Fluff Question: Which Sci-Fi Universe Would Win? (Space Battles)

POLL RELATED POST
Yep. The never ending debate. Which Sci-Fi universe would beat another.
To give everything a level playing feild, I am going to say remove super fantastic powers, so universe changing force use from SW is out. Basically, cap it at Palpatines lightning.

I think what the most critical part of an inter-universe conflict would be the application of space fleets. This is where sci-fi wars would be won/lost. Simple matter really: if the ships die in space, the fight can't be fought on the ground.
Size Comparisons here. Click on -10x for best grouping.

To me, it would come down to Star Wars and 40k here. Star Trek is just too small and weak. Borg Cubes are impressive, but Star Trek ships can beat them and I bet Star Wars and 40k woop star trek. Phasers are sooooo small and short ranged in comparison to the fighting of 40k and star wars. All the other ones suffer the same fate really. Alien, Battlestar Galactica and Starship Troopers are way to small. Halo is to far behind in technology but is at least approaching Star Wars size ships. I don't know enough about babylon 5 and macross to really compare, but just on size basis I am going to remove them.

I personally think here that 40k wins. They may not have the biggest ships, but the Empire only had 8 super star destroyers. Meanwhile, the Imperium possess thousands, if not tens of thousands, of their battleships. And then there are star forts such as a Ramilles class or even bigger things like Port Maw. Those are HUGE! and allow several battleships and cruisers to dock with them.
And you can see the GUNS. Point out where the turbolasers are on that super star destroyer. Can you. I know approximately where some are, but I can't see them. Meanwhile I can point out all the major weapon systems on the 40k star ships. They launch 30m torpedos instead of measly 1m proton torpedos. Bigger guns = bigger boom.
Next is the escorts. A 40k cobra escort is 800m long (the link I provided is wrong, but firestorms and swords are 1.5 km long so imagine that on the link provided). The smallest military vessel is 800 m. A star destroyer is twice as long yes, but it is suppossed to be the center of an Imperial fleet in Star Wars, but 40k has ESCORTS just as big.
And next is range of battle. I am taking the visual cues from Star Wars and imagining that the battle takes place at those relatively clos ranged, 10-20 km apart. That is like a WWI naval battle really.
40k happens thousands of KM apart. They only see the ships on sensors for the most part and it is rare that they are in visual range, and when they are, it is pure destruction. One ship will not survive and the other will be crippled.
Then there is ship protection. In Star Wars sheilds are falling like every minute it seems, and those ships are not armoured heavily. The true protection of a 40k ship is in its armour. Sure the sheilds help, and in the fluff fall kinda often too, but 40k ships are plated in meters of armour.
The one advantage Star Wars possesses I believe is fighter technology. Their personal star ships seem better than 40k ones, especially since they are sheilded (for the most part). But to me it is not enough to take on 40k capital ships, which possess as much if not more point defence than a Star Wars ship.
Oh yeah, and Necrons and Nids I think could chew up any other universe.

So tell me what you think. Poll over there -->
*FACTIONS RULED OUT- UNIVERSE ON UNIVERSE

Will talk about ground fighting some other time

POLL RESULTS
Who would win in a space battle?
Warhammer 40k 25 (65%)
Star Wars 3 (7%)
Babylon 5 5 (13%)
Star Trek 3 (7%)
Macross 0 (0%)
Halo 0 (0%)
Other (Post in comments) 2 (5%)

Army Theme Guide- Suggestions for a unified force

Okay, so this is for the FTW collaborative post on army theme. I am going to provide some of my basic suggestions for coming up with theme for your army.

Step 1- Choose your colours.
I have a cool simple colour selection guide here from an older FTW post you should read, but I will some up some of the more relevant ideas here.
Link your army together using colours and markings. Obviously the main colour is going to tie it together, especially if you are a Space Marine Chapter or Guard Regiment. But it is the accent colours that can do this more so. Note on my Blood Angels the Blue Carapace, Eyes, Cables and Power Weapons, as well as Yellow skulls. This is standard throughout my army and never changes, bringing a bright pop to the army as a whole.
As well, squad and army marking can be critical here. Giving each squad its own marking unifies a squad and giving everything an army marking (Chapter Symbol, Craftworld logo, Crusade Icon) would unify the army. Some armies don't have the opportunity for this really, such as necrons and tyranids. The concept can instead be captured by painting specific patterns on the carapace, or making shoulders for the army a different colour than the bodies. Still can be considered a marking, albeit not as distinct as a Space Marine Chapter logo.

