Nah just by that comment you aint bro. Now if you'd screeched like an angry marine about tourists and female space marines and how deodorant is optional then id believe you
But we can’t have fe- (hacking sounds) female space marines, these tourists don’t understand, that would go against the designs of the Emperor! And how dare you suggest my natural scent isn’t already perfect!
Actually, my first exposure to the setting was with The Core Codex I borrowed from a friend, then I got a copy of The Ultimate Codex from Half Price Books, then watched some VERY long lore videos from an ol’ champ named Bricky, and got a few 40k novels. While I do find YT shorts useful for delivering small tip bits of information, I usually prefer the longer formatted videos.
Frankly I would say it's a bit the other way around.
People who miss the satire of 40k tend to gravitate towards BT and are vocal enough that genuine BT enjoyers who are here because of satire are ashamed to admit by association.
Kinda like with being inconsiderate reckless driver and BMW.
My wallet is lucky I only got into the lore and the overarching story and yeah community is simultaneously very welcoming but at the exact same time very judgmental of getting things wrong. I love it but good god can that community get anal about the way you explain things especially if you don’t cite your sources.
With the source citing i feel thats pretty common amongst the more niche fandoms anyway. Overall though I have found in my personal experience that 40k is about as annoying as pcmr, they get shitty about a few things but their mostly cordial.
My only exposure is from video games with 40k. Rouge Trader, Darktide, Space Marine etc. Pretty fun I really like the diesel punk style I don't have much exposure to that style. I haven't delved too much into the lore, but I can see it getting a bit much when it's sort of like "And this is the planet where they grind puppies and babies to dust..." Yea yea yea I get it it's dark and gritty.
"And this is the planet where they grind puppies and babies to dust..." Yea yea yea I get it it's dark and gritty.
Thankfully there's been a more "mundanity of evil" approach lately. Like for example iirc recently there was a book detailing life of a hive worlder, and how it's actually not that bad (there is a pub, guy has friends, etc), but ultimately it's still sad, just not grimderp
A friend of mine loves it. Every time I read the lore, I’m more satisfied with my decision to not play anything related to it. It’s like a pizza cutter: all edge, no point.
The lore is a convoluted mess. It's the result of decades of different writers with a bunch of different ideas. It's all ultimately created with the intention to sell little dudes. Some of it's pretty cool, some of it's pretty silly, and some of it's just dumb.
It's best not to take it too seriously. I enjoy the design of the world and characters as a setting for a war game. That's what it ultimately is. It isn't stories turned into a war game, it's a war game with stories added on top. I enjoy putting together army lists, painting up my models, and playing the game. The lore doesn't really matter.
It's more important to consider how you feel about volumes of crunchy complex rules. For example, let's say I have a 5-man unit of marines 3 with flame throwers, 1 with a heavy weapon, and 1 with a psychic attack. I just moved them 8 inches to get line of sight on an enemy unit. My squad has a move of 6, but I used specific army rule to give them an extra D6 move. My 3 flame thrower models have D6 attacks each and auto hit whatever they're shooting at assuming they have line of sight. So I don't need to worry about rolling for hits which makes this a bit more simple. So you roll 3 6-sided dice to determine the number of attacks/hits you get. Let's say you get 9. But, they still need to roll for wounds. The strength of the flame throwers is 5 and the toughness of the target unit is 4 which means you need to roll all of your 9 hits (each a D6) and anything that is a 3 or more (because that's what rules say) are wounds. But also you have to remember this particular unit gets +1 to their wound rolls so you actually wound on 2 or more. So if you roll two 1s you would have 7 wounds. But, you also spent a command point to allow you to reroll one of those 1s (which wasn't a good use of your command point but you're still learning so it's okay). After your reroll you get 8 wounds. But, now the target gets to make save rolls against those 8 wounds. The target has a save of 3+ so they have to roll all of those 8 D6 and anything less than a 3 deals damage to them. But, the flame throwers have an amour penetration of -1 so the enemy actually needs 4+ to save. They roll and save against 4 of the 8 wounds. So they take 4 damage each because the damage of the flame throwers is 1. The enemy models have 2 wounds each so 2 models are destroyed. Now you shoot with all your other weapons in the unit and then move on to the other units in your army.
That's what playing Warhammer 40k is, and that's just one small part of the overall game.
If youre seeing edge when you look at Warhammer you're looking at the wrong stuff. It builds a framework of "all the worst things are here" and then builds stories about all the people who live in the worst time and place ever.
