Star Wars vs Warhammer 40k

[Zardnaar]

Well we only discussed the Imperium's method of FTL which is very unpredictable and unreliable. There are other methods of FTL in 40k though that are stupidly OP. For instance the Necrons have some kind of inertialess drive that allows infinite acceleration for their ships and allows even massive capital ships to dart around like starfighters.

BTW, the Necrons are by far the most technologically advanced faction in 40k. So you'll see me talking about them a lot when giving examples of just how advanced tech in 40k can get.



Everything I've described fits that definition. That's the point I'm trying to get across. Everything in 40k is extremely OP by design. Things like cyclonic torpedoes are not rare or experimental, they are mass produced and used on an almost daily basis by the Imperium. Same with macrocannons, teleportation, psykers, etc.



This is a common misconception about how the Imperium's FTL works. Warp travel does not become impossible without the Astronomican projected by the Emperor, it just becomes a lot more dangerous as it becomes easier for a ship's navigator to get lost in the Warp. However Warp travel is still possible as seen in the Gothic War (also known as the 12th Black Crusade). In that war, the entire Gothic Sector was cut off from the Astronomican due to massive warp storms, yet the navigators of Battlefleet Gothic were still able to guide their ships through the Warp in order to redeploy where needed to counter Abbadon's invasion.

Also, destroying Sol isn't going to be as easy as you might think. The Sol system has pretty much been turned into a solar system-sized fortress by the Imperium. Holy Terra itself is said to have so many defense platforms and orbital fortresses that one could walk around the entire planet on them. Any GE fleet would also have to contend with Battlefleet Solar which remains in the Sol System at all times. Their sole duty being the protection of the Imperium's most holy planets.



And I've stated I don't think that's a fair comparison. You are comparing the GE at the height of its power versus the Imperium when it is arguably at its weakest and on the verge of collapse. That's why I think a more fair comparison would be the GE at its height versus the Imperium during the Great Crusade, which was the height of its power. Then we could bring in things like the Space Marine legions, massive warfleets (since during the Great Crusade, the Imperium had an industrial capacity on par with the GE), the Custodes, and even the Emperor himself.

Or better yet, I'd be interested to see people's thoughts on how the GE would even begin to tackle a threat like the Necrons or Tyranids invading their galaxy.

Tyrandis Palpatine would probably mass the fleet and fight them in space, its not like they can actually get around that fast either.

Necrons would be a lot tougher (BTW I never claimed all of the WH40k tech was rubbish). it would depend on how the Star Wars ion weapons would work on them. That is what the Jawa used on R2D2. If they are vulnerable to ion weapons the Necrons would be no big threat,if they are immune to ion weapons big problem. What makes them tough is the armor regenerates right? Ion weapons just fry circuits (think the ISD that got hit by 1 at Hoth).

Rebels tended to use more ion weapons than the empire as TIEs (generic ones and TIE interceptors) generally do not have them, ISDs have a few I think.

BTW the GE to blow up Sol with silly superweapon of the week (90's SW was full of them) would not have to break the defenses of Sol, a single Snubfighter with super armor (basically diamond on steroids) thats invulnerable to everything drops into the sol system, fires a torpedo into the sun and jumps out few hours later supernova.

Starkiller Base is an upsized galaxy gun from the old EU and a Resurgence class Star Destroyer is similar to a Pellaeon one from the old Legends *which turned up 140 years down the track).

Star Wars is not super big on bio weapons and the like they have made a few appearances in the old Legends (Rakghoul, Krytos, hive virus), the worst one was in the Legacy books and it killed everything on Mon Cal.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's also what happens when Games Workshop adopts a canon policy of "Everything is canon!" I'm not even joking either. That is seriously their policy on 40k lore.

That was kid of the case in SW as well but each authoer of course often did their own thing and for a while there they were doing a can you top this type thing which involved super weapons, dark jedi and later on new Sith.

