Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The Star Wars universe requires detailed maps in order to move about the galaxy effectively. Without such, they'd be crippled, this along with the smaller scale of Star Wars would probably equate to any force from Star Wars being snuffed out fairly early into any campaign. In Star Wars, destroying a planet is a game changer, in 40k, it's Tuesday.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

.....way?! An Abrams could no blow a hole that big in a super star destroyer let's not get into ANOTHER tank debate please

Well, If you throw the Abrams at relativistic speeds at the Executor you could blow a quite big hole.

 Tyran wrote:
Well, If you throw the Abrams at relativistic speeds at the Executor you could blow a quite big hole.

Good point, ever thought about the impact a tank cannon would have.....no like the cannon on a tank I mean a literal cannon that fires tanks, just want that to be clear

A single M1 Abrams tank > Space Marine Battle Barge.

 Lord Corellia wrote:
A single M1 Abrams tank > Space Marine Battle Barge.

Heh this guy

And that's not even touching on the Challenger. The Challenger can stop a hive fleet alone.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

.....way?! An Abrams could no blow a hole that big in a super star destroyer let's not get into ANOTHER tank debate please

I was just poking fun at the OP's requirement of no M1 Abrams allowed.

Some people think that hyperdrives give ISDs an edge over Imperium warships. I really doubt that because ISDs only use their hyperdrives to jump into a system which Imperium ships can do as well. They aren't Covenant warships which can use their FTL drives to gain an advantage in a battle.

Imperium warships are just plain better armed and armored than Star Wars ships. The only edge the Empire has are its Super Weapons. But those can be countered by the Space Marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
And that's not even touching on the Challenger. The Challenger can stop a hive fleet alone.

The Challenger could probably cause a star to go supernova if the crew runs out of tea and needs a way to vent their frustration.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

.....way?! An Abrams could no blow a hole that big in a super star destroyer let's not get into ANOTHER tank debate please

I was just poking fun at the OP's requirement of no M1 Abrams allowed.

Some people think that hyperdrives give ISDs an edge over Imperium warships. I really doubt that because ISDs only use their hyperdrives to jump into a system which Imperium ships can do as well. They aren't Covenant warships which can use their FTL drives to gain an advantage in a battle.

Imperium warships are just plain better armed and armored than Star Wars ships. The only edge the Empire has are its Super Weapons. But those can be countered by the Space Marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
And that's not even touching on the Challenger. The Challenger can stop a hive fleet alone.

The Challenger could probably cause a star to go supernova if the crew runs out of tea and needs a way to vent their frustration.

which if we want to argue about if its IoM vs canonical SW, well then IoM wins hands down.

Unfortunately, all the SW super weapons have been axed canonically, the empire is a shell of what it was, the republic is a joke, IoM could roll over them.

+ Terminators can easily take out super weaons from the inside, i mean, thats what they are designed to do lol

 Jaxler wrote:
The Star Wars universe requires detailed maps in order to move about the galaxy effectively. Without such, they'd be crippled, this along with the smaller scale of Star Wars would probably equate to any force from Star Wars being snuffed out fairly early into any campaign.

And the Imperium requires the magic space wizard sitting on his golden toilet to navigate anywhere. Either you assume that both sides have a way to extend their navigational methods to the other side's territory or a battle never happens because neither side can figure out how to get to the other.

In Star Wars, destroying a planet is a game changer, in 40k, it's Tuesday.

A Star Wars capital ship's main guns are sufficient for annihilating everything on a planet. The death star was only a game changer because it could turn a planet to dust with a single shot (psychological intimidation!) and could do it regardless of the target's planetary shields.

"A Star Wars capital ship's main guns are sufficient for annihilating everything on a planet."

I don't believe this at all. The vessel's hypen lasers look quite weak actually.

Trek can do this because they are slinging anti-matter weapons, but the writers always forget this.

 =Angel= wrote:
In the time it takes the Star Wars fleet to punch in co-ordinates, they would either be floating scrapmetal or boarded and controlled by the Imperium. They might be able to get a transmission off.

This seems like a rather generous assumption given fluff descriptions of 40k fleets taking hours or even days to prepare for battle. Which is fine because, in 40k, everyone spends lots of time floating around in normal space before getting into firing range. They simply don't have the ability to precisely jump to a destination and immediately start shooting.

