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[spazyak]

Back then they had near tau levels of tech, it's just that they have and continue to loose so much every day. They are not whom they once were.

[Kot]

Eldars win because Ynnead.
Tau win because superior tech in future and shit. Maybe.
Necrons win once they get their shit together and mobilize. They have spaceships that literally fire stars (like, completly and unbullshitingly stars).
Tyranids could win because they nomnom everything.
Chaos wins because everything is at war, life sucks and stuff.
Orks win if they finally get that huge Galaxy-spanning Waagh going.
Imperium... well, Imperium has many ways to go, actually. First is the God-Emperor getting his shit together in form of Star Child, Chaos God of Order or just in general Emperor coming back somehow. Another way could be Adeptus Mechanicus finally finding an uncorrupted full STC which would fix everyones problems forever. Or Primarches can return which might be less of an complete and utter victory, but would significantly make Imperium stronger... and then there is Ordo Chronos and whatever, those guys who asked Dark Eldar or someone for help, Imperial Guard going for standarized Krieg regiment production and drowning everyone in bodies, et cetera... and technically, Imperium does have nearly countless numbers. Not anywhere close to Orks or Tyranids, but there is retarded amount of people in Wh40k. IIRC, they calculated that they could technically give Tyranids an equal battle (implying conscription of all capable humans), but the problem is that Tyranids are not alone out there.
Everyone has a very good chance of winning (maybe except Tau but honestly I still don't get why they're a major race) without even plot armour and deus ex machina (well, maybe not literally because cogboys could pull the Emperor out of the machine). Some are just more likely than others, and IMO if we were ever to get into End Times for WH40k... everything whould happen at once, everyone would get their power mutiplied and resulting clusterfuck would shatter the Galaxy.

Back then they had near tau levels of tech, it's just that they have and continue to loose so much every day. They are not whom they once were.

Tau are still infernor to Imperial levels of tech, and uncomparable to pre-"fall" Humankind (remember we had ships shooting fucking black holes and warping time and shit). They're just getting close, their quirk is fast advancement, not being superior in tech. Imperium loses countless worlds per day but Rouge Traders and various Crusades continue to reclaim more and more. Imperium at this moment is pretty stable and has been like that for past ten thousand years, the problem lies in that Emperor is pretty close to dying, which would shut down everything.

[Andres]

(remember we had ships shooting fucking black holes and warping time and shit).

Links? I want to know more about these ships.

[Loud Whispers]

Newcrons have that one Necron faction which controls a star map of the milky way - if they pluck out a star on the map, the star is destroyed in the real galaxy. Understandably a lot of people want this maguffin, and I'm not really sure how it hasn't already been used to win all of 40k. Then there's the Black Library, which probably still has the knowledge to make and unmake whole universes and gods and whatnot, if you ever remember to bring your library card to another dimension full of arsehole tricksters, more content with throwing chainsaws at you and shouting 'it was just a prank monkeigh' than letting you in.
The Tyranids sorta classify as a big world ending weapon as a species. I suppose a human victory would classify as a world ending event for all other species still remaining. Ultimate Ork victory may be survivable for a lot of the other factions, as they'd not put much effort into searching for hide and seek champions instead of krumping one another. The Tech Priests of Mars are sitting on some doosmday weapons (knowingly or unknowingly) in addition to the Void Dragon, but they're unlikely to ever touch or release most of them given the chance that said doomsday weapons may be sentient and full of mechanical rage aids heresy.
Full Chaos doosmday event may or may not be world ending, depending on interpretation of total warp victory. One still does wonder what the hell is going on in the other galaxies, if this much shit is going on in just the Milky Way.

Eldars win because Ynnead.
Tau win because superior tech in future and shit. Maybe.
Necrons win once they get their shit together and mobilize. They have spaceships that literally fire stars (like, completly and unbullshitingly stars).
Tyranids could win because they nomnom everything.
Chaos wins because everything is at war, life sucks and stuff.
Orks win if they finally get that huge Galaxy-spanning Waagh going.
Imperium... well, Imperium has many ways to go, actually. First is the God-Emperor getting his shit together in form of Star Child, Chaos God of Order or just in general Emperor coming back somehow. Another way could be Adeptus Mechanicus finally finding an uncorrupted full STC which would fix everyones problems forever. Or Primarches can return which might be less of an complete and utter victory, but would significantly make Imperium stronger... and then there is Ordo Chronos and whatever, those guys who asked Dark Eldar or someone for help, Imperial Guard going for standarized Krieg regiment production and drowning everyone in bodies, et cetera... and technically, Imperium does have nearly countless numbers. Not anywhere close to Orks or Tyranids, but there is retarded amount of people in Wh40k. IIRC, they calculated that they could technically give Tyranids an equal battle (implying conscription of all capable humans), but the problem is that Tyranids are not alone out there.
Everyone has a very good chance of winning (maybe except Tau but honestly I still don't get why they're a major race) without even plot armour and deus ex machina (well, maybe not literally because cogboys could pull the Emperor out of the machine). Some are just more likely than others, and IMO if we were ever to get into End Times for WH40k... everything whould happen at once, everyone would get their power mutiplied and resulting clusterfuck would shatter the Galaxy.

