Not Digging that WH40K?

[Block]

Why is there no hope of defeating the 'Nids alone? Sure there's a ton of them, but there's always been a ton of them.

That's exactly why. GW took the 3rd Edition fluff, threw in a few more "Leviathan" sized hive fleets, then made all the hive fleets bigger as a general matter. So now it's betting man's odds on whether the Tyranids will eat the IoM before the Necrons finish subverting...well...everything.

More than that, I think. IIRC, 4th edition Tyranids Codex has Kryptmann theorizing that there are more Hive Fleets than the Imperium has planets.

So what then, they've eaten every galaxy except ours?

[Covenant]

That's exactly why. GW took the 3rd Edition fluff, threw in a few more "Leviathan" sized hive fleets, then made all the hive fleets bigger as a general matter. So now it's betting man's odds on whether the Tyranids will eat the IoM before the Necrons finish subverting...well...everything.

More than that, I think. IIRC, 4th edition Tyranids Codex has Kryptmann theorizing that there are more Hive Fleets than the Imperium has planets.

So what then, they've eaten every galaxy except ours?

What? No, the 'nids are an inbound threat, not one that was originally in this galaxy. They're all over the place, man. They're an extragalactic invading force, so it's likely that there's a hole fuckload of hive fleets out there, probably all over the Local Group.

[Covenant]

Ohhh, GALAXY. I thought you wrote PLANET. Man, sorry, I totally misinterperted your sentence, I have no idea how I got planet from galaxy...

Anyway, it's possible. Like I said, they might have been all over the local group, eating stuff, having devoured tons of civilizations and so on. But it's not like one guy's theory is fact, they're probably just trying to describe the sheer magnitude of the threat they're facing.

[Darth Hoth]

Hoth really needs to immerse himself in the very early 40K stuff to really appreciate how much humor and absurdity is part of it. He seems to be more familiar with the "modern" 40K where they emphsize the GRIMDARK. And for some reason he's taken it seriously.

As I said, it was that way (mostly) when I was introduced to the setting. First impressions tend to last. Add that I tend to dislike totally whacky stuff in general (e.g., Skaven for Warhammer Fantasy; I really, truly hated the old parody version with hamster wheel-powered superweapons, but the modern Lovecraftian horrors are somewhat interesting). As it stands, I probably would not like Rogue Trader if I read it now, with my preconception of what 40k "should be".

I might add that the whole "distincitveness" schtick and the "serious" GRIMDARK STILL underscore the inherent and deliberate absurdity in 40K - its just so artistically and thematically overdone that it cannot be taken as anything other than parody or propoganda (much like the uplifting primer is, really.) 40K is so blatantly, deliberately over the top (in the way some comics or manga can be, or like the movie Road House you can't help but like it despite how utterly bizarre and goofy it is.

I personally prefer the more low-key elements, without Orks, Astartes and radioactive daemons. (For the same reason, I am not too fond of a lot of the "big deathshead badges" artwork.) It is still over the top, but not outright cartoony; the right fluff (for example, Gaunt's Ghosts and various shorts collections) are not deliberately crazy (yes, there is a daemon hiding under every rock, but the overall mode makes it hard to laugh at). To me, 40k has an "Eastern Front" feeling: The Imperium is doomed, it is a matter of when not if, yet everyone keeps pretending otherwise, and the humour that pops up is mostly in the form of the peculiarities that spring from that situation. As I said, a bit of Sven Hassel there.

[Darth Hoth]

Where does this impression come from? Yeah, Space Marines are a lot better at fighting than Guardsmen. They're faster, stronger, tougher, they are generally better equipped ... this doesn't translate into 'perfect' or 'necessarily uninteresting'. Surely I'm not the only person who sees there being potentially interesting themes in the notion that the Astartes, bulwark and sword of mankind, aren't really human after their enhancements? Lots of authors portray Space Marines poorly (Soul Drinkers anyone?), but every time they made out as assholish to normal humans I sigh. It seemingly misses the point of Space Marines entirely; I can easily handwave the Dark Angels and their attitudes away with a simple 'we were wracked with traitors, and we are little better than Horus because of it'. Yeah, it's angsty, but so the fuck what? Angst isn't always bad.

I apologise, but this is a personal pet peeve of mine. You're implying that it is impossible for a Space Marine to be a deep, nuanced character compared to a normal human, and I think this is complete bullshit. The quality of a character is determined by how one depicts their personality and development over the course of a story, not their combat abilities. Yeah, they'll be different, but that doesn't mean worse.

