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In the fluff which army do you think is the strongest in a balance match where one side doesn't outnumbered the other but instead both sides has around the same amount of forces. I guess Imperial Guards and Tyranids would be out of the question here.

Space Marines. A single marine is worth a thousand imperial guardsmen.

Considering none of the armies actually does close to the same job as another, it would be awfully difficult to asses this. Most battles in 40K are huge, we only play tiny portions of them. And, in what alternate universe, would a balanced fight ever beable to happen? Everyone will bring something that the other won't have a counter for.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Space Marines. A single marine is worth a thousand imperial guardsmen.

Won't Grey Knights and Chaos Daemons be stronger in a balanced matchup?


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 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Considering none of the armies actually does close to the same job as another, it would be awfully difficult to asses this. Most battles in 40K are huge, we only play tiny portions of them. And, in what alternate universe, would a balanced fight ever beable to happen? Everyone will bring something that the other won't have a counter for.

I guess a example would be half a planet are ruled by Tau and the other half Necron or half of another planet are ruled bu Chaos Space Marine while the other half are ruled by Tyranids. etc.

Simple. Its the necrons

On the ground, it is hard to say.

100 Tactical Marines versus 100 Termagaunts? Easy, the Marines.

100 Tac Marines versus 100 Trygons however? Well, the Tyranids, lol.

100 Tac Marines vs. 100 Tyranid Warriors? Could go either way.

A few other factions have similar deals.

100 Necron Warriors could not beat 100 Tac Marines more often than not, but 100 Lynchguard or Crypteks would probably ream them, and 100 Immortals would be a fairly interesting fight.

"Oh but the Space Marines are more varied than Tac Marines and you are just using the elites of the other factions to beat them", yes, exactly. It is easy to forget that the Space Marines are ultimately simply the elite of the Imperium as a faction, and that the non-Imperial factions are capable of just as much diversity within their armies, and can in fact field more of their own elite options in the fluff than the Imperium can field Space Marines, but we don't really see that. The Imperium gets far more codices than any other faction, which gives off the illusion that it is far more relatively varied and different than it really is.

So the ground-battle is impossible to call, as "equal numbers" pretty much never happens in the fluff, yet were it to happen, well, as I said, there are more Trygons than there are Space Marines, in all likelihood, lol.

In a space battle however? Necrons, no question.

In a balanced fight, it's a tie- as it's balanced.
If you're talking model for model, space marines, specifically grey knights are heavy hitters.
If you're talking point for point, you're looking into horde armies.
Fluff wise, space marines are given demigod status amongst the common imperial citizen.
Also, in the story it's usually a narrow victory to stop the tyranids, opposing forces will temporarily ally with each other (or abandon the battle) when the shadow in the warp nears.

Tyranids, as 1 Tyranid is an entire hive fleet and the individual creatures are just cells and drones of the greater whole.

What about chaos? They are as powerful as the Space Marines but with the blessings of the dark gods added on top

It entirely depends on what standards you're using to balance them.

Mr Nobody wrote:Space Marines. A single marine is worth a thousand imperial guardsmen.

Or a dozen, if one were to read GW's rulebook...

As for the topic at hand - as has been said, probably the Grey Knights, at least if we assume the "rank and file" in equal numbers.

 Lynata wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:Space Marines. A single marine is worth a thousand imperial guardsmen.

Or a dozen, if one were to read GW's rulebook...

As for the topic at hand - as has been said, probably the Grey Knights, at least if we assume the "rank and file" in equal numbers.

But how many Grey Knights is a Warhound titan worth? Collegia Titanica for strongest "rank and file" in equal numbers.

Hey, that's cheating!
Or do we allow sub-orgs for this thread? If so, then you make a good point.

Marines, seeing how they win a lot despite being drastically outnumbered at almost all times

Inquisitors. They have the tendency to cheat alot in terms of balance.

In a balanced fight? That is what we play out on the tables - near equal (point-wise) armies.

www.stardestoyer.net wrote:The two contestants don't have to be evenly matched. If Lennox Lewis fights Pee Wee Herman, I consider it a fair fight as long as both fighters wear the same gloves and obey the same rules. It would be an incredible mismatch, but it would still be a fair fight.

The list of armies that would ever engage in a "fair fight" is reeeeaaaaallly short. Nids, Orks, and Guard will always bring absurd numbers and drown you in bodies. Eldar and Dark Eldar will hit you while your back is turned, then kill you from the other side when you turn around to see what hit you. Chaos will corrupt you from within before they start the fight so you might just go to their side.

So it's really just Marines, Tau, and maybe Necrons who you'll ever see something approaching a "fair fight" from.

Exterminatus.

EDIT: More seriously, you need to rephrase your question. Something like "Of all armies in 40k, which has the strongest Troops choice for an equal-numbers fight?". You would also have to specify if HQ unlockings count (e.g. Abaddon and Chaos Chosen, etc). If so, probably Grey Knight Paladins (with Draigo making them Troops).

