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A fraction of Imperial might? Are you kidding me? Well I suppose technically speaking that is correct, an entire segmentum fleet would be a fraction of the Imperiums naval strength... 1/5 to be precise...

As for that map, check the one in the Tyranid codex, it shows the fleets movement far better. Considering that its stated in text to cover Ultima Segmentum and Segmentum Tempestus and to even have tendrils reaching into Segmentum Solar, and yet the map you have presented only shows it to effect a much smaller portion of the galaxy. Leviathan is much larger than any of the other Hive Fleets thus far, and TWO ENTIRE Segmentum battlefleets (Tempestus and Solar) are being used just to try to hold it at bay, plus dozens of Space Marine chapters.

And if you are unaware, there is a bit of a fluff called the Stark Report, which determined that the Imperium would need to increase recruitment by 500% to defeat Leviathan, which (according the fluff) would require the Imperium to recruit and mobilize every man, woman, and child in Segmentum Solar, Obscurus, and Tempestus.

As for what dwindling means, it only means one thing, getting smaller or reducing (check Oxford/Merriam Webster English dictionaries). Losing one planet without the gain of another is not stagnation, thats shrinking. THE IMPERIUM IS SHRINKING. The sentence doesn't need to give us a time frame, its written in the 'present' time. 999.M41, its happening 'now'. It doesn't matter how long the Imperium is shrinking for, all that matters is that it is in fact shrinking at the end of the 41st Millenium.

Augustus wrote:<snip>

I took the liberty of cutting your text short, so as not to needlessly span the forums.

You are comparing real life armies with Space Marines? Space Marines are rare, more rare than Russian Spets Naz. In fact, Spets Naz are to the Russian army more what Imperial Guard veterans are. You simply seem to miss the point, most of the battles, most of the Empires' defense, is entrusted to the Hammer of the Emperor - the Imperial Guard. Space Marines only participate in a small fraction of all the combat involved, usually the truly serious ones. It's the board game that blows it all out of proportion. Space Marines is the second least numerous playable army, but the most commonly played one, which seem to blow some thing out of proportions for some people.
There is no real world equivalent of a Space Marine. The most elite special forces in real life are couch potatoes in comparison.

Each world has millions of soldiers defending them. The Imperial Guard. The guys who actually get things done and keep the human realm safe long enough for the Marines to steal all the glory.

Mahtamori wrote:

Augustus wrote:<snip>

Each world has millions of soldiers defending them. The Imperial Guard. The guys who actually get things done and keep the human realm safe long enough for the Marines to steal all the glory.

Actually, if the IG Codex/Black Library books are to be believed, most worlds only have a few ten thousands of guardsmen defending them, and planetary conquest in general seems to rely on numbers in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:A million is a handful now? Go ahead and count to a million. Go on, I'll wait. I think you'll see it's quite a bit.

I think he meant a handful million, as in >1 million < 1 Billion maybe, not that a million was a handful.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Mahtamori wrote:

Augustus wrote:<snip>

Each world has millions of soldiers defending them. The Imperial Guard. The guys who actually get things done and keep the human realm safe long enough for the Marines to steal all the glory.

Actually, if the IG Codex/Black Library books are to be believed, most worlds only have a few ten thousands of guardsmen defending them, and planetary conquest in general seems to rely on numbers in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions.

Which is contradicted by the "billions of regiments" thing in the Guard Codex. That or I'm an idiot and I'm reading it wrong.

Mahtamori wrote:

Augustus wrote: (Really great stuff and pictures)

I took the liberty of cutting your text short, so as not to needlessly span the forums.

Me too.

Mahtamori wrote:You are comparing real life armies with Space Marines?

No, just their numbers and sizes.

Mahtamori wrote:Space Marines are rare, ...You simply seem to miss the point,...

I get it, I already said 40k != reality, I'm explaining in the fiction, even at "a hundred shall fall for every space marine" that the space marines couldn't defend the Imperium, or even take a single planet with the abysmally small numbers they have, it's silly. Obviously they do though in the stories... It is an idiosyncrasy.