 

[Evie]

They call it a quantum crystal armor.

And by invulnerable to everything, he means the snubfighter in question rammed a star destroyer and just went straight through the bridge, destroying the Star Destroyer, and took a glancing blast from a death star grade superlaser, in both cases wih minimal damage to the snubfighter,

(And of course, if we get the EU, the Empire get capital ships sized superlasers, like the Eclipse and Sovereign classes)

 

[FriendlyFire]

It's also what happens when Games Workshop adopts a canon policy of "Everything is canon!" I'm not even joking either. That is seriously their policy on 40k lore.

They have changed the cannon of their universe, Ian watson space marine had a living emperor managing the Imperium in hes immobolised state.
Not to mention writing off the squats completely. Honestly I think they need to fix up some of their more crazy contridictions it just smacks of laziness

In GOrka Morka the Humans tribes have no problem using Orc made sluggas and orc powered weapons, and the more complex ork bikes and wagons.
And now they decided that Orc weapons can only be used by Orcs .......

I can imagine Orcs carrying wooden Sticks yelling dakka dakka and mowing down imperial guards

 

[Zardnaar]

They call it a quantum crystal armor.

And by invulnerable to everything, he means the snubfighter in question rammed a star destroyer and just went straight through the bridge, destroying the Star Destroyer, and took a glancing blast from a death star grade superlaser, in both cases wih minimal damage to the snubfighter,

(And of course, if we get the EU, the Empire get capital ships sized superlasers, like the Eclipse and Sovereign classes)

The Eclipse is back in the new cannon as well, its the Emperors flagship and it was in the unknown regions.

 

[Zardnaar]

They have changed the cannon of their universe, Ian watson space marine had a living emperor managing the Imperium in hes immobolised state.
Not to mention writing off the squats completely. Honestly I think they need to fix up some of their more crazy contridictions it just smacks of laziness

In GOrka Morka the Humans tribes have no problem using Orc made sluggas and orc powered weapons, and the more complex ork bikes and wagons.
And now they decided that Orc weapons can only be used by Orcs .......

I can imagine Orcs carrying wooden Sticks yelling dakka dakka and mowing down imperial guards

Its not absolute. Some Ork stuff works fine but not all of it.

I don't think they can use a stick, make dakka dakka noises and have a gun, they can take a thrown together gun thats full off scrap and make that work and if a human gets it of course it won't work.

 

[Evie]

The Eclipse is back in the new cannon as well, its the Emperors flagship and it was in the unknown regions.

Different Eclipse. The old Eclipse was its own type of ship (with the superlaser) ; the new canon Eclipse is explicitly an Executor-class dreadnaught.

 

[Zardnaar]

Different Eclipse. The old Eclipse was its own type of ship (with the superlaser) ; the new canon Eclipse is explicitly an Executor-class dreadnaught.

Ah OK.

Building something like the Eclipse seems possible in the new canon though. The Resurgent class, Dreadnoughts and Snokes flagship are actually ahead of the curve of the old Legends canon.

According to the WH40k wiki a lot of the IoM super weapons are only as a measure of last resort vs Xenos infestation and can only be done on the dircet order of the inquisition or whatever.

IN a war vs the GE the existence of man as a species is not under direct threat so they would not use them it seems. Either they win and get more humans in the empire or if they lose some worlds they can possibly get them back unlike an Ork or Tyranid infestation.

 

[Broken_Erika]

The old Eclipse looked like an inflated Executor-class on steroids....

 

[Zardnaar]

The old Eclipse looked like an inflated Executor-class on steroids....

At the time it was a very big SSD at 17km long. A normal SSD was 8km but was later retconned up to its current size (19km?).

 

[Commodore]

What makes them tough is the armor regenerates right?

What makes them tough is they can't be killed unless you destroy the tomb world a particular Necron originated from. Otherwise, any damage you cause to it will just cause it to instantly phase back to its tomb world for repairs and then be phased back onto the battlefield. Even if you blast a Necron into microscopic pieces, those pieces will phase back to the tomb world and be reassembled.

