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 Xathrodox86 wrote:
Orks and Tyranids are the biggest threat, lore wise. They're nigh unstopabble forces of nature that are too big to contain, unless by taking a drastic solution (Kryptmann).

I don't believe that in the 41st millenium Chaos should be considered a viable threat. The Gods had their chance and screwed it. They've played their hand openly 10K years earlier and now the Imperium knows about them, while their chosen warriors are fewer in number than ever before, languishing in the Eye, with inferior gear, tech and numbers. As soon as the IoM closes the Eye for good (which is possible, I think) the only realt problem with Chaos will be an occasional mad prophet and maybe a daemonic incursion or two, from time to time.

Of course GW tries to up the street cred of Chaos at every possible occasion, but telling people that "this is not our 13th (another one, damn it!) Crusade, but the last battle blah blah blah" dosen't make the threat any bigger. Just like making Abaddon competent all of a sudden. Looking at you ADB.

It's GW's writing. They have the chaos as biggest threat. Also you might say orks and tyranids are too big to contain but what about daemons then? They are INFINITE. You are fighting war you cannot win. No matter how many you kill it's never enough so at best it's infinite draw that doesn't change and since no change is impossibility...

And it's not even like chaos marines are biggest threat chaos has...

 Xathrodox86 wrote:
Orks and Tyranids are the biggest threat, lore wise. They're nigh unstopabble forces of nature that are too big to contain, unless by taking a drastic solution (Kryptmann).

I don't believe that in the 41st millenium Chaos should be considered a viable threat. The Gods had their chance and screwed it. They've played their hand openly 10K years earlier and now the Imperium knows about them, while their chosen warriors are fewer in number than ever before, languishing in the Eye, with inferior gear, tech and numbers. As soon as the IoM closes the Eye for good (which is possible, I think) the only realt problem with Chaos will be an occasional mad prophet and maybe a daemonic incursion or two, from time to time.

Of course GW tries to up the street cred of Chaos at every possible occasion, but telling people that "this is not our 13th (another one, damn it!) Crusade, but the last battle blah blah blah" dosen't make the threat any bigger. Just like making Abaddon competent all of a sudden. Looking at you ADB.

Let me break this down about Chaos

A) They did not "have their chance and screwed it." The Heresy was a setup for 10k years of constant war, misery, diesease, change, desire, hate, slaughter, ambition, pure Chaos.
B) They abandoned Horus at the last minute because if he won he would install a new Order, they wanted Perpetual Chaos, they also didn't want Horus coming back to haunt them if he finally figured out he'd been duped.
C) They ARE NOT fewer in number than ever before. More and more Space Marines are defecting every year at an accelerating rate and in greater numbers, they are raiding geneseed to make new Chaos Marines, they are growing exponentially
D) Their gear is not inferior. Despite what the Codex shows by lack of variant gear, they have equal access to most new stuff, PLUS all the Daemonic wargear and whatever wierd and wacky destructive thing the Dark Mechanicum have dreamt up in an insanity fueled nightmare.
E) The warp is becoming ever more turbulant, and Daemonic incursions ACROSS THE GALAXY are increasing in both frequency and magnitude at an alarming rate. The GK are stretched thinner and thinner and exposure to Chaos is becoming a major issue (BTW, the Imperium does not know aboout Chaos on the whole, they know they have traitors but not actual Daemons, that's a further issue entirely).
F) Closing the eye is not a possibility. The Eldar Empire was consumed by it and they don't have the means. The Necrons could but don't care or have access to the Eye because of conflict at Cadia. The Eye is like a angry cat trapped under a bedsheet slashing and clawing its way into reality. A cat several hundred light years huge. Its just not an option.
G) The 13th Black Crusade has been 10000 years and 12 other crusades in the making with all the strength of Chaos behind it, including the Daemon Lords and Daemon Primarchs, the full strength of the Black Legion and all the other Chaos Space Marine Legions and their innumerable legions of Daemonic allies. Just because the last global campaign finished in an Imperial Victory (as GW say), doesn't mean its not a threat. The Black Crusade is bigger than any Ork Waaagh in history, bigger than everything and anything the Imperium has ever faced except the Tyranids, and only then in numbers. Does the fact its Nmber 13, AND GW are completely unwilling to even touch that element of the fluff due to implications of either victory, not mean anything to you?
H) Abaddon has always been competant. He's been biding his time, unlike Horus who hurried to Terra and failed with a lightning raid. The First Crusade was to retrieve the Daemon Blade Drachn'yen so he becomes physically unstoppable. Other Crusades were aimed at taking out this key defence and that one, capturing Blackstone Fortresses, building Planetkiller, securing ties with the Daemon Primarchs and the Gods themselves, amassing his fortresses. The 12 Black Crusades were vanguards and testing the waters, this is the full might of Chaos thrown at an ever weakening Imperium. Its Chaos' A-Bomb to the Imperium's Hiroshima

