94 replies to this topic

[Anjian]

From the pure badass viewpoint, I would say Warhammer 40K.

[DI3T3R]

Anjian, on 06 June 2015 - 08:55 PM, said:

From the pure badass viewpoint, I would say Warhammer 40K.

Well, they DO have greenskinned, tusked mushrooms that come at you with axes...

[Catamount]

Void Angel, on 05 June 2015 - 09:36 PM, said:

If we're going to compare them as a total force, then you have to include not only all of the amazing firepower of the full Chapters of the Space Marines themselves, but the supporting forces of the Imperial Guard, and possibly such forces as the Sisters of Battle and the Inquisition - along with the agents of the Officio Assassinorum. In any combination that does not involve pitting a tiny force of Space Marines against a vastly outnumbering Clan assault, the Imperium wins hands-down. It's not even a contest.

It seems to me if you're going to compare them as a total force then you'd have to account for space travel and industrial capacity, and I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced of a clear 40k win there.

Battletech is probably smack the bottom of the scifi-themed fiction hierarchy in terms of capability, at least insofar as the franchises we've frequently discussed on these forums, and even then, they have what I think might be some distinct advantages against 40k. First off, the Imperium would have a very hard time replacing many losses, because their society is in a state of mass rot sociologically and technologically, and their best weapons are old things from more advanced ages gone by, especially in terms of warships, that I really doubt they'd even be able to maintain through the rigors of war, let alone outright replace in case of loss. Unless you expect this fight to end very, very quickly that's going to become an issue.

The FTL is also problematic for 40k. It's unreliable as far as you even getting where you want to go with your big, expensive, valuable warships and transported forces, let alone getting there when you expect to, with sane forces left, and without massive physical damage incurred to your gear. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you emerge at all, it's just as likely to be insane, in tattered ships, a thousand years into the future (or maybe for extra **** you, a thousand years into the past).

Also, couldn't any remotely competent BT commander figure out they're fighting humans, fly to Earth, and simply nuke the astronomican? Wouldn't that bring any interstellar war-making effort by the Imperium to a screeching halt?

For that matter, is the military and diplomatic position of the Imperium such that they even really have that position and forces to spare to take on yet another foe? If we're going with total forces, we've seen the BT societies can set aside their differences and unite relatively quickly when a big threat emerges, eliminating huge concerns about whether they can actually commit to another fight. You probably know far more than I here, so you tell me: would the Imperium's neighbors sit by idly if the Imperium was attacked by a large, credible threat? Would this present a problem? Total forces being huge and occasionally capable doesn't do you much good if your society isn't in good enough shape to bring them to bear.

While we're on the topic of society, has anyone considered the likely capability of commanders each would field? Again, I'm far from an expert here, but everything I've seen of 40k seems to consist of "Okay, what does the Codex Astartes say... OH YES, 'chuck warm bodies vaguely in the direction of threat, threat will go away'". Is there anything that ever comes about, ever, that's more... innovative? Is there anyone in the Imperium who's intelligent and non-rigid enough to come up with anything more innovative... who somehow has slipped through the cracks and avoided what usually happens to remotely intelligent, educated people in hardcore theocratic societies? What happens the moment a BT commander gets hold of the nearest convenient copy of the aforementioned Official Imperium of Man Strategy Guide?

Edited by Catamount, 07 June 2015 - 11:35 AM.

[Void Angel]

The Imperium only has trouble replacing losses from its top-line tech. They still have hard-copies of their old hyper-advanced manufacturing technology, so it's a matter of demand outstripping supply because their ability to retool is limited or nonexistent. The problem with the Imperium is that their culture has become so rigidly theocratic that innovation in technology is actively discouraged as heresy. So the Imperium cannot actively improve their technology as long as the Tech-priests of Mars consider all of the old Imperial designs to be divinely inspired, and tampering thus heresy - but they can MAKE most of what they still have access to. It's a little like the Inner Sphere before the Helm memory core was recovered, but the Imperium has [i]forge worlds[/] - entire planets dedicated to production - as well as worlds whose stupendous Hive Cities literally house billions of people each.

Warp travel is only insanely dangerous without a Navigator or other psyker to guide the ship through the warp, using the Astronomicon as a reference point. While warp accidents do occur, they occur rarely unless the complications of a warp storm or other problematic factor emerge. While the failures of warp travel are catastrophic (see also: Space Hulks,) most warp travel is a common fact of Imperial administration - if not exactly so trivial as air (or even space) travel is today.

