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I can only think the IoM, given a very big stretch of the imagination, Necrons, and Orks.

Chaos: Kill everyone else, kills itself.
Tyranids: Eat everything, no more food, dies.
Eldar: A bit hopeless at this point, barring he unforseen consequences of Ynnead.
Dark Eldar: Can't exist for long outside Webway. Permanent confinement - Since their culture means Chaos will never go 100% away.
Tau: You can suggest they might eventually control the galaxy, but that's a huge "if". Exterminatus a few dozen planets and it's GG. -Assuming the Imperium ever had the time or willingness to do so.

Meanwhile, Orks just kill forever and are quite happy doing so. The IoM might eventually get their together, but that'd require some massive shifts in administration and technology.

Necrons meanwhile can exist through everything. One of two(?) races that actually has advancing technology. Has numbers comparable or equal to the IoM (theoretically, no idea the population of a given tomb world) and more arise each day (metaphorically), can simply "sleep" for as long as a given plan takes, and have the know-how to permanently remove Chaos, and the Eldar's greatest advantage. Would consequently also screw up the astronomicon, possibly the hive mind, Waaaaagh!, and possibly screw the infinity circuit.

Kind of sad that, in my opinion, he inheritors of the Galaxy are a faction who sacrificed everything that makes living worthwhile. Souls. Independence. Personality. Joy. Everything is just simulated emotion now, and even that luxury is enjoyed by a small few.

Well if the Tyranids eat everything, they won't die, they'll just go to yet another galaxy to feed on...

You're right - I wasn't explicit enough.

What factions do not have a self-defeating, or ridiculously unlikely end-game if it was "Warhammer 60K' and they had won "the war" so to speak.

The Tau are rapidly conquering portions of the Imperium. I think if they have a large enough empire by the galaxy's endgame they can at least hold there own if not outright win, but that's just my opinion...

I'd add the Tau to the list. They're expanding FAST, and Exterminatus isn't an option - the ships have to get close enough and long enough to perform it.

Well all endgames seem a bit of a stretch. Imperium's endgame is basicly just survive and kill when able, not much of an endgame. Chaos, destroy the Imperium, squat on its remains and possibly feed their gods by fighting amongst themselves or other races (would for example Khorne care if the skull is Imperial or Ork?). Tyranids seem the most likely, its just kill feed kill feed... and they have numbers on their side. Orks dont play for the endgame, they just care about the game in the moments and due to their biology they will always be around. Necrons want to reclaim their galaxy. For both Eldar races its more serious survival battle than the Imperium. Well Tau seems close to the Imperium's one with kill/expand over survival, but probably switching with incoming Hive fleets.

what i think it ends up being is a war of attrition for many races IOM, Eldar and tau i guess but i think that the Tau are going to end up like the IOM expanding to rapidly and then being attack on all sides by all the other bad guys so to say. IOM are just doing there thing fighting dying and really unless they win armagedon and get out of there alot of there forces are tied up there and its only going to get worse. then the eldar are dying plain and simple by the time 50k comes around they will make it so they are either dead or closer to being dead than they actually are. As alot of people said above tyranids are rapidly killing and eating worlds with it taking a miracle for people to stop it. but if anyones going to win it the necrons because tyranids avoid them and they dont die. Theres my rant.

The Orks already lost because the brain boyz went extinct.

Anyway another 100,000 years is meaningless to the life of a galaxy, not even an eye blink. Everything goes extinct eventually, that's the only end game.

DA ORKZ JUS NEED MOR BOIZ DEN WE KAN SMASH DOSE OOMIES SUMTHEN GUD

Well IoM is slowly falling under their own weight which happens to any nation that gets to large so they either going to a) deteriorate to the point where only the strongest planest remain and then reclaim all their old crap or b) they get wiped out due to the their resliance to change that they have shown for the last 10,000 years.

Dark Eldar will probably just stay in the webway and live the same way they do now minus all thee plundering as there will be no one to plunder. The only reason why they will live is due to the fact that they very rarely reproduce any more and their longevity has been made through cloning and the stealing of souls.

I see three possible senarios for actual eldar 1) they die out completly no Ynnead 2) they escape to the webway living as the Harlequins do using the maze of the webway to hide 3) they become corrupt join the dark eldar 4) Since their already close with tau they might join fources with them 5) They could just leave to a different galaxy 6) Everyone dies Ynnead comes about and kills everyone else and finally 7) Ynnead comes in when all the eldar die, he kills all the Chaos gods saves that elar goddess health and then they make new eldar.

