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Bit silly to pitch one game-world against another. But silly can be fun I guess

My bet would be on the Imperium of Man. I mean, wouldn't they continously out-gun GE? Imagine rebels having Lascannons, Plasmacannons, Multimeltas etc at Hoth. I doubt the AT-AT's would have gotten very far.

And as for space battles. In the movies (haven't read any SW books/comics), the spaceships of the GE tends to just go "pew pew pew pew", hitting nothing and usually a hit means little. IoM has shipweapons on their ships that would slaughter stardestroyers at huge distances. GE's ships, atleast in the movies, always have to get close.

Also the GE has the emperor and Vader when it comes to "space magic", but how would they stand up against a whole host of psykers, fanatical priests, tech-priests and everything the inquisition can conjure up? Not to mention the damage the Officio Assassinorum can inflict on the GE.

My bet is on IoM

The problem is that the Imperium takes forever to do anything, whereas the GE can mount a full-scale invasion force in a matter of days. Maybe less.

Yeah well, we all know what happened during WW2

I mean even if the GE is faster, they wouldn't be able to hurt the imperium enough. Once the ball starts rolling its a steamroller and GE would crumble. Thats how I see it atleast

 Ninjacommando wrote:

 Exergy wrote:


but they cannot navigate the warp without the astronomican.

If you are assuming that they take earth, the golden throne, and big E with them to the new Galaxy then it is just a matter of time before some GE forces take him out.

IoM navigation depends on big E, how they ever got around before big E is the question.

During the GC they were able to navigate the warp with out the astronomican because the warp was relatively calm. the only reason they need the Golden throne is because the warp is now hurricane storm that gaks on everthing 24/7.

if they are in a new galaxy they would be able to get around in this "calm warp" aslong as there aren't any sentient beings in galaxy before they arrive

during the great crusade, the emperor was strong enough to project the astronomican without the consumption of psykers and while walking around.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
The problem is that the Imperium takes forever to do anything, whereas the GE can mount a full-scale invasion force in a matter of days. Maybe less.

An invasion force of a few million Storm Troopers wouldn't phase the Imperium. It would take them years to take over any planet that had any sort of space defense.

1 Ion Cannon with shielding gave the GE trouble on Hoth. Imagine a planet completely covered in more destructive weaponry, Ion Cannon only temporarily disrupts various systems, all of which is shielded by technology that transports the incoming objects and energy into an alternate dimension(that's what Void Shields do)

The first Hive or Forge World they get to will grind them to a halt. And they'll quickly run out of ground troops.


The Imperium wins by attrition. They can afford losses, the GE simply cannot. Not when your army's numbers are measured in only millions. The Imperium has trillions of soldiers in their standing army. The entire Imperium is in an eternal state of raising armies and sending them to warzones, one more warzone isn't going to cause an issue.

 Exergy wrote:

during the great crusade, the emperor was strong enough to project the astronomican without the consumption of psykers and while walking around.

you are correct however

"Constructed in M30[3] by the Emperor in preparation for the Great Crusade[4], the "psychic light" of the Astronomican is beamed from Terra, from the Chamber of the Astronomican. The Astronomican is powered by ten thousand[1] psykers trained by the organisation; the omnipotent will of the Emperor constantly directs this energy across around fifty thousand light years of the galaxy. Although the Emperor does not provide the energy of the beacon, only he has the psychic power to handle such immense energy and direct it across the galaxy."

This would put macragge and the eastern fringe out of range but they still use the warp to travel (Milky way is about 100-120k light years across and

 Grey Templar wrote:
1 Ion Cannon with shielding gave the GE trouble on Hoth. Imagine a planet completely covered in more destructive weaponry, Ion Cannon only temporarily disrupts various systems, all of which is shielded by technology that transports the incoming objects and energy into an alternate dimension(that's what Void Shields do)

This assumes parity in firepower rather than Star Wars guns being far more powerful than 40k guns. If, instead, the comparison is more like muskets vs. nukes then it's quite possible that a star destroyer could sit in orbit and turn a 40k planet into a sea of glass without even noticing a dent in its shields.

Given they don't do that in the movies or books we can assume its not the case.

Otherwise Vader would have simply glassed Hoth.


"Fine, your base is shielded. Not much good when I vaporize the planet out from around you."

