What are the in-game fluff tier lists of designated winners and losers?

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**Benny Badmen**

Melissia wrote:

See, that wasn't hard at all, was it? If you're stepping into an argument with someone who might not know all the facts, you give them said facts to help show your side of the side argument. Not everyone is as versed in Imperial Guard history as others.

It's food for thought; think about it and digest it.

**Melissia**

[delete, you're not worth the effort]

**reds8n**

We'll end this tangent here then yes ?

Good.

**Ashiraya**

It's worth noting that there is a difference between a tactical and a strategic victory, and there are many levels on even a single planet, let alone the whole galaxy.

Guardsmen often win strategic wars if they are able to bring their slow grinding bodymachine to bear - there are few foes the Imperium fights that can stop the Imperial thresher machine once it has been fully activated and turned in their direction. The Imperium has a shortage of a great many things, but their manpower is all but inexhaustible. This is a key reason they are holding the line, but also a reason why that line is only barely holding, and often buckling and tearing. The Imperium cannot keep its defense up forever; indeed, it is failing here and there. Though they win by slowly running over their foe on one battlefront, another falls under a quick enemy attack, while a third becomes a grinding stalemate that consumes more and more lives and materiel as time goes by. This is true, and it is also grimdark.

The Space Marines are the opposite. On a tactical level, their monstrous degree of force concentration allows them to smash apart their enemy with brutal power, and they win most battles they fight, often with low or no losses - indeed, they must, for their low numbers and low rate of recruitment makes every casualty costly, and every real loss a disaster. However, it is difficult for Marines to act beyond the tactical level due to those numbers. While they are able to reliably and effectively eliminate priority targets, puncture holes in strong battlelines and defend key chokepoints, they are unable to fight any real war effort by themselves. Even if they gloriously win the battle they fight, ten more are being lost elsewhere, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. This, too, is true, and it is also grimdark.

**Kell**

I'm curious of people's opinion here. I've found that recently, with all the "X vs Y" supplements that have come out and box sets, you can preeeeetty much predict the outcome of the various battles just based on the armies on the tin.

There seems to be a hidden (or not so hidden) hierarchy of designated winners and losers in the 40k fluff.
This is my proposed listing, I'm curious what people think:

In the pages of 40k fluff, when two armies clash, who is most often depicted as the winner? Who almost always seems to get chopped to bits with zero effort? And to be clear, I'm talking about a depiction of direct combat conflict, not "who won the war even if they lost the battle" because there are in-universe restrictions on some factions winning or losing. If the Tau or Eldar lose more than a couple cursory engagements, they're wiped out, and if the Daemons or Chaos Marines won more than a couple the universe might explode.

Tier 1 (Designated Winners): Tau, Necrons, Loyalist Space Marines

This may be controversial, but I think the absolute tip-top of the top tier here is the Necrons, both new and old fluff. While there are plenty of stories of tomb worlds getting blown up, small teams doing daring stuff and winning while the world is still waking up, etc, when it comes to a direct conflict between awakened necrons and any other enemy, you very, very rarely see them lose, or even die without reconstructing or phasing out. The only example I come up with is the fluff piece from Codex: Eldar Craftworlds with the ranger sniper.

Tied for second I would say Tau and Space Marines. The only reason I consider it a tie is that there is a lot of artwork depicting Tau getting blown up, stabbed, whatever even by lowly imperial guardsmen, but they almost never lose in the fluff in direct conflicts. Space Marines always win in direct conflicts UNLESS there is a particular need to demonstrate how awesome some particular thing is specifically in a codex or fluff piece that is not Space Marine centric.

Tier 2 (Worf Effect Tier): Eldar (Dark, Clown and Craftworld), Chaos Daemons, Titans

This tier consists of factions described as super-awesome and badass, but who highly frequently fall victim to the "Worf Effect", ie being defeated with seemingly no effort just to demonstrate how super-duper-extra-awesome some hero or tier 1 army is. Otherwise, they will generally defeat any mook or submook faction in the fluff. Honorable mention goes to the Avatar of Khaine or any nameless greater daemon for being most commonly affected by this phenomena.

