The Big One: Who Wins?

Objective Article on 'Who is likely to win'

I actually did this post in another forum originally ages ago, so I'm going to post it here in this topic for you. Basically its a ranking system of who in my opinion I believe would be likely to 'come out on top', with reasons why. This is obviously a fluff-based analysis (not tabletop).


1/ Tyranids - Pretty much self explanitory. Probably everyones favourite to win, being the merciless unbargainable organism that is unstoppable and blah blah blah. Their trump card is their eating their foes and their worlds, and therefore allowing no resistance in the aftermath of victory.

=1/ Necrons - Have a similiar approach to Tyranids, and have the most ancient powerful technology. Another important factor is that they are the anti-thesis to the Tyranids, and so are most likely to be able to withstand them. After all, theres nothing to eat, Necrons don't need an atmosphere, their tombworlds are rocks anyway. The other thing to consider is the C'tan gods, who at work allow the Necrons an advantage over any faction.

3/ The Imperium - Many will be surprised with the inclusion of the Imperium here. However there is a real possibility of Imperial Victory. Remember that the Imperium is "the largest most powerful empire the galaxy has ever seen" (yes that is a quotation) and that this includes all the myriad forces of the Imperial War machine, the IG, the marine chapters, the forces of the inquisiton, the navy and the various other organisations I havent time to include. Of course in it's present state the Imperium is weakened, but suppose we considered the possibility of the Emperor waking up? The Imperium of the Great Crusade would have sweft away any of the current factions (pre-heresy), and so we must imagine the possibility of the Emperor waking up and the Great Crusade being renewed.

4/ Chaos - Chaos is eternal after all. Chaos has the advantage of being unable to be eradicated completely without the death of every living being. While many factions may be able to carry this out, only a Necron victory presents this possibility. If chaos ever managed to truly breach the Cadian Gate (and no it hasn't happened yet, the Imperial Navy controls the space lanes again and the counter-offensive is underway) it stands a real chance of over-running much of the galaxy.

5/ Eldar - They may be a dying race, but they are far from being ruled out. An Eldar resurgence would mean a serious attempt to form an empire again. The Eldar do have a plan to regain their dominance and, if under the leadership of the Harlequins they succeed in destroying Slanneesh, they would stand an excellent chance of re-establishing some semblance of an empire. And the resurrection of something like the Eldar empire of old would be a truly formidable thing to stop.

6/ Orks - Many will be surprised at the relatively low rating I give the Orks. I acknowledge the Ork strengths, their sheer numbers and how they would over-run all other factions if they united. And yes their spore dispersal system means victory against Orks is a mute point until you kill the spores. However I have several arguements I'd point out for the unlikelihood of Ork victory. Firstly - Orks will leave a planet in peace is tribute is levied. This is stated in the Ork fluff, they will happily leave a system in perfect order if tribute is provided. Secondly - they don't kill everyone needlessly. Orks quite happily have worlds in thrall, slaves and pets. Leaving worlds full of your enemies under control always allows the possibility of survival (and possible rebellion). And thirdly - they haven't already. Orks have been around for thousands of years longer than the Imperium, and their signals stretch to areas the Imperium has not explored. Have they in this time come close to uniting about a single banner and toppling the Imperium? If I remember right the largest Waagh on record was the battle 3rd battle for Armageddon for a single planet, and although fighting rages the largest Waagh has not even captured this one planet. So in short, although the possibility of the Orks uniting would mean their victory, it is sufficiently unlikely for me to put the Orks here.

7/ Tau - The new guys. The Tau have a lot of possibility about them, and are a match one for one for any faction. The problem is in fluff terms there is no 'points' and battles are not fought one for one. The only reason the Tau are expanding like they are is that none of the other factions consider them important enough to devote enough attention to them. While this means currently things look good for the Tau and their rapid expansion, can it be predicted how things would look when they become dangerous enough for anyone to devote a real attack on them? The Damocles crusade was the nearest thing to one, and that was reportedly given vastly far too few resources for the objectives set for it. Simply put they didnt know who the Tau were, where they were and what they were facing. However if a real possibility of new attack was launched by a faction, informed this time about the Tau positions and technologies, and with more resources sufficient to the task (and not called off due to the Tyranids), the real test of Tau expansion would be.

8/ Dark Eldar - Predictably and sadly the Dark Eldar go last. I have a great respect for the DE and their players, so please don't mistake this for some 'dig' at the DE, it's just that they truly are the least likely. The foremost reason against Dark Eldar dominance of the galaxy is simply that it is not in their nature. They rely on slave raids from their hidden base, not holding any territory. This is hardly conducive to taking over the galaxy. While this means they probably won't be destroyed either, unless their is a dramatic change in tactics they are unlikely to 'win'. Also they have no real plan to beat Slanneesh, other than torturing as much as possible to stave of Slanneesh's thirsts.

In the eldar codex, there's alot about a "final battle with Chaos", the Rhana Dandra, where most of the Pheonix lords will die, Fuegan being the last to fall, implying the eldar will but up one last stand, before dying to the power of chaos.
Now I hate chaos, so I'll assume the Orks will win, cos they rock. And maybe the last acts of a farseer somewhere would be to make the orks launch a huge Waaagh on the eye of terror, like Eldrad did with Ghazkull in Armageddon (but alot bigger). This is obviously rubbish though.
The orks and Tyranids are far too numerous to die out, and the eldar would perhaps survive through the Harlequins, who are immune to the power of Slaanesh. Tau will die because of the Imperium's blatent Nazism towards other races, and although the Damocles Gulf failed, should the Imperium be able to launch another attack, without the distractions from other races, the Tau will fall. This annoys me cos the Tau are the ones with all the good ideas!
I know bu**er all about necrons, so i'll assume they all rust finally, leaving the Orks and Nids to eat the imperium, and then each other. the only survivors are the Harlequins, who took some Tau with them cos they were freinds, and I chaos marine, who is on the top of the Emperors old throne shouting "I win". (the emperor was eaten by some grots...)

