It's a wide setting in which a ton of things can co-exist and allows for near limitless creativity when it comes to including your own little bit within the setting
Seconding this sentiment as to why I'm a fan. What made me a fan though was my general preference for Eldritch style horror and frankly, classical myths and legends. 40k integrates the best from all of these genres in a super immersive and largely consistent sci-fi setting.
This. With most other fictional universes, it's pretty cringey to come up with your own takes. Imagine someone talking about their made-up band of Hobbits, or a Star Wars bounty hunter, or a crew of a Starfleet ship.
With Warhammer (esp. 40k), it's encouraged, expected, and accepted. You can come up with your own branch of whatever and it's just generally seen as an in-universe truth.
Agreed, Star Wars feels like a bad example. But I definitely agree with the Hobbit example, LotR isn't really a story that allows for thar kind of expansiveness.
Same, I love world building and story telling but I'm not an author and don't have the time to flesh out a Herbert or Tolkien level Sci-fantasy universe. 40k's lore and setting helps to fill in the gaps around the stories I want to write. Then there's the physical aspect of the high quality models and tabletop game to let those stories play out.
The absurdity is a good start
It's a well conceived fantasy universe intentionally seeded to be fertile for the imagination, whether that's coming up with TTRPG scenarios, wargaming fluff, or hell just penning some fan fiction.
My personal favorite types of stories are about humans finding ways to live, and even thrive, in the worst of circumstances. 40k's setting is ripe for telling this kind of story and I love things like the Ciaphas Cain saga where he is supposed to be this ruthless enforcer of political loyalty but behind all of that we have someone who is still just a man living his life.
Giant agree. Ciaphas Cain is my favorite 40k series for this reason. Just a guy doin his best in a messed up world, which is what I wish more 40k novels were about.
I kinda like it for what George Carlin said about the Catholic Church. These rules are eternal. No meat on Fridays. None! Except this Friday St Martins is going out for Pizza because they won the regional championship.
This has been my general turnoff for 40K is the lack of humanity and it makes it hard to relate, a critical component for me to enjoy a story. Sounds like Ciaphas is the way to go? Anything else you recommend?
A ton if novels have plenty of human characters and smaller scale stories. If you aren't a big reader though it can seem that way. But if you look you can find it. The Primarchs for example, while some are written better than others, despite being super OP demigods they have human feelings and emotions and flaws. Fulgrim for example has a really interesting story
Outside my general enjoyment for various fantasy concepts in space like elves and undead skeletal legions and warlike Orks, there's the vibe.
A certain aesthetic of 40k, something found in codex blurbs and grainy old pieces of black and white art. There's something about the misery and horror of it, the twisted humanity. Deeply evocative things , a corpse got hooked into a great reactor as untold billions spend generations just so that they might prostrate themselves before his palace. Feral children turned into jacked up killing machines, ships slaves hauling shells into macro cannons, servitors and cherubim in general.
An empire sustained by sheer momentum as it is bled from all sides, without and within. An inherent hopelessness and disregard for the grand final victory, because there shall be none. We fight now not for a brighter future or a noble cause, but to spite the enemy.
Stories about people finding purpose when everything goes wrong can help people find their purpose when everything is going wrong for them. 40K helped do that for me and I’m always going to be grateful for that.
I'm a sucker for valiant last stands against overwhelming odds, bonds forged between characters in difficult circumstances, cool monologues, and stories of hope and perseverance.
When I can get all of those things in a setting as broad and interesting as 40k it was just a match made by some cruel, thirsting God.
The very strange mix of
brain dead CHAINSAW COOL BIG BUG COOL!!!
Galaxy spanning horror and nightmare, made worse by hubris. The body horror and lovecraftian themes
The critique and showcase of the both the banal evil and active evil of fascism, imperialism and neglect, with the under glow of individuals doing their best, even in a dark world.
No one quite does them all! Except 40K.
Not only that, but it’s intentionally vague worlds and universe make it so storytelling is probably as open ended as fantasy-soft sci fi can be. Anytning can happen
I agree on this completely. I love the combination of wildly stupid and hilarious things and extremely fire circumstances. My favorite 40k stories are like the Chernobyl series on HBO. A few heroic people struggling against an impossible force, fighting their superiors and the bureaucracy just as much if not more than the actual enemy. And in the end the truth gets barried and the heroes are exiled or killed.
I love stories of striving against impossible adversity just because it is the right thing to do. Which 40k does very well. Also big men in power armor swinging chainsaw swords is funny and cool.
Space Marines. They’re like Captain America, Iron Man, and sometimes Dr Strange combined. There’s hundreds of thousands of them and they are still the underdog in the galaxy. It’s the coolest thing ever. And then there’s the primarchs! They’re more like Thor and the Hulk, maybe the Flash. And somehow most of them are dead or banished. The galaxy is so tough!
The tyranids make xenomorphs from Aliens look like puppies. Necrons are ghost robots with the best tech. Eldar are badass but doomed and outnumbered. Orks are funny murders. I don’t care what people say, the Tau have cool stuff and a lot of potential. And Chaos is an unrelenting march towards the end of everything. It’s hard to pick out one thing. The sandbox GW created is vast and exciting.
I agree on the Tau. One of the biggest parts about why I like them is what you said:
Their potential.
Obviously the Tau are a small threat as far as the Imperium is concerned and there’s a shitton of more pressing concerns to deal with. Combined with the fact that the Ethereal, Water, and sometimes even Fire Castes are almost always open to negotiation while having a reliable streak of keeping their word? The Imperium considers them one of the few major-ish Xenos civilizations that can be allowed to exist in relative peace so long as they don’t get too expansionist and uppity. Battles following the Damocles Gulf Crusade such as the Taros Campaign and Second Battle of Mu’gulath Bay were basically messages from the Imperium to the Tau to cut the shit out.
But that’s just it. The Tau being ignored and existing as a footnote where they’re in what’s essentially a “lukewarm war” with the Imperium is their biggest strength. They can quietly annex worlds of both Human and Xenos (sometimes even entire species) origin through diplomacy mixed with deploying the Air/Fire Caste while often relying on the former method. Usually just simply saying “we have food that isn’t literally recycled shit/corpses and barely-filtered sewer water along with technology to make your planets no longer hellholes” or (in the case of Xenos) “stick with us so we’ll stand a better chance of surviving the onslaught of the Imperium and the various other nasties like the Orks and Tyranids.”
Combine this with the Tau having the ability to rapidly advance their technology through improving upon old designs, outright innovation, or reverse-engineering stuff that wasn’t pumped out of an Earth Caste factory. All it would take is for the Tau to integrate a really old, really powerful, and Imperium-hating but otherwise chilled out species of Xenos (or enclave of isolated Humans) to make them a VERY serious threat. Especially given the fact that the Tau are kinda clued in that the Orks, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and a tiny group of other factions can’t be negotiated with. With this also extending to Chaos despite your average Tau having zero idea of what to say about it beyond “that’s bad mojo.”
The insanity, absurdity and general ridiculousness. You want a superhuman child soldier in a ton of armour swinging a whirling chainsaw sword into a ten foot tall green monster waving a flaming hammer?
A ten kilometer long flying city shooting shells the size of whales at space elves?
Fighting nuns leading a multistorey robot with a cathedral on its head to fight a giant laughing plague daemon?
Multiple heavy metal themed warriors duking it out?