Tier 3 (Mook tier): Tyranids, Chaos Marines, Orks

This tier consists of the forces who nearly always lose to the more heroic factions. Any description of how threatening or powerful they are in the fluff you know immediately on reading is just a setup to make the hero's victory more impressive.

Tier 4 (Submook): Guard, Sisters, Skitarii, >>>>>> Traitor guardsmen/cultists/rebels

There's got to be some kind of tier for the poor, poor submooks that get used to make the mooks look threatening before the heroes dispatch them. Frequently do not appear in the actual story save for a distress call and bodies lying around when the heroes arrive. And then there's "Generic Human Rebel Baddies", who are almost a tier of their own. They've never, in the 20+ year history of 40k, ever won anything to my knowledge. The best they've done is maybe get their planet blown up with an exterminatus.

1: Loyalist Space Marines yes. I've read books where a squad of regular space marines kill Chaos terminators like their sheep. The Necrons also always seem to win unless its Space Marines who stop them. Tau, I don't know considering theirs a book where penal troops kick the crap out of them.

2: I put the Eldar in a whole different category because they avoid outright combat. In the Path series they rarely even mentioned humans, humanity was just the background which reflects how the Eldar see universe.

3: With Tyranids and Orks I agree completely however Chaos has stoped being as mookish especialy with Bowden rebooting their lore.

4: Varies with Guard, Sisters die horribly for some reason I'm not aware of. In the Bastion series a rebel imperial guard captain overruns an entire system of planets and nearly gets his hands on a super weapon he could have used to destroy terra.

**theocracity**

Anemone wrote:
That would depend heavily on how one defines 'win' then, I suppose, and will force quite a semantic conversation. Personally I'd prefer to stick with an objective measure of who killed who/achieved primary objectives of military venture since it makes things easier.

I was mostly just joking around. I will point out, though, that in many cases the primary objective of an Ork military venture is to have a good fight. The warboss may have some larger motive in mind, so for your purposes it doesn't really count, but anyhow....

I'm also not quite sure what you mean when you say 'embrace your mook-ness' do you mean, like, embrace how easy to kill and negligible your faction is to the setting? I know more than a few Ork players who would definitively prefer not to feel like, in fluff, their faction is largely a joke (joke in terms of importance, not in terms of strangeness inherent to Orkish charm).

Easy to kill? Sure. Negligible to the setting? Nope. The whole point of Orks is that killing them is both necessary and entirely futile. They are poster boys of 40k's eternal war ethos - the idea that the defenders of humanity will be fighting constantly against something which they can never hope to truly defeat, but can still never ignore or reason with.

The only reasons I can think of to call them 'negligible' is that A: their win condition isn't as elementally destructive as Chaos or Tyranid (but who cares, since no faction is ever going to complete their Win Condition), and B: they're usually not the True Villain Behind It All that the heroes have to face (which makes sense, since the True Villain Behind It All is usually better suited to schemers like Chaos instead of brutes like the Orks).

Another way to think of the Orks is that they're the most dangerous when they're being taken the least seriously. How many times have Ork Waaagh!s started with the Imperium saying "Oh, they're just Orks" only to have them spiral out of control? The reverse of this, of course, is that they're the easiest for the heroes to defeat when they're posing the biggest threat. They're like the Inverse Ninja Law of 40k.

**the Signless**

Melissia wrote:
Benny Badmen wrote:
Melissia wrote:

Wow... You are quite the instigator, aren't you?
If you have a real objection to what I said, feel free to say so. I'm not interested in discussing my "tone". The facts are:

1: The common citizen-- and that includes the Imperial Guard-- stands almost no chance of actually SEEING a Space Marine in their life times, and seeing a Space Marine in their lives is considered to be like meeting a figure of myth and legend brought to life.

2: The Imperial Guard is the primary force in the Imperium, and is mentioned as being involved in almost all of the Imperium's wars. This is supported by Black Library's lores, where almost all crusades use the Imperial Guard as the overwhelming bulk of their forces.

3: The Imperium is not a quickly collapsing mess. It is very slowly being eaten away by the countless horrors from within, from without, and from beyond-- but its military forces are enough, if only barely and only most of the time, to hold the tide.

