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chaos marines- several hundred thousand?

Nid hive fleet (at full strength, not just the tip of a tendril) - millions of nids


I'd say they have a chance. maybe not a good one, but they have a chance..

I'd also point out that the CSM DID force the war in the HH all the way back to Terra, to the gates of the Imperial Palace itself They only lost because the Emperor wears +20 plot armour ;0)

Ascalam wrote:chaos marines- several hundred thousand?

Nid hive fleet (at full strength, not just the tip of a tendril) - millions of nids


I'd say they have a chance. maybe not a good one, but they have a chance..

I'd also point out that the CSM DID force the war in the HH all the way back to Terra, to the gates of the Imperial Palace itself They only lost because the Emperor wears +20 plot armour ;0)

And have 0+ armor save

And if nids really attack Terra they will only get their asses kicked, looked at what happened to Necrons and they have the most powerful fleet in the galaxy.

'And have 0+ armor save '

The warp-fielded (3+ Inv) big bugs and the cover-saved (venomthrope), feel no pained, constantly respawing (tervigon) hordes beg to differ

The Imperium is tooled up, yes, but eventually the big guns jam from overheating or being jammed with suicide units, and then it's all over but the buffet

This is the pattern in the fluff that Nid invasions seem to follow, and it's usually only some handwaving on the part of the Imperium's fanclub that lets them scrape a win



Um, when did Necrons attack Terra?

They sent a small fleet to Mars, and as far as i'm concerned (from my take on the tiny bit of fluff this is in) succeeded in their mission

It also mentons in the Codex that generally Imperial fleets get their collective asses handed to them by much smaller, weaker necron fleets, and even wins are phyrric victories.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pg 57- looked it up

Hi, your friendly neighbourhood Necron player here.

5 Light Cruisers made it past the entire Solar Battlefleet, all of the Grey Knights, all of the orbital defences of Mars and made it to the atmosphere. 3 were subsequently destroyed, 2 landed. The two that landed were then vaporised, but as we all know, no matter how you kill a Necron, it will come back. If a Chaos Sorcerer transported a C'Tan to the Warp, a realm that is anathema to the C'Tan, Necrodermis is still powerful enough that it will reform and return (This is taken from a Codex: Necron FAQ, though not the most recent one I believe. 2005, IIRC).

Necrons could do it because their ships have FTL drives and therefore move so fast that they cannot be detected. Tyranid ships are renowned as being the slowest ships in the 40K universe. They're hardy, but they can't take the kind of punishment dealt by what would effectively be the entire Human Race. On the other hand, with the current Adeptus Mechanicus power struggle and schism, things could start getting tricky. And then there's the fact that when they tried to consume Mars, there's an undigestable being with unimaginable power sitting there, and its been a bit cheesed off these last 38000 years. And then AGAIN, I suspect that any Eldar craftworlds in the vicinity would try and help the Imperium, because having a species in debt to you is never a bad thing, even if they are inferior. So it's 2v2, or in terms of codices, 4-6/7 v 1.

Good luck, 'Nids... you'd need it...

Oh, and by the by, there have been two Necron Death-stars sighted by the Imperium in the past (World Engine and the disappearing world from the new GK codex. Yeah, I took a piece of fluff from that travesty, I feel dirty). Picture those beauties opening fire on the Solar System, and think how much they could do. The 'Nids would have a lot to live up to.

Ascalam wrote:I'd also point out that the CSM DID force the war in the HH all the way back to Terra, to the gates of the Imperial Palace itself They only lost because the Emperor wears +20 plot armour ;0)

Then may I also point out the emperor was not convinced of Horuses Heresy until very late and in WD151 IIRC is the final duel between the two. The Emperor doesn't really try to kill Horus until he's seen Sanginus, his retinue and an Imperial Fist Terminator died and having lost his arm and is in danger of bleeding out. He is only truely convinced that Horus means what hes doing after he sees the interior of Horuses ship anyway. Oh and there was 2 Loyalist legiopns fighting 8 Chaos Legions and won, thats pretty god damn good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Scarey Nerd wrote:
Necrons could do it because their ships have FTL drives .

