
on the other hand, I think the post in question, way above, was indeed way too absolute. too many variables and loopholes.

Agreed

UrbanCowboy wrote:

The only point I was making was that the imperium is weaker now than before.
As to your points... Angron, Fulgrim, and magnus are all alive and stronger than ever.
The dark mechanicum has been stated to be far more advanced than mars and has a whole other angle of warping demons and such with machines (soul grinders, obliterators, defilers ect.)

Halsfield wrote:
And my point was that the forces of chaos have gone through many of the same changes you listed so are thus just as weak or strong in comparison.

As to the fates of the chaos primarchs: Angron = banished after his defeat @ 2nd armageddon and is licking his wounds somewhere in the warp probably. Fulgrim/daemon spends his days ruling over his pleasure planet instead of dominating others in battle atm. Magnus is currently wallowing in despair inside his tower and still mourns the loss of his council and space marine legions. Are they alive? Certainly. When would they be willing to leave their own plans behind to attack terra? Who knows? It is the same question as when is russ going to come back? When is Cyrax going to return? When is guilliman going to revive himself completely? I am 100% certain if terra was threatened all of the primarchs not outright slain would return to fight the ultimate battle again.

Well, the return of imperial primarchs was part of my original argument that imperium would win, but they are big ifs (as in will cyrax return/is he alive, will jaghatai return/is he alive, will russ return/is he alive, is rogal dorn even alive? Vulkan is a bit more optimistic as he just dissapeared but still. Then there is the question of whether Guilliman will recover in time or if the lion will recover at all. Notice Sanguinius and ferrus manus are strait up dead.)
If the chaos powers prodded their pet demon prince primarchs into battle, the primarchs would go. I would also argue that Magnus is no longer the Magnus that we see in the thousands sons heresy book. 10k years of warp exposure and embracing the lord of change will do that. There is reason why he is a demon prince now. Same with fulgrim, lorgar, perturabo, and mortarion. Plus there are some chaos primarchs that may or may not be dead. There is some speculation that night haunter was not even killed, much less the situation with alpharius and omegon. Heck... did any of the chaos primarchs die except for those two?

UrbanCowboy wrote:
You are right about the gods actually hating each other more than anyone else, but the topic is IF (a big if) they god together and got to the system solar, would they take out terra/the emperor? One point I am saying is the imperium is weaker compared to the heresy imperium and the chaos powers are stronger as a whole than during the heresy.
but as I posted before, I think the solid result would be a loss for chaos.

Halsfield wrote:
I still disagree. Both sides have lost some things and gained some things. The imperium is constantly expanding and bringing new planets under their control. They are constantly recruiting and building new chapters of space marines and new imperial guard regiments. Again, their possession of mars and the dragon ctan lets them build new tech (and repair old tech) while chaos is relying on old technology and does not possess great repair ability.

As to the eldar comin in, I think it is a moot point as they MUST intervene. Chaos is their ultimate enemy. They can not let chaos overrun the galaxy or they will be hunter down and devoured body and soul by slaanesh. The imperium is a lesser enemy, and this is where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Plus he is right about the imperium being a buffer against chaos. Why let the imperium fall when they are such a useful tool for manipulation? take armageddon even, not even associated with chaos, where they manipulated Mr. Thraka into invading in order to redirect the orks, to save eldar lives in favor of the loss of billions of human lives.
I think it is in the best interests of even the extremists like biel tan, but as you say they are fickle so the question is how many eldar would answer the call. As to the dark eldar... I dont think they would show up. They fear chaos more than anyone because they have no defense against slaanesh. They would rape the undefended parts of the imperium.

UrbanCowboy wrote:
The only point I was making was that the imperium is weaker now than before.
As to your points... Angron, Fulgrim, and magnus are all alive and stronger than ever.
The dark mechanicum has been stated to be far more advanced than mars and has a whole other angle of warping demons and such with machines (soul grinders, obliterators, defilers ect.)

This thread is about what would be the outcome if chaos attacked terra. You made a point that the imperium is greatly weakened and listed a bunch of reasons. My reply to your post was to say that the forces of chaos are weakened by many (if not all) of the same things so it leaves them on a fairly even playing field. Did I miss something?

I'd like to see the fluff that states the dark mechanicum is more advanced than mars. At best they are on par with the imperium's technology which agrees with my earlier point that the two sides are equally as strong or weak as the other. Mars has the dragon c'tan at their behest filling the mechanicum with dreams of new tech to be created. The c'tan if you remember are the beings that nearly wiped out the eldar(which are reknowned for their own incredible technology). The whole reason the emperor enslaved this particular c'tan was to take a vast technological leap forward to make the great crusade possible. The forces of chaos do not have access to this tree of knowledge. They do have their own ways (daemon implants, obliterator virus, etc), but as I said at best this puts them on par.