One way they could stop the invasion though would be to try to destroy their monoliths and capital ships, as those are the means by which Necrons teleport back and forth from the tomb world and whatever battlefield they are fighting on.

If they are vulnerable to ion weapons the Necrons would be no big threat,if they are immune to ion weapons big problem

I'm pretty sure they are immune to ion weapons because they don't have circuitry as we know it. Necrons are powered by the "life force" of the living being it used to be before it was transformed into a Necron.

According to the WH40k wiki a lot of the IoM super weapons are only as a measure of last resort vs Xenos infestation and can only be done on the dircet order of the inquisition or whatever.

Mostly yeah. There are circumstances though when other Imperial officials can order an Exterminatus on a world. I know high-ranking space marines have the authority to order them as well, and on occasion the commanding officer of an Imperial Navy battle group can order it as well.

I think it was either against Hive Fleet Leviathan or Hive Fleet Behemoth that the Imperium used a scorched earth policy in order to defeat it. Tyranids basically travel in a straight line from wherever they entered the galaxy and consume all worlds in their path. So the Imperium calculated the path of the hive fleet and just preemptively ordered Exterminatuses on those worlds until the hive fleet essentially starved to death.

IN a war vs the GE the existence of man as a species is not under direct threat so they would not use them it seems.

It depends. The Inquisition would definitely label the humans of the GE heretics and would be more than happy to order and Exterminatus on any world that falls to them. The exception would be worlds that are of vital strategic importance like a forgeworld. Then they'd muster millions upon millions of guardsmen to try to take it back.

Space Marines might actually be a weakness for the Imperium now that I think about it. Space Marine chapters in the current Imperium, really act as semi-autonomous fiefdoms and aren't obligated to fight in any particular war. The Imperium cannot order the Space Marines to fight, they can only request it, and a lot of chapters have become quite selfish or self-absorbed in their own chapter affairs and usually won't answer the call to war unless there's something they can gain from it. So there's a good chance most Space Marine chapters would sit out a war with the GE unless they saw some value in fighting them or the GE took actions that interfered with whatever it is a particular chapter is trying to do. There are some chapters though that would be guaranteed to fight against the GE, such as the Grey Knights, Imperial Fists, and Black Templars. You can bet the Ultramarines would show up too since they can never pass up an opportunity for glory.

 

[Skeletron2]

Ok I know that this thread is old and dead as hell, but I’m sleep deprived and all I could keep thinking about while reading about all these different super weapons from the IoM and GE was that in the end it doesn’t really matter at all. Because in the end the GE really only has a few people that can resist psykers at all. It doesn’t matter if the GE fleet is faster or more well armed because the second they encounter a moderately sized IoM ship it’s over for them, the psyker will just take over the whole ship basically. They have no real way to stop this at least I think? The psyker doesn’t even need to take over or kill everyone on the ship, just get the engineers to overload the reactor. Usually in 40K the various factions always have a resistance to psykers or they have their own psykers to counter the enemy. But besides for a few sith who could resist it the GE are mostly human or human like so the psykers would just have a field day with them. And the idea that any GE ship could get close to terra without having their head blown up seems a little off, terra is the home system of some of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy and even if the ship was cloaked they could still detect the mind. I just felt like this part was getting overlooked a bit as most of the talk was about weapons tech when I don’t think that would really matter to much when your brain is mush.

 

[Ajidica]

Well, this thread is a blast from the past!

Catholic Space Nazis flying cathedrals through hell to destroy xenos scum and eldritch abominations caused by people boinking too much is obviously way better than Star Wars.
(Remember, Han Solo is just a dude who lives in his truck to hide from his credit card bill.)

EDIT: And Space Marines are too silly. I mentally edit them out of my Warhammer 40K headcanon. AdMech and Imperial Guard for the win!

