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Asterios wrote:


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.

In both cases the worlds were once theirs, and they're retaking it, and in many cases Tomb Worlds are destroyed or damaged, in which case the worlds are lost by false.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:


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.

In both cases the worlds were once theirs, and they're retaking it, and in many cases Tomb Worlds are destroyed or damaged, in which case the worlds are lost by false.

yes but I repeat i'm talking in terms of war, if a planet is taken without battle its just an acquisition not a conquest.

Asterios wrote:


yes but I repeat i'm talking in terms of war, if a planet is taken without battle its just an acquisition not a conquest.

So? Your argument was that many Imperial victories weren't really victories because they were just reclaiming worlds, not conquering new ones. All worlds the Necrons conquer are just being reclaimed, so by your logic, the Necrons can never win. The way they originally lost the planet is irrelevant.

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

The Emperor is a coalescence of multiple powerful psykers and directly supported as a God by the general Imperium, granting him MASSIVE psychic capabilities. Find me an Eldar made up of multiple of the most powerful Eldar psykers and directly worshipped to become a Warp entity, and we'll start talking.

Quoting the Lexicanum you seem to adhere to, Magnus is said to be "above all else a supremely powerful Psyker matched in the Imperium only by Malcador and surpassed only by the Emperor". So, emphasis in the Imperium. No comparison to any other xenos psykers. Let's take a look at Malcador, seeing as he's mentioned.

Malcador "was a powerful psyker who could communicate over long distances and wield immense power" - compare that to Eldrad: "He was perhaps the most gifted psyker amongst the Eldar, his incredible foresight having saved many thousands of Eldar lives" - and the Eldar are described by setting as the most gifted psykers.
Malcador and Magnus are damn good human psykers, but not Eldrad levels.

So, Eldrad's sitting comfortably here, only surpassed by an actual Warp God. That's rather impressive.

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.

You seem rather defeatist there. Allow me to give my verdict of the strongest psykers in the galaxy.

1. The Emperor. He is a Warp God, and channels the power of multiple, very powerful psykers himself. He is vastly powerful beyond belief.
2. Kairos Fateweaver, described as "the most powerful among the Lords of Change", who are in turn aspects of the God of Magic himself.
3. The Hive Mind - it blocks out the Warp itself, and as a gestalt consciousness, it surpasses the lesser choices.
4. Eldrad: hi there - our first mortal.
5. Probably Magnus, after being empowered by Tzeentch - a god's influence.

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 would rather call that poor writing than a deliberate malice.

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 would instead say that Lexicanum fails to address the finer details and consequences of a conflict. Their notes on them are fine. Their result, for the sake of a handy little TL;DR, is reductionist.

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.

Shown in the stories published. However, for that considerable number of fans who rather follow the setting, the Imperium is not ascendant.

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.

The Horus Heresy was barely won by the Imperium. Barely. Not a solid victory.

The Beast's Waaagh! again, also came close to destroying the Imperium. Hell, it killed the Lord Commander of the Imperium, and indirectly caused the deaths of all but two HLOT. And it can still happen again. Short of actually conquering the Imperium, of which the Imperium would never recover from, how could you do this?

Death Masque was badly written. However, we have a similar Eldar victory already: Armageddon. The Orks from Armageddon would have wiped out a craftworld if not for their redirection. An Eldar victory which wounds the Imperium to this day.

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.

Whilst also ignoring what is told to us in the setting.
I get it, you like the story, I like the setting. That's fine.
But neither is better than the other, so we appear to be at stalemate.

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.

Once again, ignoring Abaddon's goals and using an Imperial-centric victory condition of land and territory. Abaddon wanted the psyker. He got the psyker.

Why not let Ghazghkull beat a Space Marine Army on a planet and conquer the planet?

Piscina. Ask Belial, the 1st captain of the 1st legion what happened. Ghazghkull BISECTED him. Ghazghkull got a fight. He won under his terms.
Orks don't CARE about taking planets. They care about a bloody good fight, and Armageddon is exactly that for them. It's a win for them.

Why not let Eldrad outsmart and defeat Logan the same way he was outsmarted and defeated by the Deathwatch?

Why have Horus' fall be so terribly motivated? Answer - bad writing. The Deathwatch should have had a smaller opponent to prove their skill against, I'll accept that. But that's due to bad writing, not an inherent vendetta.

Why not give the characters from these factions the amount of victories and impressive moments that numerous Marine and Imperium characters already have?

Because the most popular armies are Imperial. GW need to keep their largest player base happy, so make the IoM the focal point. This, in turn, draws more people to the IoM, creating a vicious circle.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:


yes but I repeat i'm talking in terms of war, if a planet is taken without battle its just an acquisition not a conquest.