Thus, it's quite reasonable to suggest that the internet memes about the Imperial Guard being nothing but wimps in paper shirts holding flashlights are not actually true within the 40k lore, and they do actually win if not a majority of their battles, at least close to it-- and without the help of Space Marines. That the Black Library lore focuses on jerking off the egos of Space Marines is well established, and any interpretation of the lore has to keep in mind that just because several BL writers are obsessed with Space Marines, it does not mean that non-Space Marine lore, even if lacking, is non-canon.

Also, I'm ignoring your edit. Talk about my argument, not me. I'm uninterested in your opinion about me.

I think the differences in opinion arise from you two arguing different things. The Imperial Guard do win most of their battles and fight many, if not most, of the wars in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. However most of these wars and victories are unsung, and not included into any published material. Without these victories, the Imperium would have ceased to exist long ago, so we know that they must be there. The same goes for victories from some other factions, such as chaos, traitor/ rebel guard, and orks.

However the OP was asking about how are they tiered in publications, which is a whole other biscuit. The published books and campaigns constantly extolling the virtues of the Space Marines, depicting guard as some kind of NPC damsel in distress to be rescued from the terrifying [insert race here].These represent a tiny fraction of the total battles that go on in the galaxy, but they have a strong bias towards certain armies, and they allow us to predict who will probably win the next campaign or box set that GW publishes.

**Psienesis**

If we are talking about BL books:

Top of the pile: Space Marines. Even when they lose, they win.
Second Place: Imperial Guard, especially if Mitchell or Abnett is writing it.
Third Place: Necrons. Sort of. Maybe Sisters, because Imperium of Man. Possibly Orks, because there's a lot of them, but they usually lose by the end of the third book of the series, whatever that series is, and regardless of whether or not they were actually in it.
Fourth Place: Does it matter at this point? Pretty much everyone else goes here, getting crushed by one or another (or more) of the above.

**Xathrodox86**

I don't care for the winners, but for me the Imperium in general should probably overcome anything, same with the Tau. On one hand we have the unstopabble juggernaut, too huge to stop and on the other a crafty, determined newcomers.

Reason dictates that the final battle could be waged between Orks and Tyranids, like a grand version of the Octarius war.

Necrons are insignificant, too few and too sleepy to pose a real threat.

I hope that Chaos loses big time, but since it's given all the favortism from certain writers (muh daddy issues), I wouldn't be surprised if it won, beacuse "it's cool and edgy".

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

Xathrodox86 wrote:

Necrons are insignificant, too few and too sleepy to pose a real threat.

Necrons would have numbers on par with the Imperium should they all awaken. They also have the best technology especially in space.

Eldar should perform a lot better than they do. Amazing technology, leaders with centuries of experience, potent Psychic powers in particular scrying the future? They should be winning the vast majority of the time.

**Torus**

(looking to trade) Wraithknights and Warp Spiders for decent Eldar fluff that doesn't make them a joke in the grand narrative...

**gnome_idea_what**

Ashiraya wrote:
It's worth noting that there is a difference between a tactical and a strategic victory, and there are many levels on even a single planet, let alone the whole galaxy.

Guardsmen often win strategic wars if they are able to bring their slow grinding bodymachine to bear - there are few foes the Imperium fights that can stop the Imperial thresher machine once it has been fully activated and turned in their direction. The Imperium has a shortage of a great many things, but their manpower is all but inexhaustible. This is a key reason they are holding the line, but also a reason why that line is only barely holding, and often buckling and tearing. The Imperium cannot keep its defense up forever; indeed, it is failing here and there. Though they win by slowly running over their foe on one battlefront, another falls under a quick enemy attack, while a third becomes a grinding stalemate that consumes more and more lives and materiel as time goes by. This is true, and it is also grimdark.

The Space Marines are the opposite. On a tactical level, their monstrous degree of force concentration allows them to smash apart their enemy with brutal power, and they win most battles they fight, often with low or no losses - indeed, they must, for their low numbers and low rate of recruitment makes every casualty costly, and every real loss a disaster. However, it is difficult for Marines to act beyond the tactical level due to those numbers. While they are able to reliably and effectively eliminate priority targets, puncture holes in strong battlelines and defend key chokepoints, they are unable to fight any real war effort by themselves. Even if they gloriously win the battle they fight, ten more are being lost elsewhere, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. This, too, is true, and it is also grimdark.