Orks will never die.

Nids either eat everything and leave or get stuck in a never ending war with every ones favorite gree mushroom army the Orkz. Deamons are no threat to them as they are mind controlled and are only left behind if they are no longer usefull. P.S. leaving a shadow inside the warp tends to scare people/things deamons beware

I don't see tau winning i mean try rapidly expanding or taking defending the land you take over when it takes atleast 20 years to go from planet to planet it doesn't work. This being said i think that if they were to ever perminently ally with a race like eldar then they'd be untouchable.

SM will either go chaos, rouge, or they will simmer out with the imp guard do to their commitment to the old ways. Change and development is the makings of greatness.

Deamons will probably be killed by Ynnead if not they will win.

Necrons don't recruit any more they don't devolp new tech and eventualy their numbers will fade

So basicly i got no idea cus everyone has just about an equal claim except for space dwarves... they got eaten by Nids... twaz a long time ago...






Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S. Gork and Mork are the two strongest gods in the universe why would Orks ever loose????

Well I kind of view it this way:

Orks are most likely not going to go away in a while (if not at all, and they stay around until the end of time) due to their biology and how they are. So in a twisted and weird sense, they have already won their end game (unless it comes to Tyranids, but even then that might be a fight that ends that only really ends in a stalemate as it shows on the fight between the two on the planet I forget the name to sadly).

Eldar are most likely going to die out before the end of the war since there is so few of them to really put up any real resistance other than hit and run, and get out. Plus their reasons for fighting are a differing depending on the craftworld I believe. Not only that, but the Dark Eldar cannot really leave the pocket of the webway for a long time except to pillage and get slaves so they are out.

While Tau are slowly, but at rapidly alarming rate, expanding and gaining more territories, they are still relatively new and are still dwarfed by the Imperium ten-fold. Not only that, they are starting to be hit on all sides by the Tyranids and other major forces in the Warhammer 40k universe. And I kind of not really believe they have that large of an military and/or population to defend and still expand at a decent rate

The IoM is the largest so far, and the strongest (Hell, they are still around even after emperor was placed on the Golden throne, and all their civil disputes and that). But even then, they are starting to buckle under the pressure from chaos incursions, Xenos invasions and that if they send one focus to take out a certain enemy, then they would leave themselves vulnerable to a weak spot. Only way they may survive I think is if they change a bit, but they would lose a lot of ground.

Necrons just want to have their place in the galaxy back, but they cannot really create new soldiers or grow their population. Chaos is going to always be a constant unless the warp is wiped out (even then, that is still really hard from what i have read, and this would have dire consequences).

And finally Tyranids. Since they are not from the Galaxy this takes place in, and they are the most numerous threat (even more so than the orks), some of the races would have to enter a temporary alliance (mostly being Imperium, Eldar, and Tau since most are going to be busy fight them or each other) but even then that is a long shot, since they can replenish their numbers with the dead of other races and bio-material from planets they consume.

Then again I could be wrong on this, it has been awhile since I have fully delved into Warhammer 40k lore so this is mostly a subjective analysis at best, so take my statement with a grain of salt.

You forget the universal constant with humans. Humanity will always wage wars. If the IoM where to defeat everyone, eventually they would start to fight amongst themselves and a vicious cycle would begin.

An interesting theory is that the Tau may be a ticking time bomb for themselves. If enough Tau where to ever start asking questions about the Ethereals, things might get nasty for the Tau Empire internally really quick. Where did the Ethereals come from? How do they control us so easily? Can we trust them? Has our entire Empire been built on a lie?

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
You forget the universal constant with humans. Humanity will always wage wars. If the IoM where to defeat everyone, eventually they would start to fight amongst themselves and a vicious cycle would begin.

An interesting theory is that the Tau may be a ticking time bomb for themselves. If enough Tau where to ever start asking questions about the Ethereals, things might get nasty for the Tau Empire internally really quick. Where did the Ethereals come from? How do they control us so easily? Can we trust them? Has our entire Empire been built on a lie?

That us very true about humans, but then again, what is it to say that it is not like that for the other races that are sentient enough and that. If your Tau theory is right, then I can see them following in the same footsteps as humans did. Then again, I could be wrong.

Nonetheless, I like that theory.

The tau might be expanding fast, but there are only so many tau. They lack the sheer numbers unless they start frakking like rabbits.

