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Hi, Dakka'ers.

I'm sure this has come up before, so apologies if true.

Submitted for your consideration: My understanding is, during the 'Golden Age' of Terra (I'm sure it has a fluffy name), humanity basically mastered technology and humans could essentially do anything.
Then, during the Age of Strife, I think, humanity got kicked in the Royal Jewels by warp storms, and each planet had to fend for itself, as every planet was cutoff from the each other for thousands of years.

As such technology and skills got lost, and corrupted, and forgotten, at least on Terra, anyway. I assume as much, as when the Great Crusade hit, the Imperial forces end up fighting technologically supirior civiliations.

So, fast forward to current WH40K setting, and the Imperium of Man has been in a dark age, and all technological advanment has been stagnant for 10,000 years. All technology is controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus, who treat technology as borderline magic/reglion. Even the 'masters' of technology don't know precisely know how it works.

So, if humanity has lost all of its technology from the 'Golden Age', and on top of that has been stagnant for 10,000 years, how is the Imperium of Man of par, technology wise, with the rest of the races of the WH40K universe?

Ok, they can't jump through Webways, or run around in Riptides, etc. But I mean, you would think that the Imperium of Man would be seriously, seriously out classed in technology in all fields, but they seem to have an equal to anything that their enemies can throw at 'em.

The Imerial Guard and Astartes can even hold their own to the Necrons, who are meant to be the MOST technologically advance race ever.

Of course, all this could be due to the fact that GW is created by mere mortals who have to think up these ideas, an ultimately sculp models for their ideas, so that could be a limiting factor, lol.

Anyway, what's your views?

Numbers. Numbers and numbers again, especially in the case of the IG.
And there is nothing that could compare to my knowledge to, say, Terminator Armor in other armies.
Much was lost, but this doesn't automatically imply inferiority. Mankind just did start at a higher level, and desended to be equal, so to speak.
That, and simply numbers.

It's going to happen, so I might as be the one saying it: the Tau are quite a bit behind in tech, it's just that they get it out to more soldiers.

Superior technology does not guarantee victory unless wielded by a superior being. Thus mankind can always triumph over filthy xenosbreeds.

I would say compare it too roman and middle ages tech.

romans: aquaducts, toilets, chariots etc
middle ages, chainmail, printing press, trebuchet

It did progress but just really slowly and yeah the best stuff got lost but what did stay got improved (just over long period of time).

Tau are more or less getting too what humans were at just before the golden age i see it as, but don't have amazing space faring teck as say do the eldar (who are in a simular situation too the humans).

What do you define as 'base line' technology?

One way of looking at it is taking the most highly advanced item available and comparing it against the most highly advanced item of a comparable race.

Or you could look at the most commonly used item and compare it to the equivalent.

Or you take a direct equivalent.

Using AlmightyWalrus as the setter of comparison Tau/IG.

First one, I can't think of any but I'm sure he can and I will probably concede the IG wins on that.

Second one, Common soldier LasGun + Flak vs Pulse Rifle + Carapace. Tau gets this one.

Third one, Plasma S7 Gets Hot vs S6 Doesn't get hot. Well thats all down to personal taste, I don't like the idea of killing 1 in 6 troops and others will take that as an acceptable risk in order to kill tougher vehicles.

No one has a technological edge because with it the game become boring, and where they did introduce a technological edge into the game, you got the Necron BFG rules......

Cheers

Andrew

If you read some of the novels, or the background book it's not the the tech is always not understood but it is considered Hersey to change something from the golden age or come up with something new, but the Mechicium itself is split with part of it saying it fine too research new ideas the other not, this is dates back to before the HH and comes up in the novel Mechicium. In terms of not being able to keep up doesn't seem to be a problem for the eldar!

 AndrewC wrote:

Using AlmightyWalrus as the setter of comparison Tau/IG.