So? Your argument was that many Imperial victories weren't really victories because they were just reclaiming worlds, not conquering new ones. All worlds the Necrons conquer are just being reclaimed, so by your logic, the Necrons can never win. The way they originally lost the planet is irrelevant.

if they are reconquering their world, then yes, but only if the world was lost in battle, retaking a world lost in battle is a hollow victory at best since it indicates you lost it in battle so failed, so a minus one for losing the planet in battle and a plus one for taking the planet back, leaves you even.

as to the Necrons, well you snooze you lose.

Asterios wrote:

if they are reconquering their world, then yes, but only if the world was lost in battle, retaking a world lost in battle is a hollow victory at best since it indicates you lost it in battle so failed, so a minus one for losing the planet in battle and a plus one for taking the planet back, leaves you even.

as to the Necrons, well you snooze you lose.

Yeah, you snooze, you lose. Losing a planet is a failure either way, whether it be because you fought for it and lost or simply failed to defend it in the first place. Hence by your logic, the Necrons can never win.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:

if they are reconquering their world, then yes, but only if the world was lost in battle, retaking a world lost in battle is a hollow victory at best since it indicates you lost it in battle so failed, so a minus one for losing the planet in battle and a plus one for taking the planet back, leaves you even.

as to the Necrons, well you snooze you lose.

Yeah, you snooze, you lose. Losing a planet is a failure either way, whether it be because you fought for it and lost or simply failed to defend it in the first place. Hence by your logic, the Necrons can never win.

except the Necrons do more then just take back their planets, they do go after others and such. and I repeat they never lost their planets in battle.

What has more impressiveness taking a planet with no opposition? or taking a planet by force in battle?

Asterios wrote:


except the Necrons do more then just take back their planets, they do go after others and such.

The Necrons ruled the galaxy, so they were all their planets. So no, they don't go after others.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

The Squats were removed from the setting. That hardly counts. "Tyranids ate their homeworlds" isn't even official fluff.

Hence the smilie. I thought it was rather obvious I was bring less than serious here...

On to other posters, regarding a successful ork war against the imperium, da green kroosade, which has overrun and overwhelmed the skarus system during the world,wide eye of terror campaign was a good example. A bunch of ork fans did so well with their games That gw ended up writing it into the lore. Shame it gets overlooked.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:


except the Necrons do more then just take back their planets, they do go after others and such.

The Necrons ruled the galaxy, so they were all their planets. So no, they don't go after others.

and yet they slept and had them colonized by other races so they have an uphill battle to regain what they lost, right now they are behind so they are not winners.

put it this way, you have $10 you buy $10 worth of scratchers and only win $5 are you a winner? you did win $5, but on the other hand you lost $5 too.

Asterios wrote:

and yet they slept and had them colonized by other races so they have an uphill battle to regain what they lost, right now they are behind so they are not winners.

put it this way, you have $10 you buy $10 worth of scratchers and only win $5 are you a winner? you did win $5, but on the other hand you lost $5 too.

Whether overall the species is at a high or low point in their history is again, irrelevant. When the Necrons reclaim a planet, that is a victory for them. The scrather analogy falls apart as that it's at the same time, which would be like if the Necrons didn't defend two planets they could have in order to conquer a third. A better analogy would be if I lost ten dollars gambling one week, and won five the next. In that case, yes, that second week is most definitely a win.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:

and yet they slept and had them colonized by other races so they have an uphill battle to regain what they lost, right now they are behind so they are not winners.

put it this way, you have $10 you buy $10 worth of scratchers and only win $5 are you a winner? you did win $5, but on the other hand you lost $5 too.

Whether overall the species is at a high or low point in their history is again, irrelevant. When the Necrons reclaim a planet, that is a victory for them. The scrather analogy falls apart as that it's at the same time, which would be like if the Necrons didn't defend two planets they could have in order to conquer a third. A better analogy would be if I lost ten dollars gambling one week, and won five the next. In that case, yes, that second week is most definitely a win.

and yet you will still be down $5 at that rate if that happened every week where you bet $10 and only win $5 you are losing, slowly but surely since you are not even gaining ground but losing ground. its like taking one step forward and then 2 steps back, you will not go forward very fast but backwards.

@Asterios: What do you mean 'only one was a win against a playable Xenos Race' are Orks and Necron not playable Xenos races? Where are you coming from with that line?