I find it interesting that not a single person speculated on a new vast empire to rival humanity in size is this a bad idea? Or is it considered that too much of the galaxy has been explored already for a ginormous empire never before heard of to exist?

 Deadshot wrote:

A) They did not "have their chance and screwed it." The Heresy was a setup for 10k years of constant war, misery, diesease, change, desire, hate, slaughter, ambition, pure Chaos.
B) They abandoned Horus at the last minute because if he won he would install a new Order, they wanted Perpetual Chaos, they also didn't want Horus coming back to haunt them if he finally figured out he'd been duped.

This is true. Chaos do not seek victory, only chaos and eternal war. But how after 13th crusade?

"Thirteen times shall the Traitor King go forth. In the End Times the iron fortress shall be cast down. Its walls breached and its Gate forced open. Those that dwell beyond shall spill through it. The air shall burn and the ground shall melt, The Daemon shall lie down with the machine, Brother shall slay brother with fire and sword. And the sky-wound shall pour its malice forth. The Eye shall stare unblinking at its prize, and the Traitor King shall cross the bridge of stars. He shall return to finish the Warmonger's red work, Upon holy soil shall the fate of man be decided."
— The Liber Malefact

Inaphyt wrote:
I find it interesting that not a single person speculated on a new vast empire to rival humanity in size is this a bad idea? Or is it considered that too much of the galaxy has been explored already for a ginormous empire never before heard of to exist?

The Lore is imperium-centric, mainly focused on parts of the galaxy that can see the astronomican. Outside of that sphere is the "mystery zone" where GW have amassed fethloads of different races and small plots that they have no intent of using as anything more than filler.

So unless something suddenly swoops in from the fringes(keeping in mind it'll have to out-do the imperium for plot armour) it won't be main-plot relevant (thus requiring model range so space marines can be better than them)

Inaphyt wrote:
I find it interesting that not a single person speculated on a new vast empire to rival humanity in size is this a bad idea? Or is it considered that too much of the galaxy has been explored already for a ginormous empire never before heard of to exist?

The Tau are the biggest active alien empire, and they are tiny. The Imperium controls basically the whole galaxy with the Orks control small chunks and Chaos a few scattered around various warp rifts, Tyranids are purely inavders and Eldar (who matter, ie, Craftworld) are nomadic, Deldar don't take territory, they have Commoragh.

The Necrons have massive territory but most of them are still inactive so its hard to exactly pin down their area.

But the fact is besides the Tau no one controls a notable fraction of space to be called an Empire or a threat to the Imperium because the Imperium has conquered and annihilated all the indigenous Xenos (barring Deathworlds like Catachan)

Inaphyt wrote:
I find it interesting that not a single person speculated on a new vast empire to rival humanity in size is this a bad idea? Or is it considered that too much of the galaxy has been explored already for a ginormous empire never before heard of to exist?

What would be the point?

Chaos is already the 'red under the bed'.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Tau are not a threat in any way, no, but that is not their point. The point of the Tau is that they are the naive, reasonable guys in an unreasonable universe that is filled with all kinds of huge and insane threats and things they can barely comprehend.

That's not the point of the Tau at all. The Tau have two jobs in the fluff of 40k:

1) To be symbolic of the countless young civilizations that are constantly rising up all over the galaxy. They don't share the Imperium's idiocy about technology, so while they might not be a civilization-ending threat to the Imperium yet in the long run Tau technology will continue to advance beyond the point where the Imperium has any chance at all. Small numbers won't matter so much when a single gun drone is capable of annihilating entire sectors worth of Imperial planets (such a trivial task would be delegated to a barely-sentient gun drone, the Tau themselves have better things to do). And if the Tau fail someone else will rise up to replace them. That's what the "kill off the Tau" people don't seem to get, if you get rid of them you just create a new faction of Tau-in-all-but-name.