The problem with using the Codex to predict Space Marine tactics is that the Codex has evolved over thousands of years of combat. The Astartes don't always follow the Codex, either - certain chapters or individuals are more innovative than others. The Space Marines are pretty rigid compared to, say, the Tau or Eldar, but the Codex WORKS for them, because the best commanders view it as a guide, not gospel. https://youtu.be/NQL2cojKxwg?t=296 Similarly, anyone foolish enough to jump a strike force to Holy Terra would have to overcome the most formidable defenses in the Imperium of Man in order to even think about getting close enough to bomb the Astronomicon.

And even that would not likely stop the Imperium - the Imperium is literally too vast to be centrally administered, which is part of why the Space Marines are semi-indepent of the Imperial government. The Imperium has lapsed back to a feudal system far more fundamental than the superficially feudal states of the Inner Sphere (which are more like a constitutional monarchy,) and bombing the Astronomicon (or, heaven help you, the Golden Throne) would not stop the Space Marines from finding you - no matter how many millennia it took.

[SnagaDance]

I think that trying to destroy Terra/The Golden Throne/The Astronomicon is one of those briljant plans absolutely every alien race and Chaos traitor has thought of. There must be a reason that somebody has never 'just gone over and nuked it'.

[T0rmented]

I am a fanboy of both universes.
In any area that you want to compare 40k and battletech, 40k wins clearly.
the appeal of 40k comes from the fact that abso-bloody-lutely everything is ridiculous OP.
The most powerful battlech weapons are hand portable infantry weapons in 40k for chrissakes

[IraqiWalker]

SnagaDance, on 08 June 2015 - 01:42 AM, said:

I think that trying to destroy Terra/The Golden Throne/The Astronomicon is one of those briljant plans absolutely every alien race and Chaos traitor has thought of. There must be a reason that somebody has never 'just gone over and nuked it'.

It has been attempted twice. The first was during the Horus Heresy, he got bloody close. The second was Shuntou, a warsmith who loaded a space hulk chock full of tyranids (virtually before anyone knew they existed) strapped a tormented navigator in it, and aimed it straight at Terra. The navigator barely managed to divert the course, and it was by only 200 light years. It cost the chapter master of the Imperial Fists his life, along with a big chunk of the first company, and nothing short of the OPness of Darnath Lysander to stop it.

The problem is that if you want to get to Terra, you have to go through the Solar Auxilia, Battlefleet Solar, and 10 Space Marine Chapters. The Solar Auxilia alone is literally more forces than the entire Inner Sphere can field. Before anyone goes "that sounds ridiculous", the entire Solar system in BT had a population of 12.6Billion at it's peak (the Jihad, and the nukes dropped those to roughly 7 billion by the late 3070s). Holy Terra alone has a population of 200 Billion. Meaning it alone can provide more manpower than several dozen solar systems in the IS. This is of course before calculating the fact that Solar Auxilia don't work like Imperial Guard regiments, even their weapons are no joke. They are authorized to use weapons from the dark age of technology, and most their weapons are Great Crusade era tech. Which means their weakest pistol is a volkite pistol (think the ray guns from Mars Attacks.) Volkite weapons are an absolute nightmare for infantry to deal with. Since they tend to deflagrate their victims (this translates to the weapon scoring an extra for a successful wound. Volkite artillery wipes out entire battalions with a salvo as the rays arc from one victim to the next.

To put it shortly, if I had to face Imperial Guard, I would NEVER pick to face Solar Auxilia, they are a living, breathing, nightmare of death, and destruction that is implacable. I would pick literally any other regiment. Including the Catachans. This is just the Auxilia, Battlefleet Gothic takes any nightmares you face against them, or the space marines, and turns the dial to 22.

Also, for the record. The full grimdarkness in 40K only happens on the border worlds. Canonically speaking, the ones not on the outskirts of the Imperium are extremely stable with very high standards of living. It's just that the 10% who are in trouble, and things always go bad in, are more interesting to write about. Who wants to read a novel about how nice it is to live in a ludicrously advanced society, where wars, conflicts, and many other problems don't happen? There's a reason people watched the adventures of the Enterprise, and not how sweet it was to live on Earth in Star Trek.

