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What if Abaddon gathered all Chaos Astartes, all Chaos Daemons that can be summoned, all Daemon Engines, all Chaos Cults, and all other Chaos forces together with other Chaos-y guys such as Dark Eldar, and launched an attack at the Sol system. They magically teleport to a planet just putside the sol system. All Imperial Forces, including all Astartes, all Imperial Guardsmen, al Titan legions, all Mechanicum forces and all Sisters of Battle are teleported to Terra. Both forces get a week to prepare. Imperial forces need to stay withing the sol system.

Who would win this horrible war? Would Abaddon be able to conquer Terra?

Well, firstly, Dark Eldar are not related to Chaos at all. So they're out.
How big is the planet? Can spaceships intervene? Who's leading? Are we assuming that ALL chaos daemons can be summoned, because if so, than the Four Chaos Gods might as well be present, seeing as there seems to be no limit on daemons summoned.
If that isn't the case, Imperium win by sheer attrition and weight of numbers.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Imperium win by sheer attrition and weight of numbers.

This. The only reason the Chaos Marines still make trouble is that they fled into the Eye of Terror after Horus was defeated. They're scattered in a vast area of chaotic space and hunting them down is too costly or downright impossible. If they all gathered in one place they could all be destroyed at the same time.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Imperium win by sheer attrition and weight of numbers.

This. The only reason the Chaos Marines still make trouble is that they fled into the Eye of Terror after Horus was defeated. They're scattered in a vast area of chaotic space and hunting them down is too costly or downright impossible. If they all gathered in one place they could all be destroyed at the same time.

And that humanity is spread across the galaxy, fighting off various alien threats. In the OP's scenario, which has all the Imperium in one battlefield and no other threats, Chaos doesn't stand a chance.

I'm guessing it's mostly the Guardsmen who contribute to the 'attrition part'? Hmm.

What if all factions sold by GW are participating? Let's say Tau and Eldar join the Imperium, everyone else is Chaos.

 Matthew wrote:
I'm guessing it's mostly the Guardsmen who contribute to the 'attrition part'? Hmm.

What if all factions sold by GW are participating? Let's say Tau and Eldar join the Imperium, everyone else is Chaos.

I could definitely see Tau & Eldar joining the Imperium. Necrons & Orks would probably join Chaos

The other Factions are trickier. As mentioned, Dark Eldar are NOT chaos and hate/fear all things Slaanesh. In truth, they are more likely to stay out of the fight until one side starts to get an advantages, then they would join that side.

In the end, though, Nids would win. All that biomass in 1 area of the galaxy and tons upon tons of flesh to devour.

 Galef wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
I'm guessing it's mostly the Guardsmen who contribute to the 'attrition part'? Hmm.

What if all factions sold by GW are participating? Let's say Tau and Eldar join the Imperium, everyone else is Chaos.

I could definitely see Tau & Eldar joining the Imperium. Necrons & Orks would probably join Chaos

The other Factions are trickier. As mentioned, Dark Eldar are NOT chaos and hate/fear all things Slaanesh. In truth, they are more likely to stay out of the fight until one side starts to get an advantages, then they would join that side.

In the end, though, Nids would win. All that biomass in 1 area of the galaxy and tons upon tons of flesh to devour.

As much as I hate to say it, this. Because of the Nids uncountable numbers, technically you can never beat them. Also, Nid weapons don't run out of ammo until they lose biomass, whereas every other army would eventually run out (not sure on Tau- do they automatically recharge? Tau knowledge isn't strong.).

 Galef wrote:


In the end, though, Nids would win. All that biomass in 1 area of the galaxy and tons upon tons of flesh to devour.

Nah, Tyranids would initially just be beaten then get retconned into almost winning and requiring a deus ex machina to be beaten.

WarbossDakka wrote:As much as I hate to say it, this. Because of the Nids uncountable numbers, technically you can never beat them. Also, Nid weapons don't run out of ammo until they lose biomass, whereas every other army would eventually run out (not sure on Tau- do they automatically recharge? Tau knowledge isn't strong.).