Cammo schemes are also a very good way to do this for any force, but may be difficult to attempt. Skin tones as well. Try making an army that isn't caucasian perhaps?

Step 2- Basing
Basing is another way to unite the army.
There are three approaches to this
1- Match your colour scheme
This is simple. You have a brown IG army, put them in the dirt. A bleached bone army in the sand, a white army in the snow, green in jungle, dark earth tones in a swamp, greys and blues in urban.
2- Contrast your colour scheme
A little harder to pull off and I think works better for things such as space marines and eldar, who are bright forces coloured to a specific fluff. This though would be like putting red guys (Saim Han and BA) or black (Black Legion) in snow, Green (Dark Angels) in sand, Green (Salamanders) or Blue (Ultrasmurfs) near lava.
3- Match your terrain
Do you have allot of urban terrain/rubble- base your guys to match. Jungle terrain- base to match. Sand- base to match. If you play mostly on green felt boards, you may want to consider just simple green static grass with a green base. You can spruce this up by going for the soccer/football field look by adding patches of dirt/dry mud and the occasional bit of gravel.

Step 3- Modeling: Wargear and Conversions
This is another place you can easily unify an army. And don't worry if you are not that great at converting or green stuff, there are ways to do it without that.
1- Wargear
You like power weapons. Well how about all your guys (or most) have the same fundamental type. Works really well if it is not traditional, such as a mace or axe rather than a sword. Even cooler if you can expand this to some normal CCW, such as chain axes, or even normal axes/maces. This can easily be achieved by getting some warhammer fantasy bits.
2- Conversions
This is harder to define, but things like making your chaos all look like undersea squid creatures definitely fits into this. Other examples would be things like modifying all your vehicles to have unique yet unified turrets/exhausts (Ragnaroks instead of russ). Or those WWI looking IG armies using brettonians. Make all your ork looted vehicles look looted from the same SM chapter or IG regiment. Make all your marines (or csm) in the same pattern of armour, preferable older patterns. Works better if an army fits this fluff eg Marines Malevolent.

Something new altogether
This is where the crazy cool projects fall, such as goat boy's space goats, Ad mech armies, and Adeptus Custodes. These armies can have a theme all to their own and really allow you to express yourself in entirely new ways.

Looking to start Warmachine

UPDATE: 4/20
Bought a Kodiak, Juggernaut, Demolition Corps, and the Butcher today. 15 points. Well on my way!
UPDATE 4/28: PACKAGE ARRIVED. Built and primed. But some base coats down too.

So yeah, I have been lured towards another game and now it is just a matter of when I have the money to start the game, but I am going to be jumping into Warmachine. I have played one game and I am already hooked. Really it is the minis that did it. Gameplay is nice, but I can't resist awesome minis.

My favourite model. So BAD ASS!

Anyways I will be playing Khador (if you couldn't tell from the picture).

Basically I am just going to do a one time big buy that all I'd ever have to add to it is 2 or so Warjacks if I wanted to change things up. Already compatible for the Butcher's 4 tiers.

Here is my plan:
pButcher
Wardog
MoW Drakhun
MoW Kovnik
MoW Shocktroopers
MoW Demolition Corps
Plastic Kit - Magnetised
Juggernaut
Kodiak
Devastator
Widowmaker Marksman
And rulebooks

If I do ever add on, it will probably be Beast 09 and a Beserker or 2. MAYBE Kharchev the terrible to have a variety of casters.

I really just want to play a heavy heavy force. Man of War units and Khador Warjacks are the best to do that, and apparently the Prime Butcher of Khardov is the best for this, especially with new players to the game.