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:


1 Ion Cannon with shielding gave the GE trouble on Hoth. Imagine a planet completely covered in more destructive weaponry, Ion Cannon only temporarily disrupts various systems, all of which is shielded by technology that transports the incoming objects and energy into an alternate dimension(that's what Void Shields do)

The problem was not the Ion Cannon but the shield.

They mention that the planet has a deflector sheild (not all planets have such expensive pieces of technology)
and that it is capable of withstanding a heavy bombardment (not all planetary shields are this strong)

It is also from an early early movie. The death star is supposed to have tens of thousands of TIE fighters, yet when engadged by 20 fighters, they only deploy 3 fighters to counter them. Clearly there are limits to what could be shown on screen at the time.

opening battle of Revenge of the Sith.

If Star Wars navel weaponry actually put out as much energy as is claimed, the planet would have been completely irradiated within a few days. Everyone would have been dead from all the latent energy leftover from all the weapons fire. Sensors would be completely useless because of background static so you'd be firing blind(can't aim manually, looking directly into space would be hazardous for your health)

Ergo, star wars weaponry isn't all that powerful. At the best it would be comparable to 40k.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Otherwise Vader would have simply glassed Hoth.

No, because his goal was to capture Luke alive. Destroying the rebel base was just a nice bonus.

If Star Wars navel weaponry actually put out as much energy as is claimed, the planet would have been completely irradiated within a few days.

You're assuming that it puts out radiation all directions, that shielding capable of resisting direct fire can't protect against stray background radiation, and that radiation magically stays around in a giant cloud of unpleasantness instead of expanding outward at the speed of light like real radiation.

Yeah, its going to expand outwards. Lots of it in the direction of the unfortunate planet.

I am assuming the ships would fine, but their sensors wouldn't be functional.

It would eventually dissipate, but with the numbers of ships that were actively fighting it would rapidly become a giant cloud of radiation that you wouldn't be able to fight in very well.

All the energy of the weaponry stopped by shields is going to expand outwards. It turns directional energy into ambient energy. That's what is going to end up contaminating the local area.



And Vader could still have at the very least seriously messed to planet up to flush the Rebels out instead of sending in ground forces that wouldn't accomplish much. then just nab Luke as he tries to escape via ship.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, its going to expand outwards. Lots of it in the direction of the unfortunate planet.

How do you know this?

I am assuming the ships would fine, but their sensors wouldn't be functional.

Why are you assuming that their sensors are broken?

It would eventually dissipate, but with the numbers of ships that were actively fighting it would rapidly become a giant cloud of radiation that you wouldn't be able to fight in very well.

You don't seem to understand how radiation works in a vacuum. It expands outward at the speed of light, which means as soon as the source goes away the radiation is gone. Even if we grant your assumption about radiation from shooting you'd have very brief spikes of radiation with every shot, but no lingering effects.

All the energy of the weaponry stopped by shields is going to expand outwards. It turns directional energy into ambient energy. That's what is going to end up contaminating the local area.

You're assuming that shields work that way.

And Vader could still have at the very least seriously messed to planet up to flush the Rebels out instead of sending in ground forces that wouldn't accomplish much. then just nab Luke as he tries to escape via ship.

Again, killing the rebels was just a side benefit. Planetary-scale destruction isn't exactly subtle and controllable, if you start bombarding the planet around the base to the point that the base itself is affected then there's a pretty good chance you're going to kill everyone in the base. And there was no way Vader would take that kind of risk when capturing Luke alive is his only goal.

And I'm not really sure what move you watched where there were ground forces that didn't accomplish much. In the one I saw the ground forces quickly overwhelmed the rebel defenders and sent them running, and had no real difficulty in bringing down the shields or getting into the rebel base.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, its going to expand outwards. Lots of it in the direction of the unfortunate planet.

I am assuming the ships would fine, but their sensors wouldn't be functional.

It would eventually dissipate, but with the numbers of ships that were actively fighting it would rapidly become a giant cloud of radiation that you wouldn't be able to fight in very well.

All the energy of the weaponry stopped by shields is going to expand outwards. It turns directional energy into ambient energy. That's what is going to end up contaminating the local area.



And Vader could still have at the very least seriously messed to planet up to flush the Rebels out instead of sending in ground forces that wouldn't accomplish much. then just nab Luke as he tries to escape via ship.

how close are most of the ships to the planet actually? Is the level of energy output greater than the sun? Even if it is, the sun is on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year(or whatever that works out to on a distant planet)
A battle lasting 3 hours, where the amount of energy released per hour is 100 times that of the sun, in space 100 times closer to the planet than the sun is, is still unlikely to irradiate the planet.