Why Tau/IG? Comparing the equipment of nine-million-trazillion guardsmen with the equipment of a few billion Fire Warriors won't give us any real footing IMHO. It like saying that Germany has better tech than the US just because your average Bundeswehr trooper has better equipment than your average Army grunt.

Fire Warriors/Stormtroopers would be better:
- 4+ armour vs 4+ armour - same
- R30" S5 AP5 vs R18" S3 AP3 - I dunno here, maybe the Tau is better

So the Tau's tech advantage quickly melts away as soon as we scale down the IoM to their size.

Valid point. I used IG because the OP raised the question as regards to the IG viewpoint, and I used Tau because AW used them as the first comparison race.

Your US/Bndwr comparison, is that current or WW2?

FW Vs ST is not a better comparison, because you're taking a basic troop vs a 'special forces troop'. ST are not armed and armoured with stock equipment.

And you just said it on your last sentence, 'Tau tech advantage' Scale was not a factor in the OP.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:

Your US/Bndwr comparison, is that current or WW2?

Anytime .

 AndrewC wrote:
FW Vs ST is not a better comparison, because you're taking a basic troop vs a 'special forces troop'. ST are not armed and armoured with stock equipment.

Yeah, but the amount of resources put into a Storm Trooper is roughly equal to the amount of resources put into a Fire Warrior. We can't compare a Guardsman and a FW just because they are both "basic troops" - the difference between them in their purpose and "cost" is big, and the value of a Guardsman is intentionally low.

 AndrewC wrote:
And you just said it on your last sentence, 'Tau tech advantage' Scale was not a factor in the OP.

It is just tech advantage in a complete vacuum. Yeah, the FW will have the tech advantage over a Guardsman, but the Tau Empire can only dream about the advanced tech the IoM has (but rarely uses).

Interesting points, fellas.

Mainly, though, I'm just confused as to why, after this Age of Strife thing, and after 10,000 years of stagnant tech, why isn't the Imperium of Man vastly out classed in tech. I'm not disputing that the Imperial Guard can flood a battlefield with numbers, but why hasn't these other races, in the 10,000 years the Imperium of Man's been stagnant, advanced?

 Tower75 wrote:
Interesting points, fellas.

Mainly, though, I'm just confused as to why, after this Age of Strife thing, and after 10,000 years of stagnant tech, why isn't the Imperium of Man vastly out classed in tech. I'm not disputing that the Imperial Guard can flood a battlefield with numbers, but why hasn't these other races, in the 10,000 years the Imperium of Man's been stagnant, advanced?

Because mankind had that much tech before the AoS. Dark Age of Technology humans were crazily advanced. They had so much tech, than even 20k years of degradation and neglection couldn't hurt it.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:
Interesting points, fellas.

Mainly, though, I'm just confused as to why, after this Age of Strife thing, and after 10,000 years of stagnant tech, why isn't the Imperium of Man vastly out classed in tech. I'm not disputing that the Imperial Guard can flood a battlefield with numbers, but why hasn't these other races, in the 10,000 years the Imperium of Man's been stagnant, advanced?

Because mankind had that much tech before the AoS. Dark Age of Technology humans were crazily advanced. They had so much tech, than even 20k years of degradation and neglection couldn't hurt it.

That confuses me. If that's what the Fluff says, fair enough, but, Humanity was meant to have more tech than the millennia-old Eldar race, for example?

AtoMaki, you're comparing apples to oranges here.

US/Bndwr. WW2 both were offensive armies, and the Bnd had better quality/technology weapons, however the US had a better support system and manpower behind it. Remember quanity has a quality of its' own. Current day, you comparing an offensive army vs an 'army' that is forbidden by treaty, or at least I have never noticed a change to the treaty I could very well be wrong, to be capable of mounting offensive campaigns.

As I said to start with, what is the baseline of the technology argument? I gave three options, you're introducing a fourth using the pts values on the game system, one that I would suggest has no place in a discussion on the 40K background forum. ST are not guardsman, they are not the basic troop of the IG, FW are the basic troop of the Tau, we should compare apples to apples, not oranges.