The way I see it, Eldar can win through Ynnead or if they manage to ally with some meatshields of champion attrition warfare capable of defending their colonies and allowing the Eldar to make the Eldar Empire great again. They're pretty much out of options on the latter though, as the last chance for such an alliance died with Eldrad. So they've only got Ynnead.
Dark Eldar don't really have a win condition, they just have persistence conditions, short of one of the Dark Eldar usurping Slaanesh or one of the Enshrouded completing their horrendous goals of modifying the DE/divorcing them from the materium and immaterium/other fucked up shit by DE standards.
Tau win condition would be developing their own webway tech, destroying the Hive Fleets and then bumrushing West to make a big Tau Empire. Then again they can also just sit tight. They don't really have any pressing objectives or things to defend beyond stuff being nommd by Tyranids, I guess their win condition is hegemony. I think it would be kinda funny if all these apocalypses happen and everyone dies, then the Tau just sort of move into an empty galaxy
Necron win condition varies because a lot of them have gone bonkers, but I suppose the one condition all of them agree on is separating the warp from the materium. If they are capable of doing that, no Chaos meddling, no psykers, no warp travel, no Eldar - pretty much the only people who could stand up to them then are the Tyranids and the Orks, and even then the Necrons possess the matter destroying weaponry capable of wearing them down through attrition.
C'Tan win condition is farming more souls and reuniting the shards and shit. We Grimdark Souls now, with Void Dragon still sleepy and the other shards all swooshing about doing whatever
Imperium win condition is bringing the Emperor back or fixing the Throne permanently / taking over the warp by ascending into a race of psykers more powerful than chaos (without being taken over by the warp) / making or taking over the webway gates / killing off all the other threats so they only have to worry about chaos / advancing the plot
Imperium has more options
I wonder if 40k is so grimdark that they even lost their potato STC. Life is not worth living without potato
Orks - orks always win, no matter what. If another faction takes dominance that just means better fightan, the only lose condition is if there is no fightan ;(
Tyranids win condition is presumably taking over the Milky Way and snuffing out the Astronomicon so that their hive mind can exist in peace, free from whatever is chasing them out of their home galaxy
Imperial Guard win condition is they hold the line and don't horribly die because of it
Adeptus Mechanicus win condition is they invent warpnet, and the sheer scale of shitposting the Imperium produces drives the Chaos Gods to suicide
SOB win condition is they run out of heretics to burninate in the thatched roof cottages so they can finally go back to their Emperor-grade husbandu pillows
Spehss Mahrin win condition is that they weaponize their blue steel rain modeling careers to smite down the enemies of the Emperor with sheer fabulosity
Chaos win condition is the Warp taking over the Milky Way, basically ensuring that their rule is concrete and nothing can challenge whatever their whims are

The stuff involving time is a bit messed up. Crypteks trying to delete time, Ordos Chronos possibly unmaking themselves (or existing out of time?), Warp beings floating upstream of time just as planned... Best not to think about it

[Tack]

Oldrcons vs Newcrons is a difficult one.

Currently, Necrons Eldar-adjacent. They all have 'Mysteriuss Ajjendaas', and sometimes straight-up war with rival kingdoms.

However for the most part the reason Necrons aren't world-endingly scary is the handwave-tastic 'they're all still asleep'.

Basically every game, book or campaign involving Necrons have basically been "Oh god we activated a tomb world aaaah quick kill it before they all wake up" or "Ohgod we found some necron tech and studied it and now they want it back!"

Props to the Ciaphus cain books, which literally end with the Necrons turning up, killing their way through a chaos army, killing their way through an imperial army, grabbing the thing the imperials were trying to protect from Chaos and enbuggering off, to which Cain goes 'Close enough'- the end.

Edit: Oops that was about seven ninjas ago.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Eldars win because Ynnead.

For completeness, that's the Craftworld and Exodite plan. The Dark Eldar can't really win, per se, but are like the Orks in that they already have what they want. The Harlequins have JUST AS PLANNEDU, or whatever the fuck they're getting up to, quite possibly trying to make the Imperium Great Again.

Tau win because superior tech in future and shit. Maybe.