Now if the battle is 100 times more powerful than the sun, it would be dam bright, and if it was 100 times closer the planet might get rather hot, but planets are large(understatement). It might result in the hottest day on record but it is unlikely to boil the oceans or melt the surface.

 Peregrine wrote:

This assumes parity in firepower rather than Star Wars guns being far more powerful than 40k guns. If, instead, the comparison is more like muskets vs. nukes then it's quite possible that a star destroyer could sit in orbit and turn a 40k planet into a sea of glass without even noticing a dent in its shields.

The opposite is probably true, actually.

The Night Lords Legion, when leveling "hundreds" of guns on Nostramo, utterly obliterated it in a single lance firing.

We don't know the exact size of Nostramo, but assuming it is of similar size to Earth (And it is definitely made of far sturdier stuff, considering the high levels of Adamantine), and assuming that "hundreds" equates to something like 900 rather than a lower, less impressive number, this would result in each gun having roughly a yield of 63.6666 Exatons (Going off the Gravitational Binding Energy of Earth, which would require 57.3 Zetatons to destroy).

The highest numbers I have seen for Imperial Star Destroyers were just a tad under petaton range, IIRC.

I'm Pretty sure one acclamator can destroy a planet.It just takes a while.But that was a republic(still used by the empire I think)Capital ship.A escort from the Imperium would out gun it.So if the Imperium planet has any navy nearby at all they auto win.If its a calm warp.Or its a forge world...Seriously at best the empire could take one planet.Then?SPESS MUHRINES!

 Peregrine wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, its going to expand outwards. Lots of it in the direction of the unfortunate planet.

How do you know this?

I am assuming the ships would fine, but their sensors wouldn't be functional.

Why are you assuming that their sensors are broken?

It would eventually dissipate, but with the numbers of ships that were actively fighting it would rapidly become a giant cloud of radiation that you wouldn't be able to fight in very well.

You don't seem to understand how radiation works in a vacuum. It expands outward at the speed of light, which means as soon as the source goes away the radiation is gone. Even if we grant your assumption about radiation from shooting you'd have very brief spikes of radiation with every shot, but no lingering effects.

All the energy of the weaponry stopped by shields is going to expand outwards. It turns directional energy into ambient energy. That's what is going to end up contaminating the local area.

You're assuming that shields work that way.

And Vader could still have at the very least seriously messed to planet up to flush the Rebels out instead of sending in ground forces that wouldn't accomplish much. then just nab Luke as he tries to escape via ship.

Again, killing the rebels was just a side benefit. Planetary-scale destruction isn't exactly subtle and controllable, if you start bombarding the planet around the base to the point that the base itself is affected then there's a pretty good chance you're going to kill everyone in the base. And there was no way Vader would take that kind of risk when capturing Luke alive is his only goal.

And I'm not really sure what move you watched where there were ground forces that didn't accomplish much. In the one I saw the ground forces quickly overwhelmed the rebel defenders and sent them running, and had no real difficulty in bringing down the shields or getting into the rebel base.

If something expands in every direction, its going to run into a planet that's just sitting right next to it. Practically touching on a cosmological scale.

The sensors aren't broken, just scrambled by the feth ton of Radiation that MUST be floating around. Energy can't be created or destroyed, its going somewhere. And if it isn't going into the target ship it must be going into the surrounding space. A shield wouldn't be much good if it didn't send the energy away from the ship it is protecting.

Radiation would go away, but we are also talking about chunks of destroyed ships floating around that would be bleeding tons of constant radiation as well.

The space above the planet would rapidly become a zone of dodgy instrument readings and hazardous sources of radiation.


I'm not an expert on radiation by any means, but the figures given for Star Wars weaponry is ridiculously absurd. A Star Destroyer's weaponry could destroy an entire planet given a little time, yet we know from the movies it would require "over a thousand ships with more firepower than I've ever seen" to destroy a planet.

Its a crime people in Sci-fi are frequently guilty of. They toss around large numbers as to what X ship can put out or withstand, yet they forget these numbers when these weapons are turned on ordinary materials and shop blosts simply making moderate sized craters and having comparable effects to 21st century weaponry on the human body. When in actuality those weapons, with given energy output, would obliterate continents and atomize something like a human. Leia's little arm wound in RotJ should have ripped her arm completely off and killed her from the shock.


Thus, we can determine that Star Wars numbers for their weaponry is many orders of magnitude off.

