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Orks. They are the most numerous race, and their goal is to just fight. They win the game of life

 General Annoyance wrote:
They're still a long way away from going toe to toe with the Imperium, in terms of sheer power at least. Would be good to know how many Eldar remnants there roughly are in the galaxy too, or Necron dynasties - I doubt they'd be too keen on the Empire expanding any further than it has already.

But size isn't really the issue. The Tau Empire doesn't have to expand its borders at all, it just has to stay alive long enough to enter auto-win mode. When single gun drones are annihilating entire space marine chapters/hive fleets/etc it's too late for anyone else to stand in their path, even if they don't gain a single piece of territory until that point.

I'd love to see that Gun Drone

I'd buy that line of argument if the Empire wasn't in such a dangerous part of space - right in the path of the approaching Hive Fleets. Combine that with relations with the Imperium being not so good, and the Tau could be in very deep trouble without more assistance.

The Tau certainly can and have developed faster than any other advanced race we know about. Even so, I don't think such weapons that you describe would be on the books long before they have to face down the Tyranids, or before the Imperium enacts retribution upon them. That's not to say that either of those threats will finish them (it'd be anyone's game at that point) but more like they wouldn't have those insane capabilities to face them, and if they survive, probably not for quite a while after as they rebuild what they lost.

That being said, if the Tau win that face off between the Tyranids and the Imperium of Man, your train of thought is likely to be the end result. Just maybe not mounted onto Gun Drones.

G.A

That's true, the only reason the Tau, or even Eldar, even still exist is because the cost is too high for such a little gain. They aren't very large threats at the moment and are more keen towards allying with them against the larger/more evil threats such as chaos, orks and tyranids.

~GA~
If the Tau last long enough to go Full Culture, they win everything. Nothing can beat them if they unlock that level of technology.

If Tyranids or Imperials hit the Tau with full force before they go Full Culture, I don't believe the Tau could withstand it. Ultramar barely survived Behemoth. If a fleet of comparable size hit the Tau Empire today, the Tau might get wiped.

Basically, if Tau drones start looking like this, start running.


~My Own Thoughts~
Orks are in the best place right now, because they're in infinite war and love it. Tau are pretty nice as well, not facing many threats and advancing rapidly, but if they are hit with a large threat, they're doomed.

 Verviedi wrote:
~GA~
If the Tau last long enough to go Full Culture, they win everything. Nothing can beat them if they unlock that level of technology.

If Tyranids or Imperials hit the Tau with full force before they go Full Culture, I don't believe the Tau could withstand it. Ultramar barely survived Behemoth. If a fleet of comparable size hit the Tau Empire today, the Tau might get wiped.

Basically, if Tau drones start looking like this, start running.

Spoiler:

I'm in agreement there. Trouble for the Tau is that the latter event is more likely to happen first - I'd put money on it being the Tyranids rather than the Imperium, as the Imperium has already withdrawn heavily from that area of space to focus on battles it's barely scraping through too.

~My Own Thoughts~
Orks are in the best place right now, because they're in infinite war and love it. Tau are pretty nice as well, not facing many threats and advancing rapidly, but if they are hit with a large threat, they're doomed.

I guess it comes down to how we define "Winning". If winning is down to who's making the most profit out of the galaxy wide war, it has to be the Orks. If it's more about who is covering the most ground, then it's the Imperium. If it's who's the most potent power, gotta be the Tyranids. Most potential to win an all out war = Tau. Best survivors against all the odds - Eldar. Seems to be a very subjective viewpoint overall.

 General Annoyance wrote:
I'd buy that line of argument if the Empire wasn't in such a dangerous part of space - right in the path of the approaching Hive Fleets. Combine that with relations with the Imperium being not so good, and the Tau could be in very deep trouble without more assistance.

It's dangerous, but they're still holding. And space around them isn't getting more dangerous as the Tau continue to advance, so their position grows stronger every day.

Even so, I don't think such weapons that you describe would be on the books long before they have to face down the Tyranids, or before the Imperium enacts retribution upon them.

But the Imperium doesn't know what the Tau are capable of until it's too late. Currently the Imperium would win an all-out war, but can't afford to worry about what might happen with the Tau in the future because any diversion of resources sufficient to end the Tau would mean disaster elsewhere. So they keep putting off the Tau until later, and by the time the Imperium finally realizes that the Tau are advancing enough to become a major threat that balance is even further against worrying about the future. If the Imperium can't handle the Tau as they are now then how are they supposed to win against a much more powerful future version of the Tau without suffering an even worse catastrophe elsewhere? The answer will continue to be "leave them for later, stop the Tyranids from eating us" until it is too late and the Imperium has no hope of winning no matter how much they throw at the Tau.