It ads to my point it's not that the 'Imperium has a million (+) worlds' that's bad writing, it's that there are only 1000 marines in a chapter, that's, almost comical!

The numbers are just for perspective, thats why I tried to show a military, a fictitious and a practical population example.

Mahtamori wrote:There is no real world equivalent of a Space Marine. The most elite special forces in real life are couch potatoes in comparison.

Uh right, I'm just showing numbers for scale here. How bout this forget about the real world army numbers, what about the clone wars parallel and the scale of that clone army? See?

Oh and LOL... I'm on the interweb arguing about space marines with nerds. Oh my.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

iproxtaco wrote:Which is contradicted by the "billions of regiments" thing in the Guard Codex. That or I'm an idiot and I'm reading it wrong.

That's my interpretation also, as in the scale of the IG makes sense,, in context of the greater story, and the marines does not.

One thing to remember also:

An imperium beset on all sides, being driven back step by step but refusing to give ground, despite the absolute lack of a chance of victory is a breeding ground for heroism. Heroism is interesting.

An imperium where everything is always better, more-so or shinier than everyone else, and constantly expanding is a breeding ground for xenophobic bullies with pin heads and bigh shoulderpads.. Winning all the time isn't heroism. It's boring.

Consider:

100 marines fought bravely, and died back to back preventing the hordes of chaos from defiling their shrine, the last marine triggering an explosion that takes out the chapel and the invading force that's swarming in - Heroic, damn cool and what i originally got into playing Marines for back in RT.

100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.

Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.


Marines should be heroic.

Ascalam wrote:One thing to remember also:

An imperium beset on all sides, being driven back step by step but refusing to give ground, despite the absolute lack of a chance of victory is a breeding ground for heroism. Heroism is interesting.

An imperium where everything is always better, more-so or shinier than everyone else, and constantly expanding is a breeding ground for xenophobic bullies with pin heads and bigh shoulderpads.. Winning all the time isn't heroism. It's boring.

Consider:

100 marines fought bravely, and died back to back preventing the hordes of chaos from defiling their shrine, the last marine triggering an explosion that takes out the chapel and the invading force that's swarming in - Heroic, damn cool and what i originally got into playing Marines for back in RT.

100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.

Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.


Marines should be heroic.

Or you can take the realistic middle ground, where the Imperium is beset on all sides, but the conflict is at least winnable, and your characters have some depth, and do actually have someone back home that they can fight for.

Except that the book says it's not winnable

Pg 101 main rulebook

'from the palaces of Holy Terra the High Lords of the Imperium watch as thier domain crumbles. Armies and fleets fight on with the valour of heroes, calling for reinforcments that do not exist....Imperial citizens pray with the desperation of the damned, beggin their immortal emperor for a salvation they will never see. As the lines of battle grow ever closer to Terra, the light of the emperor fades and darkness swallows all.'

Pg 104

'There is no peace, no respite, no hope of victory... There is only war.'

It's pretty clear that the Empire just surviving another day is considered a victory.

Thinking it winnable is unrealistic, according to the fluff. Its when the BL and Ward get involved that it tends to swing too far the other way, with 10 marines conquering a continent, or a single marine curbstomping some of the most powerful entities in the universe without taking any significant hurt.


Movietheming-wise if it's winnable, and achieved by great sacrifice and tribulation then it makes a good, gripping tale. It would require a lot of losses and desperate acts of heroism to achieve that victory though.


Ok, so if we want the win to come at a great loss for a good, heroic story lets look at the latest offerings:

Grey Knights codex- not one single loss in the entire timeline, IIRC.

Blood Angels - one loss (semmel betrayal) and a couple of setbacks, everything else is wins.

BL- Fall of Damnos- a dinky little assualt force of a couple of dreads and some tactical marines, plus Tigurius (IIRC) carve their way through an entire massive necron army, losing about 4 marines and a dread in the process (on an occasion that's supposed to be a xenos victory in the fluff) and take out several Lords to boot.

I'm not seeing much effort required by the IOM to win.

Some of the xenos codecii have the IOM forces getting stomped, but they usually get more wins than losses even there.

