How would you create a xenos empire which is an absolute nightmare for the imperium?

How would you create a xenos empire which is an absolute nightmare for the imperium?

In other words. When the imperium is fire type, this xenos empire is water type.

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They're all nightmares. This is redundant.

>this xenos empire is water type.
Should be rock type. Squash the fire and tell it to fuck off.

Tau.

I mean thats tyrranids. Because theay beat them in their own game.
Used to be that they were equal because the imperium was wastly superior in space combat and would always win. But then they became like the skaven.

The Culture, probably. Incredibly powerful, able to travel trans-light without the Warp, run by super-intelligent thinking machines, infinitely adaptable because it doesn't have a baseline morality system, absorbs other cultures and empires.

Imperium is all types, that's the problem with fighting them. They built a mini-mall, so we built a bigger mini-mall. They made the world's largest pizza, so we burnt down their city hall.

foundation

no imperium, you are the mutants

Have the Rangdan come back.

>Rangdan return via time bollocks
>Fuck everyone's shit up, head straight for Terra
>Big Xenocide Lion returns just in time to get his sword from Cypher and has gay sex with men.

Imperium of Space Marines

Whatever the hell is on the Ghoul Stars, several crusades keep going there and it seems like they dont do much. Whatever is in there is resilient as fuck and keeps coming back no matter how many times someone does something in that region.

Could be like a collection xeno empires that are small enough to be left on their own and the Imperium simply comes back to keep them in place.

who and or what the fuck are the Rangdan?

>Whatever the hell is on the Ghoul Stars
Necrons
>Could be like a collection xeno empires that are small enough to be left on their own and the Imperium simply comes back to keep them in place.
Literally just described the Tau

Well, the big 3 things the Imperium has going for it is vast numbers in all fields, and a surplus of ancient advanced technolgy that is very powerful.

Guard are the representation of the former, and marines & titans make up the latter.

What's effective against one is not necessarily good against the other. Most of the existing xenos races can handle one or the other, but not both at once.

Tyranids work great against guard, for example, since throwing bodies at the problem just makes more tyranids. Conversely, they lose out when they have to go up against esoteric weapons like vortex bombs.

Meanwhile, against something like Orks, sending in your best stuff will just make the Orks themselves loot and scale up to match the threat, while throwing bodies at the problem can typically wear down an Irk infestation and keep it under control, if nothing else.

Tau are the closest I'd say, since they regularly outmatch guard and then make committing nore powerful assets unappealing by picking them off from a massive range. Nobody wants to lose a titan to some random blueberry in a tank from 10 miles away.

Even then though, the Tau would still theoretically fall to numbers. Oddly enough all those crusades into Tau space may have gone better if they'd skipped on knights and marines and just shipped in even more guardsmen.

>Necrons
>implying the Necrons are the only spoopy xenos fuckers lurking in the Ghoul Stars

They were the only xenos race during the great crusade that looked like it was strong enough to outright defeat the Imperium. They were eventually destroyed but its implied that one of the two missing legions was lost due to them.

Galactic empire

-Warpless FTL
-Dominant Navy that puts most if not all navies in 40k to shame; better firepower, coordination, tech(debatable)

most other shit is just my dad can beat up your dad I guess, too beat the imperium at a strategic level you would have to starve and stretch their logistics, with warp travel being as unreliable as it is and being slow af. A reasonably competent empire that has at least a "similar" amount of resources (ergo why the tau, eldar, and necrons??) haven't crushed the imperium.

so even if the imperium's ships were superior (considering how inconsistent their effectiveness is in the fluff with a retribution being anywhere from 6 km to 22 km) it wouldn't really matter considering that the Gempire's ships could simply run, with hyperspace being faster and safer. so all they would need to do is simply strike strategic targets; Agri worlds, Forge worlds, key ports etc.

usual dissolves into dick measuring contest in the end however. so meh

Yeerks. They're like chaos/GSC infiltrators, but they don't leave obvious signs of their presence, like mutations, evil cliches, or new religions.

>Gempire

Why have I never used this before

Implied they might be these scary fuckers since during those wars a marine got out in a drednought because of one. warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Slaugth

I'm not going to sit here and want 40k v everything but the Galactic Empire is a pretty low key threat in 40k compared to some other alien empires from settings and other players on the galactic scene.
>better navy
Not really. An ISD is on par with a Sword-class frigate in throw weight and not nearly as heavily armored or shielded for that matter not to mention the engagement range disparity. Only the Executioner-class supers are a credible threat in fleet actions as their size is on par with IN BB's and strike craft capabilities though still lag in the firepower window.
>hyperspace
Hyperspace is a no-go in the 40k Era milky way as the warp has breached that and run rampant (Necrons used it during the war in heaven before it was compromised; that's the reason for switching to the Dolman gates) so it is no safer than warp space. Efficient hyper space transit also requires extensive mapping as well so even then would only be reliable in the territory the GE has occupied for some time.
Strikes on agri-worlds and such could be effective as long as they were outlying worlds. Any planet of value has a system defence monitor fleet as well as orbital and ground-to-orbit defenses on a much more potent scale than the nipple gun on Hoth that will be a righteous pain for a fleet of escort equivalent ISDs to effectively deal with.

