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Why are you so adamant that Eldrad can't match an alpha-level psyker? Where is this coming from?

As a setting, Warhammer 40k is centred on the Imperium, making most of the stories about the imperium. We know (from in setting info) that the Imperium runs one hell of a mean propaganda machine, turning the death of millions of soldiers, the loss of entire worlds, solar systems and even sub sectors as victories.
Now combine this propaganda machine with the sheer size of the imperium and the loss of the manpower, machines and the worlds themselves doesn't even register on the imperium pain scale.
However, we see those losses constantly throughout the fluff, in the loyalist books, where they are often touted as victories and the chaos and xenos factions where similar battles are touted as defeats or the imperium. As it has been mentioned before the setting for the imperium is a "death by a thousand cuts". there will never be a hammer blow as such, Horus tried and failed, it will be the straw that broke the camel's back finally and hastened the end of the imperium.

For example - the battle of pandorax, Abby and his mates going up against the t-shirt brigade, closet heretics and silver mary sues. (if you missed the hint, I am a chaos fan boy all the way )

so for Abby, he made bargains with various cults to the recovery of the hellfire stone, pacts with daemons to serve himm after he releases them from their prison and secured an understanding with huron and captured the psyker he heard rumours of. So while Abby didn't destroy the planet (the imperium would do that later in the clean up phase), didn't destroy the chapters of SM and GK that came to defend the world, he succeeded in achieving his goals.

So for the loyalists, they managed to drive Abby and the chaos forces from the planet and kill or seal away the remaining daemons of the Damnation Cache before they could cause harm to nearby systems and sectors. This was after Abby completed his goals. After millions of imperial citizens where killed, hundreds of marines were killed. After a sector fleet got its ass handed to it. After innumerable war machines were destroyed. And the funniest thing is, according to well established fluff, the GK would "sterilise" all imperial citizens that even heard of a rumour that they GKs were on planet. Then the planet was likely had an exterminatus pill forced down its throat and declared off limits and uninhabitable....

All that is declared to be an imperial victory..... and that example is just one of many in the established fluff that is considered to be an imperial victory and xenos/chaos loss

@Robin5t: Cause he can't rip battle titans in half, destroy whole armies and other such feats attributed to random human Alpha-level Psykers? Cause Alpha-Level Psykers, strong as they are, still don't hold a candle to actual powerful human Psykers like Malcador, Magnus, The Emperor or Lorgar.

@Casti: Before I say anything I want to point out that, in the scope being discussed here, the death of a millions soldiers, loss of a planet or solar system can easily still be a victory. A victor in a war doesn't win every single battle or fight in the war, all wars involve losing material. And in a war the scale of 40k millions of people and solar systems are the sort of material which can be lost in a war without actually meaning the war itself is lost. I just wanted to get that out of the way. Sorry.

What victories of the Imperium are touted as defeats by other factions? I don't know those. There are some victories, like Ghattana Bay, where the Ork side will point out the Orks did damage, but it still unequivocally calls it an Imperium victory.

And, again, there need be no 'hammer blow' to simply give other factions more victories. Allowing Ghazghkull to defeat the Dark Angels, or conquer Piscina, or win Armageddon doesn't mean the Imperium has to end overnight. That thinking, that the moment any faction other than the Imperium wins even a single fight of importance the Imperium ends automatically, is a mentality which seems to exist to justify never letting anyone other than the Imperium suffer major defeats.

Pandorax was an Imperium military victory, yes, that is canon. Also it has not been subject to Exterminatus. It is currently still part of the Imperium and its garrison, we are told, has to still deal with battles in the mountains.

Again the fact that many soldiers and people died does not mean the Imperium lost the battle. Many cultists and Chaos Space Marines died as well, but the Imperium maintained the world and fought off the Chaos fleet.

I'm sorry but Chaos simply military was defeated at Pandorax, like in the Diamor system.

Speaking of Diamor; according to Traitor's Hate Abaddon did not succeed in his goal at Pandorax. Traitor's Hate states that on Pandorax Abaddon's goal; 'slipped between his fingers' and he failed to achieve it. Hence why he pursues the Daemon Cage in Diamor. So...yeah, Pandorax was an all-around defeat for Chaos I'm afraid.

Just to be clear I'm hoping Chaos, in this resurgence it appears to be set for, will do better, I do feel they're hilariously weak considering how dangerous they're meant to be, but I definitely don't think the current fluff does any justice to that threat.

Personally I'm hoping in Fenris 2 Magnus actually wins for a change but, come on, like the Space Wolves are going to lose, that'll never happen.

 Anemone wrote:

@Deadnight: So every single piece of fluff and every single article entry on 1d4chan, lexicanum and the wiki's are wrong for describing all these Wars as Imperium victories?

Actually, it’s you that’s wrong in not understanding the nature of those articles. Those online articles are certainly fun to read, and very useful, and in the strictest sense they’re not ‘wrong’, but they’re not exactly ‘accurate’ either. You have to remember and understand the context in which they’re written. They’re repeating imperial-centric point of view (aka propaganda) with all the biases already baked in, because by and large, the Imperium of Man is the ‘default protagonist’ of the setting, and the vast majority of the fluff is seen from its perspective. And they are simply repeating articles, not analysing them, discussing them, or examining them from different perspectives and/or points of view.

It makes sense that fluff from the Imperium’s perspective would treat those events as ‘victories’, when at best, they did nothing more than hold out. You need to read between the lines, rather than accept the headlines at face value. I do the former, you’re doing the latter and suffering for it. Take the gothic war. You claim the Imperium ‘won’ it. What if I said that it was Abaddon who won it, rather than the Imperium, considering his goals (2 blackstone fortresses, sow anarchy and engulf an imperial sector in total war etc) were all achieved and in the end he sailed off into the eye of terror with all his loot and his armies still almost entirely intact. He won, the imperium was simply left standing in a field of corpses. To them, they won because from their POV Abaddon buggered off and not every single one of them was dead, but as ‘victories’ go, its hardly impressive. But you can’t say that to the teeming masses of billions, can you? ‘We didn’t die!’ doesn’t have quite the same ring as ‘we drove Abaddon off and won the war’. And who writes the histories? From which side’s perspective is most of the lore written? Which point of view is likely to get presented to the reader? Read between the lines, ignore the biases and you’ll find the real story.

 Anemone wrote:

Why does the community at large, and official canon, seem to consider them Imperium victories but only a handful of people here seem to insist no Imperium victory is a victory?

Does it, really? 'The community'? MOST members of the community I know understand that the imperium never really wins, it merely hold on for another bloody dawn.

Again, the official canon is not an unbiased, ‘god’s eye’ view. It is written from the point of view of the Imperium of Man. The Imperium has certainly won wars, and lost wars too, and is involved in many grand stalemates. The issue is largely what you consider to be a ‘win’ for the imperium and a ‘loss’ for everyone else. The community at large is generally on board with understanding the nature of these articles and seeing the bigger picture.

 Anemone wrote:

Why doesn't lexicanum, or the fluff, or the wiki or 1d4chan reflect this then?

Because by and large, they are just repeating already published articles rather than analysing and discussing them in depth and examining them from multiple perspectives and points of view and said articles are, as previously discussed, already biased and written from a particular point of view-understanding the imperial-centric ‘protagonist bias’ is necessary to understand the bigger picture. What you get on the forums is people discussing these things, reading between the lines and looking at the bigger picture.

 Anemone wrote:

Honestly I'm really depressed that the Eldar are such weak Psykers. For the race who is consistently in Fluff most associated with Psychic the Horus Heresy clearly shows that human Psykers are all the strongest Psykers,

Humans chuck the largest psychic fireballs on occasion, but that doesn’t mean the eldar are necessarily weaker. ‘Strength’ isn’t necessarily measured by the size of the explosions you produce. Those fireballs and continent destroying alpha psykers the humans are so fond of producing don’t show them to be stronger. They show them to be weaker, more reckless and far more uncontrolled, not stronger. The eldar simply wouldn’t have any interest in stumbling down this path. Eldar have mastered the path millions of years ago. Everything they have built – their whole society, in fact - is based around psychic energy and psychic constructs- Consider the fact they have psychically grown their wraith constructs, titans and even entire craftworlds out of ‘wraithbone’ and you see where I am coming from.

 Anemone wrote:
@Robin5t: Cause he can't rip battle titans in half, destroy whole armies and other such feats attributed to random human Alpha-level Psykers? Cause Alpha-Level Psykers, strong as they are, still don't hold a candle to actual powerful human Psykers like Malcador, Magnus, The Emperor or Lorgar.

He can't, or he chooses not to.

 Anemone wrote:

I don't really understand that. Why not let Gazghkull just win a major battle, defeat a major Imperium army, conquer a major Imperium planet and then leave it there? What's wrong with that? Its no more 'unresolved' than anything else in the setting, but it does at least mean that the Imperium actually suffers meaningful loss and that Ghazghkull actually looks dangerous for a change.

