WH40k: Who's gonna win?

Balrog · Post by **Balrog** » 2006-04-11 02:51pm

We know GW will never end the 40k line as long as they're making money out of it, but suppose there is an "end" finally written for the grim dark future. Who comes out on top after the dust settles?

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-04-11 02:54pm

It's already been established that barring the forced military indoctrination of almost every single man, woman, and child in the Imperium, the Tyranids will eventually overrun everything.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2006-04-11 03:00pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:It's already been established that barring the forced military indoctrination of almost every single man, woman, and child in the Imperium, the Tyranids will eventually overrun everything.

Unless the Ward's finished, then they're just mindless bugs again.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-04-11 03:01pm

Everyone loses is probably the safe bet.

Skylon · Post by **Skylon** » 2006-04-11 03:02pm

Dunno exactly who, but I bet it'll come down between the Necrons and Tyranids when everyone else is dead.

Ou des · Post by **Ou des** » 2006-04-11 03:03pm

Why didn't the Necrons finish the ward before they went into hibernation?

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2006-04-11 03:08pm

Hmm.

Imperials: Nominally control a good two-thirds or so of the galaxy, possibly down to half. However, the Space Marines are sorely minimal in numbers, and the Imperial Guard are little better than cannon fodder. Their navy is respectable, though.

Orks: All WAAAAAGH and not much else. However, they *are* a credible threat, primarily to the Imperium as they avoid Nids like fuck and don't seem interested in Chaos-controlled worlds.

Chaos: Too much intercine warfare. If they manage to unite under the banner of Chaos Undivided, then they would make a serious impact upon the Imperium... but there's that wild-card of not knowing what'll happen when the Emperor is offed...

Eldar are strategically insignificant. The Exodite worlds are few and far between; most of their militaries are upon the Craftworlds. The Harlequins are nominally neutral.

Dark Eldar: Their primary base of power is one city, Comorragh. They have the same problem as Chaos-- too much intercine warfare.

Tau: Promising, but they're newbs. Everybody's out to get them.

Necrons: Unknown, but powerful. Liable to easily achieve victory if all of them are waken up; if the C'tan upon Mars is awakened, the Emperor is probably fucked.

Nids: The Great Devourer makes progress...

So, yeah, it pretty much all comes down to the Necrons and Tyranids. The rest will just have to trust to luck, and hope the ammo doesn't run out...

Post by **NecronLord** » 2006-04-11 03:42pm

Ou des wrote:Why didn't the Necrons finish the ward before they went into hibernation?

Unknown. I suspect the C'tan decided to put off finishing it until there were mortals (IOW, possessions) to save with it.

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2006-04-11 05:53pm

Why do people keep thinking the Tyranids will win 40K? Against a bunch of C'Tan who'll feed off the Hive Fleets with no worries?!

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2006-04-11 06:06pm

Teleros wrote:Why do people keep thinking the Tyranids will win 40K? Against a bunch of C'Tan who'll feed off the Hive Fleets with no worries?!

I suspect its because the Nids are a rather more immediate threat than the C'tan+Necrons.

They've certainly racked up more kills, there is no super secret weapon that can kill/immobilise them, and they just so happen to have a vast potential for psychic/warp voodoo, as well as being extremely adaptable.

They also work faster than the C'tan/Necrons, and are extra-galactic in origin (although there are inferred to be C'tan swanning around elsewhere).

Thats not to say they ARE going to win, as the C'tan technically could reduce them to a bunch of genetically related killing machines, plural, as opposed to one big one.

Then again, is the Great Warding going to be universal, or even Galactic in scale ?

The Pylons and pariahs that undoubtably make up part of the tech/method are certainly not foolproof, Uber-psyker versus Culexus Assassin for example resulted in the Culexus getting utterly gibbed. Eisenhorn has another example which I shan't spoil. Pylons got overloaded by warpstorms on the edge of the eye during the EOT campaign, etc.

Recently I've been thinking of Vinges "Fire upon the Deep" as a very interesting "future" for 40k, with the Great Warding implemented, or partially implemented.