[Catamount]

If oppressive internally rotting theocracies with a slowly degrading understanding of their own technology and little basis for a future is your kind of thing, then sure, I guess living in the Imperium is alright. Ludicrously advanced it is not. They have a little bit of technology that's moderately impressive by 21st century Earth standards (okay, FTL is cool, not that it's used to do anything particularly cool). As far as the actual society goes? I think I'll take my rapidly evolving secular democracy, TYVM, and if the Imperium doesn't look impressive to me, in a society as primitive as ours, then you have to lower the bar pretty far to consider them an achievement of any sort for the 41st Millenium.

Still, I'm glad the Imperium more or less has enough bread and circuses to go around to some people for a little awhile, because what you describe, well, that's exactly what it is, but I digress.


Most of the forces you describe would be entirely useless in a battle to destroy the Astronomican, unless I'm missing something here. Nuking from space doesn't require ground forces. So does the Imperium posses enough ships with sufficient technology to stop a significant assault? How many ships do they have guarding Terra? What is typical armament? What effective ranges and energetic yields do they possess? What kind of sub-light acceleration do they possess to intercept enemy vessels? What is their sensor technology like? While I have no doubt the Imperium isn't sitting around with Star Wars ships that rely on manually aimed deck guns that have a hard time managing accuracy over a few kilometers against targets the size of cities, are, say, typical macrocannons really effectively any better on the scales of space? What else are they equipped with?

I feel like these are going to be the central questions to answer if you want to make a case. I've looked on occasion for such information for 40k, but often without much luck. Maybe you know better than I.

Edited by Catamount, 08 June 2015 - 03:06 PM.

[Void Angel]

Do the Imperial defenses of Terra have sufficiant technology and ships to repel a significant assault? Yes, yes they do. It is indeed hard to get numbers, but there are sizable defenses in the solar system, notably based on Luna, which are difficult to overcome. They inflicted "savage" losses on the Chaos Space Marines of the Horus Heresy, when Horus invaded earth to kill the Emperor: people with all the much-discussed advantages of the Space Marines - but augmented with reality-bending demon magic.

Warhammer 40K v. just about anyone else is a conversation a little like this:

"My Daddy can beat up your daddy!"

"Oh yeah, well, my Daddy teaches karate!"

"Well, my daddy is the cybernetically enhanced clone of Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Superman, with centuries of experience in combat involving the destruction of entire worlds!"

"Oh. Uh, my Daddy can beat up his daddy, the- "

"That guy's daddy is in an unkillable cyborg zombie army - sleeping beneath countless worlds - whose former masters were evil, god-like entities who used to devour stars for a snack and eat hope. The zombies enslaved those guys.

"I want my mommy."

Edited by Void Angel, 08 June 2015 - 03:53 PM.

[Catamount]

On the subject of numbers, there are apparently quite a few mentions in the fluff of millions of ships in the Imperium, and potentially at least low hundreds to thousands of warships (as with any civilization, big, expensive warships are a huge minority compared to small merchant ships and the like). That is more than the 40k wikis around have suggested and so what I initially was thinking, and yes, would probably mean they could commit enough to repel a Battletech fleet from any well-defended planet, sufficient tech provided.

I suppose that sounds more reasonable than the low thousands being quoted in some of the stuff I've been looking at... now if we could just get some more information on what they strap on the damn things.

[IraqiWalker]

Catamount, on 08 June 2015 - 04:31 PM, said:

On the subject of numbers, there are apparently quite a few mentions in the fluff of millions of ships in the Imperium, and potentially at least low hundreds to thousands of warships (as with any civilization, big, expensive warships are a huge minority compared to small merchant ships and the like). That is more than the 40k wikis around have suggested and so what I initially was thinking, and yes, would probably mean they could commit enough to repel a Battletech fleet from any well-defended planet, sufficient tech provided.

I suppose that sounds more reasonable than the low thousands being quoted in some of the stuff I've been looking at... now if we could just get some more information on what they strap on the damn things.

I am in the middle of a response detailing that stuff, gimme some time, it's a lot of information to cram in here.

[Void Angel]

As an aside, allow me to say how refreshing it is to have a discussion regarding a fan topic without people experiencing, er, angina rectoris, and having their own thread deleted to stop people from correcting them. Not a random example - I had that actually happen in a Tolkien thread not long ago. The "Loremaster" who started it up was unprepared for criticism, but quite prepared to tell you things like "the Ring can only be used by Sauron."

