For those looking for more humanity and, yes, a light in the darkness of 40k...I highly endorse Dan Abnett's work, particularly the Gaunt's Ghosts series. He has a knack for making such a silly setting seem real, filled with real people. Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain books are flat out humorous and if you don't mind the wholesale theft of George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' reskinned, they're good too.
Also I think Gaunt's Ghost book series (Imperial Guard) would be up your alley. Think Band of Brothers in 40k and Dick Winters in a Commisar Cap with a chainsword.
It's pretty blatantly a take on the Sharpe novels, even right down to copying the gag of having the protagonists hair color be different on the covers and official artwork compared to how it's actually described in the novels themselves.
You've absolutely found the correct metaphorical nail and slammed it home with the eponymous Warhammer: none of Games Workshop's settings, not a single one no matter how dark, is *completely* hopeless. They've made decades-long art of stacking the odds against everyone and refined it to near sublimity, such that no matter which game-world you read about or play, which faction you choose to champion and which characters you find most compelling, they're all fighting for *something worthwhile* against the kind of resistance that makes one despair of victory. But there is always that sliver of hope.
Everything is always on the verge of collapse, but it's always on the edge, and the sacrifice and costly victories of millions every day push Mankind's extinction from tomorrow to the next day. Not completely hopeless, but with not a gram more hope than what's needed to sustain the endless fight.
Thanks for the upload. My own, meandering thoughts on 40K are broadly similar, and often in conflict with the more nihilistic perspectives prevalent in some quarters (Reddit in particular seems to be a hotbed of such), so it's heartening to see a more optimistic take on the universe discussed at length here for public edification. That said, there are a couple of quibbles I have with some of the points presented: First is the idea that the Imperium are not "the good guys," which I've always found curious. From our perspective here in the comparatively cozy 2nd Millennium, the Imperium of course appears horrifying, but while it may be "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable," it's ultimately cruel to be kind, so to speak. Everything the Imperium does is dictated by the singular, all-consuming goal of preserving Mankind's existence in a universe stuffed to bursting with genocidal alien monsters and daemons thirsting for human souls, a universe where "we had to destroy the village to save it" is not Orwellian doublethink but a bald statement of fact that could mean the difference between a few souls being prematurely sent to the Emperor's Realm and the loss of an entire planet inhabited by billions (a recent Warhammer + animated short had a nice take on this in the context of a Genstealer cult and a Tyranid invasion). Second is the degree of corruption in the Imperium. While we definitely see corrupt officials in the fluff (and Imperial bureaucratic shenanigans _are_ often darkly humorous), I'm not convinced that the Imperium (as distinct from its constituent planetary governments) is _especially_ corrupt by any reasonable standard for a more-or-less feudal polity that has ruled over millions of planets for the better part of 10,000 years. Obviously, the system works, in-universe, and is robust enough to have kept working for almost 10 millennia, though it is true that the Administratum is inefficient. That, however, is in large part because it was designed to be so; after the Horus Heresy, and then again, after the reign of Goge Vandire, the apparatus of government was redesigned with the goal of making it as difficult as possible for a single person to quickly exercise absolute and unimpeded power throughout the Imperium. But again, thank you for articulating your thoughts on the oft-overlooked or downplayed optimism of 40K, the slender thread which, as you note, serves to strengthen the universe as a whole. Whether it be Space Marine Ragnar Blackmane getting snapped out of a Chaos-induced stupor by some indescribable force of goodness radiating directly from Holy Terra, Euphrati Keeler banishing daemons in the name of the Emperor, slain Imperial Guardsmen reuniting with their comrades in the afterlife, or the Primarchs gradually returning, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is still hope.
There have been occasional hiccups in those 10,000 years though, like the Age of Apostasy, but yeah, broadly speaking the Imperium keeps trucking on, bumps in the road not withstanding.
The irony and satire are still there, though its been covered over a bit through the years. One of my favorites is that in the end, humanity turned the Emperor into a Servitor. A cyborg zombie tasked with a function, regardless of the underlying subject's pain. Servitors are everywhere in the imperium, people broken down into nothing but tools. So of course, that is what the creator of the Imperium was transformed into. It's a beautiful kind of irony, and a statement about how bureaucracy so often ends up consuming its own purpose.
No, not really. The Emperor is both conscious and chose/endures the eternal torture of the Golden Throne willingly for the sake of Mankind's ultimate salvation from Chaos. It's much more reflective of Christian thematic imagery (something 40K tends to do quite blatantly at times) than anything else.
@@CanadianPaleIf anything the servitors are a reflection of the GE's willingness to suffer tens of thousands of years holding the Imperium together, as the sentencing of servitude is one granted to "make amends" for ones wrong doings. Except its not a choice for the common criminal, heretic or political dissident
@@Dogman262 common criminals don't become servitors. It's normally only used as a punishment for really severe (i. e. _dangerous_ ) acts of tech-heresy, so the comparison falls apart again there.
I think you would greatly enjoy the Gaunts Ghosts series of novels by Dan Abnett. It has a Band of Brothers meets Sharpe feel to it, expertly capturing the esprit de corps of fighting men and making combat in the insane setting of Warhammer 40K feel surprisingly believable and 'real' from the perspective of boots on the ground infantrymen.
Gaunt's Ghosts is definitely on my list now. I'll probably be alternating between Warhammer novels and everything else I want to read for quite a while.
@@feralhistorian Careful - Games Workshop has its own in house publishing arm called Black Library that has been around for decades, and it has published huge numbers of books both for 40K and the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Once you start down that rabbit hole, you may never find your way out again. If you are prepared to brave that risk, and fancy dipping your toe into a pulp series of stories from the fantasy arm of Games Workshop's IP that are huge fun, may I also recommend the Gotrek and Felix novels, starting with Trollslayer by William King? Most of those novels are available as audiobooks on Audible now, voiced by the ever excellent Jonathan Keeble, and pretty much cover the journeys and adventures of the Old World's angriest doom seeking Dwarf and his human Rememberer, who is essentially a chronicler of his quest to find honourable death in battle to expunge a personal shame. The dynamic between the two characters varies from hilarious to at times actually rather poignant. Felix Jaeger may be the most relatable character from fantasy fiction I have ever read, and the older I get the more relatable I find him to be.
@@feralhistorian For a lighter take, the Ciaphas Cain novels are more-or-less Flashman in 40k. All the grimdark is there, of course, but since the story is first person the narrator is rather blase about features of the setting that grate against modern sensibilities.
As an outsider, the "Space Marine controversy" was very entertaining to watch. My familiarity, such as it is, with WH40K is solely what I've picked up from subcultural osmosis; even so, I know that the setting is intentionally, explicitly made to be as horrific as the writers can imagine. So I find it hilarious that anyone would want to "see themselves" in _that._
The whole controversy is, excuse my French, ret*rded af. Space Marines are not just super soldiers, they´re basically "warrior monks". And there are also "warrior nuns" in 40k, the Adepta Sororitas or "Sisters of Battle". They lack the genetic/cybernetic enhancements of the Astartes, but this is balanced out by their faith in the Emperor being so strong, that it enables them to perform superhuman feats. One could argue, that the Sororitas are even more "badass" than the Astartes, because they manage to go out and successfully fight all kinds of horrible Chaos Daemons, Traitor Marines, Xenos and heretics, WITHOUT having all genetic/cybernetic crap showed into their bodies. You want to "identify" with a faction? Well, 40k gives you plenty of options to choose. But that´s not what this is all about. This is just more cultural marxist BS, as we have seen it in various other hobbies and entertainment.