Tower, there has been some detailing of improving tech, they Tau didn't even have gunpowder 20K years ago!

Cheers

Andrew

 Tower75 wrote:

That confuses me. If that's what the Fluff says, fair enough, but, Humanity was meant to have more tech than the millennia-old Eldar race, for example?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that fluff mentions that DAoT humanity was roughly on the same level as the pre-Fall Eldar empire.

AtoMaki, you're comparing apples to oranges here.

No. A Guardsman is an apple (massed, cheap line infantry) and the Fire Warrior is an orange (elite, well-equipped, "expensive" battle troops). The Storm Trooper is also an orange. And by "expensive" I meant the actual, in-world resources: raw materials and knowledge for the equipment and quality manpower for the troops.

 Tower75 wrote:
Why hasn't these other races, in the 10,000 years the Imperium of Man's been stagnant, advanced?

Because only the Tau are advancing.

The rest are just as stagnant as the Empire. Eldar of both sorts have crazy tech but the real crown pieces are artifacts from their long lost glory days. Orks need nothing but some choppa and dakka. CSM use the same stuff as their loyalist counterparts with more spikes - many of them haven't even noticed the last 10000 years passing in the EoT. And their "advances" (together with the daemons) are more likely to be binding a daemon into a tank/gun/sword than any new tech. Necrons are superadvanced but so very few of them actually have minds these days that they're not likely to advance anymore. Tyranids don't use tech, and they're complete bunk anyway.

The imperium of man is the largest, most powerful single entity in the galaxy. Perhaps they aren't as technologically advanced, most citizens have little or no understanding of how things work, only that they do. Many of the pieces of equipment that imperial armies use are relics, or copies of relics that date from before the horus heresy, or during the heresy itself.

The main advantage the Imperium has is simply the sheer size of it. The imperium has access to more resources, and more manufacturing capability than any other entity in the galaxy, and while an alien race may be more advanced, and they may be able to beat any imperial troops on a 1v1 basis, when its 10v1 or 100v1, they don't stand a chance. The tau have only susrvived as long as they have due to luck. their civilization is in a sparesely populated region on the edge of the imperium, and the fortuitous arrival of the tyranids (if you can call it that) meant that the imperium had to divert resources intended to wipe out the tau to deal with a more pressing threat.

If we can use a modern(ish) analogy, during WW2 the Germans had the best tanks, the best planes, their infantry was better trained, and better equipped, in almost every engagement against the russians, or the western allies, the Germans inflicted heavier losses in men and material than were inflicted in return. Where they lost is that the allies losses were inconsequential, they could easily replace their losses, the germans could not

While individually inferior, imperial troops have one marked advantage that are best said in the words of an evil dictator, 'Quantity has a Quality all of its own'

Interestingly, from all I've read it seems the Eldar suffer from a similar problem as the humans. Even moreso, actually. They are a dying species, and whereas the Imperium's people are numbered in sectors, with Eldar they are numbered in starships - as big as they may be (none is as large as a single Imperial planet though).

Thinking about it - most of the Imperium's "current" enemies do not really fit into the classical technological arms race that one would expect from an ever-advancing galactic timeline. Necrons don't do R&D. Eldar don't do R&D. Orks don't do it, either. Amongst the Codex-represented species, the Tau Empire is the one exception from the rule, and here it's actually a major point in their fluff in how they evolved from a pre-industrial bunch of barbarians to a technologically advanced species capable of repulsing an Imperial assault. Give them a couple more centuries and they would advance even more, sufficiently so that they might be able to take out Imperial troops on an even larger scale - if they are given this chance.

And with the rest, it's just a question of numbers.

 Tower75 wrote:
Interesting points, fellas.

