Ok, this may be a silly question (or answered somewhere, I searched and couldn't find it if someone did answer it) but... What army is winning in the Warhammer 40,000 universe? Chaos is trapped (mostly) in the eye of terror, Imperium is being pounded by Chaos, Orks, and Tyranids, Tau are fighting Orks in a losing war, Orks are fighting everything, Tyranids are invading, Eldar are dying... What army is actually winning here? Is anyone or will everyone just lose ultimately?

I think the Tyranids will always be 'winning' unless someone comes up with a method of destroying the hive mind.

Also, the Tau are winning. They are expanding (what is it, 4th sphere of expansion now?) and the Imperium is ignoring them, so they should be fine till the Tyranids eat them. I don't know what your talking about with the Orks, the Tau style of combat is very suited to destroying Orks and I've yet to read about one piece of fluff describing a Tau loss to Orks.

Orks - more and more fighting is occuring, and fighting is all they care about

In the ork codex there's a section where it talks about one Warboss leading a fight against the Tau in their northern region of space... and just because Orks like to fight doesn't mean they're winning does it?

The whle idea is that it's basically a stalemate - no one side ever really gaining the upper hand over the others for long. This is for fluff balance and real world sales - if one side was pre-ordained to win you would see a shift in sales towards them - that's just the way people are. By having it like this we can stick to the "healthy balance" of Space Marines balancing against everything else.

So in summary - no one race is winning.

Chaos, simply because mankind aren't. This is chaotic victory, as the entire mortal realm is locked in an unending war. This is the chaos victory the Cabal talked about in Legion, why Abaddon never succeeds and why nine times out of ten, the Imperium wins the battles.
If Chaos ever truly won and converted and/or killed the entirety of mankind, there would be nothing left for chaos to do, but so long as there is killing in the name then Chaos can consider themselves winning without ever having a chance to win absolutely.

This is most active the four chaos gods have ever been and they don't want to change that. All other races; nids, necrons, tau etc are yet more irritants adding to the mess Chaos has made.

The 40k world is the very definition of chaos - a condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
As soon as one side wins, then the disorder and confusion will be replaced with sterility and calm - chaos don't want that and until an entity arises more powerful than the four chaos gods combined it won't ever happen.

Necrons are winning of course....They can't lose.

Even if the 'Nids kill off every other biological organism in the galaxy, 'Crons will still be there to harvest the 'Nids

The glorious Imperium of the Emperor is winning.

Any other answer is heresy. (See above).

Im pretty sure the tyranids would win in a protracted war against the necrons simply because of numbers.

Lost and the Damned are winning. Because of their good looks.
http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:298MIMV5Q1JQ1M:http://uk.games-workshop.com/daemonhunters/adversaries/images/mutant-ork.jpg (http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://uk.games-workshop.com/daemonhunters/adversaries/images/mutant-ork.jpg&imgrefurl=http://uk.games-workshop.com/daemonhunters/adversaries/1/&h=315&w=315&sz=46&hl=en&start=7&usg=__ta8ioSpqQw-CqVrO6d9rnLlFS4A=&tbnid=298MIMV5Q1JQ1M:&tbnh=117&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmutant%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG)

There is nothing from the Crons that would interest the Nids....on the other hand, Crons don't care what they harvest for the C'Tan...as long as it's biological and alive (at least to start with)

the necrons are present in a single galaxy-- the tyranids have overtaken dozens of galaxies-- thats pretty much all the fluff evidence I need to see that tyranids are the ubermensch of 40k

You could make an argument for pretty much everyone wining except the Eldar and the Imperium.

The Eldar are decimated and fractured, watching all the awful prophesies their Farseers made coming to fruition.

The Imperium's having real problems. Dozens of worlds fall into rebellion every day, every day bringing more than the day before. The Astronomican doesn't work right anymore. Space Marine chapters are being assigned to actually govern worlds. No one's been able to reach Ultramar for months. The Mechanicum has noticed that the Golden Throne itself is entering a failure cascade and they don't have any idea on how to fix it.

All this has happened in the last weeks of M41.999

I would like to see, once the Horus Heresy series ends, another series of novels that actually advances the plot, then have the next iteration of the rules reflect this brave new world where the average human lifespan is listed as 'N/A'.