Youre also forgetting that 40k worlds have planetary defense lasers and orbital defenses designed to take out 40k ships.

Sure, but Star Wars ships are roughly equivalent to 40k ships in firepower and defense so 40k defenses are not an automatic win. And because Star Wars ships have the ability to come out of hyperspace and immediately open fire fixed ground defenses would likely be destroyed before their crews could even bring them on line. Remember that in IA3 they couldn't even get the planet's defensive missiles ready to fire in the several hours it took the marine ship to crawl its way into orbit, scare off the few defending ships, and launch an infantry attack to take out the silos. If it takes you that long to bring your defenses on line against a fleet of star destroyers those defenses might as well not exist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"A Star Wars capital ship's main guns are sufficient for annihilating everything on a planet."

I don't believe this at all. The vessel's hypen lasers look quite weak actually.

Old-canon sources explicitly stated this, IIRC new-canon sources have stated it again.

Star Wars ships have a much shorter range that those of the Imperium of Man. So while in close range engagements the firepower of a Star Destroyer could feasibly match that of a Battleship, the Lance Batteries, and torpedoes of the Imperial ship will begin hitting the Star Destroyer before they are even in range to fire back.

Plus, Star Wars has a Battleship over Aircraft Carrier mentality, and the Imperium has essentially Aircraft Carriers. Their small craft, which have shields could out swarm even TIEs.

Star Wars. Hands down. They can construct Star Destroyers in mere weeks and they have Shipyards all over the galaxy producing hundreds of hundreds of ships at each one.

Not to mention as time in Star Wars goes on we see their technology improving slightly. In 40k its completely dead.

It's only a matter of time until the 40k universe losses. I think the early war would favor the Imperium, but as the galaxy is mapped and they can more reliably use lightspeed it would just become a massacre. The star destroyers in force awakens are huge compared to the ones from the original trilogy and that is their standard ones now.

 Gamgee wrote:
Star Wars. Hands down. They can construct Star Destroyers in mere weeks and they have Shipyards all over the galaxy producing hundreds of hundreds of ships at each one.

Not to mention as time in Star Wars goes on we see their technology improving slightly. In 40k its completely dead.

It's only a matter of time until the 40k universe losses. I think the early war would favor the Imperium, but as the galaxy is mapped and they can more reliably use lightspeed it would just become a massacre. The star destroyers in force awakens are huge compared to the ones from the original trilogy and that is their standard ones now.

againt this is assuming we are fighting at the height of the empire, if thats the case then we would need to assume that we are going into battle at the height of the IoM which would be during the emperors time, and full legion strength. So the IoM would also be able to produce said awesome tech, and also you would have primarchs

I want to say first, I ama huge fan of both IP's so i want to be as fair as possible. For me this argument is all about simple numbers (and we DO have some numbers even if they are loosely based.) So lets break it down into side by side comparisons.

Scenario 1: Lets assume that the imperium is the one being invaded!

Ship to Ship space battles:
I would say its close enough to say it could go either way. Star Destroyers do for sure have a speed advantage, when it comes to crossing space with speed, yes they cross the galaxy much faster then the imperium. They can jump into system and get from point A to point B much faster.

That being said, once in system they would run into a MUCH more fortified resistance in most key systems. In most key star systems in 40k you are talking about 3-6 worlds and all will have some form of defence systems. The more heavily fortified worlds some very formidable defence batteries that can shred ships, even star destroyers and HAVE to be dealt with. Not to mention many of these key systems would have their own fleets of ships that are garrisoned in system sometimes ranging from dozens to hundreds of ships depending on the system in question. (lets leave the veritable fortress that is Terra out of this for the sake of simplicity!) Invading a fortified star system takes time, you cant leave a world that can strike back at you and get stuck in system. This means it will give time for those "slow" Imperial fleets to close in for the kill. The key difference here will be shown when we start talking about SW universe star systems. In quick strikes, i give this to SW, they can strike anywhere faster, but if they are ever drawn into a long engagement and eventually they WILL be. we are talking MILLIONS of Imperial ships in the galaxy! As opposed to what, thousands of Star Destroyers? if the Empire is ever caught in a slug fest they loose by attrition. thats the the Imperium's wheal house. and they will force this scenario.

