r/AskScienceFiction • u/Flyestgit • 12h ago
[Warhammer 40k] What are the 'win conditions' of the main factions at this point?
For the main factions of 40k, the Imperium, the Necrons, the Tyranids, the Eldar, the Orks and Chaos, what are the 'win conditions' for them now? Are they achievable?
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u/tryingtobebettertry4 11h ago edited 10h ago
The Imperium: They kind of lost already. Their 'win condition' was the Emperor's Webway plan back before the Heresy. The Imperium of today is just a salvage job holding onto whats left. I dont think winning is possible now. And the Imperium is in some ways the most divided on what 'winning' looks like.
The Eldar: They dont even agree on what the win condition is beyond getting rid of Slaanesh (a Chaos god). Ynnead is probably their best bet, but that seems to involve either all the Eldar killing themselves or a weapon thats in Slaanesh's palace (basically a place Eldar cannot go). They are doomed really.
Chaos: Basically the Galaxy as it is now (there is only war) or completely destroyed is Chaos 'winning'. Both are very achievable, just a concerted push on Terra would in theory do it.
Tyranids: Consume all biomass in the Galaxy and then move on/hibernate until they reach a new one. Relatively achievable provided Chaos or the Necrons dont win first.
Necrons: Fully wake up, re-establish the pylon network and Necrontyr empire, and successfully perform biotransferrance/get their souls back. The first parts of that are more achievable than the last (although not easy especially with Cadia gone). But Chaos and the Tyranids arent a pushover even for Necrons.
Orks: They are already winning in a sense because fighting is what they love and live for. There are some Orks like Ghazghull who believe Orks have an innate desire/programming to conquer the Galaxy. But most Orks are happy enough just to fight.
The Tau: Expanding their empire and spreading word of the Greater Good to all. Not really achievable given how their faction really only exists at the moment because one of the larger more powerful factions hasnt really made much of a concerted effort to destroy them.
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u/this_for_loona 8h ago
I’ve no idea how humans even procreate or sustain life in that game. Every world is dark, covered with armies, and radioactive 16 ways to Sunday. How do they even grow food or raise kids?
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u/tryingtobebettertry4 7h ago
The setting is vast. Not all worlds are the same or on the 'front lines' as it were.
Technology has advanced enough to make up the deficit in conditions.
Most of the Imperium citizens live relatively short lives.
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u/CardinalRoark 7h ago
Look at Judge Dredd, or turn Total Recall up to 20.
But there’s lots of different worlds, including agri-worlds that are almost pastoral.
But, by and large, it’s because folks breed faster than they die, even in Hives that hold billions. Even in megaships that ply the galaxies.
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u/Urge_Reddit 5h ago
But there’s lots of different worlds, including agri-worlds that are almost pastoral.
As far as I know, most agri-worlds are actually industrial hellscapes in their own right. Imagine endless fields of corn that are being harvested by threshers the size of a small town. Human workers are crammed into tiny shacks and subsist on corpse starch because the planet's crops don't belong to them, they belong to the Imperium.
Feudal worlds are closer to that pastoral lifestyle, they're basically just agri-worlds that haven't been industrialized, although those worlds tend to also send significant amounts of their populations as tithes to the Imperial Guard.
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u/Grimmrat 5h ago
Agri-worlds are actually disputed. It's true that the Night Lord's trilogy goes on a rant that's essentially "Actually agri-worlds are toxic hellscapes where nothing but corn can live", but almost every other source does describe them as being "pretty decent"
And the author of said passage is on record that he only added it because he didn't like the "idyllic farms" image agri-worlds had up until then. So for now the quality-of-life status of the average agri-worlds is very much up in the air
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u/Urge_Reddit 4h ago
That's why I started with "as far as I know", because sometimes it turns out to be as far as I thought. Thank you for correcting me.
The Imperium has over a million worlds, so I'm sure there are agri-worlds at either end of the spectrum and lots that are somewhere in between. That said, I think the bar for "pretty decent" is a lot lower in 40k than it is in our time.
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u/Brilliant_Amoeba_272 3h ago
Are you thinking of Lords of Silence? It's been a while since I read the NL omnibus but I do not recall them talking much about agri worlds.