Also the Imperium claims all human worlds as theirs. Many worlds they conquer were not settled by the Imperium but settled by the prior human hegemony of the Dark Age of Technology. If you are going to count all human worlds as the Imperium's then I will count all Ork worlds as Ork worlds.

Besides I reject this silly notion that reconquering a planet is an automatic loss out of hand. A statement like 'if you reconquer something it doesn't count as a win' is completely ridiculous. Numerous wars involved the reconquest of lost territory, they don't cease to be victories. Asterios your logic that whenever a force reclaims a world it had lost at a point in time it doesn't count as a victory is absolutely ridiculous. You do realize that recapturing terrain is an actual viable tactic and counts as a victory? When you recapture lost ground to an enemy force it is considered a victory.

Also for someone who enjoys quoting Ghazghkull's codex so much you realize it specifically states in Gazghkull's own Codex that he is not just content with a good fight?

@Sgt_Smudge: How are ancient Terran Shamans powerful Psykers? Humanity wasn't even approaching its psychic Apotheosis yet.

The Emperor was additionally a more powerful Psyker than any Eldar long before he was deified.

How about we take a poll. Seriously go and ask people who's a more powerful psyker, Magnus or Eldrad, because I can't actually believe you're genuinely telling me you think Magnus is weaker than Eldrad.

As for your list, what can I say, I disagree completely. Magnus would easily crush both Eldrad and Kairos in a psychic battle, without a doubt. We know he can defeat Battle Titans and whole Fleets with his psychic might, something Kairos and Eldrad can't even near to approach. So I disagree with you completely and, honestly, can't actually quite buy that you believe Eldard is more psychically powerful than Magnus or Malcador after what they've done in the Horus Heresy.

Also that Eldar poor precognition is due to bad writing doesn't change that it is poor. Also, I didn't say it was because of malice, but even with no malice it doesn't change that Eldar precognition is very poor.

So please go tell the people on Lexicanum, 1d4chan and Warhammer Wiki to change all their articles from saying 'Imperium victory' to 'Imperium defeat'. If that is what you honestly believe.

How is Armageddon comparable to Ynnead being almost destroyed and all the Eldar Craftworlds losing power?

Also, regardless, that still means you couldn't bring up any examples of Imperium defeats comparable to the Horus Heresy and Beast Waaagh!!! for Chaos and Orks. Once you can demonstrate that I'll find your position more convincing.

As for Pandorax; In Traitor's Hate it is explicitly stated that even Abaddon's goal, what he sought from the Damnation Cache, wasn't achieved. So Pandorax was in all senses a defeat for Abaddon.

Also Ghazghkull did not bisect Belial, listen to the audiobook, but he does beat them. None of this changes that he still loses the battle of Piscina. Honestly why are you so opposed to Ghazghkull just conquering a major planet? Is it so unthinkable to you? Besides Ghazghkull is concerned with more than just fighting, it is explicitly stated so in his codex

I agree we are at a stalemate completely. I don't think we can proceed. For me it is necessary to occur within the canonically reflected fluff, for you commentary in the background that the Imperium is fading is sufficient. We simply disagree.

I just don't get why you seem totally opposed to simply allowing other factions to win as major victories against the Imperium as the Imperium wins against them, or allowing characters like Eldrad and Ghazghkull to have as much success as characters like Dante, Logan and Azrael have in the fluff.

EDIT: Also, Smudge, you seem to be misunderstanding me. I don't care about malice or not as the motivating factor, I care about the fact that the bad writing creates a very skewed story which isn't fun for non-Imperium players and I would like that to change to become more fair for all players of all factions.

Asterios wrote:


and yet you will still be down $5 at that rate if that happened every week where you bet $10 and only win $5 you are losing, slowly but surely since you are not even gaining ground but losing ground. its like taking one step forward and then 2 steps back, you will not go forward very fast but backwards.

Sure, you're still down. But that doesn't change the fact that that's a win and a victory. And seeing as you've yet to prove the 10 dollar loss seeing as Anemone pointed out an example where over sixty sectors were lost, you've not shown how the Imperium is losing more than its winning.

 Anemone wrote:
@Asterios: What do you mean 'only one was a win against a playable Xenos Race' are Orks and Necron not playable Xenos races? Where are you coming from with that line?

Also the Imperium claims all human worlds as theirs. Many worlds they conquer were not settled by the Imperium but settled by the prior human hegemony of the Dark Age of Technology. If you are going to count all human worlds as the Imperium's then I will count all Ork worlds as Ork worlds.