Boarding actions and invasion:

When it comes to boarding actions this one isnt quite as close, but lets break this down as fairly as we can. A Stormtrooper IS a very formidable fighter, better then human these is no question. One on one would a Stormtrooper be able to take an Imperial guardsman? Yes! (you can make a good argument for some of those vets, and Characters for IG but lets again try to keep things simple and look at large numbers.) The average Stormtrooper is better. That being said there is something for overwhelming numbers! The shear weight of numbers, MILLIONS of Guard on a planet can literally crush nearly any force under their weight once they are rolling. Again in strike raids, yes Stormtroopers would do well but against the shear numbers of the IG it would grind them down.

Space Marines against stormtroopers... I cant help but hear the voice of apocalypse from the 90s animated X-Men cartoon. " i am as far beyond mutants as they are beyond you!" One on one there is just no comparison, if a Blaster is comparable to a Laz weapon, then a bolter is MUCH more vicious. Not to mention power armor being MUCH tougher then a Stormtrooper's armor. They are better equipped, faster, stronger and more vicious. They can compete with Stormtrooper's in hit and run strikes, or in boarding actions. Sorry stormtrooper fans, but the comparison between a stormtrooper and a space marine isnt close, I dont care WHAT fluf you reference.

Jedi VS Psyker's:

Ok so being as they are much more elite types of "units?" not sure how to refer to them there. I would say against your normal imperial psyker yeah a Jedi comes out ahead almost every time. A fight between Space Marine Librarians and a Jedi, toss a coin.. to close to call. Power armor wont stop a light saber, but terminator armor might.. Depends on how strong you consider a lightsaber. If they are power sword equivalent, which they might be, AP 3 is still NASTY!

Over all in a long drawn out conflict i just cant see the Empire being able to hold out against the shear numbers of the Imperium. Eventually they have to try to hold worlds, you cant "kill" every planet in the galaxy.. which means you have to eventually fight the weight of the Imperium's MONSTROUS fleet.


Now lets assume that the Imperium is invading the Star Wars universe.

this one is going to be brief as you can reference most of my info from the Empire invading the Imperium.

Ship to ship is the same, only now the Empire HAS to defend planets against the imperial navy. GOOD LUCK!

Not only will you get hit with THOUSANDS of ships at a time in hundreds of fleets all across the galaxy, but lets take a look at how the Star Wars universe approaches defending ANYTHING!!!

Ships on a regular basis jump out of hyperspace in system with no warning or defences in place to stand against them. just SUPRISE! a fleet of star destroyers! And that is traveling in a way they are familiar with, not some strange Daemon infested warp! Planetary defences are almost non existent, few star systems in the SW galaxy have any real defences outside of the star ships that defend them. So without the ability to strike and fall back they would be FORCED to fight a war on the Imperiums terms, attrition. tat is a loosing battle for Sw. And really that is where defending comes off the rails for them, they simply wouldn't be able to hold worlds against the forces that the Imperium would be willing to commit to winning a battle, and if they cant win they would have ZERO problems killing every living thing on the planet! That is every monday morning in the Imperium! So yes the Empire has a star destroyer, thats awesome. it might kill one, or two planets before it gets a boarding action from the imperium, then suddenly the Imperium ... errr i mean the Mechanicus has a new toy! That will be declared heretical and probably have its existence denied! lol

In all reality i just CAN'T see the Sw universe coming out ahead. Compared ship to ship or solder to solder, it looks alot better, but its all about weight of forces that the Imperium can and are willing to commit to a conflict, not to mention the "acceptable' loss they are willing to assume. I mean they are willing to fight Conflicts on a SINGLE world for DECADES before they are willing to admit they might not win, and win by nuking everything from orbit! THEN claim it as a victory! I just cant see the Empire willing to do that.

Sorry Star Wars guys, I love Star Wars to but I just dont think they have the numbers to pull off the brutal slug fest that it would be to take or hold a galaxy from the Imperium! MAYBE during the Horus Heresy era but that was a WHOLE different galaxy then!