That's easy... Unite the Orks :P


-Kai-Itza-

United Orks, ha! You couldn't cook an egg in the time it would take for that alliance to dissolve. XD

Granted, if any one race really got its act together, it could probably make real head-way. The Tau and the Tyranids are the closest to that, I would think.

I think Chaos will put a stop to the Tyranids when they become too much of a threat. After all, if the Tyranids eat everything, then what will be left of the Empyrian?

At the end of the day, the answer to this is easy


GAMES WORKSHOP ...:P

Tyranids, and to a lesser degree C'Tan, are the ticking time bomb that makes the 41st millennium so "on the verge."

The 'Nids inherently unwelcome to the C'Tan, b/c they don't colonize. They strip worlds of all life and move on, from galaxy to galaxy, yatta yatta. As a result, it's not likely that the C'Tan "win" if the 'Nids strip the galaxy bare.

Regardless, the C'Tan themselves are timeless, as are their servants, so you could call them part of the time bomb also.

The fact is, the galaxy is doomed ... and the 'Nids/Crons are the enactors of that doom, inevitably. This isn't a "bad" thing, though ... each of our own lives has a ticking clock attached to it and its inevitable end, so it's not appropriate to think of the 'Nids or Crons as "winning," but simply instead as being forces of nature, the 'Nids specifically. They are armageddon, apocalypse, the end times ... and they are not winners or losers, but simply "settings." The 40k universe is dark and grim, and the reason for that is as much the Nids as it is the guns and gothic setting.

SOOO, nobody is winning ... b/c the only ones who are going to eventually "destroy" everything are not really the type of races that "win" at anything ... plot movers don't win or lose. Take away Crons and Nids and you're left with the conundrum of there not really being a clear winner to date ... Imperium (collapsing), Orks (divided), Eldar (fading), Tau (tiny), Dark Eldar (haha), Chaos (another plot mover really, hardly winning at anything), I'm probably missing some but the point is ... you've got primal forces and desperate races, the forces give the setting its grim darkness, and the races are more or less equal depending on which way you want to look at the fluff.


My $.01

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

To kill off a planet with Orc life on it you have to purge the entire planet. Orks number in the countless billions, and all they care about is fighting; this taken into regard, Orks can never truly 'lose', because their agenda doesn't entail them trying to 'win'. They just keep on krumpin'.

'Nuff said, mefeels.

Orks live to fight and if the galaxy is locked in unending war the Orks know unending victory, as Orks is nevah beaten in battle.

Khorne comes up as a close second, since there are plenty of skulls to collect and blood that flows.

Then of course, it is all going according to Tzeentch's plan so maybe he's winning (but only if it suits him)

Ok, well good answers everyone I guess... and this sorta leads to my next question... Who actually is winning?!?! Just kidding, but the actual question is "is there any likelyhood that we shall see the 41st Millenium end and see the story progress from Games Workshop?" I'm kinda curious because it's cool and everything to have these skirmishes but I'm a huge fan of an overall story and would kinda like to know what the next step is in the universe... So is Games Workshop ever going to let us know the next segment or shall we stay locked in the last few weeks/months/years of the 41st Millenium forever??

There are certainly futures that they could follow without destroying things, but I find it likely they'll leave the 40k universe on the edge of tomorrow ... well, always until "tomorrow."

I think they will move the timeline forward, and the story somewhat, but it'll always be Mankind on the edge of the abyss, because if they moved us away from the abyss, or into the abyss, it would mean a massive change to the fluff, and therefore the game, which I don't think is something they're planning to do. It wouldn't make sense.

They are obviously careful as to how they do it, but I do think that, at some point, there will be an advancement of the story line. As long as it doesn't seem like any one race is about to be wiped out, it can't hurt to move the story forward and, if anything, would encourage more interest in the game.