The idea of the whole universe is that there is no endgame, "There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgivness. There is only WAR!"

Pick sides, choose favorites, but in the end not much will change.

If you want a big stretch: Emperor dies, and the resultant 'lack' of psychic power causes a vortex, sucking a large amount of psychic back onto the corpse of the Emperors corpse, only to revive the emperor again. He now becomes all powerful/more powerful cyborg or sumfin and leads another great crusade. IoM on a comeback! However this scares that the crap out of the Chaos God's. They very reluctantly join (temporarily) forces, causing the Eye of Terror to expand. Massive 'Horus Heresy' like battle commences. However, this means that the rest of the universe now sees an opportunity. Order vs Destruction somehow happens, however the Necrons (who hate everything) initially stay out of it. Eldar see the Chaos threat as terrifying, DE align with Chaos and see soul stripping opportunities, Orks love a scrap, Tau for the greater good etc. Tyranids are the third faction in the MEGA war, eating all that lovely bio mass. Eventually its Aarmageddon on a mega scale! Suddenly the Silent King (Crons) returns, and seeing the weakened state of the galaxy gains support (somehow) with other necrons and start trying to retake the galaxy. The resultant Apocalypse war basically kills everything, making the Necrons go back to sleep, whats left of whats left of the Eldar escape through the Webway. Chaos Gods and Emperor are basically stuck in Chaos realm dukeing it out (Kaldor Draigo anyone?), Necron Remnants retreat etc. etc. What is left is a new age of evolution where new and younger races start the cycle (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age (not sure of order)) again, showing that life is just a vicious cycle.


Basically this is a mix of the great war against Chaos (Fantasy) and other already used stories combined with Fan fantasy. Please give me (not rude) critique so I can improve this sort of interesting story.

JWhex wrote:
The Orks already lost because the brain boyz went extinct.

That's nuts. They are the most numerous faction out there, save perhaps Tyranids - they are clearly prospering. The Orks already won, they reached their end game long ago. They live to fight, and the galaxy is in a permanent state of war. Even if they got wiped out to an Ork, they'd die doing what they love the most. It's Ork paradise.

After reading the book firecast I am convinced that the Tau empire is going to collapse in a fashion similar to the human empire in the dark age of technology and then will become Imperium 2.0 when lots of ethereal's combine their souls to make some form of ethereal equivalent of the Emperor.

The Tau Empire is pretty much a joke right now. People say that they are expanding fast, but without FTL travel they have no bearing on the galaxy as a whole. If they get their FTL back in some fashion then they may have a chance, but as it is now the only endgame for them is for one of the other factions to squash them like a bug.

The Necrons can't really win either, as they have limited numbers. The best that they can manage is wiping everyone else out before they go. There is also the Flayer Curse, which is slowly turning them all mad.

Ferros wrote:
I can only think the IoM, given a very big stretch of the imagination, Necrons, and Orks.

Tyranids: Eat everything, no more food, dies.

Well, you got Tyranids wrong. Their endgame is 'Eat everything, no more food, move on to the next galaxy'. They're not from the milky way, and they've already eaten 12 galaxies before the Milky Way. We're not their last stop, just the next on the buffet chain.

I though Tau did have FTL travel, albeit slower than everyone else. Unless it has been retconned in the new 'dex


Necrons: Eventually fall to the Flayer curse unless they managed to reverse the effects or isolate and destroy the carriers

Eldar: Die out. Sorry space elves

IoM: Either fall to chaos or be consumed entirely through war and die out

Chaos Marines: Destroy the Imperium. Then attack everything else while infighting

Orks: Fight everyone. Like usual.

Tau: Don't know enough about them

DE: Either consumed by Slaanesh or 'survive' as they are now

Tyranids: Move on to a new galaxy after consuming all (or at the very least attempting to)


Have I missed anyone?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I though Tau did have FTL travel, albeit slower than everyone else. Unless it has been retconned in the new 'dex

I believe that they did, along with the Necron's FTL. IA12 had the Necron's FTL drives added back in though.

Necrons and Chaos.

Necrons kill every living being in the galaxy whereas Chaos continues to rule the warp.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
I though Tau did have FTL travel, albeit slower than everyone else. Unless it has been retconned in the new 'dex

I believe that they did, along with the Necron's FTL. IA12 had the Necron's FTL drives added back in though.