[Dingo Battler]

Titans seems much less maneuverable than mechs, are usually ponderous and slow. Not to mention, they're much rarer too. They number more, but are far more spread out, as the galaxy in 40k is much bigger.

I'd say, just having a plain and simple pitched battle, battlemechs will win outright. The imperium titan force would be smaller and much less maneuverable. Weapons infantry carry would either be too short ranged, slow, or just cannot cut through the thick armour of a mech.

Taking a world is a different story. Most likely, all mech pilots would get assassinated first, if not, the launch bays will be attacked by guard or marines. Supply convoys will be cut, etc. Imperium would outright stomp them.

Problem stems from the BT universe not having crazy insane infantry. The imperium does combined arms really well, as everyone in this thread has mentioned, and combined arms are essential in winning wars.

[Void Angel]

That's because they're ginormous. The problem is that you have Battlemechs who can't really hurt the Titans, while Titans can crush the Battlemechs - from long, long range. Then there's the various tanks and armored artillery, from the Baneblade to Basilisks, to Land Raiders - Terminators alone are probably capable of taking on most Battlemechs.

[IraqiWalker]

Catamount, on 08 June 2015 - 03:04 PM, said:

Most of the forces you describe would be entirely useless in a battle to destroy the Astronomican, unless I'm missing something here. Nuking from space doesn't require ground forces. So does the Imperium posses enough ships with sufficient technology to stop a significant assault? How many ships do they have guarding Terra? What is typical armament? What effective ranges and energetic yields do they possess? What kind of sub-light acceleration do they possess to intercept enemy vessels? What is their sensor technology like? While I have no doubt the Imperium isn't sitting around with Star Wars ships that rely on manually aimed deck guns that have a hard time managing accuracy over a few kilometers against targets the size of cities, are, say, typical macrocannons really effectively any better on the scales of space? What else are they equipped with?

I feel like these are going to be the central questions to answer if you want to make a case. I've looked on occasion for such information for 40k, but often without much luck. Maybe you know better than I.

The nukes won't even punch through the first layer of shields. Even if the shields are down, the walls of the Imperial Palace (about 2/3rds of Europe, and Asia) can withstand prolonged nuclear bombardment (it happened in the heresy). In BT, nukes are an insanely powerful weapon. In 40K, we have MBTs that fire them in bulk. In fact, the really big tanks can fire shells that are orders of magnitude more destructive than nuclear weapons.

As for orbital forces, I will go in as much detail as I can, so bear with me:

The main starfleet that guards terra is composed of Battle Fleet Solar, which is composed of several thousand ships, from all classes, and again, whatever the average weaponry of a regular battlefleet, turn them to 11, and you get what Solar has. (for reference, a single gunboat has more tonnage than a Leviathan warship, and every single one of it's 3 dozen lance batteries is the equivalent to a Naval Laser 5000 -I might be underplaying it here, by the way-). These ships are all packing void shields, which take unrealistic amounts of damage to drop them.

The bigger ships have enough firepower to (without exaggeration) take on at least 2 clan fleets of warships, solo, and still pop out with minimal damage suffered in return, if any. [A single salvo from a Retribution class Battleship can devastate an entire continent. (This should tell you how strong Void Shields are, that they can stand up to that kind of firepower)] The cheapest, and simplest method of Exterminatus (planet killing) is to usually have a few ships open up with lance batteries, and crack the planet dead. BT has no naval weaponry that can kill planets. 40K packs these on all their ships.

Spoiler

The animators messed up here, as these weapons are shown to have much weaker power than their specs in the readouts, those batteries are orders of magnitude stronger than portrayed here.

This is a simple method of Exterminatus, lance the planet until the tectonic plates are destabilized, then pop a Cyclonic torpedo that will crack it to the core

After Battlefleet Solar, Come the fleets of the Space Marine chapters guarding Terra. Every single one has at least 1 battlebarge (Think 20-30 Leviathan Warships, fused into one ship, up the size by another 1 or 2 orders of magnitude, that has hundreds of canons that can kill anything with almost one shot). Most of them specialize in boarding action, and naval combat. Then comes in the Imperial Fists Chapter, now these guys are special, they are allowed to field more spacemarines than any other chapter in the Imperium save for the Black Templars. They have 1000 Space Marines as reserves (a full chapter is 1000), they drill every day (for 10,000 years now) with both the battlefleets, the Adeptus Custodes (the Praetorian Guard, made spartans, of the Emperor), while still carrying purge campaigns across the galaxy.