Tyranids would run out of numbers. They've done so multiple times. Plus they're seemingly more vulnerable to virus weapons. Or rather they and Daemons seem to be the only ones typically targeted with them on a large scale.

Necrons hate Chaos, why would they join them? On the divide between Order and Disorder, Necrons are the most-solid of "Order" factions.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Imperium win by sheer attrition and weight of numbers.

The Imperium is going to lose the attrition fight if it is up against daemons. The IG may have a near infinite amount of soldiers, but against an enemy whose soldiers are truly infinite they will run out first. If the Chaos gods would unleash all of their power, the Imperium wouldn't stand a chance. It holds out against Chaos only because the Chaos gods see the Imperium and the Materium as totally insignificant and therefore spend 99.9% of their attention and forces on the Great Game.

Also, as to which side other races would join with, the Eldar (including the DE) would certainly go with the Imperium. Chaos, and Slaanesh especially is the mortal enemy of all Eldar. The Tau could go either way. They have no knowledge of the true nature of Chaos, and they have a lot of bad experiences with the Imperium, so it would not be hard for Chaos to trick them. Necrons hate the Warp and would side with the Imperium for sure, altough with the Eldar also there it might become troublesome. The Orks would not side with anyone. Siding with one of the two sides would just mean there is one side less for the Orks to stomp. they'd believe they were in heaven, migrate to the battle en masse and then proceed to stomp both equally.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Imperium win by sheer attrition and weight of numbers.

The Imperium is going to lose the attrition fight if it is up against daemons. The IG may have a near infinite amount of soldiers, but against an enemy whose soldiers are truly infinite they will run out first. If the Chaos gods would unleash all of their power, the Imperium wouldn't stand a chance. It holds out against Chaos only because the Chaos gods see the Imperium and the Materium as totally insignificant and therefore spend 99.9% of their attention and forces on the Great Game.

Also, as to which side other races would join with, the Eldar (including the DE) would certainly go with the Imperium. Chaos, and Slaanesh especially is the mortal enemy of all Eldar. The Tau could go either way. They have no knowledge of the true nature of Chaos, and they have a lot of bad experiences with the Imperium, so it would not be hard for Chaos to trick them. Necrons hate the Warp and would side with the Imperium for sure, altough with the Eldar also there it might become troublesome. The Orks would not side with anyone. Siding with one of the two sides would just mean there is one side less for the Orks to stomp. they'd believe they were in heaven, migrate to the battle en masse and then proceed to stomp both equally.

Hence why I mentioned in my own post that, unless there is a limit on daemons, the Chaos Gods themselves can enter the fray, and then EVERYONE loses.

No limit on daemons = Death of everything
Limit on daemons = Imperium wins

Well, the setting of 40K tells us, that Abaddon right now gathers all chaotic forces to attack Cadia. He weakened the Imperiums defenses during his crusades and gathered several artifacts, and has all primarchs but Magnus behind him. The Imperium is too huge, they can't gather forces fast enough. And even if they could, their tiny Space Marine Legions wouldn't stand a chance against the 10000year old warp enhanced combat veterans. The only chance of survival for the galaxy is Ghazgkull Thraka.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Well, the setting of 40K tells us, that Abaddon right now gathers all chaotic forces to attack Cadia. He weakened the Imperiums defenses during his crusades and gathered several artifacts, and has all primarchs but Magnus behind him. The Imperium is too huge, they can't gather forces fast enough. And even if they could, their tiny Space Marine Legions wouldn't stand a chance against the 10000year old warp enhanced combat veterans. The only chance of survival for the galaxy is Ghazgkull Thraka.

Not what the OP describes. In the hypothetical scenario, all of the Imperium is ready to defend against a single foe.

Also, the 10000 year old Veterans have perceived time differently - some have only experienced 100 years - others have seen millennia of conflict.
Not to mention the losses they've suffered since the Horus Heresy, and the semi-frequent Foundings of new Chapters. There would certainly be more SM than CSM at this point, and it's debateable who's better trained. The CSM will have worse equipment, being forced to scavenge equipment from dead SM, and they may not have all gained experience (see above point.) The Loyalists are taught in the ways of resisting Chaos, given better equipment, and trained (mostly) according to the Codex. I'd give it to the Loyalists here.