The imperium doesn't take the middle ground. It's got an auto-win button in any battle anywhere but the rulebook fluff, which is pretty definite on the fact that it has no hope of victory overall.

Your just mad that you don't have as much plot armor

You caught me

What i wouldn't give for some imperial plot armour


The stuff they give to Marines though, not the weaker IG stuff

Thinking it winnable is unrealistic, according to the fluff. Its when the BL and Ward get involved that it tends to swing too far the other way, with 10 marines conquering a continent, or a single marine curbstomping some of the most powerful entities in the universe without taking any significant hurt.

Handfuls of Marines... like, 5 , maybe a dozen... have always, in the game's history, been able to conquer entire planets and utterly smash rival armies.

Psienesis wrote:Handfuls of Marines... like, 5 , maybe a dozen... have always, in the game's history, been able to conquer entire planets and utterly smash rival armies.

Only if they play their cards right. It's not a matter of being so strong that you carve a path of death into the enemy, its a matter of striking at the right place and right time with a set goal to tip the scales of battle in your favor, however small it may be. You can plow through rank after rank of enemies, but in the end, all you achieve is reducing enemy numbers. That won't mean anything if your opponent has more arms that can accomplish more tasks than you do within any amount of time. What good does power armor or superior strength give you then?

Actually in the earlier books (RT, 2nd Ed et al, 3rd Ed to a lesser degree, ) the marines wre generally depicted having a famous last stand, not hulksmashing whole armies

Starting at late 3rd edition and gradually slanting more and more heavily as time wore on the Marines have been more and more ubered, fluffwise. It really got to tthe current point with the Black Library's offerings, which are a tad biased..

How, exactly, do you hold a whole planet with a single squad, unless you have some major out of sight other guys/ships to help? If you have them spaced out it means they are fighting alone, with thousands of miles between them and no way to regroup or resupply, and if you have them together the planet's population will always have them encircled, and will have far more ammo than they do.


5-12 guys can and will be pulled down/shot up by several billion (average 6-7 billion/planet assuming Earth equivilent) foes, even if each of them is armed with only a rock. a small rock. Guns jam or empty, and superhuman strength will only take you so far in a mob

chaos0xomega wrote:

Ascalam wrote:One thing to remember also:

An imperium beset on all sides, being driven back step by step but refusing to give ground, despite the absolute lack of a chance of victory is a breeding ground for heroism. Heroism is interesting.

An imperium where everything is always better, more-so or shinier than everyone else, and constantly expanding is a breeding ground for xenophobic bullies with pin heads and bigh shoulderpads.. Winning all the time isn't heroism. It's boring.

Consider:

100 marines fought bravely, and died back to back preventing the hordes of chaos from defiling their shrine, the last marine triggering an explosion that takes out the chapel and the invading force that's swarming in - Heroic, damn cool and what i originally got into playing Marines for back in RT.

100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.

Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.


Marines should be heroic.

Or you can take the realistic middle ground, where the Imperium is beset on all sides, but the conflict is at least winnable, and your characters have some depth, and do actually have someone back home that they can fight for.

I know, I was making a counterpoint to the 'grimdark is good and makes for heroes' argument.

The Guard books do the winnable with losses, and someone/thing to go home to angle better. I'm enjoying them a lot more than the Marine-oriented ones

Wait a minute:

"Tech Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus discover failures in the mechanisms of the Golden Throne that are far beyond their ability to repair."

Where does it said that the Golden Throne will fail? My car may have broken windscreen, but that doesn't mean that the entire car will fail.

And it is only said that Light of the Astronomicon is faiding and that they lose contacts with some sectors. But there is nothing to suggest that they are losing war, they regain worlds, destroy some and save some. They are not losing them that fast.

Your car isn't preserving your life.

A life support machine is. If your life support machine develops faults you can bet it's a deal more serious than a cracked windscreen.

As to the rest, read my above posts. I quoted directly from the rulebook.

The imperium is diminishing, hemmed in on all sides and losing ground. There is no hope of victory in the war. This is expressly stated on pg 104.