That is nothing but pure speculation on your part. Nothing can grow infinitely, and as the Tau Empire grows larger and larger, it will eventually fall apart due to internal strife (the first signs of this are already showing with the Farsight Enclaves). And that is only if they do not get eaten by Tyranids first. The Tau won't be able to keep up their current pace of development. Just like the Eldar and Imperium before them, they will eventually stagnate and wither. And considering the sudden and quick pace at which the Tau evolved and at which they grow and live, their fall is likely to be just as sudden and quick, long before they are able to get to a sector-destroying gundrone level (which would indicate technology far more advanced than even the most advanced Necron tech, the idea of which is silly and ridiculous)

 Peregrine wrote:
2) To highlight the sheer grimdark of the setting. The Tau are not "good buys" by any reasonable definition of the concept. They're an aggressive expansionist empire that embodies the worst of real-world imperialism, manifest destiny, etc, and would be clearly evil in any other setting. They're only "good" in that they're pragmatic enough to use science and technology to build a better gun to kill you with, and to offer you a chance to surrender and accept slavery under their rule instead of mindlessly slaughtering everything in sight. And yet the Tau are the bright shining hope of the setting. As much as they suck life under anyone else is suffering on such an unimaginable scale that every citizen of the Imperium should pray for the opportunity to become Tau slaves.

Good and evil are relative terms. The 'goodness' of something is defined in relation to other, surrounding entities. And compared to the other factions in 40k, the Tau definitely classify as 'good'. Relatively good of course, but good is always relative.

 Deadshot wrote:


The Black Crusade is bigger than any Ork Waaagh in history,

Yo, the Great Beast called, he just wanted me to bring up that time he laid siege to the entire galaxy at once.

 Robin5t wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:


The Black Crusade is bigger than any Ork Waaagh in history,

Yo, the Great Beast called, he just wanted me to bring up that time he laid siege to the entire galaxy at once.

And the Chaos Gods are constantly laying siege to all the galaxy at once simulataeously on a dimensional and philosophical as well as a literal and war level. They have literally infinite legions of Daemons. There are more Daemons in the Warp than humans, Tyranids and Orks in the galaxy combined. If the Black Crusade's objective, which is to expand the Eye to encompass most if not all the galaxy which would allow those Daemons to run rampant as they please. The Great Beast had dectillions of Orks, but 10^33 is still a finite number.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Robin5t wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:


The Black Crusade is bigger than any Ork Waaagh in history,

Yo, the Great Beast called, he just wanted me to bring up that time he laid siege to the entire galaxy at once.

And the Chaos Gods are constantly laying siege to all the galaxy at once simulataeously on a dimensional and philosophical as well as a literal and war level. They have literally infinite legions of Daemons. There are more Daemons in the Warp than humans, Tyranids and Orks in the galaxy combined. If the Black Crusade's objective, which is to expand the Eye to encompass most if not all the galaxy which would allow those Daemons to run rampant as they please. The Great Beast had dectillions of Orks, but 10^33 is still a finite number.

And yet, they can't deploy infinite daemons, while the Beast could and did deploy all of his absurd numbers of Orks. Having infinite daemons is utterly meaningless if you can only bring them to bear in dribs and drabs. You could just as easily say they're up against infinite mortals because humans and orks can reproduce for all the good it's worth.

The Black Crusades get funnelled through a relatively small choke point and take a narrow route through the Imperium to whatever objective they're aiming for, facing hard resistance the entire way. The Beast? He hit basically everything in a relatively fresh Imperium at once and still rolled all the way into Terra like it was nothing. If the 13th Black Crusade can manage a strategic curbstomp of that scale, then I might start considering it to be on the Beast's level, but somehow I don't see that as being too likely.

Inaphyt wrote:
I find it interesting that not a single person speculated on a new vast empire to rival humanity in size is this a bad idea? Or is it considered that too much of the galaxy has been explored already for a ginormous empire never before heard of to exist?