(yes it was a SLOW day at work! and i LOVE to rant! Your welcome!)

"Old-canon sources explicitly stated this, IIRC new-canon sources have stated it again."

I'm going off what I see in the movies. The other stuff doesn't interest me as much. Again, hyphen-lasers aren't that scary or impressive, and likely aren't that destructive either.

I think that the writers really underestimate how tough planets are. Of course, this is Star Wars we are talking about.

Martel732 wrote:
"Old-canon sources explicitly stated this, IIRC new-canon sources have stated it again."

I'm going off what I see in the movies. The other stuff doesn't interest me as much. Again, hyphen-lasers aren't that scary or impressive, and likely aren't that destructive either.

I think that the writers really underestimate how tough planets are. Of course, this is Star Wars we are talking about.

Your quote is the wrong way round. Sw never blows up planets using conventional ships, the only way of expressing it is 'glassing' the planet, ie melting/destroying the surface layers to make it uninhabitable. 40K on the other hand has it the otherway round, using conventional weapons as if they are doomsday weapons capable of cutting through 100s of Ks of rock and magma in a single shot.

Until you can come up with a definitive, comparable scale that applies to both sides, then no one has a high ground upon which to pour scorn on others claims.

Cheers

Andrew

Two things to note:

1) Stormtroopers are SW's Empire elite troops. There is also an imperial army, and planetary defense forces. Considering planets like Coruscant vs. Hive Cities of IoM, the SW Empire could have forces on par with IoM's Imperial Guard, and Stormtrooper legions on par with the numbers of Space Marines (though Stormtroopers are clearly far inferior to SM).

2) Several SW planets have planetary shields; these are never fully explained, but Star Destroyers couldn't successfully bombard Hoth due to them, and Han had to use Hyperspace to bypass the ones at Starkiller base. We also see Hoth, a remote and hidden base of ragtag freedom fighters, protected by an Ion battery. Though we don't see it in the likes of the fight over Coruscant, surely SW worlds could likewise be defended by such - and more numerous - weapon batteries.

Also, I believe the SW Empire has a fleet comparable in size to the IoM. Both have their fleets scattered throughout the galaxy - I'd compare the massing of the Empire fleet at Endor to what the IoM fielded in the Gothic sector for a comparison. (Remember, Han comments "Don't get twitchy kid, there's a lot of command ships...", indicating not ALL of the empire's fleet was at Endor)

Star Wars (Disney) could buy GW and have the factory demolished.

StarWars wins

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

Unless... The enemy has a Challenger! Or even better, an Armata...
Now that we have established that a single M1 Abrams could easily wipe out both the IoM (or the Empire), the question Abrams vs Armata becomes important. Because if the US is supplying the Empire with an M1 Abrams, then surely Russia would supply the IoM with an Armata.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

Unless... The enemy has a Challenger! Or even better, an Armata...
Now that we have established that a single M1 Abrams could easily wipe out both the IoM (or the Empire), the question Abrams vs Armata becomes important. Because if the US is supplying the Empire with an M1 Abrams, then surely Russia would supply the IoM with an Armata.

Oh for ffffffffuuuuu by the emperors shriveled sacred balls...

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
40k wins. Necrons annhilate all life or Tyranids consume everything. I don't know why people are so focused on the IoM.

However, if one side had a single M1 Abrams then that would clearly tip the battle in their favor. That tank could blow a 100m hole in an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

Unless... The enemy has a Challenger! Or even better, an Armata...
Now that we have established that a single M1 Abrams could easily wipe out both the IoM (or the Empire), the question Abrams vs Armata becomes important. Because if the US is supplying the Empire with an M1 Abrams, then surely Russia would supply the IoM with an Armata.

Nah. The Russians would claim the Valhallan Ice Warriors were ethnic Russian and annex the Ultima Segmentum. Such is the way of Putin.

Back on topic, what would we rate blasters as? Lasguns+1 in stopping power?

Blasters do not seem that overly powerful. Dangerous, of course, but nothing more than you'd expect a firearm to be.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Blasters do not seem that overly powerful. Dangerous, of course, but nothing more than you'd expect a firearm to be.

