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Star Wars vs Warhammer 40k

If the IoM capiatal weapons are as primitive as there warp drives they are in big trouble vs the Empire

The Imperium's capital weaponry would do fine against Star Wars ships. They don't focus as much on energy weapons, but their macrocannons are certainly on par with the turbo lasers we see on ISDs. They also have some pretty powerful energy weapons though on some of their larger ships such as lances (really powerful lasers) and plasma macrocannons. Also, ISDs are shown to be weak against things like missiles and torpedoes, and if there's one thing the Imperium likes to do in space battles, it's spam torpedoes right before ramming enemy ships. And their torpedoes can be pretty nasty, especially melta torpedoes which can pretty much burn through any armor out there.

The problem the Imperium faces though is weapon placement on their ships. ISDs have most of their firepower mounted on turrets, giving them greater tactical flexibility and maneuverability. The Imperium mounts its weapons in fixed positions similar to old Age of Sail ships, forcing them to rely on being able to broadside their enemies which forces their ships to present larger targets to their enemies. It also limits the amount of firepower an Imperial Navy vessel can bring to bear on a target, whereas ISDs don't really seem to have that limitation.

the old EU Star Wars had things like planetary shields which seem t have no equivalents in WH40k.

Planetary shields do exist in 40k, but they are rarely used. Instead, the Imperium focuses its shielding technology on hive cities. Most hive cities do have dome shields that allow them to withstand intense bombardment from both ground-based and orbital artillery. A prominent use of such shielding was seen in the siege of Vervunhive in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels. The shild of Vervunhive was impossible to penetrate and the forces of Chaos had to resort to using a sorcerer to corrupt the governor of the hive and convince him to willingly shut down the shield.

The IoM still seems to use a lot of projectile weapons for example

Yes, but they are very powerful projectile weapons. Bolters are, to put it simply, fully automatic rocket launchers with projectiles that explode after penetrating the target.

And I'll take this opportunity to talk about the Imperial Guard's lasgun for a second. I know a lot of 40k fans rag on the lasgun and call it a glorified flashlight, but it is a pretty powerful weapon on it's own. It's just weak compared to everything else in 40k. Basically, the lasgun has variable power settings, but the higher you set it, the fewer shots you get out of a single power pack. At maximum setting, you only get one shot but that one shot could penetrate 3 meters of concrete and still kill whatever was on the other side of that concrete. Now, I know blasters in Star Wars have variable settings as well, but I don't think they have that wide of a range of settings.

So who wins?

Honestly, I think the two would fight each other to a stalemate. Neither one could successfully invade the territory of the other (remember, the Imperium of Man is more or less unbeatable on defense, but really falters when forced to attack)

Even if the IoM captures SW tech they can't back wards engineer it or produce it anyway either due to it being heresy

That doesn't stop the AdMech from doing it. Even though it is still considered tech heresy, the AdMech still engages in a lot of secret research that not even the Inquisition is aware of. That's how the Imperium got Primaris Marines after all. So if they got their hands on Star Wars tech, I think the AdMech could definitely do something with it.

If you can kill the Emperor of Mankind/blow up Sol you more or less win the war.

Yeah, but that opens up a whole can of worms the GE isn't prepared to deal with. Remember, the Golden Throne is containing a Warp Rift on Holy Terra and if it is destroyed, that Warp Rift will bust wide open into a giant Warp Storm and allow daemons to endlessly spill forth into the material world. So the GE would have defeated the Imperium, only to see its invasion force get sucked into The Warp and become the playthings of daemons. At that point, the average stormtrooper better hope he gets caught by a Bloodletter before a Daemonette gets to him.

Their weapons are big but IDK if they can penetrate ISD shields, or planetary shields.

