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What if the Heresy never happened and instead shortly after the Crusades ended the Imperium was invaded by the Tyranids. Would the Imperium have easily dispatched the Tyranids with 18 Primarchs, legions and the Big E leading them all?

I would say they tyranids(with current lore and size) would have no chance against a full legion. Let alone 18. Most chapters do not fight with every company and have a max of 1000 marines. Most with lore seem to either control the invasion with their small numbers(by comparison to legion sized army of Hundreds of thousands of marines per legion) or evacuate and exterminatus.

It would be a rofl stomp of epic proportions, the nids couldn't deal with a single chapter and supporting elements, imagine a full strength Ultramarines legion and the 500 world's pumping put marines at an epic rate, volkites, Spartans etc. The nice would be a minor footnote in history.

It's not like something as stupid as tyranids could win against anything anyway, but against pre-heresy IoM they'd lose even more badly. Instead of a trained trooper picking a gun from the rack to fit the enemy of the day the bugs grow a new guy with a fixed gun... if he dies he can't be replaced except by growing a new one, and if his gun turns out to be useless he's useless because the gun is glued to his damn hands.

Lol at living starships. The most stupid idea in existence, dooming the bugs to death long before they can ever find a fight.

Spetulhu wrote:
It's not like something as stupid as tyranids could win against anything anyway, but against pre-heresy IoM they'd lose even more badly. Instead of a trained trooper picking a gun from the rack to fit the enemy of the day the bugs grow a new guy with a fixed gun... if he dies he can't be replaced except by growing a new one, and if his gun turns out to be useless he's useless because the gun is glued to his damn hands.

Lol at living starships. The most stupid idea in existence, dooming the bugs to death long before they can ever find a fight.

Tell us how you really feel...

But back on topic, the Nids as we have seen them stand no chance. Of course if, as rumored, there are larger fleets incoming then that changes things, but none of the hive fleets seen so far could stop a Heresy era legion. Even one could likely halt a hive fleet on its own.

Imperium would win. Pre heresy they had no united powers to challenge them. The eldar were scattered, orks were isolated, there is no Tau and chaos is at it's weakest until they got their hands on Horus.

What is hobbling the IOM today is that they are the biggest faction but they are fighting on every front and due to the heresy are very de centralized. One on One no faction can win against the IOM especially at it's organizational height.

There are at least, or more likely more, space marines now than at the end of the great crusade. While back then numbers were tied to 18 legions, in 40k there are thousands of chapters each 1000 space marine strong. Power was diversified, not reduced.

Two legions, Ultramarines and Word Bearers, approached 200k while many more were less than half that size. Emperors Children were less than 40,000 strong before the Betrayal.

It is known that he Hive Mind absorbs the genetic material of its foes and incorporates that into new Tyranids creations. Zone thrones come from Eldar, Hive Guard come from Astartes, etc... I wonder what would have been created if the Hive Mind got ahold of Primarch DNA?

Tyranids would be stronger of course. Wouldn't make for a good story for their fleets to be the size that they are today.
It was a time of epic hero's and they would need epic monsters.

DarthDiggler wrote:
There are at least, or more likely more, space marines now than at the end of the great crusade. While back then numbers were tied to 18 legions, in 40k there are thousands of chapters each 1000 space marine strong. Power was diversified, not reduced.

Two legions, Ultramarines and Word Bearers, approached 200k while many more were less than half that size. Emperors Children were less than 40,000 strong before the Betrayal.

It is known that he Hive Mind absorbs the genetic material of its foes and incorporates that into new Tyranids creations. Zone thrones come from Eldar, Hive Guard come from Astartes, etc... I wonder what would have been created if the Hive Mind got ahold of Primarch DNA?

Yes and no, ultras and world Bearers were closer to the 700k mark put together but it's not numbers alone that would lead to the rofl stomp, is that these forces were not thinly spread out all over the imperium, the Legions could and did focus all there might in one area, they could also call upon any number of other legions and get support very easily, while the nids would adapt to a point, there wouldn't be much left to adapt, a tendril of leviathan couldn't deal with a company effectively, let alone a Legion.