He’s done all that. Its just part of a greater conflict at this point. Remember as well, the whole Armageddon thing was a worldwide campaign designed to get everyone playing. It was never meant to have an outright winner or a loser. Oh, and regarding other Ork victories, read up on ‘da green kroosade’ that the orks did during the Eye of Terror campaign about ten years ago. Overran the whole scarus sector and actually affected the fluff of the game and the outcome of the campaign.

Deadnight wrote:


Humans chuck the largest psychic fireballs on occasion, but that doesn’t mean the eldar are necessarily weaker. ‘Strength’ isn’t necessarily measured by the size of the explosions you produce. Those fireballs and continent destroying alpha psykers the humans are so fond of producing don’t show them to be stronger. They show them to be weaker, more reckless and far more uncontrolled, not stronger. The eldar simply wouldn’t have any interest in stumbling down this path. Eldar have mastered the path millions of years ago. Everything they have built – their whole society, in fact - is based around psychic energy and psychic constructs- Consider the fact they have psychically grown their wraith constructs, titans and even entire craftworlds out of ‘wraithbone’ and you see where I am coming from.

This.

If you want an example of Eldar psychic might, just look around you. Wraithbone is the very stuff of the empyrean, sung into realspace and crystalised.

The Eldar have sung warriors, titans, cruisers and continent-sized world-ships, more powerful than any equivalent the Imperium can bring to muster, out of thin air through pure psychic talent and power.

Their psychic foresight has meant that their decimated and dwindling race can stay one step ahead of extinction, pitting the other younger races against each other without even knowing that they are being manipulated.

And that's all while using the bare minimum of their psychic talent to avoid the predations of Slaanesh.

If you want a psychic sledgehammer, humanity's your man (quite literally). If you're an eldar seer, you can do the sledgehammer thing in a pinch, but your greatest power lies in not having to fight at all. Why risk your life when you can guide an ork waaagh through the strands of fate to your enemy's planet. Said human psyker could blow the doors off the first Gargant that walked through the door, but they're still getting krumped by the rest of the horde while Mr Tricksy Eldar is nowhere near the conflict.

It's the difference between having a massive great battlecannon, and having a smaller battlecannon that's actually in the right place at the right time. Which one would you say is more powerful?

Anemone, you say that in the scope of the imperium, a million soldiers or a single world is largely irrelevant, by that same token, the imperium gaining ground is no victory either, its just a eternal stale mate.

The imperium has not defeated the tyranids, there are still many hive fleets at large in the galaxy with more on the way.

Eldar - tons of craft worlds still active, no imperial victory there....

Dark Eldar - still out and about, crusing in their pintos, picking up chics and drugs, again no imperial victory

Necrons - currently waking up from a big old nap, pushing the boundaries and the inhabitants of the galaxy around. Guess what, the Imperium hasn't been victorious against them.

Orks - always up for a rumble, always up in imperial face. Good old Ghazzy is still up and kicking humie face. I wonder why the Imperium with all their "victories" haven't chased him down.....

Tau - pushing the boundaries of their space and into imperial doamins. With the Imperium being the ever victorious faction, why haven't they squashed the upstart fish people without a breaking a sweat....

Chaos - still in the Eye, still in the warp after 10000 years. The Imperium still hasn't got around to wiping out the chaos gods and their followers, what have they been doing all of these years.

With all these victories as you keep calling them, the imperium should have had no trouble taking out these pesky and minor threats.

Now just in case you haven't noticed, sarcasm is kind of a second language to me. The point I am trying to make is while you state that every battle for the imperium has been a victory for them, you would have thought that the other factions would have been wiped out by now. That in 10000 years the imperium would have finished what the Big E started and bought galatic peace to every corner of it.

The point others have made, is that there is no black and white victories in 40k, every battle comes with a price. For the imperium it is often counted in worlds, systems and sectors.

It just seems like you are changing the goal posts at each stage that someone comes up with examples of Non-Imperial victories.
Oh wow Ghazzy destroyed a hive city, but he didn't take the planet, must be an Imperial Victory.
Look here, the necrons killed all the humans on a planet, but he didn't take the system, must be an Imperial Victory.
Hey over there, the Nids ate a system. But hang on they didn't eat the sector, must be an Imperial Victory.
Holy horsepoop batman, Skarbrand just stomped a sector into a blood paste. Thank god he didn't kill the segmentum, must be an imperial victory

Let me ask you two questions:

If the Imperium gains a planet or system or sector, is that a victory for them?

If the Imperium loses a planet or system or sector, is that a loss for them?

@Deadnight: No, I'm sorry, but this is just attempting to devolve the entire thing into 'from a certain point of view' subjectivity.

Those conflicts are considered Imperium victories by canon, both in-universe and out, attempting to argue they aren't because 'people died' doesn't change that they are victories for the Imperium. That's that.

So give me a straight answer, are those articles wrong or right to call those wars Imperium victories?

Also I don't remember Abaddon's forces being largely intact at the end of the Gothic War? He lost the war militarily, was incapable of defeating the Imperium forces, and was driven off. He lost. That's why, if you read up anywhere on the Gothic War, it is called an Imperium victory.

Honestly do you think that any War in which one side loses a battle isn't a victory? Do you think any war which doesn't end with one side being utterly annihilated from existence isn't a victory? Your bar is far too high. The Imperium was the military victor of the Gothic War, and all major wars, and this mindset that 'its fine if the Imperium wins as long as they tack on a lot of people died at the end' is very frustrating since it really maintains the status quo of not just letting other factions get victories like the Imperium.

Also I find it enormously ironic that you ask 'who writes the histories' since the answer you expect is, of course, 'the victors' but you are literally in that paragraph arguing that the Imperium are not the victors. Thus the expression doesn't even make sense in that context.

Also virtually every warhammer player I've ever spoken too, if I ask them, 'who won the Gothic War?' or 'who won the Horus Heresy' or 'who won the 2nd Tyrannic War' say 'Imperium' so I do feel pretty convicted, yes.

Humans also teleport planets, frighten the Chaos Gods, alter time and space, see into the future, communicate across the galaxy and are repeatedly described as powerful Psykers. Eldar don't match the psychic of Malcador, the Emperor, Magnus, Lorgar, Corax, Fulgrim or Alpah level Psykers. For crying out loud if the Eldar are such powerful Psykers than you'd expect they would be counted as such, but I've never seen any list or discussion of powerful Psykers in 40k which consists of a discussion of anyone other than the Emperor, Magnus and Malcador.

Let's put it this way, are you saying Eldrad's a stronger Psyker than the Emperor, Magnus or Malcador?

What major army did Ghazghkull defeat? Dark Angels? Salamanders? Blood Angels? Please list for me these major conflicts and armies you're saing Ghazghkull has won because, until you do, I can't believe you on this I'm afraid.

@Ynneadwraith: Considering the Human Psykers conquered the galaxy and struck fear into the hearts of the Chaos Gods, whereas the Eldar Psykers, with their vaunted foresight, literally lose more often to the Imperium than they win I'd say the answer to your question is self-evident.

@Casti: Why is your bar for 'victory' suddenly that the entire faction must be destroyed? Where does that even come from?

Also what humie face is Ghazghkull kicking in? To my knowledge he is still attacking the same humie world he has always been attacking and the only other Imperium world he attacked, Piscina, he was forced to flee from after being defeated. So please tell me what humie face he is kicking in?

Why on earth should other factions have to be wiped out just because the Imperium overwhelmingly wins? There is no logical correlation or rational implication there. The fact that the Imperium overwhelmingly wins does not de facto translate into all other factions must be gone.

To put it another way, if you're argument for the Imperium not overwhelmingly winning is that other factions still exist then I see no point in continuing this conversation.

What Goal posts have changed? Seriously?!

From the beginning I've said I just would want there to be a more equitable spread of victories for factions which are not the Imperium. Honestly, why is this treated as some unthinkable horror?

Let the Craftworld Eldar win some major engagements. Let Ghazghkull defeat some major Imperium Army and conquer some major Imperium world.

The Orks suffered major losses at Armageddon 2, at Ullanor, at the Beast Waaagh!!! at Sanctus Reach.

The Craftworld Eldar suffer near constant losses all the time, their Seers barely ever succeed and are consistently defeated. Not to mention Death Masque.

Why not just give factions other than the Imperium some major wins against the Imperium?

Seriously! I can at least understand Smudge's position, though I disagree with it, since at least they concede that GW reflects a biased approach to the Imperium's victories, but people who argue outright that the Imperium doesn't virtually win all battles baffle me.

Please! Please! Can we just count the number of battles the Imperium wins and compare it to the amount they lose! That's nice empirical data, hopefully no-one would argue with that.

 Arbitrator wrote:
Unlike Fantasy, where the popularity between armies was 'relatively' balanced (WoC/HE were the most popular, but not by a huge margin), the vast, vast, vast, majority of sales for 40k are some variety of Space Marine. Throw into that Imperial armies like the Imperial Guard and Sisters of Battle and... well, low and behold, Games Workshop decide to focus almost all of their fluff on the Imperium - specifically the Space Marines - and even the 'big bad' threat of Chaos is largely reduced to a pin cushion for the Astartes to kill and look super 'ard doing so. We're constantly told that the Imperium of Man is "fives minutes to midnight" and on the backfoot, yet every other story portrays the opposite. I'm fairly certain Games Workshop's greatest wish is to one day dissolve 40k and turn Horus Heresy into their flagship gameline just so they don't have to spend development time and money on those annoying non-Space Marine players.