@doublep1980 but, the question is, why do you care so much? how many models you own? how many rulebooks? if youve been playing for a long time, you know that the game never took itself as seriously as you are now... another thing, nothing is canon. every rulebook has retconned and changed loads of stuff. so again, the question is,, right noq, why do you care? why does it actually matter, if there can be female space marines? there are plenty of other brotherhoods and groups in 40k that _arnt_ space marines, still totally emasculated. yet only one female centered one... why cant there be some more stuff thats slightly more female oriented?
@@Rexini_Kobalt no, the question is why you think mere growth is a greater good than preserving the integrity of the lore. You're expressing the values of a cancer LOL. 😏
"In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now." Archmagos Ultima Cryol - "Speculations On Pre-Imperial History"
I'd recommend checking out the Ciaphas Cain books for some good humor in the setting, as well as the lore of the Salamanders for one of the best examples of the 'good guys' of the setting. Isyander and Coda have some great lore videos on 40K as well that really does work for the layman just getting into the series.
Cool video as always! I was kind of hoping you'd cover this sooner or later, since it seems to be in your wheel house! Personally, I got turned off of 40K years ago when I attended a gaming convention and saw two grown men in 45 minute screaming match over who was in possession of a square inch. All the miniatures looked cool. But further got turned off by all the painting and expense involved. Oh, and not to mention all the rules and books you need to read. So I guess it boils down to Money, time, and patience which are all finite resources that I can't manage for shit! Oh well... At least the art is cool!
Yeah, some people take their gaming way too seriously and 40K makes it really easy to find things to argue about. Just recently I ran a small experimental game, using roughly 40K rules but I DMed it like a D&D campaign. There was a story to the mission, the objectives where actually things that made sense rather than arbitrary markers, and periodic "intel updates" that moved the story along. It was really bare-bones but I would absolutely do it again.
Outside the more rigid tournament scene end of the 40K hobby, Game Workshop have repeatedly stated that the rules in more casual games should be treated as simply a broad framework, a general guide that you can modify and tweak in whatever way you like as you work with your opponent to set up the sort of enjoyable, memorable game you both want. If you fancy a last stand against the odds, a fighting retreat, a death or glory charge, holding the line until reinforcements arrive, or any other sort of game scenario, then it can be done simply by modifying the missions already in the rulebook a bit or by agreeing with your opponent ahead of time how you want to arrange things.
@@seand.g423 I don't see how any controlling tendencies of GW could apply to casual games. You can modify the rules any way you want to have the game you choose to have with your opponent. It is not as though GW's secret police are going to kick down your door at three in the morning and drag you off to slave in the Forgeworld resin mines for the crime of using house rules in a casual game between friends...
On the subject of humanity's psychic evolution, there's a moment in the audio drama "Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams", which discusses this, although from a far more pessimistic point of view than the way you've described it. Our narrator is an Inquisitorial agent named Ianthe, and one of her duties is to track down rogue psykers. The line goes something like this: "Humanity is dead. The trigger's already been pulled, bullet coming down the barrel. It won't be the xenos. It won't even be the foul traitors. It'll be us." What Ianthe means by this is that even relatively weak psykers are hellishly difficult to track down and control, and can cause cataclysmic amounts of damage if allowed to operate unchecked. She can see enough of the big picture to recognise that there's more of them every year, that humanity's psychic evolution is likely to be its destruction. There's something bleakly poetic in that: that, despite a galaxy of horrors, we are our own worst enemy.
Happy reading! The books by Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill, Chris Wraight, are all good stuff. Of course there are lots more other Warhammer writers worth checking out...
We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--- One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Yeah, I'm not a player of WH40K as it doesn't scratch my itch, though I like what I think the original inspiration was Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD. OTOH the Ciaphas Cain books by Sandy Mitchell are a homage to the Flashman series.
This is probably the best explanation of W40K that I've ever heard. Though I'm not a gamer - the rules for this game in particular would make the Federal Income Tax Codes look straightforward in comparison - I am a model builder, and I've built some Games Workshop kits as a 'break' from yet another Panzer IV or P-51. I find them to be highly detailed, with numerous options provided. The only real drawback is the price of these bespoke kits. About a year ago, I picked up a Rogal Dorn tank to be modified as the basis for a Draka Hond. That idea was abandoned when I saw your own - and much better - interpretation of S. M. Stirling's creation. Thanks for doing the research to make this for us! 775th Like.
Seeing 40K as the subject of one of your videos is quite the gift you give us. Not to pile onto your reading list, but Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden does a fantastic job of conveying how dissimilar Astartes psychology is to baseline humans, and also that theme of fighting tooth and nail despite already knowing the outcome " 'Hero of Helsreach!' the crowd cheers. As if there is only one."
it would be really cool if you looked at the Mechanicum of Mars specifically. Also the Ciaphas Cain series would be a good read, it's actually a bit more light hearted, but that grimdarkness of the setting always feels like it's hovering just out of sight in the background, it's still there, but the curtain of humanity hides it.
If you can find the time, you should read through the original 1st Edition Rogue Trader manual. Maybe skip the game rules since they're irrelevant now anyway, though they do resemble your D&D experimental hybrid game in practice since the game was a lot smaller scale back then. Anyway, the setting used to be a lot more on the nose and satirical. It also shares heavy influence from Judge Dredd since GW had the license to produce the miniatures game and John Wagner worked on Warhammer Fantasy for awhile. Most of its been retconned but it explains a lot about how the modern grimdark 40k is often so silly at times.
I have always thought that the Orcs aren’t “good” but more innocent. They don’t understand why humans scream when being torn apart. They need to fight to grow and even reproduce. They were built for war. Built to be a near perfect living weapon.
I do feel the Germany allegory could’ve been worded a tiny bit better, but as a long time 40k fan i never even knew about that passage and it’s given me a bit of a different perspective on the whole thing
Warhammer 40k is ultimately a story about Hope. Mankind survived the Cybernetic Revolt and Old Night. It's currently fighting off multiple extinction level events. Though trillions may die... The species will survive.
You might be interested in the Age of Sigmar lore for that feel of waging an unending war against an onslaught of nightmarish enemies. The Stormcast Eternals faction are mortal champions plucked from their moment of death by Sigmar. They are given powerful armor, mighty weapons, and a functional immortality. When a Stormcast dies they return to Sigmar and are reforged to continue the fight. However, each reforging takes something away from the Stormcast, a curse by Nagash, the God of Death, for keeping souls that should rightfully be his. A memory of a loved one, your eyes appearing as a collection of glittering stars, your personality changing from joyous to dour are some of the costs of reforging. Stormcast will eventually become so radically transformed that they act almost like soulless automatons or their souls resist the reforgings and have to be caged for their own good. All Stormcast know this and they will continue to fight on, for they have been given the power to eternally protect their civilizations from monsters.
Honestly, if the Imperium and several of the other xenos factions actually recognized that they all share a goal of survival (Eldar, Nectons, Tau) they could actually halt the advances of the more destructive factions. But that can never happen of course.