Finally somebody else that watches SGU, the second seson is really good

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Then may I also point out the emperor was not convinced of Horuses Heresy until very late and in WD151 IIRC is the final duel between the two. The Emperor doesn't really try to kill Horus until he's seen Sanginus, his retinue and an Imperial Fist Terminator died and having lost his arm and is in danger of bleeding out. He is only truely convinced that Horus means what hes doing after he sees the interior of Horuses ship anyway. Oh and there was 2 Loyalist legiopns fighting 8 Chaos Legions and won, thats pretty god damn good.

You cannot supress the truth! Who's with me for Ollanus Pius, the patron saint of meatshields?

Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
You cannot supress the truth! Who's with me for Ollanus Pius, the patron saint of meatshields?

Terminator what? You mean the true Guardsmen with balls made out of the same stuff they create power swords with?


It would almost certainly bring about more then just a united front from the imperium. The choas gods would likely interfear as well. Without humans there would be no choas. I would've be surprised that the necrons helped as well. For what taste of souls do nids have compared to the succulent morsels us humans provide for the ctan?

-Loki- wrote:The shadow in the warp blocks the astronomican. The astronimican is required for humans to use warp travel in any reliable way. If they surrounded Terra, the astronomican would be entirely shut down for the rest of the Imperium. No one would be turning up in any significant numbers to do much.

Where does it actually say that the Shadow in the Warp blocks the Astronomicon? I know it prevents messages being sent, but I've never heard of it actually blocking the Astronomicon itself.

Could the Imperial Warp Drives not initiate short dives, like the Tau ones? That could at least enable nearby systems to send support.

Ascalam wrote:Necron remains also go with them, which is why Necron stuff is hard to come by for study ...

Yet some are left for study, and some do get too badly damaged to phase out. As far as I know, we've no idea what weapons were actually used on the Necron ships, so it is possible they were damaged too quickly to phase out again.

chaos marines- several hundred thousand?

Nid hive fleet (at full strength, not just the tip of a tendril) - millions of nids

Hundreds of thousands of Chaos Space Marines, vast numbers of Daemons, traitor elements of the Imperial Army, Dark Mechanicus, Titan Legions, and, of course, the Traitor Primarchs themselves.

Scarey Nerd wrote:Tyranid ships are renowned as being the slowest ships in the 40K universe.

Might not be fastest but is one of the safest, Necrons is fastest and safest. But then its nids.

"The Hive Fleets of the Tyranids do not travel through the warp but instead rely on small Narvhal bio-ships which are capable of harnessing a planetary system's gravity from immense distances away to create a corridor of compressed-space through which Tyranid vessels can travel towards the system at a swift rate. Whilst slower than proper warp travel, this method is infinitely more reliable. On final approach to a system the Narvhal's delicate senses face interference from multiple gravity sources, and so the resort to slower conventional propulsion whilst within the borders of a systemr"


Even slower then Warp travel what is faster then speed of light. I still bet by the time the nids are seen Terra is not making a call for help at all as shadow of warp has blocked all coms. 1,000 ish GKs could come I guess but they are nothing to nids really. Ooooo shiny space marines who like to use the warp lets fry there brains

Nids would have a hard time defeating Terra's defenses(well a whole of the Tyranid race would overwhelm it) because as of the Wolfblade Terra has been so fortified that even the hardliners said that the Terra is overfortified and in addition the whole Solar system is giant fortress.Here's the quote.

He considered their approach. He knew that they had passed countless fortresses and fleets as
they had swung in from the ultra-solar jump points. They had passed the armoured moons of Jupiter
and the forge world of Mars. They had been subjected to hundreds of challenges and scans and they
had been boarded twice. It had been a long drawn out process but it was only to be expected.
The world down there was better protected than any other planet in human history. There would
not be a Second Battle of Earth if the terrible lords of the Imperium could help it. Even now, the sky
was filled with satellite fortresses: great weapon installations with enough firepower to destroy
battle fleets. The whole of sublunar space was crowded with warships. For once in his life, Ragnar
felt insignificant - Wolfblade,pg. 30.

