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Let's say there was a new xenos race. It could easily anihilate any of the other 40k factions unless they work together. If the other factions were aware of this, would they work together to combat this greater threat?

You mean the Tyranids?

Some would.

Not all.

Would depend on which armies were involved.

Certain armies will not ever ally with certain other armies, death is preferable.

Lol you mean the necrons? Apparently they won't since there is already an OP mary sue faction and the universe hasn't banded together against them yet.

A unified Ork waaagh?

 j31c3n wrote:
A unified Ork waaagh?

Maybe, it would have to be insane, numbers in the tens of billions to be sure...

No, not really. The Tau would happily ally with anyone, but any 'alliance' will be short lived and dangerously close to being shattered. The Imperium teaming up with Necrons or the Tau isn't completely outlandish however- neither is Chaos Space marines joining forces with Ork mercenaries. Factions will only ally with other factions (and in the most dire circumstances), and most alliances won't ally with other alliances.

Never. The Imperium may ally with the Eldar, Tau or in very desperate circumstances even with the Necrons and Orks, but they would never ally with any Chaos-related faction. The Eldar would never ally with either Chaos or the Necrons, but they have no problem with aiding the Imperium or Tau if this helps their goals. The Tau would ally with everyone, but are rather insignificant at a galactic scale. The Orks and Necrons only ally with others in desperate circumstances and the Necrons would never ally with the Eldar.
I could see Chaos allying with Orks, Necrons or Tau. but never with the IoM or Eldar.
The Tyranids are this xenos race you speak of and they never ally, they simply eat everyone.

So a few factions could ally with each other, but never all at the same time.

The Tau would embrace the chance, the Eldar maybe, the humans unlikely, and then there's the Orks who probably like a challenge, chaos and dark eldar who 'care not from where blood is spilt', necrons (don't even bother) and Tyranids ('come the apocalaypse) unless the Tau and Eldar are going to destroy the greatest threat in the galaxy on their own, i don't think anybofy would survive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:

 j31c3n wrote:
A unified Ork waaagh?

Maybe, it would have to be insane, numbers in the tens of billions to be sure...

Make that trillions; no quadrillions of cute little nurglings!

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Never. The Imperium may ally with the Eldar, Tau or in very desperate circumstances even with the Necrons and Orks, but they would never ally with any Chaos-related faction. The Eldar would never ally with either Chaos or the Necrons, but they have no problem with aiding the Imperium or Tau if this helps their goals. The Tau would ally with everyone, but are rather insignificant at a galactic scale. The Orks and Necrons only ally with others in desperate circumstances and the Necrons would never ally with the Eldar.
I could see Chaos allying with Orks, Necrons or Tau. but never with the IoM or Eldar.
The Tyranids are this xenos race you speak of and they never ally, they simply eat everyone.

So a few factions could ally with each other, but never all at the same time.

Eldar Corsairs will often ally with Chaos Space Marines or renegades and I think there was an instance where an Eldar craftworld allied with a CSM warband, can't remember it though.

A: necron hate chaos
B: necrons and blood angels already allied against tyranids.

I would like to point out to the OP that the Tyranids are the exact threat you speak of making this topic kind of redundant as the answer is already present in the fluff. The Eldar will use other races to distract hive fleets from their precious craft worlds, the humans will ally for a battle and then try to kill xenos after it is over, same goes for the orks. Tau ally mainly to take away human worlds in the long run for the greater good... Dark Eldar just want some fun but may team up with the Eldar.....essentially, as others have said, it would all be one big back stabbing party against the nids.

They would ally "come the apocalypse." Which means that, yes, given extenuating enough circumstances (REALLY REALLY REALLY ZOGGIN' EXTENUATING), any faction can ally with any other faction. This is represented by how you're allowed to ally anything with anything in Apocalypse games.

(apparently this even includes Tyrannids, though the only narrative example given so far was one of a gene stealer hijack so that doesn't really qualify as an alliance...)

TiamatRoar wrote:
They would ally "come the apocalypse." Which means that, yes, given extenuating enough circumstances (REALLY REALLY REALLY ZOGGIN' EXTENUATING), any faction can ally with any other faction. This is represented by how you're allowed to ally anything with anything in Apocalypse games.