I highly recommend the Night Lords trilogy of books by Aaron Dembsky Bowden, I really think it takes everything great about the 40k universe and turns it to 11. And it's beautifully written.
@@feralhistorian Haha I just finished Blood Reaver last night! And I read Necropolis last month. If you're interested, the TH-cam channel ArbitorIan has a good book club series which follow many of the most popular lore books, including Gaunt's Ghosts. I'm like you and have never played an actual game of Warhammer but I find its world incredibly engaging. I think the struggle to maintain one's humanity in the grim setting is particularly captivating. I really liked your essay, too!
I hope that the next time you talk about warhammer 40k, you might consider talking about the realm of Ultramar, "The empire within an empire". I know some people might role their eyes given its connection to the poster boys of the setting, the Ultramarines, but i can't help but wonder if its very existence has something deeper to say about the larger story of this GrimDark setting. This last bastion of light in a galaxy of darkness, fighting not just to survive but trying to keep the foundings principles of the original dream of the Imperium alive, hoping the embers of hope from its core may one day spread a fire to the rest of the Imperium if they just hold on long enough.
"Somehow the slenderness of that thread makes it feel that much stronger." Though it has in no way been made greater, a candle shines brightest in complete darkness. Edit: If you want to just have fun, play against an Ork player. The Orks are the essence of "Random bullshit GO!" and there's no such thing as a salty Ork player.
I had never read or looked into Warhammer, but a recent space opera short story I wrote was compared to it. So I started looking into it a little and it seems to borrow extensively from SFs back catalogue and history, and with great results.
The idea that more and more psykers were being born every year has been part of the lore for longer than 7th but it was generally presented as more of a problem than a boon. The issue being that the Imperium is a terrible place to raise anyone to have the kind of balanced outlook on life that is necessary to truly keep the lure of Chaos at bay. The only way to do that is by not giving into the base instincts that the 4 gods represent, so a psyker who is overly violent, or lustful, or manipulative, or even unambitious ends up inadvertently feeding the Chaos Gods and becoming a danger to those around them. Basically, extremism feeds the gods in 40k and the Imperium breeds extremists. For the record I think 5th was the peak of the grimdark for me, everything was failing and there weren't any answers on the horizon. I remember 6th having some lines about how the Imperium was producing more weapons, munitions, and war machines and whatnot than at any other point in it's history and it was a big wtf moment for me when in 3rd to 5th it was more of a "make do and mend" type of setting because they couldn't make enough new stuff to meet their needs, so they had to keep salvaging stuff.
I think Rogue Trader may have had something about humanity transforming into a psychic species, and this being the Emperor's plan. So it seems like a revival of that early idea.
Definitely checkout Huron Blackheart and Fool's Run by Mike Brooks. But stay away from any Salamander novels they're all terrible, which is unfortunate because the Salamanders represent mercy in the grimdark universe.
Yes there are, there are good guys in this universe, there's Chiapas Kane and his valhallans, there are the Lamenters and The Salamnders and then of course there are the enclaves. All of those guys are objectively good
I would strongly suggest you watch "If the Emperor Had a Text To Speech Device." It's a fan made series that sadly will more than likely never be finished due to legal issues; yet it explains 40k really well in an entertaining way. Its depiction of the Emperor and his views on the current Imperium are pretty lore accurate as well, personality and humor aside. It's what I suggest people watch when I want to show them the better (as in less grimdark) aspects of 40k because it shows what would happen if Big E actually did get off his throne.
If you want a good book from the perspective of one of the alien species of the franchise, one of the highest regarded books is "The Infinite and The Divine". Of note, one of the titular characters, Trazyn the Infinite, is a Necron Historian/Museum Curator. Admittedly, one that takes a more collector approach than that of on-site preservation.
If you want to read some horus heresy, i got the first 4 books. You are welcome to them, i have family in the area that can ship them to. Always appreciate your content.
Thanks for the offer, but that won't be necessary. Any more anything I read casually has to be on a backlit ereader, my eyes are finally starting to go. Horus Rising is in the queue with everything else I want to read in the next couple months.
A fun paradox of no one matters yet everyone is critical. Buying an extra second of life for a culture 10k years old. To be human in the most inhumane of times.
The part about Germany reminds me of some old germans telling me about what they did during ww2...bombed cities reduced to dust, random air raids and running into forest for cover, burning corpse at the crossroad, kids serving in militia being engaged in actual combat. Just recently not far from where i work they found the airbomb while digging at some construction site which meant those disaster allerts to phones and evacuation of the small town. I did ask about you know what, but they didn't tell me much and i cant tell if thats intentional.
Feral, there are a number of computer games and board games, and roleplaying games set in the 40k universe. You don't have to buy a plastic army just to give it a try.
mankind still existing 40000 years into the future? across millions of planets? most of these planets never seeing any of the wars? that's the most optimistic thing I've ever heard of. Also there are good guys, better than there are any army of the modern real world
Salamanders don't have kids but they do visit the descendants of their families from before they became astartes, so every few hundred years some lucky Nocturnean kid might get to meet his great-great-grand-uncle Draksmith from the 3rd company.
funny I meet warhammer thanks to some parody when I was a pre teen then when I was a teenager I started reading the wiki on some factions and I tought it was to grimdark for me. But then I started understanding the Imperium and even respect some of his brutal factions like the Inquisition, becouse like you said against this kinds of enemies you don't have other choice than to fight and do henious acts to survive. Sadly since I live in south america is almost imposible to find warhammer 40k merch besides the videogames, but funny enough a youtuber from Peru by the name of huntleo have introduced warhammer 40k to the latin american community and now there is a big increasing fandom of warhammer growing in south america. Changing subjetcs haye you see this mecha anime in youtube called "Obsolete"? it's really good since it have some cultural and political topics wich I think you may be interested
The Modern rules are extremely not good. Way I see it you have two options. For free you have the "One Page Rules" series of knock off stuff that comes in several flavors and supports all your armies. Or if you aren't afraid of creatively commandeering abandoned texts online by less than legal means I recommend looking at the Classic Rogue Trader from the 80s. I am not a 40k guy, though I am a wargamer (more into historicals though) so I have dabbled in it due to ubiquity. People like the lore and the models but most people think the official rules leave a lot to be desired.
What little I've done with 40K so far has already gone way into making up new rules frameworks on the fly. Like running Warhammer encounters like a D&D campaign, with a DM and a story around the mission, objectives that are actually objectives, more narrative than straight combat. The initial run was a bit janky but a lot of fun. Trying to work a good balance between 40K's "move all your units while your opponent yawns" and One Page Rules' back and forth is still a gap. Some kind of an initiative thing to simulate having momentum to an advance or being constrained by fire/terrain/whatever.
@@feralhistorian Coming from historicals and roleplaying games as my bread and butter I definitely agree with the focus on narrative objectives. I'm a big fan of greater campaign level contexts to smaller scale actions. It changes how players use their units, leads to greater characterization, changes how you approach battles, etc. Hope it goes well.
I got into warhammer via epic in he early 90s. A straighforward set of rules that were relatively fast passed and allowed large(ish) scale battles. I did get into 40k 2nd edition. It definitely had bloated rules but they were a lot of fun, with all sorts of crazy weapons. But epic was always the far better actual wargame.