The Imperial Fists have on other thing that sets them apart from all the nightmares one has to go through to reach Terra: The Phalanx. That is the name of their Orbial Fortress. It's the size of a planetoid (might be even bigger actually, since several hundred warships can dock there, and a single one of those is in the several million tons range). The Phalanx alone has enough firepower, and protection to be the equivalent of a small battlefleet.

This is of course without factoring in that the emperor would step in.

Weaponry:

Spoiler

Now the typical weapons they have on their fleets (this will deal ONLY with capital class weaponry, and main batteries, secondary batteries are just smaller versions of the super destructive capital guns):
-At face value, take it as everything is several hundred megatons when it comes to yield. Except for the laser batteries, that might be no more than 1-2 hundred Mts. For Comparison, the Tsar Bomba, most powerful Nuclear weapon ever deployed, is 50 Mts. It would have been 100 if they used the right materials-

Lance cannons: Think of them as Capital ERLLs, except they deal something like 800 capital damage. They come in a few varieties depending on the ship mounting them, those being single, double, and triple barrel varieties, all dealing the same massive damage. It's the second most ubiquitous weapon on virtually every single ship in the Imperium, after torpedoes.

Laser cannons: You will find these as the main armament on the smallest ship in the fleet: The Sword class Escort ship. The Sword packs 2 of these behind a powerful armored prow (that it will use for ramming), and just slice through everything in sight. They are just tiny secondary armaments on anything bigger than an escort ship.

Torpedoes: The Imperium's best weapon, and possibly the most common one, insanely destructive even by 40K standards, fast, but tough to destroy, they have excellent range, and decent punch, especially since the imperium's attitude with them is "Fire as many as you can, until the enemies stop twitching".

Macro Cannons: Insanely powerful BOOM. These things are known to one shot a lot of 40K things. Their yield is the higher Mega tons, lower Giga tons.

Nova Cannons: (These are not my words, but they capture the essence of it wonderfully)

Spoiler

The Nova Cannon is a weapon -- no, THE weapon in Battlefleet engagements, that fires 50 meter in diameter shells at near-light speed. It is noteworthy for the fact that it creates small blast templates. This may not sound all that impressive until you remember that in Battlefleet Gothic the centre of the base represents a spaceship the size of a hive city. So on this scale, a nova cannon's blast is equivalent to the K-T extinction that wiped out the large dinosaurs. In one shot. Just think about that. That's the sort of Grade A ******* insane, ridiculously violent scale we're dealing with.

What this mad ******* actually is varies depending on who you ask. Is it a railgun? A vortex missile? Every damn bit of explosive on a Forge World shoved in one container? No-one is entirely sure, but one thing is certain. If an enemy ship has a Nova Cannon you stay the hell away from that magnificent beast unless you wish to suffer sudden massive existence failure. I'm not even joking. Just stay the **** away.

Several ships pack Nova Cannons (yep, plural).

---

Sensors used range from Psychic sensors to regular radar, and everything in between. The only ships that can pose a problem are Eldar ships since they use visual deformation to make it seem like they are in one place, when they are slightly to the left of it, for example. Basically, stealthing your way to Terra is effectively impossible.


Ranges are ridiculous, but in TT they are extremely nerfed, since the measurement is done in centimeters, instead of hexes.


Sub-light propulsion is more than adequate for the fleets. The bigger ships are slower, but their range compensates for it. Since unlike BT weapons, there is no damage drop off. The smaller ships are VERY fast. Interceptor craft, and void bombers are very maneuverable, and pack a stupid mean punch, while being fielded in large squadrons (Did I forget to mention that an average void bomber is the size of an Imperator titan?)