My apologies; I am going with how they are portrayed where I have read about them. I read some of an Ultramarines book (which one exactly, I forgot), and found that to be meh. Mostly, they are depicted with about as much depth as Superman or Captain America, and I do not find that too interesting. If there are other, better characterisations, my judgment is not true of all.

I would maintain, though, that writing paragon superheroes interestingly is harder than doing so with ordinary "grunts". They tend towards one-dimensional, and it is hard to make them sympathetic to the reader.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

So what then, they've eaten every galaxy except ours?

In one of the short stories, a psyker manages to gain brief access to the hivemind and see its history. The Tyranids have 'eaten' other galaxies, and apparently been around long enough to eat all life in a galaxy, move on until after the galaxy has repopulated, and then swung back in to devour it all again. The implied fear of Necrons that the Tyranids have may imply that they've run into the Necrons' extragalactic holdings, too. Or maybe they just fear the pariahs.

One of the reasons I love the Tyranids is that they were generally portrayed as a Discovery Channel Wildlife Special gone berserk; space dinosaurs who must eat all the competition and their own weak until they alone survive! Survival of the fittest, is their prime motivation, so long as they are the fittest.

[Ford Prefect]

One of the reasons I love the Tyranids is that they were generally portrayed as a Discovery Channel Wildlife Special gone berserk; space dinosaurs who must eat all the competition and their own weak until they alone survive! Survival of the fittest, is their prime motivation, so long as they are the fittest.

There is no one more gribbly than the Tyranids. They just eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and never stop! They eat everything! The eat people, they eat their guns, they eat buildings, mountains, oceans ... they come along and stick straws into your world and suck up all thep recious planetary juices.

And they have railguns! What the hell?

Pssh. Your commissars maybe. Mine have the good sense to try and run away or duck whenever possible. They just have to poor luck to get even deeper in the mess while trying to keep their skin intact.

Don't be taking away my 'heroism', because it's basically the best thing about commissars after the hat.

My apologies; I am going with how they are portrayed where I have read about them. I read some of an Ultramarines book (which one exactly, I forgot), and found that to be meh. Mostly, they are depicted with about as much depth as Superman or Captain America, and I do not find that too interesting. If there are other, better characterisations, my judgment is not true of all.

I would maintain, though, that writing paragon superheroes interestingly is harder than doing so with ordinary "grunts". They tend towards one-dimensional, and it is hard to make them sympathetic to the reader.

Honestly, Space Marines are often portrayed as one dimensional, which is silly. The good Corporal Kendall mentions Space Wolf and Brothers of the Snake, for example, where Space Marine characters are given depth. I simply can't agree with the idea that 'powerful' leads to 'uninteresting'. Yes, Space Marines are heroic paragons of the Imperium with masterful combat abilities, but this simply means that what makes them interesting will be different to what makes an Imperial Guardsman interesting. The depth you can give a character such as Superman, which isn't hard if you're a halfway decent writer, is different to the depth you would give the Green Arrow, but that does not necessarily mean it will be less interesting. A bad writer is not going to portray these sorts of superhuman characters well ... but then again, I doubt a bad writer would do much better with a baseline human grunt.

Blah blah blah, find the human in superhuman.

[Stark]

Whatever it's like in the novels, in the fluff they ARE presented as boring - a shopping list of absurd, comical and plain stupid abilities never reflected ingame and a ream of very general text about lifestyle, 'tactics', deployment, etc. The old codices have very little worthwhile information, so it doesn't really surprise me people would find them boring - but then I find all the 40k factions bland, beyond tyranids and certain sub-factions.

Frankly when half the text is in-joke absurdist nonsense, you can't really complain that people get the impression it's stupid. This isn't just space marines, though; the second Eldar codex is just full of laughable fanfiction that makes them seem extraordinarily two-dimensional.

[Ford Prefect]

Oh, if you're talking rulebook fluff, then yeah, I could understand that. Basically any of the boxouts which have shorts in them generally don't present interesting characters. They're usually just names doing pretty silly crap. I mean, they're rulebooks. At the endo f the day it's hard to make a rulebook all that interesting.

However, Hoth does have a point. It's just indicative of lazy writing practices.

beyond tyranids

Score.

[Darth Nostril]

At the end of the day it's hard to make a rulebook all that interesting.

Shadowrun 2nd edition was pretty cool, back in the day when FASA created it.

Fuck man, there is so much to catch up on, more or less ignored 40k for the past 14 years.
Tyranids? All we had were Gene Stealers ripping Space Marines apart like oversized tin cans .... and I wish I knew which fuckhead stole my Space Hulk & expansion packs, I know I packed them but when I got home they weren't in the box, neither were the Vampire & Werewolf books.
As an impoverished student that was a lot of fucking money out the window.