That plus there's too many factions already. What good would be faction in fluff only? If it's models that's less support for orks, chaos, tyranids, eldar etc.

IIRC, there even is a bit of fluff about two Ork empires north of the Eye of Terror who could easily stomp the Black Crusade, but they are to happy beating the crap of each other.

 Robin5t wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Robin5t wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:


The Black Crusade is bigger than any Ork Waaagh in history,

Yo, the Great Beast called, he just wanted me to bring up that time he laid siege to the entire galaxy at once.

And the Chaos Gods are constantly laying siege to all the galaxy at once simulataeously on a dimensional and philosophical as well as a literal and war level. They have literally infinite legions of Daemons. There are more Daemons in the Warp than humans, Tyranids and Orks in the galaxy combined. If the Black Crusade's objective, which is to expand the Eye to encompass most if not all the galaxy which would allow those Daemons to run rampant as they please. The Great Beast had dectillions of Orks, but 10^33 is still a finite number.

And yet, they can't deploy infinite daemons, while the Beast could and did deploy all of his absurd numbers of Orks. Having infinite daemons is utterly meaningless if you can only bring them to bear in dribs and drabs. You could just as easily say they're up against infinite mortals because humans and orks can reproduce for all the good it's worth.

The Black Crusades get funnelled through a relatively small choke point and take a narrow route through the Imperium to whatever objective they're aiming for, facing hard resistance the entire way. The Beast? He hit basically everything in a relatively fresh Imperium at once and still rolled all the way into Terra like it was nothing. If the 13th Black Crusade can manage a strategic curbstomp of that scale, then I might start considering it to be on the Beast's level, but somehow I don't see that as being too likely.

Ok, let me restate this; Step 1 of the Black Crusade is expanding the Eye to encompass the galaxy to allow them to bring their Daemons to bear, so if they can conquer Cadia, which is very likely, they'll not be deploying in drips and drabs, they'll turn half the galaxy into a Daemonic playpen.
Part 2: the beast assailed the entire Imperium at once, spreading the forces with no real direction towards major worlds. Abaddon is taking his majority forces to Terra, and he only needs to conquer a handful of worlds to be successful.
At this moment, as it begins, the Black Crusade could be choked into submission due to narrow chokepoint at Cadia. If that single system falls, the galaxy will be subject to apocalypse on a biblical scale across the entire galaxy. Quite literally biblical

 Deadshot wrote:

 Robin5t wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Robin5t wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:


The Black Crusade is bigger than any Ork Waaagh in history,

Yo, the Great Beast called, he just wanted me to bring up that time he laid siege to the entire galaxy at once.

And the Chaos Gods are constantly laying siege to all the galaxy at once simulataeously on a dimensional and philosophical as well as a literal and war level. They have literally infinite legions of Daemons. There are more Daemons in the Warp than humans, Tyranids and Orks in the galaxy combined. If the Black Crusade's objective, which is to expand the Eye to encompass most if not all the galaxy which would allow those Daemons to run rampant as they please. The Great Beast had dectillions of Orks, but 10^33 is still a finite number.

And yet, they can't deploy infinite daemons, while the Beast could and did deploy all of his absurd numbers of Orks. Having infinite daemons is utterly meaningless if you can only bring them to bear in dribs and drabs. You could just as easily say they're up against infinite mortals because humans and orks can reproduce for all the good it's worth.

The Black Crusades get funnelled through a relatively small choke point and take a narrow route through the Imperium to whatever objective they're aiming for, facing hard resistance the entire way. The Beast? He hit basically everything in a relatively fresh Imperium at once and still rolled all the way into Terra like it was nothing. If the 13th Black Crusade can manage a strategic curbstomp of that scale, then I might start considering it to be on the Beast's level, but somehow I don't see that as being too likely.

Ok, let me restate this; Step 1 of the Black Crusade is expanding the Eye to encompass the galaxy to allow them to bring their Daemons to bear, so if they can conquer Cadia, which is very likely, they'll not be deploying in drips and drabs, they'll turn half the galaxy into a Daemonic playpen.
Part 2: the beast assailed the entire Imperium at once, spreading the forces with no real direction towards major worlds. Abaddon is taking his majority forces to Terra, and he only needs to conquer a handful of worlds to be successful.
At this moment, as it begins, the Black Crusade could be choked into submission due to narrow chokepoint at Cadia. If that single system falls, the galaxy will be subject to apocalypse on a biblical scale across the entire galaxy. Quite literally biblical

You're literally making my argument for me. The Beast could afford to attack everything at once and still made it to Terra with ease.