Besides I reject this silly notion that reconquering a planet is an automatic loss out of hand. A statement like 'if you reconquer something it doesn't count as a win' is completely ridiculous. Numerous wars involved the reconquest of lost territory, they don't cease to be victories. Asterios your logic that whenever a force reclaims a world it had lost at a point in time it doesn't count as a victory is absolutely ridiculous. You do realize that recapturing terrain is an actual viable tactic and counts as a victory? When you recapture lost ground to an enemy force it is considered a victory.

Also for someone who enjoys quoting Ghazghkull's codex so much you realize it specifically states in Gazghkull's own Codex that he is not just content with a good fight?

No Ghazghkull is going for the unending war, the Ragnarok the Aporkalypse or what have you, I never said he wanted a good fight nor that he was content with a good fight, eh wants to see the galaxy burn and hes well on his way to doing that with 2 segmentums under fire from his actions.

as to recapturing lost territory from an enemy being a victory, it is a hollow victory since they lost it in the first place which means you just attributed victories over the Imperium by saying so, so which is it? most of your examples were examples of Imperial losses too, so for each of those wins there was a loss so you do the calculations.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

Asterios wrote:


and yet you will still be down $5 at that rate if that happened every week where you bet $10 and only win $5 you are losing, slowly but surely since you are not even gaining ground but losing ground. its like taking one step forward and then 2 steps back, you will not go forward very fast but backwards.

Sure, you're still down. But that doesn't change the fact that that's a win and a victory. And seeing as you've yet to prove the 10 dollar loss seeing as Anemone pointed out an example where over sixty sectors were lost, you've not shown how the Imperium is losing more than its winning.

and yet you are still losing too, can't have it both ways, if you played $10 and won $10, you broke even, if you played $10 and won $15 then you are ahead and winning, but if you win less then you played you are behind and losing.

Eldar precognition is categorically not poor. If you take one example of its failure in some flawed fluff written by a power-armoured fanboy as absolute proof of that then there's not much that can be done.

It's stated multiple times that Eldrad is one of the most powerful psychic beings in the galaxy. So what if we haven't read a story about him ripping a titan in half? Does that mean that he couldn't?

I'm not disagreeing with you that the fluff that exists is poor in many places, I don't think anyone would begrudge you that, but taking gakky fluff as absolute truth is not really the right way to look at the 40k universe if you're anyone who's not an 8-year-old with bunch of crayon-painted marines.

Yes the fluff would be enriched by listing the victories of the enemies of mankind. No, the fact that they are not listed does not mean that they do not exist.

An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

@Asterios: I can't believe this. Okay, let me be clear; in history the following situation often occurred;

You have a piece of land. It belongs to polity A. Then polity B arrived and conquered it from polity A. Then, later, polity A comes back and conquers it from polity B and polity B never conquers it back, it remains polity A's from that point on. In reality we call that a victory for polity A, by your system it would be called a defeat.

The fact that you're trying to understand a military endeavour in purely simplistic economic terms is, itself, a problem.

Look if you literally cannot comprehend why the retaking and holding of lost ground is a victory then there is no point continuing this discussion.

Additionally the examples I listed, which are few, on their own include over 200 worlds and over 72 star-systems conquered by the Imperium. That's a catastrophically larger number then provided by you.

@Ynneadwraith: The problem with that logic, though I understand and sympathize with what you're trying to say, is that it would allow me to say anything and consider it canon. If, so long as the opposite is not explicitly specified, anything can be canon I can then state that a league of sentient cheese-wheels actually rules the galaxy from behind the scenes. Would you consider that canon? It's never explicitly denied, and it isn't shown, so it could be happening off-screen.

Do you see why I find the solution you're suggesting difficult to swallow?

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Eldar precognition is categorically not poor. If you take one example of its failure in some flawed fluff written by a power-armoured fanboy as absolute proof of that then there's not much that can be done.

It's stated multiple times that Eldrad is one of the most powerful psychic beings in the galaxy. So what if we haven't read a story about him ripping a titan in half? Does that mean that he couldn't?

I'm not disagreeing with you that the fluff that exists is poor in many places, I don't think anyone would begrudge you that, but taking gakky fluff as absolute truth is not really the right way to look at the 40k universe if you're anyone who's not an 8-year-old with bunch of crayon-painted marines.

Yes the fluff would be enriched by listing the victories of the enemies of mankind. No, the fact that they are not listed does not mean that they do not exist.

An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

That doesn't really solve the original dilemma, though. The poster complained there was no reaosn to get invested in any non-Imperial faction as the fluff is just about them getting their ass handed to them. The fact that the fluff doesn't show the victories of man's enemies, whether they occurred or not, still doesn't help them out.