Fuck, lets face it, in the squillions of years it'll take for the Necrons to get off their arses and pull the job, the Nids will probably have eaten everything, and be on their merry way to spoil someone elses day.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2006-04-11 06:13pm

Teleros wrote:Why do people keep thinking the Tyranids will win 40K? Against a bunch of C'Tan who'll feed off the Hive Fleets with no worries?!

To sum white rabbit's post up a little less eloquently; by the time the C'tan finish the Great Ward, the Nids will have eaten everything else. The hive mind is sufficiently powerful that it could overwhelm the C'tan without too much trouble; they need the Ward in order to cut off the Hive Mind from the physical bodies of the Nids, and then feed.

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2006-04-11 06:35pm

I'm not so sure:

1) How does the Hive Mind fight the C'Tan? It's never ever ever acted directly in the way that a Chaos god or a C'Tan would.

2) Picture this scenario: the Nightbringer encounters a Tyranid fleet and decides it would like a snack. You're the Norn Queen: how the bleeding hell do you survive a guy the size of a planet and made of pure energy?!

3) As the Great Warding takes effect and Pariah numbers grow, so the Norn Queens will become cut off from one another. Their death screams will eventually not be able to lead to new Norn Queen births: they'll be blocked by the Warding / Pariahs. In fact the Tyranids are already deliberately avoiding some areas of the Galaxy - because of a high Pariah concentration perhaps? I don't know what else would do it - if they were just dead worlds the Tyranids would pass them by but not move away.

there is no super secret weapon that can kill/immobilise them, and they just so happen to have a vast potential for psychic/warp voodoo

1) For secret weapon, go get some Warp null tech around their Norn Queens to prevent them reproducing, then kill them. You know, pariahs and the like (a few hundred of Culexus recruits on Mars darkened the Astronomicon in the 2nd Edition Assassins Codex, I'm betting they could swamp any Norn Queen death scream).
2) Potential which in terms of God-killing has not been realised or even hinted at in the slightest

. Tyranids evolve principally by seeing what happens on the battlefield, but if you're facing someone who can snap his fingers and BAM - the whole hive fleet tendril's gone - how do you adapt (and in the right way)?

Then again, is the Great Warding going to be universal, or even Galactic in scale ?

Hard to tell. Its purpose is to close off realspace from the Warp, but given the Milky Way-centric 40K universe the Great Warding might just mean this Galaxy. Probably the whole universe, but nothing's certain (NecronLord will probably disagree at this point

).

Pylons got overloaded by warpstorms on the edge of the eye during the EOT campaign, etc.

They were certainly very strained (microfractures in them in fact) on Cadia, but they held

. Plus IIRC they were the only proper ones around the EoT at the time (Quixos never completed his silly network of psy-based equivalents).

Fuck, lets face it, in the squillions of years it'll take for the Necrons to get off their arses and pull the job, the Nids will probably have eaten everything, and be on their merry way to spoil someone elses day.

I suppose it depends on how long it takes the C'Tan. But as we'll probably be having a VD awakening campaign in a few years (given all the speculation around it & the AdMech in the fluff) they're shifting up into higher gears pretty fast. And that's assuming they don't take offense at the Tyranids and decide to go after them big time for eating all their cattle.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-04-11 06:41pm

OK, own up. Who the hell voted for the Tau?

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2006-04-11 06:51pm

Trust me, a lot of people out there think the Tau will actually win against the Necrons and Tyranids. Argument goes along the lines of:

"well if they have railguns & starships in just a few thousand years they'll pwn short-ranged Necrons, waste short-ranged Tyranids, and because they have NO PRESENCE WHATSOEVER in the Warp Chaos are screwed too!!!!11!!"

I shouldn't need to point out to any fluffmeister worth his salt the ah, problems, in that "argument"

...

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2006-04-11 06:57pm

1) How does the Hive Mind fight the C'Tan? It's never ever ever acted directly in the way that a Chaos god or a C'Tan would.

Who knows ?

2) Picture this scenario: the Nightbringer encounters a Tyranid fleet and decides it would like a snack. You're the Norn Queen: how the bleeding hell do you survive a guy the size of a planet and made of pure energy?!