5 Light Cruisers made it past the entire Solar Battlefleet, all of the Grey Knights, all of the orbital defences of Mars and made it to the atmosphere. 3 were subsequently destroyed, 2 landed. The two that landed were then vaporised, but as we all know, no matter how you kill a Necron, it will come back. If a Chaos Sorcerer transported a C'Tan to the Warp, a realm that is anathema to the C'Tan, Necrodermis is still powerful enough that it will reform and return (This is taken from a Codex: Necron FAQ, though not the most recent one I believe. 2005, IIRC)

I would think the Necron's made it onto mars because of their massively more advanced space travel. It is like in the halo novel The fall of reach. The covenant fleets could enter FTL so close together that they were thought to be a solid object when discovered and so were waved off as a threat and considered a large asteroid, UNSC fleets could never dream of doing this..... everyone would be killed . Im not saying this is what happened with mars, but when Necrons have that much more advanced travel methods they could probably land a fleet in the Imperial palace if they really wanted to. SO they probably just appeared right behind the defenses on mars.

While the Tyranids mode of transportation is crazily more safe than warp travel, you can observe their movements as if they are walking right in front of you. Warp travel is more like seeing a person in front of you turning off the lights for a moment then turning them back on to see where they have popped up. One can be actively observed but the other must be observed by patterns of appearance (connect the dot's). SO it is my belief that the Imperium would see the nids coming, unless there were some large diversion to keep them from being on guard.

B455L1N3 wrote:

Scarey Nerd wrote:Tyranid ships are renowned as being the slowest ships in the 40K universe.

Might not be fastest but is one of the safest, Necrons is fastest and safest. But then its nids.

"The Hive Fleets of the Tyranids do not travel through the warp but instead rely on small Narvhal bio-ships which are capable of harnessing a planetary system's gravity from immense distances away to create a corridor of compressed-space through which Tyranid vessels can travel towards the system at a swift rate. Whilst slower than proper warp travel, this method is infinitely more reliable. On final approach to a system the Narvhal's delicate senses face interference from multiple gravity sources, and so the resort to slower conventional propulsion whilst within the borders of a systemr"


Even slower then Warp travel what is faster then speed of light. I still bet by the time the nids are seen Terra is not making a call for help at all as shadow of warp has blocked all coms. 1,000 ish GKs could come I guess but they are nothing to nids really. Ooooo shiny space marines who like to use the warp lets fry there brains

Dude its also home to the Imperial Fists and a ton of others. You forget its Terra. The entire system is one giant fortress. Terra is so well defended it makes macragge look like a open gate to a destroyed castle!

Ultramar does not have the greatest defenses, hell its not even in the top 3 most well defended. In order Terra, The Fang, Cadia, Drancoris, Caliban, Ultramar.

There is enough firepower to destroy entire battlefleets within seconds. Not only that but there are thousands of warships just around jupiter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xXSir MontyXx wrote:
I would think the Necron's made it onto mars because of their massively more advanced space travel. It is like in the halo novel The fall of reach. The covenant fleets could enter FTL so close together that they were thought to be a solid object when discovered and so were waved off as a threat and considered a large asteroid, UNSC fleets could never dream of doing this..... everyone would be killed . Im not saying this is what happened with mars, but when Necrons have that much more advanced travel methods they could probably land a fleet in the Imperial palace if they really wanted to. SO they probably just appeared right behind the defenses on mars.

While the Tyranids mode of transportation is crazily more safe than warp travel, you can observe their movements as if they are walking right in front of you. Warp travel is more like seeing a person in front of you turning off the lights for a moment then turning them back on to see where they have popped up. One can be actively observed but the other must be observed by patterns of appearance (connect the dot's). SO it is my belief that the Imperium would see the nids coming, unless there were some large diversion to keep them from being on guard.

Well let us not forget that it was on mars, the entire necron fleet was then obliterated after landing.
Then also remember the nids are so obvious to see the imperium would know when they would come. Because every system around terra is controlled by the imperium and those are fortresses to protect an already overprotected fortress.

Asherian Command wrote:

Ultramar does not have the greatest defenses, hell its not even in the top 3 most well defended. In order Terra, The Fang, Cadia, Drancoris, Caliban, Ultramar.

Minor nitpick,Caliban was destroyed and every source agrees on that except for the Imperial Armor 5(considering that the book was written by FW which is known for major background mistakes that is usual of them).

IvanTih wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:

Ultramar does not have the greatest defenses, hell its not even in the top 3 most well defended. In order Terra, The Fang, Cadia, Drancoris, Caliban, Ultramar.