 Anemone wrote:
@Asterios: I can't believe this. Okay, let me be clear; in history the following situation often occurred;

You have a piece of land. It belongs to polity A. Then polity B arrived and conquered it from polity A. Then, later, polity A comes back and conquers it from polity B and polity B never conquers it back, it remains polity A's from that point on. In reality we call that a victory for polity A, by your system it would be called a defeat.

Additionally the examples I listed, which are few, on their own include over 200 worlds and over 72 star-systems conquered by the Imperium. That's a catastrophically larger number then provided by you.

and yet I never really got into the whole sectors that the Imperium lost I went by specific planet names

as to your example it is not a defeat nor is it a victory, it is breaking even.

What is 'breaking even' in war? Are you saying it was a tie?

So...when the USSR reclaimed territory lost to Nazi Germany...it didn't win, it just tied?

 Anemone wrote:
What is 'breaking even' in war? Are you saying it was a tie?

So...when the USSR reclaimed territory lost to Nazi Germany...it didn't win, it just tied?

no because they also gained more land, even a portion of Germany, so no they did not lose WWII but they did lose the Cold war.

look at N. Korea and S. Korea, who won the Korean war? (or police action if you like?)

But surely every instance of reclaiming lost ground was a tie? So every battle where the Soviet Union captured previously held ground wasn't a victory, only a tie?

No historian would ever agree to such an analysis.

EDIT: No-one strictly won, what's your point? Ties happen of course.

By your logic Vietnam didn't win the Vietnam war because all it conquered was just territory that used to comprise Vietnam. By your logic if a nation is conquered and then beats back its invaders it didn't 'win'. Which is ridiculous.

This was painful.

So, let's make on attempt to discuss this legitimately.

A collapsing tautology goes like this:

1) I define all rubber balls to be blue.
2) I demand you show me a rubber ball that's not blue.

If you do, I reiterate point 1.

It's a completely invalid means of argument because it employs a shifting standard.

So, the Imperium: What is a loss, Anemone? If they take it back later, it's not a loss. If it's not fundamentally devastating to the Imperium, it's not a loss. Anything that doesn't cause a fundamental shift in the Imperium's power structure isn't a loss. To fundamentally change the Imperium's power structure, it would have to collapse, because the Imperium lacks the structural stability for it to survive such a thing. But you're *not* arguing that the collapse of the Imperium is the only victory you'd accept?

Then the side comments, which strongly read as: I'm an Ork loyalist and on behalf of someone else, an Eldar loyalist. That might be unfair, but here we go:

1) Eldar don't cut Titans in half with their mind. That's wasteful, invites Daemons and Chaos, and frankly, the Imperium can't replace those titans. If Eldar sliced them in half with their minds, the Imperium would lost iireplaceable- do you understand that? IRREPLACEABLE- war engines constantly and, oh yes, collapse.
2) You only accept the WW1 era concept of ground as victory. Abaddon did what he wanted every Black Crusade; his forces left intact, and his tag-alongs were left behind to be cleaned up by the Imperium. That's the fluff in the Black Legion codex in a nutshell. The Imperium thinks it won, it didn't. Same with Traitor's Hate. Chaos accomplished what it set out to do- the daemon cache is going to rip open, and the Imperium can't fix it.

Heck, the second most important, productive, and powerful forge world in the galaxy- Gryphone IV- was wiped out by, I think, Nids? recently.

The Imperium can't afford to win the way it's been winning. Attrition is exceeding replacement. It's why it's 5 minutes to midnight.

Dark Eldar don't want conquest, they want slaves. Commorraugh is full of slaves, they're winning.

Eldar are creating a new god. Eldrad can now hear his heartbeat. They're winning.

Orks are gathering in a galaxy-wide WAAAGH centered on Ghazgkull/if they win against the Nids due to Kryptmann's gambit. They're winning.

Tau- by the way, the entire Tau empire used to be Imperial space- are expanding and have stymied the Imperial attempt to eliminate them. They've also gutted the Raven Guard at the Raven Guard's own game. Tau are winning, because they're expanding.

Chaos is launching its end game. Chaos is winning.

Tyranids have finally reached this galaxy. Nids are winning, because they have an exponential growth curve each time they aren't stopped- every bullet, every shell casing, goes into making more Nids when they win.

The Imperium is the only thing that's not gaining ground. Fluff stories are set in that context, as heroes struggle against the inevitable collapse the Imperium is currently headed for.

Also, victories, I'd argue the Imperium lost the Horus Heresy, but aside from that; I'd recommend reading up on the concept of the Pyrrhic victory. Name Imperial victories that it can afford- name victories that aren't Pyrrhic- and you'll be less irritated.