Mainly, though, I'm just confused as to why, after this Age of Strife thing, and after 10,000 years of stagnant tech, why isn't the Imperium of Man vastly out classed in tech. I'm not disputing that the Imperial Guard can flood a battlefield with numbers, but why hasn't these other races, in the 10,000 years the Imperium of Man's been stagnant, advanced?

I can think of two examples from other game systems here, both incidentally by FASA.

Battletech, the introduction of the clans over the Inner Sphere created a huge game imbalance that meant that the game wasn't as much fun, unless you went for clan as well. The background books could only address the imbalance by creating exceptions and tactics that could not be recreated on the gameboard. Renegade legion addressed this imbalance directly. The Terran Overlord Government held back all superior technology from the battle so as to maintain the war. The TOG populace would accept martial law as long as there was a war, as soon as the war stopped, then TOG was looking at a civil insurrection, as the populace would rebel against the conscription, taxes, rationing etc.

Advancing technology does not go hand in hand with a balanced (must stop laughing) game (really must stop laughing) system like 40K. (Sorry I have to go and lie down)

Cheers

Andrew

'More advanced' does not neccesarily mean better, at least not in all respects. you can have a very advanced EM gun that can throw bullets at huge velocities and it is not neccesarily going to be massively, uniformly better than a slugthrower, more often than not because both still can be limited by recoil (EM guns by virtue of not having propellant are less subject to this, but not significantly so. Propellant makes up IIRC less than half the recoil of a gun, the other half being from the speeding bullet.)

'Better' can also mean many things. cost (in terms of money, resources, time, etc.), ease of maintenance/durability/reliability are non-trivial factors in military technology (more advanced tech may or may not be less reliable, as a trade off.). There may be differences in range, or accuracy, or penetration (or just in the way it interacts iwth its target) or the way in which it inflicts damage on the target. It could differ in terms of ammo capacity/ease of replenishment of said ammo, amount of ammo carried, etc. It could be lighter (a lightweight weapon and ammo source can be a HUGE benefit to a soldier. Modern troops nowadays - at least as I've heard in western countries - carry tons of equipment around. Too much I've heard, in fact. Less ammo to haul around and a lighter rifle means less strain on the soldier.)

Remember it is stated that dark age tech humans had no equal militarily, it even states that the first alien wars with eldar and Orks didn't even phase them, useing the remnants of said empire humanity still beats every other race, though no longer out tech them (in some cases)

 AtoMaki wrote:

No. A Guardsman is an apple (massed, cheap line infantry) and the Fire Warrior is an orange (elite, well-equipped, "expensive" battle troops). The Storm Trooper is also an orange. And by "expensive" I meant the actual, in-world resources: raw materials and knowledge for the equipment and quality manpower for the troops.

And how can you make that distinction that one is cheap line infantry and the other elite battle troops? At what point does the distinction change? If I were to ask you for the basic troop of IG you would say 'Guardsman', if I say Tau, you say 'FireWarrior'. If you look at percentages, the predominant troop is the basic Guardsman.

The baseline I was proposing was the equipment of the basic line trooper, I don't think you are justified in saying that the FW is not a line trooper simply because he has better guns than you.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:

And how can you make that distinction that one is cheap line infantry and the other elite battle troops?

Easy: by the amount of resources put into each. If the Imperium put so much resources into the Guardsmen than the Tau into Fire Warriors, then they would have an army of Storm Troopers. It has nothing to do with the tech level, only with the resource management. That's why a Guardsman is a bad comparison to a Fire Warrior when you want to measure the technological level.

 Lynata wrote:
Interestingly, from all I've read it seems the Eldar suffer from a similar problem as the humans. Even moreso, actually. They are a dying species, and whereas the Imperium's people are numbered in sectors, with Eldar they are numbered in starships - as big as they may be (none is as large as a single Imperial planet though).

I think the new Eldar codex puts the population of Craftworlds at "billions". Which, taken all together, even a trillion Eldar is not that many given the size of the galaxy.