The Tyranids are a bigger threat, since they have the ability to throw major forces against the Tau while still eating everyone else, but the Tyranids only exist because of the ignorance of GW's writers. Take away the plot armor of the Tyranids and they're already at the point where the Tau (or Eldar, Necrons, etc) can effortlessly fight off any conceivable Tyranid attack.

Unless every race in the galaxy unites against them (which will never happen) the Tyranids will eventually conquer all. Losses are meaningless, morale is meaningless, Chaos is meaningless, nothing can stop their hunger. They cannot be swayed, bargained with, or intimidated. They do not surrender, they merely continue to mindlessly consume until nothing remains. For every creature lost, 100 more are bred to take its place and every warrior they destroy is more gruel for the hive fleet to use to grow stronger.

Fear The Great Devourer.

Well, fluff wise. Game wise you take out Flyrants and they're pretty much just target practice...

Heh, Tau Drone 2.0, where one shot can:
- obliterate an entire planet
- punch a hole in the Hive Mind causing all the Tyranids to drop dead
- travel back with a Necron to its Tomb World and kill them all dead forever
- atomize the Emperor's soul and the Four Chaos Gods
Those aren't options. That's literally all the same shot!

 Peregrine wrote:


It's dangerous, but they're still holding. And space around them isn't getting more dangerous as the Tau continue to advance, so their position grows stronger every day.

But what about the imminently approaching Tyranid threat? Even the Tau aren't naive enough to realise that they need more than what they have on hand to face them, evidenced by the KX139 being developed.

But the Imperium doesn't know what the Tau are capable of until it's too late. Currently the Imperium would win an all-out war, but can't afford to worry about what might happen with the Tau in the future because any diversion of resources sufficient to end the Tau would mean disaster elsewhere. So they keep putting off the Tau until later, and by the time the Imperium finally realizes that the Tau are advancing enough to become a major threat that balance is even further against worrying about the future. If the Imperium can't handle the Tau as they are now then how are they supposed to win against a much more powerful future version of the Tau without suffering an even worse catastrophe elsewhere? The answer will continue to be "leave them for later, stop the Tyranids from eating us" until it is too late and the Imperium has no hope of winning no matter how much they throw at the Tau.

I'm surprised they haven't tried some sort of Exterminatus fleet already (correct me if they have) - the Tau aren't exactly top tier when it comes to space weaponry/combat, and it'd kill two birds with one stone by wiping them out and preventing the Hive Fleets from assimilating additional biomass.

I think that, if the story was going to be progressed, the Imperium would try again in the very near future, with all guns blazing, to serve as a sort of counterattack to the Tyranids as well as finishing off the Empire. I guess that's up to GW though, both in terms of potential, and how it would pan out.

The Tyranids are a bigger threat, since they have the ability to throw major forces against the Tau while still eating everyone else, but the Tyranids only exist because of the ignorance of GW's writers. Take away the plot armor of the Tyranids and they're already at the point where the Tau (or Eldar, Necrons, etc) can effortlessly fight off any conceivable Tyranid attack.

I don't understand... plot armour in what sense? That they can regenerate and assimilate battlefield knowledge with every defeat? Surely if the Tyranids were such a pushover, Macragge wouldn't have got to the state it ended up in, no?

Only 5 serious votes?

You can't win a universe.
Basically the old fluff of the Galaxy running in a circle of ups and downs is still valid.

Let the ill informed think they have a shot at winning and take their xeno-traitor-fanwank and go cry in a corner because it isn't going to happen.

Major subtitle of 40k is:

Eternal War.

Winning needs an end. Eternal Wars don't have one.

Well, the known universe, that is. Who else would you add?

And of course it is eternal war, but the characters in 40k don't know that. They're all trying to win, this thread is based on who is doing the best.

 blood ravens addiction wrote:
Well, the known universe, that is. Who else would you add?

And of course it is eternal war, but the characters in 40k don't know that. They're all trying to win, this thread is based on who is doing the best.

Characters in-Universe surely do two things:
They try to win battles, they try to win campaigns.


But do they try to win "best" ?
How would you define "best" ?

Is a battle won in 1 minute better than one won in 61 seconds?
Is a battle won because the author is a silly fanboi making more "points" for a faction towards "doing best" than a battle where both sides had a good shot at winning and one side barely managed to win?


The impression of a win depends heavily at what we get to know. But our picture is incomplete. And muddied with ads...

Since the galaxy isn't a level playing field, I voted based on the percentage (roughly) of wins and/or progress the race has made over the last few years.


