Can someone explain to me what Warhammer 40K is?

Can someone explain to me what Warhammer 40K is?

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Edge

What do you mean by this

全然魔道

youtube.com/watch?v=pcYrTCGKyrU

It's gay

A 30 year old setting where everything is grim and dark. And there is only war.
Essentially, a mix of Starship Troopers, Dredd, Dark Fantasy, with Hooligan Orks and holier than thou Elves.
At the start, a basic wargame that expanded.

Play DoW1 and 2, Space Marine, and you will get a decent entry point in the series.
There are a ton of books if that's your thing.

What's the gist of the story?

There isn't really one. A bunch of different races are at war with each other. All of them want to conquare the galaxy for some reason or another. The end.

...

It's what happens when you take all the popular science fiction space archetypes and tropes then crank them up to 11

Do you know Starcraft?

Basically ripped everything from 40K and repackaged it.

>It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
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 re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

There's only war.

I want to play that TPS game but i have literally never seen it go on sale

Take every Heavy Metal album cover up to the early 90s and make it real.

40k reskin of Gears of War
FUCKING
WHEN

8000 BC some guy was born. He was a crazy powerful psychic. He was maybe born to fight Chaos, an all corrupting force that exists in a parallel dimension called the Warp.
The Warp is where sentience starts. Every sentient species has a warp presence. Psykers have an strong presence in the Warp. Also, essentially Hell.
That guy, the Emperor, has an enormous, godlike presence in the Warp.
Because he wants to see humanity progress, but not be a dictator, he directs from the shadows.
In order to travel FTL, you go through the Warp. When its calm, its ok. When its not, crazy things can happen
Until the human Empire fucks itself up between robots that became evil and mass psychic awakening. Also, Chaos. The human Empire is broken into enclaves. The year is arount 29000.
He then decides to reveal himself, unites the Earth under his banner, then launches a Great Crusade. This will become the Imperium.
To help in that endeavour, he creates 20 supersons, the Primarchs. Chaos intervenes and scatters the supersons. The Primarchs genecode is used to make supersoldiers, the Space Marines.
The Great Crusade now has the objective of uniting every human and finding the sons, which is done. Except for 2 of them.
After a while, the Emperor fucks back to Terra to finish some huge project.
One of the Primarchs, Horus, is in command. Another Primarch, Magnus the Red, foresees that he will be corrupted. He uses forbidden magic to tell the Emperor, fucking up the project.
The Horus Heresy happens. 9 sons on each side. After a while, Horus is killed, the rest disappear into a region called the Eye of Terror where the border between the Warp and the real world is really thin. Essentially, the outskirts of hell
The Emperor is mortally wounded and set upon the Golden Throne, from which he guides humanity. In reality, he does nothing while bureaucrats do the deed, he's just a lighthouse. The year is 30 000.
Flash forward 10000 year, the Imperium still at war
This is a short version.

Space Marine my friend

Sounds cool. I will check out the books first

>The Warp is where sentience starts. Every sentient species has a warp presence.
Wtf even dogs and cats and shit?

It's bargain bin scifi for manchildren

Except for anything story related, only art and designs are similar

People keep saying the Imperium has the worst regime imaginable, ten times worse than our worst regimes irl when upon further reading that's not true at all.

Technically yes, though their presence is VERY small

Not that it matters, as all Earth animals have essentially died off by the 41st millenia

Yes, though he probably meant sapient.

I fucking hate Warhammer fags, they killed on the greatest grand strategy/rts titles ever

Yep, and that user gave the ultra-abridged version of the Human viewpoint.
The Warp is a reflection of real-space, but time doesn't work linear in there unlike real-space. Events such as the War in Heaven, Fall of the Elder and all the millennia of bad poured into the psychic underbelly of the galaxy made foul the spirit oceans, but daemons born from the event actually helped orchestrate them. The Warp's funny like that.

cont.
The Imperium is still at war because its beset by races that don't really like anyone, or just like to fight.
The Eldars were created 60 millions years before. They are a psychic race that is dying because they literaly orgied a Chaos god, Slaanesh, into existence. Through sex, violence, blood and rock'n'roll. They are scheming assholes who will sacrifice millions to save one of their own.
The Dark Eldars are remnants of those who fucked the Chaos god Slaanesh into reality. Rather than keeping away from what they did before, they doubled down on it.

The Orks were also created 60 million years ago. They are essentially hooligans who live and breath for fighting. Fighting makes them bigger, and the bigger they are the more smaller Orks obey them. Whoever they fight, they have fun. Their technology is a mix of inborn genetic knowledge and belief it works.

The Tyranids are the Zergs before the Zergs. A devouring swarm that just eats everything.