 Tower75 wrote:
Hi, Dakka'ers.

I'm sure this has come up before, so apologies if true.

Submitted for your consideration: My understanding is, during the 'Golden Age' of Terra (I'm sure it has a fluffy name), humanity basically mastered technology and humans could essentially do anything.
Then, during the Age of Strife, I think, humanity got kicked in the Royal Jewels by warp storms, and each planet had to fend for itself, as every planet was cutoff from the each other for thousands of years.

As such technology and skills got lost, and corrupted, and forgotten, at least on Terra, anyway. I assume as much, as when the Great Crusade hit, the Imperial forces end up fighting technologically supirior civiliations.

So, fast forward to current WH40K setting, and the Imperium of Man has been in a dark age, and all technological advanment has been stagnant for 10,000 years. All technology is controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus, who treat technology as borderline magic/reglion. Even the 'masters' of technology don't know precisely know how it works.

So, if humanity has lost all of its technology from the 'Golden Age', and on top of that has been stagnant for 10,000 years, how is the Imperium of Man of par, technology wise, with the rest of the races of the WH40K universe?

Ok, they can't jump through Webways, or run around in Riptides, etc. But I mean, you would think that the Imperium of Man would be seriously, seriously out classed in technology in all fields, but they seem to have an equal to anything that their enemies can throw at 'em.

The Imerial Guard and Astartes can even hold their own to the Necrons, who are meant to be the MOST technologically advance race ever.

Of course, all this could be due to the fact that GW is created by mere mortals who have to think up these ideas, an ultimately sculp models for their ideas, so that could be a limiting factor, lol.

Anyway, what's your views?

weight, reliability and cost.

or more to the point, weight, reliability, cost, and effectiveness are all trade offs.

If you think of machine guns from 100 years ago and machine guns today. They both fire the same size bullets at about the ROF. Now they are smaller, more reliable, and cheaper to produce.

So faced with lousy tech, the IoM has to sacrifice reliability, make things heavier, and user more resources and labor to create things on average par with other races
Eldar on the other hand have scant resources, value reliability and need light weight to facilitate their battle focus. They degrade the effectiveness as much as they can(without making them useless) to make them cheaper, easier to produce, last longer, and lighter.

An eldar bright lance might seem about equal to a lascannon, but it is no doubt more reliable, lighter, and cheaper. The IoM is the largest richest institution in the galaxy, eldar are scattered to the wind and have to scavenge for resources, yet they can still field a large number of bright lances.
Ditto a fusion gun vs melta gun.

The Dark Age of Technology humans were advanced but they were still outclassed by the pre-Fall Eldar (as the Eldar empire is explicitly stated to have had no fear of external enemies and to have prevailed in all wars against such enemies), and by the Necrons (who were mostly still slumbering). The whole point of the Fall of the Eldar is that they were so utterly secure from outside threats that their empire rotted from within because they were free to indulge in endless leisure without worries. The theme of the pre-Fall Eldar empire is the same as that of the Old Republic in Star Wars, of a society grown arrogant and complacent since it was strong against the external only to succumb to internal decay.

There seems to be an issue however with certain Imperium fanboys who cannot bear to accept that humanity was not ever and always being the top dog of the galaxy. However that is the whole point of 40K which is that humanity is not the most advanced, not the most individually talented, strong, quick, or durable but makes up for it in faith and sheer number. Humanity is the distinct average among all the races, but the jack of all trades. The Imperium rose to its current status because the Eldar collapsed, and the Necrons had yet to awaken. The theme of ancient fading advanced alien race, or re-awakening ancient alien race/threat, is the fundamental theme for those factions.

The Dark Age of Technology however fills the same functional role that Classical Rome and Greece held for the medieval Europeans. It was an age looked back upon as a time of both material sophistication, yet spiritual darkness. The Ecclesiarchy and general Imperium view it as a Dark Age due to the reliance on technology rather than the human spirit. The Adeptus Mechanicus look back upon it as a Golden Age of technological wonder, but Dark because they did not give proper reverence to the Machine God and view this as a reason for its fall.