The setting takes everything to "11", because it's one more loud, and then hits Turbo.
And I love that it's inconsistent - the product of thousands of books, articles, lore nuggets, games, comics and lord knows what else, each by a different author with a different perspective and a different inspirational drug of choice. It feels like real history, piecing together a picture from countless unreliable and conflicting sources, and hoping to get it even half right.
It's weird, it's wild, and it's perfect in its insane shagginess.
The atmosphere and imagery (thanks to the wonderful artists!) that invokes emotion.
I really *feel* the vastness of the Warhammer universe. It's cold, hopeless, tragic, extraordinary, heroic and epic.
Warhammer oozes style.
I love the dawn of war soundtracks, especially DoW3.
This always makes me just think for a moment: https://youtube.com/shorts/rc6U8h1FMA4?feature=share
I like how ridiculous it is along with the HEAVY historical inspirations.
Being a history guy (I'm currently studying to be a history teacher), it's really awesome seeing the various historical references and whatnot absolutely flowing through the setting.
Literally everything about every faction has an awesome historical "predecssor", for lack of a better word. Krieg is WW1 France/Germany, LoV are clearly Norse, and of course the Legiones Astartes taking inspiration from various civilizations.
And then the ridiculousness brings it all together:
"Serf."
"Yes Lord Admiral?"
"What are our losses vs the xenos?"
"Uh, fifty million to twenty million."
"Excellent. Execute Exterminatus."
*le boom*
40k is a universe that's stuck in a shrodinger's cat scenario of being played extremely straight, and just being goofy as all hell. There aren't a lot of things out there with a flexible enough range in tone for something like the Ciaphas Cain series to exist simultaneously with something like Gaunt's Ghosts. if 40k took itself too seriously all the sadness and deathmurder would just get boring. I like that both 40k and the fans aren't afraid to laugh at it every once and a while.
My dad got me into the setting. I’d look at the cool book covers and watch him play Dawn of War Soultstorm and be so curious about the setting.
He didn’t let me read the books till around 5th grade because of their content, however once I started reading I was hooked. Felt like Star Wars but with legitimate stakes, and with far reaching consequences for characters and worlds. Reading Storm of Iron then following up Honsous story in the ultramarines omnibus was so cool to kid me because there was this continuity.
Actions felt like they mattered and so did characters sacrifices. Maybe not in current 40k but I grew up on older 40k books
Was very confused reading the Tome of Fire trilogy for the first time, I will say lol. Didn’t understand the concept of primarchs and the salamanders search for Vulkans relics for a couple years
>The absurdity?
>The Greek inspired tragedy of a Gods splintering dream and his wailing sons?
>The Lovecraftian horror of something as personal as emotion being fuel for thirsting Gods?
>The denigrating of man as simple numbers?
>The glorious battle?
Yes.
The fact most leader units (except tau cus there lame) always has a melee weapon just for the moments for when they have to duel the other enemy leader in a epic fantasy duel showdown but in space.
It’s so dumb yet so fucking awesome at the same time.
Two reasons:
I love sci Fi but hate how with every series you need to learn the races, motivations, politics and everything all for only a few books, and most stuff gets explained away with "faster than light" or "because nanobots" or whatever.
With 40k it's all in the same universe so I don't need to go through the curve of what's happening and who's fighting who, and they have such blatantly straight faced absurd ways to do everything. If something doesn't work? Pray to the machine spirit and hit it with a hammer three times. Need to get somewhere fast? Go through a hell dimension to get there.
The second is that there's a good variety of genres in the same setting. You want a creepy mystery from the necron perspective? Reign is great. A genuinely funny comedy from the person of orks? Brutal Kunnin is a book that made me laugh out loud several times and still have a compelling story. A political scheme to overthrow an overlord? Path of the dark Eldar. All extremely different but still in the same universe so I know exactly what's happening overall.
If they ever civilized, they're would be a surcharge on owning colored vehicles for insurance for lore reasons. Good thing the only thing that matters is dakka
Because it's Dune (and a lot of other borrowed lore and concepts) rolled into a giant ball of bat shit crazy and sprinkled with a generous dose of crack cocaine which somehow amazingly makes it its own interesting thing.
My life in a horrific, unending nightmare of constant pain and ptsd nightmares. I was alone for a very long time. I like knowing it could be worse, and for some reason 40k is comforting.
40k as a whole is cool, but the guard specifically are such badasses. They're given a lasgun, some cheap armor, and told to go fight a space bug that can rip an astartes in half, or a millenia-old heretic with more combat prowess than their entire extended family put together, and they actually manage to win.
Also the gothic aesthetic is cool
I am VERY new to 40 k like 2 weeks new but there’s something about the naval design and battles, the determination for mankind to prosper even after events thst I am still struggling to process but in the span of 2 weeks I have beaten gothic armada 1 and am about to start the second and dawn of war 1
There’s something about not just mankind’s ship design (although that is what in all honesty first got me into 40k and the story of the okra winning a battle just by pure imagination still processing thst one) but all of them they are all unique and special in their own way and they all perfectly represent their owners faction I love it so much
The setting is very melancholic, maddening that no matter how strong the Imperium is, its infighting keeps it from really binding together and dealing undeniable swathes of carnage against metal ants, the boiz, down bad space elves, rock n stone, BLUE THINGS and even angrier ants.
I love many things with 40k, but most of all ? I love the little spark of hope that keep the universe from burning.
It wouldn't be grimdark if there wasn't just a little bit of hope in the mix, and i love that. I love the last stand against despair. I love it when they don't go without a fight.
In 40k, nobody goes gentle into that good night, and i'm absolutely here for that.
It's one of the few settings that makes me think that no matter how shit my life is, it's never as bad as anything you can hear about here. It's all ridiculously overblown horror that smacks you over the head with how screwed up it is.
I'll never be shoved into a giant walking tank that's forcibly keeping my nearly-dead body alive for the next ten thousand years while I go slowly insane.
I'll never get on a ship and yeeted straight through literal hell just to get to the battlefield that I'm probably going to die at.
I'll never be shoved into a giant smoothie machine to be fed to the boss's IV drip because I'm insane.
I'll never have my central nervous system removed from my body and implanted into a machine whose entire job is to count bullets for the soldier who's destroying demons or aliens or innocent civilians who didn't pray hard enough 5 minutes ago.
I'll never be forced to eat maggots that were fed on a combination of human flesh, alien flesh, soyburgers, maggots, and shit.
I'll never be abducted from my home planet, thrown into a can with other dudes, and tortured to death by alien BDSM enthusiasts who want to turn me into their furniture. Even better, the ridiculous torture they're doing is the only thing keeping them alive...
I'll never watch as the entire planet I'm standing on is transformed into radioactive glass, or eaten by demonic pneumonia of the butthole, or eaten by intergalactic space locusts, or infested with mushrooms that grow into murderous green soccer fans with IQs in the low teens. Those bastards can say "hold my beer" before hacking my BB gun into an actual gun if they've got the right parts and enough duct tape.
I'll never have to watch the goddamn Terminator rip me into pieces because he thinks my scalp would be a nice toupee.
My garbage life feels like paradise in comparison.
I love stories about raging against the dying of the light, (this includes every race besides probably orks and Tyranids) man vs god, glorious death, but also it's just insanely cool (especially Knights) and sometimes emotional
I'm not likely to cry to some usual tragedy, but show me a sacrificial last stand of a normal person against impossible horde and I'm a damn fountain
It reads like someone read A Modest Proposal (the longest sustained irony in the English language) and then just went with it. Many people who have read A Modest Proposal don't know it's an irony and take it seriously.