What the Tau have isn't exactly their tech, it's that they're the only faction that intends to harness the power of a true AI. Even the Necrons are just transposed organics, and after all, it was the Men of Iron who originally delivered the galaxy to humanity. (Which makes me realize that while the Imperium has only conquered the galaxy once, humans have conquered it at least twice, possibly more.)

Chaos wins because everything is at war, life sucks and stuff.

If Chaos has an articulate victory condition, it's probably the fall of Cadia. Should you believe certain theories the Cadian warp pylons are critically disrupting the Eye of Terror's expansion, and even if not Cadia is a prerequisite for spilling out into the heart of the Imperium (really shows their planning skills that the Imperium literally just colonized everything in a circle around the Eye) and bringing about the eventual fusion of the Warp and Realspace.

Imperium does have nearly countless numbers. Not anywhere close to Orks or Tyranids, but there is retarded amount of people in Wh40k. IIRC, they calculated that they could technically give Tyranids an equal battle (implying conscription of all capable humans), but the problem is that Tyranids are not alone out there.

Spoiler: Ahem (click to show/hide)

Alright, let's do some psyker math.

The Imperium rules over "a million worlds", and psykers are about 1 in a million. I'll take that to mean the range beginning at Eta // Theta // Iota up to Alpha Plus. 1d4chan doesn't cite their source but gives Gamma // Delta psykers a rate of 1 in a billion. This is important to give us some sense of how the rarity of psyker grades proceeds.

Now, the population of the Imperium: I'm going to assume the million worlds statistic refers purely to human inhabited planets, not also dead worlds in Imperial territory. This is sort of an issue due to the way the Imperial population is distributed. Agri Worlds in the millions, Hive Worlds up to 500,000,000, at least one Pleasure World over a billion, Civilized Worlds, Death Worlds, Cardinal Worlds?! How in Throne's name to measure that? Well, Lexicarnium puts the number of Hive Worlds in the Imperium at 32,380. Earth would probably be classified as a Agri/Pleasure World at 7 billion, while Holy Terra is said to have "billions". I think it's fair to assume Holy Terra is the most populated world in all the Imperium, and thus would be greater than the runner up of Ichar IV at 500 billion but less than 1 trillion.

Now, Earth is probably among the most suitable worlds for humans possible, but if we take a figure near its population as about an average baseline for the Imperium we get 5 billion times 1 million, which gives the Imperium a population of 5 quadrillion. God damn. I don't think that's fully unreasonable, but let's do some checking. The lowest recorded Hive World is Landunder at just under 1 billion (pathetic), while the highest exempting Terra is again Ichar IV at 500 billion. I went through all the listed populations of Hive Worlds on Lexicarnium and found their mean to be 58.2 billion (set of 18). 58.2 billion*32,380= 1.8 quadrillion.

Well hot damn, 5 quadrillion looks like it's actually reasonable. Granted, no other worlds are going to have that kind of concentration, but if a mere 32 thousand of a million holds nearly 2/5ths of the Imperial population the other 968,000 making up 3 quadrillion isn't unreasonable.

Alright, finally on to psykers. 5 quadrillion/1 million = 500 billion Imperial psykers from Eta to Alpha Plus at any given time. Incidentally, this means that Cheesecake's need for 3.65 billion psykers over 10,000 years is not only possible, the Imperium could feed the Emperor for another 10,000 years and then some with just their current psykers if they could keep them alive. Our psyker baseline begins with the difference between Iota to Alpha Plus and Delta to Alpha Plus, that being 5 million and thus lending us to 4.9 billion Iota-Eta psykers and setting the rarity progression.

The main population of the Imperium goes from Sigma to Kappa, and they're almost 4,999,500,000,000,000 of the population. This is where things get very hard to quantify. Omicron through Kappa are "lucky people" who can subtly warp reality, while Sigma through Tau people are "mundanes", not warp-negative enough to spread a hate plague and shrug off daemons, but warp-negative enough that the psyfire might leave a second-degree burn instead of a third-degree one, or who might not see warp ghosts in the local haunt while everyone can. Everyone has definitely met people who are lucky or kind of dense seeming, so I think it's fair to say that the distribution isn't that skewed towards Rho/Pi. The other thing is that it seems like the distribution should be heaver on psi-positive instead of psi-negative, both because blanks are generally described as more exotically rare and because humanity has been increasing in psychicness, not decreasing.

I looked, and sadly, there's no studies showing what percentage of people are lucky. Alas, I'll just have to do some guess work. Most people aren't lucky, but even fewer should be dense. So... 20% lucky, 5% mundane, and 75% baseline.

Unfortunately, I don't have any way to really measure the true blanks past Sigma, so that's pure estimation based on other numbers.