[Shroom Man 777]

Kryptman is wrong. The Imperium sent an extra-galactic space probe, like a Super GRIMDARK Voyager or something... like Pathfinder or the Galileo probe, but with spikes on top of skulls on waving banners on banerspikeskulls. Anyway, the signals they received from that probe are all Orky signals. Which means that Da Ooniverze is Green!

The Tyrannids will have a lot of Boyz to contend with.

Hell, isn't it a tactic used by some Eldar and even Inquisitors? Re-direct an Ork Waaaagh! into a Hive Fleet to have both forces kill each other?

[NecronLord]

So what then, they've eaten every galaxy except ours?

In one of the short stories, a psyker manages to gain brief access to the hivemind and see its history. The Tyranids have 'eaten' other galaxies, and apparently been around long enough to eat all life in a galaxy, move on until after the galaxy has repopulated, and then swung back in to devour it all again. The implied fear of Necrons that the Tyranids have may imply that they've run into the Necrons' extragalactic holdings, too. Or maybe they just fear the pariahs.

Actually, it's rather simpler than that. It appears the Lyriax dyson sphere disrupts astropathic communications around it (from the notes on the page opposite) presumably it disrupts genestealer 'come hither' signals too.

[darthbob88]

Kryptman is wrong. The Imperium sent an extra-galactic space probe, like a Super GRIMDARK Voyager or something... like Pathfinder or the Galileo probe, but with spikes on top of skulls on waving banners on banerspikeskulls. Anyway, the signals they received from that probe are all Orky signals. Which means that Da Ooniverze is Green!

The Tyrannids will have a lot of Boyz to contend with.

Hell, isn't it a tactic used by some Eldar and even Inquisitors? Re-direct an Ork Waaaagh! into a Hive Fleet to have both forces kill each other?

IIRC, Kryptman actually tried that sort of thing; he managed to capture some genestealers and drop them into an Ork-controlled system, after which the 'Stealers called the fleet into this wonderful bounty of biomass, then the Orks called their comrades into this wunnerful fight, WAAAGH! The result has been more or less every Tyranid and Ork for parsecs traveling to this system, and out of everybody's hair. On the other hand, when that fight's over, the result will be either a hive mind that knows how to fight extremely well and has been fattened on Ork biomass, or a WAAAGH! full of veteran Orks.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Considering that the Great War between the Old Ones and the Necrons canonically occurred across more than one galaxy (Nightbringer), maybe even "many" galaxies, I don't think it's too far-fetched to believe that there are Orks in other galaxies. There are possibly Slann, Eldar, Hrud and other Old One slave species, too. And there are probably Necron tomb worlds out there. Heck, there might even be humans or human-like species populated by the last Old Ones.

Hmm... I suppose 40k wouldn't be grimdark enough unless our galaxy was the only one not overrun by Orks, Tyranids or Necrons.

[SAMAS]

Yeah, it's old, but I've been out for a week (not counting Ike), and wanted to say my piece:

Some of the things I find particularly egregious:
The immutability of the subject: the war can't be resolved in any way, since that would remove elements and fans from the game. So instead it just remains grim, grim, grim.

Kinda like how in Star Wars, some shit's always happening to the New Republic after the movies?

The over-the-top silly/seriousness of it all; Star Wars is also somewhat "silly", but it doesn't seem to try to take itself as seriously as 40k. Star Trek is very ridiculous sometimes, but it also portrays itself differently. It's not all about how horrible everything is, with guys with chainsaws being attacked by space orcs and space elves and space undead and demons.

Sounds like a Peanut Butter and Chocolate thing to me...

The Gothic styling it's so in love with just gets old after awhile. These guys are approximately 38,000 years from now. When did they go back to using Latin? Why has humanity regressed as far as religion and society back to the middle ages?

Because Human progression isn't linear. It can stagnate, it can double back, it can accelerate.

[andrewgpaul]

They didn't go back to Latin. It's mentioned a couple of times that the two main languages of the Imperium are the common language, represented by English, and High Gothic, rperesented by Latin (very bad dog-Latin, at that). It's no different to how everyone spoke English, not Latin, in Rome.

Personally, I like to think of High Gothic as actually being English, but that's just me.

[NecronLord]

Personally, I like to think of High Gothic as actually being English, but that's just me.

Well, the Space Wolf books mention the ancient buried city of 'Nova Yoruk' on Terra. So New in English has eventually become Nova in High Gothic... So you might just be right.

[andrewgpaul]

That the new ones, or the original Bill King ones?

The Imperial Fists have a battle honour from "Roma", too. I think that's the oldest in the Imperium.