Every race has their "last resort" plan. The humans have that star child thing for the emperor. Eldar have their "final battle" and their harlequin cousins have something special cookin' to save the day. Necrons have a bunch more tombs to awaken. Tyranids are those unwanted guests that just won't leave. Orcs just can't be "beaten"... Tau are still raising in power and haven't reached their full potential yet. Chaos is powerful but they need followers and their followers are human so they can't "win" they can only screw with humanity until it dies out and then they loose too. The Dark Eldar don't seem to have a plan but the harlequins' plan kinda includes them too.

So in response I think the harlequins win. :dance: Their new god they are creating is to destroy The Great Enemy. Once this chick/dude bites the dust the eldar don't have to be afraid anymore and the dark eldar are free of their need to kill but they will probably still do so just cuz it's fun! In summery, Final battle, everyone dies, emperor kicks the bucket to return later, harlequin god kicks every other god's ass, C'tan all the chaos gods, and the rest of the Eldar high tail it out of the fight, orcs and nids are still attacking humanity but with so many threats gone and their emperor returned the humans are able to mount a decent resistance til the end of time, and while this is all going on the Tau are just sittin' around wondering what the big noise was. NEVER GONA HAPPEN but isn't speculation so much fun? :)

Actually, you could make a case for any and all factions "winning" - the Eldar if their Ynnead scheme goes according to plan, and - as noted by Dekendo above - the Imperium, if the old Star Child fluff is still considered canon.

At the end of the day, though, if you define "winning" as "fulfilling all their main racial objective and thriving while doing so", I'd say the Dark Eldar and Chaos are "winning" - the Dark Eldar are having the time of their lives, if it only hadn't been for that damn Thirst. And they're working on that. Too bad "working on" translates into "killing and torturing people in unimaginably horrific ways" to them. And Chaos, being Chaos, is winning because the galaxy is in - guess what - chaos.

The only semi-official races that you can't argue for "winning" are the Kroot and the Squats.

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http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:OBFTygI_h2PvhM:http://wh40k.lexicanum.de/mediawiki/images/0/06/Khorne.gifKHOOOOOOORNEhttp://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:OBFTygI_h2PvhM:http://wh40k.lexicanum.de/mediawiki/images/0/06/Khorne.gif
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-Blood for the Blood god!

It has been said many times in this thread that if a race was feared to about to be destroyed by a threat or if a race was on the verge of annihilating the other races that those races sales would decrease/increase. But haven't the eldar been about to die for a while as they got obliterated by something 'i cant remember what' and so there down to their last few billions and thats why their using dead eldar souls to power wraith guard and lords, but they are still a very popular race and are selling well. likewise with the tyranids and necrons, they both seem unstoppable (except the fact the necrons havent fully awoken yet) but i dont think their sales are going through the roof because of this.

I think people enjoy playing a dying race, as they feel they are fighting to save it, just as much as people enjoy playing a race which currently has the most power and is wreaking havoc. because of this i think they should move the fluff on a bit, maybe empowering currently weaker races, as this would make it more exciting then the static fluff we have now.

To kill off a planet with Orc life on it you have to purge the entire planet.

Or... point a Hive Fleet at it.

I do really think it's inevitable that the Tyranids are going to "win", they'll pick the galaxy clean and hibernate while their Hive ships float on to the next one. The C'tan will be left in a barren galaxy and they'll survive until a time when they've consumed the last of the stars... after that- starvation.

But, to give my actual answer: Squats.

Yeah, Tyranids will win, no matter what Humanity does at this point in time. Anything short of the Emperor waking up, going down to the lab, and making a "Hive Mind Sniper Rifle" won't stop the Tyranids simply because even with three giant devestating Hive Fleets being sent and slowed down, the Hive Mind has countless more.

Well, if the Imperium was not surrounded by all kinds of evil and decaying from within, I think they could stop the tyranids... they know how to sow them down, and while yes, that involves putting up an insane suicidal defense by throwing countless IG into the imperial meatgrinder, forcing the tyranids to expend biomass making more of them to take over, before virusbombing the planet and eradicating the biomass, slowing down the fleet cuz it has no food, couldnt they then systematically destroy that weakened fleet? It would require alot of sacrifice but since when does the Imperium care about its soldiers, the non-superhuman ones i mean.

If the orks would unite they would destroy everything in the galaxy and figure out how to move on to the next one, becoming like the tyranids, but better, but since they will never unite it doesnt matter.