What I'm saying is, the results speak for themselves. While the 13th Black Crusade is stated to be the 'biggest ever', we can still reasonably assume that it's not orders of magnitude larger than the largest of the previous excursions, because if Chaos had that amount of force available to rush the Cadian Gate, they should have used more in their previous attacks. The Beast's Waaagh, on the other hand, was orders of magnitude larger and more successful than any of the Black Crusades, probably more so than most if not all of them put together. When Abaddon launches a Black Crusade, the Imperium's up for a rough fight. When the Beast launched his campaign against the Imperium, there was no 'fight' about it, the Imperium just got utterly wrecked.

@OP: Threats to the Imperium remain largely theoretical in nature only. That is too say, vague pronouncements of; 'If the Orks ever united they could destroy us all, the Tyranids come in unstoppable numbers, soon the Tomb Worlds will awaken and none will stop the Necron, the Tau could grow too rapidly' with little concrete evidence of any since in all cases the Imperium has far more recorded victories (particularly in major existential conflicts) then these listed opponents. Eldar are an exception to this, they both pose no threat and barely ever win. Fluffwise they are simply a slowly dying footnote to the victories of others.

The Imperium has never lost any of its actually significant conflicts, unlike every other faction in the fame (barring Chaos Daemons). Indeed many significant losses quoted here suffered at the hands of the Orks (Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists) are part of plots in which far larger defeats are suffered by the Orks. Additionally in both cases the losses incurred have not had any tangible impact in the fluff. No conflict has been described as being 'lost' as a result of the Crimson Fist's losses during the battle of their home world.

Tyranids have actually managed some serious achievements, almost certainly the most successful enemy of the Imperium. Orks are largely negligible, Chaos suffers from its 'cannot lose' condition meaning the creators don't mind having it never 'win', the Tau literally only exist by the providence of luck (and most players would want that providence removed ASAP), the Craftworld Eldar recently committed suicide, the Dark Eldar largely do nothing of note on a galactic military level and the Necron's do surprisingly little of note on a Galactic military level considering their vaunted abilities.

To be fair as an above poster pointed out the Imperium has already wiped out most non-human life in the galaxy, Orks are restricted to small pockets, Chaos to designated Warp Storm Areas (with rebellions arising usually only for a fluff piece to follow about how effortlessly loyalist Marines crushed said rebellion) and its simply canonical to the 40k universe that humanity can, if it united, simply wipe out all other forces.

The lack of tension is boring to read since the outcome of any major conflict is guessable instantly. I cannot think of a single time I opened a 40k Book or narrative supplement and didn't know who was going to win simply by seeing who was participating.

No imperial losses? What is storm of iron by Graham McNeill

To be fair Anemone, you complaining about how some one is writing a story where the majority of the readers want their heros to win so i mean cmon.

Orks are a massive threat as a full blown Wagh causes emense damage.

The thing people ALWAYS forget is that any time a massive piece of tech is lost, even if the IoM repelled the largest wagh in history, buy in the process the orks destroyed the let say, titan manafactorium, thats it, the IoM lost that battle. Thats because they can never replace them, once a big piece of tech goes down thats it its gone. 9/10 times the tech is worth more then the planet its currently on because its so rare.

 Anemone wrote:
@OP: Threats to the Imperium remain largely theoretical in nature only. That is too say, vague pronouncements of; 'If the Orks ever united they could destroy us all, the Tyranids come in unstoppable numbers, soon the Tomb Worlds will awaken and none will stop the Necron, the Tau could grow too rapidly' with little concrete evidence of any since in all cases the Imperium has far more recorded victories (particularly in major existential conflicts) then these listed opponents. Eldar are an exception to this, they both pose no threat and barely ever win. Fluffwise they are simply a slowly dying footnote to the victories of others.