Nevertheless, this means that the total population of the Imperium, divided by psychic assignment, is:

Omega-Minus: ~Ten Thousands
Omega:~ Millions
Upsilon // Phi // Chi // Psi: ~ Billions
Sigma // Tau: 249,975,000,000,000
Rho // Pi: 3,749,625,000,000,000
Omicron // Xi // Nu // Mu // Lambda // Kappa: 999,900,000,000,000
Iota // Theta // Eta: 4,995,000,000
Zeta // Epsilon: 4,500,000
Delta // Gamma: 450,000
Beta // Alpha: 45,000
Alpha-Plus: ~5,000

Some are just more likely than others, and IMO if we were ever to get into End Times for WH40k... everything whould happen at once, everyone would get their power mutiplied and resulting clusterfuck would shatter the Galaxy.

Much as I liked Nightmare to Come and Age of Dusk, it's problem as "THE End Times Story" was never allowing this to come to pass. Orks and Nids ascended but essentially vanished without interacting with the plot, Imperium got fucked, Ynnead got stuck on the afterbirth, even Chaos did it's thing and made everyone into a Failbaddon except Abaddon himself when they had unrestricted access to the entire galaxy. Though everything about the New Chaos Gods and the countdown to Nex- was fucking awesome, shame it never got there.

It's enough to make me want to start writing outlines...

Newcrons have that one Necron faction which controls a star map of the milky way - if they pluck out a star on the map, the star is destroyed in the real galaxy. Understandably a lot of people want this maguffin, and I'm not really sure how it hasn't already been used to win all of 40k.

The Newcrons involved are hyper-isolationist and only use it to maintain the ecology of the galaxy. Despite the schizophrenic rage of every other Necron in the galaxy, they just don't give a shit (and would blow up their stars if they tried anything).

Then there's the Black Library, which probably still has the knowledge to make and unmake whole universes and gods and whatnot, if you ever remember to bring your library card to another dimension full of arsehole tricksters, more content with throwing chainsaws at you and shouting 'it was just a prank monkeigh' than letting you in.

I welcome this new and exciting interpretation of the Harlequins.

I suppose a human victory would classify as a world ending event for all other species still remaining.

Depending upon the nature of that victory, the classic desire for a Human-Eldar-Tau Alliance could end up fulfilled. And even Dark Age Humanity couldn't burn out the Orks completely, so they'll probably survive in small numbers, waiting the day when they may krump the stars once again.

One still does wonder what the hell is going on in the other galaxies, if this much shit is going on in just the Milky Way.

According to Mechanicus probes, lots of skittering and angry cockney.

[TempAcc]

Dark Eldar are p. much confirmed for fucked. There's a huge fuck off tier chaos gate thats prob going to break open right in the middle of Comorragh and drown the D.Eldar in a sea of angry chaos dicks, which prob also means that entire section of the webway will have to be closed off for good, if not all of the webway.

Regular Eldar are better, but still in conditions nearly as bleak as the Tau. I mean, so what if they pull off Ynnead? Are they going to go full NGE and become a giant space travelling wraithbone major g god then? They still have to deal with the 4 chaos gods, the first of which will be slaanesh. ALTOUGH, if they do manage to recover the eldar souls from slaanesh somehow, then they have a real shot of conquering the entire galaxy back. I can totally see the eldar curbstomping slaanesh with Ynnead, getting the souls then bringing about the full rebirth of their race as wraithbone construct beings, which is actualy p. cool.

[Kot]

(remember we had ships shooting fucking black holes and warping time and shit).

Links? I want to know more about these ships.

Speranza. More amusing description here, scroll to the bottom.

Imperial Guard win condition is they hold the line and don't horribly die because of it
SOB win condition is they run out of heretics to burninate in the thatched roof cottages so they can finally go back to their Emperor-grade husbandu pillows
Spehss Mahrin win condition is that they weaponize their blue steel rain modeling careers to smite down the enemies of the Emperor with sheer fabulosity

Imperial Guard wins by utilizing Krieg cloning stuff everywhere and having more men than they have limbs.
Sisters of Battle could proably outfaith everyone else and create a physical manifestation of Big E.
Space Marines could just get their shit together and gather remaining Primarches.

According to Mechanicus probes, lots of skittering and angry cockney.

There is proably a lot of stuff going on, proably local Chaos Gods and shit, and obviously there are Orks everywhere. Maybe one day they will pull off Tyranids and huge Waaaaagh will arrive to conquer the Galaxy?