I think they can, but even of they can't the Imperium can still destroy both ships and planets. How? Psykers. There are sanctioned psykers within the Imperium's military that have been known to destroy entire planets with their minds. So let's say you have the Death Star creeping up on a forgeworld. The GE fleet supporting it blasts through the Imperium's defenses and now the Death Star is preparing to turn it into the next Alderaan. All of a sudden, the sanctioned psyker on the planet (and just about every planet has at least one) just explodes the heads of everyone on board the Death Star at once.

Of course, in doing so the psyker will probably kill himself in the process or explode in a fireball of warp energy that will then turn into a rift daemons can exploit. But hey, at least the forgeworld wasn't blown up.
 
And I'll take this opportunity to talk about the Imperial Guard's lasgun for a second. I know a lot of 40k fans rag on the lasgun and call it a glorified flashlight, but it is a pretty powerful weapon on it's own. It's just weak compared to everything else in 40k. Basically, the lasgun has variable power settings, but the higher you set it, the fewer shots you get out of a single power pack. At maximum setting, you only get one shot but that one shot could penetrate 3 meters of concrete and still kill whatever was on the other side of that concrete. Now, I know blasters in Star Wars have variable settings as well, but I don't think they have that wide of a range of settings.

They have this too in starwars, it melts the barrel of the laser gun if you repeatly hot shot the weapon.
For weapons that fire at the speed of light and not subject to gravity, Imperial Guards sure are bad at shooting. (and good at dying)

Problem with WH40K is the constant regression of humanity, while in the star wars the technology advances forward in a continous pace.
 
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while in the star wars the technology advances forward in a continous pace.

Does it ? Is KotOR still canon ? The game is set 4000 years before the Star Wars movies a seems to have basically the same tech level.
 
Problem with WH40K is the constant regression of humanity,

This has changed with 8th edition 40k. The Imperium has its back against the wall and are now pulling out all the stops against their enemies. This has caused the AdMech to bring out some pretty nice technological advancements for the Imperium. These include the Primaris Marines and the Primaris Repulsor which is pretty much a hover version of the Land Raider among other advancements.

Does it ? Is KotOR still canon ?

Yeah it's still canon (or more accurately, was recently brought back into canon). And that is a good point you bring up. Technology has stagnated in Star Wars just as it has in the Imperium.

Ultimately, this turns an Imperium Attack on the Empire into a war of attraction the Imperium cannot hope to win.

Wars of attrition are literally the Imperium's specialty. Every war they win, they win by slowly grinding their enemy down by throwing millions upon millions of guardsmen at them until they are dead. If there's one thing the Imperium doesn't have a shortage of, it's people. I'd hate to see what would happen if a legion of stormtroopers went up against a regiment or two of the Death Korps of Krieg.

Which brings me to another point: I think the Imperium has a clear advantage in ground combat simply because of how their military is structured as opposed to how the GE's military is structured. At its core, the GE is mostly just a glorified police/counter-insurgency force, not a fully mobilized wartime army like the Imperium or even like the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars. Their weapons are mostly geared towards the Tarkin Doctrine of intimidation rather than battlefield practicality. Hence why they wear bright white armor and lack any real heavy armor or artillery. Sure they have AT-ATs, but those are, again, more weapons of intimidation rather than a serious battlefield threat. They only worked against the rebels because the rebels generally lacked the heavy firepower to bring them down. The Imperium would not have that problem. Baneblades and I'd say even Leman Russ tanks would annihilate both AT-ATs and AT-STs before they could cause any real damage to the Imperium's infantry or artillery. Hell, even some Sentinels with lascannons could probably bring them down.

The Astra Militarum on the other hand, is a wartime army and is outfitted as such. They have specialized regiments for different types of warfare and battlefield environments as well as a wide array of tanks, heavy weapons, and artillery to handle just about any situation that may arise on the battlefield. Sure, they still use horse-mounted cavalry as well, but those horses are usually given modern armor that allows them to survive on a 40k battlefield and the spears their riders carry have explosive tips that are capable of piercing any tank armor out there.