You can see this in AoS too. They kill off WHFB so they have an excuse to introduce Sigmarines, and suddenly every other story in the setting involves the Not-SpaceMarines descending from the heavens in dropo- uhhh, lightning strikes to cleanse the hereti- UHHH, Chaos Warriors.

Of course, that is what makes Xenos/Chaos all the more appealing to me. Not being the overplayed poster child has a certain appeal to it.

You're constantly told it's 5 minutes to midnight because it's not a story, man. It's a setting. The setting of 40K is the Imperium at 5 minutes to midnight. There's ten thousand years of history to cover. In order to get to five minutes to midnight, the Imperium is going to have to survive all those other wars that it's fought up till that point. That doesn't mean it can't be bloodied. He has been. And the reign of Vandire? Yeah, the Imperium won. But the changes made to the Imperium have kind of been a huge drag on the Imperium as a whole.

Deadnight wrote:


Humans chuck the largest psychic fireballs on occasion, but that doesn’t mean the eldar are necessarily weaker. ‘Strength’ isn’t necessarily measured by the size of the explosions you produce. Those fireballs and continent destroying alpha psykers the humans are so fond of producing don’t show them to be stronger. They show them to be weaker, more reckless and far more uncontrolled, not stronger. The eldar simply wouldn’t have any interest in stumbling down this path. Eldar have mastered the path millions of years ago. Everything they have built – their whole society, in fact - is based around psychic energy and psychic constructs- Consider the fact they have psychically grown their wraith constructs, titans and even entire craftworlds out of ‘wraithbone’ and you see where I am coming from.

This. Strength and power doesn't mean you can cause the most damage.

Humans manifest psychic energy destructively, unless trained, which then fetters them.

Eldar manifest psychic energy in both Wraithbone creation and precognition. That's not to say they can't create fireballs. But with the ability of their divination skills, they rarely need to.

Anemone wrote:@Deadnight: No, I'm sorry, but this is just attempting to devolve the entire thing into 'from a certain point of view' subjectivity.

Those conflicts are considered Imperium victories by canon, both in-universe and out, attempting to argue they aren't because 'people died' doesn't change that they are victories for the Imperium. That's that.

So give me a straight answer, are those articles wrong or right to call those wars Imperium victories?

The articles are wrong.

Seriously! I can at least understand Smudge's position, though I disagree with it, since at least they concede that GW reflects a biased approach to the Imperium's victories, but people who argue outright that the Imperium doesn't virtually win all battles baffle me.

I think you may have been misunderstanding my view.

My view was that the Imperium does lose battles, as evidenced by the setting, but GW doesn't tell us about these, because they have human writers who are more than likely human-centric, or are told to big up a faction to sell models. Imperial models sell best for GW, perhaps because of these reasons, but as they sell well, GW wants to make sure they keep the buyers of Imperial armies happy - hence more attention in a vicious cycle.

Please! Please! Can we just count the number of battles the Imperium wins and compare it to the amount they lose! That's nice empirical data, hopefully no-one would argue with that.

When we're not presented with the data of the entire setting, that's difficult.

Are we talking story or setting?
Story, we can obtain data - however, the story is not indicative of the entire setting, which does not allow us the same liberty on data.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Deadnight wrote:


Humans chuck the largest psychic fireballs on occasion, but that doesn’t mean the eldar are necessarily weaker. ‘Strength’ isn’t necessarily measured by the size of the explosions you produce. Those fireballs and continent destroying alpha psykers the humans are so fond of producing don’t show them to be stronger. They show them to be weaker, more reckless and far more uncontrolled, not stronger. The eldar simply wouldn’t have any interest in stumbling down this path. Eldar have mastered the path millions of years ago. Everything they have built – their whole society, in fact - is based around psychic energy and psychic constructs- Consider the fact they have psychically grown their wraith constructs, titans and even entire craftworlds out of ‘wraithbone’ and you see where I am coming from.

This. Strength and power doesn't mean you can cause the most damage.

Humans manifest psychic energy destructively, unless trained, which then fetters them.

Eldar manifest psychic energy in both Wraithbone creation and precognition. That's not to say they can't create fireballs. But with the ability of their divination skills, they rarely need to.

Anemone wrote:@Deadnight: No, I'm sorry, but this is just attempting to devolve the entire thing into 'from a certain point of view' subjectivity.

Those conflicts are considered Imperium victories by canon, both in-universe and out, attempting to argue they aren't because 'people died' doesn't change that they are victories for the Imperium. That's that.

So give me a straight answer, are those articles wrong or right to call those wars Imperium victories?

The articles are wrong.

Seriously! I can at least understand Smudge's position, though I disagree with it, since at least they concede that GW reflects a biased approach to the Imperium's victories, but people who argue outright that the Imperium doesn't virtually win all battles baffle me.

I think you may have been misunderstanding my view.

My view was that the Imperium does lose battles, as evidenced by the setting, but GW doesn't tell us about these, because they have human writers who are more than likely human-centric, or are told to big up a faction to sell models. Imperial models sell best for GW, perhaps because of these reasons, but as they sell well, GW wants to make sure they keep the buyers of Imperial armies happy - hence more attention in a vicious cycle.

Please! Please! Can we just count the number of battles the Imperium wins and compare it to the amount they lose! That's nice empirical data, hopefully no-one would argue with that.

When we're not presented with the data of the entire setting, that's difficult.

Are we talking story or setting?
Story, we can obtain data - however, the story is not indicative of the entire setting, which does not allow us the same liberty on data.

This.

 Anemone wrote:

@Asterios: I have the online copy on my Ibooks, don't know it if makes much difference *shrug* also page 21 lists only two Ork victories; Tempestora and Hades. It calls Ghattana Bay an Ork defeat, just like the original report did, the battle at the Gate of IX.

As for where it says the battle of Armageddon is a stalemate; the Astra Militarum Codex, virtually every Warhammer site I could find. Where does it say Ghazghkull is winning?

I mean, please, are you saying Ghazghkull is winning Armageddon and that all the Warhammer Wiki's, Lexicanum and 1d4chan are wrong to list it as a Stalemate?

@Bobthehero: Of course you can say its a victory for the Imperium.

Does the fact that Nazi Germany occupied great swathes of territory in Russia, wiped out and captured numerous army groups, settlements and resources mean that Russia didn't win the war? Of course not.

Suffering losses always happens in a war. If the only way to win a war is to not lose anything then no-one will ever win the war. What determines the victor of the war is the ultimate military victor of the warzone. So in the 1st Tyrannic War Behemoth was a coherent invading force which was destroyed by the Imperium, hence the Imperium are the victors there, as they were in the 2nd Tyrannic War as well.

really you want to go there? ok say a force of Parisians invade South Africa, they have taken over several cities and land, are you going to say South Africa is winning because they stopped the Parisians at a couple points? seriously? you would have to be seriously deluded to think the Imperium is winning on Armageddon, they are losing, and they are losing land fast, just like the Imperium is losing planets, it may not be as noticeable as if they only had 10 planets and lost one, but they are losing planets and not gaining any so it is not a stalemate or a victory by any stretch of the imagination, all they have had is winning battles in the great war that is 40K. but meanwhile they are losing the war for survival.

now as to your Germany and Russia explanation, did Germany lose the land they took from Russia? did Russia gain even more land? that defines victories, a victory is when you gain more then you lose, has the Imperium gained more then it lost? no and that is why they are not winning, they are surviving and that is it, they may win a battle here and there but they are losing the war.

the problem is defining a war by 40k standards

Lets go with a theoretical scenario: chaos sacked a hive, putting the citizens to the torch and pleasing the dark gods. Then sodded off cos a larger imperial fleet is on the way or attacked them, who is the victor?

For the chaos, their goal was to sack the hive and have fun and please the gods. once they completed that, there was no reason for them to hang around. that is a victory for chaos. goals completed, job done, time for tea and biscuits.

For the imperials, their goals were to stop chaos entering the hive, well they failed that one, but they saved the rest of the planet. Hey sounds like a typical imperial victory here.

So here are a few examples of chaos victories

Abyssal Crusade - a chaos tainted saint convicts 30 odd SM chapters to a penitent crusade in the eye of terror. 25 of the chapters become corrupted and return to imperial space as chaos marines, reaping and pillaging as they go. Chaos Victory

M32 - Perturabo's Plague. Toil, a forge world is messed up by daemonic machines and scoured of life.

M33 The feral war - Relictors and ad mech get messed up by 1k sons who wipe the imperials out.

M40 - Double Edged Swords - Alpha legion mindscrew some imperial lackeys called the Emperor's Swords and destroy their chapter and monastery and get a bunch of geneseed and new recruits as a bonus.

M41 - The wolf at bay. Huron tricks a bunch of space puppies and friends to get buried in a bunch of catacombs and tunnels forcing them to withdraw.

M41 The fall of Vilamus. Huron steals the geneseed and relics of the marines errant chapter.

