What you love about Warhammer 40,000

[Knight of the Raven]

In this time of changes and misgivings, amidst all the trepidation and sometimes outright hostility brought upon by 8th edition, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a thread to remind ourselves what we love(d) about this fictional universe in the first place.

 

I want this thread to remain positive, so while wistfulness at the disappearance of what you loved is not minded, please don't rant. Samewise, if you dislike an opinion, you can state you disagree but please don't go beyond that. Online arguments are rarely as productive as they wish to be, especially when neither side is interested in changing their opinion.

 

And note that despite the title, talk about Warhammer 30,000 or Rogue Trader is welcome.

 

I'll start, since it's common courtesy to contribute to such a thread when you create it.

 

I love what I call 'the victory of entropy' in Warhammer 40,000, that is to say descendants of one person or one group getting what these same person or group believed in or preached about completely wrong. The biggest example is humanity worshiping the Emperor when he was trying to stamp out religion (whether that was sincere or a plan to indeed become the god he denied to be) and another big example is Guilliman considering his own Codex Astartes to be guidelines allowing for initiative and using one's own brain, and then most of his descendants including the Ultramarines themselves went on to treat it like dogma that can't be deviated from.

 

Of course, this 'victory' is not complete since Salamanders and Raven Guard still protect the weak from those who'd prey on them just to use two examples, but it's still the concept I think the most about whenever I imagine anything that resembles original fiction.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

What I love about it is the Four Minutes To Midnight feel to it, where the human race is constantly on the precipice of annihilation by any number of terrible factions. Although it would be a terrible universe to live in, I find it fascinating that an oppressive fascist government is in place to actually protect the lives of humankind from all the terrible things most of them will never even know of. A universe where someone's stray thoughts can unintentionally cause the doom of an entire world and make some of the horrific measures that the military forces of the Imperium sometimes have to inflict on their people not just understandable, but justified.

 

It is, or was, a great example of a dystopian future until 8th.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I love just how grim the setting is. There are no real food or bad guys. Chaos Marines follow evil gods but only because they're striving for personal freedom; the Imperium is mankind's only hope for survival, but Imperial authorities are ruthless, merciless fascists who will murder you for free thinking; the Eldar have fought to defend life from evil for thousands of years, but are all damned anyway. The list goes on. Everyone's a bad guy, so you have to find the limits to your own morality.

[Smith Kappa]

As a child I was introduced to the game in primary school. Terminators and dreadnoughts seemed so appealing to me, massive hulking suits capable of all sorts of destruction in my imagination. I didn't know how to play and mainly used my models as toy soldiers through 4th edition. By 6th ed I was only loosing 1 in around 5 games and by 7th I was hosting some really large apocalypse games of up to 32,000 points. I liked apocalypse, I like most of 6th edition and I like the idea of space marines.

[The Mad Hermit]

One of the big things for me is that my obsession... erm... hobby... of painting up loads of miniatures (that I've been doing since my pre-teen years) has a purpose.

 

I absolutely love fielding an army that I have painted myself (to whatever level of ability I have... granted, I'm not as good as I was 20 years ago due to large periods of inactivity) up against another painted army.

 

The first GW game I ever played that wasn't Warhammer Fantasy RPG was Necromunda, so getting an army to the point of being 'done' wasn't as hard, but I still get massive amounts of enjoyment from building and painting my stuff. I can not stress enough how much I love the modelling and painting elements of the game/hobby.

 

I've recently gone back to what I often joke about as my 'first love' in 40K, the Space Wolves, and I have to admit that I am very happy with how this time around is going (painting in small batches, setting goals for myself before moving on to the next project, etc.) as the minis now can be so much easier to customize than they were back in '97 when I first got into the game. My Space Wolves (at this stage) really LOOK like an army of individuals.

 

I guess, then, that I love the plastic minis and that nearly everything is being done in plastic these days.

 

I also love the setting As Deus Ex Ferrum already pointed out: there's no real clear-cut example of good guys. It all depends on what shade of grey you're willing to go to.  For decades I've been a die hard loyal Imperium player but I'm being sorely tempted to do something with the Death Guard minis in the starter box as opposed to what I used to do with chaos stuff from those boxes... trade or give them away. I guess I kind of want to have an army that'd make sense fielding against any of my Imperial stuff when I try to teach friends how to play.  Generating a random reason in my head as to why my Space Wolves would be fighting my Astra Militarum has given me heartburn a few times.