There's also the issue of morale. Now I know this is going to sound crazy, but the Imperium has the advantage here as well. There are two main reasons for this:

1. The ground forces of the GE wouldn't be anywhere near the scariest thing the average guardsman has faced and wouldn't be intimidated in the slightest by anything the GE throws at them. The opposite would be true for the average stormtrooper. The worst any stormtrooper has had to face is some rebel punk with a blaster and some funny looking oversized helmet. So what's that stormtrooper going to do when he sees millions of guardsmen staring back at him, battle psykers summoning up psychic storms, ministorum priests waving their oversized chainsaws around while shouting verses from Imperial scripture, and massive Imperator-Class Titans striding forward on the battlefield? That stormtrooper is going to curl up in the fetal position and cry and probably wet himself too. Especially once a psyker gets inside his mind and really starts messing with him. And once he's done crying, he's probably going to drop his blaster, strip off his armor and run for his life.

2. The Commissariat. The Commissars of the Astra Militarum would ensure every guardsman continues to fight the enemies in front of him by putting something even more terrifying behind him.

I see ground battles going very poorly for the GE simply because they are not a battle-hardened army, nor are they equipped to fight a conventional war. When the worst you've had to fight is an ill-equipped band of rebels, you aren't going to do very well when you are suddenly thrust into a major war against a massive military force that has been in total war status for the better part of 10,000 years.

That's why I say the GE's best hope against the Imperium would be to leverage their advantages in space and avoid ground combat as much as possible. Even then, while the GE would probably win most naval slugfests, I'd have to think the Imperium would eventually adjust its tactics and start using Astartes to board and destroy/capture ISDs. Remember, the Imperium of man has teleportation technology and that technology is mostly in the hands of the Astartes. First Company Veterans in Terminator armor are most effective in ship boarding actions and I think the crews of GE ships would really struggle to fight them off. That might be how the Imperium could compensate for the advantages the GE has in space combat.
 
I know absolutely nothing about the Warhammer 40k universe except that I think I remember an RTS game called that. I never played it though.

In which ways is it comparable to Star Wars?
When Star Wars ripped off Dune, they said "but maybe no so bonkers".

When Warhammer 40,000 ripped off Dune, they said "but everyone is a D&D fantasy race wearing a space suit for some reason".
 
Except the timescale does not work out. In a warp-less GFFA, the time the Imperium need to get from one target to the next (years) and the time the GE ned to rebuild all ships it lost are equivalent. That means the GE keep grinding down the IOM while rebuilding after each battle; and the IOM is cut off from further reinforcement (on top of needing hundreds of years to rebuild). This is an unwinnable scenario. If one side is in position to easily make good their losses and the other is not, that second side cannot ein a war of attrition.

Ground battles are a sideshow. Given both sides have access to base delta zero/exterminatus grade weaponry (and the Empire has Death Stars), space superiority will be the decisive factor.

KOtOR is not presently cannon. The Hammerhead ship design that was used in KOTOR has been recycled for SW:Rebels, but it is canonically a relatively modern design whose hull shape is inspired by a much older design. So not a 4000 years old ship still in service.
 
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This has changed with 8th edition 40k. The Imperium has its back against the wall and are now pulling out all the stops against their enemies. This has caused the AdMech to bring out some pretty nice technological advancements for the Imperium. These include the Primaris Marines and the Primaris Repulsor which is pretty much a hover version of the Land Raider among other advancements.

10,000 years of research slightly for larger marines, slightly better landraiders, and significant price increases.
In the star wars universe look at the advances in the star destroyers during the life time of just Leia, we went from something like 80 guns to 1,500 guns

Though for some reason some WH40K have stupidly powerful weapons like the Nova cannon, warp missles which dosnt really fit in with the rest of the weapons sets
Apparently the Imperial cant create them anymore so once they are used up or lost then that is that.