The Black Crusades have been wins for Abbadon too, he achieved his goals and got to slap around the Imperium as well.

Each side in a war does not have to have the same goals or victory conditions. This is something I think you are overlooking when you read about these constant imperial victories as written typically from an imperial bias.

The example of Pandorax is a good one, Abbadon achieved a lot of goals there, most importantly, getting the psyker and then gifting said psyker to Fulgrim to gain his favour. The fact that he was "driven" off the planet by imperial forces once he had completed his goals is largely irrelevant, he was sodding off anyway. The Imperial forces didn't really know about the psyker or his importance and they only just managed to shut down the Damnation Cache, but the damage was already done with 1000s of daemons released from their prison.
So did Abbadon lose lots of troops and machines, yep, so did the imperium but both counted their war on Pandorax as a victory for their side.

Counting up the victories of the Imperium vs the losses wont actually solve too much. this is due to the largely acknowledged imperial bias coupled with the fact that some wars take place in a small city and others take place over sectors and segmentums.

Your search for empirical data wont prove much, there are too many variations, inconsistencies and a lack of solid numerical data to actually come up with anything that would hold up to scrutiny.

Don't get me wrong, I like the fact you are passionate about 40k, I am the same, and believe me, I ain't a fan of the Imperial bias in the fluff. I think you are missing some of the points people are trying to make.

Armaggedon is a stalemate at best for the Imperium, at worst it is a loss, this is because it is sucking up resources that could be better spent else where. The 9th Black Crusade was a victory for Chaos because Abbadon neutered the imperium's ability to respond to chaos raids and fleet movements. The gothic war saw abbadon steal several blackstone fortresses, weapons created by the elder to combat the necrons, the loss of even one of these ancient and irreplaceable relics is a major blow against the imperium.

The Chaos codex states the 12 black crusades (with the 13th just starting) as victories for chaos. The Ork codex I would suspect will say similar things about ork battles, same with elder, necrons and so on. Each faction in a war can view it as a victory if their goals were fulfilled. So when someone says that Ghazzy was successful at Armaggedon, that doesn't mean the Imperium lost, it just means that Ghazzy succeeded in completing many of his goals and regards it as a victory for the Orks.

The fluff in 40k is best viewed as propaganda written from the perspective of those whose story it is about.

@Sgt_Smudge: Except in 40k it does, hence why the Emperor and Magnus are consistently described as the strongest Psykers in the galaxy.

Really, name me the strongest 5 Psykers in the galaxy if you're so adamant that the humans aren't more psychically powerful than the Eldar. Sorry if I'm emotive on this point but it really bugs me how much my little brother, when we read on the fluff, has to put up with the Eldar's psychic sucking compared to the humans. No Eldar Psyker ever could match their psychic might to Malcador, Magnus, The Emperor, Lorgar, Fulgrim, Corax and such.

Also Eldar precognition sucks. Eldrad just recently displayed how poor even the best Eldar Farseer. Not to mention I can provide you a list of all the battles where Eldar Farseers have been outplanned and foiled by Space Marines and Guards if that's what you're looking for.

I am at least glad you did answer my question though. So you would go to Lexicanum, to 1d4chan, to the 40k wiki and tell them all their articles on the battles and wars are wrong? So they all got it wrong, whereas you got it right?

No I understand your view, I might have phrased it poorly and I apologize for that, amounts to saying that you believe in canon the Imperium doesn't win overwhelmingly but that the information we're given is just mostly about their victories. I understand your position, disagree with it, but at least you concede that what is shown is overwhelmingly in favour of the Imperium.

Still waiting for someone to give me an example of a Chaos victory comparable to the Horus Heresy, an Ork victory comparable to the Beast Waaagh!!! or a Craftworld Eldar victory comparable to the scale of Death Masque. Still waiting for those.

As for data, I'm not sure I qualify it like that, seems like a way to dodge the issue. My answer would be I'd use all the available given data on worlds which are or are not conquered, wars which are or are not won. I find relying on the canonical data like that best, personally.

@Asterios: Ah...you'd have to describe your example in way more detail for me to answer; is the fight ongoing? Were the Parisians repulsed eventually? Is there an armistice? I can't give an answer to that question at all based on the limited info you've given me.

Also I don't recall ever saying the Imperium is winning on Armageddon. I said what the canon is; its a stalemate, neither side are winning. That's all it is. I don't know why we're so sucked up in discussing the 3rd Armageddon War. Its a stalemate, it has been a stalemate in the fluff for a long time, why are we still discussing this?

Please provide me with a list of these planets you're saying the Imperium is losing.

"Has the Imperium gained more than it has lost" In what sense? For example the latest book of the Beast Arises series actually does state the Imperium gains more than it loses after the Beast Waaagh!!! so please be specific. Which Imperium victory are you specifically trying to dispute here?

@Casti: Well let's start with an easy example;

How about letting a main Ork Character like Ghazghkull or Craftworld Eldar character like Eldrad or Chaos Character like Lucius have feats and victories comparable to those we have for Dante, Marneus or Logan. There's a start.

That being said I just want to really say thank you because you actually listed some actual Imperial defeats. You didn't list some Imperium victories and then say 'they weren't victories' despite all canon and information considering them as such. I really actually do appreciate that.

However, with that said, I've never said the Imperium always wins, only overwhelmingly, and all major engagements. Those examples you've provided I won't dispute, but they are very minor compared to the Imperium victories in the Horus Heresy, Beast Waaagh!!!, Gothic War, 1st and 2nd Tyrannic Wars, 1st and 2nd Armageddon War and such.

What I want is for non-Imperium factions, all factions, to have major victories to their name, for equitable attention and success to be shared by all factions and not simply hogged by one. That's what I'd like.

Also, I'm sorry, but Pandorax was just a loss. Not only was Abaddon defeated militarily but, furthermore, in Traitor's Hate it was revealed that he did not get what he was looking for in the Damnation Cache.

Why not let Ghazghkull beat a Space Marine Army on a planet and conquer the planet? Why not let Eldrad outsmart and defeat Logan the same way he was outsmarted and defeated by the Deathwatch? Why not give the characters from these factions the amount of victories and impressive moments that numerous Marine and Imperium characters already have?

 Anemone wrote:


@Asterios: Ah...you'd have to describe your example in way more detail for me to answer; is the fight ongoing? Were the Parisians repulsed eventually? Is there an armistice? I can't give an answer to that question at all based on the limited info you've given me.

Also I don't recall ever saying the Imperium is winning on Armageddon. I said what the canon is; its a stalemate, neither side are winning. That's all it is. I don't know why we're so sucked up in discussing the 3rd Armageddon War. Its a stalemate, it has been a stalemate in the fluff for a long time, why are we still discussing this?

Please provide me with a list of these planets you're saying the Imperium is losing.

"Has the Imperium gained more than it has lost" In what sense? For example the latest book of the Beast Arises series actually does state the Imperium gains more than it loses after the Beast Waaagh!!! so please be specific. Which Imperium victory are you specifically trying to dispute here?

and yet the Imperium is losing land and cities and only the Imperium would call it a victory or a stalemate at best, only reason it is at a stalemate as you call it on your outdated information is because of the fire season being on the planet, but since then the war has continued with Ghazgghkull directing the actions from the other end of the galaxy with his psychic ability given to him by Mork and Gork.

Planets the Imperium has lost heres a few:

Arcetri Forge World lost to Hive Fleet Harbinger
Arkhona planet population destroyed by unknown mystical forces
Assyri planet destroyed by Eldar
Auxesia planet ravaged by Iron Warriors
Auxilion population devoured by the Dark Eldar Carnival of Pain
Barbarus Prime conquered by Tyranids
Barnassus forge world destroyed by Chaos
Bekrin shrine world destroyed by Hive Fleet Dagon
Berien VI all life eradicated by unknown force
Beta Fortanis destroyed by those pesky Tyranids
Brendine II destroyed by the forces of a Slaanash worshipper

and there are many more planets to list, tell me how many planets has the Empire taken? and what are their names and who did they take them from?

I gave you proof now you give proof or forever be known as wrong.

by the way if you are getting any of your information from the Novels you should stop now because they are not accurate I have already discovered discrepancies in the novels dealing with the Dark Angels that conflict with each other.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Anemone wrote:
@Lord Damocles: The IA book calls it a stalemate, explicitly.

Are you basing that on page 60?

 Anemone wrote:
@Lord Damocles: Apologies, I must have missed your post last time in the confusion. Yes, pg 60, correct.

You realise that the statement of 'untenable stalemate' on pg.60 is dated 995.M41 - four years before the Orphean Decree is issued 0266999.M41 (pg.59); which states that:

'By the Act of Discorporation shall the Sector Orpheus of the Segmentum Tempestus be no more, its rights, tithes and titles annulled, and its history be sealed and unremembered, save for those whose duty it is to bear the burden of truth and the sorrow of watchfulness.

Of the Forces Imperial currently contesting its remaining domains of the aforesaid sector, shall the gift of martyrdom be given with the Emperor's blessing...