GW has moved towards a narrative and metaplot. Instead of a loose framework for smaller stories. Older adventures and scenarios might be about saving this star sector, this planet or this village. Or how two hive gangs beat the snot out if eachother for a water filter.
Mmmm.....FINALLY, you tackle 40k. A fair take. But I'm still waiting for your take on the Traitor Legions, the rebels. Perhaps once you've read the Night Lords Trilogy? Definitely one of the best (IMHO) at showing how "other" the space marines are.
I'm halfway through the trilogy now (alternating with a couple other books I want to cover) and I'm quite sure that there will be more Warhammer commentary in the future.
WH40K began as a tabletop game parody of 1980s British politics. The Orks were skinheads, the Eldar were the British aristos, the Imperial Guard were the disposable army grunts of the Falkland War, and the Space Marines were a joking parody of Arthurian knights. WH40K and WH Fantasy were a victim of their own success in the 1990s.
space marines were definitely a joke cos they were conscripted drugged up ex gangers turned space police originally. the gene stuff and knight lore got added later.
It is weird when you look back at the goofier satire heavy early days, when it was being made by the same people who made the Judge Dredd board game. The rules are a mess though. I just use the minis in other game systems I prefer.
Warhammer 40k was never my favorite "humanity fighting a losing war against aliens story." The Imperium is strategically stuck in a metaphorical western front where it isn't losing but cannot win either. I always prefered Halo because unlike Warhammer the desperation is real, humanity is losing decisively and all measures are being considered to try to win or at least not lose. Admittedly Halo jumped the shark with 5, and 4 took place way too soon after 3 in my opinion. (Writers need to learn to let settings rest after titanic conflicts, WW3 wouldn't happen immeadiatly after WW2 because everyone would be too exhausted from the last war. A lot of writers seem to not know this.) Halo Reach is a masterclass in what fighting a losing war feels like, every small victory you achieve is overturned by something going wrong somewhere else. Warhammer doesn't have the same sense of desperation, the Imperium could lose a hundred worlds and not feel it, the UNSC had a little over that to start with.
@feralhistorian If you want to get into it, I would recommend the Masterchief collection. It's on pc and gets you most of the games. The books are really good. The forerunner saga by Greg Bear is deep sci-fi and delves into the background of the setting. The short story collections in Halo evolutions are great. I certainly would like to hear your take on the setting.
damn i am always late to these, but i really like your take on why Humanity is the way it is Personally though i throw my lot in with the GSC and just hope there is something in the grace of the star gods
Or, to avoid the comparison with Fascism and Nazis you could have used a modern equivalent that would avoid all controversy... Slava Ukraini :) Another excellent video. It's been over 30 years since my last game of 40K, but it's so ubiquitous in the SF/gaming space that I still know more than I normally want to.
@@BoneistJ Cain reveals that one of the secret rituals for appeasing the machine spirits is to give the device's casing a good, solid smack. It's surprisingly more effective (and usually faster) than incense, votive candles, and attaching scripture.
It's funny that he thinks the rules are complicated now. Back in the day I felt like I could have gotten a law degree easier then understanding the rules.
So the germans were about to face the same fate that drove them into hitler's arms n the first place. It is romantic to think they avoided that by fighting to the bitter end. What a wonderful fact that I did not know about WW2, thank you. I didn't know the allies at first wished to do much worse to germany. On another note, I wonder if you heard of Black Lagoon.
I have often said that if Games Workshop actually had any intestinal fortitude vis a vis the Space Marine Gender malarkey, they would do the following: Declare that Female Space Marines have always existed, but that you couldn't tell because the Space Marine augmentation erases secondary sex characteristics.
Terra and planets like Necromunda are in the quadrillions each, tens of thousands of other tens of billions of people hive worlds and the Imperium as a whole has anywhere from a few hundred quadrillion to low quintillions of souls in population.
Fundamentally it probably wouldn't matter what the gender of the child was, given what we know about development and the array of techniques used in universe, a small child of either gender is going to turn out indistinguishable in the end. It just happens that the physical traits of a space marine align with an exaggerated idea of masculinity.
The battletech universe Elementals is a better version of space marines. no gender issues, can be either, both end up super strong but females and male remain distinguishable, and they use battle suits that make terminators look like paper. imagine a group of terminators leaping onto a warhound titan with jetpacks and ripping it apart with lasers and claws. Thats Elementals.
The main problem is that the astartes augmentation process fundamentally does not work with the XX chromosome, since the primarchs were all male and each legion is based on the genetic components of a primarch.
I finally got into Warhammer fiction during the Covid lockdowns after friends talking about it for years. I refuse to play the games because I simply don’t have the time for it. The Horus Heresy books are a great intro that require no prior knowledge of the setting.
You've done it Feral. You've won.
You really are Warhammer 40k...
*”Where I fall ten more shall take my place! And a **_hundred_** each one of them! So strike me down, I am only the harbinger!!”*
For those looking for more humanity and, yes, a light in the darkness of 40k...I highly endorse Dan Abnett's work, particularly the Gaunt's Ghosts series. He has a knack for making such a silly setting seem real, filled with real people.
Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain books are flat out humorous and if you don't mind the wholesale theft of George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' reskinned, they're good too.
Also I think Gaunt's Ghost book series (Imperial Guard) would be up your alley.
Think Band of Brothers in 40k and Dick Winters in a Commisar Cap with a chainsword.
It's pretty blatantly a take on the Sharpe novels, even right down to copying the gag of having the protagonists hair color be different on the covers and official artwork compared to how it's actually described in the novels themselves.
You've absolutely found the correct metaphorical nail and slammed it home with the eponymous Warhammer: none of Games Workshop's settings, not a single one no matter how dark, is *completely* hopeless. They've made decades-long art of stacking the odds against everyone and refined it to near sublimity, such that no matter which game-world you read about or play, which faction you choose to champion and which characters you find most compelling, they're all fighting for *something worthwhile* against the kind of resistance that makes one despair of victory.
But there is always that sliver of hope.
Everything is always on the verge of collapse, but it's always on the edge, and the sacrifice and costly victories of millions every day push Mankind's extinction from tomorrow to the next day. Not completely hopeless, but with not a gram more hope than what's needed to sustain the endless fight.
Excepting the skaven of course, as much as I love them they aren't fighting for anything worth having.
in the name of our beloved god emperor - praise Feral. He has served Terra well
Thanks for the upload. My own, meandering thoughts on 40K are broadly similar, and often in conflict with the more nihilistic perspectives prevalent in some quarters (Reddit in particular seems to be a hotbed of such), so it's heartening to see a more optimistic take on the universe discussed at length here for public edification. That said, there are a couple of quibbles I have with some of the points presented:
First is the idea that the Imperium are not "the good guys," which I've always found curious. From our perspective here in the comparatively cozy 2nd Millennium, the Imperium of course appears horrifying, but while it may be "the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable," it's ultimately cruel to be kind, so to speak. Everything the Imperium does is dictated by the singular, all-consuming goal of preserving Mankind's existence in a universe stuffed to bursting with genocidal alien monsters and daemons thirsting for human souls, a universe where "we had to destroy the village to save it" is not Orwellian doublethink but a bald statement of fact that could mean the difference between a few souls being prematurely sent to the Emperor's Realm and the loss of an entire planet inhabited by billions (a recent Warhammer + animated short had a nice take on this in the context of a Genstealer cult and a Tyranid invasion).