 Exergy wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:


1 Ion Cannon with shielding gave the GE trouble on Hoth. Imagine a planet completely covered in more destructive weaponry, Ion Cannon only temporarily disrupts various systems, all of which is shielded by technology that transports the incoming objects and energy into an alternate dimension(that's what Void Shields do)

The problem was not the Ion Cannon but the shield.

They mention that the planet has a deflector sheild (not all planets have such expensive pieces of technology)
and that it is capable of withstanding a heavy bombardment (not all planetary shields are this strong)

It is also from an early early movie. The death star is supposed to have tens of thousands of TIE fighters, yet when engadged by 20 fighters, they only deploy 3 fighters to counter them. Clearly there are limits to what could be shown on screen at the time.

The first Death Star battle only saw a single squadron - Vader's. Tarkin didn't think that small one-man fighters were a threat. Vader did, so he took his own squadron, out of all one Y-wing, 2 X-wings, and only Vader's experimental TIE survived.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

This assumes parity in firepower rather than Star Wars guns being far more powerful than 40k guns. If, instead, the comparison is more like muskets vs. nukes then it's quite possible that a star destroyer could sit in orbit and turn a 40k planet into a sea of glass without even noticing a dent in its shields.

The opposite is probably true, actually.

The Night Lords Legion, when leveling "hundreds" of guns on Nostramo, utterly obliterated it in a single lance firing.

We don't know the exact size of Nostramo, but assuming it is of similar size to Earth (And it is definitely made of far sturdier stuff, considering the high levels of Adamantine), and assuming that "hundreds" equates to something like 900 rather than a lower, less impressive number, this would result in each gun having roughly a yield of 63.6666 Exatons (Going off the Gravitational Binding Energy of Earth, which would require 57.3 Zetatons to destroy).

The highest numbers I have seen for Imperial Star Destroyers were just a tad under petaton range, IIRC.

Based on the movies, Death Star blast (roughly 20 billion trillion megatons, ie- the number "two" followed by 22 zeroes). Planet blown apart at 5% of the speed of light. Even if we assume the shot was time-lapse photography (not that there's any reason to), the absolute lower limit is roughly 50 quadrillion megatons. Note that even if you scale this monster down by a factor of 10 million (to the volume of a Star Destroyer), you'd still have 5 billion megatons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
A Star Destroyer's weaponry could destroy an entire planet given a little time, yet we know from the movies it would require "over a thousand ships with more firepower than I've ever seen" to destroy a planet.

Destroy is being used in two different contexts. The normal Imperial method of planetary destruction is BDZ, where they just blow the feth out of the surface making it inhabitable. Han's quote is talking about the amount of energy required to turn a planet into an asteroid field.

 Happyjew wrote:

Based on the movies, Death Star blast (roughly 20 billion trillion megatons, ie- the number "two" followed by 22 zeroes). Planet blown apart at 5% of the speed of light. Even if we assume the shot was time-lapse photography (not that there's any reason to), the absolute lower limit is roughly 50 quadrillion megatons. Note that even if you scale this monster down by a factor of 10 million (to the volume of a Star Destroyer), you'd still have 5 billion megatons.

The Death Star is a single ship. In the movies at least, the only one of its kind.

Imperial Ships can also blow up planets.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

Based on the movies, Death Star blast (roughly 20 billion trillion megatons, ie- the number "two" followed by 22 zeroes). Planet blown apart at 5% of the speed of light. Even if we assume the shot was time-lapse photography (not that there's any reason to), the absolute lower limit is roughly 50 quadrillion megatons. Note that even if you scale this monster down by a factor of 10 million (to the volume of a Star Destroyer), you'd still have 5 billion megatons.

The Death Star is a single ship. In the movies at least, the only one of its kind.

Imperial Ships can also blow up planets.

IoM Imperial or GE Imperial?

Also the Death Star is not one of a kind. Or did you forget the second, larger, more powerful, able to fire off-axis incomplete (because it was supposed to be a trap and would have worked if not for those meddling kids..ahem sorry) one? Plus there is the prototype at the Maw Installation, and there was the Darksabre.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

Darth Nihilus? This man kills planets by flying past them.

Nihilus is indeed very powerful.