By this decree shall a cordon be enforced between the former sector known as Orpheus, whose stars be forbidden on pain of death, and the sector of Eurydice...

That the forces of the Minotaurs Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes and the remaining warships of the Battlefleet Orpheus... enforce the purgation and Exterminatus of the worlds listed herein, scouring them of life...

That the Forge World of Myre shall be abandoned and scoured...'

?

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Anemone wrote:
@Lord Damocles: The IA book calls it a stalemate, explicitly.

Are you basing that on page 60?

 Anemone wrote:
@Lord Damocles: Apologies, I must have missed your post last time in the confusion. Yes, pg 60, correct.

You realise that the statement of 'untenable stalemate' on pg.60 is dated 995.M41 - four years before the Orphean Decree is issued 0266999.M41 (pg.59); which states that:

'By the Act of Discorporation shall the Sector Orpheus of the Segmentum Tempestus be no more, its rights, tithes and titles annulled, and its history be sealed and unremembered, save for those whose duty it is to bear the burden of truth and the sorrow of watchfulness.

Of the Forces Imperial currently contesting its remaining domains of the aforesaid sector, shall the gift of martyrdom be given with the Emperor's blessing...

By this decree shall a cordon be enforced between the former sector known as Orpheus, whose stars be forbidden on pain of death, and the sector of Eurydice...

That the forces of the Minotaurs Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes and the remaining warships of the Battlefleet Orpheus... enforce the purgation and Exterminatus of the worlds listed herein, scouring them of life...

That the Forge World of Myre shall be abandoned and scoured...'

?

so in other words the Imperium in its infinite wisdom said if they can't have the planets no one will, and yet Anemone calls that a victory/stalemate for the Imperium ?

 Anemone wrote:
Also Eldar precognition sucks. Eldrad just recently displayed how poor even the best Eldar Farseer. Not to mention I can provide you a list of all the battles where Eldar Farseers have been outplanned and foiled by Space Marines and Guards if that's what you're looking for.

Your issue here isn't with the actual usefulness of Eldar precognition, it's with how Black Library and Games Workshop write the characters who use it.

Eldrad belts through tens of thousands of possible futures but conveniently ignores the one out of all of them where the Imperium actually wins because 'nah, no way those silly mon-keigh would have this technology that we already know they have access to'? That's not a problem with his precog. That kind of precognitive processing power should ensure he basically wins at every short and medium term goal he puts his mind to and is utterly untouchable in combat. The problem with that scenario is that he got handed the idiot ball to make sure this absurdly overpowered ability didn't result in the instant win it absolutely should have.

While it's of dubious canonicity now, the White Dwarf article that showed Eldrad taking on Abaddon was actually a fairly accurate portrayal of how that ability should work in combat if the user doesn't randomly turn into a blithering idiot - defeating a superior opponent by sheer virtue of knowing exactly what they'll do, how they'll do it and every possible variation of their next 200 steps are after that. For anyone who's read the web serial Worm, think of Contessa.

@Asterios: Okay, cool, so you agree we can settle this then by drawing on the data? Great.

-In the Achilus Crusade over sixty-systems, not just planets, but SYSTEMS, have already been claimed by the Imperium.
-Took the world of Dread Mandragora
-Then we have the Angevin Crusade which we are told conquered over 200 worlds
-A Blood Angel force seizes the arceotech world of Hell's Hollow from Chaos
-Iron Hands take Shemnoch from the Necron
-The Bellrath Crusade conquered the entire Laanath Rifts
-Then we have the Ultramarines taking Corinth and Damnos
-We have the Invaders Chapter destroying all of Craftworld Idharae
-Nimbosa was recently taken from the Tau by the Black Templars
-Then we have the Lok'kroll xenocide when their worlds get conquered
-Can't forget they captured Ullanor from the Orks at the end of the Beast Waaagh!!!
-Then some Space Marines claim the Verdeworlds from the Eldar
-Then the Blood Angels defeated the Night Lords, Death Guard and Word Bearers to claim the entire star-system of Blackstar.
-Then the Blood Angels also claim the twelve worlds of Blackfang from the Orks and, we're told, they're so successful they claim an additional two nearby planetary systems as well.

I'm gonna stop there, for now. This is just my first page so say if you need more.

@Lord Damocles: It has been a while since I read it, I agree, that does actually make it seem more to me like the Necron won. Not 100% sure but I'm happy to concede it since it doesn't really change anything, its still a drop in a bucket.

 Anemone wrote:
@Asterios: Okay, cool, so you agree we can settle this then by drawing on the data? Great.

-In the Achilus Crusade over sixty-systems, not just planets, but SYSTEMS, have already been claimed by the Imperium.
-Took the world of Dread Mandragora
-Then we have the Angevin Crusade which we are told conquered over 200 worlds
-A Blood Angel force seizes the arceotech world of Hell's Hollow from Chaos
-Iron Hands take Shemnoch from the Necron
-The Bellrath Crusade conquered the entire Laanath Rifts
-Then we have the Ultramarines taking Corinth and Damnos
-We have the Invaders Chapter destroying all of Craftworld Idharae
-Nimbosa was recently taken from the Tau by the Black Templars
-Then we have the Lok'kroll xenocide when their worlds get conquered
-Can't forget they captured Ullanor from the Orks at the end of the Beast Waaagh!!!
-Then some Space Marines claim the Verdeworlds from the Eldar
-Then the Blood Angels defeated the Night Lords, Death Guard and Word Bearers to claim the entire star-system of Blackstar.
-Then the Blood Angels also claim the twelve worlds of Blackfang from the Orks and, we're told, they're so successful they claim an additional two nearby planetary systems as well.
-
-

I'm gonna stop there, for now. This is just my first page so say if you need more.

@Lord Damocles: It has been a while since I read it, I agree, that does actually make it seem more to me like the Necron won. Not 100% sure but I'm happy to concede it since it doesn't really change anything, its still a drop in a bucket.

ok lets finish this then shall we:

-Achilus Crusade is an ongoing crusade so according to you that would be a stalemate or a loss for the Imperium since they have not won the war yet.
-Dread Mandragora was worlds they "reclaimed" hence they lost them in the first place, so once again not a victory for them
-Angevin Crusade you do realize that faltered mainly due to a major warp storm and that the planets they did take are under attack by Orks and Xeno's raiders? so once again not a win bu your standards. just because the Imperium "claimed" them does not make them the Imperiums. I could lay claim to the whole of the US it does not make it mine though.
-Hell's Hollow also belonged to the Imperium before hand so just a reclamation operation
-Shemnoch unfortunately there is Canon conflict with this with the 7th. edition rulebook stating that the battle took place on Sazalor
-Bellrath Crusade seems legitimate against a Xenos force it shall be allowed but still no planet names ?
-Corinth former Ork world will be allowed but Damnos belonged to the Imperium till it was discovered to be on a Necron Tomb World. so will not be allowed.
-Craftworld Idharae to which CraftWorld Alaitoc destroyued the Space Marines homeworld so I will call that a tie.
-Nimbosa once again a planet lost by the Imperium and was only reclaimed.
-Lok'kroll xenocide yeah mostly destroyed by Exterminatus from Orbit, not a victory but a slaughter.
-Ullanor and yet Ghazghkull is in the process of taking it back, since its new name now is Armageddon after being teleported by the Fabricator. (oopsie, you didn't read that book did you?)
-Verdeworlds information on this is scant, no mention if the settlers moved to an imperial world or what world? or if the Imperium even settled them
-Blackstar once again a reclamation of Imperial planets
-Blackfang will give you that.

so after going thru your whole list I have reduced it greatly because reclaiming land is not new land.

also to let you know how wrong the Lexicanum is, it says the Imperium won the third war on Armageddon even though the fighting still continues, yet you use that as Fluff to back you up? also the same Lexicanum also states the war continues too:

Where it says the war is over with an Imperium victory:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Armageddon

Third War for Armageddon
Main article: Third War for Armageddon
The Third War for Armageddon occurred fifty years after the Second War. Ghazghkull Thraka returned, leading a second Waaagh! smashing into Armageddon. Commissar Yarrick and many of the heroes who fought for the planet before were called into battle again.
Aftermath
Although the 3rd Armageddon War is over (with the Imperium winning a narrow victory), fighting still continues on the planet. Ghazghkull has left the planet and continues to plague neighboring Imperial worlds. He is being pursued by Yarrick with a full Black Templars crusade at his back. The Orks have come to regard Armageddon as a kind of Valhalla, where they can always come to find a good fight, and the Imperium must still send more troops to battle to keep the planet in Imperial hands while Ork reinforcements continue to flood in.[3]

and where it says the war continues:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Third_War_for_Armageddon

The War Continues

Becoming bored by the growing stalemate, Ghazghkull quickly ran out of patience. He left the conquest of Armageddon to his generals and went in search of something more entertaining. When word of this reached Yarrick he too left Armageddon with a strike force of Black Templars, determined to hunt down Ghazghkull and end things between them once and for all.[4b] Yarrick and the Black Templars were able to corner Ghazghkull at the Battle of Haunted Gulf, but the Warboss was able to elude his foes yet again.
However there are still countless Orks infesting Armageddon and the war rages to this day. For the Orks, the war has become known as the "Big Scrap"[4b] (also other name - "Ragnarork")[9] and more Orks arrive to the system with each day as word spreads.[4b] The cost of the war is measured in human lives, and the death toll spirals towards the billions. The Imperials know one thing, however: whatever the cost, Armageddon must not fall.[2c]

so even on the same Lexicanum there is conflict on what is up, and yet you use that is irrefutable proof?