Second is the degree of corruption in the Imperium. While we definitely see corrupt officials in the fluff (and Imperial bureaucratic shenanigans _are_ often darkly humorous), I'm not convinced that the Imperium (as distinct from its constituent planetary governments) is _especially_ corrupt by any reasonable standard for a more-or-less feudal polity that has ruled over millions of planets for the better part of 10,000 years. Obviously, the system works, in-universe, and is robust enough to have kept working for almost 10 millennia, though it is true that the Administratum is inefficient. That, however, is in large part because it was designed to be so; after the Horus Heresy, and then again, after the reign of Goge Vandire, the apparatus of government was redesigned with the goal of making it as difficult as possible for a single person to quickly exercise absolute and unimpeded power throughout the Imperium.
But again, thank you for articulating your thoughts on the oft-overlooked or downplayed optimism of 40K, the slender thread which, as you note, serves to strengthen the universe as a whole. Whether it be Space Marine Ragnar Blackmane getting snapped out of a Chaos-induced stupor by some indescribable force of goodness radiating directly from Holy Terra, Euphrati Keeler banishing daemons in the name of the Emperor, slain Imperial Guardsmen reuniting with their comrades in the afterlife, or the Primarchs gradually returning, in the grim darkness of the far future, there is still hope.
There have been occasional hiccups in those 10,000 years though, like the Age of Apostasy, but yeah, broadly speaking the Imperium keeps trucking on, bumps in the road not withstanding.
The irony and satire are still there, though its been covered over a bit through the years. One of my favorites is that in the end, humanity turned the Emperor into a Servitor. A cyborg zombie tasked with a function, regardless of the underlying subject's pain. Servitors are everywhere in the imperium, people broken down into nothing but tools. So of course, that is what the creator of the Imperium was transformed into. It's a beautiful kind of irony, and a statement about how bureaucracy so often ends up consuming its own purpose.
No, not really. The Emperor is both conscious and chose/endures the eternal torture of the Golden Throne willingly for the sake of Mankind's ultimate salvation from Chaos. It's much more reflective of Christian thematic imagery (something 40K tends to do quite blatantly at times) than anything else.
@@CanadianPaleIf anything the servitors are a reflection of the GE's willingness to suffer tens of thousands of years holding the Imperium together, as the sentencing of servitude is one granted to "make amends" for ones wrong doings. Except its not a choice for the common criminal, heretic or political dissident
@@Dogman262 common criminals don't become servitors. It's normally only used as a punishment for really severe (i. e. _dangerous_ ) acts of tech-heresy, so the comparison falls apart again there.
@@CanadianPale Yeah man whatever ig
@@Dogman262 go in peace, my son. The Emperor Protects.
I think you would greatly enjoy the Gaunts Ghosts series of novels by Dan Abnett. It has a Band of Brothers meets Sharpe feel to it, expertly capturing the esprit de corps of fighting men and making combat in the insane setting of Warhammer 40K feel surprisingly believable and 'real' from the perspective of boots on the ground infantrymen.
Gaunt's Ghosts is definitely on my list now. I'll probably be alternating between Warhammer novels and everything else I want to read for quite a while.
@@feralhistorian Careful - Games Workshop has its own in house publishing arm called Black Library that has been around for decades, and it has published huge numbers of books both for 40K and the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Once you start down that rabbit hole, you may never find your way out again.
If you are prepared to brave that risk, and fancy dipping your toe into a pulp series of stories from the fantasy arm of Games Workshop's IP that are huge fun, may I also recommend the Gotrek and Felix novels, starting with Trollslayer by William King? Most of those novels are available as audiobooks on Audible now, voiced by the ever excellent Jonathan Keeble, and pretty much cover the journeys and adventures of the Old World's angriest doom seeking Dwarf and his human Rememberer, who is essentially a chronicler of his quest to find honourable death in battle to expunge a personal shame. The dynamic between the two characters varies from hilarious to at times actually rather poignant. Felix Jaeger may be the most relatable character from fantasy fiction I have ever read, and the older I get the more relatable I find him to be.
@@feralhistorian For a lighter take, the Ciaphas Cain novels are more-or-less Flashman in 40k. All the grimdark is there, of course, but since the story is first person the narrator is rather blase about features of the setting that grate against modern sensibilities.
@@feralhistorian And also the Eisenhorn Trilogy by the same author is very good.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
As an outsider, the "Space Marine controversy" was very entertaining to watch. My familiarity, such as it is, with WH40K is solely what I've picked up from subcultural osmosis; even so, I know that the setting is intentionally, explicitly made to be as horrific as the writers can imagine. So I find it hilarious that anyone would want to "see themselves" in _that._
You'd be surprised...😉
@@CanadianPale Sadly, I would not. But I still find it amusing.
The whole controversy is, excuse my French, ret*rded af.
Space Marines are not just super soldiers, they´re basically "warrior monks".
And there are also "warrior nuns" in 40k, the Adepta Sororitas or "Sisters of Battle".
They lack the genetic/cybernetic enhancements of the Astartes, but this is balanced out by their faith in the Emperor being so strong, that it enables them to perform superhuman feats.
One could argue, that the Sororitas are even more "badass" than the Astartes, because they manage to go out and successfully fight all kinds of horrible Chaos Daemons, Traitor Marines, Xenos and heretics, WITHOUT having all genetic/cybernetic crap showed into their bodies.
You want to "identify" with a faction? Well, 40k gives you plenty of options to choose.
But that´s not what this is all about. This is just more cultural marxist BS, as we have seen it in various other hobbies and entertainment.
@doublep1980 but, the question is, why do you care so much? how many models you own? how many rulebooks? if youve been playing for a long time, you know that the game never took itself as seriously as you are now... another thing, nothing is canon. every rulebook has retconned and changed loads of stuff. so again, the question is,, right noq, why do you care? why does it actually matter, if there can be female space marines? there are plenty of other brotherhoods and groups in 40k that _arnt_ space marines, still totally emasculated. yet only one female centered one... why cant there be some more stuff thats slightly more female oriented?
@@Rexini_Kobalt no, the question is why you think mere growth is a greater good than preserving the integrity of the lore. You're expressing the values of a cancer LOL. 😏
Kudos to Feral for observing that 40K is not satire, and explaining why. 🤜🤛
Feral Historian is an agent of Chaos, I would say Tzeentch.
An open algorithm is like a fortress with it's gates unbarred and unguarded
ISWYDT
@@MarkAndrewEdwards did you hear it in the right voice too?
@@KatanamasterV Aye, I do love me some Dawn of War.
@@MarkAndrewEdwards nice
Suffer not the like button unsmashed
"In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all.
But we are much wiser now."
Archmagos Ultima Cryol - "Speculations On Pre-Imperial History"
I'd recommend checking out the Ciaphas Cain books for some good humor in the setting, as well as the lore of the Salamanders for one of the best examples of the 'good guys' of the setting. Isyander and Coda have some great lore videos on 40K as well that really does work for the layman just getting into the series.
Holy smokes, I never would have thought this would be a video you'd ever make! This is awesome.
Cool video as always! I was kind of hoping you'd cover this sooner or later, since it seems to be in your wheel house!