So I think orks are winning simply because they want to krump stuff an fings, and dey are krumpin stuff and fings.

As to who is winning overall, I believe it is Chaos because:

IF YOU HAVNT READ LEGION AND ARE PLANNING TO, SKIP THIS BECAUSE THERE IS A SLIGHT SPOILER




Like it says in Legion, and has been (sorta) mentioned previously, Chaos, if it "beat" the human race, would eventually burn itsself out into nothing, because like was predicted for horus, leaders would still have just a kernel of doubt and loyalty to their race which would make them irrationally angry or lash out or whatever, so if chaos won, it would just make more chaos, which would extinguish the human race, and the chaos gods are so heavily invested in humanity that without it they would cease to exist.
I dunno if i did a good job explaining it but you get the general idea.



SPOILER ENDED

All that said, the orks set out to krump stuff, and they do, so they win, merely because their condition for winning is the easiest to achieve.

Lupercal is right on his bit about chaos and its the biggest jaw dropping revelation in the series so far

The Legion revelation is only half accurate. If Tyranids consume all of humanity, Chaos falters exactly as if Horus won and humanity destroyed itself 10k years prior. I'll reiterate in short:

Tyranids won't win, just like insects on Earth don't win when they break down a decomposing corpse in a grave. They aren't there to win, but to add doom to the storyline of the 40k galaxy. Tyranids will eventually consume the galaxy, and their presence is the harbinger of the end. The winning race will be the race that succeeds most before the Tyranids consume them all, or that escapes the 'Nids to another environ. Pyrrhic victory, perhaps, but victory nonetheless. Which of the lesser races will actually win, on the other hand, is an unanswerable question by design.

well is it impossible for the 'nids to actually be defeated and destroyed permenantly? Also do the various hive fleets all work together or (as I thought it was) are they just separate creature groupings of the same general species?

The theory is the Hive Mind is centralized, with "mini minds" for each fleet, in the sense that the gestallt consciousness is both localized and general.

The three hive fleets seen so far, each of which nearly destroyed the entire galaxy, are the tip of the iceberg, a tiny tiny portion of the full might of the Tyranid race. They are on their way out of hibernation from travelling between galaxies, and the very tips hit the Imperium hard enough to rock it to its very foundations. They are on numerous occasions mentioned as the eventual doom of the galaxy.

The theory is the Hive Mind is centralized, with "mini minds" for each fleet, in the sense that the gestallt consciousness is both localized and general.

The three hive fleets seen so far, each of which nearly destroyed the entire galaxy, are the tip of the iceberg, a tiny tiny portion of the full might of the Tyranid race. They are on their way out of hibernation from travelling between galaxies, and the very tips hit the Imperium hard enough to rock it to its very foundations. They are on numerous occasions mentioned as the eventual doom of the galaxy.

Might as well make them work for it.

No free meals.

Who's winning 40k? Not the customers, that's for sure. So that must mean that GW is winning!

Who's winning 40k? Not the customers, that's for sure. So that must mean that GW is winning!

that is so true. GW keeps on adding more fluff to their codex's and sooner or later they will be as expensive as the rulebook itself.

40k codices have traditionally been hefty tomes - the first chaos codex was 120+ pages, codex angels of death was also a big one, but they were all around 80 pages or so.
It was only when 3rd came out they shortened them to little more than a tv guide, fourth and fifth has seen the regression back to better days in terms of codex content.

Anyway, were GW ever to advance the storyline I think it would only do so to make Chaos stronger.
Chaos are the typical bad guys - disenfranchised from rest of mankind, hateful, angry, nuts yet with strong ideals and 'valid' reasons for being like they are. The perfect baddy, especially when the big cheese of chaos (Horus) has a Darth Vader style last minute reconciliation before being destroyed.
Necrons are soulless and lifeless - who can relate to that, except football referees?
Tyranids are the typical beasty, perfect for their role, but by having no humanity they are not well suited to major advances in the story line - it would always be told from the perspective of those being eaten rather than the nids themselves.
The Eldar are dying and have little interest in the machinations of other races except where it directly affects them. Ideal for small but important parts in major stories.
The Dark Eldar are not popular enough for a lore changing storyline based around them, neither are they important enough anyway. Aside from incurring the wrath of Dark Eldar players, they could probably be phased out in the same way the Squats were with little impact on the fluff.
The Tau may have a growing empire and a nice guy image, but again they aren't big enough or powerful enough to effect the Imperium to such an extent to move the story on in their favour.