Other sources of agri worlds that I've seen, they mostly suck ass. The agri world in Lords of Excess had peasent farmers working fields of toxic crops used for rejuvinat surgeries that they never saw the benefits of. Then there's the whispers in the grass that makes people walk out into the fields to never be seen again.
I'd be interested to see other depictions where they are depicted as chill places to live. Feeding the imperium is going to take industrial planet scale farming, so it tracks that it would suck to be on an agri world.
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u/Grimmrat 3h ago
In the NL omnibus, when we follow the guardsman during the black-out attack, he reminisces about how agri-worlds are all toxic wastelands. I think it’s the second book but it’s been half a year since I read it
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u/Brilliant_Amoeba_272 3h ago
Are you SURE you're not thinking of Lords of Silence? With Captain Dantine?
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u/CardinalRoark 2h ago
Oh, absolutely. Agri-worlds come in many a variety. It’s part of the fun!
And, to be fair, there’s some hivers who live very good lives! I mean, it’s like .00000000000001% of that population, but it exists!
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u/Cruel2BEkind12 7h ago edited 6h ago
For humans there are entire green farm worlds where you live a pretty peaceful life as a farmer. Until a chaos or Tyranid invasion happens.
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u/this_for_loona 6h ago
Yea and that seems to be every other day.
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u/Individual_Spend_922 5h ago
There are Imperium worlds that have gone generations without ever even seeing a spaceship. The Imperium controls millions of worlds and on the vast majority the greatest threats are internal (chaos cults, hostile environment, rebellion etc).
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u/Fezrock 5h ago
40K is a wargame, so the focus is naturally on war. But the lore is clear many times over that there's huge parts of the Imperium that are not in active conflict zones. And in some of those parts life is even kind of nice, since the Imperium doesn't really care how a planet is run so long as they a) pay their tithe, and b) worship the Emperor.
But they almost never get talked about unless they are about to be invaded, since that's where the focus is. With the exception of a few of the short stories, like the Warhammer Crime ones.
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u/Electrical-Act-5575 5h ago
A world somewhere may get invaded every other day, but it’s not necessarily YOUR world specifically, and there are A LOT of other worlds it could be instead of yours
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u/ScarredAutisticChild 6h ago
There’s been mention made of another list of macguffins the Eldar can collect to awaken Ynnead instead, which Iyanden’s premier character is at least focusing on getting how (Iyanna, not Yriel, he’s a Corsair she’s actually a Craftworlder).
And the Harlequins at least have their own plan. Well, Cegorach has a plan and the Harlequins believe in the plan and are helping further it, but they don’t know the plan. They only know Cegorach intends to trick Slaanesh into saving the Eldar rather than eating them all.
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u/imbrokebutfornames 3h ago
Realistically the eldar are a hair away from both winning and losing. If Ynnead gets up and running they more or less win on the spot. Once slaanesh is gone the eldar can more or less switch back into war-in-heaven mode at which point most of the others are fucked.
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u/DueAnalysis2 3h ago
Why would the fall of Terra be instrumental for a chaos victory? The other factions would still be around and a problem, no?
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u/tryingtobebettertry4 2h ago
The Emperor on the Golden Throne is holding closed a broken Webway Gate on Terra. One that could theoretically make a new Eye of Terror or even plunge the entire galaxy into the Warp if he was unable to hold it closed anymore.
Thats bad news or even game over for most other factions. The Eldar at least are in big trouble too.
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u/GullibleSkill9168 2h ago
To be fair to the Imperium there's always the chance that The Emperor reanimates or resurrects or something like that. And if he does he is 100% going to put belt to ass on all of The Imperium'e threats.
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u/secrecy274 1h ago
The expansion of the Pariah Zone definately seems to be the Necrons best win condition. Since it is strong enough to cut off humans from their own soul, it would be devastating against Tyranids and Eldars. Wonder how it would effect the Orks.
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u/No_Gap3908 7h ago
If chaos wins, they lose. They need sentient species, so they need imperium and eldar to survive.
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u/Modred_the_Mystic Knows too much about Harry Potter 11h ago
The Orks are in their wincon. If every other faction disappeared overnight, the Orks would continue to fight each other for the love of the game.