Then the universe will implode again, and the Chaos marine will say "Ohh for fu....

I've got to applaud Addoran. That's a pretty definitive post.

However, I don't think it's even possible to rank them.

Chaos, as you've stated, is indestructible. I'm not even talking about the chaos gods, who can be killed in a sense, but warp space itself is an integral part of the universe. Unless there is some technomagical way to completely sever warp and real space (people talk about the C'tan doing this, but I don't think they're capable of really comprehending, let alone manipulating the warp.) Chaos, as in the warp universe, is completely indestructible.

The Imperium. Addoran got it right. But remember also that the Emperor was considered by many to be merely the next stage of psychic evolution to which all humans were gradually progressing. Even if the Emperor wasn't reborn, what if someone else made that quantum leap? Those who think the Emperor wasn't that tough should remember that Horus, who was a god to begin with, was being fed all the power the 4 chaos gods could possibly give him, and (according to one piece of fluff anyway) was only able to injure the Emperor because the Emperor felt unable to kill him.

But even then, the Emperor can't kill chaos. The Emperor drew his power from the warp too, and had a warp presence (it still exists, which is why the astronomicon works) so, in a way, the Emperor is chaos. He was just immune to the thoughts and emotions which create and sustain the chaos gods.

It's all very complicated, and I think the important thing is, as far as we should be concerned, noone is going to win. GW is unlikely to say in the near future 'right, we're bored of making massive ammounts of money from our most popular game, so the necrons win!' If 40k is ever scrapped, it will be because not enough people play it to sustain it any more. Not because it's decided that one race is so overpowered it will beat everyone else.

A big one, which has been asked several times before. With similar(ish) results.

The_Giant_Mantis said:

I've got to applaud Addoran. That's a pretty definitive post.

Click to expand...

Hear, hear. Addoran's post has been the best I've read on this topic for a while (given that this is the only 40k forum I read, that's been a few months). But me being me, I'm going to pick holes in it as I see it.

I can't see how the Orks can be that under-estimated. There are some Ork clans (notably the Blood Axes and possibly the Bad Moons) that may agree to tribute in lieu of survival, but not all of them. I see the Orks as a galactic immune system, if you like; they're as pervasive as the Nids, and only pull together and fight in the event of major threats. Which the Nids tend to pose. If you want an analogy, think xenofungus from Alpha Centauri.

Please note that here I'm going with the idea that the Old Ones created the Orks, not some random Snotlings that got super-intelligent by eating mushrooms.

Although the slaves idea is a harder one to get around. But if there's a wide sweep of the idea of orkiness throughout the whole races (as there presumably would be during a race-wide Waaagh), then anything unorky may well be stamped out. This would possibly mean the end for the Blood Axes too.

But enough about Orks. All the rubbish about the Eldar dying out once they've killed Slaanesh is rubbish; a race doesn't die out because it kills of its main nemesis (which, as Mantis says, would be nearly impossible anyway unless the Eldar kill off everyone else). The Eldar of old were enemies of the C'tan too, and so that war would start again, although I have no idea who would win, what with both the Talismans of Vaul and the Nightbringer's ultimate weapon both being somewhat damaged. Unless the Imperium were wiped out first, allowing the Eldar to grab the Talismans, which isn't going to happen quickly.

And what did Farseer Sareld mean by the Eldar women becoming fertile again? I just thought that was the way the Eldar bred; it's humans that are exeptionally prolific breeders (this is even stated in Fantasy Warhammer), not that the Eldar are for some bizzarre reason infertile.

The Emperor ressurecting (in any form, be it the Star Child fluff {now discredited anyway} or the emergence of another fully-aware Alpha Psyker) would cause a massive civil war between the believers of the ressurection and the non-believers (see the Inquisitor rulebook) that would be possibly more deadly to Humanity than the Horus Heresy; it wouldn't be the panacea that some people seem to think it is.

As I've said above, the only way Chaos can be truly wiped out is if the Eldar are the only surviving race. And even then Slaanesh of all the gods may not die out, as it offers perfection in various forms, which the Eldar still crave through their Path. So Chaos is always going to be around, but it won't ever win as it's always a marginal interest in comparison to a race's own desire for survival. Only those who have completely signed up to Chaos (read the Traitor Legions) would be able to contest a "Chaos win", and there simply aren't enough of them left to conquer the galaxy unaided.

The necrons are strong contenders, unless nipped in the bud "now". If they're allowed to wake up properly then they will be quite scary (and ressurect their Galactic Civilisation, as per WD203). As to whether the nids could beat them depends on the state of the nids. As Mantis has said in another post, the Hive Fleets we see now could be the tip of the iceberg or they could be the beaten remnants of a dying race that were chased out of their own galaxy and are having a last gasp at survival. We just don't know.

Which is were I'm going to leave it. This can be argued forever because of different shades of opionion. My colours, such as they are, are that the Tau and the Eldar (both kinds) are likely to die out. The rest is far too close to call.