The lords of Terra are watching their empire crumble, with insufficient reinforcements to send - Pg 101

The imperium is very thinly spread across space, and doesn't control the entirety of the space it fills. The worlds are often cut off by alien civilizations, warp storms, spatial drift etc - Pg 103

The light of the Emperor grows dim (astronomicon- if you can't rely on it you can't warp travel, so the outlying human colonies are lost as it dims) and his domain dwindles (gets smaller), planet by planet and system by system.... there is no peace, no respite, no hope of victory..' - pg 104

'The alien menace has intensified without precedent over the last millenium, with more territory lost each year' - Pg 119

At the very best the IOM would be able to hold stable (mere survival is justly hailed as a victory- pg 101), but at present they are not. The Imperium is being beaten back system by system.

Sure, they retake or capture new systems all the time, but they lose more than they gain, or the Imperium would not be diminishing.

Ascalam wrote:Your car isn't preserving your life.

A life support machine is. If your life support machine develops faults you can bet it's a deal more serious than a cracked windscreen.

Still, there is nowhere to read "the fault on the Golden Throne will soon bring the Emperor to his death" or "because of the fault the Golden Throne will fail soon". They only said that one mechanism failed. And that doesn't mean that the Throne will fail also any time soon.

Ascalam wrote:As to the rest, read my above posts. I quoted directly from the rulebook.

The imperium is diminishing, hemmed in on all sides and losing ground. There is no hope of victory in the war. This is expressly stated on pg 104. QFT, still other races are not in the good shape to. Tau are small, Eldar are dying out, Tyranids are dying out ( if their codex is to be believed ), Orks are disorganized and not united. Only Dark Eldar, Chaos and Necrons are in good position, but for how long?

The lords of Terra are watching their empire crumble, with insufficient reinforcements to send - Pg 101 And then we have Imperial Guard codex that said "millions of Regiments". And that is quite the number since most of the planets is under attack. And how many SoB orders are there? Private militias, PDF...

The imperium is very thinly spread across space, and doesn't control the entirety of the space it fills. The worlds are often cut off by alien civilizations, warp storms, spatial drift etc - Pg 103 True, since Warp travel is very unpredictable thing. Still they hold very spread sectors of space and they are able to organize their defenses. ( Armageddon, Cadia, Aurelia )

The light of the Emperor grows dim (astronomicon- if you can't rely on it you can't warp travel, so the outlying human colonies are lost as it dims) and his domain dwindles (gets smaller), planet by planet and system by system.... there is no peace, no respite, no hope of victory..' - pg 104 We still don't have any explanations for this, we must wait and see what 6'th edition will tell us

'The alien menace has intensified without precedent over the last millenium, with more territory lost each year' - Pg 119True, but aliens are not united. They fight among themselves more than they fight Humanity

At the very best the IOM would be able to hold stable (mere survival is justly hailed as a victory- pg 101), but at present they are not. The Imperium is being beaten back system by system.

Sure, they retake or capture new systems all the time, but they lose more than they gain, or the Imperium would not be diminishing.

All is QFT, but see it from the other side to. Kronus, Kaurava, Nimbosa, Cadia, Armageddon and many other planets were regain or defended. And even if that is official material it collides with race codex's. Imperial Guard codex said "millions of Regiments" and yet reinforcements doesn't exist, odd when you have that many troops to spare...
The only explanation I don't get is why is the Astronomicon fading? Is something wrong wit hit or with the Emperor?
And the fact remains, the lesser the territory the easier defense, their situation is now like this because they are spread to thin over to large territory.

You can have millions of regiments and no reinforcements left. If all those regiments are committed, then there is nothing left to reinforce them with.

The astronomican is fading because the golden throne, the mechanism keeping the emperor alive, has mechanical faults, which is undoubtedly causing the Emperor to suffer in some capacity. If you put two and two together, its not hard to figure out, but if you take everything so literally as you have, thats apparently not possible.

As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.