 

I also love the fact/idea that, despite all the monsters howling at the door, humanity as a whole (with the exception of traitors) is more than willing to go down swinging. Do not go gently into the Long Night!

[Donkey Kong]

I enjoy the aesthetic. Power armor, (sometimes barbarian) super humans, infinite armies of soldiers and tanks, cyborgs, and angels with giant guns, fists and chainsaw swords facing off against daemons and great big green barbarian hordes. Although it may be sacrilege to say here, I don't think there's anything more uniquely 40k than the Orks (other contenders being Khârn/Khorne, the Black Templars, and Eversor Assassins) with how they embrace the madness of the universe, and how their character permeates throughout the hobby i.e. the "bitz box."

 

I appreciate 40k for being as coherent as it is when it's fundamentally a mishmash of Dune, High Fantasy, and 80s action flicks. And I especially enjoy 40k when it's written as a historical document, usually in the Imperial Armour Campaign Books, but also in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The peaks of writing are enjoyable romps, Helsreach and select Horus Heresy titles at face value, and Ciaphas Cain as soft parody.

[Semper Fortis]

Like The Mad Hermit, the modeling and painting side of the hobby provides me with the most enjoyment. And throughout all my hobby time runs the thread of the fluff. I've followed it and watched it grow and morph since RT days. Yeah, I miss my squats and the increasingly sinister slant of the Dark Angels fluff annoys me. But through it all there is the constant growth of the story line. I'm not sure where this new thrust with Guilliman will take us but I'm willing to wait and see where it goes.

[Scribe]

I loved that there was a setting that did not look at humanity and extrapolate a future of peace and exploration.

 

I loved that the setting asked us just what heroism is, in the face of committing monstrous crimes against modern definitions of morality, forcing people to play a faction that was either a force of consuming nature, or one that was willfully desiring nothing but destruction of anything 'other'.

 

The fact no faction was good, and the destruction of humanity was an arguably noble deed.

 

The denial of reason, of compromise, of progression.

 

The questions posed by AI, transhumanism, and immortality.

 

The consequences of having hell be real, and a product of our own tortured consciousness.

 

The setting had been the best thing about 40k for me for probably close to a decade, so I'm a bit worried. :p

[DogWelder]

Personally I really don't get the moral ambiguity in 40k everyone is claiming to see.

 

The whole "who are really the good guys" argument is hard to make when one side literally covers themselves with the dried skin of orphan children and screams incoherently about how the dark gods will swallow the stars while attempting to saw someone's head of with a rusty blade and the other side...doesn't do that.

 

In Star Wars, you could make the argument that the Empire actually maintains order in the galaxy and keeps people safe.

 

In Gundam, you could say that the Zeons genuinely had an argument for independence of the colonies from Earth.

 

But in 40k?

 

What argument does Chaos make that is vaguely sympathetic to a sane mind? Lets throw ourselves at the feet of power hungry entities that literally call themselves the "dark gods" and do everything humanely possible to make ourselves look and act like the bad guys. 

Edited June 18, 2017 by Caius Tadius

[Scribe]

Because not everyone gets to that extreme point on the Chaos spectrum. It's the only side pushed in the game, but the lore itself allows for degrees.

 

There was positive attributes in Chaos, mostly forgotten but there is the case to be made that rightfully rebellious groups (as the imperium is a vile system) eventually will turn to or fall to Chaos, but they don't start with skinning...

 

That would be the original loyalist Night Lords...:p

[Olis]

I think, as a child of the 80's (the last full decade of the Cold War), the bleakness of the setting really appealed to me as I dug deeper. Sure, the Imperium had it's heroes. Sure, it had it's victories. But at what price? Just how hollow are the words of glory when spoken to the masses? Just how close to the brink is the Imperium as it fights tooth and nail to claw back the darkness? Just how much is going to be sacrificed so that humanity can last just that little bit longer? 

 

The Imperium is a byzantine dystopia, by and large. Flawed bureaucracy controls the fate of trillions (and, taken to the nth degree by FFG, there was even a war fought over filing space) and the war machine is the only thing that keeps the alien, the mutant and the heretic from devouring world upon world without relent. Well, that and the Inquisition. The heroes of the setting are violent warrior monks whose own humanity is stripped away to make space for dogma and death. They live, ironically, to die. To die and to kill. That is their raison d'être. 