The Dark Age of Technology advanced humans and the pre-Fall Eldar empire could easily have co-existed alongside each other in the galaxy as the galaxy is a huge space and even now the Imperium only occupies a scattering of worlds with the rest being vast uncharted tracts of unknown space with sometimes minor alien or human empires in them. We see evidence of Dark Age of Technology terraforming attempts, successful, unsuccessful, and interrupted versions throughout the galaxy. Clearly humans were not supreme if they had to try and terraform marginal worlds when the Eldar were already sitting on paradise worlds (which are now the Crone Worlds). The matter of 2 advanced empires in the galaxy is far from irreconcilable. It is a simple matter to think that the Eldar Empire, secure against external threats, was introspective and preoccupied with its own internal pleasures and affairs leaving the Dark Age of Technology humans to expand and spread humanity across the galaxy. At the same time, the humans would have realized after any unsuccessful attempts to take major Eldar holdings that the Eldar were not to be trifled with and left the Eldar worlds alone in favor of other worlds. Again if one were to take another science fiction series as analogy to the Eldar, think of the Vorlons from Babylon 5. Highly advanced, and responding to any intrusions to their territory with devastating overwhelming force, but otherwise content to let everyone else run around freely outside their territory.

Part of the issue you see with the IG and Marines overcoming such enemies as the Necrons is plot armor and deus ex machina devices to ensure the protagonists survive. This often takes the form of a technological artifact (either of alien or Dark Age of Technology origin) which then offers a way out for the story protagonists. However by being a one off artifact or opportunity, it still doesn't mean the Imperium is as advanced as the Necrons. The Necrons for example have a higher understood level of technology, whereas the Imperium's replicable technology base is much lower, with the higher stuff being consigned to archived relics that are irreplaceable if destroyed or used.

The Imperium's research is more like archaeology and is focused on recovering the past (or something that can pass for being recovered from the past). In particular in BFG, one can see the phenomenon of one step forward and two steps back. Older ships are faster, more heavily armed, and generally superior in performance to more recent Imperial designs. Though sometimes technology is recovered, such as the Tyrant class cruiser's weaponry, it never seems to be quite as good as what was before and in the meantime other technology is lost, resulting in a fluctuating but generally declining technology base.

However for story purposes, or game purposes, it isn't satisfying for one player to slaughter endless amounts of the other and the other player winning in the end via numbers. Some races like the Orks and Tyranids have that theme, but even then they have to be somewhat capable of damaging Necrons and Eldar on the tabletop else it creates an unsatisfying game experience. Similarly, that was one of the problems in BFG when the original Necron rules made them capable of destroying the entire other player's fleet with minimal losses. Even when the VP tables were tinkered to make it possible for the other player to win in points despite a destroyed fleet, it was not a satisfying gaming experience for the non-Necron player, and it was open to abuse in the basic BFG campaign system. Because of these narrative or gaming requirements, no technologically advanced faction is ever so advanced as to be invulnerable to the other factions.

Finally, in any consideration of technology, the tech base of the races has to be considered. The Eldar's entire technology base is built on psychic energy and manipulation of the warp. The Necrons and the Tau are based purely on realspace science. The Imperium's technology is built on a bit of both realspace and warp based technology. Some things that the Eldar take for granted like psychic switches for nearly everything, simply wouldn't be possible for the vast majority of humans to use as they are not psychic enough. It's an apple and orange comparison, because most humans do not have the psychic senses or abilities to do anything with psychic technology. It would be like having artwork or color coded switches in shades of UV. We cannot see it though other species (like insects) can.

You also need to bear in mind that the Age of Strife was not something that happened to the human empire but to the whole galaxy; every race was affected.