The Imperium has never lost any of its actually significant conflicts, unlike every other faction in the fame (barring Chaos Daemons). Indeed many significant losses quoted here suffered at the hands of the Orks (Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists) are part of plots in which far larger defeats are suffered by the Orks. Additionally in both cases the losses incurred have not had any tangible impact in the fluff. No conflict has been described as being 'lost' as a result of the Crimson Fist's losses during the battle of their home world.

Tyranids have actually managed some serious achievements, almost certainly the most successful enemy of the Imperium. Orks are largely negligible, Chaos suffers from its 'cannot lose' condition meaning the creators don't mind having it never 'win', the Tau literally only exist by the providence of luck (and most players would want that providence removed ASAP), the Craftworld Eldar recently committed suicide, the Dark Eldar largely do nothing of note on a galactic military level and the Necron's do surprisingly little of note on a Galactic military level considering their vaunted abilities.

To be fair as an above poster pointed out the Imperium has already wiped out most non-human life in the galaxy, Orks are restricted to small pockets, Chaos to designated Warp Storm Areas (with rebellions arising usually only for a fluff piece to follow about how effortlessly loyalist Marines crushed said rebellion) and its simply canonical to the 40k universe that humanity can, if it united, simply wipe out all other forces.

The lack of tension is boring to read since the outcome of any major conflict is guessable instantly. I cannot think of a single time I opened a 40k Book or narrative supplement and didn't know who was going to win simply by seeing who was participating.

The first to agree with my position? Then i'm interested on your thoughts on a new gigantic empire entering into the lore, the other problem i personally find with the lore is the lack of diplomatic relations between the races how epic would a neutral embassy where the leaders of nations come together to discuss terms of war the treachery the backstabbing the potential peace, the sanctions this would surely inject the lore with substance. Further what about the tyranid communicating for the first time in a mass effect reaper-esque fashion that would be so epic.

As it stands with 40k it's like an xmen movie set in the past as you already know the xmen are alive in the future there is no tension same story where humanity simply has to wave it's hand to fill the skies with battlecruisers darkening the entire system.

I agree with you when you say it's all overhyping of the other races the eldar for instance "they can see decades into the future" weren't saying that when they got their asses handed to them every time though.

So you are just cherry picking people who agree with you now? even though every one has pretty clearly told you why thats not the case.

I doubt that we would find a new "empire" thats gone undiscovered and or uneffected by the warp or eldar in some way.

It would be pointless for the nids to "communicate" because the IoM dont care, even if they were able to talk and express emotions they are note human there fore they are to be killed.

Humans dont work with xenos.

@Backspacehacker: How is he cherry picking? He literally said I'm the first person to agree with him and then asked my opinion on something.

How is that cherry picking? That just means he wants to have a conversation with someone with a similar view point to him. Either you're using that expression incorrectly or, otherwise, we have completely different understandings of what 'cherry picking' means.

Also who said 'no Imperial losses'? I believe, if you read what I typed, I stated 'significant' losses, you know, like what Death Masque was for Craftworld Eldar, the Beast Waaagh!!! was for the Orks, the Damocles Gulf being set ablaze was for the Tau and such.

Indeed you refer to one minor battle in a BL novel. I do hope you understand how that obviously doesn't in anyway change the overwhelmingly dominant trend of the Imperium beating everyone and usually outperforming everyone at their own specialties (the Imperium has more advanced technology than the Tau, predicts and overcomes the Craftworld Eldar, Out-muscles the Orks).

Also Orks aren't a massive threat. You can't simply go 'Orks are a massive threat' and then it becomes canon. What is your evidence for this point? Give me an example of a major irrevocable defeat suffered by the Imperium in a military campaign against the Orks. Something involving major military forces and characters where, at the end of the campaign, the Orks have won.

To be honest your lack of any solid examples of Imperium defeats in the same league as the Chaos Space Marine defeats in the Horus Heresy, Orkish defeats in the Beast Waaagh!!! Craftworld Eldar defeats in Death Masque, the acknowledged fact that even a small Space Marine fleet force endangered all of Commorragh, makes your obsession with the loss of 'tech' seem like you're grasping at straws.

None of this is meant as offence, I apologize if it seems so, it just doesn't feel like you substantiate your point with much textual reference to major narrative events in the fluff.