Minor nitpick,Caliban was destroyed and every source agrees on that except for the Imperial Armor 5(considering that the book was written by FW which is known for major background mistakes that is usual of them).

Caliban is a flying rock that is the fortress monestary of the Dark Angels, thats why I say it is one of the top most well defended because it is insanely hard to find it.

Asherian Command wrote:

IvanTih wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:

Ultramar does not have the greatest defenses, hell its not even in the top 3 most well defended. In order Terra, The Fang, Cadia, Drancoris, Caliban, Ultramar.

Minor nitpick,Caliban was destroyed and every source agrees on that except for the Imperial Armor 5(considering that the book was written by FW which is known for major background mistakes that is usual of them).

Caliban is a flying rock that is the fortress monestary of the Dark Angels, thats why I say it is one of the top most well defended because it is insanely hard to find it.

So it's like at the begining of the war in the pacific at WW2 than actually attacking a fortress, It's just a rock flying through space with effectively minimal defences....

The Rock is all that's left of Caliban bar some rubble..

xXSir MontyXx wrote:I definitely never counted them out. I just know for a fact that every armed Imperial soldier would come to sol if it meant saving the Emperor from being nom'ed.

And how would they get there? Shadow in the Warp would blot out the Astronomicon. Imperials couldn't travel reliably.

Mattlov wrote:

xXSir MontyXx wrote:I definitely never counted them out. I just know for a fact that every armed Imperial soldier would come to sol if it meant saving the Emperor from being nom'ed.

And how would they get there? Shadow in the Warp would blot out the Astronomicon. Imperials couldn't travel reliably.

Astronomican is only vital for long-distance jumps, forces from every nearby world would still be able to get there. Segmentum Solar has an enormous level of colonization so I imagine there are quite a few major systems around Terra.

And with that "strongest defenses" list, I'd put Mars at #2 easily. It may even be tied with Terra considering it's also the Segmentum Fortress in addition to being the most vital Forge World, capital Mechanicus and home to the most powerful Titan Legions, HQ for the Imperial Fleet, and so on.

Mattlov wrote:
And how would they get there? Shadow in the Warp would blot out the Astronomicon. Imperials couldn't travel reliably.

That assumes that the Tyranids would surround Terra before the Imperials could realise. Which is unlikely.

Harriticus wrote:

Mattlov wrote:

xXSir MontyXx wrote:I definitely never counted them out. I just know for a fact that every armed Imperial soldier would come to sol if it meant saving the Emperor from being nom'ed.

And how would they get there? Shadow in the Warp would blot out the Astronomicon. Imperials couldn't travel reliably.

Astronomican is only vital for long-distance jumps, forces from every nearby world would still be able to get there. Segmentum Solar has an enormous level of colonization so I imagine there are quite a few major systems around Terra.

And with that "strongest defenses" list, I'd put Mars at #2 easily. It may even be tied with Terra considering it's also the Segmentum Fortress in addition to being the most vital Forge World, capital Mechanicus and home to the most powerful Titan Legions, HQ for the Imperial Fleet, and so on.

Mars is in the Terran system....... So its not #2 its already #1.
Cadia is a system....
Same with the spacewolves fortress monestary which is a system.

Though I believe that atleast one genestealer is already making its way through the ranks on terra if not more. So eventually it will get close enough to take out the astronomicon and and cripple the Imperium.

Just a bit of fanboy'ism

xXSir MontyXx wrote:Though I believe that atleast one genestealer is already making its way through the ranks on terra if not more. So eventually it will get close enough to take out the astronomicon and and cripple the Imperium.

Just a bit of fanboy'ism

Yeah Just a bit. Its also far fetched.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Ascalam wrote:Necron remains also go with them, which is why Necron stuff is hard to come by for study ...

Yet some are left for study, and some do get too badly damaged to phase out. As far as I know, we've no idea what weapons were actually used on the Necron ships, so it is possible they were damaged too quickly to phase out again.

Sorry, where have you heard that Necrons are left for study? As far as I've ever seen, apart from in some fanfiction, there's never been a necron left after a battle except in Xenology, but that Necron wasn't captured, it was waiting. I'd appreciate a source on this

Asherian Command wrote:

xXSir MontyXx wrote:Though I believe that atleast one genestealer is already making its way through the ranks on terra if not more. So eventually it will get close enough to take out the astronomicon and and cripple the Imperium.