Magnus the Red is more-so. Capable of also "killing planets" (Razed the surface of Prospero in his battle with Leman Russ, stopped Ahriman's world-pulverizing Rubric, etc.), has far greater telepathic power since even from the other side of the galaxy he telepathically creamed Lorgar, who similarly mentally dominated the Daemon inhabiting Fulgrim, who as you will recall was able to telepathically control an entire planet. And indeed, in A Thousand Sons, a mere flex of effort on his part caused nightmares among an entire feral world he happened to be astral projecting by as a side-effect.

But Magnus is not part of the Imperium currently, and so doesn't matter.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

Exar Kun? He causes stars to super-nova with his mind.

Uh, Kun never did that, to my knowledge. I am pretty sure you are thinking of Naga Sadow, who used tech, and Dark Side relics to accomplish this. It was not under his own power.

He sets up the destruction of the Cron system, he uses Aleena Keto as the trigger for it.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

The Sun-Crusher? This is a vessel that can destroy worlds without having to go to them. It sits somewhere... anywhere... and fires super-nova-causing torpedoes through hyperspace at a designated target. These torpedoes are unstoppable while in transit, and offer a defense force only minutes to stop them once they arrive in-system and head for the local star.

The Sun Crusher is indeed powerful, as is the Planet Gun. It is hard to say if a world's Planetary Defense Grid could deal with it.

GE would probably beat the Imperium in the long run, simply due to logistics. FTL travel in SW is just so much faster and more reliable, and while the Imperium would have the advantage on the ground and in terms of one-on-one space battles IMO, the GE would decide the terms of combat damn near every time.

That said, to use the best of SW, one must use the best of 40k. In which SW would be unceremoniously crushed. Even the mightiest of beings in SW like Abeloth, the Bedlam Spirits, or the Father, simply can not compare in power or scale to the Chaos Gods, C'tan, Eldar gods, or any other deities. Not to mention the variety of mortal nasties running under them.

 Psienesis wrote:

But Magnus is not part of the Imperium currently, and so doesn't matter.

Hahaha, are you serious?

So you pick and choose what counts for Star Wars (Not a single faction like the GE, ALL of Star Wars), but we can not discuss anything from 40k except the current Imperium?

I am sorry but no, take your hypocrisy to another forum.

He sets up the destruction of the Cron system, he uses Aleena Keto as the trigger for it.

Oh I see. IIRC he did that with neither a thought nor under his own power/with his mind.

Well, if we're going to involve deities, I'm out, because the SW universe was created by a non-theistic guy with an interest in Eastern religions,mainly Buddhism and Taoist thought. Even the gods that are mentioned as being objects of worship in SW are never stated to be real, just things people believe.

Well, that is factually untrue, considering we meet some of them. Like the Bedlam Spirits, the Father and his children, and Abeloth.

I'm sorry but star wars sucks, it really does, the only reasons people like it is because of the special effects. You take the movie battleship back to the era and people would be hailing it as a masterpiece.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Star Wars is like 40k accept with simplistic story lines, lack of any moral ambiguity (Buddhist Jedi against Space Nazis), anything over pg 13, death of main characters, real gakky behavior by all sides. Darth Vader would gak his pants after spending ten minutes on any planet in the warhammer universe.

Kaesoron wrote:
I'm sorry but star wars sucks, it really does, the only reasons people like it is because of the special effects. You take the movie battleship back to the era and people would be hailing it as a masterpiece.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Star Wars is like 40k accept with simplistic story lines, lack of any moral ambiguity (Buddhist Jedi against Space Nazis), anything over pg 13, death of main characters, real gakky behavior by all sides. Darth Vader would gak his pants after spending ten minutes on any planet in the warhammer universe.

Wow, what a compelling argument. I have seen the Light! Omnissiah be praised!

I would be interested to see a star destroyer take a hit from a Nova Cannon.

I wonder why we are comparing these two universes? They are pretty different in my opinion.

 shinros wrote:
I wonder why we are comparing these two universes? They are pretty different in my opinion.

this, we should compare SW to Star trek, and 40k to.. um. starshiptroopers?

 raiden wrote:

 shinros wrote:
I wonder why we are comparing these two universes? They are pretty different in my opinion.

this, we should compare SW to Star trek, and 40k to.. um. starshiptroopers?

Book or movie?

this, we should compare SW to Star trek, and 40k to.. um. starshiptroopers?

Agreed, SW and Star trek are annoying morality tales meant to make us optimistic about the future. 40k and Starship Troopers are meant to be grimdark and make us say about our current world, you know maybe things aren't so bad after all.

You insulted star wars.IGNORE.