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Exterminatus.

EDIT: More seriously, you need to rephrase your question. Something like "Of all armies in 40k, which has the strongest Troops choice for an equal-numbers fight?". You would also have to specify if HQ unlockings count (e.g. Abaddon and Chaos Chosen, etc). If so, probably Grey Knight Paladins (with Draigo making them Troops).

He's talking about in the fluff, so "unlocking troops" isn't a thing.

Yeah, but fluff isn't a fair comparison. Anything can win against anything in a close fight, depending on which the author prefers.

EDIT: Custodes or either Eversor or Callidus assassins?

More vague questions with no reason to answer from VampireDeLaVega. Can you PLEASE ask questions that have a reason to be answered?

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
More vague questions with no reason to answer from VampireDeLaVega. Can you PLEASE ask questions that have a reason to be answered?

I noticed that, too! It does seem to be a theme...

IG armored division.

Oh sure they're just human.

But they have tanks.

Also, your grammar hurts me.

Grey Knights are fairly unstoppable in fluff, and for a while tabletop as well.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
So it's really just Marines, Tau, and maybe Necrons who you'll ever see something approaching a "fair fight" from.

Only idiots & those who don't know better engage in 'fair fights'. The object of warfare is to defeat the opponent, not try to score '+1' for being 'fair'.

And even those three forces don't really engage in fair fights, from what I've been reading.

The Marines' entire modus operandi is focused on high mobility and rapid strikes on enemy weak points, exploiting a dangerous but cumbersome opponent's inability to quickly adapt to their attack. They don't deploy in a line, wait a few hours to set everything up, and charge the enemy in the open - that's a job for the IG, which can afford such bluntness due to its massive numbers and material superiority.

The Tau on the other hand seem to favour their impressive technology for superior ranged firepower, attempting to keep their enemy from closing in and thus denying them to deploy their own strengths.

Granted, Necrons seem to be pretty straightforward for once, but I'm fairly sure their tactics qualify as psychological warfare, and one could argue they "cheat" by having their killed troops get up again.

VampireDeLaVega wrote:
In the fluff which army do you think is the strongest in a balance match where one side doesn't outnumbered the other but instead both sides has around the same amount of forces. I guess Imperial Guards and Tyranids would be out of the question here.

You've both asked and answered your question in the same breath. In a balanced fight no faction would have a higher chance of winning than any other because the fight would be balanced.

If by balanced you are referring strictly to numbers than you could probably just go look up the highest point value model in all the codices and say "100 of these against 100 of anything else" and your conclusion would be obvious.

Instead of asking the question the way you did, could you please tell us what you want to learn by asking it? The game is simply too varied and diverse for you do receive any kind of reasonable answer to your question as is.

 En Excelsis wrote:

VampireDeLaVega wrote:
In the fluff which army do you think is the strongest in a balance match where one side doesn't outnumbered the other but instead both sides has around the same amount of forces. I guess Imperial Guards and Tyranids would be out of the question here.

You've both asked and answered your question in the same breath. In a balanced fight no faction would have a higher chance of winning than any other because the fight would be balanced.

If by balanced you are referring strictly to numbers than you could probably just go look up the highest point value model in all the codices and say "100 of these against 100 of anything else" and your conclusion would be obvious.

Instead of asking the question the way you did, could you please tell us what you want to learn by asking it? The game is simply too varied and diverse for you do receive any kind of reasonable answer to your question as is.

VampireDeLaVega wrote:
strongest in a balance match where one side doesn't outnumbered [sic, lol] the other but instead both sides has around the same amount of forces

Lynata, why is your flag France when your location is Ireland?

 Lynata wrote:

Granted, Necrons seem to be pretty straightforward for once, but I'm fairly sure their tactics qualify as psychological warfare, and one could argue they "cheat" by having their killed troops get up again.

The Necrons teleport the bulk of their army onto an unaware planet and start lighting the place up with Gauss fire.

That's "cheating", lol.

 Lynata wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:Space Marines. A single marine is worth a thousand imperial guardsmen.

Or a dozen, if one were to read GW's rulebook...

Or "dozens, if not a hundred lesser soldiers" by Codex: Dark Angels' entry. Leave it to GW to have differing fluff lenses. I wonder if they're rose-tinted...

I would be inclined to say Grey Knights too if we're talking full-on Codexes. Take your pick of Paladins, Purifiers and Dreadknights to be able to take on any feasible combination of similarly numbered ground troops with ease. They've even got Force Weapons for taking on Monstrous Creatures that Dreadknights couldn't handle one-on-one.

If we're including any fluff faction? Legio Titanica. I see your Ork/Tyranid/Guard horde and raise you the entire cast of Pacific Rim, multiplied many times over.