@Asterios: You simply wanted examples of planets taken, you said; Planets the Imperium has lost.

I gave you a list of planets the Imperium has claimed.

Thus:
-The Achilus Campaign does still count, since it is an example of planets claimed by the Imperium, many planets.
-Angevin Crusade makes clear the worlds were conquered by the Imperium, over 200 (more than all your examples combined by far) so I see no grounds to dismiss it
-Also your Eldar example is mistaken; Idharae was destroyed completely, it no longer exists, whereas the Invaders Chapter does still exist and operate, so it is not an equivocal exchange at all.
-Blackfang alone is still 12 planets and 2 additional star systems which, again, is already more than all your examples put together.

Additionally if you're going to rule out any planet if it at a point belonged to the Imperium then, by your logic, Armageddon cannot count as a victory for Ghazghkull because it used to belong to Orks. Your statement that only worlds never claimed by a said nation count is ridiculous, it would mean that any world which the Eldar used to be on they can never count as 'winning' simply because at a point they owned it. So I reject this provision out of hand and, as a result, all the examples still stand.

Regardless, as I said, Blackfang alone is more than all your examples put together, if you want I will get more though. As I said this was not an exhaustive list at all.

As for your comments regarding Armageddon and the Lexicanum; firstly it is definitely important to accept that nothing like an infallible source of information exists, and I totally agree that of course Lexicanum will have errors. But, at the same time, certain sources are far more reliable than others, and I'd definitely consider Lexicanum more reliable on average than a single poster online.

Also check the page of the actual 3rd Armageddon War, there you will see the War is simply listed as 'ongoing'.

EDIT: As an aside, yes I did read the Beheading, why do you ask? Personally I found the plot twist of Ullanor being Armageddon very disappointing. Then again I found the entire introduction of an Orkish homeworld disappointing.

EDIT 2: Apologies Robin5t I missed your comment. The divergence you're alluding to here, and where I think you and I differ, is that like Sgt_Smudge you claim that though the reflection provided by GW, so the actual data and events described, displayed and such are biased, that the setting behind that is not. I differ from that. If the Eldar are effective Psykers and gifted precognitive I will believe it when it is displayed in fluff as such.

 Anemone wrote:
@Asterios: You simply wanted examples of planets taken, you said; Planets the Imperium has lost.

I gave you a list of planets the Imperium has claimed.

Thus:
-The Achilus Campaign does still count, since it is an example of planets claimed by the Imperium, many planets.
-Angevin Crusade makes clear the worlds were conquered by the Imperium, over 200 (more than all your examples combined by far) so I see no grounds to dismiss it
-Also your Eldar example is mistaken; Idharae was destroyed completely, it no longer exists, whereas the Invaders Chapter does still exist and operate, so it is not an equivocal exchange at all.
-Blackfang alone is still 12 planets and 2 additional star systems which, again, is already more than all your examples put together.

Additionally if you're going to rule out any planet if it at a point belonged to the Imperium then, by your logic, Armageddon cannot count as a victory for Ghazghkull because it used to belong to Orks. Your statement that only worlds never claimed by a said nation count is ridiculous, it would mean that any world which the Eldar used to be on they can never count as 'winning' simply because at a point they owned it. So I reject this provision out of hand and, as a result, all the examples still stand.

Regardless, as I said, Blackfang alone is more than all your examples put together, if you want I will get more though. As I said this was not an exhaustive list at all.

As for your comments regarding Armageddon and the Lexicanum; firstly it is definitely important to accept that nothing like an infallible source of information exists, and I totally agree that of course Lexicanum will have errors. But, at the same time, certain sources are far more reliable than others, and I'd definitely consider Lexicanum more reliable on average than a single poster online.

Also check the page of the actual 3rd Armageddon War, there you will see the War is simply listed as 'ongoing'.

EDIT: As an aside, yes I did read the Beheading, why do you ask? Personally I found the plot twist of Ullanor being Armageddon very disappointing. Then again I found the entire introduction of an Orkish homeworld disappointing.

EDIT 2: Apologies Robin5t I missed your comment. The divergence you're alluding to here, and where I think you and I differ, is that like Sgt_Smudge you claim that though the reflection provided by GW, so the actual data and events described, displayed and such are biased, that the setting behind that is not. I differ from that. If the Eldar are effective Psykers and gifted precognitive I will believe it when it is displayed in fluff as such.

yes but when you consider your list only had one craft world (and yet the Eldar still exist) is the only one that is a victory against a playable Xenos species and even then the winners lost their own worlds, I only listed a few examples there are still many more, I only listed planets beginning with the letters "A" and "B" still a whole alphabet to go, also Armageddon was not owned by Ghazghkull but other Orks so you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Deadnight wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:
In all of the years of 40k, the Imperium has never yet suffered a major, permanent and irrecoverable loss. In Fantasy, the Empire lost entire provinces and had all of its major cities sacked and destroyed at least once, the Elves had a significant part of their kingdom swallowed up by the sea and were stuck in a permanent civil war and the Dwarves were pushed from their once huge empire to just a few surviving holds. In 40k, no faction ever suffered a loss quite like that.

You need to factor in the scale of things. 40k is so much bigger than fantasy. All of those things happen, every single day to every single faction in the 40kiverse. It's just spread out over a thousand million worlds.

Yes. And that should not make any difference. Losing a single city is a huge loss to the Empire of Fantasy, but the Imperium would not even notice it. Losing an entire planet or even a sector means very little to the Imperium. It has a million worlds and thousands of sectors. The losses suffered should scale with the scale of the setting, but they don't. That is a problem. The Empire lost an entire province to the Orcs and had its capital and several other important cities sacked and the emperor killed. In 40k terms, that should translate to Orks destroying about 1/12th of the Imperium without it recovering afterwards, and sacking Terra, with the High Lords all being killed. However, Orks have never had any big successes like that. Quite on the contrary, one of the supposedly largest and most terrifying Ork Waaaghs in history is consistently failing at taking even a single planet (Armageddon).
Those kind of defeats that factions in Fantasy suffered is never ever suffered by the Imperium, and that sucks. I want to read about how Ghazkull laid waste to Holy Terra, how he was banging on the doors of the Emperor's throne room with the combined might of the Custodes only being barely able to keep the door sealed shut before the Orks eventually grow bored and go seek another fight, leaving a destroyed Terra in their wake. Something like that. That would establish the Orks and Ghazkull as actual threats, rather than as saturday morning cartoon villains ready to be stomped in this week's episode of Space Marine awesomeness. Make their actions have actual consequences.

Deadnight wrote:
If we are talking historically, the imperium has had quite a few near death experiences, such as the heresy, thr black crusades, the tyrannic wars etc as well as massive conflicts and civil wars such as the Nova terra insuregnum, the reign of vandire, the fourth quadrant rebellion etc. As you say, nothing 'permanent' in the strictest sense, but being realistic, each of these defeats could take a thousand years to fully recover from. And as a comparison to fantasy, how isn't it the empire gets a get out of jail free card for something similar (I mean, it lose some entire provinces, has its major cities sacked etc) but always manages To come back - it was there, still standing right up to the end times. The imperium has taken similar blows - planets and entire sectors fallen to total war, lost, destroyed etc but never loses?

The Black Crusades were far from a near-death experience for the Imperium. Every single one of them failed to do significant, lasting damage to the Imperium. Meanwhile, all of Chaos' might, like the Orks, fails to conquer a single planet (Cadia). Such terrifying foes!
All of the others are civil wars, which only reinforces my point. The greatest threat to the Imperium is the Imperium itself. All other factions in 40k are no real threat, they never win any major victories and they only exist to show how awesome and powerful the Imperium is.

Deadnight wrote:
As for factions thst suffered the loss of their whole empire in 40k, ever hear of the squats? Tyranids ate their homeworlds. Then there was the eldar - again, they lost their whole empire and they're struggling to hold on.

The Squats were removed from the setting. That hardly counts. "Tyranids ate their homeworlds" isn't even official fluff. For the Eldar, it is true. Their loss of their empire was self-inflicted, but they do suffer major defeats quite often. Usually at the hands of the glorious Space Marines, which only reinforces my point that the Imperium is never defeated and that the other factions are not credible threats. The Eldar are only ever defeated. They have never won a major victory.

Deadnight wrote:

Rocket Scientist wrote:

Did I say the Imperium has 'no defeats'?

No, just no major ones. It doesn't lose the gothic war or Tyranid wars or armageddons, or heresy or beast or any of the major wars. It also doesn't lose anywhere near as often as the other armies, sorry but that's what I've come across while reading through the lexicanum and Black Library.

The imperium survived the gothic war. 'Win' is a Stretch. Abaddon won too, considering how he got precisely what he wanted.