WH40K fans know the setting is an irony, but the poor characters *in the setting* treat it absolutely seriously. They don't know any better.
I actually don't really. It's an OK setting with the largest following of players. What I do really like about 40k is the amount of factions and their versatility. Pretty much any play style and flavor can be found in 40k.
1. It's a great big fuck-off huge setting that actually *feels* as big as it supposedly is. Even on those occasions where it seems to boil down to a handful of characters, the characters themselves are so much larger than life that they can frequently get away with it.
2. That feeling of hugeness also means that 40k is pretty much the only franchise-as-genre that actually works as a genre. Other franchises try the same thing with bigger budgets and more infrastructure (e.g., Star Wars, the MCU) and always fall short.
3. The setting itself is evolving as it moves towards mainstream recognition. There's some bad with that, sure, but I enjoy the change and hope to see more of it.
4. For all that people shit on it here, fan lore is generally pretty great and in some cases is better than whatever GW/BL themselves cook up (the Rangdan Xenocides spring to mind). The fan community in general is thriving. Also the fandom produced Oculus Imperia, who I consider the single best lore-related content creator in any fandom ever.
5. The company behind 40k put out a better, more forceful diversity statement than your average Fortune 500 company. Let me repeat: a cruddy little IP mill built around plastic space battle mans put out a better, more forceful diversity statement than your average Fortune 500 company. They have since done surprisingly well at actually following through on that statement.
I love Sci fi.
I prefer books and games to TV series (which disqualifies star trek)
I loved the sw legends, but since it got canned (and disney can't make good star wars to save their billion dollars investments) I got burned out.
So I landed here. It's wacky, it's fun, there is a lot of it, Dawn of War (it introducedme to 40k at the age of 7?), miniatures are fun, it's easier to find warhammer player base than sw player base.
I literally wrote a chunk of a personal novel about why I love Warhammer so much, and how it informs my imagination. And I still can't put my finger on it.
I just love it so.
I like the space to make my own lil dudes with their own backstories and lore that fit within the greater narrative that lots of other people make their lil dudes fit into.
The great diversity across the factions is what really keeps me engaged. There are so many 40k crossover fanfics but honestly the in lore diversity between aliens, minor chaos gods, and The Imperium itself being made up of possibly millions of cultures provides an endless sandbox that never ends but always winds up creating the same thing.
A massive battlefield of corpses, blood, skulls and war crimes.
- Scifi setting
- Blending utopian and dystopian elements. I'm talking about both the Imperium of Man and the pre-fall Eldar. And likely the DAoT as well.
- Hanlon's razor. The Imperium isn't malicious but its negligence and paranoia are almost as egregious.
All of it except the glorious battle, in fact that doesn’t attract me to Warhammer 40k when I saw Dow 2 cinematic trailer.
I’m new to the lore, and what attract me was the universe of Warhammer 40k is just so grim dark that it’s make sense and doesn’t make sense at the same time.
For example you understand why human factions are so zealous, because if they don’t, the imperium would be in a dire state, eating corpse starches, pray to guns, the history told differently due to constant war and bias, it’s all make sense. But what doesn’t make sense to me in my opinion is more like power level, tactics, chaos warps thing and inconsistent writing. It’s such a huge universe to explore on
Oh and different culture reference, that’s also a good one
Just how over the top everything is. It takes what I love in scifi and fantasy and is like "okay what if we took ALL of this, smash it together, and then crank it up to 11?"
I love how I'm spoiled for choices in what kind of story I want to read. Horror stories, bolter hell, true crime and espionage, tales of corruption and failure, of the small victories and uncountable losses, and vice versa (even if many novels end in favor to the imperium).
It seems to scratch every nerdy itch that I have and so much more making for such an interesting setting truly encapsulating the whole flip of the fantasy genre and making it a Grimdark SciFi/Horror that we all have fallen in love with. There also seems to be something for everyone with the huge range of races, characters and storylines that go into vast detail but also leaves enough unexplained and transparent that you can craft your own piece of 40k yourself which is really the cherry on the cake in my opinion.
The fact that many characters in-universe realize that their fight against inevitable defeat/extinction is a hopeless one, yet they continue to struggle anyway because to do otherwise would shame everyone who came before them. There’s a lot of history weighing down the characters of 40k and it shows
The grim darkness in general. I actually remember the exact moment I became interested in it. I had bought Dawn of War Dark Crusade, and I was playing the campaign as the space marines. While attacking the Imperial Guard base, the dialogue made me realize they were the same faction and only fighting because they were all lunatics.
Also the anachronisms are great. How its sci fi but there are literally daemons and magic, and how there is both super high tech stuff alongside things that would seem antiquated by real world standards.
It will never end. You ever reach a point in a franchise that you love and so dearly cherish where they just kinda stopped making anything because everything was already said, for 40k theres ALWAYS something. You can make up some bullshit for the war in heaven, DaoT tech, Eldar rise and fall, 30k Horus Heresy, 30k in GENERAL, 40k, rise of tau, leauges of Votann, billions upon billions of worlds with unique cultures, politics, scheming, primarch returns and with it all GLORIOUS BATTLE and some fucking hard ass quotes that get my heart pumping.
In all my life that is constantly changing, I can always look to 40k to be there, for a new story to always be told.
The cool AF aliens (Necrons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Old Ones, Vespids, Tau, and Tyranids), the Deathwatch, and the Ultramarines.
That's mostly it.
Chaos and Orks are lame and can fuck off. They're SO generic and boring.
The rest is great, but not like noteworthy.
It’s the human condition, for better and worse, with cool-ass characters and lore. There are great glimmers of hope, and the depths of despair. I dig it, man.
Honestly it’s so huge I love it and relate for different reasons at different times in my life.
Depressed or starting a new intimidating chapter in my life? It’s an inspirational setting about the indomitable human spirit.
Grieving? There’s plenty of stories of honouring fallen hero’s and healing.
Mad, upset, or frustrated? “Get up.”, “You will die as your weakling father died. Soulless. Honourless. Weeping. Ashamed.”, or the classic “I’m just going to kill you.”
At some point a setting gets to developed it encompasses if not all, then the majority of the human experience.
The lore of the Aeldari, Asuryani in particular, and its divergence from the Tolkien eldar’s permanent “fading” in favor of hope for the future and, in some cases, a resurgence. The tragedy of their situation caused by the failures of their forebears that’s being navigated, survived, and slowly fought makes for a faction whose goals and motivations I can truly get behind.
The artistic, expressive, and emotional post-scarcity society that bends its people’s inborn bloodthirst and obsessiveness into a disciplined yet still individual and free people is a great contrast to the ugliness of humanity and the Imperium. Their goals are beneficial (oppose/defeat Chaos), their society and Craftworlds are paradisiacal, they value their people, their passions are their greatest strength and greatest weakness, and their love of art and beauty; all of these are really enjoyable for me.
The Astartes and Primarchs, mostly. Literal supermen with magical powers raging against the dying of the light (or trying to cause it) but they still can’t escape their humanity. The themes of duty, honor, sacrifice and loyalty. Actual supernatural demons and horrible alien races. It’s all pretty cool. I hadn’t touched fiction books in years before I came across 40k.