Personally, I got turned off of 40K years ago when I attended a gaming convention and saw two grown men in 45 minute screaming match over who was in possession of a square inch. All the miniatures looked cool. But further got turned off by all the painting and expense involved. Oh, and not to mention all the rules and books you need to read. So I guess it boils down to Money, time, and patience which are all finite resources that I can't manage for shit! Oh well... At least the art is cool!
Yeah, some people take their gaming way too seriously and 40K makes it really easy to find things to argue about.
Just recently I ran a small experimental game, using roughly 40K rules but I DMed it like a D&D campaign. There was a story to the mission, the objectives where actually things that made sense rather than arbitrary markers, and periodic "intel updates" that moved the story along. It was really bare-bones but I would absolutely do it again.
Haha! Chipmunks are definitely Chaos demons! That's a great line.
Outside the more rigid tournament scene end of the 40K hobby, Game Workshop have repeatedly stated that the rules in more casual games should be treated as simply a broad framework, a general guide that you can modify and tweak in whatever way you like as you work with your opponent to set up the sort of enjoyable, memorable game you both want. If you fancy a last stand against the odds, a fighting retreat, a death or glory charge, holding the line until reinforcements arrive, or any other sort of game scenario, then it can be done simply by modifying the missions already in the rulebook a bit or by agreeing with your opponent ahead of time how you want to arrange things.
I think we've _all_ seen what GW of all things mean by "a framework", tho...
@@seand.g423 I don't see how any controlling tendencies of GW could apply to casual games. You can modify the rules any way you want to have the game you choose to have with your opponent. It is not as though GW's secret police are going to kick down your door at three in the morning and drag you off to slave in the Forgeworld resin mines for the crime of using house rules in a casual game between friends...
Your one of the few people who have run into who not only even heard of the Morganthou Plan, but are aware of it's ramifications. Great job! 👍
On the subject of humanity's psychic evolution, there's a moment in the audio drama "Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams", which discusses this, although from a far more pessimistic point of view than the way you've described it. Our narrator is an Inquisitorial agent named Ianthe, and one of her duties is to track down rogue psykers. The line goes something like this:
"Humanity is dead. The trigger's already been pulled, bullet coming down the barrel. It won't be the xenos. It won't even be the foul traitors. It'll be us."
What Ianthe means by this is that even relatively weak psykers are hellishly difficult to track down and control, and can cause cataclysmic amounts of damage if allowed to operate unchecked. She can see enough of the big picture to recognise that there's more of them every year, that humanity's psychic evolution is likely to be its destruction. There's something bleakly poetic in that: that, despite a galaxy of horrors, we are our own worst enemy.
Happy reading! The books by Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill, Chris Wraight, are all good stuff. Of course there are lots more other Warhammer writers worth checking out...
Chris Wraight? "Unaugmented human female effortlessly lifts and wields a Space Marine Chaplain's crozius" Chris Wraight? LMAO...
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are---
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Yeah, I'm not a player of WH40K as it doesn't scratch my itch, though I like what I think the original inspiration was Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD. OTOH the Ciaphas Cain books by Sandy Mitchell are a homage to the Flashman series.
This is probably the best explanation of W40K that I've ever heard. Though I'm not a gamer - the rules for this game in particular would make the Federal Income Tax Codes look straightforward in comparison - I am a model builder, and I've built some Games Workshop kits as a 'break' from yet another Panzer IV or P-51. I find them to be highly detailed, with numerous options provided. The only real drawback is the price of these bespoke kits.
About a year ago, I picked up a Rogal Dorn tank to be modified as the basis for a Draka Hond. That idea was abandoned when I saw your own - and much better - interpretation of S. M. Stirling's creation.
Thanks for doing the research to make this for us!
775th Like.
Seeing 40K as the subject of one of your videos is quite the gift you give us.
Not to pile onto your reading list, but Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden does a fantastic job of conveying how dissimilar Astartes psychology is to baseline humans, and also that theme of fighting tooth and nail despite already knowing the outcome
" 'Hero of Helsreach!' the crowd cheers. As if there is only one."
The books "Scars" and "Warhawk" are favourites among the fandom, and for good reason.
Finally !
My man review 40k!
it would be really cool if you looked at the Mechanicum of Mars specifically. Also the Ciaphas Cain series would be a good read, it's actually a bit more light hearted, but that grimdarkness of the setting always feels like it's hovering just out of sight in the background, it's still there, but the curtain of humanity hides it.
Henry Cavill is a big Warhammer 40K player.
If you can find the time, you should read through the original 1st Edition Rogue Trader manual. Maybe skip the game rules since they're irrelevant now anyway, though they do resemble your D&D experimental hybrid game in practice since the game was a lot smaller scale back then. Anyway, the setting used to be a lot more on the nose and satirical. It also shares heavy influence from Judge Dredd since GW had the license to produce the miniatures game and John Wagner worked on Warhammer Fantasy for awhile. Most of its been retconned but it explains a lot about how the modern grimdark 40k is often so silly at times.
If you are looking for a rule set that sheds all the 40k bloat, try Xenos Rampant.
his shininess 😂
I have always thought that the Orcs aren’t “good” but more innocent. They don’t understand why humans scream when being torn apart. They need to fight to grow and even reproduce. They were built for war. Built to be a near perfect living weapon.
They are cruel blokes who think it is fun to beat another blokes teeth in and do so with an absence of reflection.
I do feel the Germany allegory could’ve been worded a tiny bit better, but as a long time 40k fan i never even knew about that passage and it’s given me a bit of a different perspective on the whole thing
Warhammer 40k is ultimately a story about Hope.
Mankind survived the Cybernetic Revolt and Old Night.
It's currently fighting off multiple extinction level events.
Though trillions may die... The species will survive.
12:43 "a bastard son of the..." fething peak! 😂
I belive that the maker of event horison have said that he was a 40k fan.
And i would recommend the gaunts ghost and cain books
He's probably also a big fan of the Hellraiser movies.
You might be interested in the Age of Sigmar lore for that feel of waging an unending war against an onslaught of nightmarish enemies.
The Stormcast Eternals faction are mortal champions plucked from their moment of death by Sigmar. They are given powerful armor, mighty weapons, and a functional immortality. When a Stormcast dies they return to Sigmar and are reforged to continue the fight. However, each reforging takes something away from the Stormcast, a curse by Nagash, the God of Death, for keeping souls that should rightfully be his.
A memory of a loved one, your eyes appearing as a collection of glittering stars, your personality changing from joyous to dour are some of the costs of reforging. Stormcast will eventually become so radically transformed that they act almost like soulless automatons or their souls resist the reforgings and have to be caged for their own good.
All Stormcast know this and they will continue to fight on, for they have been given the power to eternally protect their civilizations from monsters.
This is a setting that you should explor further for sure.
God damn that's good writing!
Honestly, if the Imperium and several of the other xenos factions actually recognized that they all share a goal of survival (Eldar, Nectons, Tau) they could actually halt the advances of the more destructive factions. But that can never happen of course.
I highly recommend the Night Lords trilogy of books by Aaron Dembsky Bowden, I really think it takes everything great about the 40k universe and turns it to 11. And it's beautifully written.
I recently read the first two books of the trilogy, and I see exactly what you mean. I'll come back for 3 after finishing Gaunt's Ghosts.