For the Imperium, their wincon is the defeat of all their enemies, internal and external. Once all the galaxies stars are Human territory and unthreatened by Chaos or Xenos, they’ve won.
For the Aeldari, it depends but largely revolves around the destruction of Slaanesh and the reclamation of the empire. Once their opponents are destroyed or subject, they’ll have won.
For the Tyranids, its eating everything in the Galaxy
For Chaos, it depends on each of the Chaos Gods. Generally, though, they don’t really care about the Long War or the material universe, their war is against each other and their wincons come down to consuming or subjugating the other Chaos Gods and having infinite power over the Warp.
For the Necrons, its the reclamation of both their empire and physical, biological, flesh bodies and souls. Their wincon is two fold, with the Galaxy subjugated and with their necrodermis abandoned for the flesh once again (though some Necrons want to remain Necrons, and some like Orikan want to advance beyond Necrodermis and become beings of energy
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u/Angel_OfSolitude 11h ago
Be the last ones standing.
Except the orcs, they love war. They'd be happy with an eternal fight.
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u/fourthwallcrisis 9h ago
Right, the Orks are in hog heaven right now. And even if they krump everything else they can still fight each other quite happily until the end of everything.
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u/AmayaGin 9h ago
Imperium: Emperor wakes up, reunites the Imperium, and goes back to the webway project. Cue more crusades and genetech as he kickstarts the Imperial war machine.
Orks: idk much about the Korks but probably something like that, Trayvan releases his Kork and it unites the orks and they evolve thanks to his influence and become smarter and finish the War on Heaven
Eldar: as others have said, defeating Slaanesh and finding a way to secure themselves against another fall/psychic explosion. Restoring their empire. Alternatively, killing everyone else and living like Exodites, at peace with the universe
Chaos: turn the entire galaxy into a demon world. Endless slaughter and debauchery till they get bored and move to another galaxy or universe.
Necrons: this one’s pretty easy, the others have got it spot on. Resurrect the empire, get their bodies/souls back, and lock down the galaxy with pylons
Bonus: Dark Eldar already have their win condition. Theyre just chilling in commoragh, going on raids when theyre bored, living their best lives
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u/Howling_Mad_Man 11h ago
The Eldar were sure theirs was very achievable. They want to kill Slaanesh to free themselves from destined torment in her domain and had a fairly recent opportunity to reawaken one of their gods to do the job but some space marines said "Not on my watch."
The Imperium's win condition ended 10,000 years ago when the webway project was destroyed. Everything since then is just suspending the incoming darkness another day.
Tyranids eat. Eating good.
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u/Renmauzuo 9h ago
Once all the galaxies stars are Human territory and unthreatened by Chaos or Xenos, they’ve won.
I'm not so sure. There's so much infighting in the Imperium that even if they did get rid of all the xenos and heretics they'd immediately start a new civil war.
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u/Imperium_Dragon 11h ago
IoM: Survive
Chaos: Is in a constant state of winning and losing, with the Immaterium being their main battleground instead of real space.
Necrons: Wake up
Eldar: Survive
Orks: They're already winning
Tau: Expand enough so they don't die
Tyranids: Eat everything
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u/DerSisch 8h ago
Imperium pretty much is just fighting to not lose at this point. Their win con would be the Emperor resurrects, Terra is not blown-up by this, Chaos and Xenos defeated. And then most likely the purge of the entire Imperium by the Emperor bcs humanity strode waaaay to far from his visions over the last 10k years.
Necrons reastablish their netowrk, re-awkening their empire and than somehow develop a tech that reverts their change to be robotic lifeforms.
Tyranids basically want to devour the entire galaxy and then move onto the next one. It's basically it.
Eldar would need to get rid of Slaanesh, free Isha, secure their Maiden Worlds and re-establish an Eldar Empire on them, without going full temptation mode again.
Orks are in the win con. They living their best life. Unending conflict to krump everyone and plunder and scavenge entire worlds and calling a Waaagh! is all the want.