The recruitment of Chaos could be quite limited due to the Warp and the Inquisition. On the other hand Chaos has no restrictions of who can become a Marine and they don't care about a Codex that says, sorry bro, you may not have more then 1000 marines, a ridiculously small number.
The Dark mechanicum is demonically enhanced and seems to be as capable as the imperial one.
Renegade chapters bring newer equipment, but I admit, it would be scarce and fought over. On the other hand the Imperium didn't really invent that much in 10000 years.

Yes, the OP scenario is all imperial forces combined and in that they could probably fight Chaos successfully. But after the fight the Imperium would be dead nevertheless, split up by Tyranids, Orks and Necrons . It would probably become as irrelevant as the Tau empire.

Well if we are talking about Chaos demons you have to ask if they can summon more demons. All this bloodshed in one place would make Khorne go super duper charged and just overwhelm everything with demons. True Chaos is literally infinite. As long as there is something to feed off of there will always be Chaos in this scenario Chaos will overwhelm everything if they can just keep summoning innumerable hordes of demons.

However on the other hand if dont have chaos demons being able to summon more demons then it EASILY goes to the Imperium.

However if we make this a showdown of all the factions then we all know who the last faction standing would be.

WAAAAGGGHHHH!!

Sticking to the original post, the Imperium through sheer weight of numbers.

However, drawing all forces to Terra for a huge battle (you wouldn't have room anyway) would leave the rest of the universe undefended and prone to Tyranids, and other forces.

While I feel Chaos would be incredibly strong, it's simply a matter of numbers. Short of another Horus Heresy-style betrayal by 25%+ of the Imperium forces I don't see Chaos winning.

That being said, it's possible that such a large bloodbath could super-charge Chaos magicks and warp stuffs. A battle on that scale would also likely cripple the Imperium for a period of time afterward, again making it prone to subsequent invasions by other races/types.

Spetulhu wrote:
They're scattered in a vast area of chaotic space and hunting them down is too costly or downright impossible. If they all gathered in one place they could all be destroyed at the same time.

They did that once before and weren't wiped out. What makes you think this time would be different?

 MarsNZ wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
They're scattered in a vast area of chaotic space and hunting them down is too costly or downright impossible. If they all gathered in one place they could all be destroyed at the same time.

They did that once before and weren't wiped out. What makes you think this time would be different?

They ran away because otherwise they would have been destroyed.

Relatively the Traitors have far less numbers than they had during the Heresy.

 MarsNZ wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:
They're scattered in a vast area of chaotic space and hunting them down is too costly or downright impossible. If they all gathered in one place they could all be destroyed at the same time.

They did that once before and weren't wiped out. What makes you think this time would be different?

Because that time they faced a few SM legions and whatever could make it to Terra in time. The traitors outnumbered the loyalists greatly.
Chaos raid- they win in the background because they are allowed to outnumber or overpower the loyalists locally. A warband against a company, a black crusade against a few lightly defended worlds.
The 13th crusade pitted all of the chaos forces against whatever the Imperium could spare to guard the Cadian gate and surrounding areas.



This scenario magicks the whole imperial navy plus the system defence boats and space stations, every loyalist chapter and the dark angels, all the PDF and guard regiments, abhuman forces and navigator household troops plus Adeptus Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy, in one system.

The question reads like: what if all the viking raiding parties and all the armed men of Europe at the time were teleported onto some vast grassy plains. Who would win?

We aren't allowing for tactics here. The nova cannons fire and everything explodes, anyone who survived is wiped out in the subsequent torpedo wave.
Uncounted billions of guardsmen could simply fire their lasguns in unison (ideally from Luna, on Terra they'd heat the atmosphere too much) and the combined firepower would destroy the Planetkiller.


Of course,when you expand it to include the Orks or Nids, this all falls apart because while there are probably more Humans than Orks in the galaxy, there are not necessarily more Human soldiers than Orks in the galaxy.