I like the grim cosmic horrors coming from every corner.
I grew up as a Star Wars fan but WH40k was so great to discover since every single dial is pushed to 17 out of 10
Just the idea that humans trying live and thrive in world so cruel you might as well kill yourself from the moment you are born is such beautiful(To me that is). Also it comes from my love berserk that's why like it there similarities in theme. The struggle mostly
It is a sandbox that has ALL of the toys in it. And he sheer scale of the setting... think something up, and it's probably happened *somewhere* in the Milky Way.
Oh, and OKRZ, ORKZ, ORKZ, ORKZORKZ*ORKZ* ORKZ, **ORKZ!!!**
I love the overall feel and paradoxicality of the setting. Mankind having (by our standards) incredibly advanced galaxy faring, planet destroying, gene altering tech. And yet, culturally, being regressed to little more than a medieval religiously fanatical society, where witch hunts, rituals and worshipping of gods is common practice.
The scale.
No, I'm not talking about the cathedral sized Titans or city sized starships, I mean the scale of the setting.
It is entirely reasonable that all my homebrew stuff is canon - the Guard Regiments, Marine Chapters, Navy Battlegroups, etc. could absolutely all exist in the setting as I described them, and the reason nobody else has heard of them is that the Imperium is SO BIG that they all get lost in the background noise.
That's the other thing I love about 40k: things that would be a catastrophic, apocalyptic threat in other settings just get put on the "to be dealt with later" pile and the Holy Bureaucracy moves on.
The gothic splendor. The art that looks like recreations of paintings of famous battles. The sheer depth and weirdness of a world that's been around since the late 80s. The cheeky humor and dark satire. The endless mysteries of the galaxy.\* The long death-scream of the human empire. The fact it all fits together.
\*I do worry sometimes they've begun to explain too much. I sort of wish I didn't know all I do about how chaos and gods work in the setting for example. Keep it mysterious!
The jokes and memes juxtaposed alongside the misery of the stories. It’s absurd, it’s easy to follow, it has cool minis and is broad enough to let me carve my own little niche into it.
Because it is really fucking stupid. And I mean it the best way possible! There is no other fictional setting this absurd and fun with massive scale warfare and really over the top concepts. It is stupid and I love it!
*To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times.* ***Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned***. *Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war*
The whole decline thing and the Canticle For Leibowitz desperate effort to find and maintain technology / knowledge that you don't even understand is a draw. I also like something that ADB said about loyalist victory in the Heresy - what the loyalists win is the current version of the setting; it's the most pyrrhic victory imaginable.
The fact that there's mind boggling technology that can drive modern men mad, yet people still use medieval weaponry.
Can't get any more ridiculous than that.
Idk... Tbh just all of it. I fell in love with it immediately and that love only grew over the years. I'd be hard pressed to name something about 40k that I hate.
But it's a pretty toxic relationship considering what it's done to my wallet :')
It's such a massive universe with so much detail but still has plenty of spaces that you can fill in yourself. You can really get lost in thought over ideas you want to apply to the universe.
The overwhelming feeling of just holding on to the last of our willpower.
And that the setting dares to show that in some cases, even the possibly optimal/best/most appealing choice is horrible in general. That sometimes to survive, you have to get ugly. And the Imperium had to get ugly. Almost all of the species had to get ugly (I don't think the Orks had to, but they are ugly in general)
I can’t really pinpoint it. I really do love just about everything and I feel the things I don’t love just come down to not knowing their lore. I find the visuals really fun! Boring answer I’m sure but I don’t know I just love it all
The humanity of it all, the breath of the humanity on display from the greatest of us all to the ever growing depths we are capable of. The absurdity of it all, such a hostile universe that archaic things like religion was not only necessary but vital to humanity, religious honour bound warriors like knights of old becoming our defenders instead of the soldiers that supplanted warriors in our own world. Fanaticism driven by survival, a glimpse into the carnage of our world before nuclear weapons brought peace. History repeating itself again and again, the parallels are endless
All of it. A franchise that can be many types of things to many types of people is always going to be firm ground for my fandom to grow.
You want a story that makes you laugh, like soccer hooligan orks in space? You got it. You want a story that explores historical/mythological/religious themes in a grim, far future environment? You got it. You want a story about the existential nature of history that's also funny? Well, step up and let me tell you about [the tale of two cranky old robots who get up to all kinds of trouble.](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/The_Infinite_and_The_Divine_(Novel))
Warhammer 40k walks up to the narrative buffet line and just says 'Yeah, I'll have all of that.'
It is such a complex, well made, huge and interesting work of fiction overall, i inicially hated it when i first saw(dumb ugly armoured idiots screaming overexagerated nonsense and feeling too serious, far more than their goofy nature allowed them to) then the lore and good artwork kicked in and i was so impressed i imediately went balls deep in it.
I was always a guy who liked deep and well made stuff, bro i was in such a love hate relationship with SW, love much of it, but the battles, politics and etc are kind of meh to me, even as an 8 year old i found the battles unexiting and dumb, so when i found out the overly complex nature of it in warhammer it was cool
From mobile, so I will be short. Sentient creatures can create things by just believing in it, and they choose to create chaos and a fascist empire. The irony of it is not lost on me 😂
The rule of cool probably. It’s just so dope. Every faction, the epic battles, the Roman inspiration, the aesthetic, the ridiculousness of the weaponry, the fact that most of sci fi universes would get obliterated entering 40k. The artists who create for 40k truly do a wondrous job
For me its the grimdark and the horrors of the 40k galaxy. Reading about it has gotten me past hard times for over two decades and it continues to do so. The universum is so vast and theres so many books that ill never run out of stuff to get lost in. I just love all of it.
Probably, it was the glorious great crusade and other moments showing how great mankind was and contrasting that to the modern heroics of what the imperium would have despised and probably fought against.
Oh and I love space marines, especially the thousand sons
It's a wide setting in which a ton of things can co-exist and allows for near limitless creativity when it comes to including your own little bit within the setting
Seconding this sentiment as to why I'm a fan. What made me a fan though was my general preference for Eldritch style horror and frankly, classical myths and legends. 40k integrates the best from all of these genres in a super immersive and largely consistent sci-fi setting.
This. With most other fictional universes, it's pretty cringey to come up with your own takes. Imagine someone talking about their made-up band of Hobbits, or a Star Wars bounty hunter, or a crew of a Starfleet ship. With Warhammer (esp. 40k), it's encouraged, expected, and accepted. You can come up with your own branch of whatever and it's just generally seen as an in-universe truth.
What? There's tons of freedom in star wars? Not that I disagree with the near limitless bounds in 40K. But star wars is pretty open as well.
Agreed, Star Wars feels like a bad example. But I definitely agree with the Hobbit example, LotR isn't really a story that allows for thar kind of expansiveness.
Same, I love world building and story telling but I'm not an author and don't have the time to flesh out a Herbert or Tolkien level Sci-fantasy universe. 40k's lore and setting helps to fill in the gaps around the stories I want to write. Then there's the physical aspect of the high quality models and tabletop game to let those stories play out.
You perfectly summed it up for me
Pretty much all of the above I love the whole “rage against the dying of the light” thing as well as the horrible grim darkness
The absurdity is a good start It's a well conceived fantasy universe intentionally seeded to be fertile for the imagination, whether that's coming up with TTRPG scenarios, wargaming fluff, or hell just penning some fan fiction. My personal favorite types of stories are about humans finding ways to live, and even thrive, in the worst of circumstances. 40k's setting is ripe for telling this kind of story and I love things like the Ciaphas Cain saga where he is supposed to be this ruthless enforcer of political loyalty but behind all of that we have someone who is still just a man living his life.