I voted:
Tau, as they seem the most peaceful, but they have barely started their galactic expansion.
The Imperium, as they have biggest empire. But to be fair, most of it is slowly disintegrating so they don't count as truly "winning".


What I have to say about other races:
Chaos isn't close to winning, as long as the Emperor still exists.
Da Orkses won't work together, so they aren't winning either.


Who REALLY is winning:
Me.

For fun I imagined the criteria that the posters who support the various factions would use to arrive at their vote:


The Imperium: Current projection of power.

Would do well in a "one on one single elimination" format.



The Tau Empire: Great trajectory.

Has the tools [scientific innovation] to change how the winners play the game.



Dark Eldar: Webway city-pocket-dimension-escape-clause for when the other factions blow up the universe.

Actual survivors.



Eldar: Foresight will allow them to be the needle that threads and shapes the other factions to their benefit.

Honorable mention for being the winners once before.



Necrons: (not current on fluff.)



The Forces of Chaos: Just as planned!

It's called chaos theory. Not "specific faction theory." Of course chaos is winning!



Non-Chaos Heretics: There's this place called Earth where they have it way better than the average Imperial citizen.

Have chosen to win the "ethics" game rather than the "existence" game.


WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!: WWAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!

[Quality of life.] [Quality of quantity]



Tyranids: "We're just getting started!"

[Quality of Quantity] [Quality of Quantity]



Other: Terms are not clearly defined so how can you declare a winner?

Squats aren't extinct they're just preparing their holy Mad Max war that will shake the heavens.



Me, that's who!: Fools and Tyrants all. The actual winner(s) also selected this option.

So it seems like Tyranids, Chaos and Orks are the top bois

Interesting.

Chaos can't win. Chaos thrives now in war but if others lose chaos itself will lose too. Last 10.000 years has been golden age of chaos

Tyranids, no question about it.

In the background we read that Tyranids have consumed countless galaxies, also of note is that as Galaxies go the Milky Way is small, a mere 100,000 light years across. Small fry compared to say the Hercules A galaxy, which is belived to be roughly 1.5 million light years across.

Now, let us say that the number of galaxies consumed is 12, a small number, even that would afford them a far greater amount of mass than our puny Milky Way could contain, the full Tyranid swarms hold more rescources then our Galaxy. In effect what we have is several galaxies working together with the sole purpose to consume the Milky Way..

As the life native to our galaxy seems to be at war with each other and hasn't unified against the overwhelming threat, nothing can stand up to the sheer scale of the Tyranids.

 Draco wrote:
Chaos can't win. Chaos thrives now in war but if others lose chaos itself will lose too. Last 10.000 years has been golden age of chaos

But with Chaos in charge, everything would be chaos, so obviously Chaos would still win

 General Annoyance wrote:
I don't understand... plot armour in what sense? That they can regenerate and assimilate battlefield knowledge with every defeat? Surely if the Tyranids were such a pushover, Macragge wouldn't have got to the state it ended up in, no?

It's just Peregrine feeling that an all-biological faction is too unrealistic. x)

I do not feel that Tyranids are out of place in a setting with daemons and space magic, but what do you know.

Oops. Missed that question. Yes, it's a massive realism issue. The Tyranids exist because GW doesn't understand things like the square-cube law, conservation of energy, how DNA works, or how lethal modern weapons are against hordes of unarmored infantry. Tyranids shouldn't even survive to make it to the battlefield, and if they somehow do they should be stopped effortlessly by artillery/orbital bombardments/etc. It's WWII in space for everyone else, while the Tyranids are cavemen with pointy sticks in space. The only way they win is because GW said so, and plausibility be damned.

Realism. In a universe where painting a truck red makes it go faster, thoughts and emotions congeal into actual demons, and engineers with zero knowledge in mechanics can keep a life-support machine running for longer than written language has existed.

Well ok.

 Peregrine wrote:
Oops. Missed that question. Yes, it's a massive realism issue. The Tyranids exist because GW doesn't understand things like the square-cube law, conservation of energy, how DNA works, or how lethal modern weapons are against hordes of unarmored infantry. Tyranids shouldn't even survive to make it to the battlefield, and if they somehow do they should be stopped effortlessly by artillery/orbital bombardments/etc. It's WWII in space for everyone else, while the Tyranids are cavemen with pointy sticks in space. The only way they win is because GW said so, and plausibility be damned.

Yes, but the sheer number of them.....

A hundred armoured men with guns cannot face untold billions, because in all honesty, that's what they are in comparison to us.

