What makes 40K your fave sci-fi/space fantasy setting?

[b1soul]

If it is, of course

 

Other than 40K, I am rather fond of the following:

 

Dune

Star Wars

StarCraft

Halo

Aliens/Predator

Terminator

Blade Runner

Judge Dredd

Matrix

Mass Effect

Hyperion

Rama

Foundation

Starship Troopers

Mad Max

Ender's Game

Wheel of Time

Edgar Rice Burroughs (old school pulp sci-fi like his Mars and Venus tales)

 

...but I honestly find 40K to be the setting I always come back to

 

Perhaps because 40K captures many of the elements of the other IPs? The Emperor and his twenty Primarchs and a post-apocalyptic Terra, psykers, Custodes, Thunder Warriors, techno-barbarians, xenos, Chaos, scattered human pocket-empires, elves and orcs in space. 40K has it all

[Gederas]

It actually wasn't, but Bob Iger has basically ruined Star Wars. Which means the second must rise to replace the first

 

(If you need an explanation, look it up. I'm not going to explain it here as it's off-topic. Let's just say though that a LOT of stuff has come out recently from the people involved and it's not a pretty picture)

 

In a more serious manner than my flippant starter: It's pretty much for the same reasons as you.

 

Additionally, I LIKE how, despite being so hilariously over-the-top dark, Warhammer 40k STILL has hope and light popping up in it. It's why I liked Guilliman's resurrection, as it brought a proper beacon of hope and light back into the setting for the Imperium.

[Sete]

Genetically engineered fanatical warrior monks fighting xenos, mutants and heretics with swords.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I like how 40k is a remix-blend of a thousand other sci-fi settings, and puts its own spin on them. I see elements of Dune especially (surface elements, mind you, 40k is, under the hood, very different) and it's just generally huge, expansive and awesome. There's a faction for everyone, and if you like the base game mechanics or lore, you can find a faction you like. ^^

[Guest Triszin]

Genetically engineered fanatical warrior monks fighting xenos, mutants and heretics with swords.

And even then. It may not be enough.

 

 

 

-----

 

Why I like Warhammer? It shows what we can be at peak. But also shows how human nature can sabotage even the best of times.

 

Yet we endure.

[Bryan Blaire]

The lore/fantasy/mythology/sci-fi blending that 40K has always been the best part, mixed with the "grim-dark" - however, it isn't my favorite sci-fantasy setting, but it is my favorite war game setting.

[Trevak Dal]

The Hunt the Truth trailers...like I got into Tau because they were like the Covenant meets the Federation (From Star Trek), and that bit in the 4th/5th edition codex where Shadowsun blows up a statue of Farsight at Viorla's main Fire Caste Academy really inspired me to make a diorama. I just can't figure out how to make a giant Statue sized version of Farsight (riptide conversion? Maybe some Gundam models? He would have presumably had plasma rifle and fusion blaster back then)

 

One side of it with a mangled, mashed up Farsight with Shadowsun bearing down on him, the other with Shadowsun all broken and shattered with Farsight bearing down on her (still think Farsight should have Arbiter'd Aun'Va).

 

I've got that and my Doomslayer/Driago diorama sketched out.

[CMDR_Welles]

Honestly...

Got into the hobby in 1990. 

Been addicted to plastic crack... 

 

I started model making when I was 8 (1980), got into gaming with RPGs and Battletech in 1984 (11/12), and Miniatures with Rogue Trader/WFB3 in 1990. It was a combination of my two favorite things.  I've been doing the hobby ever since. I can never seem to quit. I rarely play, I dont read licenced fiction anymore (I burned out on D&D novels in the late 80s/early 90s), but yet, I still collect and buy GW games. I've stopped buying any other games really, mainly because a lot of the communities are quite toxic (Warmachine, X-Wing), and completely ruin the enjoyment I had with their settings even. GW communities can be worse, but still doesnt stop me. 

I really cannot give a reason. Its been nearly 30 years, I just dont know how to stop now. 

[Vermintide]

I think what I found really compelling getting into 40k was the whole gothic, almost anachronistic feel, and probably just the Imperium itself. I was too young to put my finger on why it was compelling, but I knew there was something I really enjoyed about a futuristic spacefaring civilisation that still clings to superstition and ritual, and rides around in spaceships that are basically giant armed cathedrals with engines bolted on.