The only other race possible are the Orks. They have a certain likeability about them and certainly have past fluff supporting the idea that there are huge orks about capable of even wounding primarchs and the like. And they have been around 40k since its very inception, have destroyed space marine homeworlds and other such fighty goodness.

Anyway, i'm waffling a bit now, but if and when the 40k storyline is advanced, IMO it will be primarily chaos related rather than any other race.

See, that'd be cool... and I'm sure the tyranids can be stopped, just nobody's thought of it yet (and if people from outside our galaxy have they were too late)... But yeah, I'd like to see what's happening next and see the story continue on... Seems like we're kinda stuck at this point without knowing where it's gonna go except for more fighting...

I think Dave has it down, and it is another way of pointing out what I think ... perhaps ...

Effectively one should think of the Nids and Necrons as soulless, lifeless ... they are forces of nature, not fluff races in their own right. They are GAME races, but not fluff races ... and I say that (again, in redundant extremes) only b/c they aren't there to be ... bad guys, so much as setting deepeners. Chaos are the "bad guys," while Necrons and Nids might as well be pending black holes, soon to spawn and suck the galaxy in, but irrelevant other than something for the sentient races to interact with in the meantime.

Stoppability is irrelevant if you accept that the Nec/Nid are just there for ... adding doom and gloom to things. On the horizon is the menace of a literally unkillable star vampire plotting the galaxy's enslavement, or an Imperium-dwarfing gestallt consciousness metarace (Nids) on the verge of unstoppably consuming all life - bad, good and mysterious alike.

If GW said that the center of the galaxy were on the verge of collapse, and could not be stopped by anything, most people wouldn't complain ... they'd just look at the fluff from that point of view ... think of Nids and Necrons as similar.

Whoever wins... we lose

I think Dave has it down, and it is another way of pointing out what I think ... perhaps ...

Effectively one should think of the Nids and Necrons as soulless, lifeless ... they are forces of nature, not fluff races in their own right. They are GAME races, but not fluff races ... and I say that (again, in redundant extremes) only b/c they aren't there to be ... bad guys, so much as setting deepeners. Chaos are the "bad guys," while Necrons and Nids might as well be pending black holes, soon to spawn and suck the galaxy in, but irrelevant other than something for the sentient races to interact with in the meantime.

Stoppability is irrelevant if you accept that the Nec/Nid are just there for ... adding doom and gloom to things. On the horizon is the menace of a literally unkillable star vampire plotting the galaxy's enslavement, or an Imperium-dwarfing gestallt consciousness metarace (Nids) on the verge of unstoppably consuming all life - bad, good and mysterious alike.

If GW said that the center of the galaxy were on the verge of collapse, and could not be stopped by anything, most people wouldn't complain ... they'd just look at the fluff from that point of view ... think of Nids and Necrons as similar.

Wow... that's mildly brilliant :-D kudos!

If GW said that the center of the galaxy were on the verge of collapse, and could not be stopped by anything

Heh. I'd love it if they did - the Puppeteers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson's_Puppeteers) would 'win' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_of_Worlds)!

What about the squats .. ... not having to deal with any of this ... doesnt that mean they won .>:)

What about the squats .. ... not having to deal with any of this ... doesnt that mean they won .>:)

The guy does have a point...

Anyway, the Tyranids are winning. Interesting thing is, that doesn't mean they'll win... Maybe Cypher'll find his way to the palace of Terra and the presence of the Lion's sword will ressusitate his holiness, maybe some gargantuan Ork will show up to lead his entire race in one all-encompasing WAAAGH... maybe Yarrick will get bored of it all and decide it's about time he stopped holding back and just won (Yes, Yarrick is that hard).