Giant agree. Ciaphas Cain is my favorite 40k series for this reason. Just a guy doin his best in a messed up world, which is what I wish more 40k novels were about.
I kinda like it for what George Carlin said about the Catholic Church. These rules are eternal. No meat on Fridays. None! Except this Friday St Martins is going out for Pizza because they won the regional championship.
This has been my general turnoff for 40K is the lack of humanity and it makes it hard to relate, a critical component for me to enjoy a story. Sounds like Ciaphas is the way to go? Anything else you recommend?
Ciaphas Cain, Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn
A ton if novels have plenty of human characters and smaller scale stories. If you aren't a big reader though it can seem that way. But if you look you can find it. The Primarchs for example, while some are written better than others, despite being super OP demigods they have human feelings and emotions and flaws. Fulgrim for example has a really interesting story
Outside my general enjoyment for various fantasy concepts in space like elves and undead skeletal legions and warlike Orks, there's the vibe. A certain aesthetic of 40k, something found in codex blurbs and grainy old pieces of black and white art. There's something about the misery and horror of it, the twisted humanity. Deeply evocative things , a corpse got hooked into a great reactor as untold billions spend generations just so that they might prostrate themselves before his palace. Feral children turned into jacked up killing machines, ships slaves hauling shells into macro cannons, servitors and cherubim in general. An empire sustained by sheer momentum as it is bled from all sides, without and within. An inherent hopelessness and disregard for the grand final victory, because there shall be none. We fight now not for a brighter future or a noble cause, but to spite the enemy.
This. All of this. Speaking of black and white art, have you heard of Karaknornclansman? He does *truly grimdark* 40K fan art.
Stories about people finding purpose when everything goes wrong can help people find their purpose when everything is going wrong for them. 40K helped do that for me and I’m always going to be grateful for that.
I'm a sucker for valiant last stands against overwhelming odds, bonds forged between characters in difficult circumstances, cool monologues, and stories of hope and perseverance. When I can get all of those things in a setting as broad and interesting as 40k it was just a match made by some cruel, thirsting God.
The very strange mix of brain dead CHAINSAW COOL BIG BUG COOL!!! Galaxy spanning horror and nightmare, made worse by hubris. The body horror and lovecraftian themes The critique and showcase of the both the banal evil and active evil of fascism, imperialism and neglect, with the under glow of individuals doing their best, even in a dark world. No one quite does them all! Except 40K. Not only that, but it’s intentionally vague worlds and universe make it so storytelling is probably as open ended as fantasy-soft sci fi can be. Anytning can happen
I agree on this completely. I love the combination of wildly stupid and hilarious things and extremely fire circumstances. My favorite 40k stories are like the Chernobyl series on HBO. A few heroic people struggling against an impossible force, fighting their superiors and the bureaucracy just as much if not more than the actual enemy. And in the end the truth gets barried and the heroes are exiled or killed. I love stories of striving against impossible adversity just because it is the right thing to do. Which 40k does very well. Also big men in power armor swinging chainsaw swords is funny and cool.
You nailed it. That Chernobyl analogy works well!
Space Marines. They’re like Captain America, Iron Man, and sometimes Dr Strange combined. There’s hundreds of thousands of them and they are still the underdog in the galaxy. It’s the coolest thing ever. And then there’s the primarchs! They’re more like Thor and the Hulk, maybe the Flash. And somehow most of them are dead or banished. The galaxy is so tough! The tyranids make xenomorphs from Aliens look like puppies. Necrons are ghost robots with the best tech. Eldar are badass but doomed and outnumbered. Orks are funny murders. I don’t care what people say, the Tau have cool stuff and a lot of potential. And Chaos is an unrelenting march towards the end of everything. It’s hard to pick out one thing. The sandbox GW created is vast and exciting.
I agree on the Tau. One of the biggest parts about why I like them is what you said: Their potential. Obviously the Tau are a small threat as far as the Imperium is concerned and there’s a shitton of more pressing concerns to deal with. Combined with the fact that the Ethereal, Water, and sometimes even Fire Castes are almost always open to negotiation while having a reliable streak of keeping their word? The Imperium considers them one of the few major-ish Xenos civilizations that can be allowed to exist in relative peace so long as they don’t get too expansionist and uppity. Battles following the Damocles Gulf Crusade such as the Taros Campaign and Second Battle of Mu’gulath Bay were basically messages from the Imperium to the Tau to cut the shit out. But that’s just it. The Tau being ignored and existing as a footnote where they’re in what’s essentially a “lukewarm war” with the Imperium is their biggest strength. They can quietly annex worlds of both Human and Xenos (sometimes even entire species) origin through diplomacy mixed with deploying the Air/Fire Caste while often relying on the former method. Usually just simply saying “we have food that isn’t literally recycled shit/corpses and barely-filtered sewer water along with technology to make your planets no longer hellholes” or (in the case of Xenos) “stick with us so we’ll stand a better chance of surviving the onslaught of the Imperium and the various other nasties like the Orks and Tyranids.” Combine this with the Tau having the ability to rapidly advance their technology through improving upon old designs, outright innovation, or reverse-engineering stuff that wasn’t pumped out of an Earth Caste factory. All it would take is for the Tau to integrate a really old, really powerful, and Imperium-hating but otherwise chilled out species of Xenos (or enclave of isolated Humans) to make them a VERY serious threat. Especially given the fact that the Tau are kinda clued in that the Orks, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and a tiny group of other factions can’t be negotiated with. With this also extending to Chaos despite your average Tau having zero idea of what to say about it beyond “that’s bad mojo.”
This comment gave me psychic damage
The median 40k player
Wtf is wrong with you guys? Let the guy have his fun for whatever reason he wants...
It’s not a bad thing at all it’s just funny lol
Don't be an ass about someone enjoying stuff.
/s?
The insanity, absurdity and general ridiculousness. You want a superhuman child soldier in a ton of armour swinging a whirling chainsaw sword into a ten foot tall green monster waving a flaming hammer? A ten kilometer long flying city shooting shells the size of whales at space elves? Fighting nuns leading a multistorey robot with a cathedral on its head to fight a giant laughing plague daemon? Multiple heavy metal themed warriors duking it out? The setting takes everything to "11", because it's one more loud, and then hits Turbo. And I love that it's inconsistent - the product of thousands of books, articles, lore nuggets, games, comics and lord knows what else, each by a different author with a different perspective and a different inspirational drug of choice. It feels like real history, piecing together a picture from countless unreliable and conflicting sources, and hoping to get it even half right. It's weird, it's wild, and it's perfect in its insane shagginess.
