In the long run, who will win?

[Vasili]

I think GW would write some last fluff with detials in the last thousand years or so showing how each race slowly crumbles and meets its downfall. I think the Imperium would win over all simply because of the Emperor. Somone might get through to the high lords of terra to unplug him form the throne, This might cause huge problems in the warp but if say the Imperium has a like revoltion, the Emperor forces the Human race to advance in tech and stop the worship of the Machine God and slowly rebuilds is golden throne to once again destory Chaos with it.

[Brother_Soulrot]

The impression I get from the fluff is that the Emperor won't survive forever - he is simply trying to hold out until the 'next stage' of human evolution begins. Nobody except the Emperor really knows the likely fate of the human race, which is why belief in him is so strong - he holds the key to possible salvation.

The Chaos Codex mentions that the human race is vulnerable to corruption by Chaos because although many humans have psychic powers, humanity hasn't reached its full psychic potential and their psychic abilities are unformed and dangerous. Given that this is a science fiction universe and even 'dark' science fiction is full of improbable twists and reversals of fate, it is possible that although the Imperium is crumbling and beset by enemies, something strange might happen at the last minute to turn things in humanity's favour.

[Vasili]

Like everyone becomes a mini Emperor. That would be a laugh

[Captain Fist]

Originally Posted by C'Tan

C'tan shall punish all the fools who follow the new race called 'humans' the 4 C'tan shall awaken soon, when that happens all races will perish! The Eldar realise there fate....why not you? The mighty necrontyr race has spoken!

Necrontyr? Your getting your Lore Confused. One's trapped in a Planet, when your trapped under Billions of Tons of Rock and Metal, you can't pry your way out, I don't care who you are. Your not really receiving any flow of power, your power is static, because you don't have any souls to eat. The other one is horribly insane and trapped under the Galaxy in some sort of Metaphysical Cube or something, one's the weakest of all of them and a Tzeentch wannabe. You've only got one whose really worthy of the title. A Psyker scares the shit out those Floating piles of Metal.

Either way, it's sure as Hell not going to be the Imperium, they lose planets constantly, their one side of fanatical corpse-worshippers against a Several Sides of Actual God Woshippers. When did GW ever state that the Emperor was going to be reborn as a God? If they did, it would be to appease the Imperial Fanboys and make more sales.

I say Chaos or Tyranids. You can't really "Kill" chaos, it always exists in some form, as long as their is Anger, Hope, Despair, or Perversion in the Universe, which seems to be Side-Effect of Life, Those Four Goombas are going to be there.

Tyranids, because, their are a lot of them, and they eat everything and make more of themselves. They can even eat Necrons! At least as long as "Living Metal" isn't used metaphorically.

[T3h_Sh4d0w_1337]

Originally Posted by C'Tan

C'tan shall punish all the fools who follow the new race called 'humans' the 4 C'tan shall awaken soon, when that happens all races will perish! The Eldar realise there fate....why not you? The mighty necrontyr race has spoken!

Eldar were created long ago to pwn necrons; thats why the old ones made them! Also, one word for why eldar win: Ynnead. The god of the dead; he will pawn you all!Here, we'll do it race-by-race.
Dark Eldar can't win; too weak, and they are limited to raids, not conquest. ANYONE can pwn them.
Necrons: Eldar have specific anti-necron weapons. Plus, people say rumors like "The Machine god is a C'tan" and stuff. That's just not possible: if the Machine God (part of the emperor) is a C'tan, that means all Imperium players PERSONALLY come and beat the Necron players to death.
Tyranids: So far, every hive fleet has been stopped; they don't have enough attack force size to win. And they attack really infrequently. They are merely a big, pointy nuisance. And if/when the Eldar regain their Empire, they will simply swat the nids aside and shatter the hivemind with some psychic thing or other.
Chaos: IF the Eldar finally go extinct (which they wont), Ynnead will rise and destroy Slaanesh, probably other Chaos gods too. Besides, the C'tan "Ancient Work" is to permanently seal the warp off. On top of that, Chaos can't recruit any new marines; once they gone, they gone. So chaos couldn't win.
Tau: They are just too small. Any large attack (like the Damocles Gulf Crusade) could wipe them out. They can't get strong enough fast enough to win. Plus, they are right in the path of the Nids.
Imperium: a toughie. However, they are surrounded by many foes. They just can't get enough forces to attack one opponent to win. Even if they el;iminate most races, the Orks and Nids (who will keep many of their troops busy) will suddenly only have one enemy: the orks will unite, and then only orks, Tyranids and Eldar are left. (Eldar live because they hide on craftworlds).
Orks: Although Orks are really powerful, the Eldar can beat them. Orks do not have sufficient twechnology to find Eldar craftworlds, and without anyone attacking them, the Eldar can make more. Plus, If eldar technology and Tau technology combine, one eldar could easily stop dozens of orks. Through stealth, the Eldar will distract and eventyually be strong enough to destroy the orks.

However, from a real-world standpoint, NO ONE can win. The thing is, if ANY race starts winning in official Warhammer 40k literature, then EVERY other race is pissed off, like i said above about the C'tan. So no one will even start to win, not ever. The galaxy is at equilibrium.

[Isaac2pointO]

I have to say that the Nids might do it simply because

no other race in Warhammer except necrons does as thourogh a job at killing everything on a planet as these guys do. No other race invades like these tyranids do but

I have to hand the final victory over to the Imperium. Billions of Imperial Guard, numbers equal or slightly less than orks but they are organised, SM, and the Imperium can say fuck it, if they're going to take this planet we may as nuke every square inch of it. Humans have an indomitable will to survive more so than any other race and that is why I think they will be the victors eventually

[Vasili]

Well games-workshop did say its possible for the Emperor to come back, he cannot actually die, when he does he just comes back even stronger it stats that the Thousand sons fear his death for he shall destory chaos when he becomes the star child he also during the great crusade was using his throne to destory chaos within he could mess up chaos itself and even destory the gods. But who knows maybe if they died (if its possible) then even more powerful gods will come.

[Isaac2pointO]

hmmmmm I have to say that Purple Drink has a VERY, VERY, VERY good point in that Chaos has the best chance of fully winning, but we are talking about the races so technically CSM would not win because they have the same problem that the SM have. loosing more chaos marines than they can replace and it is especially bad for CSM because all SM are decendants of the god emperor himself and since CSM hate the emperor they would never beable to nor take a chance to get a sample of his DNA to make more of their kind I have to go with Imperial Guard instead of Imperium and what I mean is that the Imperial guard would win it not SM, or inquisition, because SM have a limit to their numbers, there are an equal if not more amount of imperial guardsmen as there are orks and all the guard has to do is nuke planets that don't belong to them, find a planet with lots of orks nuke dead

Tau don't have the firepower nor will to kill entire planets and solar systems at a time and without the ethereals they are nothing, Tyranids are the next best choice, numbers, and they make sure to leave a planet completely obliterated of life