UrbandCowboy wrote:
Well, the return of imperial primarchs was part of my original argument that imperium would win, but they are big ifs (as in will cyrax return/is he alive, will jaghatai return/is he alive, will russ return/is he alive, is rogal dorn even alive? Vulkan is a bit more optimistic as he just dissapeared but still. Then there is the question of whether Guilliman will recover in time or if the lion will recover at all. Notice Sanguinius and ferrus manus are strait up dead.)

Using the best facts available and not any speculative deaths/escapes:

Dead loyalist primarchs: Rogal Dorn(he died, but supposedly only his hands were found, I'm still counting him as dead as that is what the fluff says), Sanguinius, Ferrus Manus. (Roboute on second glance was not technically dead but mortally wounded and put into stasis where he is supposedly healing)
Dead traitor primarchs: Horus, Night haunter (dead as a doornail as seen on recording), alpharius/omegon.

So I see 3 dead on each side. The rest of the imperial primarchs ran off after different things, but are certainly not dead and I see no reason for them not to be able to return as most promised when the need was great. If the traitor primarchs can be roused from their melancholy/seclusion, the loyalist primarchs could be summoned by the emperor/imperial forces. So I see the line as even.

I'd also argue that the chaos powers could "prod" all of the primarchs. Abaddon is not even a primarch and while he receives gifts from the chaos powers he is not run by any of them. I see an enormous civil war forming if the chaos powers tried to force the primarchs and their legions to do anything. If we're talking about a situation where the chaos powers have encouraged all the csms to go along with it, fine, but there would be no forcing without enormous backlash that would endanger the entire attack on terra.

UrbanCowboy wrote:
The imperium is the main buffer. That is why so much emphasis must be placed upon them. Plus the imperium HAS allied with the eldar at times where the other races would never work with the eldar, except perhaps the tau... who need their own buffer.
I disagree about necrons being their ultimate enemy. Ultimately they were but the eldar's fate is now tied with their own demon... er chaos god. This is well established in the fluff. The necrons are serious enemies for them, but the malevalent god who destroyed their civilization and seeks to devour their very souls at all times and who they have changed every facet of their lives in order to combat is a bit more of a concern than the ancient but deadly enemy that exists mainly in their mythology and is still just waking up.

You can disagree about what is the greatest threat, but the whole reason for the creation of the eldar is the necrons and the c'tan. The necrons may only be waking up but if the eldar expend all of their warriors fighting side-by-side with the imperium they will be unprepared when they do fully awake (and they will, and the eldar know this). The eldar are one of the only races that remember what the necrons are capable of and thus should know better than any that they need to be ready for them. The necrons are the reason the eldar are so weak/dying out and depressed. They are the reason the eldar started the pleasure cults that led to slaanesh being born.

The eldar will have enemies that hate and want to destroy them whether the imperium stands or not. If they do send warriors to aid the imperium they will lose warriors they can not easily replace and lose them in large numbers and for what? To simply have imperial aquilas on the enemies that fight them instead of spikey bits and slaanesh icons?

UrbanCowboy wrote:
I meant the 2nd and 3rd wars of Armageddon... as I thought was obvious with me talking about ghazkull...I am well aware of the 1st war. Methinks you try too much to throw around your knowledge.
I already made my point on the dark eldar. The idea of them overtly siding with chaos is ludicris for both their own fears and their favored tactic of raiding for slaves. They just would not care to take part when so many slaves were left vulnerable and ripe for the picking.

You can say whatever you like after the fact, but if you're going to get upset about my reply the blame is on you for not putting a little qualifying statement showing you understood that armageddon DID have a lot to do with chaos. Even if you throw ghazghkull in the sentence it doesn't tell me that you knew about the previous war, only that you know about the 2nd and 3rd wars.

Also, from the WD article I read Eldrad Ulthran and the eldar psykers did manipulate Ghazghkull into invading armageddon, but that was to get him away from their craftworld and not to save human lives. It caused even more hate/anger/distrust between the two races and is an even bigger reason why they would not allow the eldar to help them and would consider them an enemy.

You don't see the flawed logic in saying 100% without a doubt that the eldar would come to the aid of the imperium while also saying that the dark eldar absolutely 100% would not? If not I think we're done here and we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think i made some pretty easy to grasp reasons why they would come to the aid of chaos in the same way that you have given the eldar reasons for coming to the aid of the imperium. There are plenty of slaves to take from the imperium while they are under attack by chaos. While chaos could care less about the DE taking slaves from imperial worlds a stronger imperium would crack down on DE activity even more. Would the DE 100% come to their aid (or at least fight against the same enemy)? No, I can't say that I can't see how you can say the eldar will either.

Wait, the necrons lead to the hedonistic Eldar culture? I thought that was because they had the largest empire, that was entirely secure from all threats, and their technology eliminated all need for labor; thus they had wild and sexy parties to fill all their time

Platuan4th wrote:

Karon wrote:Why...why did you mention Cypher.

Because his fluff states that he will appear before the Emperor right before the final battle with Chaos, awaken him, and have the Lion Sword reforged by the Big E?