Just a bit of fanboy'ism

Yeah Just a bit. Its also far fetched.

No offense or argument intended but what would make it far fetched? (purely curiosity) obviously Terran security is FAR FAR more strict than other planets that genestealers have done this but any specific examples?

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:Where does it actually say that the Shadow in the Warp blocks the Astronomicon? I know it prevents messages being sent, but I've never heard of it actually blocking the Astronomicon itself.

In the BRB. I don't have it with me at work, but it's in the Tyranid fluff section. The section that also mentions about a dozen galaxies left lifeless because of the Tyranids.

The Imperiums going to need more luck than the Nids.

Lets all think about this for one sec...

What is the main goal of Games Workshop?
To sell their miniatures and make a ton of money...

Now lets look at the different possibilities that may occur

1 the tyranids dominate...
The IoM goes down in flames because of the loss of the astronomican and GW can
no longer sell space marines, imperial guard, grey knights, blood angels, space wolves, dark angels, or sisters of battle not to mention
and battle fleet Gothic or epic miniatures all told 7-8 codecies worth of product. I think we can all agree that this is highly unlikely.

2 the IoM dominates...
well this kinda blows for all tyranid players, although nids aren't doomed like the IoM GW will prolly lose some sales for nids anyway
or at least will have less people starting a nid army. Because of loss in sales also highly unlikely.

3 the nids win barley...
preatty much the same as number one...

4 the IoM wins barley...
GW gets to use lots of lines like; "Though at great cost the imperial fists managed to beat back the innumerable waves of carnifexes."
and "standing back to back the last of the custodoes would not give and inch as they piled the bodies of the slain before them"...

In this case they lose the least sales and get to write a bunch of ridiculous fluff...

And in case you argue this is not what the fluff suggests would happen I'd like to point out that GW is the fluff so if nids actually ever made
it to terra i am betting a million to one this is what happens.

It's pretty obvious that the fluff is never going to advance, due to the potential to remove entire miniature ranges from the fluff. Doesn't mean discussing it isn't occasionally entertaining.

Humbaba wrote:
The IoM goes down in flames because of the loss of the astronomican and GW can
no longer sell space marines, imperial guard, grey knights, blood angels, space wolves, dark angels, or sisters of battle not to mention
and battle fleet Gothic or epic miniatures all told 7-8 codecies worth of product. I think we can all agree that this is highly unlikely.

Scarey Nerd wrote:
Sorry, where have you heard that Necrons are left for study? As far as I've ever seen, apart from in some fanfiction, there's never been a necron left after a battle except in Xenology, but that Necron wasn't captured, it was waiting. I'd appreciate a source on this

Just various people saying it occurs in stories and the like. Haven't actually see it myself. One example was that a Necron got hit my a melta weapon and didn't have much left of it.

xXSir MontyXx wrote:No offense or argument intended but what would make it far fetched? (purely curiosity) obviously Terran security is FAR FAR more strict than other planets that genestealers have done this but any specific examples?

I would say that the idea of a Genestealer making it into the Throne Room and not instantly being butchered by Custodes is ridiculous, but if the Inquisition War series is anything to go by it may conceivably happen (I'm not sure of the actual circumstances, but Draco getting an audience with the Emperor without the permission of the Custodes seems insane to me (admittedly, that's just what I assume happened since I haven't actually read the book, but that's the impression I get)).

-Loki- wrote:In the BRB. I don't have it with me at work, but it's in the Tyranid fluff section. The section that also mentions about a dozen galaxies left lifeless because of the Tyranids.

So they've finally ruined the mystery of the Tyranid invasion? How disappointing. Still, a dozen galaxies means the time lapse between each wave will be astronomical. The Imperium should have plenty of time to prepare.

Humbaba wrote:To sell their miniatures and make a ton of money...

You know, it can actually be quite fun and interesting to theorise what could happen background-wise, rather than just what's likely to happen.

Scarey Nerd wrote:when they tried to consume Mars, there's an undigestable being with unimaginable power sitting there

The souls contained in infinity circuits are 'indigestible'. The Doom of Mars could probably bombard Terra without even getting off planet