The Empire's biggest asset in the 40k setting is the true combined arms approach on a regimental level but that advantage quickly vanishes as an engagement's scale escalates. Star trek is far more dangerous but that is mostly due to scifi technobabble capabilities and improvised asspulls that the crew promptly forgets about the next episode because reasons.

Give the rak'gol better technology and greater numbers.

Done.

Craftworld Eldar but with more numbers and resources on par with the Imperium. If the Eldar still had any type of sizable empire instead of a loss collection of particularly large spaceships, they'd be a major power that would threaten the Imperium instead of being the guys who always get knocked around.

They should have made eldar as relatively powerful as the high elves are in fantasy. Not nearly as populous as the realms of men, but still a large scale galactic threat

>Necrons used it during the war in heaven before it was compromised; that's the reason for switching to the Dolman gates

You do know Inertia-less drives are cannon again, right?

They even have a Tachyon weapon on the Table Top.

The gates are only really used to smoke the Eldar out of their holes and allow infantry to basically walk from world to world without fleet support.

Another Empire thats basically Great Crusade 30k Imperium.

Dont forget they have grid fire user

Yu'vath survivors.

That would mess with the Eldar being the remains of a dead empire which has split into numerous factions. The Craftworlds and Harlequins also still manage to pull off the High Elf schtick thinking they're the only race that really knows how to protect everything from Chaos.

Hopefully the inertia-less drives either get struck out again or massively depowered since they're a prime example of what makes the Necrons stick out like a sore thumb.

The Imperium, Chaos, and Orks are all reliant on the Warp to get anywhere. The Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Harlequins have the Webway, but that is no longer perfect since parts of it have been damaged, infested by daemons, or the exit may no longer exist. The Tau and Tyranids are seemingly reliant or just riding out the time it takes with the caveat that the Tyranids have an organism that increases their speed when they get close to a system.

Oh, but let's just give the Necrons literal lightspeed and the ability to be anywhere they want. Just ignore the fact that this doesn't stop them from showing up in force on Terra's doorstep.

>Just ignore the fact that this doesn't stop them from showing up in force on Terra's doorstep.
Why would anyone except Chaoscucks want to assault Terra? The Emperor is the only thing stopping Chaos from skullfucking the Materium.

You assume the Necrons know that, even if they somehow do they may figure their own anti-warp technology is just as good, if not better.

Terra is the center of the Imperium, destroy it and Mars and you deal a massive blow to the Imperium and seemingly make it much easier to conquer, this is even assuming that the Necrons know that the Imperium is reliant on the Astronomican.

It's honestly one of a multitude of things that makes Necrons feel like they were supposed to be one particular designer's (Possibly Chambers) masturbation fantasy and usurp everything else as the gravest threat to the galaxy.

Necrons were a mistake and should have stayed as either Chaos Androids or as mysterious xenos who were virtually unknown as they supposedly were before getting a codex.

I know it's just a coincidence, but I realised the other day that I haven't seen this opinion about Necrons since Tau became the top tier WAAC army. And then it reappears to me the day after Necrons overtake them. I'm sure you've held this opinion since 3rd ed, have posted it plenty of times throughout the years, and probably don't even hate Tau, but it's just spooky the way fandoms work sometimes.

I actually don't really follow the game side that much outside of maybe picking up what a lot of people are saying.

I'd say this opinion on the Necrons has come about from actually looking at some of the older lore that proceeded them and actually looking at them critically rather than accepting them as part of the setting as I did during 5E. There is just a lot about their past and even current lore that makes them stick out like a sore thumb to me and makes me question what they really bring to the table outside of an undercurrent of perhaps being so against the warp they actively want to separate it from the materium.

I actually have no problem with the Tau because they haven't been so interwoven into the setting like the Necrons were/are and have not been written as currently having the tools to actually conquer the galaxy whenever they wanted to. I don't know if it was intentional, but before 5E Necrons I also think the Tau formed a neat trifecta of sorts with the Craftworld Eldar and Imperium. The Craftworld Eldar were the dead empire seeking to reclaim their glory, the Imperium was the dying empire, and the Tau were the newly born empire perhaps fated to inherit the galaxy from the Imperium.