Why do you love 30k?

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

In my case, is just a mixture of disappointment/distaste with actual W40K edition, specially CSM armies (rules and miniatures), and love for Great Crusade/Heresy background and aesthetic.

[derLumpi]

I love the 'historical' background. 

Played 40k since I was 20 (man I'm old) but I really don't like the mess GW made out of 40k. The group I played in didn't help either by playing 'the meta'. 

Stopped playing roughly a year ago and concentrated on 30k. I already had a big collection and only needed new players. With the new 30k edition there 5 players in our group and we are having fun ever since. 

[Doghouse]

The thirty year journey, my own personal Great Crusade.

 

Firstly there is nostalgia. The original Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine were amazing. I spent so much of my youth obsessed with those two games, I genuinely would give anything to go back to those days. The only background material we had came from the rulebooks and it was a glorious time for me. My Adeptus Titanicus, Codex Titanicus and Space Marine rule books are some of my most precious belongings to me.

 

Then many moons later there was the age of the Great Crusade forums. Another amazing time where a small community formed with the only source material being the Index Astartes articles, a couple of novels and second edition Codex Chaos Space Marines. Although the first two are very important the forethought and actual design of the chaos codex was based by Andy Chambers on the idea of these ancient armies emerging directly from the past organised and fighting as though they had just come from the Heresy. 

Many hours were spent on those forums pouring over whatever scraps of info we could scrape from where ever we could find it, piecing it all together like archaeologists of a history that never existed.

Interestingly enough this is where I came up with the idea of my version of truescaling using Terminators to set the two eras apart with the 30k setting having an almost credible historical feel to them. We all approached it as a historical wargame without any elitism, we chopped and converted and all got on with the agreed understanding Razorbacks were not a thing yet and Mk VII was very late era Terra.

 

Good times.

 

Then the first FW models began to emerge in the form of the Red Scorpions upgrade kit. I think it was Will Hayes who first made the Mk IV upgrades as a personal project and I seem to recall an image of his stark white death guard that got us all very excited.  This led to a few figures behind the scenes at FW pushing to get FW Heresy kits made. 

 

This is where the magic started to fade for me. While it was fantastic to see the setting becoming more accessible to others beyond our little group (many of whom are still here on this forum) and more people get involved things began to change as more and more lore began to emerge removing the mystery and the need for us to hunt for tiny morsels of information. There wasn't much need for conversions anymore and while some of us stuck at the truescale aspect there wasn't much need for models made from Mk VII bits anymore.

 

Then move forward again years later to a time when Emperor knows how many novels and HH2 have been released and I'm at a bit of a wall. Don't get me wrong the accessibility of plastic kits is fantastic but from someone like me it's hard to get into the spirit of  it since it's all been laid bare. There is no mystery anymore for me.

 

I think I know how the Archaeologists in Jurassic Park felt when it dawned on them they were out of a job. Maybe it's me that is the Dinosaur?  

 

I find it interesting how a lot of the newer Heresy fans I know personally are excited about new units, novels and lore but they always struggle to understand why I don't anymore. It reminds me of the younger members of the Lunar Wolves talking to Iacton Qruze and that makes me smile inside. That sums it up well for me, the grizzled Unification Wars veteran stood on the flight deck watching the new generation of Astartes preparing to embark on the very first Expeditionary fleets of the Great Crusade. 

 

Funnily enough I can seriously relate the newer lore of the older Astartes questioning their place in the greater scheme of things once the Emperor achieves unity.

 

I genuinely hope that everyone gets their own unique journey to explore the setting themselves and most of all embraces their passion. I am very envious of those just starting this journey, of what lies ahead for you and the things that you will see with fresh eyes. I hope you have enormous fun doing it and enhance the creativity of the hobby in your own way.

[frankendoodle65]

@Doghouse that's a really interesting take, thanks for laying out all your thoughts like that. 

I still remember some early threads on here (probably going back nearly 20 years) from yourself and others showing off true scale pre heresy marines and my mind was totally blown, it was like a window into an entirely new world. Back then I didn't have the skill, resources or patience to tackle such projects but you've made me feel immensely nostalgic for those old days, I think that's a big part of the appeal of 30k for me now. I didn't post here in those days (still don't much!) But I've been here reading and soaking up the atmosphere for a long time so I remember it well. 

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

I started reading Warhammer 40k books at around 12 (I'm 28 now) and fell in love. I started churning through what was accessible in my local public libraries, and would eventually slowly accumulate more lore and more books when and where I could. When I started working and earning my own income, I eventually dipped my toe into hobby side, but by I didn't want to start my favorite army, which was Night Lords. I had found a copy of Simon Spurrier's "Lord of the Night", and thought it was such wonderful writing - compared to the other chaos novels I had read, I really appreciated how the Night Lord that featured prominently eschewed chaos and shunned it, at best, it was a tool. By then the Night Lords trilogy was coming out, and I read that. I loved the continuation of the theme, to a degree - and I thought it fit the 'core' tenants of the Legion really well. The Heresy, being this mythical era, was something I was exploring as well - and adored. Primarchs, akin to Arch-Angels that walk the earth, a crusade to unite mankind, technology and its wonders ascending higher and higher (we know this not to be true as readers, but YES that's the fun in it. "Oh if you only knew, darling!"). 