I think the conversation's shifted off the topic of who's winning and wound up on the subject of who'll win (Something my last post was admittedly guilty of). Presently things are looking bleak for everyone except Chaos, Tau, Orks and Tyranids but there's so many different threads of prophesy in the canon that it's absolutely no indication of who will ultimately win.

Aside from incurring the wrath of Dark Eldar players

Our wrath would be great, for our models are pointy and can be utilised as traps. Jervis would find a flaming bag of Hellions on his door-step if he tried anything of the sorts.

In an eternal war, there is no such thing as winning. You fight your battles, you win them, but there will always be another battle, another adversary to face. The universe is hostile, so in the far future, there will always be only war.

Originally Posted by Ebon Hand
In an eternal war, there is no such thing as winning. You fight your battles, you win them, but there will always be another battle, another adversary to face. The universe is hostile, so in the far future, there will always be only war.

maybe there is no definitive way to "win", but the question was "who is winning", asking who the current dominant force in the WH40K galaxy is.

Originally Posted by waЯu
Anyway, the Tyranids are winning. Interesting thing is, that doesn't mean they'll win... Maybe Cypher'll find his way to the palace of Terra and the presence of the Lion's sword will ressusitate his holiness, maybe some gargantuan Ork will show up to lead his entire race in one all-encompasing WAAAGH... maybe Yarrick will get bored of it all and decide it's about time he stopped holding back and just won (Yes, Yarrick is that hard).


Im personally rooting for some insanely large, killagreaterdemonwithhisbarehands-ish ork will show up and unify all or most of the orks in the galaxy and just take over... Like Ghazghkull, but on a much larger scale :)


P.S. - Bah Humbug in the general direction of Yarrick...

P.P.S. - Yarrick < Ghazghkull :P

maybe there is no definitive way to "win", but the question was "who is winning", asking who the current dominant force in the WH40K galaxy is.


Well assuming the goal is to take over the galaxy, it would be between the Orks and the Imperium. Both have the largest empires, and even though the orks occupy most of the galaxy, the Imperium is still the largest singular empire united under one ruler.

Despite the threats it faces, I'd say the Imperium is still in control of things at the moment.

The Tyranids are constantly taking over and expanding their empire

Tau are expanding

Eldar are dying

Imperium doesn't seem to be doing that well...

If al the orks banded together they could kill everyone...

Hex

The Tyranids are constantly taking over and expanding their empire

Tau are expanding

Eldar are dying

Imperium doesn't seem to be doing that well...

If al the orks banded together they could kill everyone...

Hex

yes the 'nids are expanding but thye have lost a great number of important conflicts that has weakened their strength so far.

Tau have had some strong resistance for the most part and if the Imperium took the time to focus on them they would be extinct already.

Everyone knows the Eldar are dying and I have no problem with that

Imperium is an aging war hound whos seen better days

Orks are not the smartest tool in the shed so thanks to that we will never see all the orks team up

At the risk of being redundant and getting the record straight, the 'Nids have not expended any meaningful quantity of their strength. the "important lost conflicts" mentioned just above amount to devastatingly pyrrhic victories by the Imperium/Eldar in the process of stopping what are effectively the "scouts" of the Tyranids.

So, thousands of marines, billions of guardsment, thousands of worlds, basically an entire craftworld, all lost in order to stop ... Tyranid scouts. Yeah ... Tyranids aren't going to win ... no way ... um.



HOWEVER, go back to prior comments by me that Nids/Necrons - even though one or the other (or both) will eventually destroy/dominate the galaxy - can't actually "win," b/c it's not within the capacity of their "cultures" to win anything ... they're simply the pending future of the galaxy, lending doom to the setting in which our true antagonists and protagonists carry out their grand masqueraden ... strutting and fretting their way to an ultimately hollow victory, where the Shadow in the Warp or the ageless malice of the C'Tan will bury them into the ashes of their just-conquered foes.

The eldar are not dying they are just waiting for the laughing god MWhAHAHA, runs away laughing....

But seriously if all the active forces in the galaxy (so not sill asleep necrons or masses of tyranid somewhere out there) met somewhere and had a big fight I'd say the Imperium would win. They are the most powerful and organized.