 

[Broken_Erika]

Everything.......

Spoiler :

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/3o23xy

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Ok I know that this thread is old and dead as hell, but I’m sleep deprived and all I could keep thinking about while reading about all these different super weapons from the IoM and GE was that in the end it doesn’t really matter at all. Because in the end the GE really only has a few people that can resist psykers at all. It doesn’t matter if the GE fleet is faster or more well armed because the second they encounter a moderately sized IoM ship it’s over for them, the psyker will just take over the whole ship basically. They have no real way to stop this at least I think? The psyker doesn’t even need to take over or kill everyone on the ship, just get the engineers to overload the reactor. Usually in 40K the various factions always have a resistance to psykers or they have their own psykers to counter the enemy. But besides for a few sith who could resist it the GE are mostly human or human like so the psykers would just have a field day with them. And the idea that any GE ship could get close to terra without having their head blown up seems a little off, terra is the home system of some of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy and even if the ship was cloaked they could still detect the mind. I just felt like this part was getting overlooked a bit as most of the talk was about weapons tech when I don’t think that would really matter to much when your brain is mush.

It really depends on how much of the silly lore we want to include from Legends SW. Luke could mind control the entire staff of a star destroyer at the same time (basically a psyker lol), Palpatine could literally create wormholes that sucked up entire ships, and Naga Sadow could make stars go supernova, which is generally considered a bad thing (technically supernova was also a Sith power that other Sith could learn).

Starkiller Base is also really stupid if you think about it because it fires weapons “sub-dimensionally” such as that the energy beams can literally traverse an entire galaxy in mere seconds. In the span of a minute a handful of them could basically wipe out dozens and dozens and dozens of planets essentially anywhere.

 

[Kyriakos]

The old Eclipse looked like an inflated Executor-class on steroids....

What is the estimated crew number? Looks like it could have the population of a small city.

 

[GenMarshall]

What is the estimated crew number? Looks like it could have the population of a small city.

Depends on which canon you’re looking into the OG Star Wars expanded universe or Disney’s Star Wars.

 

[Zardnaar]

What is the estimated crew number? Looks like it could have the population of a small city.

Around 780k.

Eclipse-class dreadnought

The Eclipse-class dreadnought, also known as the Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer, was a class of Imperial Super Star Destroyer manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards and mainly used around six years after the Battle of Endor. Like the Sovereign-class, they were regarded as a new generation of Super...

starwars.fandom.com

That's the legends one. Eclipse in cannon is just another SSD afaik.

 

[Akka]

What's amusing in this comparison is that WH40K drinks, runs and lives on over-the-top silliness and rule of cool, and yet SW manages to be more ridiculous and inconsistent with its superweapons.

 

[Gorbles]

This is because the EU was a complete mess of different authors doing radically-different things for years, often with no oversight or consideration for consistency with previous narrative arcs.

People moan about the "Disney era", but assuming you want consistency in storytelling, some kind of guiding hand needs to enforce something on the legions of licensed novels an IP puts out. The flipside of this is things can end up too excessively-curated, or areas forbidden because it "needs" to be explored in a particular show, movie, or other kind of moneymaking tie-in (which reduces the possibility space and thus creative output of the IP).

I'm on board with the new Canon over Legends, personally. At the same time, I reserve the right to criticise whatever narrative choices are made in this new timeline. I just think it's an improvement overall.

Warhammer has had a similar problem, but Games Workshop solves this (or "solves" this, depending on how much you like the approach) by making the miniature tabletop game be the product that sells. All the lore is in service to that, and they don't have to care about movies, etc. So they'll uncover a new tidbit in a new release for a new army, and this will supercede whatever was in a previous release, even if it directly contradicts that lore. And this is because the setting is something that revolves around "everything is a horrorshow and we've forgotten all the stuff that has made us good", so each iteration; each edition, gives each faction a chance to rediscover lost tech, or evolve in some similarly-incremental way.