You raise a good point. Eldar have an interesting twist on the Guardsmen method: they can often do something sneaky/fateweaver-ey that lets victory fall into their hands in the long run, but when you catch them in a fight they tend to not do so well. (Sidenote: in my headcanon this is why Avatars of Khaine aren't that tough: because they attempt to go against the Eldar mold and struggle to do so.)

**Xathrodox86**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Xathrodox86 wrote:

Necrons are insignificant, too few and too sleepy to pose a real threat.

Necrons would have numbers on par with the Imperium should they all awaken. They also have the best technology especially in space.

Eldar should perform a lot better than they do. Amazing technology, leaders with centuries of experience, potent Psychic powers in particular scrying the future? They should be winning the vast majority of the time.

Eldar always lose to show how awesome the Imperium is, especially since it can defeat the "all knowing and ancient opponent".

Necrons fully awakening anytime soon is something that's probably not going to happen, unless they'll introduce us to the Age of the Emperor.

**Anemone**

@theocracity: To be honest, though I do like Orks a lot, I wouldn't say by any stretch killing them is 'necessary'. In the Beast Series the Imperium has already shown that even if they ignore the threat of Orks completely they can still handle whatever the Orks throw at them (despite the Imperium not even being close to full strength) and go on to grow more powerful. I can't take the Orks seriously as any kind of galactic threat when even if given every chance to max their power they still can't defeat the faded shadow of the Imperium.

So I'd definitely say negligible to the setting. Not that their alone there, Eldar and Tau are pretty negligible to the setting too.

Additionally the Orks usually being upstaged within their own stories (like Sanctus Reach and the Beast Series) has nothing to do, in my opinion, with them not being 'schemers'. The Tyranid are not 'schemers' but still remain viable ultimate threats within their own stories (Valedor or Cryptus) simply through brute force. A final villain need not be a schemer, they can simply be powerful, the Orks have never managed to win a single of their major campaigns in the fluff (Armageddon, Octarius, Beast, Rynn's World and such).

Also I'd argue that anyone is at they're most dangerous when they are being taken least seriously. To be honest isn't that simply stating that you shouldn't underestimate an opponent? That makes it sound like Orks are so negligible and weak to the setting that they can only win when they're enemy isn't taking them seriously.

Xathrodox86: Chaos favoritism in 40k? In Fantasy I'd be more inclined to believe you (posthumously) and though I dislike a lot of the Daemon Codex's fluff I generally feel that as a faction Chaos gets its ass kicked by Space Marines in the 40k fluff.

**Robin5t**

Anemone wrote:
@theocracity: To be honest, though I do like Orks a lot, I wouldn't say by any stretch killing them is 'necessary'. In the Beast Series the Imperium has already shown that even if they ignore the threat of Orks completely they can still handle whatever the Orks throw at them (despite the Imperium not even being close to full strength) and go on to grow more powerful. I can't take the Orks seriously as any kind of galactic threat when even if given every chance to max their power they still can't defeat the faded shadow of the Imperium.

So I'd definitely say negligible to the setting. Not that their alone there, Eldar and Tau are pretty negligible to the setting too.

Additionally the Orks usually being upstaged within their own stories (like Sanctus Reach and the Beast Series) has nothing to do, in my opinion, with them not being 'schemers'. The Tyranid are not 'schemers' but still remain viable ultimate threats within their own stories (Valedor or Cryptus) simply through brute force. A final villain need not be a schemer, they can simply be powerful, the Orks have never managed to win a single of their major campaigns in the fluff (Armageddon, Octarius, Beast, Rynn's World and such).

Also I'd argue that anyone is at they're most dangerous when they are being taken least seriously. To be honest isn't that simply stating that you shouldn't underestimate an opponent? That makes it sound like Orks are so negligible and weak to the setting that they can only win when they're enemy isn't taking them seriously.

Xathrodox86: Chaos favoritism in 40k? In Fantasy I'd be more inclined to believe you (posthumously) and though I dislike a lot of the Daemon Codex's fluff I generally feel that as a faction Chaos gets its ass kicked by Space Marines in the 40k fluff.

Did you read the same series I did?