Also, "data"? You need a statistically valid sample to take data! Almost all the stories are about the Imperium or about someone fighting the Imperium, the Imperium is over-sampled.

EDIT: You also are missing the subtext pretty badly. GW has a long-standing "in-universe" fluff tradition where "lower-access" level stories portray the Imperium as winning, but the "higher access" show it losing. Your emphasis on lexicanum et al implies to me you don't have access to a very extensive fluff collection otherwise.

Take the old Index Astartes articles. Low access level: Imperial Fists. They won the Iron Cage at terrible cost due to their rugged resistance, the IW tried to trap them but underestimated them. Perturabo feared to face Dorn.

High inquisitorial access: Iron Warriors. The Iron Warriors slaughtered the Fists at their leisure, taking their time so the Fists would know they were beaten. Perturabo allowed Dorn to rage helplessly to increase the psychological defeat of his sons, and allowed Dorn to escape with the survivors because they knew they were beaten, and beaten easily.

Which is right? Any article on the Fists will probably cite the former article- but the latter, "in-universe", is more accurate and is "suppressed".

Anemone wrote:@Sgt_Smudge: How are ancient Terran Shamans powerful Psykers? Humanity wasn't even approaching its psychic Apotheosis yet.

Source please?

What I have is that these shamans were "the wisest and most powerful of living humans at that time; the conclave of Shamans. These men, termed 'shamans' by their society, were powerful psykers with great experience of the Warp". Sounds decent enough to me.

The Emperor was additionally a more powerful Psyker than any Eldar long before he was deified.

Caused by the shaman influence. Eldrad is one Eldar. The Emperor is a combination of the wisest and most powerful of humans at the time, who were all powerful psykers in their own right.

How about we take a poll. Seriously go and ask people who's a more powerful psyker, Magnus or Eldrad, because I can't actually believe you're genuinely telling me you think Magnus is weaker than Eldrad.

So much for you objectivity and adherance to canon and sources.

As for your list, what can I say, I disagree completely. Magnus would easily crush both Eldrad and Kairos in a psychic battle, without a doubt.

Prove it. I gave a canon quote which supports my theory.

We know he can defeat Battle Titans and whole Fleets with his psychic might, something Kairos and Eldrad can't even near to approach.

Can't, or don't?

Psychic ability, I repeat, is NOT about how big a fireball you can make. Psychic ability is ability to channel the warp, which Eldrad and Kairos do via divination instead. They are no less strong.

So I disagree with you completely and, honestly, can't actually quite buy that you believe Eldard is more psychically powerful than Magnus or Malcador after what they've done in the Horus Heresy.

That's fine, but I provided canon sources. You have not. Give me something in the canon, which objectively places them at a higher tier of strength, please.

Also that Eldar poor precognition is due to bad writing doesn't change that it is poor. Also, I didn't say it was because of malice, but even with no malice it doesn't change that Eldar precognition is very poor.

In that singular depiction. As a counter, I propose Armageddon, and Eldrad guiding Ghazghkull into the Imperium's path.

So please go tell the people on Lexicanum, 1d4chan and Warhammer Wiki to change all their articles from saying 'Imperium victory' to 'Imperium defeat'. If that is what you honestly believe.

Or I could instead tell people when they use said sources as guidelines, not gospel.

How is Armageddon comparable to Ynnead being almost destroyed and all the Eldar Craftworlds losing power?

I believe I spoke at length about what a defeat is to the Imperium.

Also, regardless, that still means you couldn't bring up any examples of Imperium defeats comparable to the Horus Heresy and Beast Waaagh!!! for Chaos and Orks. Once you can demonstrate that I'll find your position more convincing.

Because of the Imperium's centralised power structure, unlike the other races (aside from Tau), if the Imperium suffered a loss on their scale, they would never bounce back. If they did suffer an injury like that, they would cease to exist.

As for Pandorax; In Traitor's Hate it is explicitly stated that even Abaddon's goal, what he sought from the Damnation Cache, wasn't achieved. So Pandorax was in all senses a defeat for Abaddon.

You just repeated the point I disproved.

Also Ghazghkull did not bisect Belial, listen to the audiobook, but he does beat them. None of this changes that he still loses the battle of Piscina. Honestly why are you so opposed to Ghazghkull just conquering a major planet? Is it so unthinkable to you? Besides Ghazghkull is concerned with more than just fighting, it is explicitly stated so in his codex

I do apologise, I think I must have read some fluff contrasting with that.
Ghazghkull does not lose. He gets a fight, which he wanted, and "fully tested their new tellyportas 'now-wot, with which Thraka was intended to bypass later the Armageddon defences."