Really a lot of what makes 40k great is kinda specific to the Imperium, and the way the lore (at least then) was told from that perspective, and shrouded everything in mystery as though you were an internal part of it, only knowing what the Imperium knew, was really cool. It kinda lessened the appeal when they started to portray stuff from an "external" viewpoint.

40k is still pretty damn unique in terms of tone and atmosphere though. Some of the games in particular capture the essence so perfectly that you can tell the people who made them were real fans- You don't tend to get so many blatant cash-grab tie-ins like you would with, say Star Wars.

[Panzer]

To be honest, it isn't.

But mostly because I have a hard time to have a big favourite one of anything. I don't have a favouerite colour, no favourite books, no favourite game, don't main any classes or whatever in games and like most have multiple armies. I always only like parts of something and dislike other parts but then also find in most everything something I like about.

I'm just all over the place. ^^

[Trench]

I have never been a big sci fi fan, so I guess one of the big selling points of 40k to me it is it more fantasy is space then pure sci fi.

[Marshal Rohr]

Used to be Armageddon/Black Templars now it’s the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy

[Beta galactosidase]

Weird, Armageddon was what made me love 40k, but when you get to the Heresy I don’t see how the two are at all alike. The hive militias, the kult of speed, the ork hunters, Herman Strab, the dozens of extra color schemes and sub factions, the art of marines and guard fighting in different parts of a single planet were reasons to love 40k and the Heresy only has a little bit of that, in the fw black books.

[RandyB]

Depth, breadth, and variety in the setting. So long as I count the entire Black Library as "Unreliable Narrator", the available "setting space" for my own homebrew creations is immense.

[Master Commander Ajax]

Of course 40k is my favourite!

 

It’s hard for me to put it into words exactly but when I first got interested in the hobby I didn’t ‘get it’ straight away. Other Sci-fi franchises would use the wonders of Science and Technology to explain things like FTL travel but 40k isn’t like that. Technology is feared and ritualised, life for 99.99% of people is unimaginably miserable and Daemonic Gods will devour your soul if you look at the sky for too long. That’s very different to most Sci-Fi and an unapologetically adult concept to get your head around.

[The Unseen]

I went digging through my father's old junk in my grandparents closet, and rather than find old dirty magazines, I found the source books for 2nd edition 40k.

Been hooked since.

 

I love explaining to people that my dudes are transhuman neo-feudals with theocratic fascist overtures who feel compelled to drink the blood of their enemies, and they're exceptionally NICE in this setting.

Or how the primary form of FTL travel is to tunnel a hole a into HELL ITSELF.

How it's a setting devoid of real hope, so every victory is noble souls spitting defiance into the face of inevitable oblivion

 

It's bombastic, over the top, and sometimes pretty silly.

But it never takes itself too seriously, but it also never acts like what it has to say doesn't mean anything at all.

 

The 40k setting is too huge to fully encapsalate so easily, and that's another reason it's great.

It's a big galaxy, and whatever happens, you won't be missed

[b1soul]

I think 40K is a great example of a setting that borrows a whole lot from a whole bunch of other settings, but successfully gives the resulting synthesis a very unique twist or soul of its own

[toaae]

I love the over-the-top-ness^TM of it. I love the depth and scope and scale it offers. I love the miniatures, and I love Ork fluff.

But it's not my favorite.

 

If you couldn't tell from my avatar, Dune is. I think the works of Frank Herbert are the best fictional setting and story available, and I think the best parts of 40k are what it (heavily) borrowed from Dune. It's just that, as the works of one man who has left this mortal coil, it's limited in how I can interact and participate with it. There isn't a miniatures game, there hasn't been a video game since the criminally-underrated Emperor: Battle for Dune (ignoring the awful adventure game released a few months later). The "expanded universe" done by Frank's son is interesting, but it's obvious that it's pale imitation of the source material, even if it is based on Frank's notes.

I'm hoping the upcoming movie revitalizes the public's interest in Dune, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm content to have the original 6 novels, and just re-read those every couple of years.

[m0nolith]

The grimdarkness.

The fact that there are no good guys, life there is horrible and you're probably going to get killed by something horrible in a horrible way.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

My fave is BattleTech actually but 40K is second.

 

I like 40K for the grimdark. I feel that's been lifting a little of late, but there are occasional bright spots (dark spots?) like the reworked Penitent Engines.

[Exilyth]

40k takes all (or, most of) the dystopias, mixes them together and turns (parts of) them up to 11.

It is (one of) the worst world(s) imagineable.