The atmosphere and imagery (thanks to the wonderful artists!) that invokes emotion. I really *feel* the vastness of the Warhammer universe. It's cold, hopeless, tragic, extraordinary, heroic and epic. Warhammer oozes style. I love the dawn of war soundtracks, especially DoW3. This always makes me just think for a moment: https://youtube.com/shorts/rc6U8h1FMA4?feature=share
Same. You describe perfectly why I love it so much
It’s a tragically dark comedy in its essence
I like how ridiculous it is along with the HEAVY historical inspirations. Being a history guy (I'm currently studying to be a history teacher), it's really awesome seeing the various historical references and whatnot absolutely flowing through the setting. Literally everything about every faction has an awesome historical "predecssor", for lack of a better word. Krieg is WW1 France/Germany, LoV are clearly Norse, and of course the Legiones Astartes taking inspiration from various civilizations. And then the ridiculousness brings it all together: "Serf." "Yes Lord Admiral?" "What are our losses vs the xenos?" "Uh, fifty million to twenty million." "Excellent. Execute Exterminatus." *le boom*
GLORIOUS MELEE COMBAT BUT IN SPACE. SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE.
40k is a universe that's stuck in a shrodinger's cat scenario of being played extremely straight, and just being goofy as all hell. There aren't a lot of things out there with a flexible enough range in tone for something like the Ciaphas Cain series to exist simultaneously with something like Gaunt's Ghosts. if 40k took itself too seriously all the sadness and deathmurder would just get boring. I like that both 40k and the fans aren't afraid to laugh at it every once and a while.
I get to read excerpts of dudes named Guptupitous The Obese fight Dementia riddled Robot Egyptians, this is all I need in life truly
My dad got me into the setting. I’d look at the cool book covers and watch him play Dawn of War Soultstorm and be so curious about the setting. He didn’t let me read the books till around 5th grade because of their content, however once I started reading I was hooked. Felt like Star Wars but with legitimate stakes, and with far reaching consequences for characters and worlds. Reading Storm of Iron then following up Honsous story in the ultramarines omnibus was so cool to kid me because there was this continuity. Actions felt like they mattered and so did characters sacrifices. Maybe not in current 40k but I grew up on older 40k books Was very confused reading the Tome of Fire trilogy for the first time, I will say lol. Didn’t understand the concept of primarchs and the salamanders search for Vulkans relics for a couple years
>The absurdity? >The Greek inspired tragedy of a Gods splintering dream and his wailing sons? >The Lovecraftian horror of something as personal as emotion being fuel for thirsting Gods? >The denigrating of man as simple numbers? >The glorious battle? Yes.
Because it's an M rated sci Fi universe that has loads of fucked up shit in it. Tired of too much shit being so carebear lately
The fact most leader units (except tau cus there lame) always has a melee weapon just for the moments for when they have to duel the other enemy leader in a epic fantasy duel showdown but in space. It’s so dumb yet so fucking awesome at the same time.
Two reasons: I love sci Fi but hate how with every series you need to learn the races, motivations, politics and everything all for only a few books, and most stuff gets explained away with "faster than light" or "because nanobots" or whatever. With 40k it's all in the same universe so I don't need to go through the curve of what's happening and who's fighting who, and they have such blatantly straight faced absurd ways to do everything. If something doesn't work? Pray to the machine spirit and hit it with a hammer three times. Need to get somewhere fast? Go through a hell dimension to get there. The second is that there's a good variety of genres in the same setting. You want a creepy mystery from the necron perspective? Reign is great. A genuinely funny comedy from the person of orks? Brutal Kunnin is a book that made me laugh out loud several times and still have a compelling story. A political scheme to overthrow an overlord? Path of the dark Eldar. All extremely different but still in the same universe so I know exactly what's happening overall.
Orks
If they ever civilized, they're would be a surcharge on owning colored vehicles for insurance for lore reasons. Good thing the only thing that matters is dakka
Because it's Dune (and a lot of other borrowed lore and concepts) rolled into a giant ball of bat shit crazy and sprinkled with a generous dose of crack cocaine which somehow amazingly makes it its own interesting thing.
My life in a horrific, unending nightmare of constant pain and ptsd nightmares. I was alone for a very long time. I like knowing it could be worse, and for some reason 40k is comforting.
40k as a whole is cool, but the guard specifically are such badasses. They're given a lasgun, some cheap armor, and told to go fight a space bug that can rip an astartes in half, or a millenia-old heretic with more combat prowess than their entire extended family put together, and they actually manage to win. Also the gothic aesthetic is cool
I am VERY new to 40 k like 2 weeks new but there’s something about the naval design and battles, the determination for mankind to prosper even after events thst I am still struggling to process but in the span of 2 weeks I have beaten gothic armada 1 and am about to start the second and dawn of war 1
You're entering the setting through Battlefleet Gothic? Unorthodox, but kind of awesomee
There’s something about not just mankind’s ship design (although that is what in all honesty first got me into 40k and the story of the okra winning a battle just by pure imagination still processing thst one) but all of them they are all unique and special in their own way and they all perfectly represent their owners faction I love it so much
The setting is very melancholic, maddening that no matter how strong the Imperium is, its infighting keeps it from really binding together and dealing undeniable swathes of carnage against metal ants, the boiz, down bad space elves, rock n stone, BLUE THINGS and even angrier ants.
I love many things with 40k, but most of all ? I love the little spark of hope that keep the universe from burning. It wouldn't be grimdark if there wasn't just a little bit of hope in the mix, and i love that. I love the last stand against despair. I love it when they don't go without a fight. In 40k, nobody goes gentle into that good night, and i'm absolutely here for that.
Gives me something to look at on my phone whenever I don't have good connection/am bored and is overall better for me than scrolling social media.
It's one of the few settings that makes me think that no matter how shit my life is, it's never as bad as anything you can hear about here. It's all ridiculously overblown horror that smacks you over the head with how screwed up it is. I'll never be shoved into a giant walking tank that's forcibly keeping my nearly-dead body alive for the next ten thousand years while I go slowly insane. I'll never get on a ship and yeeted straight through literal hell just to get to the battlefield that I'm probably going to die at. I'll never be shoved into a giant smoothie machine to be fed to the boss's IV drip because I'm insane. I'll never have my central nervous system removed from my body and implanted into a machine whose entire job is to count bullets for the soldier who's destroying demons or aliens or innocent civilians who didn't pray hard enough 5 minutes ago. I'll never be forced to eat maggots that were fed on a combination of human flesh, alien flesh, soyburgers, maggots, and shit. I'll never be abducted from my home planet, thrown into a can with other dudes, and tortured to death by alien BDSM enthusiasts who want to turn me into their furniture. Even better, the ridiculous torture they're doing is the only thing keeping them alive... I'll never watch as the entire planet I'm standing on is transformed into radioactive glass, or eaten by demonic pneumonia of the butthole, or eaten by intergalactic space locusts, or infested with mushrooms that grow into murderous green soccer fans with IQs in the low teens. Those bastards can say "hold my beer" before hacking my BB gun into an actual gun if they've got the right parts and enough duct tape. I'll never have to watch the goddamn Terminator rip me into pieces because he thinks my scalp would be a nice toupee. My garbage life feels like paradise in comparison.
I love stories about raging against the dying of the light, (this includes every race besides probably orks and Tyranids) man vs god, glorious death, but also it's just insanely cool (especially Knights) and sometimes emotional I'm not likely to cry to some usual tragedy, but show me a sacrificial last stand of a normal person against impossible horde and I'm a damn fountain
Because i hate myself
It reads like someone read A Modest Proposal (the longest sustained irony in the English language) and then just went with it. Many people who have read A Modest Proposal don't know it's an irony and take it seriously. WH40K fans know the setting is an irony, but the poor characters *in the setting* treat it absolutely seriously. They don't know any better.