The Beast completely curb-stomped the Imperium in conventional war. Every attempt they made to fight his forces head-on ended up with them losing, hard.

Spoiler:

The only reason they managed to survive that war at all was because a) the Beast, for some reason, chose not to destroy the Imperium by popping Terra with his attack moon when he had it at his mercy, and b) because they finally figured out that they couldn't fight him straight-up and, sensibly, started playing dirty.

**Anemone**

@Robin5t: But we know he loses, the whole Waaagh!!! we know loses.

Additionally not every head-on battle fails. Battle Moons have already been destroyed in head-on battles where the Imperium was victorious. That's too say nothing of Caldera and Vulkan's ability to virtually solo an entire planet-wide Ork army.

Additionally, to me, when speaking 'militarily' it doesn't matter if the war is won using 'clean' methods or 'dirty' methods. In war what matters is who wins for the decision of victor (now I sound redundant) but I assume you understand what I mean.

Besides all of this still stands aside from the fact that the Beast, now being a canonical representation of as strong as Orks can get, means we know the Orks were never much of a threat since they can, at their best, just barely scrape Primarch level.

**Robin5t**

Anemone wrote:
@Robin5t: But we know he loses, the whole Waaagh!!! we know loses.

Additionally not every head-on battle fails. Battle Moons have already been destroyed in head-on battles where the Imperium was victorious. That's too say nothing of Caldera and Vulkan's ability to virtually solo an entire planet-wide Ork army.

Additionally, to me, when speaking 'militarily' it doesn't matter if the war is won using 'clean' methods or 'dirty' methods. In war what matters is who wins for the decision of victor (now I sound redundant) but I assume you understand what I mean.

Besides all of this still stands aside from the fact that the Beast, now being a canonical representation of as strong as Orks can get, means we know the Orks were never much of a threat since they can, at their best, just barely scrape Primarch level.

And yet, had the Beast chosen to do so, he could have ended the Imperium in an instant by having his Attack Moon fire on Terra. He was literally a push of a (presumably large and red) button away from winning the war for about 6 books but didn't do so. That's not the Imperium winning, that's the Beast letting himself lose. Plot armour does not an impressive victory make.

Koorland remarks that he's counting major Imperial victories against the Orks in a galactic war on one hand at one point in the books. This is a war where hundreds of major fights are going on and the Imperium won something like four of them.

And lest you forget, Lhaerial Rey in Throneworld states that the Beast's Waaagh wasn't that impressive compared to the Krork in their prime, and give that they duked it out with the Necrons and C'Tan in the War in Heaven, that's not unreasonable to assume. A particularly powerful Krork warboss should be even more powerful than the Beast. It's like people forget that the Orks, as dangerous as they can be, are only a devolved form of whatever terrifying war machine they once were and could certainly become again given the implications in TBA.

**theocracity**

Anemone wrote:
@Robin5t: But we know he loses, the whole Waaagh!!! we know loses.

Additionally not every head-on battle fails. Battle Moons have already been destroyed in head-on battles where the Imperium was victorious. That's too say nothing of Caldera and Vulkan's ability to virtually solo an entire planet-wide Ork army.

Additionally, to me, when speaking 'militarily' it doesn't matter if the war is won using 'clean' methods or 'dirty' methods. In war what matters is who wins for the decision of victor (now I sound redundant) but I assume you understand what I mean.

Besides all of this still stands aside from the fact that the Beast, now being a canonical representation of as strong as Orks can get, means we know the Orks were never much of a threat since they can, at their best, just barely scrape Primarch level.

I feel like treating the Win as the only thing that matters is not very relevant to the setting of 40k. Of course the Beast wasn't going to crush the Imperium into dust or build a lasting empire to rival them for thousands of years - if he had we wouldn't have 40k as we know it.

IMO the factions need to be treated more as the Roles they play in the setting rather than the win rate in their history. Orks play the role of the Vandals, the savage hordes who will always be threatening your borders and threatening to run rampant. Chaos is the Corrupter, the existential threat that feeds off your own attempts to fight it. Tyranids are the Swarm, the pestilence that descends and consumes and cannot be reasoned with. Eldar are the Outsiders, who can never be trusted even when your goals align. Tau are the Usurpers, the young upstart who has the tools to take what was yours. Necrons are the Ancients, reminders that there have been mightier empires before you and that all will be consumed by time. And at the center of all of these are the armies of the Imperium, the Rome that is both mighty and collapsing at the same time.