@@feralhistorian Haha I just finished Blood Reaver last night! And I read Necropolis last month. If you're interested, the TH-cam channel ArbitorIan has a good book club series which follow many of the most popular lore books, including Gaunt's Ghosts. I'm like you and have never played an actual game of Warhammer but I find its world incredibly engaging. I think the struggle to maintain one's humanity in the grim setting is particularly captivating. I really liked your essay, too!
Nice video. The game actually started with much more satire and was funny, for some reason it got way more serious in the last 20 years.
I hope that the next time you talk about warhammer 40k, you might consider talking about the realm of Ultramar, "The empire within an empire". I know some people might role their eyes given its connection to the poster boys of the setting, the Ultramarines, but i can't help but wonder if its very existence has something deeper to say about the larger story of this GrimDark setting. This last bastion of light in a galaxy of darkness, fighting not just to survive but trying to keep the foundings principles of the original dream of the Imperium alive, hoping the embers of hope from its core may one day spread a fire to the rest of the Imperium if they just hold on long enough.
"Somehow the slenderness of that thread makes it feel that much stronger."
Though it has in no way been made greater, a candle shines brightest in complete darkness.
Edit: If you want to just have fun, play against an Ork player. The Orks are the essence of "Random bullshit GO!" and there's no such thing as a salty Ork player.
I had never read or looked into Warhammer, but a recent space opera short story I wrote was compared to it. So I started looking into it a little and it seems to borrow extensively from SFs back catalogue and history, and with great results.
Well said from the only literate man in media
If heresy grows from idleness you have nothing to worry about.
The idea that more and more psykers were being born every year has been part of the lore for longer than 7th but it was generally presented as more of a problem than a boon. The issue being that the Imperium is a terrible place to raise anyone to have the kind of balanced outlook on life that is necessary to truly keep the lure of Chaos at bay. The only way to do that is by not giving into the base instincts that the 4 gods represent, so a psyker who is overly violent, or lustful, or manipulative, or even unambitious ends up inadvertently feeding the Chaos Gods and becoming a danger to those around them. Basically, extremism feeds the gods in 40k and the Imperium breeds extremists.
For the record I think 5th was the peak of the grimdark for me, everything was failing and there weren't any answers on the horizon. I remember 6th having some lines about how the Imperium was producing more weapons, munitions, and war machines and whatnot than at any other point in it's history and it was a big wtf moment for me when in 3rd to 5th it was more of a "make do and mend" type of setting because they couldn't make enough new stuff to meet their needs, so they had to keep salvaging stuff.
I think Rogue Trader may have had something about humanity transforming into a psychic species, and this being the Emperor's plan. So it seems like a revival of that early idea.
Definitely checkout Huron Blackheart and Fool's Run by Mike Brooks. But stay away from any Salamander novels they're all terrible, which is unfortunate because the Salamanders represent mercy in the grimdark universe.
Yes there are, there are good guys in this universe, there's Chiapas Kane and his valhallans, there are the Lamenters and The Salamnders and then of course there are the enclaves.
All of those guys are objectively good
Sysiphis with a Lasgun?
I would strongly suggest you watch "If the Emperor Had a Text To Speech Device." It's a fan made series that sadly will more than likely never be finished due to legal issues; yet it explains 40k really well in an entertaining way. Its depiction of the Emperor and his views on the current Imperium are pretty lore accurate as well, personality and humor aside. It's what I suggest people watch when I want to show them the better (as in less grimdark) aspects of 40k because it shows what would happen if Big E actually did get off his throne.
Pretty lore-accurate if you're a Redditor whose main source of info is corpse-starch memes...😆
I am once again Posting to gain attention to the starfist book series which is fantastic!
Added the first one to my ever-growing reading list.
If you want a good book from the perspective of one of the alien species of the franchise, one of the highest regarded books is "The Infinite and The Divine". Of note, one of the titular characters, Trazyn the Infinite, is a Necron Historian/Museum Curator. Admittedly, one that takes a more collector approach than that of on-site preservation.
I imagine a Necron historian would have some stories to tell. Added to the list.
Nice take 🎉
@Feral Historian the only Space Marine Chapter that discovered their man parts work are The Space Wolves.
If you want to read some horus heresy, i got the first 4 books. You are welcome to them, i have family in the area that can ship them to. Always appreciate your content.
Thanks for the offer, but that won't be necessary. Any more anything I read casually has to be on a backlit ereader, my eyes are finally starting to go. Horus Rising is in the queue with everything else I want to read in the next couple months.
Read Dan Abnett's Inquisition books. It makes the world seem livable. Good take.
A fun paradox of no one matters yet everyone is critical. Buying an extra second of life for a culture 10k years old. To be human in the most inhumane of times.
The part about Germany reminds me of some old germans telling me about what they did during ww2...bombed cities reduced to dust, random air raids and running into forest for cover, burning corpse at the crossroad, kids serving in militia being engaged in actual combat.
Just recently not far from where i work they found the airbomb while digging at some construction site which meant those disaster allerts to phones and evacuation of the small town.
I did ask about you know what, but they didn't tell me much and i cant tell if thats intentional.
If everything sucks, then you can just have fun, and let go
Feral, there are a number of computer games and board games, and roleplaying games set in the 40k universe. You don't have to buy a plastic army just to give it a try.
mankind still existing 40000 years into the future? across millions of planets? most of these planets never seeing any of the wars? that's the most optimistic thing I've ever heard of. Also there are good guys, better than there are any army of the modern real world
hey farel historian what do you think about maybe doing comparison between the A24 civil war 2024 and the 1997 The Second Civil War movies
That could happen. Several months ago I rewatched Second Civil War but never did anything with it. Haven't seen the A24 film yet, but eventually.
Interestingly all the powers in WW2 felt that they were fighting for their very lives. That is why the war was so vicious.
40K has the Sisters of Battle who have different chapters with their own version of primarchs.
A Space Wolf named Lukas from the book Lukas the Trickster has had kids, and the Salamander's have offspring I believe.
Salamanders don't have kids but they do visit the descendants of their families from before they became astartes, so every few hundred years some lucky Nocturnean kid might get to meet his great-great-grand-uncle Draksmith from the 3rd company.
funny I meet warhammer thanks to some parody when I was a pre teen then when I was a teenager I started reading the wiki on some factions and I tought it was to grimdark for me. But then I started understanding the Imperium and even respect some of his brutal factions like the Inquisition, becouse like you said against this kinds of enemies you don't have other choice than to fight and do henious acts to survive. Sadly since I live in south america is almost imposible to find warhammer 40k merch besides the videogames, but funny enough a youtuber from Peru by the name of huntleo have introduced warhammer 40k to the latin american community and now there is a big increasing fandom of warhammer growing in south america.
Changing subjetcs haye you see this mecha anime in youtube called "Obsolete"? it's really good since it have some cultural and political topics wich I think you may be interested
I'll give "Obsolete" a look.
Ave Imperator!
The Modern rules are extremely not good.
Way I see it you have two options.
For free you have the "One Page Rules" series of knock off stuff that comes in several flavors and supports all your armies.
Or if you aren't afraid of creatively commandeering abandoned texts online by less than legal means I recommend looking at the Classic Rogue Trader from the 80s.