Also, about Ynnead - Eldar victory doesn't seem like "global conquest" victory stuff type, it's mostly "we need to make ourselves an Chaos God so we can finally die in peace and not get forever buttraped by Slannesh". I bet they're all fucking tired of this shit and really just want to get some sleep.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Ynnead is indeed a NGE-type thing. The plan is as follows:

1. Fill the Infinity Circuits to create an isolated crucible of souls like the Emperor and Chaos Gods before it.

2. Unleash Ynnead upon the death of the last Eldar, as known by the Farseers.

3. Ynnead skullfucks Slaanesh and absorbs all the Eldar souls from the Sea of Dicks, growing more powerful still.

4. Ynnead kills everything else in the Warp and ascends as the sole ontological master of all the Empyrean.

5. Ynnead reincarnates the Eldar, who are now unstoppable and conquer the universe.

6. Martinis and recreational torture until the end of reality.

[TempAcc]

Ynnead is also the other thing that could effectively oppose 'nids, since by then eldar would have no biomass :v

[Neonivek]

I still like the thing I heard once, which I believe was false, which is that the Necrons are actually from the future where the Imperials succeeded and eventually concurred death itself creating the Necrons... and then they sent themselves back in time to conquer the galaxy but did so SO far back that they basically went into hibernation waiting for everyone to start existing finally.

---

Of the two factions the most interesting for the "Win condition" are the Tyranids and the Necrons because they are the two big time limit ones.

The Tyranids will flat out win if no one else wins. Essentially in the event of a stalemate the Tyranids win. Victories against them just extends the clock.

While the Necrons will win at some point and time if left to their own devices. Win before they win.

They are really the only two factions, in my mind, that give any reason why this war can't basically go on forever without "what if?". In terms of eachother though it is mostly a fight as to whether the Tyranids can win before the Necrons awaken.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler: Endgame fluff speculation (click to show/hide)

What the Tau have isn't exactly their tech, it's that they're the only faction that intends to harness the power of a true AI. Even the Necrons are just transposed organics, and after all, it was the Men of Iron who originally delivered the galaxy to humanity. (Which makes me realize that while the Imperium has only conquered the galaxy once, humans have conquered it at least twice, possibly more.)

I think it'd be pretty funny if Tau conquered the galaxy with AI that didn't go full G1AD0S or Skynet, with the warp being so utterly upset by the lack of machine spirit souls, soul souls (beyond bland Tau rice souls) that life goes on relatively normal, with only the occasional warp fuckery. Like Tzeentch trying to do just as planned but the Tau live such glaringly warp-free and peaceful unambitious life without need for hope that no one asks for Tzeentch's help. He becomes a poor hobo chicken with a sign reading "will offer unlimited power in exchange for soul rice pls" but none of the Tau ever take that deal, too busy with their AI waifu virtual reality.

If Chaos has an articulate victory condition, it's probably the fall of Cadia. Should you believe certain theories the Cadian warp pylons are critically disrupting the Eye of Terror's expansion, and even if not Cadia is a prerequisite for spilling out into the heart of the Imperium (really shows their planning skills that the Imperium literally just colonized everything in a circle around the Eye) and bringing about the eventual fusion of the Warp and Realspace.

Hmm... That would be rather interesting. Then again destroying the Cadian pylons or rendering them inoperable does seem rather easy (by 40k standards), even if it took 10,000 years. It's not like they can be repaired every time they take damage. There has to be some big cataclysm normally for warp shit to get big and real, sorta like the eldar fall, or maybe just have loads of cultists spill forth and switch worship of the Emperor to the big 4 to spread the warp the regular way
Ya don't need the eye of terror to cause terror :D

Alpha-Plus: ~5,000

Now the question is, if you managed to get all of these Titan-breakingly powerful psykers in one area without immediately causing a million warp dicks to appear and sacrificed them together - could you make a second Emperor? That seems like something the Emperor would try doing if he wasn't Mr. Bones on his own wild ride

The Newcrons involved are hyper-isolationist and only use it to maintain the ecology of the galaxy. Despite the schizophrenic rage of every other Necron in the galaxy, they just don't give a shit (and would blow up their stars if they tried anything).

Hahaha, the idea of some of the Newcrons being cosmic gardening pensioners trying to maintain the galaxy they've been tending to for so long is hilarious. YOU DAMN KIDS GET OFF MY COSMIC GRASS

Then there's the Black Library, which probably still has the knowledge to make and unmake whole universes and gods and whatnot, if you ever remember to bring your library card to another dimension full of arsehole tricksters, more content with throwing chainsaws at you and shouting 'it was just a prank monkeigh' than letting you in.

I welcome this new and exciting interpretation of the Harlequins.

Oh god, thinking on it they can actually manage to be worse than they already are

I suppose a human victory would classify as a world ending event for all other species still remaining.

Depending upon the nature of that victory, the classic desire for a Human-Eldar-Tau Alliance could end up fulfilled. And even Dark Age Humanity couldn't burn out the Orks completely, so they'll probably survive in small numbers, waiting the day when they may krump the stars once again.