As for lesser territory = easier defense. Not really. By that logic the Germans should have been able to put up more of a fight against the allies following the Battle of the Bulge, and the Soviets should have been completely unable to take Berlin considering the defense was down to a single city from what was previously an entire continent and large parts of others.

chaos0xomega wrote:
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.

Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...

As for lesser territory = easier defense. Not really. By that logic the Germans should have been able to put up more of a fight against the allies following the Battle of the Bulge, and the Soviets should have been completely unable to take Berlin considering the defense was down to a single city from what was previously an entire continent and large parts of others.

That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war...
Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...

Brother Coa wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.

Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...

Last is being used here to describe the most recent. Similar to me saying "The last James Bond film was great." Quantum of Solace was the last James Bond film in the sense that it was most recent, but its not the last James Bond film ever made (considering that Bond 23 is supposedly coming out next year).

That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war...
Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...

Wrong on both counts.

If you take the differences in scale into account, Germany and the IoM are not totally dissimilar. But the Imperium is 'bombed' every day (in the sense that they are at war every day and planets are constantly being invaded and lost), its people do face starvation (read some Black Library fluff once in a while, your average Imperial citizen faces a pretty miserable life, nonstop work and not enough food to go around), it has massive troop/manpower shortages (again, the quote about no reinforcements, and if you go read the bit about the Stark report in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, the IoM would have to increase recruiting by 500%, its flat out stated that this would require them to draft every man woman and child in Segmentum Solar, Tempestus, and Obscurus, just to hold the Tyranids back, let alone all the other things that are attacking them). As for factories, go and read some history. Germany was actually producing more war material in 1945 than it was at any point in the war... it actually INCREASED its rate of production as it was getting ripped to pieces.

As for allies waging war on themselves, yes they did, both politically and in the field. Go have a read about some of the actions taken by the rest of the allies against French military forces, particularly its Navy. In fact, Pattons drive south through Germany was motivated by the fact that he wanted to get between Berlin and the Red Army, partially in the hope that he would be able to justify attacking the Soviets and bringing the Germans in as his allies.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.

Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...

Last is being used here to describe the most recent. Similar to me saying "The last James Bond film was great." Quantum of Solace was the last James Bond film in the sense that it was most recent, but its not the last James Bond film ever made (considering that Bond 23 is supposedly coming out next year).

No, the last mean the LAST, and the last James Bond movie really was the last until they pronounce the sequel. Untill they say "next major Hivbe Fleet is invading" this one will be considered last. And last is not = latest.

That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war...
Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...

Wrong on both counts.

If you take the differences in scale into account, Germany and the IoM are not totally dissimilar. But the Imperium is 'bombed' every day (in the sense that they are at war every day and planets are constantly being invaded and lost), its people do face starvation (read some Black Library fluff once in a while, your average Imperial citizen faces a pretty miserable life, nonstop work and not enough food to go around), it has massive troop/manpower shortages (again, the quote about no reinforcements, and if you go read the bit about the Stark report in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, the IoM would have to increase recruiting by 500%, its flat out stated that this would require them to draft every man woman and child in Segmentum Solar, Tempestus, and Obscurus, just to hold the Tyranids back, let alone all the other things that are attacking them). As for factories, go and read some history. Germany was actually producing more war material in 1945 than it was at any point in the war... it actually INCREASED its rate of production as it was getting ripped to pieces.

As for allies waging war on themselves, yes they did, both politically and in the field. Go have a read about some of the actions taken by the rest of the allies against French military forces, particularly its Navy. In fact, Pattons drive south through Germany was motivated by the fact that he wanted to get between Berlin and the Red Army, partially in the hope that he would be able to justify attacking the Soviets and bringing the Germans in as his allies.

Wrong...You cannot compare them as Imperium is wining some battles and destroying it's enemies, Germans lost every battle in the end ( except Bulge but that was another story )...
And when did Soviets fire on Americans during WWII? Or British on Americans? And some people are starving some not. You can say for our world today that most of the people don't starve and then you have Africa and current situation in Somalia..
And please, don't believe alien propaganda... Impeirum is fine, if not they would lose every battle out here. And they are still winning the major ones. And it isn't true that all Guard Regiments are in war - most of the are guarding something ( like in "Ultramarines" were 100 Imperial Fist guard some monastery and 1 book.... ).