The imperium didn't win the tyranid wars yet either. They're ongoing, and the imperium is, at best, holding on by its finger tips. They have had some temporary wins and holding actions but on the whole? Behemoth was a scouting force. And it decimated a spiral arm of the whole galaxy. Kraken still hasn't been dealt with. Leviathan represents an outflanking on a galactic scale and it's only through terrifying sacrifices that they're even holding on. When you destroy a thousand of your own planets To create a firebreak just to buy some time, as kryptman did, things aren't going too well. And then there are the countless other fleets, and strands of fleets and so on. Remember too some of the older quotes - even if they armed every man, woman and child, they still won't have enough manpower to stand up to the tyranids in the long run.

Armageddon. Again, still ongoing.

Heresy. They survived it. Win is a stretch, considering the cost of the victory. And it's Still ongoing, technically speaking.

They may one day be defeated in the future is not the same as they have been defeated. The Imperium has never suffered a major defeat, and the fact that some major conflicts are still ongoing does not change that.


Just to illustrate the point, the most major conflicts since the Horus Heresy:
Black Crusades:
1st: Imperial Victory. Chaos attacks Cadia and fails to take it.
2nd: Imperial Victory. Chaos attacks Cadia and fails to take it.
3rd: Imperial Victory. Chaos attacks Cadia and fails to take it, altough this one could be discounted since it was only a diversion so that Abbaddon could go to a tomb to desecrate it.
4th: Imperial Victory. Chaos attacks Cadia and fails to take it. The attack on Cadia however is again a diversion, so that Abbaddon can conquer a different world. While he breaks the defenders, Imperial reinforcements send lil' Abby running back to the eye with his tail between his legs and he fails to do any significant damage to the Imperium whatsoever.
5th: Imperial Victory. Abbadon sacks a few backwater planets and even manages to destroy two redshirt Space Marine Chapters who were made up specially for this occasion, have no known history, details or even a colour scheme and have never been mentioned in the fluff before or after this moment, making their destruction was thus totally insignificant and without impact. After that, Abbadon was driven back to the Eye yet again.
6th: CHAOS VICTORY!!! Woohoo! Abbadon finally wins something! Except... it is against a rival Chaos warlord rather than against the Imperium... Still, a victory is a victory right? Maybe that is why Chaos fights itself so often? They must get tired of being constantly defeated after all.
7th: Imperial Victory. Abbadon is too afraid to attack Cadia now and therefore makes the wise decision to just go around it (what was the importance of Cadia again?). He massacres the Blood Angels who might be only a single Chapter, but are at least a major Chapter, making this the biggest Chaos achievement so far. However, he is then driven back into the Eye and the Blood Angels recover without suffering any lasting damage. Again a totally meaningless conflict.
8th: ?. The Black Legion commits a number totally random acts of petty violence on insignificant targets and then goes back to the Eye, presumably to share a good laugh with Tzeentch. The Imperium is left wondering wtf just happened. for a moment and then carries on as normal.
9th: Imperial Victory. Abbadon ravages a completely inconsequential sector without any prior establishment (and therefore significance) in the fluff before being driven back into the Eye.
10th: Imperial Victory. Abbadon allies with the Iron Warriors. Still too afraid of the undefeatable defenses at Cadia (and I thought the Iron Warriors were siege specialists?) he decides to attack the Iron Hands instead. Unsurprisingly, they are defeated when Iron Hands reinforcements arrive and sent back running to the Eye. All of the combined might of the Black Legion and Iron Warriors fails to defeat one single Chapter of Space Marines. All hail the glorious Space Marines.
11th: Ork Victory. Yeah. You read that right. Ork victory. Sick of always losing, Abbadon decides to take on an easy target. Orks never really win anything right? Wrong. The Orks might virtually always lose against everything, but apparently even they win vs the Black Legion.
12th: aka Gothic War. Imperial Victory. Abbadon finally decides to attack a system that is more than just a funny name. However he is defeated once again when Imperial reinforcements show up (notice a pattern here). At least he now has two fancy superweapons to show for it, even though those weapons are not actually all that super considering the ease with which they seem to get destroyed and the fact that they could not even help him win the Gothic War. Still, a lasting consequence is a lasting consequence.
13th: Unresolved. Abbadon decides to finally try Cadia again. Unsurprisingly, he fails, becoming trapped on the planet. Fighting is still ongoing, but considering the previous Black Crusades I think I already know how this one is going to end. Maybe at least if GW decides to go full End Times on 40k there will be finally a first real success for Chaos.
Notice a pattern here? Whatever happens, both the Imperium and Chaos always come out of it without suffering any consequences and then just start over again and again. Like the episodes of a funny cartoon. There are no meaningful, lasting effects that carry on throughout the fluff. Everything is always reset for the next episode.
And above all, while browsing through the list of battles involving Chaos on Lexicanum, I could not find a single Chaos victory against the Imperium. Not even minor ones. Why does the Imperium consider Chaos a threat again?

Wars for Armageddon:
1st: Imperial Victory. Daemon Prince Angron finally shows up again and immediately gets his butt kicked by the Grey Knights. If I were him, I'd prefer staying in the Warp too. There is just no winning against the Imperium.
2nd: Imperial Victory. Huge Ork Waaagh fails to take single planet even with Imperial leadership being extremely incompetent at first. Orks lose against PDF, lose even harder once the glorious Space Marines show up.
3rd: Stalemate. Ghazghkull tries again, fails, gets bored and leaves.

War of the Beast: Imperial Victory. The Beast leads the largest Waaagh in history, wrecks some stuff (but nothing really important) and then gets kicked in the nuts by the glorious Space Marines before his head exlodes in a huge anticlimax. Even when a large part of the entire Ork race is united, they still lose. The damage the Orks wrought is quickly restored. Still, this conflict at least is the best in 40k history since the Horus Heresy, as the Orks got to wreck a lot of things and it actually did have some lasting consequences even if the Orks failed to do lasting damage. This is more like how many conflicts in WHFB were written. I'd like to see more of this, but maybe next time with an ultimate victory for the Orks. As it stands now, even if it does face a major threat, the Imperium emerges stronger out of it without ever suffering any major setbacks or lasting damage. I'd like to see the Imperium defeated and only barely surviving for once, rather than being nearly defeated but coming out on top in the end.

The War of the Beast is a good start. I hope GW keeps it up and takes it a little further, writing fluff in which Chaos, Orks and others can also be awesome and victorious, rather than just having short-term successes every now and then that are quickly undone by the Imperium. I like Space Marines, but winning all the time makes for a really boring setting.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:
In all of the years of 40k, the Imperium has never yet suffered a major, permanent and irrecoverable loss. In Fantasy, the Empire lost entire provinces and had all of its major cities sacked and destroyed at least once, the Elves had a significant part of their kingdom swallowed up by the sea and were stuck in a permanent civil war and the Dwarves were pushed from their once huge empire to just a few surviving holds. In 40k, no faction ever suffered a loss quite like that.

You need to factor in the scale of things. 40k is so much bigger than fantasy. All of those things happen, every single day to every single faction in the 40kiverse. It's just spread out over a thousand million worlds.

Yes. And that should not make any difference. Losing a single city is a huge loss to the Empire of Fantasy, but the Imperium would not even notice it. Losing an entire planet or even a sector means very little to the Imperium. It has a million worlds and thousands of sectors. The losses suffered should scale with the scale of the setting, but they don't. That is a problem. The Empire lost an entire province to the Orcs and had its capital and several other important cities sacked and the emperor killed. In 40k terms, that should translate to Orks destroying about 1/12th of the Imperium without it recovering afterwards, and sacking Terra, with the High Lords all being killed. However, Orks have never had any big successes like that. Quite on the contrary, one of the supposedly largest and most terrifying Ork Waaaghs in history is consistently failing at taking even a single planet (Armageddon).
Those kind of defeats that factions in Fantasy suffered is never ever suffered by the Imperium, and that sucks. I want to read about how Ghazkull laid waste to Holy Terra, how he was banging on the doors of the Emperor's throne room with the combined might of the Custodes only being barely able to keep the door sealed shut before the Orks eventually grow bored and go seek another fight, leaving a destroyed Terra in their wake. Something like that. That would establish the Orks and Ghazkull as actual threats, rather than as saturday morning cartoon villains ready to be stomped in this week's episode of Space Marine awesomeness. Make their actions have actual consequences.

Deadnight wrote:
If we are talking historically, the imperium has had quite a few near death experiences, such as the heresy, thr black crusades, the tyrannic wars etc as well as massive conflicts and civil wars such as the Nova terra insuregnum, the reign of vandire, the fourth quadrant rebellion etc. As you say, nothing 'permanent' in the strictest sense, but being realistic, each of these defeats could take a thousand years to fully recover from. And as a comparison to fantasy, how isn't it the empire gets a get out of jail free card for something similar (I mean, it lose some entire provinces, has its major cities sacked etc) but always manages To come back - it was there, still standing right up to the end times. The imperium has taken similar blows - planets and entire sectors fallen to total war, lost, destroyed etc but never loses?

