Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-24505078-20141118131937/@comment-6078851-20141130163045

i think it's tricky to make a comparison between the two as circumstances are very different: fantasy covers a world while 40k spans a galaxy, so in terms of scale alone the empire has far less to worry about than the imperium does.

as i understand it chaos incursions in fantasy all spawn from the northern 'gate' and head south, so the empire is a fair distance away and is buffered by neighbouring lands. the imperium on the other hand can have entire worlds subverted/converted/destroyed by chaos incursions for years before they even find out about it.

the empire is the most technologicaly advanced species in fantasy whereas the imperium don't have that advantage, as well as the tech they do have is almost archaic and failing: the imperium have to face species who's tech makes a mockery of their own while the empire can sit pretty knowing theirs is the best.

the imperium are on their own, their xenophobia making any alliances extremly fragile, and due to the size of the imperium they can be attacked from any direction. the empire has long standing alliances with neighbouring empires, kislev, bretonia, norsca, the border princes, and any attacks against the empire have to get through their neighbours. the empire could be directly attacked along it's coast but that's a very defensible position when compared to orbital bombardment :P

it is tricky to make comparisons but essentially the empire have no idea how easy they've got it :)