Ghazghkull winning doesn't faze me. I wouldn't care if he did. However, you cannot say he is without victories, which is the crux of your argument.

I agree we are at a stalemate completely. I don't think we can proceed. For me it is necessary to occur within the canonically reflected fluff, for you commentary in the background that the Imperium is fading is sufficient. We simply disagree.

Glad to agree on that.

I just don't get why you seem totally opposed to simply allowing other factions to win as major victories against the Imperium as the Imperium wins against them, or allowing characters like Eldrad and Ghazghkull to have as much success as characters like Dante, Logan and Azrael have in the fluff.

I would not oppose it in the stories. However, you cannot say that, at least setting wise, Ghazghkull and Eldrad DO have as much success as other named characters, and your reasoning for wanting to change it is because according to you, the Imperium doesn't lose. In the setting, it does.

Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:

That doesn't really solve the original dilemma, though. The poster complained there was no reaosn to get invested in any non-Imperial faction as the fluff is just about them getting their ass handed to them. The fact that the fluff doesn't show the victories of man's enemies, whether they occurred or not, still doesn't help them out.

True, but you forget that most Space Marine novels/fluff is cheap pap written by the Administratum to fool the general populace into thinking that the Imperium is winning

Really, I do also feel that there's been oversight in supporting the notion of credible antagonists in 40k fluff.

I think this discussion has got a bit off-topic TBH. It's become what seems to be an argument where one camp says that the Imperium is infallible because they're always winning, and the other saying that they're not.

The core reality of the setting is that the Imperium is losing ground all the time. Uncounted thousands of worlds are lost or ruined beyond repair with each passing year. It's 1-minute to midnight on the doomsday clock of the Imperium. That is what the setting is. End of story.

If the fluff does a gakky job of describing that setting in favour of bigging up the latest £20 box-set of power-armoured Mary-Sues then that's a shame, but it doesn't really change a thing. You don't get to 5-minutes to midnight by winning every war you fight. You get there by being on a 10,000 year downwards spiral of irretrievable losses.

If you're sick of there not being any victories to Ghazghkull's name, make an Ork army, get out onto the table-top and make some!

As 1d4chan constantly espouses, 40k isn't about the setting. It's about your dudes. Your story. Your victories. Your defeats.

Go and make some!

BrainFireBob wrote:


So, the Imperium: What is a loss, Anemone? If they take it back later, it's not a loss. If it's not fundamentally devastating to the Imperium, it's not a loss. Anything that doesn't cause a fundamental shift in the Imperium's power structure isn't a loss. To fundamentally change the Imperium's power structure, it would have to collapse, because the Imperium lacks the structural stability for it to survive such a thing. But you're *not* arguing that the collapse of the Imperium is the only victory you'd accept?

Then the side comments, which strongly read as: I'm an Ork loyalist and on behalf of someone else, an Eldar loyalist. That might be unfair, but here we go:

1) Eldar don't cut Titans in half with their mind. That's wasteful, invites Daemons and Chaos, and frankly, the Imperium can't replace those titans. If Eldar sliced them in half with their minds, the Imperium would lost iireplaceable- do you understand that? IRREPLACEABLE- war engines constantly and, oh yes, collapse.
2) You only accept the WW1 era concept of ground as victory. Abaddon did what he wanted every Black Crusade; his forces left intact, and his tag-alongs were left behind to be cleaned up by the Imperium. That's the fluff in the Black Legion codex in a nutshell. The Imperium thinks it won, it didn't. Same with Traitor's Hate. Chaos accomplished what it set out to do- the daemon cache is going to rip open, and the Imperium can't fix it.

Heck, the second most important, productive, and powerful forge world in the galaxy- Gryphone IV- was wiped out by, I think, Nids? recently.

The Imperium can't afford to win the way it's been winning. Attrition is exceeding replacement. It's why it's 5 minutes to midnight.

Dark Eldar don't want conquest, they want slaves. Commorraugh is full of slaves, they're winning.

Eldar are creating a new god. Eldrad can now hear his heartbeat. They're winning.

Orks are gathering in a galaxy-wide WAAAGH centered on Ghazgkull/if they win against the Nids due to Kryptmann's gambit. They're winning.

Tau- by the way, the entire Tau empire used to be Imperial space- are expanding and have stymied the Imperial attempt to eliminate them. They've also gutted the Raven Guard at the Raven Guard's own game. Tau are winning, because they're expanding.

Chaos is launching its end game. Chaos is winning.