(apparently this even includes Tyrannids, though the only narrative example given so far was one of a gene stealer hijack so that doesn't really qualify as an alliance...)

I suppose I could see, for example, on a planet where the Tyranids and Tau are slugging it out, suddenly a massive Warp Rift opens and Be'lakor (and pals) spew forth then after a little while the Hive Mind might make a conscious decision to focus on the daemons and ignore that Tau (assuming the Tau behaved in a similar manner).

Actually, scratch that. The Fall of Shadowbrink in the new Tyranid book makes it very clear that in the face of a "rival predator" the Tyranids quickly soak up any and all available biomass to out-think and out-fight the rival. Rather than ignoring the prey, they rush it even more quickly to give them the energy they need to crush the rival. So hmm, perhaps (aside from Genestealer hijack as you mention) with Tyranids it's really just not going to happen and still be at all faithful to the setting.

This does exclude the obvious "this 100 points of Tyranids is actually all controlled by Mindshackle Scarabs/Chaos Obliterator virus/random unreliable one-of-a-kind bug-controller device and does not represent the Hive Mind in any way at all" exemptions.

The question is meaningless. A threat that could defeat the entire galaxy unless they banded together would be absurd and implausible.

Technically, the question was if they'd band together to face a greater threat, not one that could threaten the entire galaxy.

It also said "anhilate any of the factions" if they did not work together, but did not necessarily say "anhilate ALL of the factions if they did not work together", so it could be simply referring to being able to anhilate just one faction.

And again, the answer to the question is yes, they (possibly) would band together. That's why you can ally anyone in Apocalypse.

If tzeentch planned it they will

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The question is meaningless. A threat that could defeat the entire galaxy unless they banded together would be absurd and implausible.

If by absurd and implausible you mean already suspected in the fluff already. Hive Fleet Behemoth preceeded Hive Fleets Leviathan and Kraken by 150 years, then the latter appeared within a decade of eachother. Its hinted in the fluff that even the latter are just the tips of the iceberg. Back in 3rd edition there was an eldar on eldar battle report, the fluff for it was that one craftworld was trying to wipe out an Imperial outpost because their farseers had forseen that in a hundred years the pristine maiden world would be turned into an filthy Imperial industrial world, the eldar strike force was headed off at the pass by another craftworld whose farseers had forseen that in 500 years the world would be a Bastion against the Tyranids, not just for humanity but for other races as well.

 Gashrog wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The question is meaningless. A threat that could defeat the entire galaxy unless they banded together would be absurd and implausible.

If by absurd and implausible you mean already suspected in the fluff already. Hive Fleet Behemoth preceeded Hive Fleets Leviathan and Kraken by 150 years, then the latter appeared within a decade of eachother. Its hinted in the fluff that even the latter are just the tips of the iceberg. Back in 3rd edition there was an eldar on eldar battle report, the fluff for it was that one craftworld was trying to wipe out an Imperial outpost because their farseers had forseen that in a hundred years the pristine maiden world would be turned into an filthy Imperial industrial world, the eldar strike force was headed off at the pass by another craftworld whose farseers had forseen that in 500 years the world would be a Bastion against the Tyranids, not just for humanity but for other races as well.

It's outright stated in the 6th Edition BBB that the nine Hive Fleets we've seen thus far, including Leviathan, are simply the most forward-reaching tendrils of the Tyranid fleet still in the inter-galactic void. There is no question about the scale anymore.

Force Commander Shepard of the Spectres chapter could do it!

 Flinty wrote:
Force Commander Shepard of the Spectres chapter could do it!

Have an exalt. That woman can do anything.

Some would undoubtedly work together. They do already for dealing with mutual enemies they see as powerful or threatening enough. However a grand alliance of all races...if that should be required I'd tend to think it'd be impossible. Thankfully though, it isn't required.

I refer you to the infamous picture of the Blood Angels an Necrons bro fisting over a field of dead Tyranids.

Check the allies table.