Wars of attrition are literally the Imperium's specialty. Every war they win, they win by slowly grinding their enemy down by throwing millions upon millions of guardsmen at them until they are dead. If there's one thing the Imperium doesn't have a shortage of, it's people. I'd hate to see what would happen if a legion of stormtroopers went up against a regiment or two of the Death Korps of Krieg.

Use of attrition is lack of stratergy.

Star wars is more about controlling the high ground, and the high ground is space and space battles. Ground forces seem to be secondary. I can easily imagine the Starwars imperials resorting to droid armies again in order to counter the human wave tactics.

This is another problem Star wars is able to technologically adapt, while Warhammer are stuck with what they have. I can easily see New weapons and technology advances as well as reverse engineering enemy technology happening.

Giant slow moving torpedos are problem ? I can imagine the development of advanced tractor beams to push them away. Or advanced heavy fighters, or smaller stealth coverttes to detect and tack them and so on. Giant Battleships outclassing star destroyers ? Well build them also a big, and design them to exploit there side mounted weapons. Or well build masses of light carriers and fighters negating much of battleships armements.
 
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KOtOR is not presently cannon. The Hammerhead ship design that was used in KOTOR has been recycled for SW:Rebels, but it is canonically a relatively modern design whose hull shape is inspired by a much older design. So not a 4000 years old ship still in service.

KOTOR is canon and not because of the Hammerhead. Some events of KOTOR were referenced in an episode of Rebels. That makes KOTOR (at least partially) canon again.
 
Wrong.

While Malachor holding a Sith temple is canon (like KOTOR said), the story of what happened is completely different between KOTOR and Rebels.

In KOTOR: The Jedi Order was all but wiped out at the time of the destruction of Malachor.
In New Canon: The Jedi Order was at full power at the time.

In KOTOR: Malachor was destroyed by a small band of heroes.
In New Canon: Malachor was destroyed during a full-fledged assault by a Jedi Fleet.

In KOTOR: It was a Republic weapon that was responsible for the disaster at Malachor.
In New Canon: it was a Sith weapon within the temple.

In KOTOR: The weapon utterly destroyed Malachor, crushing it into non-existence.
In New Canon: The weapon petrified all life-forms present on the surface.

No mention of Revan or the Exile, or of any of the Darths, have ever surfaced (though Revan is likely to, since the Clone Wars/Rebels crew keep wanting to bring him in).

In short: they're importing some broad strokes from past stories, including KOTOR. They have not recanonized KOTOR. To claim otherwise is to badly misrepresent the reality.

Likewise, the fact that they brought Thrawn back in did not recanonize any of the old Thrawn stories. Some of them resurfaced in Zhan's Thrawn's novel , along with some entirely new one, and, oh, yeah, a very new spin on Thrawn's canon background.
 
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When Star Wars ripped off Dune, they said "but maybe no so bonkers".

When Warhammer 40,000 ripped off Dune, they said "but everyone is a D&D fantasy race wearing a space suit for some reason".

What's a dune bonker?
 
When Star Wars ripped off Dune, they said "but maybe no so bonkers".

When Warhammer 40,000 ripped off Dune, they said "but everyone is a D&D fantasy race wearing a space suit for some reason".
What do you think Star Wars ripped off of Dune?
 
In short: they're importing some broad strokes from past stories, including KOTOR. They have not recanonized KOTOR. To claim otherwise is to badly misrepresent the reality.

You're splitting hairs to confuse and minimize the original point. That point being that general era of the Star Wars universe has been recanonized and in that era they are using more or less the same technology they are using now. This flies in the face of the point that Star Wars shows steady technological advancement. They do not. Technology has been stagnate in Star Wars for at least 4000 years, likely longer.

As a side note: I find the current comparison between the GE and IoM to be a bit unfair. We are comparing the GE at the height of it's power versus the IoM while it is in a state of severe decline. To make an accurate comparison, we'd have to either use the IoM during the Great Crusade (when the God Emperor was still up and walking around) or the GE right before or during the Battle of Jakku.
 