 

And let's not get into the whole suitcase full of eldritch horrors that is Chaos and the warp... ^_^

[DogWelder]

Because not everyone gets to that extreme point on the Chaos spectrum. It's the only side pushed in the game, but the lore itself allows for degrees.

 

There was positive attributes in Chaos, mostly forgotten but there is the case to be made that rightfully rebellious groups (as the imperium is a vile system) eventually will turn to or fall to Chaos, but they don't start with skinning...

 

That would be the original loyalist Night Lords...

Honestly, it would be a welcome change to have a Chaos figure that is competent, intelligent and can make a compelling argument as to why someone would fall to chaos.

 

Maybe its because I got into 40k about a year ago and have mostly been reading Space Marine Battles Books and the Horus Heresy series but literally all Chaos Lords seem to be more like:

 

"ICANFEELTHEWARPOVERTAKINGMYFLESHYOUPATHETICMORTALHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

 

while waving their string of decapitated skulls around in the air.

[Scribe]

Yeah, that would be the issues with a lot of the recent work.

 

A lot of the better chaos material is over a decade old and not even 40k in the majority of its focus (liber chaotica).

[DogWelder]

Yeah, that would be the issues with a lot of the recent work.

 

A lot of the better chaos material is over a decade old and not even 40k in the majority of its focus (liber chaotica).

 

Honsou was the closest to that kind of chaos personality. Practical, intelligent and able to speak entire sentences without launching into a tirade about how the "darkness will consume all" or giving a cliche villainous speech.

 

Ultimately, his obsession with Uriel Ventris kinda took away from it.

[ThatOneMarshal]

 

 

Because not everyone gets to that extreme point on the Chaos spectrum. It's the only side pushed in the game, but the lore itself allows for degrees.

 

There was positive attributes in Chaos, mostly forgotten but there is the case to be made that rightfully rebellious groups (as the imperium is a vile system) eventually will turn to or fall to Chaos, but they don't start with skinning...

 

That would be the original loyalist Night Lords...

Honestly, it would be a welcome change to have a Chaos figure that is competent, intelligent and can make a compelling argument as to why someone would fall to chaos.

 

Maybe its because I got into 40k about a year ago and have mostly been reading Space Marine Battles Books and the Horus Heresy series but literally all Chaos Lords seem to be more like:

 

"ICANFEELTHEWARPOVERTAKINGMYFLESHYOUPATHETICMORTALHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

 

while waving their string of decapitated skulls around in the air.

I would most definetly reccomend the Night Lords Trilogy by ADB then. The characters are (relatively) sane and make some interesting thoughts for why they break away from the imperium.

 

I can assure you that one of the greatest weak points of the heresy books was showing why Horus went over to chaos.

 

The reasoning as to why I've loved the setting is that it taught a very important life lesson: There is no black and white in the world, only varying degrees of grey. As I was younger my favorite movies, video games, and books presented everything in black and white so this was how I viewed the world. There's always a clear good guy and bad guy ( sauron vs the forces of good, empire vs rebels), then there's 40k with it's fascist empire being seen as the "good guys".

 

Also space marines ;)

[templargdt]

Templar Knights.  In space.

I never understood the 'no good guys' either.  Is the Imperium awesome?  No.  From the human perspective are there better options?  Not even close.  

[m_r_parker]

I have to echo the above of it being multiple shades of grey, rather than it being black and white (the obvious good vs evil). The fact that you can be "a bad guy" but still have a sense of nobility and honour, or equally be on the side of "right" and commit horrendous atrocities in the name of the "greater good of humanity". Are the 'nids really bad guys, or are they simply slaves of their own genetics. Can the Astartes really be protectors of humanity when they've been programmed to forget what it is to be human? What place is there for redemption in an Imperium of absolutes?

 

Also the message of technology is starting to mirror what we're fast approaching now - technology so complicated that few understand how it works, and it's all that can be done to try and keep it working rather than building new or better.

 

Plus there's still a lot that takes me back decades to my childhood, eapecially around some of the aesthetics. Regardless of the endless copyright and trademarking infringements that are ongoing, some of the more original stuff still has a special place for me - in particular the Aspect Warriors of the Eldar (I refuse to use the new name), and the terminators of the Deathwing.

[gideon stargreave]

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die. 

