Most powerful/advanced technology?

[Craze_b0i]

Which race or faction has the most advanced/powerful technology? In terms of mechanics, machinery etc... Skaven have some pretty far out stuff, but on the flip side a lot of it works on magic as much as mechanics. Take away the magic and it stops working. Then you have, Dwarf, Empire and Chaos Dwarf. We know these 4 races can all build good war-machines but what would you consider the most advanced? Personally My first thought is the Dwarfs due to the Gyrocopter...

[slaanghoul]

Steam Tank wins.

[Boddicker]

AFAIK 3 races have techy fluff : Empire, Dwarf, Skaven.

My vote goes to the Empire since they show the most innovation and progress.

Supposedly the Dwarfs have stagnated being the traditionalists that they are; they exile any dwarven engineers that show too much innovation.

As you mentioned all Skaven technology is warpstone based, so it's kind of advanced but still magical at heart. They've just been more innovative in finding unique ways of using the warpstone.

[Iron_Lord]

Their tech does advance though. Airships. Nautiluses. And so forth.

Sometimes the most advanced stuff gets nicked though- like the Black Kraken, whose designer fled with it after committing serious crimes against other dwarfs.

[Leogun_91]

Dwarfs....but they won't hold that position for long, the empire advances far quicker. Skaven mostly copies others stuff and improves it so they'll have a hard time advancing further than the rest. And after reading Tamurkhan I'm not impressed with the chaos dwarf tech, it roughly felt like "Chaos Dwarf technology is not as flashy and powerful as that of the empire but far more reliable, see how their artillery train is ripped asunder by a landship" and "Chaos Dwarf guns are reliable and powerful, now they are shot to bits by outriders", the book seemed to try to make the chaosdwarf tech look good but the empire just seemed better in all aspects, there is only one point of CD tech victory in the book that I remember and thats how their whole artillery train succeeds at blowing up a wall, being reliable would also be far more useful if the empire tech actually failed anytime, which it didn't so it seemed more like some lame excuse used by chaosdwarfs trying to sell an order of leadbelcher cannons.

[Spell_of_Destruction]

The funny thing is that WHFB is a very narrow 'snapshot' of time (compared to 40k in which seemingly thousands of years can pass without much change in race dynamics) and Empire are the only race who seem to be 'advancing' technologically. As has been pointed out, Dwarves are stagnant. Technology as a concept is irrelevant to Elves as they see it as an arbitrary distinction between 'nature' and 'elf/dwarf/man made'. Brets are stuck in a Dark Age mindset.

Now that they have reached a renaissance period of progress, the Empire should be able to reach 20th/21st century levels of technology in a few hundred years so when the Dwarves start seeing F-22s and M1A1s rolling off the assembly lines they may see it as a wake up call.

[Craze_b0i]

Their tech does advance though. Airships. Nautiluses. And so forth.

Sometimes the most advanced stuff gets nicked though- like the Black Kraken, whose designer fled with it after committing serious crimes against other dwarfs.

For me nautilus and airship are good examples of dwarfs still being ahead. Though I agree with Leogun's point that it won't last forever.