Teleport his ass into warp space *shrug* I doubt the Nids would even do anything but fight normally initially, if C'tan/Necrons started hunting them down, then I suspect the Nids would do something about it..

The fact that the C'tan/Necrons aren't seeming to hunt down the Nids *shrug* They probably don't taste very nice anyway.

3) As the Great Warding takes effect and Pariah numbers grow, so the Norn Queens will become cut off from one another. Their death screams will eventually not be able to lead to new Norn Queen births: they'll be blocked by the Warding / Pariahs. In fact the Tyranids are already deliberately avoiding some areas of the Galaxy - because of a high Pariah concentration perhaps? I don't know what else would do it - if they were just dead worlds the Tyranids would pass them by but not move away.

Then again, the Nids probably outnumber and outreproduce Pariahs at the moment...why shouldn't the psykers win out ?

Y'see, we can't make any really absolute statements.

The Nids are avoiding those areas logically because they don't taste nice, unless you have some details that show they aren't detouring to a tastier world nearby, then jinking back to another, I doubt you can claim they are being "repelled" by anything other than the lack of food to their senses.

1) For secret weapon, go get some Warp null tech around their Norn Queens to prevent them reproducing, then kill them. You know, pariahs and the like (a few hundred of Culexus recruits on Mars darkened the Astronomicon in the 2nd Edition Assassins Codex, I'm betting they could swamp any Norn Queen death scream).

Yeah, like its that easy

2) Potential which in terms of God-killing has not been realised or even hinted at in the slightest Razz . Tyranids evolve principally by seeing what happens on the battlefield, but if you're facing someone who can snap his fingers and BAM - the whole hive fleet tendril's gone - how do you adapt (and in the right way)?

*shrug* Given that the C'tan "can't" actually snap their fingers at this point and kill everything....and can infact be banished by blowing their ships up....

They were certainly very strained (microfractures in them in fact) on Cadia, but they held Wink . Plus IIRC they were the only proper ones around the EoT at the time (Quixos never completed his silly network of psy-based equivalents).

yeah, hardly counters my point

I suppose it depends on how long it takes the C'Tan. But as we'll probably be having a VD awakening campaign in a few years (given all the speculation around it & the AdMech in the fluff) they're shifting up into higher gears pretty fast. And that's assuming they don't take offense at the Tyranids and decide to go after them big time for eating all their cattle.

Last time something highly psychic started eating all the cattle, the C'tan wussed out and went to sleep

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2006-04-11 07:09pm

Yeah, like its that easy

I never said it would be

. In fact it'd be very difficult to do short of getting a few hundred Culexus assassins into the space battle (depends on which version of human pariahs you use - the Eisonhorn / Ravenor version or the Ciaphas Cain version - Jurgen's far superior to the former pariahs). But yeah it'd be damned hard however you do it.

The Nids are avoiding those areas logically because they don't taste nice, unless you have some details that show they aren't detouring to a tastier world nearby, then jinking back to another, I doubt you can claim they are being "repelled" by anything other than the lack of food to their senses.

As I recall, the Imperial observers couldn't figure out why they were leaving them alone - you'd have thought if the area was full of dead worlds they'd mention something like that in the report. My reading of it is that it's an otherwise normal part of the Galaxy that is being abnormally avoided by the Tyranids.

*shrug* Given that the C'tan "can't" actually snap their fingers at this point and kill everything....and can infact be banished by blowing their ships up...

Well ok so they're not quite at their Old One-era level of power, but what happens if the Nightbringer simply glides through the Tyranid fleet? If he can drain a star of a few hundred thousand years of fuel in pretty short order (re Cyclo, post-Pavonis), what about the relatively insignificant non-Warp energies of a hive fleet?

Last time something highly psychic started eating all the cattle, the C'tan wussed out and went to sleep

Lol, but last time the C'Tan couldn't eat the Enslavers

.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-04-11 07:26pm

Teleros wrote:Trust me, a lot of people out there think the Tau will actually win against the Necrons and Tyranids. Argument goes along the lines of:

"well if they have railguns & starships in just a few thousand years they'll pwn short-ranged Necrons, waste short-ranged Tyranids, and because they have NO PRESENCE WHATSOEVER in the Warp Chaos are screwed too!!!!11!!"