*shakes corpse vigorously*
"Emperor! Emperor! For God's sake, ya gotta wake up! They're right outside!"

Maybe if I poke him with this sword...

1. Technology
You may be right about the tech levels. I reviewed the codexes and such associated with that info. The best way to describe it is that they are two different branches, as the dark mechanicum has the warp to mess with, allowing them to make things like the planet killer and to use demons in their devices. I will say that for the most part, the imperium has regressed a great deal in technology since the crusade. Take simple things like jetbikes, that now are almost completely gone. On the other hand, they have been getting the occasional STC while the chaos side has been coming up with new things at about the same rate (who would have thought... it is almost like one company makes all this up and tries to keep it balanced... tries)

2.Primarchs
Missing- 4 imperial, 0 traitor
Dead- 3 imperial, 2 traitor
In question/incapacitated- 2 imperial 1 traitor-the traitor being the alpharius/omegon question.
Alive and Stronger- 0 imperial 6 traitor
This is per the lexicanum

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Primarchs

The conclusions are that
we know that most of the traitor primarchs are alive and have ascended to daemon prince levels
almost half of the loyalists are simply missing and we dont have any idea if or when they will come back, or in what shape.
More loyalists are dead and incapacitated.

You may be right about the backlash, but demon princes are merely pawns of the powers and should a power tell them to do something, they would do it... even if they were not the most cooperative. This brings up an interesting and relevant question to this thread. How behind this would the powers be? If they were 100% behind it than you can count on the primarchs going, but if not... than we cant count on near as much.

3. The Eldar
I think the situation that you spoke of with eldrad well illustrates as was what I was trying to highlight concerning the eldar's habitual use of humanity as a buffer. They redirected the orkz into the humans in order to save eldar lives. They dont give a crap about human lives apart from the fact that the humans are dying so the eldar dont have to. So the question is whether the cost to benefit ratio for them is worth it to them to intervene in a defense of terra, and how much they would intervene.
You also have to consider that they are more friendly (having cooperated with the imperium at times and fought beside them) while they have never done so with chaos. They cant work with chaos forces as they know better than anyone the corrupting power of chaos, and the eldar's susceptibility to that corruption. Combine this with the fact that their fates are tied with slaanesh as the nemesis of their very race, and they must prefer the imperium to chaos. For that they need a semi functioning imperium.
The point of whether slaanesh or the necrons are their ultimate enemy is more nitpicking, but I hold firm to my statement that slaanesh has become their overriding threat. I think I argued it to my satisfaction before.

4. the Dark Eldar
As to my flawed logic, no I do not really see it. The eldar have a reason to intervene and they have habitually on similar occasions (obvious example of the 13th black crusade, magan ra, eldrad and ulthuan) I did not see anything about the DE there. When have the DE taken a significant part in a major campaign like that? I will say that I can possibly see what you mean by the outcomes depending on whether Terra falls or it holds. I will add that I do not think the DE are the most foresighted of species and they tend to be ruled by their carnal minds. If it falls, then the imperium will fall. Mankind will go into a second dark age as the astonomican is destroyed and so forth. All that means easy pickings. I think I can see what you mean there. Sad thing is, I still dont think that they would do anything like that even if it was in their best interests, which goes back to my question about their ever having significantly contributed to a major campaign.

I will also add that the level we have taken this thread to really merits several threads, from the nature of the Dark eldar to the Eldar and the C'tan vs slaanesh, to the tech lvls of the dark and regular mechanicum...

The eldar would come in and help the imperium (in some way), unless the fall of the Imperium and takeover of chaos would cause humanity to spiral into brief but total chaos before becoming extinct. This would rid them of their enemy and allow them to repopulate, meaning they wouldn't really need buffer states anymore (in the beginning of their re-population, but not later on).

Well, if by some miracle of god (more politly, the emperor) the chaos boys smashed the cadian gate (never before done), wiped out the hundreds of thousands of stationary battle barges, knocked through half of the imperial held system, defeated every chapter of SM sent to stop them, won torenchal space wars, then somehow bypassed marss crazy ass defences, landed on terra and defeated the emperors skittari legions tehn ya mabey.

If its just chaos verses the imperium, then i would say chaos have a very could chance of destroying Terra.
Of course the Daemon Primarchs would have to get their s$!t together and lead their legions. With the Primarchs leading, the legions could over come their greatest weakness, their lack of unity.

Every one seams to always bring up how Chaos has failed 13 times. Chaos hasn't failed, the black legion has failed. If the Daemon Primarchs with their entire legions, all the renegades, traitor guard and Daemons attacked the cadian gate it would fall in record time. As it is Cadia is still a contested planet with the traitors claiming over 50% controle.

The 13th Black crusade was mainly for by the black legion. The word bearers attack a different planet. The Emperors Children attacked the lost Eldar planets. in fact the only other legion that really got stuck in was the death guard.

Don't forget that it was suggested that should Cadia fall the Imperium would be as good as lost!

If we start to talk about the alien races of the galaxy we are opening up a whole new can of worms