I am not a 40k guy, though I am a wargamer (more into historicals though) so I have dabbled in it due to ubiquity.
People like the lore and the models but most people think the official rules leave a lot to be desired.
What little I've done with 40K so far has already gone way into making up new rules frameworks on the fly. Like running Warhammer encounters like a D&D campaign, with a DM and a story around the mission, objectives that are actually objectives, more narrative than straight combat. The initial run was a bit janky but a lot of fun.
Trying to work a good balance between 40K's "move all your units while your opponent yawns" and One Page Rules' back and forth is still a gap. Some kind of an initiative thing to simulate having momentum to an advance or being constrained by fire/terrain/whatever.
@@feralhistorian Coming from historicals and roleplaying games as my bread and butter I definitely agree with the focus on narrative objectives. I'm a big fan of greater campaign level contexts to smaller scale actions.
It changes how players use their units, leads to greater characterization, changes how you approach battles, etc.
Hope it goes well.
I got into warhammer via epic in he early 90s. A straighforward set of rules that were relatively fast passed and allowed large(ish) scale battles. I did get into 40k 2nd edition. It definitely had bloated rules but they were a lot of fun, with all sorts of crazy weapons. But epic was always the far better actual wargame.
GW has moved towards a narrative and metaplot. Instead of a loose framework for smaller stories. Older adventures and scenarios might be about saving this star sector, this planet or this village. Or how two hive gangs beat the snot out if eachother for a water filter.
Mmmm.....FINALLY, you tackle 40k. A fair take. But I'm still waiting for your take on the Traitor Legions, the rebels. Perhaps once you've read the Night Lords Trilogy? Definitely one of the best (IMHO) at showing how "other" the space marines are.
I'm halfway through the trilogy now (alternating with a couple other books I want to cover) and I'm quite sure that there will be more Warhammer commentary in the future.
@feralhistorian Excellent! I hope that your enjoying them.
WH40K began as a tabletop game parody of 1980s British politics. The Orks were skinheads, the Eldar were the British aristos, the Imperial Guard were the disposable army grunts of the Falkland War, and the Space Marines were a joking parody of Arthurian knights. WH40K and WH Fantasy were a victim of their own success in the 1990s.
space marines were definitely a joke cos they were conscripted drugged up ex gangers turned space police originally. the gene stuff and knight lore got added later.
Nice
It is weird when you look back at the goofier satire heavy early days, when it was being made by the same people who made the Judge Dredd board game.
The rules are a mess though. I just use the minis in other game systems I prefer.
Warhammer 40k was never my favorite "humanity fighting a losing war against aliens story." The Imperium is strategically stuck in a metaphorical western front where it isn't losing but cannot win either. I always prefered Halo because unlike Warhammer the desperation is real, humanity is losing decisively and all measures are being considered to try to win or at least not lose. Admittedly Halo jumped the shark with 5, and 4 took place way too soon after 3 in my opinion. (Writers need to learn to let settings rest after titanic conflicts, WW3 wouldn't happen immeadiatly after WW2 because everyone would be too exhausted from the last war. A lot of writers seem to not know this.)
Halo Reach is a masterclass in what fighting a losing war feels like, every small victory you achieve is overturned by something going wrong somewhere else. Warhammer doesn't have the same sense of desperation, the Imperium could lose a hundred worlds and not feel it, the UNSC had a little over that to start with.
I largely missed out on Halo, like most games that launched as console-exclusives. One of these days I should speed-run the whole series.
@feralhistorian If you want to get into it, I would recommend the Masterchief collection. It's on pc and gets you most of the games. The books are really good. The forerunner saga by Greg Bear is deep sci-fi and delves into the background of the setting. The short story collections in Halo evolutions are great. I certainly would like to hear your take on the setting.
damn i am always late to these, but i really like your take on why Humanity is the way it is
Personally though i throw my lot in with the GSC and just hope there is something in the grace of the star gods
Or, to avoid the comparison with Fascism and Nazis you could have used a modern equivalent that would avoid all controversy... Slava Ukraini :)
Another excellent video. It's been over 30 years since my last game of 40K, but it's so ubiquitous in the SF/gaming space that I still know more than I normally want to.
If you seriously think that there is any connection between Nazisim and 40K, then you must be touched in the head or a Twitter user, take your pick.
You could try killteam instead of the wargame
Heresy detected🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
WAAAAAAAAAGH!!
You could always try the tabletop roleplaying games instead of the wargame
The no real heroes thing is why I struggle with lots of newer sci-fi & fantasy.
Yes chipmunks are malicious agents of chaos.
Wait, we had a draka style plan for Germany?
Mechanicus is the best faction .
Having often been in the position of fixing things for people that don't understand how they work, I feel a certain kinship with the Mechanicum.
@@feralhistorian "don't understand how they work" Hahaha that goes for Mechanicus most of the time
@@feralhistorian I like to believe that half their 'rituals to appease the machine spirits' are turning off and on again.
@@BoneistJ Cain reveals that one of the secret rituals for appeasing the machine spirits is to give the device's casing a good, solid smack. It's surprisingly more effective (and usually faster) than incense, votive candles, and attaching scripture.
I'd say the current rules feel like US tax code compared to the old rules. Then again, maybe I'm just a grognard.
The rules are indeed Byzantine. As is the setting, really…
The game rules are understandable to left-brain people, the lore is understandable to right-brain people.
It's funny that he thinks the rules are complicated now. Back in the day I felt like I could have gotten a law degree easier then understanding the rules.
So the germans were about to face the same fate that drove them into hitler's arms n the first place. It is romantic to think they avoided that by fighting to the bitter end. What a wonderful fact that I did not know about WW2, thank you. I didn't know the allies at first wished to do much worse to germany.
On another note, I wonder if you heard of Black Lagoon.
There is a good faction that ork
No way hammer costs so much.
It is obscene. GW's pricing demands the use of proxies for . . . aa lot of things.
I have often said that if Games Workshop actually had any intestinal fortitude vis a vis the Space Marine Gender malarkey, they would do the following: Declare that Female Space Marines have always existed, but that you couldn't tell because the Space Marine augmentation erases secondary sex characteristics.
Die for the Emperor, or die trying.
Its actually ten quadrillions.
Terra and planets like Necromunda are in the quadrillions each, tens of thousands of other tens of billions of people hive worlds and the Imperium as a whole has anywhere from a few hundred quadrillion to low quintillions of souls in population.
Not true, Dorn is truly good
Fundamentally it probably wouldn't matter what the gender of the child was, given what we know about development and the array of techniques used in universe, a small child of either gender is going to turn out indistinguishable in the end. It just happens that the physical traits of a space marine align with an exaggerated idea of masculinity.
The battletech universe Elementals is a better version of space marines. no gender issues, can be either, both end up super strong but females and male remain distinguishable, and they use battle suits that make terminators look like paper. imagine a group of terminators leaping onto a warhound titan with jetpacks and ripping it apart with lasers and claws. Thats Elementals.
The main problem is that the astartes augmentation process fundamentally does not work with the XX chromosome, since the primarchs were all male and each legion is based on the genetic components of a primarch.
I finally got into Warhammer fiction during the Covid lockdowns after friends talking about it for years. I refuse to play the games because I simply don’t have the time for it. The Horus Heresy books are a great intro that require no prior knowledge of the setting.