The Wins or Losses of each faction can usually map to these roles that they play. For the Orks it doesn't really matter that they didn't ultimately win battles like Armageddon or Rynn's World - the carnage they wrought to the Imperium means that their role as Vandals has been fulfilled. The Tyranids may not tend to get supplanted as the 'true foe' in stories by Chaos because the Corrupter / Schemer role doesn't have as much interaction with the kind of threat the Swarm tends to represent. That's what I mean when I'm talking about being relevant to the setting - its about the kind of stories that can be told with them.

Treating everything like its sports statistics just seems to miss the whole point to me. The Beast laid siege to the whole Imperium, had Terra at its mercy and only lost due to dirty tricks? Well, the didn't finish the job and completely wreck the entire setting, so I guess that's Imperials 1, Orks 0.

**Anemone**

@Robin5t: I'll reserve judgement on whether the Beast could actually have destroyed Terra, it would not surprise me at all for writers to simply have the Emperor psychically shield Terra if need be. But its pure postulation so I won't advance it as an argument I'll just not comment on it for now.

Numbers are irrelevant to the point I'm making here; they do not lose very head-on battle and, in the end, they win.

But...I did honestly forget the Shadowseer said that. I have to concede to that point actually, well done, I completely forgot she mentioned it when talking to Vangorich and the Inquisitors. That makes me feel mildly better about the whole thing actually.

@theocracity: The problem then is we have fundamentally different understandings and ways of enjoying the setting.

I certainly am not content simply with the 'Role' of a faction in fluff (particularly when some Roles seem to designate the faction as a perpetual winner or loser) and would like Ork players and Eldar players to engage in and enjoy their faction's victories in the fluff as much as an Imperium player.

So there isn't much else to say here, what we look for and want from the narrative is simply at odds with each other. To you there is no problem with the Imperium virtually being assured victory in all conflicts whilst the opposite is true for Eldar and Orks since you see it as a fulfilling of a 'Role' and I don't share that view.

**Bobthehero**

Regarding the Beast thing, Lexicanum makes it seem like the Imperium was able to delay the moon by landing on it and whatnot, then the Ork landed diplomats, then the Eldar showed up then the Imperium got rid of the moon. It certainly does not sound like the moon was just there for months not blowing up Terra.

**Anemone**

@Bobthehero: Yes it does seem the Orks never really had a chance at it, I agree, but I didn't like the book series and skimmed through it so I'd defer to someone with greater knowledge of it like Robin5t.

EDIT: With that said it would not surprise me at all to discover the Orks never had a chance, after all they are totally negligible.

**Robin5t**

The landings in question lasted probably about an hour or two, maybe?

The moon really did just sit over Terra doing nothing for who knows how long. The actual time frame isn't specified but it's at least weeks, if not even months depending on your interpretation.

**Bobthehero**

Any timetables or are you doing the same thing as the Deathwatch-Harlies thread?

Was it in range of its planet destroying weapons?

**theocracity**

Anemone wrote:

@theocracity: The problem then is we have fundamentally different understandings and ways of enjoying the setting.

I certainly am not content simply with the 'Role' of a faction in fluff (particularly when some Roles seem to designate the faction as a perpetual winner or loser) and would like Ork players and Eldar players to engage in and enjoy their faction's victories in the fluff as much as an Imperium player.

So there isn't much else to say here, what we look for and want from the narrative is simply at odds with each other. To you there is no problem with the Imperium virtually being assured victory in all conflicts whilst the opposite is true for Eldar and Orks since you see it as a fulfilling of a 'Role' and I don't share that view.