As the Warp storms caused by the nascent Slaanesh wracked the galaxy and isolated worlds from each other many societies collapsed as a direct result of this lack of contact since in many cases they were inter-dependant, hives for example needing food from agri-worlds found their populations starving to death. However, lack of contact and the ability to traverse the Warp were not the only problems, Slaanesh, even before its birth actively disturbed the minds of countless living beings and so many worlds were also lost to madness. This affected alien worlds just as much as human ones.

Now if Mechanicum is to be believed, the Emperor forsaw this and created the seeds for the Adeptus Mechanicus reasoning that technological knowledge would last better as religious dogma and be more easily brought to His cause once Slaanesh was born and the Warp Storms abated.

Obviously the Eldar, despite a high level of technology were so devastated by The Fall that they ahve lost their advantage and to a lesser extent they too cannot replicate some of these technologies. The Orks were a much more unified race that was lead by the tactically brilliant Blood Axes but their domination ended during Da Big Party when the other orks got sick of the Blood Axes having too many dealings with other aliens especially humans. Of course, the orks are too fussed about their technology level and espite being capable of making staggeringly complex machines they can only do this when a Mekaniak just happens to have the idea for it pop into his head.

The result is that much of the highly advanced technology that humans were able to actively invent and create was saved and also endured through time. Ironically the very level of technology in these cases is what defeats the Mechanicus, it is so advanced they have no hope of understanding how it works.

The Tau are the only race that experiments and progresses technologically but they have only just begun to do this and so some of the more advanced technology still available to the Imperium they just have got around to 'inventing' yet.

As others have already said, the Imperium's main advantage is its sheer size. It doesn't need to match other races technologically because it has such huge resources of fighting men and machines already that it can crush most opponents outright before it ever gets to an arms race.

The main problem is that the use of sheer weight of numbers isn't what the Imperium is shown as doing in novels and stories. Often they focus too much on the manly heroics of the Space Marines or special forces IG team that against the odds defeats the enemy despite being outnumbered.

This is like how in movies it is often the small band of heroes shown holding off a tide of faceless mooks and cannon fodder. However in 40K, except in the case of Orks and Tyranids, it is humanity that is often the swarming horde rather than the elite small band. Alien forces and CSM forces should be shown more often as outfighting, outmaneuvering, outwitting, and generally devastating human opponents, but falling in the end to endless tides of yet more humans and their inferior performance but mass produced weaponry and vehicles. That would in a way give all factions some positives and time in the sun. However the problem is to go against this trend where writers and audiences can't seem to bear the thought of humans being less than the best (or having some super secret redeeming quality that actually makes them better than the nonhumans).

 AtoMaki wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:

And how can you make that distinction that one is cheap line infantry and the other elite battle troops?

Easy: by the amount of resources put into each. If the Imperium put so much resources into the Guardsmen than the Tau into Fire Warriors, then they would have an army of Storm Troopers. It has nothing to do with the tech level, only with the resource management. That's why a Guardsman is a bad comparison to a Fire Warrior when you want to measure the technological level.

You do realise that you contradict yourself between the two sentences? Resources do not equate to tech level and tech level does not equate to resources.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:

And how can you make that distinction that one is cheap line infantry and the other elite battle troops?

Easy: by the amount of resources put into each. If the Imperium put so much resources into the Guardsmen than the Tau into Fire Warriors, then they would have an army of Storm Troopers. It has nothing to do with the tech level, only with the resource management. That's why a Guardsman is a bad comparison to a Fire Warrior when you want to measure the technological level.

You do realise that you contradict yourself between the two sentences? Resources do not equate to tech level and tech level does not equate to resources.

Yeah, that's my point ! The Guardsman is a production of resources (or the lack of them, actually), the Fire Warrior is a production of technology. You can't compare the two only by the basis of "Duh, they are both basic troops!" and then jump to the tech level and smear the result over a galaxy-spamming empire...