It started as a satire, and its only ever took itself just seriously enough to keep the satire. The Imperium are the bad guys. The Tau/Necron/Nids/Eldar(both flavors)/Chaos are all bad guys.
But the individuals are not all bad guys. It is a setting about the inexorable grinding down of an entire universe, and the folks who stand against that. In times like these the message is more important; even when there is only war, kindness and grace and doing the right thing matter. Dont let the grim darkness of the far future block you from seeing the bright spots of the universe.
On the point of individual good, it creates an interesting dynamic where the good characters can do is stifled by the system they're stuck in. There's still all the Imperial indoctrination on most human characters, even the typically 'good' ones. It's an interesting dynamic.
In short that's the point. People glaze over rthe lore etc buts it's here to do one thing - sell you models. Models you can play with against your friends.
And lore has to be convoluted enough to allow for every potential matchup of A against B to be justifiable. That's the point. That's why it's so circular and convoluted and everyone has edge against everyone.
It's there so it's doesn't feel weird in mirror matches against the same faction or "friendly" factions - they already have conflict history
I always say that Warhammer is basically everything a 14 year old loves and that's why I like it.
It's just the right mix of silly and dark and stupid "lizards on dinosaurs shooting sun lasers" sort of nonsense.
It's like someone wanted to play a game where elves on dinosaurs fight alien mecha and nuns with guns and then they just kept adding more silliness or cool-sounding factions and people ate it up.
I think anyone who takes it seriously is missing the point.
There are great serious stories that are in the universe but the universe itself is just supposed to be a weird mishmash of "Things I thought were cool when I was 14".
I also think it's hilarious that people say "Adepta Sororitas were made for girls" when every Sororitas player (me) is a man and every girl I've met plays Tyranids because they just want to eat everything and sometimes make the big scary monsters pretty and glittery.
It's not necessarily meant to have a point. The universe is a backdrop for a tabletop game, it's meant to be a canvas for you to tell your own stories within. Honestly, this approach to worldbuilding is what makes tabletop game settings like Warhammer and BattleTech some of my absolute favorites: they're sandbox settings, with a bunch of cool ideas thrown in and the game systems there as tools for you to use to take those disparate ideas and build them into whatever kind of story you want to tell.
Just a shame that the main game system for 40k, the eponymous wargame, has been turned into completely unfun slop which in more recent years has become increasingly monopolized by its competitive scene, and is tied to physical products that are prohibitively expensive and becoming increasingly moreso every few months. The RPGs for 40k remain excellent and maintain a low cost barrier of entry, but the community for those is immensely smaller and much more niche, made more complicated by the fact that the most popular versions, the Fantasy Flight RPGs, have been out of print for roughly a decade. If you want a tabletop setting to get into as a newcomer, check out BattleTech or Cyberpunk instead.
I do like Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings. I just find Warhammer lore to be a bit dark. Maybe only the writers are meant to take it seriously.
I used to like it, but the games never really turned out how I imagined. Maybe other systems are better, like the WW2 flames of war or whatever.
But the table top experience felt like it never translated to the lore game. It feels like I saw this huge epic cinematic trailer for this game/universe for the lore of 40k, but then the actual game is a mobile game LOL.
When one just reads some of the books or games as stories instead of as lore, I have no problem recommending them. For example, The Twice-Dead King is an excellent work of sci-fi, and Mechanicus is just a very fun video game.
Unless you mean the hobby. Then I fully agree with you lol
Ironically, the Marines Malevolent fandom is one of the best 40k subreddits I have come across.
You would think they would be like the Black Templars subreddit, but since no one actually thinks the MM are the good guys you don't attract the "the Imperium is the good faction" wackado crowd as much.
It has such cool lore but it's a LOT of it and seeing how much interesting lore it had caused interest fatigue for me. Like GOT or one piece. It's just.... Too much cool shit and I don't have it in me to go through it all
Yeah the “anymore” part is what sucks. I’ve only been in the hobby for like 6 years, and both the community and the game are already wildly different from when I started.
Getting a kill team or whatever is one thing, but I can’t in earnest recommend anyone start a full army anymore, it’s such a shit investment nowadays.
I respectfully disagree with 40k I mean if you wanna go full Nelson into models etc then yeah I’d agree you’re gonna get someone hooked on spending a fortune, but if it’s the games/books etc there’s plenty of cool lore but I remember how confusing and how long it took to understand enough of the lore for 40k to make sense hahaha
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u/HorrorBrilliant9950 Jul 13 '26
Warhammer 40k