DON'T WORRY THOUGH. I will still be working on Blood Angels. I have ample amounts of time this summer and don't plan on wasting it. Just expect to see some awesome warmachine minis mixed in. Will probably paint a BA unit then warmachine, back and forth, until I am done.

SO COOL!

Painted Blood Angel Veteran Sergeant

Painted the first of my new Blood Angels Minis.
Meet Veteran Sergeant Enzio. 8th Company, 4th Squad. Yes, before you ask, he is named after Ezio Auditore






So yeah. There he is. Hope is to have a 5 man squad done by the 25th for a megabattle. These guys are 8th Co since my 2nd Co already has 2 assault squads, needed to work in a third.

Weird/bad things with the Blood Angels: Part 2

This is just a few more things I find meh to bleh about the BA release. First part here.SUCH A WEIRD COSTUME!!!

1. No blood chalice on the sprue. This would have been really nice to have some sort of chalice on the sprue. But instead the only 2 chalices in the range are on metal models: Corbulo and Sanguinor.
So yeah, it would have really been nice to have a bit to make priest with so I don't have to buy $17 models to convert it like in the most recent WD.

2. Inconsistency between WD and the Codex. Flip to the page with chapter banners in the codex. Look at the 3rd one. Now look in the WD with the blood angels on the cover. Towards the front in amongst the fluff and descriptions there is a picture of 3 banners. One of them is the 5th Co. Banner. It is the same banner as in the codex, but with a 5 on the bottom. So yeah.

Now this is a Blood Angel Banner

3. Deep striking land raiders: It is kinda unfair. They are already all dedicated transports and I have fast vehicles. Game balance people. It should be a trade-off I have to decide to make- Fast Vehicles or Land Raiders. Don't build in a way for my land raiders to be just as fast essentially.

4. Deep striking land raiders: Huh? Didn't I just do that. Well, the fluff has a flaw in it. The Blood Angels have 43 Land Raiders according to the codex. BUT they only have 3 Thunderhawk transporters. The only thing that can carry land raiders other than bulk transporters. So this is bad fluff for a few reasons
1- Why so many of one then so little of the other?
2- Why would they risk the few Thunderhawk transporters they possess on combat drops?
3- What if I take 4 Landraiders and Deepstrike them all? Well rules wise I can. But fluff wise, I can't.
I just like the rules to line up with the fluff. And then see point 3 as well (if you skipped it for some weird reason).

5- No Battleforce box- Space Wolves got one, would have been nice for BA to get one too. 2 Death Company sets, assault squad and a rhino. Or something like that. Make it easy for us to kitbash things and save a little money.

6- Captains without artificer armour. Can't buy that upgrade. But I can buy a squad that comes equipped with it. Yes, they at least have Iron Halo's, but it would be nice to buy a guy with a 2+ without having to buy a special character or put them in terminator armour.

Book Review: Soul Hunter

I for one am really pleased with one of the Black Library's recent additions to their team, Aaron Dembski-Bowden. This is the guy that is going to be picking up the role of flagship 40k author as Graham and Dan slow down. He is a great story teller, and his second book, the Night Lords novel Soul Hunter is definitely a must read.
The book follows a Warband of Night Lords Chaos Space Marines and their involvement in Abaddon's preperations for the 13th Black Crusade. It particularly focuses on 10th Company 1st Claw and its leader/company prophet, Talos. Talos is an old school Night Lord, wary of the ways of Chaos and a dedicated son of Konrad Curze.

What is really cool is the involvement of the mortal crew of the Night Lord strike cruiser Covenant of Blood. Septimus is Talos' man-slave and artificer, but is treated with a measure of respect that one would not expect from the Night Lords. While they would kill him without hesitation if he did something wrong, he is treated very much like a chapter serf for a loyalist chapter would be by Talos.

The use of Septimus, as well as the tension between the Astartes of 10th company, particularly Talos and the company leader, The Exalted (Possessed), show the contradictory nature of the remaining Night Lords. You have some try and live to serve only Curze and the long war against the Imperium, and others that are giving into the ways of the Chaos gods. Ultimately though, they are still Brothers, united by a desire to bring fear to the servants of the False Emperor.

I give Soul Hunter 5 out of 5 Aquillas.