Nope, new tau dex does not even touch on how they travel as far I can tell reading it. IT still points out they don't use the warp, but does not explain how they travel other than saying they do.

Necrons actually have one of the more interesting two end-games that could be realistic:

C'Tan ending- somehow, the C'Tan regain their dominance over the Necron and using the old codex logic they were following, their endgame is to seal off the Immaterium from the Material Plane, depriving Chaos of its followers and ability to influence the galaxy at large; this in turn nerfs everyone (even the Tau) at being able to travel long distances and neuters one of the greatest weapons in most army arsenals (psykers).

Of course, this requires the shards of the C'Tan breaking free of their constraints. The Deceiver has the greatest chance of achieving this as the new Necron codex is ambiguous about rogue shards out there and the Deceiver appears to be in many places at once based off the old lore. It is possible that these disparate shards are working towards such an endgame.

Necron ending- Necrons want to badly regain a flesh form. Given the technological state of the 40k universe, anything is almost possible.

Imagine the Necron lords are able to become flesh through say...mind swapping with humans. Not the best scenario for them but they're the most abundant creatures in the galaxy at large (right now). It opens up possibilities however. Imagine they do this to High Lords of Terra, or are able to do this and augment their human anatomy with Necron tech, becoming hybrids of a sort (not unlike Pariahs).

The short version is flesh Necrons are dangerous because once they achieve this, they're stigmata of being duped by the C'Tan is past them and they can move on to bigger and better things for their race.

The Tau are rapidly conquering portions of the Imperium. I think if they have a large enough empire by the galaxy's endgame they can at least hold there own if not outright win, but that's just my opinion...

The tau are already having problems with Farsight as he has pretty much broken off from their empire and that means to continue rapid expansion they'll need to ether reunite or take his planets over which will be a huge drain on resources, but having said that if the tau can get there s**t together and get warp capable ships/navigators they'll do pretty good.

Black Templars: Kill all of the Xenos.

 -Loki- wrote:

Ferros wrote:
I can only think the IoM, given a very big stretch of the imagination, Necrons, and Orks.

Tyranids: Eat everything, no more food, dies.

Well, you got Tyranids wrong. Their endgame is 'Eat everything, no more food, move on to the next galaxy'. They're not from the milky way, and they've already eaten 12 galaxies before the Milky Way. We're not their last stop, just the next on the buffet chain.

Where does it say that they've already eaten 12 galaxies? I've blatantly missed something really obvious here....

IoM = endgame is largely "the Emperor and the Primarchs return, unify mankind, undo 20,000 years of stagnation, awaken mankind as a psychic race and humanity enters a new golden era as a slightly shorter version of the original Eldar. Ironically, the IoM as it is today ceases to exist.

Orks = perfectly happy to carry on as they are. They don't have or want an endgame, they just want to keep gaming. You could I suppose say that they achieved their endgame the moment they were unleashed upon the galaxy by the Old Ones.

Tau = The entire galaxy is united under the Greater Good. This one is a bit sketchy given the size of the galaxy and how the Tau seem to struggle with some of the more apocalyptic threats. If mankind and the Eldar can do it, I would imagine so can the Tau, but it might not last. Mortal races that aren't Orks tend to die out over time, and individuality breeds rebellion.

Eldar = Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the Eldar's endgame more or less not just to enjoy a nice, happy afterlife without fear of being eaten by Slaanesh? As race, they seem to have accepted slow extinction (with the exception of the Dark Eldar, who I suspect don't really care so long as thhey have warm bodies to torture).

Chaos = Their endgame is more or less the current state of the galaxy is it not? Perpetual war, endless bloodshed and complete madness on a galactic scale? You can argue that the individual factions have their own goals and endgames, but they are either self-defeating or would undermine Chaos as a whole to the point where Chaos is less of a threat. As a whole I imagine Chaos would be happy with a bit more space on its side, but this one strikes me as very similar to the Orks in that Chaos is happiest when it is engaged in an eternal war.

Tyranids = The galaxy is scoured of life and the race moves on, going back into hibernation whilst gravity tunnels are opened up and the bioships head off in the general direction of the next unfortunate galaxy.

Necrons = Chaos is shut out, the Tyranids turned away, the mortal races enslaved and suitable organic bodies are developed for the tranferrence of their race back into flesh and blood form. They then rule over the galaxy, developing better and better sciences. Where they end up, who knows. Probably wiped out by the Daleks in the distant future after they accidentally open a doorway to the Whooniverse.