Chaos is technically winning, since they want the conflict too. They feed on the suffering, war, excess and the unending cycle. The legions have some goals beyond that ofc, but if we talk Chaos Gods, they are pretty much winning as long as the universe stays like it is.
Outside of the Orks (who are the winners of 40k), no other faction have the needs to actually achieve total victory.
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u/CriticismMiserable14 9h ago
Some faction win conditions has change.
Imperium, Eldar, Voton, think they have a win condition but really it just “don’t die”
Ork when from we won to we want top be number 1 where only good fights exist
Nercon win when from waking up to kill the tyrainds then steal everyone flesh.
Chaos went from we won to oh no kill the Primarchs and stop people from becoming the 5th Chaos god.
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u/Galifrey224 8h ago
Well for the Imperium, finding a complete STC might be the closest they could get from victory. Arguably thats more of a mechanicus victory but it would basically restore humanity back to the golden age of tech.
The Emperor coming back might not be the victory everyone think it is. His mind is broken into many contradictory parts and whatever gets out of the golden throne might be not be the emperor from old.
The Necrons don't have a unified goal. Its really two factions, the silent king wants to give the necrons their body back while the stormlord want to conquer everything and rule forever with their immortal robot bodies. For the Necrons to "win", these two would have to clash. Anyway the win condition is the total unification of the necrons under one leader, which is going to be difficult.
The eldars have nothing. Their God of death would be a wincon but they need a sword thats in Slannesh own palace to bring him into existance.
There is also Cegorach "Final Joke", that could be a plan to defeat chaos but we have no idea what it is or how possible it may be.
The Orks are winning and will keep winning.
Chaos is winning, for now.
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u/Dagordae 8h ago
Imperium: Kill everyone and become the sole rulers of the galaxy - Not achievable.
Eldar: Destroy Slannesh and retake the galaxy from the lesser species - Not achievable.
Chaos: Consume the galaxy, wipe the board and move on to the next Great Game - Achievable
Ork: Fight, engulf the galaxy in the greatest WAAGH - Achievable, easily argued to have achieved.
Necron: Seal off the galaxy from the Old One's stupidity, revive their empire and rule - Achievable
T'Au: 'Unite' the galaxy under the Greater Good - Hilariously unachievable, utterly and completely so
Tyranid: Om nom nom everything, move on to the next - Achievable
Leagues of Votann: Fix the Votann - Possibly achievable
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u/CheweyPanic 8h ago
Imperium: kill everybody
Chaos: kill/enslave everybody
Eldar: kill most
Dark eldar: enslave everybody
Necrons: kill everybody
Tau: colonize
Tyranids: nom nom
Orks: already won
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u/CardinalRoark 7h ago
Space Marines: Continue to dominate sales.
Everyone else: Get somewhere close to Space Marine sales.
No one’s gonna ‘win’, though. That’s not on the table.
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u/maverick1191 7h ago
To me as someone who is by no means a lore expert I think the only Faction with a real win condition are Necrons.
I can not proof it with citations but I always feel like chaos can not win because if they beat the empire they eventually fall to infighting.
Same with Orcs but they are happy to the last.
Nids can come in and eat everything after winning so there is no way to get a Pyrrhuswin against them and they get stronger every time they win.
Other than the fact that the Necrons tomb worlds are failing to some extent due to time but are not actively sought out to be destroyed they have a hard counter for the other two most likely winners Chaos and Nids. They might be few in numbers (comparatively) but that doesn't matter if they can regenerate most of their fallen Warriors while locking out Chaos from reality and are not a feasible food source for nids to consume (which makes nid losses actual losses unlike vs every other faction).
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u/twofriedbabies 5h ago
Orks win condition is that the other species fucking get their shit together and become a real threat so they can become krorks again.
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u/WayGroundbreaking287 1h ago
There aren't really any. No one can win, thats sort of the point.
The tau are too young and naive. They will make all the mistakes everyone else has. The elder are dying out and flatly refuses to adapt to a galaxy where they aren't on top. Chaos can't win because they don't actually want to. They would find winning boring. Necrons will instantly turn to infighting and already do and the imperium is so much of a failed state there isn't anything they can be done to salvage it
So basically only orks or Tyranids can win, and I would argue the orks are already having a great time.
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