The trio cover all bases pretty well. The Tau offer adaptive tech that the Mechanicus is too stingy/orthodox to share, the Imperium offers shear manpower with which Eldar colonies could be defended and the Eldar offer all their archaeotech and webway maps which would pretty much make all Imperial and Tau FTL obsolete

One still does wonder what the hell is going on in the other galaxies, if this much shit is going on in just the Milky Way.

According to Mechanicus probes, lots of skittering and angry cockney.

So beyond nids (or something bigger than nids), possible other humans or orks? Or old ones

Also, about Ynnead - Eldar victory doesn't seem like "global conquest" victory stuff type, it's mostly "we need to make ourselves an Chaos God so we can finally die in peace and not get forever buttraped by Slannesh". I bet they're all fucking tired of this shit and really just want to get some sleep.

I'm sure some of them just want to die in peace without being introduced to Slaanesh's dragon dildo collection but a lot of the Eldar remember their glory days (it's hard to go from top don immortal universe shapers to OH GOD WHY IS EVERYTHING BROKEN without having wounded pride) like the Alaitoc ones. When they're not getting rekt by void shields anyways (that is hilarious). I completely overlooked the whole Eldar fear of Cullexus assassinations thing, as far as I'm aware the list of things Eldar fear dying to more than usual are:

• Nids (who eat their soulstones, thus making their souls get Slaanesh'd. Alternatively I think it'd be hilarious to have Eldar soulstones used as gizzard stones or scales by unwitting nids - sounds like a story idea right there)
• Necrons (who will either destroy the soulstones or feed them to a C'Tan, leading to Slaanesh or C'Tan)
• Chaos Space Marines (who will do the nasty things they did to them as they did to the Crone Worlds)
• Inquisitors (who are probably more terrifying custodians of your soul than Slaanesh)
• Pariahs (and the Cullexus assassins) who obliterate Eldar souls at deathpoint
• Actual demons
• Matt Ward

*EDIT
And on thinking of the Necrons, they have perhaps one of the best win conditions. They can just sleep until all of their opposition are too weak to resist, or have died of old age.
Makes sense too - they only tend to awake when disturbed from their sleep (which fucking magos set off my alarm block 600,000 years early?!!!) or when Chaos tries to spread the warp everywhere (Black Crusades). Pretty much the only times they have to worry are when warp shenanigens or someone tries to wake them up. I even love that old bit of fluff where the nids just ate around that one tomb world, since it wasn't worth the effort and both sides just wanted  to be left alone.

[Rolepgeek]

Actually, 'best' possible victory condition overall might be Human-Eldar-Tau alliance, but they place the Orks as a buffer on the edge of the galaxy, fighting the Tyranids continuously. The Great Waaagh of Space China.

But whoever said the Tau are 'galaxy-ender' class is full of it. I love 'em, but there's now way for them to accomplish anything like that level. Also, their Sun-Buster technology is not the ability to hack stars. That's the Necrons. Tau blew up some stars while trying to find ways to leech power from them directly(it didn't work). Now they're still trying to figure out how to weaponise it. It is very much like a Death Star, at the moment.

Though I don't really get why people think the Tau are inferior to Imperial tech. Tau probably have more of their population fighting than the Imperium, proportionally (1 out of five Castes is literally the military caste, no one wastes time with child-rearing other than a communal approach, infants are gestated in artificial wombs...), and have the production facilities to keep pace with producing much more advanced weaponry and armor for their basic troops. I suppose if you're looking at the high-end, absolute top-tier, and using that as their technology level. I suppose the Tau just use their tech smarter(and can produce their highest end gear at a large-scale level), and can logistic and coordinate better. Combined arms approach as opposed to two dozen compartmentalised factions. Plus, being willing to develop and adapt as new situations arise, rather than as old technology is rediscovered, probably helps, as does the Earth Caste not hoarding all the best stuff for themselves (*coughcoughMarscough*).

Actually, I figure the whole thing about xenos-tech being tech-heresy is basically the Mechanicum trying to make sure they stay in power as the only ones who can keep Imperial tech in good condition. Otherwise, they might get good shit from Demiurg or Tau or some other race that wouldn't be purely trying to dick them over, that they can maintain on their own. I mean, it'd be niche stuff, since regardless, the very best stuff that humans can use is Mechanicus in origin, but that's how monopolies die, man.

Spoiler: Re: Logistics (click to show/hide)

Yeah yeah yeah Imperium has better FTL, but the Tau have a merchant marine fleet much more significant (for their size) than the Imperium (afaik), and don't need quite as much transport between their worlds since they're all more or less self-sufficient.

EDIT: Speaking of soulstones, I had an idea for a story involving Khornate cultists and Soul Stones. They can't break them, since that would help the Ultra-Bitch. So instead they use them to power slightly modified Daemon-Engines.