I shouldn't need to point out to any fluffmeister worth his salt the ah, problems, in that "argument" ...

Ah, such as the non-trivial fact that they don't have thousands of years?

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2006-04-11 07:51pm

That and more:

1) Lack of time as you said.
2) More Necrons & Tyranids.
3) They DO have a presence in the Warp, it's just stupidly small.
4) Tyranids & Necrons are long-ranged too. Seen the rules for that Epic Necron Titan-killer anyone? 120cm range

.

Just the most obvious mistakes / lies / propaganda / fanboyitis (take your pick) from their basic argument

.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2006-04-11 08:05pm

I doubt the Tyranids are going to win.

WH40K=perpetual stalemate, remember?

We all know that something is going to lay the smackdown on the Tyranids, sooner or later.

They'll turn out to have a magic weakness/critical vulnerability of some sort. Evreything else in 40K does. Even the Chaos Gods (Great Ward, internecine conflict) and the C'tan (Warp power).

Me, I'm guessing that sooner or later something is going to break up/disrupt the Hive Mind, and the 'Nids will start eating each other as well as anything else they find. I can't guess what, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it happens.

Truthfully, I think that if Games Workshop does decide it's time to "clean up" 40K, they'll do something like what White Wolf did to the World of Darkness. Everything slaughters everything else, and what's left is forced to rebuild (or start all over again) with hope for a better future next time around. Either that, or they'll go with the old "Emperor Ascends, slaughters everything in the Warp that threatens Humanity, then the IoM whacks everything in the Matterium that opposes it one-by-one until Humanity transcends into Psykic Man." Though how this wold solve the Necrons, I don't know.

Or the Old Ones will return and take over.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-04-11 08:11pm

Yeah, no shit. Nobody is ever going to win, since that would kill GWs little cash-cow.

Base Delta Zero · Post by **Base Delta Zero** » 2006-04-11 09:36pm

It's already been established that barring the forced military indoctrination of almost every single man, woman, and child in the Imperium, the Tyranids will eventually overrun everything.

You think the Imperium would have a problem with that?

But yeah, I'm going to put 'Everyone Loses', because really, no matter what happens, it's probably going to suck.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-04-11 09:57pm

Teleros wrote:That and more:

1) Lack of time as you said.
2) More Necrons & Tyranids.
3) They DO have a presence in the Warp, it's just stupidly small.
4) Tyranids & Necrons are long-ranged too. Seen the rules for that Epic Necron Titan-killer anyone? 120cm range .

Just the most obvious mistakes / lies / propaganda / fanboyitis (take your pick) from their basic argument .

Hey, no need to try and convince me.

I'm aware of these problems already. Add "more orks and humans" to the bag, along with "the Tau themselves": the new Tau Codex hints that the Tau race would not be so cohesive if their efforts were not constantly channeled into expansionism. Moreover, they have only expanded across 300 light years, but even now, there are hints of trouble down the line with the prospect of future unity (O'Shovah, for instance).

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-04-11 10:54pm

Putting aside the fact that Games Workshop would never allow anything to upset the delicate state of affairs in which the fate of the galaxy supposedly teeters in the balance yet all is (or will be) ruination and death anyway, it's pretty goddamn obvious to anyone with a few functioning neurons that the WH40K universe is intended to have the worst, most depressing possible ending ever. Everybody gets killed/destroyed/whatever by something, and then dollars to donuts says some previously unknown entity swoops down and kills them off just so that there aren't any winners.

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2006-04-12 01:34am

The Emperor will awaken and make everyone set aside their differences and resolve their various conflicts through peaceful negotiation. Yes, even Chaos and the Tyranids. Remaining violent impulses will be channeled into harmless games of paintball. Everybody wins!

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2006-04-12 01:40am

Isn't this the univcerse where, even if yo umoved to a peaceful island, led a full and happy life. Once you die your sould gets sucked into a Hellish enternal Tormment?

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