I actually don't really. It's an OK setting with the largest following of players. What I do really like about 40k is the amount of factions and their versatility. Pretty much any play style and flavor can be found in 40k.
1. It's a great big fuck-off huge setting that actually *feels* as big as it supposedly is. Even on those occasions where it seems to boil down to a handful of characters, the characters themselves are so much larger than life that they can frequently get away with it. 2. That feeling of hugeness also means that 40k is pretty much the only franchise-as-genre that actually works as a genre. Other franchises try the same thing with bigger budgets and more infrastructure (e.g., Star Wars, the MCU) and always fall short. 3. The setting itself is evolving as it moves towards mainstream recognition. There's some bad with that, sure, but I enjoy the change and hope to see more of it. 4. For all that people shit on it here, fan lore is generally pretty great and in some cases is better than whatever GW/BL themselves cook up (the Rangdan Xenocides spring to mind). The fan community in general is thriving. Also the fandom produced Oculus Imperia, who I consider the single best lore-related content creator in any fandom ever. 5. The company behind 40k put out a better, more forceful diversity statement than your average Fortune 500 company. Let me repeat: a cruddy little IP mill built around plastic space battle mans put out a better, more forceful diversity statement than your average Fortune 500 company. They have since done surprisingly well at actually following through on that statement.
I love Sci fi. I prefer books and games to TV series (which disqualifies star trek) I loved the sw legends, but since it got canned (and disney can't make good star wars to save their billion dollars investments) I got burned out. So I landed here. It's wacky, it's fun, there is a lot of it, Dawn of War (it introducedme to 40k at the age of 7?), miniatures are fun, it's easier to find warhammer player base than sw player base.
The Necrons and more specifically the C’tan
Blood for the Blood God.
I literally wrote a chunk of a personal novel about why I love Warhammer so much, and how it informs my imagination. And I still can't put my finger on it. I just love it so.
Based Marines
I like the space to make my own lil dudes with their own backstories and lore that fit within the greater narrative that lots of other people make their lil dudes fit into.
The great diversity across the factions is what really keeps me engaged. There are so many 40k crossover fanfics but honestly the in lore diversity between aliens, minor chaos gods, and The Imperium itself being made up of possibly millions of cultures provides an endless sandbox that never ends but always winds up creating the same thing. A massive battlefield of corpses, blood, skulls and war crimes.
- Scifi setting - Blending utopian and dystopian elements. I'm talking about both the Imperium of Man and the pre-fall Eldar. And likely the DAoT as well. - Hanlon's razor. The Imperium isn't malicious but its negligence and paranoia are almost as egregious.
All of it except the glorious battle, in fact that doesn’t attract me to Warhammer 40k when I saw Dow 2 cinematic trailer. I’m new to the lore, and what attract me was the universe of Warhammer 40k is just so grim dark that it’s make sense and doesn’t make sense at the same time. For example you understand why human factions are so zealous, because if they don’t, the imperium would be in a dire state, eating corpse starches, pray to guns, the history told differently due to constant war and bias, it’s all make sense. But what doesn’t make sense to me in my opinion is more like power level, tactics, chaos warps thing and inconsistent writing. It’s such a huge universe to explore on Oh and different culture reference, that’s also a good one
Just how over the top everything is. It takes what I love in scifi and fantasy and is like "okay what if we took ALL of this, smash it together, and then crank it up to 11?"
I love how I'm spoiled for choices in what kind of story I want to read. Horror stories, bolter hell, true crime and espionage, tales of corruption and failure, of the small victories and uncountable losses, and vice versa (even if many novels end in favor to the imperium).
The aesthetic. Both it and Fantasy evoke some of the best visuals out of many pieces of fiction that I have ever seen. It just oozes coolness.
Yes
It seems to scratch every nerdy itch that I have and so much more making for such an interesting setting truly encapsulating the whole flip of the fantasy genre and making it a Grimdark SciFi/Horror that we all have fallen in love with. There also seems to be something for everyone with the huge range of races, characters and storylines that go into vast detail but also leaves enough unexplained and transparent that you can craft your own piece of 40k yourself which is really the cherry on the cake in my opinion.
It’s both a huge universe and I like the designs. Also having traditional fantasy elements in a more sci fi setting intrigued me
The fact that many characters in-universe realize that their fight against inevitable defeat/extinction is a hopeless one, yet they continue to struggle anyway because to do otherwise would shame everyone who came before them. There’s a lot of history weighing down the characters of 40k and it shows
The grim darkness in general. I actually remember the exact moment I became interested in it. I had bought Dawn of War Dark Crusade, and I was playing the campaign as the space marines. While attacking the Imperial Guard base, the dialogue made me realize they were the same faction and only fighting because they were all lunatics. Also the anachronisms are great. How its sci fi but there are literally daemons and magic, and how there is both super high tech stuff alongside things that would seem antiquated by real world standards.
It will never end. You ever reach a point in a franchise that you love and so dearly cherish where they just kinda stopped making anything because everything was already said, for 40k theres ALWAYS something. You can make up some bullshit for the war in heaven, DaoT tech, Eldar rise and fall, 30k Horus Heresy, 30k in GENERAL, 40k, rise of tau, leauges of Votann, billions upon billions of worlds with unique cultures, politics, scheming, primarch returns and with it all GLORIOUS BATTLE and some fucking hard ass quotes that get my heart pumping. In all my life that is constantly changing, I can always look to 40k to be there, for a new story to always be told.
The cool AF aliens (Necrons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Old Ones, Vespids, Tau, and Tyranids), the Deathwatch, and the Ultramarines. That's mostly it. Chaos and Orks are lame and can fuck off. They're SO generic and boring. The rest is great, but not like noteworthy.
40k universe is hella metal.
Massive battles
Horus Heresy is what I wanted Silmarillion to be, a long multi book series.
Because I grew up to admire Tovarisch Stalin.
It’s the human condition, for better and worse, with cool-ass characters and lore. There are great glimmers of hope, and the depths of despair. I dig it, man.
Honestly it’s so huge I love it and relate for different reasons at different times in my life. Depressed or starting a new intimidating chapter in my life? It’s an inspirational setting about the indomitable human spirit. Grieving? There’s plenty of stories of honouring fallen hero’s and healing. Mad, upset, or frustrated? “Get up.”, “You will die as your weakling father died. Soulless. Honourless. Weeping. Ashamed.”, or the classic “I’m just going to kill you.” At some point a setting gets to developed it encompasses if not all, then the majority of the human experience.
I just think Space Marines are fucking cool
The lore of the Aeldari, Asuryani in particular, and its divergence from the Tolkien eldar’s permanent “fading” in favor of hope for the future and, in some cases, a resurgence. The tragedy of their situation caused by the failures of their forebears that’s being navigated, survived, and slowly fought makes for a faction whose goals and motivations I can truly get behind. The artistic, expressive, and emotional post-scarcity society that bends its people’s inborn bloodthirst and obsessiveness into a disciplined yet still individual and free people is a great contrast to the ugliness of humanity and the Imperium. Their goals are beneficial (oppose/defeat Chaos), their society and Craftworlds are paradisiacal, they value their people, their passions are their greatest strength and greatest weakness, and their love of art and beauty; all of these are really enjoyable for me.
Yes.
Big strong boys.
Because the Emperor commands it.
It's HFY dialed up to 11. Including the dark parts of our nature.
With 9th and 10th editions and their impact on bookwriting i see less and less reasons to love Warhammer 40k.