[Loud Whispers]

Actually, 'best' possible victory condition overall might be Human-Eldar-Tau alliance, but they place the Orks as a buffer on the edge of the galaxy, fighting the Tyranids continuously. The Great Waaagh of Space China.

Great Waaagh vs Nids sounds like a horrendously bad idea, Octarius on a galactic scale would mean whoever wins = everyone else loses, GG it's nid or ork victory

2nd Best Victory is the Emperor steals Slaanesh's guts, thereby being the one to absorb all the Eldar souls, propelling the Emperor to great strength. At the same time the Eldar pantheon is incorporated into the Imperial Creed, thus fueling the reawakening of the Eldar Gods powered by the faith of uncountable shrieking human zealots, thus allowing Isha to divorce Nurgle and bankrupt him with alimony souls, Khaine to reforge and beat the ever loving shit out of Slaanesh (who will for the first time ever, not enjoy it) whilst the laughing God is a colossal dick as usual, but directed at Tzeentch. The Emperor becomes one god of the Pantheon, protector of the souls of Men and Eldar - and the Imperial-Eldar webway is made complete, rendering warp travel obsolete. At this point the Warp is deprived massively of sustenance and allied gods are carving out their warspace, and then shit can really get done. Eldar Maiden worlds can be fully colonized and the Eldar species recover - their great weakness now is that though they are powerful, they are only so powerful for as long as they can keep running. They lack the manpower needed to defend their colonies, utterly unable to commit to attrition warfare. It just so happens that the Imperium eats attrition warfare for breakfast. Thus the Eldar species would finally be able to actually for once grow, and all they'd have to tolerate are some ugly monkeigh and the humans would only have to tolerate shifty xenos. Given that the two species can produce offspring, just make some commissariat propaganda about common ancestry or something, which given the two species' influence by the Old Ones is not too far off from the truth.
Then the Eldar Imperium could focus its attention on the Dark Eldar. At this point the Dark Eldar would no longer be forced to follow their dark path to stave off the Prince of Pleasure's gaze, so it would be interesting to see how they react to not having to be so moustache-twiddlingly evil. The spehss marhines would finally be able to launch an assault on Commorragh regardless, with Titan legions and other fun stuff marching in with a two-pronged assault with Eldar through the webway to secure the Panacea - with it secured, GG Nurgle is gone, all human diseases cured. If it's destroyed or lost on the way, the DE are still destroyed and Jaghatai Khan will come back and hi5 everyone.
At this point Chaos is diminished to defeat, Orks probably won't have noticed anything different (in 99% of all AT, Orks are exactly the same - the most successful species in 40k after rats by far), Nids can be confronted with the full force of Imperial logistics running through Eldar webways in addition to the Eldar arsenal already being... The Eldar arsenal - GG that's it, Nids are gone. Unless there are more intergalactic invaders in which case all is lost, but eh such is life.
From then on all that would need be done are routine purges of Ork hulks, fleets and warbosses to stop Waaaghs! before they form. Given Eldar seers and Inquisitors working in tandem, that won't be too difficult.
At this point all has gone well and it is a happy, bright future of the x millennium, and the only thing left to conquer is boredom - so either flood the Eldar Imperium with religion, aspect paths or Tau-pop and vidya gaems.

If Slaanesh wins his/her guts battle and eats the Emperor, BAD END

Also as an aside lol, the Octarius Empire is older than the Imperium
Fucking Orks man, how do they die
Even staring down a hive fleet makes them stronger

Best ending is Sleepycrons get a good night's rest with sleepy time and wake up to find the Milky Way is empty, and sleepycrons can finally go about doing science and stuff or scarab pong or whatever it is sleepycrons do when they awakecrons. Best part is whatever they do can't make another Slaanesh because they're robits. I just like the idea that even in the grimdarkness, at least some of the crons are being comfy.

Spoiler: tau stuff (click to show/hide)

But whoever said the Tau are 'galaxy-ender' class is full of it. I love 'em, but there's now way for them to accomplish anything like that level.

Dunno, I think once they cross a certain logistical threshold they'll have their own bucket full of exterminatus toys

Though I don't really get why people think the Tau are inferior to Imperial tech.

Imperial Archaeotech > Mechanicus stingy bastards > Tau > Slightly less stingy Mechanicus bastards > Spehss Mahrines > IG > PDF

Tau probably have more of their population fighting than the Imperium, proportionally (1 out of five Castes is literally the military caste, no one wastes time with child-rearing other than a communal approach, infants are gestated in artificial wombs...), and have the production facilities to keep pace with producing much more advanced weaponry and armor for their basic troops. I suppose if you're looking at the high-end, absolute top-tier, and using that as their technology level. I suppose the Tau just use their tech smarter(and can produce their highest end gear at a large-scale level), and can logistic and coordinate better. Combined arms approach as opposed to two dozen compartmentalised factions. Plus, being willing to develop and adapt as new situations arise, rather than as old technology is rediscovered, probably helps, as does the Earth Caste not hoarding all the best stuff for themselves (*coughcoughMarscough*).