But seriously if all the active forces in the galaxy (so not sill asleep necrons or masses of tyranid somewhere out there) met somewhere and had a big fight I'd say the Imperium would win. They are the most powerful and organized.

Organised, I'd say the Eldar are better, they have to be. And the Imperium aren't all that organised, either... they're a huge, beuracratic lethargic beast that needs a real emergency to be spurred into anything like action. That's why the Astartes and the Inquisition have to operate outside it, otherwise they'd neither of them be able to react with the speed they need.

And powerful? You're being sarcastic, right? The full force of the 'Nids, or the full force of all the Orks united, would wipe the Imperium. fairly easily. Especially as the Imperium wouldn't be able to concentrate all their forces at once. There'd be too many, and not enough Space Marines.

The only reason the Space Marines manage to play such a key part in all the major engagements, is that unlike Imperial Guard, they can flit around the glaaxy pretty much as they please, so the same Marines could face many of the major threats to the Imperium, whereas the IG, who are stifled by the massive beauracracy of keeping tabs on billions upon billions of guardsmen, would just stay, more-or-less, in the same place for quite a while.

At the risk of being redundant and getting the record straight, the 'Nids have not expended any meaningful quantity of their strength. the "important lost conflicts" mentioned just above amount to devastatingly pyrrhic victories by the Imperium/Eldar in the process of stopping what are effectively the "scouts" of the Tyranids.

So, thousands of marines, billions of guardsment, thousands of worlds, basically an entire craftworld, all lost in order to stop ... Tyranid scouts. Yeah ... Tyranids aren't going to win ... no way ... um.



I know they were only the scout fleets. But I have to disagree with you on the amount of damage it caused. I do believe you exaggerated the death toll a little bit. Just a little. A victory is still a victory none the less. And now that the Tau has expanded we have a better meat shield

My $0.02...

To answer your question (OP), "who is winning?" I would have to say the Orks.

I would define "winning", or the victory condition as how much real estate a race is in control of.
I would define this as the winning condition because the one thing that man has always fought for is territory... always have, always will.
Also, "winning" is present tense... well, present tense in the 41st millenium any way, and the orks do have the most turf.

I think it would be impossible for man to wipe out the orks. They are just too hardy and I can see them becoming more verosious as their numbers are thinned and more concentrated.

Now, this isnt to say that the orks will win in the end. No sir.

I foresee ALL transient life being assimilated into Tyranid biological matter. However, the Nids will not be able to assimilate the Necrons because of their molecular nature. Nor will they be able to assimilate the chaos gods because they are imaterial... oh there are other gods too, that join together to become a super god to combat the nids and the crons like some crazy game of paper-rock-scissors...

...so, after an imeasureable period of time, the Nids, the Crons and the gods merge into a super organism made up of all biological matter (Nids) and all inorganic matter (Crons) that is held together by the (Chaos) gods (spirit).

And thats how Chuck Noris is re-born.

(Sorry. A bit more than two cents.)

Actually, I agree with you, Plasma Catcher, but I'd define winning as 'being the closest to fulfilling their main objective'. I would define the objectives as this:

Imperium: Wipe out Chaos, and anything else that is a threat to humanity, whilst uniting humanity under a single banner.

Necrons: Kill everything

Tyranids: Eat everything

Eldar (both flavours): defeat/overcome Slaanesh

Tau: Unite the Galaxy for the Greater Good

Orks: Fight

Chaos (Gods, not Space Marines): Exist and do what they do.

Chaos Space Marines, for the sake of completeness: Destroy the Imperium. Most of them, anyway. Some are just having fun, The Purge just want to kill everyone.

So, by that logic, Orks and Chaos are winning, because they've fulfilled their objective.

So, by that logic, Orks and Chaos are winning, because they've fulfilled their objective.

That makes complete sense if your looking at the big picture for the most part

Chaos (Gods, not Space Marines): Exist and do what they do..

Chaos are the only winners, as herby says they do what they do... they are there to cause chaos and what state is the galaxy in?... CHAOS! orcs are arguably also winning but is winning really having half a waaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhh blown away by krak missiles from a mile away? i think not. ergo chaos are winning.