 

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse. 

 

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods. 

[Petitioner's City]

I love the bodyglove, that universal object, so functional, so distinctly not us, so characterful. 

 

I love threshing machines of titanic size, as inquisitor and target chase one another across them. 

 

I love servo-skulls.

 

I love amasec. 

[RainbowWarrior]

 

Because not everyone gets to that extreme point on the Chaos spectrum. It's the only side pushed in the game, but the lore itself allows for degrees.

 

There was positive attributes in Chaos, mostly forgotten but there is the case to be made that rightfully rebellious groups (as the imperium is a vile system) eventually will turn to or fall to Chaos, but they don't start with skinning...

 

That would be the original loyalist Night Lords...

Honestly, it would be a welcome change to have a Chaos figure that is competent, intelligent and can make a compelling argument as to why someone would fall to chaos.

 

Maybe its because I got into 40k about a year ago and have mostly been reading Space Marine Battles Books and the Horus Heresy series but literally all Chaos Lords seem to be more like:

 

"ICANFEELTHEWARPOVERTAKINGMYFLESHYOUPATHETICMORTALHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

 

while waving their string of decapitated skulls around in the air.

 

 

Try Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy - Xenos, Malleus and Hereticus. Far fewer babies stapled to heads.

[chapter master 454]

Power Armour. Tanks and Big  ing Guns.

[CrimsonCorvidae]

I've always liked the lore, including 8th with its changes. What originally got me into the hobby in the first place was the genetically engineered superhuman Space Marines (Blood Angels!). Then over the years the lore kept me interested. Even during periods when I didn't collect or play, I still read the books.

 

As for the Good Vs Evil debate, morality is always subjective anyway and is a man-made construct. Everyone thinks they're the good guy, ultimately, so it depends on what basis that you're arguing for the good or evil of a race. I see Chaos as a force of nature that has no morality, whereas (by our standards today), the Imperium is wilfully Evil. The Eldar and T'au are probably the closest we can get to "Good".

[Silentz]

I love the fact it's set in our galaxy in the absolutely ridiculous distant future - has so much more appeal than a made-up galaxy as you can relate it to 

 

One of the things that keeps me in is the depth of the lore.  On the tabletop it looks like any other silly game but anything you can point at on the table you can go and find out masses of information about it - perhaps even multiple novels.  It's so well-developed. 

 

Personally I really don't get the moral ambiguity in 40k everyone is claiming to see.

 

The whole "who are really the good guys" argument is hard to make when one side literally covers themselves with the dried skin of orphan children and screams incoherently about how the dark gods will swallow the stars while attempting to saw someone's head of with a rusty blade and the other side...doesn't do that.

 

 

Okay, but just because person #1 has murdered 200 people and person #2 has only murdered 5... doesn't make person #2 "the good guy".     Every race in 40k is pretty awful, but the "good" ones are just slightly less awful. 

 

The point is that to the imperium, a human life is equivalent to a lump of coal, to be thrown into the fires of production without any thought or care. 

[Race Bannon]

I've played since Rogue Trader and I've been building models since I was 3yo.  So, when I walked into the back room of my comics shop and saw dudes playing a game where I could play with my models?!  Sign me up. 

 

But back then I could

* use an old Sherman tank as a transport that carried a Bombot :lol:

* pick up Heavy Weapons from dead Devastator marines

* watching the surprised look on people's faces when a deviated Anti-Plant Bomb cleared a clump of lichen revealing a robot squad (using Battletech minis) I successfully hid

* Teleport a Psyker into hand-to-hand combat with a squad inside a Rhino

* play on a 8x8 table and considered that a "normal" sized table

 

^_^

 

It's that kind of insanity that got me hooked.  I have just stuck with it as my game" since.

[Wargamer]

For me, it's the humour.

 

I love that there's an Ork Warboss out to build an intergalactic super highway so he can literally ride across the galaxy.

 

I love that there's a religious ceremony for stupidly mundane things, like turning the engine on or reloading a lasgun.

 

I love that wars have been fought over who gets to change lightbulbs aboard a starship.

 

I love that there are people who spend their entire lives in a queue outside the Administratum Offices on Holy Terra.

 

I love that kind of nonsense. It is what makes 40k for me, not this "herp derp my author insert totally killed a billion Daemons" or "herp derp half the Imperium is dead now!"