Proportionally? Dunno, tis a grim dark future of grim war dark and all, and if we screw proportionality humanity breeds like rabbits if rabbits were oil thrown on water mixed with carrots, humans for daaaaaaaaaaaaaaays without even considering Krieg cloning and such stuff. Plus it don't matter much when the Imperials have the ak47 of the Milky Way in the Lasgun: one munition fits all, flooding every world in every solar system in numbers only the munistorum can count. Glory glory glory lasgun
Tau don't just use their tech smarter, they use them riskier - instead of throwing Tau into the meat grinder like smart grimderp people do, they have their Artificial Intelligence drones do that for them. So whilst the Tau fire warriors show up to shock and awe everyone with freedom carbines, who they leave to guard in their wake are the drones. The drones controlled by AI, encoded with self-preservation instincts.
Playing with fire there m8s D:
Only thing I don't get is why the Tau don't make all their troops have stealth suits, that sounds like the most hilariously broken idea they should have - like it would just break most armies it comes up against short of lictors or sly marbo. The Tau don't even have a big warp presence so even demons and psykers would have a hard time finding them. Only fluff I see against them doing this is the enemy catching one of their suits intact and reverse engineering it to render it obsolete with countermeasures but... You can't catch what you can't see :D

Actually, I figure the whole thing about xenos-tech being tech-heresy is basically the Mechanicum trying to make sure they stay in power as the only ones who can keep Imperial tech in good condition. Otherwise, they might get good shit from Demiurg or Tau or some other race that wouldn't be purely trying to dick them over, that they can maintain on their own. I mean, it'd be niche stuff, since regardless, the very best stuff that humans can use is Mechanicus in origin, but that's how monopolies die, man.

This is why they do not like ANYONE fucking with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to fuck with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall fucked everything up and the Heresy double-fucked it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, and they never have.
bretty good copypasta

The Mechanicus police technology so fiercely because they need to preserve the purest knowledge of what was lost and stop human innovators from creating inventions that will wipe out humanity because grimdark. Rogue traders and rogue inquisitors can get away with experimental xenos tech at their own risk... Before the Tau, there were the Interex. Spunky upstart humans from before the Imperium, the Interex were the primary interstellar power in the galaxy until the Great Crusade happened. The Interex pursued live and let live under watch policies, not too unlike the Tau where subservient species were utilized, incorporated and otherwise allowed to be without much in the way of restriction, and certainly not exterminatus or purging. The Interex utilized advanced AI, utilized xenos weapons, allied with xenos and were in many technological respects far more advanced than the Imperium, fielding basic shock troopers in body suits capable of going toe to toe with Crusade era space marines. Assuming that maybe the Interex would have found a way to keep their AI under control, of note is one of their weapons, the anathame was a nurglite one - made by their xenos allies.
It's not paranoia when everything really is out to get you ;D
Also this xenos weapon basically causes Horus to convert to Chaos and start the Horus Heresy

Yeah yeah yeah Imperium has better FTL, but the Tau have a merchant marine fleet much more significant (for their size) than the Imperium (afaik), and don't need quite as much transport between their worlds since they're all more or less self-sufficient.

I dunno about that

EDIT: Speaking of soulstones, I had an idea for a story involving Khornate cultists and Soul Stones. They can't break them, since that would help the Ultra-Bitch. So instead they use them to power slightly modified Daemon-Engines.

Azariah Kyras the Khornate Librarian says whilst wrrryyyyying all over a craftworld that they should take comfort, because their souls will be consumed by Khorne and not Slaanesh. I think that's an improvement but eh, such is life in 40k
That is of course assuming the Khornates know that they're dealing with soulstones, and aren't just going to barter them/sell them to Slaaneshi cultists for some skulls

If you put a soulstone in a demon engine, powering it with an Eldar and not a demon... I could see it as a pact between some smug Khornate bastard looking at the eldar soulstsone, all "if you don't want to be nom'd by Slaanesh, we'll put you in this demon engine and you'll make blood for the blood god." It'll be even more grimdark because the Eldar hasn't fallen to Chaos or Khorne, but have no other option if they don't want to be Slaanesh or Khorne flakes
Or they could be like duracell batteries lol

[Xantalos]

You gotta wonder though - if Slaanesh dies and the Dark Eldar just keep eating souls without Slaanesh to keep nomming their souls down ... what happens?