@Inaphyt: My thoughts? My thoughts are it won't happen so you're looking in the wrong place for it I'm afraid. No Empire will ever emerge which can challenge the Imperium, its virtually canon that no race can ever be as good as humans at anything since the setting runs on that concept to a large degree, the Tau are the closest to 'Empire emerging' and they are a minute and irrelevant dot who are constantly called for to be removed wholesale from the setting. Imagine how an actual Empire which poses a challenge or threat to the Imperium would be received?

Your talk of neutral embassies and diplomacy rather than simple xenophobia on all sides makes it sound like you'd prefer Warhammer Fantasy actually, or Age of Sigmar, since both allow for decent living beings engaged in fun and engaging political situations which don't just amount to shooting everything on sight or, sometimes, shooting together at something bigger and then going back to shooting each other. I'll agree the lack of political nuance (beyond Imperium in-fighting) in 40k is a bit of a pity.

I'm not a fan of the idea of Tyranid communication, they're one of the few factions I'm actually quite satisfied with. But yes the lack of tension is boring to the extreme.

Craftworld Eldar are a good example because of how bad they are at everything they're meant to be good at (in fluff). Their foresight fails them so many times that, well, like someone put it on /tg/ roundabout Death Masque; 'No-one should be surprised Eldrad's prophecy fails, he fails more than he succeeds like all Eldar Farseers' or something like that.

Short of it is when the Regimental Standard's write up on the Xenos factions seems like its actually canon things become boring. To me.

Inaphyt wrote:
the other problem i personally find with the lore is the lack of diplomatic relations between the races

You seem to be missing the point of the setting. Diplomacy is barely a thing in 40k. Maybe with the Tau or Eldar you can make a deal that delays your inevitable death in exchange for giving up something they want, but for everyone else there is only DEATH TO THE XENOS AND THE HERETIC or WAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and an eternity of slaughter. Asking the 40k factions to be reasonable and work out compromises does not work in a setting where a major theme is "everyone is too bloodthirsty and stupid to do what is necessary to save themselves".

The Imperium is safe from all threats because of only one overwhelming powerful reason: GW''s refusal to advance the plot.

The beast
Bork
Gargahak

Just to name a few waghs that ravaged the imperium

It's cherry picking in that we have 2 pages of people telling him he's wrong and he decides to pick the one person who slightly agrees with him.


Again just because the imperium repls an attack does not mean they won, the losses of tech and manufacturing is far more of a blow then the loss of life

Inaphyt wrote:
As it stands with 40k it's like an xmen movie set in the past as you already know the xmen are alive in the future there is no tension same story where humanity simply has to wave it's hand to fill the skies with battlecruisers darkening the entire system.

40k is a setting, not a story. You know that no faction is ever going to lose and disappear because those models have to be supported. Expecting 40k's story to ever move forwards or be anything other than an endless series of meaningless battles is really missing the point of the background fiction.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
The Imperium is safe from all threats because of only one overwhelming powerful reason: GW''s refusal to advance the plot.

Agree with this, but in side the 40k universe it's not reasonable to say they are not threated, if you remove the meta lore of knowing GW won't advance the bloody story. But the actual factions are threats.

 Anemone wrote:
@Backspacehacker: How is he cherry picking? He literally said I'm the first person to agree with him and then asked my opinion on something.

How is that cherry picking? That just means he wants to have a conversation with someone with a similar view point to him. Either you're using that expression incorrectly or, otherwise, we have completely different understandings of what 'cherry picking' means.

I think BSH may have referred to the fact that OP didn't address or acknowledge opposing posts and only focused on those which supported/enhanced their opinion. Which is somewhat frowned upon in a public forum, to avoid it becoming an echo chamber.

But that's just my guess?

Also who said 'no Imperial losses'? I believe, if you read what I typed, I stated 'significant' losses, you know, like what Death Masque was for Craftworld Eldar, the Beast Waaagh!!! was for the Orks, the Damocles Gulf being set ablaze was for the Tau and such.

The Heresy.
The Abyssal Crusades.
The Tyrannic War, specifically looking around Ryza and Gryphonne.
The Orphean War.
Hydra Cordatus.
Segmentus Pacificus going dark.

There's six+ major Imperial losses.

