Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-25618639-20150426193759/@comment-25177957-20150427130923

Well the Kardashev scale is a bit too broad to gauge a 40k civilzation, especially alien civilizations, and most other sci-fi civilzations for that matter. The Kardashev scale tells technological sophistication from how a civilization gathers energy. Thus it cannot be used to accurately determine the technology of races such as the Eldar or Tau, so it's best to use a completely different scale.

I suppose you could say the Imperium of Man (the scale is most applicable to human civilizations) is a Type II civilization. Yet according to this scale, a civilization must have built a Dyson Sphere to be classified as Type II, and the Imperium has not built a Dyson Sphere. That would most inaccurately put it at Type I, hence why the scale is bad for this purpose. Intresting to note though, the Tyranids could be classified as Type III since they can use, and consume the energy of a galaxy.