---

Now the ships themselves vary as there are so many classes, however the smallest is the Sword (still 5 times bigger than the biggest titan, with 2 laser batteries, and the largest are the Battlebarges

Battle Barge simplified TRO

Spoiler

Class: Battleship

Hits:12 Ship points (think of this as HP)

Shields: 4 (Doesn't matter what the power of the hit is, these things can probably stop it without breaking, and when they do collapse, you can reboot them. I've seen ships go down to 1 shield, before starting to bring the other back up, and just never cracking)

Armor: 6+ (This means anything with a firepower below 6 might as well not fire, and anything above, still has a hard time punching through - if the shields are down, btw-)

Turrets: 4 (that's 4 of whatever you want, on top of what it comes with)

Armament:

Port Bombardment Cannons: Strength 8 (highest is strength 10)

Starboard Bombardment Cannons: Strength 8

Dorsal Bombardment Cannons: Strength 8

Prow Torpedoes: Strength 6

Prow Launch bay: Strength 2 (launches Thunderhawks, think of them as pocket warships)

Even if a BT fleet is given equal weapons to a 40K fleet, it will still lose because of numbers, and the fact that the 40K fleet has uber strong shields that regenerate. Battlefleet Solar can take out all the fleets in the Inner Sphere, and emerge virtually unscathed (even if they lose 100 ships, it would be a "regrettable, but acceptable" loss.)



I'm not even going to mention the Mechanicus, and Explorator Fleets that would pop out of Mars, as they are a special kind of nightmare. Fewer in numbers than the other active forces, but each ship is worth at least 3-4 Battleships. Because those tech-hoarding D-Bags are scary.



Then there are the assorted Rogue Traders, and their houses. Now after all of that, if the fighting lasts more than a week, you can bet your bottom dollar that more fleets, and chapters will be arriving, because what's guarding Terra is a full 1% of the Imperium's might.


I can get you even more details, but this post has ran long enough.


The problem is still the same: BT tries to be realistic, while 40K just dials things to the extreme.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 08 June 2015 - 06:03 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

KBurn85, on 08 June 2015 - 05:11 PM, said:

Titans seems much less maneuverable than mechs, are usually ponderous and slow. Not to mention, they're much rarer too. They number more, but are far more spread out, as the galaxy in 40k is much bigger. I'd say, just having a plain and simple pitched battle, battlemechs will win outright. The imperium titan force would be smaller and much less maneuverable. Weapons infantry carry would either be too short ranged, slow, or just cannot cut through the thick armour of a mech. Taking a world is a different story. Most likely, all mech pilots would get assassinated first, if not, the launch bays will be attacked by guard or marines. Supply convoys will be cut, etc. Imperium would outright stomp them. Problem stems from the BT universe not having crazy insane infantry. The imperium does combined arms really well, as everyone in this thread has mentioned, and combined arms are essential in winning wars.

The tiniest Titan is the Warhound SCOUT Titan. In BT terms it has about 600 armor on each section, front and back. Stands taller than an Atlas. Runs at 150 Kph, has MASC + supercharger that will never jam, or damage the reactor, but when used the mech can't fire. Can literally leap into the air as if it had 3-4 JJs equipped. Is armed with two arm mounted weapons, and the weakest option is capable of oneshotting BT dreadnaughts. This is all before counting the shields, which can stop continent-leveling firepower from damaging the titan.

A single warhound can tear through 3 stars of direwolves, without breaking a sweat, and I'm talking 3250 tech direwolves. Since it can clock in at 400 Kph at will, has more armor on the legs than they do anywhere ever, and unlike them, does not scatter it's shots all over the place, if the weapon hits, it hits.

EDIT: Also, titans are rare, by 40K standards, where if you don't have 3 million of it, it's rare. Titans are fielded as legions, and when the Legio "walks", entire sectors are ground to dust. For the record, legion here doesn't mean in the thousands, it means in the dozens, maybe up to 100, if an entire Legio decides to walk. However, they are equivalent to hundreds of thousands of tanks marching towards you. The tiniest formation is a maniple, and that's three titans. So a trinary of 40K titans is worth several galaxies, and companies of BT mechs. Keep in mind, that in TT, mechs are far more fragile than in MWO (half armor, and internal health). Plus the weapons are slower (almost 1/3rd the fire rate of MWO).

Void Angel, on 08 June 2015 - 05:09 PM, said:

As an aside, allow me to say how refreshing it is to have a discussion regarding a fan topic without people experiencing, er, angina rectoris, and having their own thread deleted to stop people from correcting them. Not a random example - I had that actually happen in a Tolkien thread not long ago. The "Loremaster" who started it up was unprepared for criticism, but quite prepared to tell you things like "the Ring can only be used by Sauron."

I absolutely agree here. When I first saw this thread I was expecting it to devolve into another fanboy war. However, I have to give kudos to everyone. Especially Azeem (OP). Almost everyone participated in a meaningful way. There was little to no rabid fanboyism, and for the most part, everyone remained respectful. Civilized discussion is very refreshing, and even if we disagree on every point, as long as everyone remains respectful, it ends on a good note.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 08 June 2015 - 06:45 PM.