Tyranids have finally reached this galaxy. Nids are winning, because they have an exponential growth curve each time they aren't stopped- every bullet, every shell casing, goes into making more Nids when they win.

The Imperium is the only thing that's not gaining ground. Fluff stories are set in that context, as heroes struggle against the inevitable collapse the Imperium is currently headed for.

Also, victories, I'd argue the Imperium lost the Horus Heresy, but aside from that; I'd recommend reading up on the concept of the Pyrrhic victory. Name Imperial victories that it can afford- name victories that aren't Pyrrhic- and you'll be less irritated.

Also, "data"? You need a statistically valid sample to take data! Almost all the stories are about the Imperium or about someone fighting the Imperium, the Imperium is over-sampled.

Anemone has pointed out several times losses that the Imperials could take.

Not all Eldar need to be able to destroy Titans. They just need to have more psykers capable of doing so than man does. What even is the point of this?

The Eldar aren't creating a new god, they might be. They're also losing a gak ton of their eternal souls, so no, they're not winning.

Orks gathering to fight is not a win. When Ghazzy led them to take Armageddon over, they failed, twice. How is that winning?

The Tau have had their expansion stopped and their version killed brutally, and the Tyranids are just hitting them. They're not winning.

 Anemone wrote:
But surely every instance of reclaiming lost ground was a tie? So every battle where the Soviet Union captured previously held ground wasn't a victory, only a tie?

No historian would ever agree to such an analysis.

EDIT: No-one strictly won, what's your point? Ties happen of course.

By your logic Vietnam didn't win the Vietnam war because all it conquered was just territory that used to comprise Vietnam. By your logic if a nation is conquered and then beats back its invaders it didn't 'win'. Which is ridiculous.

wrong Vietnam was separated into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, ask the South Vietnamese they will tell you they lost, the Russians yes they had victorious battles when they retook their land but it was not a win till they took Germany.

As too the Korean War by your standards South Korea and the Americans won since North Korea took land from South Korea but then lost it back to them and yet neither side claimed victory, so it just proves my point.

Furthermore you want to talk lost planets of the Imperium, lets talk the Eye of Terror a densely packed Star clusters with hundreds of Human occupied planets and then some that the Imperium lost to Chaos.

your arguments are failing.

@ Anemone

according to your lore views and taking it at full face value, i should bring you an irrefutable proof that everyone should stop bothering with anything outside of Orks

"Orkses is never defeated in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fighting so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!"

Asterios wrote:

wrong Vietnam was separated into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, ask the South Vietnamese they will tell you they lost, the Russians yes they had victorious battles when they retook their land but it was not a win till they took Germany.

As too the Korean War by your standards South Korea and the Americans won since North Korea took land from South Korea but then lost it back to them and yet neither side claimed victory, so it just proves my point.

Furthermore you want to talk lost planets of the Imperium, lets talk the Eye of Terror a densely packed Star clusters with hundreds of Human occupied planets and then some that the Imperium lost to Chaos.

your arguments are failing.

Korea was a draw because the South Koreans repelled a North Korea invasion, and then the North Koreans repelled a South Korean invasion. In the case with the Imperials, the enemy nevers repels an invasion, hence, Imperials win.

Anemone has pointed out several times losses that the Imperials could take.

Not all Eldar need to be able to destroy Titans. They just need to have more psykers capable of doing so than man does. What even is the point of this?

The Eldar aren't creating a new god, they might be. They're also losing a gak ton of their eternal souls, so no, they're not winning.

Orks gathering to fight is not a win. When Ghazzy led them to take Armageddon over, they failed, twice. How is that winning?

The Tau have had their expansion stopped and their version killed brutally, and the Tyranids are just hitting them. They're not winning.

How do you know if the Eldar do or don't have more psykers than humans that can destroy titans? We've seen everything in the 40k universe?

Also, why do they need to? Michael Phelps is an outstanding swimmer and a superb athlete; doesn't mean he's the world's best boxer. Or that Usain Bolt wouldn't get thrashed in a MMA fight.

The Eldar codex says they are creating Ynnead. That's winning. You're deciding it's not winning enough. Whichever side wins the war caused by Kryptmann's Gambit can easily dominate the galaxy- this is explicit in the fluff about Kryptmann's gambit, and the greatest Warboss since the Beast is collecting a truly massive WAAGH. The Tau have had their expansion TEMPORARILY stopped and lost a single leader. I'd still say the Tau are winning.

They may not win *enough* for you; don't make the mistake of thinking it's the same. Anything other than the other factions shrinking isn't really a win for the Imperium; leaving things as they are is a stalemate, because the Imperium lacks what it needs to replace many of its resources.