The technology levels of that era have not been recanonized. That's a blatant lie. The rule is that unless something has been shown in the new canon, it's not canon.

All that's canon about this era is that they had lightsabers (which are seen on the petrified Jedi and Sith). We do know lightsaber design DID evolve between KOTOR and the trilogies (New Canon establish that Malachor-era jedi used the less energy-efficient crossguard design (which Kylo Ren would later use as the basis for his own saber), versus modern jedi using the more advanced and more energy-efficient straight-line design. We know nothing else about their technology.

What we DO know on technological progress in the SWU, is that in the space between the PT and the NT, the following evolution have appeared:

-Massive increase in the size of the mainstay warships of combatant navies : the Republic's PT-era Venator-class star destroyer clocks in at 1200m ; in comparison, the First Order's NT-era Resurgent class star destroyer clocks in at 2900 meter, with the OT-era Imperial-class in-between at 1600 meter). Likewise, the OT-era Executor-class at 19 kilometers long is succeeded in the NT-era by the Mega-class at roughly three time the size (60 kilometers wide).
-The armament of those ships have grown up correspondingly: a PT-era Venator has 10 heavy or medium turbolaser batteries and no Ion cannons ; the OT-era Imperial II features 60 turbolaser batteries and 60 heavy ion cannons, and its's NT-era successor the Resurgent features a whooping 1500+ turbolasers and heavy ion cannons on the Resurgent. (In comparison, the OT-era Executor packed around 5000+ turbolasers and heavy ion cannons, meaning the Resurgent is actually closer in firepower to an Executor than to an Imperial.).
-Planet busting superweapons have grown from theoretical plans (PT-era, Death Star Plans) ; to slow-firing early models (OT-era, First Death Star), to rapid-firing later models (OT-era, Second Death Star), to models capable of hitting multiple planets across hyperspace (NT-era, Starkiller) and to miniaturized version used as heavy artillery in ground warfare (NT-era, Superlaser siege cannon) (there is also the question of the precise capabilities of the First Order's orbital autocannons, first seen in Last Jedi)
-Hyperdrive miniaturization has progressed from nearly inexistent (early PT: starfighters need to dock with other ships or docking rings to enter hyperspace) to prototype (PT-era: found on a handful of starfighters, like Anakins's personal one), to limited deployment (OT-era : found on the Rebellion's few starfighters, but not on mass-production Imperial model), to common (NT-era: both sides have hyperdrives on their fighters)

Could there have been a period of historical stagnation prior to that? It's entirely possible, although there is very little evidence to that fact at present.

But even if there was, what is absolutely certain is that, at the time of the Galactic Empire (and its successor state, The First Order), Star Wars technology is advancing at a rapid pace. Since it's the Empire we're talking about here, the technology advancement speed of a previous era is of little relevance.
 
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At least Dune (and apparently also WH40K) seem to have some interesting parts too. SW is really boring, imo.
Obviously you haven't dug deep enough into the old EU material...
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What do you think Star Wars ripped off of Dune?
Everything with a Galactic Empire is a rip-off of Dune, even stuff that came before Dune. Asimov's Foundation series? A mere pre-preemptive rehash. Gibbon's Decline & Fall? AU fan-fic.
 
Everything with a Galactic Empire is a rip-off of Dune, even stuff that came before Dune. Asimov's Foundation series? A mere pre-preemptive rehash. Gibbon's Decline & Fall? AU fan-fic.

Well, the Real Story, was written in the 3rd century AD, and was about a war between the Empire of the Sun, and the one of the Moon, featuring winged centaurs (the "Nephelocentauroi") the size of the colossus of Rhodes, but no space folding :)
 
In fairness, Star Wars does feature prominently a desert planet and the trade of an exotic substance known as spice.
 
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