[SnagaDance]

IraqiWalker, on 08 June 2015 - 05:48 PM, said:

I absolutely agree here. When I first saw this thread I was expecting it to devolve into another fanboy war. However, I have to give kudos to everyone. Especially Azeem (OP). Almost everyone participated in a meaningful way. There was little to no rabid fanboyism, and for the most part, everyone remained respectful. Civilized discussion is very refreshing, and even if we disagree on every point, as long as everyone remains respectful, it ends on a good note.

I'm going to second this. I am both a BattleTech and a 40K player. My personal favorite between the 2 is BattleTech, for trying to keep things more realistic and not 'dialing everything up to 11'. But my greater love for BattleTech doesn't make me blind to the vast power of the 40K Imperium. It's really no contest. And that's fine by me. They are their own respective fantasy universes and I enjoy both of them for what they are.

[IraqiWalker]

SnagaDance, on 09 June 2015 - 02:14 AM, said:

I'm going to second this. I am both a BattleTech and a 40K player. My personal favorite between the 2 is BattleTech, for trying to keep things more realistic and not 'dialing everything up to 11'. But my greater love for BattleTech doesn't make me blind to the vast power of the 40K Imperium. It's really no contest. And that's fine by me. They are their own respective fantasy universes and I enjoy both of them for what they are.

Actually, another way to look at it is that BT is predecessor to 40K. 40K is in the 41st Millenium, while BT is more in the 4th.

[RedDragon]

Void Angel, on 08 June 2015 - 05:09 PM, said:

As an aside, allow me to say how refreshing it is to have a discussion regarding a fan topic without people experiencing, er, angina rectoris, and having their own thread deleted to stop people from correcting them. Not a random example - I had that actually happen in a Tolkien thread not long ago. The "Loremaster" who started it up was unprepared for criticism, but quite prepared to tell you things like "the Ring can only be used by Sauron."

Haha yeah I remember that thread. Was quite hilarious because the OP insisted on things like Thor being based on Jesus and England being part of the Holy Roman Empire, and when confronted with it he asked the mods to lock the thread instead of admitting to being wrong.

But that aside: I find the discussion here quite interesting. I myself just have a bit of peripheral knowledge of WH40K lore (having read one book and some stuff on the WH-Wiki).

I guess before determing who would win an encounter, the premises for that must be established. I.e. is it an isolated encounter of some troops or a planet-wide/galaxy-wide conquest? What are the goals of both sides? Etc.
Furthermore it would have to be established in which world the battle takes place. Is it BT invading the world of WH or the other way round?

Those infos are quie important, because e.g. if the Imperium wanted to deal with the Inner Sphere, they could just go on and use their planet-killing weapons if resistance would be too strong. BT only has ABC-weapons, but they don't work on the same scale as those from WH if I understand it correctly.

In a direct fight I would generally lean towards WH winning (although I love BT), because they have the power of space magic, which BT doesn't. But it would depend on the setting and circumstances. A horde of Space Marines shouldn't be much of a problem for a Mech unit that is trained to deal with elementals. Titans on the other hand ... well if the BT commander had lots of ressources and time to prepare, I think it would be possible to take them out. Apart from air strikes and artillery, you have to remember that there are infantry units in BT that are specially trained to swarm mechs. I am not that firm in WH-lore and how their Titans operate in detail, but I'd guess it would be possible for a unit of anti-mech infantry/battle armour to swarm a Titan and just kill its crew instead of destroying the whole thing (or taking out some important parts like the engine, joints etc. with explosives).

To sum ipt up: In a fuill-out war WH would win because of space magic and numbers. But their forces aren't unbeatable and a BT commander with the right tools at his exposal should be able to counter anything WH could offer on a smaller scale.

[XtremWarrior]

Picture the size of a Battlemech in this mess... an Atlas lance would fit in one of the right arm cannons of the Emperor Titan. The thing has a goddam CASTLE (and quite a big one) on his back!

And the Imperium is one of the low-tech races!

(Ok it's dumb, but 200m high Titans with fortresses on their back are why i love W40K)

EDIT:
Just found another one, scale is harder to tell, you have to zoom in!

Edited by XtremWarrior, 09 June 2015 - 09:51 AM.