I loved that the Night Lords were still begrudgingly utilized in the Dropsite Massacre. I loved the iron/steel colors in 30k, not the brassy/bronze of 40k. When I  thought I got my hobby chops in, gathering a few years' experience before I started to dive into my favorite Legion. 8th edition rolled around and I was at first ecstatic to wargame. I was disappointed and bored very quickly into the editions life cycle, but also very disappointed in the pushing of the 'niche' and 'quirky' parts of each subfaction. I:E Night Lords ALWAYS wanted to utilize Raptors, Word Bearers should always have cultists, and so on. That edition (and onwards) seemed to punish you if you didn't conform to how the subfaction was written.

I was a tread head, and wanted to pursue a mechanized list. I remember being scoffed at by my local GW manager and several of the people in the store at the time (they were very anti-30k and very anti forgeworld) that I was "doing Night Lords wrong", which only pushed me to want to do the army concept even more. 

I started my 40k Night Lords with always the intent to have them be era-appropriate for 30k, with patterns of armor, vehicle, and weapons, all being from the Crusade-era. Eventually, I started playing 1.0 30k and fell in love. Having gotten a grasp on wargaming begrudgingly thanks to 8th edition, things like the weapon-skill charts, scatter dice, and templates, all felt REALLY fun.  It felt cool to position my vehicles in a way that presented their tougher side, or to consciously position my units to minimize flamers or other such weapons hitting them as effectively, I felt wiser/smarter than if I were to use command points to force a reroll or something silly like that. I will never forget the feeling I had when I saw how cool initiative as a mechanic functioned. In a challenge, my praetor in Cataphractii plate killed a power armored Iron Warrior, both having struck at the same time, striking murderous blows and causing instant death - it felt cool, it felt awesome. My opponent and I had decided that the height difference in armor probably meant that the Iron Warrior was decapitated, but not before stabbing both hearts of my Terminator armored Praetor. Very narrative, and very cool. 

Eventually, I went to a 30k narrative campaign, and that sealed it for me, the battles were super cool and fluffy, the event was handled extremely well, and everything felt nice.  

 

On 2/6/2023 at 7:10 AM, Hfran Morkai said:

I love the tragedy of it all.

 

The fall of brothers, the betrayals, the grandiose scale.

 

I appreciate the less "Wolf everything" for the Sixth.

Aye, and the greys and blacks and reds with brass/bronze is such a better look than that sky blue with yellows. Blegh. It was going so well (eh, debateable) until those MK VI helms.
 

On 2/6/2023 at 7:24 AM, sarabando said:

for me its a better setting, but as im not a gamer per say the most important things are. 

1. better style minis, i simply dont like the style of modern GW 40k kits they are chunky and toy like imo. 

2. more options for characters. Primaris LT with THAT loadout? no way (until we release it as an event only mini) vs heres 10 hq choices go make something mad. 

3. better community. The level of talent in the 30k sphere is astronomical and the only community thats more engaged and passionate imo is the bloodbowl fans and we try to not make eye contact with them. 

Re: 2, YES. I also loved that I was incentivized to kitbash and convert, something I quickly realized I enjoyed massively about the hobby. No apothecary on bike model? No problem, time to scrounge up some bits, guitar string, plasticard tubing for gene-seed vials, etc and get to work!
 

14 hours ago, AGRAMAR said:

In my case, is just a mixture of disappointment/distaste with actual W40K edition, specially CSM armies (rules and miniatures), and love for Great Crusade/Heresy background and aesthetic.

40k is now run by younger and hipper guys, not the generation raised immediately after WW2 and the cold war, and thus vehicle design no longer has a "well... if it could function, this is what it would be powered by" mentality. Suspension of disbelief is totally gone now. 
 

8 hours ago, derLumpi said:

I love the 'historical' background. 

Played 40k since I was 20 (man I'm old) but I really don't like the mess GW made out of 40k. The group I played in didn't help either by playing 'the meta'. 

Stopped playing roughly a year ago and concentrated on 30k. I already had a big collection and only needed new players. With the new 30k edition there 5 players in our group and we are having fun ever since. 

That's how the black books read, and I enjoy that VERY much. Feels like those old WW2 books you'd find on various regimental colors, and so on. Glad to hear your community is thriving!

[Bear]

I originally played 2nd / 3rd ed 40K before coming back in 9th to find 40K extremely… bloated and competitive focused. 
 

While I still play 40K I find it a lot less fun that it used to be as they took all the randomness out of it. Having my Orks blow themselves up half the time back in the day was frustrating at times but made for interesting and funny losses :-D

 

Nowadays, just taking one sub optimal unit is often a death sentence… and half your codex is sub optimal units so you are pretty much locked into alway just playing with the same handful of units if you just want a semi fair game!

 

For me, 30k brings back some of the randomness (like the possibility of your centre piece tank getting one shot or you accidentally scattering a large blast template on your own troops :-P) and all the units feel like they have a purpose which is super refreshing :-D