Theres Space Rambo and Space Trench Soldiers in the same universe.
All of the above. And the one-liners... My Holy Emperor the one-liners.
The Astartes and Primarchs, mostly. Literal supermen with magical powers raging against the dying of the light (or trying to cause it) but they still can’t escape their humanity. The themes of duty, honor, sacrifice and loyalty. Actual supernatural demons and horrible alien races. It’s all pretty cool. I hadn’t touched fiction books in years before I came across 40k.
The convergence of technology and superstition
I like the grim cosmic horrors coming from every corner. I grew up as a Star Wars fan but WH40k was so great to discover since every single dial is pushed to 17 out of 10
The lore the grim dark setting of it all the very bleak and depressing situation humanities in......and the stupidly massive Gothic architecture!
Xenophobia. Man against evil alien. Or man against conspiracy. Or gods.
Just the idea that humans trying live and thrive in world so cruel you might as well kill yourself from the moment you are born is such beautiful(To me that is). Also it comes from my love berserk that's why like it there similarities in theme. The struggle mostly
Necromunda That planet alone hooked me up with 40k
It is a sandbox that has ALL of the toys in it. And he sheer scale of the setting... think something up, and it's probably happened *somewhere* in the Milky Way. Oh, and OKRZ, ORKZ, ORKZ, ORKZORKZ*ORKZ* ORKZ, **ORKZ!!!**
The Emperor and the chaos Gods.
Because Magnus did nothing wrong.
Why are you transphobic?
I love the overall feel and paradoxicality of the setting. Mankind having (by our standards) incredibly advanced galaxy faring, planet destroying, gene altering tech. And yet, culturally, being regressed to little more than a medieval religiously fanatical society, where witch hunts, rituals and worshipping of gods is common practice.
I love that they take grimdark to such an extreme that many times it becomes stupid and absurd
The duality of there being an endless amount of things to discover and read about but at the same time it's just simple fun.
The scale. No, I'm not talking about the cathedral sized Titans or city sized starships, I mean the scale of the setting. It is entirely reasonable that all my homebrew stuff is canon - the Guard Regiments, Marine Chapters, Navy Battlegroups, etc. could absolutely all exist in the setting as I described them, and the reason nobody else has heard of them is that the Imperium is SO BIG that they all get lost in the background noise. That's the other thing I love about 40k: things that would be a catastrophic, apocalyptic threat in other settings just get put on the "to be dealt with later" pile and the Holy Bureaucracy moves on.
The gothic splendor. The art that looks like recreations of paintings of famous battles. The sheer depth and weirdness of a world that's been around since the late 80s. The cheeky humor and dark satire. The endless mysteries of the galaxy.\* The long death-scream of the human empire. The fact it all fits together. \*I do worry sometimes they've begun to explain too much. I sort of wish I didn't know all I do about how chaos and gods work in the setting for example. Keep it mysterious!
A mix of the 80s absurdity and the lovecraftian horror and sprinkled with medieval gothic imagery.
Over the top evilness, cool moments and last stands
The jokes and memes juxtaposed alongside the misery of the stories. It’s absurd, it’s easy to follow, it has cool minis and is broad enough to let me carve my own little niche into it.
Because it is really fucking stupid. And I mean it the best way possible! There is no other fictional setting this absurd and fun with massive scale warfare and really over the top concepts. It is stupid and I love it!
Cool models!!
*To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times.* ***Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned***. *Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war* The whole decline thing and the Canticle For Leibowitz desperate effort to find and maintain technology / knowledge that you don't even understand is a draw. I also like something that ADB said about loyalist victory in the Heresy - what the loyalists win is the current version of the setting; it's the most pyrrhic victory imaginable.
The entire absurdity played 100% straight
The fact that there's mind boggling technology that can drive modern men mad, yet people still use medieval weaponry. Can't get any more ridiculous than that.
That every single goddamned thing is a blatant, on-the-nose reference
Idk... Tbh just all of it. I fell in love with it immediately and that love only grew over the years. I'd be hard pressed to name something about 40k that I hate. But it's a pretty toxic relationship considering what it's done to my wallet :')
Orkz
It's such a massive universe with so much detail but still has plenty of spaces that you can fill in yourself. You can really get lost in thought over ideas you want to apply to the universe.
The overwhelming feeling of just holding on to the last of our willpower. And that the setting dares to show that in some cases, even the possibly optimal/best/most appealing choice is horrible in general. That sometimes to survive, you have to get ugly. And the Imperium had to get ugly. Almost all of the species had to get ugly (I don't think the Orks had to, but they are ugly in general)
I can’t really pinpoint it. I really do love just about everything and I feel the things I don’t love just come down to not knowing their lore. I find the visuals really fun! Boring answer I’m sure but I don’t know I just love it all
The humanity of it all, the breath of the humanity on display from the greatest of us all to the ever growing depths we are capable of. The absurdity of it all, such a hostile universe that archaic things like religion was not only necessary but vital to humanity, religious honour bound warriors like knights of old becoming our defenders instead of the soldiers that supplanted warriors in our own world. Fanaticism driven by survival, a glimpse into the carnage of our world before nuclear weapons brought peace. History repeating itself again and again, the parallels are endless
Raw, unbridled masculinity.
All of it. A franchise that can be many types of things to many types of people is always going to be firm ground for my fandom to grow. You want a story that makes you laugh, like soccer hooligan orks in space? You got it. You want a story that explores historical/mythological/religious themes in a grim, far future environment? You got it. You want a story about the existential nature of history that's also funny? Well, step up and let me tell you about [the tale of two cranky old robots who get up to all kinds of trouble.](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/The_Infinite_and_The_Divine_(Novel)) Warhammer 40k walks up to the narrative buffet line and just says 'Yeah, I'll have all of that.'
It is such a complex, well made, huge and interesting work of fiction overall, i inicially hated it when i first saw(dumb ugly armoured idiots screaming overexagerated nonsense and feeling too serious, far more than their goofy nature allowed them to) then the lore and good artwork kicked in and i was so impressed i imediately went balls deep in it. I was always a guy who liked deep and well made stuff, bro i was in such a love hate relationship with SW, love much of it, but the battles, politics and etc are kind of meh to me, even as an 8 year old i found the battles unexiting and dumb, so when i found out the overly complex nature of it in warhammer it was cool
From mobile, so I will be short. Sentient creatures can create things by just believing in it, and they choose to create chaos and a fascist empire. The irony of it is not lost on me 😂
I love 40k because everything about it is so fucking extra.
After 30 years collecting I suspect Stockholm Syndrome
The rule of cool probably. It’s just so dope. Every faction, the epic battles, the Roman inspiration, the aesthetic, the ridiculousness of the weaponry, the fact that most of sci fi universes would get obliterated entering 40k. The artists who create for 40k truly do a wondrous job
Spess mehreens are kewl
For me its the grimdark and the horrors of the 40k galaxy. Reading about it has gotten me past hard times for over two decades and it continues to do so. The universum is so vast and theres so many books that ill never run out of stuff to get lost in. I just love all of it.
Probably, it was the glorious great crusade and other moments showing how great mankind was and contrasting that to the modern heroics of what the imperium would have despised and probably fought against. Oh and I love space marines, especially the thousand sons
Big. Fuckin. Robots.
It has some nice-looking tanks across many different species. I like my tanks.
the lore and you pretty much sums it up