 Peregrine wrote:
Oops. Missed that question. Yes, it's a massive realism issue. The Tyranids exist because GW doesn't understand things like the square-cube law, conservation of energy, how DNA works, or how lethal modern weapons are against hordes of unarmored infantry. Tyranids shouldn't even survive to make it to the battlefield, and if they somehow do they should be stopped effortlessly by artillery/orbital bombardments/etc. It's WWII in space for everyone else, while the Tyranids are cavemen with pointy sticks in space. The only way they win is because GW said so, and plausibility be damned.

I'm not very aware of square cube law outside of some quick research - from what I gathered, large organisms will struggle to be as effective as smaller ones due to weight, balance etc. and massive organisms are not possible outside of water.

I'd say the Tyranids could exist based on natural selection - mutations creating a beast that can survive in almost any atmosphere and feed off almost any other native wildlife, and from there they engineered themselves after they became fully sentient to become unnatural bio predators.

Moving away from science, The Shadow of the Warp will also play a role in how effective they are against Imperial worlds, scrambling communications and sowing fear into the local population. Combine that with nigh undetectable vanguards (without the presence of the Inquisition) being sent to a planet years before the main invasion to cripple the planet's defences, and you start to see why they're so threatening.

They also have their own means of orbital bombardment to knock out planetary defences that are still standing, such as Mycetic Spores, as well as all their flying creatures; even if Imperial artillery/AA is incredibly effective against them after that, they'll probably never keep up with the sheer tide of bodies till they run out of ammunition.

This is the way I see it happening:

Cryptman's Gamble is coming to a climax with Ghazghkull rallying the Beast once again and drawing it in for the biggest fight they'll ever have. The Tyranids are doing the same, but I suspect that Ghaz is going to get there first and that momentum will carry him into a slaughter that could or could not get overwhelmed depending on just how many Tyranids are coming. Or who knows... maybe the Orks could coin a Tyranid-proof galactic defense system.

Either way, what's going to happen is the Orks and the Tyranids are going to be left alone to the east with the Tau and whatever's left of the Imperium after it withdraws all of its available forces to the defense of Holy Terra itself in one final great rally. The Imperium is a falling titan, but should it choose to fall on one target in a suicidal act of retribution, there is no question that this would be directed at Chaos and into the Eye of Terror. The only question that I have about this is: Will the Black Crusade manage to kill the Emperor? Because with every heretic in the galaxy working as one to end the Imperium, there are all sorts of ways I imagine it could work.

So with Emps dead, he's either out like a light, leaving the rest of the Imperium to throw itself at its old enemy in that final act of retribution, or, alternatively, he comes back to life as the new emperor, the star child, a new chaos god, whatever it is, and ushers in Warhammer 40k: Age of Sigmar....

But this Black Crusade could be rebuffed just in time, and a furious Imperium still decides it's time to abandon its own worlds to destroy chaos once and for all. Everything is poured into the Eye of Terror, and to be honest I could see that going either way.

But either way it goes, it effectively takes Chaos and the Imperium off of the galactic map, leaving the Necrons as the only credible threat left that isn't currently engaged with a force that can match it. They could then spread unimpeded, finally extinguishing all of the now-weary forces of the galaxy and conquering the galaxy, and to be honest the only way they could be beat at that point (in my eyes) is by the Orks, who were originally designed to defeat them and still have the ability to confound them to this day. The Tyranids wouldn't stand a chance.

So even though none of this is set in stone, the favorites to win are the Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons in a rock-paper-scizzors-style fashion. Between the three of them, it's going to depend on who gets the jump on who...

I'd put money on Tyranids...in the way that a cockroach is the most likely survivor of a nuclear holocaust etc. A simple organism with a speedy ability to adapt to changing conditions - no "goals" or "plans" or "schemes", no back-stabbing, nothing. Just survival and slow, eventual consumption of bio-matter, etc.

If there is not a massive hive fleet somewhere at the moment, that means it's elsewhere, sating itself on bio-matter outside of our realm of concern..thus, succeeding.

They represent, as close as can be, the natural order in 40K. I'm sure they've now been retconned to be something different - but last I heard, bugs man.

Orks is my bet.
If they loose they will not loose since they come back.

Ghazzy''s fluff has moved forward a bit. He made it to Octaria a was successful at clearing out all the nids. The irks are building up defences since Ghazzy knows more are coming but he's already making plans to move and make a few more perpetual wars similar to Armageddon and Octaria. So far the Orks are winning Kryptmann''s Gambit getting bigger and multiplying fast while the Nids lost one of its tendrils.

but tau are already starting to turn on each other farsight enclave.

Not really. The Farsight Enclaves and Tau Empire are not hostile towards each other, and will help each other in times of need.
Source: War Zone Damocles: Mont'ka.