Last can mean latest...
And there is some similarity between Nazi Germany near the end of the War and the IoM currently...
Though there are plenty of differences as well...

Brother Coa wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.

Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...

Last is being used here to describe the most recent. Similar to me saying "The last James Bond film was great." Quantum of Solace was the last James Bond film in the sense that it was most recent, but its not the last James Bond film ever made (considering that Bond 23 is supposedly coming out next year).

No, the last mean the LAST, and the last James Bond movie really was the last until they pronounce the sequel. Untill they say "next major Hivbe Fleet is invading" this one will be considered last. And last is not = latest.

Last CAN mean latest, and that's what it means in this situation. Hive Fleet Leviathan is the last and greatest, which means the latest.

That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war...
Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...

Wrong on both counts.

If you take the differences in scale into account, Germany and the IoM are not totally dissimilar. But the Imperium is 'bombed' every day (in the sense that they are at war every day and planets are constantly being invaded and lost), its people do face starvation (read some Black Library fluff once in a while, your average Imperial citizen faces a pretty miserable life, nonstop work and not enough food to go around), it has massive troop/manpower shortages (again, the quote about no reinforcements, and if you go read the bit about the Stark report in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, the IoM would have to increase recruiting by 500%, its flat out stated that this would require them to draft every man woman and child in Segmentum Solar, Tempestus, and Obscurus, just to hold the Tyranids back, let alone all the other things that are attacking them). As for factories, go and read some history. Germany was actually producing more war material in 1945 than it was at any point in the war... it actually INCREASED its rate of production as it was getting ripped to pieces.

As for allies waging war on themselves, yes they did, both politically and in the field. Go have a read about some of the actions taken by the rest of the allies against French military forces, particularly its Navy. In fact, Pattons drive south through Germany was motivated by the fact that he wanted to get between Berlin and the Red Army, partially in the hope that he would be able to justify attacking the Soviets and bringing the Germans in as his allies.

Wrong...You cannot compare them as Imperium is wining some battles and destroying it's enemies, Germans lost every battle in the end ( except Bulge but that was another story )...
And when did Soviets fire on Americans during WWII? Or British on Americans? And some people are starving some not. You can say for our world today that most of the people don't starve and then you have Africa and current situation in Somalia..
And please, don't believe alien propaganda... Impeirum is fine, if not they would lose every battle out here. And they are still winning the major ones. And it isn't true that all Guard Regiments are in war - most of the are guarding something ( like in "Ultramarines" were 100 Imperial Fist guard some monastery and 1 book.... ).

There's nothing to say other than to repeat evertyhing that choas0xomega has already said. READ what he posted.

It should be like in Risk, you get land and an alotted number of guys. And there can be horsies for everybody

You don't use the phrase

'This is humanity's darkest hour' casually either. (Pg 123)


Think about it. If we take this to be true:

This current situation is worse that the Horus Heresy, when Terra Itself was invaded and the empire was caving in.

It's worse than the Dark Age of Technology when humanity was scattered, incommunicado, and reduced to barbarism.

The Imperium is barely holding on and being driven back while the xenos fight each other. If any of them had decided that humanity was better prey (or all of them) and united against them it would all be over bar the post-invasion squabbles.

In short humanity is more boned than a mess of Bluegill. That's kind of the point of the Grimdark thing


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You also don't generally label your own chronology 'the time of ending' if you think you're winning (unless you are wiping out all threats totally and expanding rapidly into their territory ).

Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.

Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.

'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'

It's probably best we don't put a number on it. The IoM is big. Real big, but it's also rotting. It's a giant corpse empire.

Ascalam wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
You also don't generally label your own chronology 'the time of ending' if you think you're winning (unless you are wiping out all threats totally and expanding rapidly into their territory ).

Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.

Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.

'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'

To be fair, the 'time of ending' could also refer to the fact that the millenium is ending, though I doubt thats what prompted the name...

I'm fine with expanding the Imperium as long as the other factions are expanded as well.