While I agree that we do seem to have differing views of what we want from the narrative, I don't think it impacts my ability to enjoy my faction's victories in the fluff (I'm a pure Ork player). Knowing that the Imperium is likely to win in the end is just accepting a fundamental truth of the setting - that without the Imperium to fight against, there's not really much in the way of relatable stakes. When the Orks go on a WAAAGH! and destroy worlds full of ancient relics, it's fun for Ork fans because the Imperium isn't in a state to rebuild that (at least in current times). You don't need an ultimate victory to enjoy that wanton destruction - especially since ultimate victories can never be truly Ultimate, less you end up in a 13th Black Crusade / Age of Sigmar style catch-22 (winning the decisive battle without finishing the job leaves you looking impotent, finish the job and you ruin the equilibrium holding the setting together).

Basically, I'm happy as long as Orks get to be Ork-y, Eldar get to be Eldar-y, and et cetera, with the Imperium as the antagonist that'll always be there to fight. If letting the Imperium have a phyrric victory in Act 3 of a given story is the price of that then that's fine by me.

**Anemone**

@bobthehero: It was definitely in range of its weapons, they even discussed that, when it blows up later it even rains parts onto Terra.

@theocracity: That's fine for you but not for me and several people I know. Since being 'Ork-y' and 'Eldar-y' means accepting constant defeat and loss to the Imperium in the fluff I know many people who are unhappy and feel their factions are undervalued as a result and would like to feel their factions do have a more meaningful role and capability beyond serving as footnotes to Imperium victories.

**BrianDavion**

theocracity wrote:
Anemone wrote:

@theocracity: The problem then is we have fundamentally different understandings and ways of enjoying the setting.

I certainly am not content simply with the 'Role' of a faction in fluff (particularly when some Roles seem to designate the faction as a perpetual winner or loser) and would like Ork players and Eldar players to engage in and enjoy their faction's victories in the fluff as much as an Imperium player.

So there isn't much else to say here, what we look for and want from the narrative is simply at odds with each other. To you there is no problem with the Imperium virtually being assured victory in all conflicts whilst the opposite is true for Eldar and Orks since you see it as a fulfilling of a 'Role' and I don't share that view.

While I agree that we do seem to have differing views of what we want from the narrative, I don't think it impacts my ability to enjoy my faction's victories in the fluff (I'm a pure Ork player). Knowing that the Imperium is likely to win in the end is just accepting a fundamental truth of the setting - that without the Imperium to fight against, there's not really much in the way of relatable stakes. When the Orks go on a WAAAGH! and destroy worlds full of ancient relics, it's fun for Ork fans because the Imperium isn't in a state to rebuild that (at least in current times). You don't need an ultimate victory to enjoy that wanton destruction - especially since ultimate victories can never be truly Ultimate, less you end up in a 13th Black Crusade / Age of Sigmar style catch-22 (winning the decisive battle without finishing the job leaves you looking impotent, finish the job and you ruin the equilibrium holding the setting together).

Basically, I'm happy as long as Orks get to be Ork-y, Eldar get to be Eldar-y, and et cetera, with the Imperium as the antagonist that'll always be there to fight. If letting the Imperium have a phyrric victory in Act 3 of a given story is the price of that then that's fine by me.

I think that's worth highlighting, just because your faction doesn't win a decisive victory that absolutely destroys the IOM doesn't mean it's not a victory. the IoM is never going to be destroyed.

1: it's too big to fail. you literally can't destroy it in a single battle, and there are only a handful of planets that by themselves could cripple the IoM.
2: on an OOC standpoint, GW's not gonna wanna destroy any major factions, even the home worlds of a first founding chapter are likely "reasonably safe" because GW won't wanna risk the backlash of having tyranids munch down Baal, the Tau conquer Mcragge, Chaos over run Fenris, the necrons destroy the rock, etc

**Anemone**

@BrianDavion: I'm not suggesting any faction be destroyed, I despise people who call for the destruction of a faction, such as the Tau, and would prefer for all factions to exist and be entertaining and valued for their player base.

Why not let the Imperium suffer defeats of the same extent as the Craftworld Eldar in Death Masque or Orar's Sepulchre?

Or the same extent as the Orks in the 2nd Armageddon War, the Beast Waaagh!!! or Sanctus Reach?

Or the same extent as the Tyranids in Macragge, Ichar IV and Cryptus?

Or Chaos in the Horus Heresy or Pandorax?

Why not simply have them suffer more major defeats and not have an incredibly generous win-lose ratio against every single opponent?