Indeed you refer to one minor battle in a BL novel. I do hope you understand how that obviously doesn't in anyway change the overwhelmingly dominant trend of the Imperium beating everyone and usually outperforming everyone at their own specialties (the Imperium has more advanced technology than the Tau, predicts and overcomes the Craftworld Eldar, Out-muscles the Orks).

And Tau out-evolve the Tyranids, the Harlequins nearly reach the Emperor's Throne, and Orks breach the Cadian Gate, and Necrons have a device that literally snuffs out suns like candles. Point?

The Imperium ARE strong. They need to be, seeing as they're being attacked on all ends. It's a testament to their strength that they survived beyond the Heresy, Beast and Vandire's reign.

And yes - the Imperium do have better tech than the Tau. It's just revered as relics, and thus rarely deployed on the battlefield. What the Imperium do bring is the low tech they can pump out fast than Tau can replace magazines.

 Peregrine wrote:

Inaphyt wrote:
As it stands with 40k it's like an xmen movie set in the past as you already know the xmen are alive in the future there is no tension same story where humanity simply has to wave it's hand to fill the skies with battlecruisers darkening the entire system.

40k is a setting, not a story. You know that no faction is ever going to lose and disappear because those models have to be supported. Expecting 40k's story to ever move forwards or be anything other than an endless series of meaningless battles is really missing the point of the background fiction.

The other thing people forget it's a setting, it's like saying the Warcraft story, there's a lot that makes up that lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@smudge that is what I mean by cherry picking

There's a certain life-is-simple RTS-politics mentality evinced by the OP's entire rant. Broadly speaking if you're going to take every statement by the authors, no matter how contradictory or hyperbole-filled, at face value and then assume that 'the Imperium' or 'the Necrons' are a unified monolithic entity under the total control of a single perfectly rational mind with perfect information nothing is ever going to make sense. I'd suggest taking the contradictions and asking 'Why might this be?' instead of deciding the writers were morons and going and complaining about how complicated interstellar war and politics are.

Yes, you could say 'the setting is propped up by the writers' desire to keep the game going', but at that point you're dodging the whole discussion and the opportunity to learn things.

@Backspacehacker: What? The Beast Waaagh!!! You realize the Imperium wins that, correct?

I also hardly see how Klawjaw or Garaghak are 'major' considering the numbers involved in their conflict and the lack of any major characters. Again if we're discussing the narrative here these are tiny examples compared to the major narrative works and supplements.

So your only major example is the biggest Ork defeat in history.

You act as if a Waaagh!!! doing damage to the Imperium means it won. That makes no sense since by that measure every army ever has won all wars ever. There are never any losers in any battle by that methodology.

@Sgt_Smudge:

Heresy=Literally an Imperium victory. Again I have no idea why you are bringing this up.

Tyrannic War: Again listed as Imperium victory in the first two accounts and in the third it is currently inconclusive

Abyssal Crusade: I wouldn't even call this a straight defeat, although I think its a good example, since we're told the Marines purged 400 worlds within the Eye of Terror, returned to talk about it and killed the false Saint. Mixed.

Orphean War: A Stalemate, again not an actual significant defeat.

Hydra Cordatus: A straight example. That's one Chaos Space Marine victory on a single planet, doesn't change the statistics at all.

Segmentum Pacificus: Ongoing, can't judge yet as there's been no conclusion of any sort.

So that's three major Imperium victories, two inconclusive and ongoing conflicts, a single minor Chaos Space Marine Victory, a mixed result and a stalemate.

As for the other examples; to be honest the incidents you're listing are often the only example of such 'inane' fluff for their respective faction that happens.

The point remains that humans consistently in the fluff out-perform and excel in all functions over all other races. If you want we can simply compare the list of examples, I've collated like the battles, and you'll see there's an overwhelming statistical advantage in the favour of the Imperium. That is the point.

lol what?! The heresy was hardly a victory, the emeror died the human version of the web way was destroyed, the IoM entered the current dark age, technology was lost, half of the most powerful fighting force was destroyed. Hardly an actual win.

This always goes back to the same problem you are not getting, just because the IoM "wins" does not me they came out ahead for the better. If an irk wargh took out a Titan that's a major loss because they can't be replaced that easily, most of these things are relics that are in replaceable

I don't think anyone is arguing they don't have the advantage, we are saying they still suffer losses and are plagued by threats that could hurt them.