(

Yeah, agreed. I'd rate a stormtrooper's blaster at about the strength of a Lasgun (which while derided as a "flashlight", is about as powerful as modern assault rifles). Han's blaster is a bit stronger (maybe a STR 4) and Chewie's bowcaster even stronger (maybe STR 5 or 6). We've seen stormtroopers carry some heavier weapons that mere blasters (the sand trooper with the light repeating blaster - probably as strong as a Heavy Bolter) and the tripod mounted blaster the snowtroopers set up (say, about as strong as an Assault Cannon).

Thing is, Astares armor is so good (it's freaking super-science powered plate), that Stormtroopers and SW troop stuff shooting at the Space Marines is going to be like snowspeeders vs. AT-AT's - "That armor's too strong for blasters!". The stormies would probably have to pull out the tripod guns to take out a IoM Terminator, or get something like a AT-ST to deal with them.

As an aside, I kind of look at the scale between SW Empire vs. IoM ground units comparing something like this (arrow goes towards the better, in my opinion):

SW Imperial Army Trooper <-> IoM Imperial Guardsman
SW Stormtrooper ---> IoM Space Marine
SW AT-RT --> IoM Dreadnought
SW AT-ST <-- IoM Sentinel
SW scout bike <-- IoM Marine bike
SW snowspeeder <-- IoM Land Speeder
SW Imperial Transport (from Rebels) <--> IoM Chimera/Rhino
SW AT-AT <-- Leman Russ
SW AT-AT --> IoM Knight

And unless you start counting the SW expanded universe, they don't have a ground unit on par with a IoM Titan.

 Dyslexican32 wrote:
Invading a fortified star system takes time, you cant leave a world that can strike back at you and get stuck in system.

That's why there will be no invasion. Planetary defenses will be destroyed within minutes of a Star Wars force exiting from hyperspace, before they can be brought online and attempt to fight back. Then, once any immediate threats are dealt with, the rest of the planet's cities/industrial capacity/etc will be reduced to a molten wasteland by orbital bombardment. By the time any Imperial response can crawl its way over at sub-light speeds the attacking force is already halfway across the galaxy repeating the process against another target.

Boarding actions and invasion:

Irrelevant. This is a space-based war of extermination. Ground troops have no part in it. In fact, the Imperium's massive ground forces are arguably a liability, as they take up resources that otherwise could have been spent on making more space fleets.

Eventually they have to try to hold worlds

Why? The Star Wars side already has their own galaxy full of planets. The obvious goal in a war against 40k is simply to eliminate the threat to their own territory. And in that case exterminating all life on a planet is just as good as taking and holding it.

Ship to ship is the same, only now the Empire HAS to defend planets against the imperial navy.

Not really. The entire 40k galaxy will be dead from a massive counter-attack before a 40k invasion fleet can even finish organizing itself. Any 40k ships that manage to reach a target will be cut off from any hope of resupply. They may do some damage before going down, but defeat is inevitable.

I mean they are willing to fight Conflicts on a SINGLE world for DECADES before they are willing to admit they might not win, and win by nuking everything from orbit! THEN claim it as a victory! I just cant see the Empire willing to do that.

You're right, the Empire wouldn't be willing to do that. They aren't going to fight a decades-long war, they're just going to glass the whole planet from orbit and move on to the next target.

Can we not have any more of these?

As predicted (no pskyer precognition needed) it all went nuts in a matter of a few posts. I can't even recall who "won" last time, if anyone even did. I think everyone just got bored and left it at that.

 Engine of War wrote:
Can we not have any more of these?

As predicted (no pskyer precognition needed) it all went nuts in a matter of a few posts. I can't even recall who "won" last time, if anyone even did. I think everyone just got bored and left it at that.

If you don't like the subject then don't read threads about it. The title makes it very clear what the thread is about, you don't need to come in and make a post announcing that you don't care about it.

Martel732 wrote:
"A Star Wars capital ship's main guns are sufficient for annihilating everything on a planet."

I don't believe this at all. The vessel's hypen lasers look quite weak actually.

Trek can do this because they are slinging anti-matter weapons, but the writers always forget this.

The planet of Taris would like a word... or, rather, it would, if its entire population hadn't been killed via orbital bombardment from Darth Malak's battle-cruiser.