**Robin5t**

Bobthehero wrote:
Any timetables or are you doing the same thing as the Deathwatch-Harlies thread?

Was it in range of its planet destroying weapons?

Okay, first:

Many miles above,uncaring of Lansung's victory, his speeches or any of the petty politics that had allowed it's arrival, a monstrous star fortress larger than anything previously recorded extruded itself into orbit.

The Emperor Expects, page 222. The attack moon appears in Terra's orbit. It appears close enough that the mere act of it teleporting in causes shockwaves that knock people down around Terra. So yes, it was certainly close enough to utilise it's weaponry.

Then:

The days passed. The Orks did not come.

The Last Wall, page 53.

Then, AFTER this period of time, speaker Justina Kull announces the Proletarian crusade. We then get this:

For the first time in days, Haas no longer heard Mesring's summons.

The Last Wall, page 113.

And:

The speech was one she had laboured over since the beginning of the Crusade. She had rehearsed it for days.

The Last Wall, page 150.

Then we have the Imperial Fist fleet, which masses, sets out on a warp journey and reaches Terra during the span of time the Attack Moon is there.

As you can see, they had more than enough time to hit Terra if they actually bothered to do it.

**theocracity**

Anemone wrote:
@BrianDavion: I'm not suggesting any faction be destroyed, I despise people who call for the destruction of a faction, such as the Tau, and would prefer for all factions to exist and be entertaining and valued for their player base.

Why not let the Imperium suffer defeats of the same extent as the Craftworld Eldar in Death Masque or Orar's Sepulchre?

Or the same extent as the Orks in the 2nd Armageddon War, the Beast Waaagh!!! or Sanctus Reach?

Or the same extent as the Tyranids in Macragge, Ichar IV and Cryptus?

Or Chaos in the Horus Heresy or Pandorax?

Why not simply have them suffer more major defeats and not have an incredibly generous win-lose ratio against every single opponent?

Because most of those defeats were preceded by vast losses for the Imperium that are near-irreplaceable, and most of those victories were merely the temporary stemming of a tide. Chaos, Orks and Tyranids can all suffer losses because they can inevitably return stronger than before. The Imperium loses even when it wins these fights - I doubt that they consider Vraks or Badab to be a net positive for the Imperium even if they claim success in the end.

What's more, the Imperium has no backup plan at the dawn of the new millenium - if Cadia or Armageddon or Macragge falls then there's no stopping their enemies. That's part of the reason that the Imperium's victories always seem more important than their foe's - the setting pushes the conflict to its highest stakes, where failure for the Imperium means doom. Just because they avert doom in their victory doesn't mean that their foe didn't have great success up until that point.

Eldar are a bit of the odd duck in this, as they're not an endless tide pushing the Imperium to the brink of doom like the other factions. I do think they could afford to win a few more battles to match their vaunted skill and tech, though win too many and you start to lose the tragic arrogance / elegant despair of a dying race sort of vibe. I don't consider Death Masque to be that much of a loss honestly - the result seems intended to be more of a setup to use Ynnead as a manageable thematic force on the tabletop rather than having her be this overshadowing end-game plot device.

**Iracundus**

theocracity wrote:

What's more, the Imperium has no backup plan at the dawn of the new millenium - if Cadia or Armageddon or Macragge falls then there's no stopping their enemies. That's part of the reason that the Imperium's victories always seem more important than their foe's - the setting pushes the conflict to its highest stakes, where failure for the Imperium means doom. Just because they avert doom in their victory doesn't mean that their foe didn't have great success up until that point.

Not really. Let's face it, many worlds of the Imperium, even the hyped up ones, are still tiny on the grand scale of things. Armageddon is a major hive world, and the key production center for a sector....Even if it fell, there are literally thousands of other hive worlds in the Imperium. Sure, they may not all be as super productive as Armageddon but there have been tons of throwaway hive worlds invented and destroyed in the fluff already. The 5th edition rulebook on p. 115 estimates there to be 3.238 * 10^4 or 32,380 hive worlds in the Imperium. If Armageddon were to join the list of destroyed worlds, would things really change that much in the background? Not really...Sure you could write about supply shortages or shortage of troops for the sector and other nearby worlds, but that is just more of the same embattled Imperium theme.