The Black Crusades were far from a near-death experience for the Imperium. Every single one of them failed to do significant, lasting damage to the Imperium. Meanwhile, all of Chaos' might, like the Orks, fails to conquer a single planet (Cadia). Such terrifying foes!
All of the others are civil wars, which only reinforces my point. The greatest threat to the Imperium is the Imperium itself. All other factions in 40k are no real threat, they never win any major victories and they only exist to show how awesome and powerful the Imperium is.

but that is a victory for the Imperium, the Orks have different objectives then taking planets, their victory is finding a never ending war, which they found on Armageddon which is a victory for the Orks.

Asterios wrote:

 Anemone wrote:
@Asterios: Okay, cool, so you agree we can settle this then by drawing on the data? Great.

-In the Achilus Crusade over sixty-systems, not just planets, but SYSTEMS, have already been claimed by the Imperium.
-Took the world of Dread Mandragora
-Then we have the Angevin Crusade which we are told conquered over 200 worlds
-A Blood Angel force seizes the arceotech world of Hell's Hollow from Chaos
-Iron Hands take Shemnoch from the Necron
-The Bellrath Crusade conquered the entire Laanath Rifts
-Then we have the Ultramarines taking Corinth and Damnos
-We have the Invaders Chapter destroying all of Craftworld Idharae
-Nimbosa was recently taken from the Tau by the Black Templars
-Then we have the Lok'kroll xenocide when their worlds get conquered
-Can't forget they captured Ullanor from the Orks at the end of the Beast Waaagh!!!
-Then some Space Marines claim the Verdeworlds from the Eldar
-Then the Blood Angels defeated the Night Lords, Death Guard and Word Bearers to claim the entire star-system of Blackstar.
-Then the Blood Angels also claim the twelve worlds of Blackfang from the Orks and, we're told, they're so successful they claim an additional two nearby planetary systems as well.
-
-

I'm gonna stop there, for now. This is just my first page so say if you need more.

@Lord Damocles: It has been a while since I read it, I agree, that does actually make it seem more to me like the Necron won. Not 100% sure but I'm happy to concede it since it doesn't really change anything, its still a drop in a bucket.

ok lets finish this then shall we:

-Achilus Crusade is an ongoing crusade so according to you that would be a stalemate or a loss for the Imperium since they have not won the war yet.
-Dread Mandragora was worlds they "reclaimed" hence they lost them in the first place, so once again not a victory for them
-Angevin Crusade you do realize that faltered mainly due to a major warp storm and that the planets they did take are under attack by Orks and Xeno's raiders? so once again not a win bu your standards. just because the Imperium "claimed" them does not make them the Imperiums. I could lay claim to the whole of the US it does not make it mine though.
-Hell's Hollow also belonged to the Imperium before hand so just a reclamation operation
-Shemnoch unfortunately there is Canon conflict with this with the 7th. edition rulebook stating that the battle took place on Sazalor
-Bellrath Crusade seems legitimate against a Xenos force it shall be allowed but still no planet names ?
-Corinth former Ork world will be allowed but Damnos belonged to the Imperium till it was discovered to be on a Necron Tomb World. so will not be allowed.
-Craftworld Idharae to which CraftWorld Alaitoc destroyued the Space Marines homeworld so I will call that a tie.
-Nimbosa once again a planet lost by the Imperium and was only reclaimed.
-Lok'kroll xenocide yeah mostly destroyed by Exterminatus from Orbit, not a victory but a slaughter.
-Ullanor and yet Ghazghkull is in the process of taking it back, since its new name now is Armageddon after being teleported by the Fabricator. (oopsie, you didn't read that book did you?)
-Verdeworlds information on this is scant, no mention if the settlers moved to an imperial world or what world? or if the Imperium even settled them
-Blackstar once again a reclamation of Imperial planets
-Blackfang will give you that.

so after going thru your whole list I have reduced it greatly because reclaiming land is not new land.

also to let you know how wrong the Lexicanum is, it says the Imperium won the third war on Armageddon even though the fighting still continues, yet you use that as Fluff to back you up? also the same Lexicanum also states the war continues too:

Where it says the war is over with an Imperium victory:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Armageddon

Third War for Armageddon
Main article: Third War for Armageddon
The Third War for Armageddon occurred fifty years after the Second War. Ghazghkull Thraka returned, leading a second Waaagh! smashing into Armageddon. Commissar Yarrick and many of the heroes who fought for the planet before were called into battle again.
Aftermath
Although the 3rd Armageddon War is over (with the Imperium winning a narrow victory), fighting still continues on the planet. Ghazghkull has left the planet and continues to plague neighboring Imperial worlds. He is being pursued by Yarrick with a full Black Templars crusade at his back. The Orks have come to regard Armageddon as a kind of Valhalla, where they can always come to find a good fight, and the Imperium must still send more troops to battle to keep the planet in Imperial hands while Ork reinforcements continue to flood in.[3]

and where it says the war continues:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Third_War_for_Armageddon

The War Continues

Becoming bored by the growing stalemate, Ghazghkull quickly ran out of patience. He left the conquest of Armageddon to his generals and went in search of something more entertaining. When word of this reached Yarrick he too left Armageddon with a strike force of Black Templars, determined to hunt down Ghazghkull and end things between them once and for all.[4b] Yarrick and the Black Templars were able to corner Ghazghkull at the Battle of Haunted Gulf, but the Warboss was able to elude his foes yet again.
However there are still countless Orks infesting Armageddon and the war rages to this day. For the Orks, the war has become known as the "Big Scrap"[4b] (also other name - "Ragnarork")[9] and more Orks arrive to the system with each day as word spreads.[4b] The cost of the war is measured in human lives, and the death toll spirals towards the billions. The Imperials know one thing, however: whatever the cost, Armageddon must not fall.[2c]

so even on the same Lexicanum there is conflict on what is up, and yet you use that is irrefutable proof?

Reclaiming worlds most definitely counts as victories. If the Imperium reclaims the world, that basically negates them losing one. So to say that only taking new worlds count is ridiculous. By that logic, the Necrons never ever win, because at best they reclaim a world that was theirs back when they ruled the galaxy.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Reclaiming worlds most definitely counts as victories. If the Imperium reclaims the world, that basically negates them losing one. So to say that only taking new worlds count is ridiculous. By that logic, the Necrons never ever win, because at best they reclaim a world that was theirs back when they ruled the galaxy.

never said the Necrons ever won now did I? the Tyranids always win though, even if stopped since they have gone further into the empire are never truly stopped and eat worlds on their way and the Imperium can never reclaim what they have lost to the Tyranids or want too. as to Orks if they can find their never ending war (like Armageddon) that is a victory for them in their books.

The Imperium lost the world 'Baran', home of the Baran Siege Masters IG regiments, to feral Orks and then the Eldar of Biel-Tan. Check out the 'Baran War' article on Lexicanum. The Imperium very quickly become a footnote.

The Imperium lost the world Gnosis Prime to the Eldar (from the latest Eldar codex).

There's another instance when the defenders of an Imperial world are defeated by Saim Hann, the rest of the population being left as a 'gift' to the Dark Eldar.

They are out there.

If we're counting 'victories' planet-by-planet then the 'nids had plenty of victories one their way to munching Ultramar, ultimate ones too.

Asterios wrote:


never said the Necrons ever won now did I? the Tyranids always win though, even if stopped since they have gone further into the empire are never truly stopped and eat worlds on their way and the Imperium can never reclaim what they have lost to the Tyranids or want too. as to Orks if they can find their never ending war (like Armageddon) that is a victory for them in their books.

What, so you seriously don't think the Necrons ever win?

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:


never said the Necrons ever won now did I? the Tyranids always win though, even if stopped since they have gone further into the empire are never truly stopped and eat worlds on their way and the Imperium can never reclaim what they have lost to the Tyranids or want too. as to Orks if they can find their never ending war (like Armageddon) that is a victory for them in their books.

What, so you seriously don't think the Necrons ever win?

no just saying I never brought up the Necrons, my knowledge of the Terminator Robot aliens is limited at best , now Orks I can go on for days same with Nids.

Asterios wrote:


no just saying I never brought up the Necrons, my knowledge of the Terminator Robot aliens is limited at best , now Orks I can go on for days same with Nids.

Well, it's fairly simple. The Necrons once ruled pretty much the entire galaxy, but went into their deep sleep in the Tomb Worlds, and now have woken up to find the living having conquered it all. If you're going to say that the Imperium retaking a world that was once theirs doesn't count as a victory, than you're saying that the Necrons can never win, seeing as everything was once theirs.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:


no just saying I never brought up the Necrons, my knowledge of the Terminator Robot aliens is limited at best , now Orks I can go on for days same with Nids.

Well, it's fairly simple. The Necrons once ruled pretty much the entire galaxy, but went into their deep sleep in the Tomb Worlds, and now have woken up to find the living having conquered it all. If you're going to say that the Imperium retaking a world that was once theirs doesn't count as a victory, than you're saying that the Necrons can never win, seeing as everything was once theirs.

yes but I equate that to worlds taken by force from the Imperium, not worlds where one day you wake up to find some other species has been living on your world for millenia.