 

Another big draw of 40k is the 'mythos' - everything is shrouded in a bit of mystery, people don't know how the warp works, people don't even know how the far advanced technology they use works - and anyone finding out anything is either doomed to fall for chaos or burn as a heretic. Unless they get blammed or turned into a servitor.

 

So, you're all alone in some trench and some weird stuff starts happening - is it a sign/omen sent by the emperor or the foul play of the dark gods? Or maybe one disguised or misinterpreted as the other? We may never truly know.

 

 

I really like the 'gaunts ghosts' books by Abnett: They show how the average citizen, burdened by bureaucracy, held back by their own flaws, wedged between cosmic horrors and the utterly alien, carves out a little corner of the world for themselves and attains, albeit momentarily, a state of mind that could amount to a glimpse of happiness, pushing back the darkness, only to be snuffed out like a candle in the wind. Or has to come to terms with the very same fate happening to their friends and family. Truly, the human toil in its most tragic form.

 

 

Unfortunably, the whole universe went in more of a 'nobledark' direction recently, ironically toning down some of the iconic elements that made it so different from everything else.

 

 

*cough*

I've got to admit: 40k is pretty high up, but not my most favourite setting. *gasp*

 

My favourite setting is battletech (feudal houses in space waging war with giant walking machines aka 'mechs). Plot armour, birds and some minor holes in the physics aside, it is a very realistic estimation of what could happen to humanity if man went to the stars. Some know the setting only by the 'mechwarrior' series of computer games.

But BT is hard sci-fi - if we were talking strictly settings mixing sci-fi & fantasy, I'd have to go with Shadowrun (cyberpunk meets magic).

 

My fave is BattleTech actually but 40K is second.

Hehe - I was thinking about starting a post with the very same words before I read the thread.

 

 

 

edit:

also the grey-in-grey morality: there is no good or bad, only various factions trying their best to fullfill their own goals - that and the laughter of the gods.

 

edit2:

In retrospect - maybe I should have focused more on the adversity of man against all odds instead of writing a post that's basically "I like how people die all the time.", but I'm not going to cange that now.

[Schurge]

40k is probably my most favorite fictional IP overall. I like the grimdark, I like the themes, I like how over-the-top everything is, and lastly (and perhaps controversially) I like the masculinity and the unapologetic "by dudes for dudes" vibe it has thus far maintained for the most part.

 

Similarly, old school Warhammer fantasy was one of my favorite IPs as well for similar reasons (I just prefer sci-fi). AoS is alright, but the ret-cons that actually tone down the grimdark have been too much for me... Valkia the Bloody for instance went from being an badass who carved a path through hell to spit in the God of :cuss face after one of his sexually degenerate champions came onto her to a very generic bad guy who slaughtered her own tribe because LOL SKULLZ.

[painting.for.my.sanity]

I love how everything is shades of grey.  There aren't any good guys, but the bad guys aren't all bad either.

 

Humanity is fighting to survive, and even with the slight lift that has come with the return of RG, are still having to regularly inflict unimaginable horror on billions of souls. Chaos, at their worst, are this esoteric, Lovecraftian weird foe, but at their slightly more human level, a bunch of them are people who have just been tempted, initially to use unapproved powers to get an edge in a terrible setting, but get deeper and more depraved and lose their humanity. Tau seem lovely and clean, and yet they're still an expansionist power using pheromones/unexplained ethereal psychic weirdness/military muscle/a caste system to hold everything together. Necrons outwardly seem so evil, yet might be one of the galaxy's best hope against the warp (better not to think too hard about who'll be living in the galaxy afterwards though).

 

Also, knights charging around in space with swords and shields an heraldry, but also massive sci-fi guns, void-sealed armour, bionics and genetic enhancement is so so SO ridiculously anachronistic that I can't help but love the setting.

[b1soul]

I do love the scale of 40K. Compared to the SW galaxy, I feel the 40K galaxy feels even larger and more ancient

[Boldthreat]

I think what snagged me was how 40k was the anti Star Trek. It’s such a middle finger to this rediculous notion that because we are in the future that we are in some kind of enlightened place.

 

No, we do shoot those aliens because they are different.

 

No, that’s not a computer system running my armor, is a spirit that has to be honored and prayed to.

 

No, there is a God, the Galaxy is His, and you don’t get to just disagree.

 

Throw in bad ass knights and guns... ok... 13 year old Boldthreat was in.