The Necrons are a really old race that is so super advanced they are the only ones who can travel FTL without using the warp, through technology so bizarre study has driven people mad. They are the reason Orks and Eldars were created, because they were butthurt another super advanced race, the Old ones, did not help them. They used to be perpetually sickly, now they are all robots due to a pact they made with star gods called the C'tan.

The Tau are Gundam - the species. They are very advanced technologically, use a lot of combat suits, are not very numerous. They may be controlled by a subset of them called the Ethereals, and fight for the Greater Good.

Chaos is led by four gods.
Khorne, god of violence and blooshed. His followers just like to kill people, don't really like magic.
Tzeentch, god of magic, change and deceit. His followers like to plan for everything and magic.
Nurgle, god of death and decay. His followers are zombies, really hard to kill. Don't really like change.
cont.

I remember trying to learn what this was and immediately left the wiki. Its SO MUCH SHIT

Gaunt's Ghosts is an amazing series to start with. One of the best, and its about the Imperial Guard, the more 'Human' of all the factions.

There's an insane amount of books.. Which ones are worth reading?

Dude, SC is a massive rip-off of the 40k story. There's direct parallels like the tyranids and the zerg.
It's not like the same company didn't do the same thing previously with Warhammer and Warcraft.

Seconding this.

the best story in Warhammer 40k is the Horus heresy

youtube.com/watch?v=JCGB81DBzOc

Whatever interests you, but you'll probably be overwhelmed either way. I'd suggest browsing the wiki or youtube for condensed summaries before moving onto the books.

cont.
Slaanesh, god of excess and pleasure. His followers mostly do drugs, kill, torture. Themselves and each other. Really enjoy pain, either way.

Quick note on tech:
Eldars manipulate psychic energies for everything, but their tech is still really advanced. Post Fall, its really good but much has been lost.
Dark Eldars mostly use souls. Other people's souls to feed themselves, because theirs is atrophied. They are all about fast attack and poison
Ork tech mostly works, but a little bit of belief too. Called the Waagh field. Sometimes somethings work even when they should not.
Tau tech is really streamlined, but they have the slowest FTL.
Necron tech is the best, but they are still waking up after a 60 millions years nap.

Imperial tech is peculiar.
They have advanced tech that they do understand. But also a ton that they don't.
Tech is the purview of the Adeptus Mechanicus, based on Mars. They keep it secret, and its closer to a religion than anything else. Really big on body modifications. The higher ups are essentiall all robot but their brain, because the Imperium really hates AIs. Really. They call them Abominable Intelligence.
The Mechanicus is always looking for more human tech from before the fall of the human Empire. Those are stored on things called STCs, that contain the sum total of all tech they used to have. Naturally, they have not found one that is complete, and they barely understand what they do have. To the point that they have rituals for everything. Rituals that call for chanting before doing anything, applying holy oils, and so on.

Another thing: Everything reflects in the Warp, especially when its really old. The older it is, the better it is. But that also means it can be corrupted by Chaos.

the people of would probably explain it much better but here's the quick rundown (intro for most 40k books)
>It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
>Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
>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 re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

The protoss look like eldar helmets too

Dawn of War produced one of the hammiest voice acting in vidya ever.

youtube.com/watch?v=knbZZ6qur-8

I would be able to really get into Warhammer if some of the designs weren't so ridiculous. That probably sounds dumb because a big par of the appeal is how everything is as ridiculous as it can get, but the way the Space Marines look is just really shitty to me, look goofy as hell.
I love what I've read of the different factions and the grim setting and the constant war but those dumb looking space marines make me not really eager to get into it. I guess I should try the books where I don't have to actively look at them.

Final not regarding the Imperium:
Its armies are split between the Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum), the Space Marines (Adeptus Astartes) and the Navy.
The Imperial Guard is more or less every army between WW1 and WW2, from design to aesthetics. Generally baseline humans, fighting everything with grit, balls of steel, and ordnance. A lot of ordnance.

The Space Marines are 7-8 foot tall armoured supersoldiers based on the Mobile Infantry from Starship troopers. Their basice gun is a .75 caliber gyrojet armor piercing projectile. They spit acid, don't need to sleep for 15 years or more if they have to, bulletproof ribcage.

The navy is gigantic cathedral ships (literallly) that can be up to 10km long, and fire 100m wide shells sometimes.

For comparison, Orks ar 7 foot tall hunched, green tusked monsters who can rip a human in half bare handed. They reproduce in drove, the more they fight.
Eldars are fairly tall, really quick, really graceful. Comparable to a Space Marine, baseline, in those aspects.
Tau are smallish, really weak in close combat.

It depends on the context.
Who you are, where you are, and what's around you.
If you're just some farmer on an agri-world, or some servant on a Paradise world, you're fine unless you get drafted or something.
Or you could be in a Hiveworld run by an asshole, and with a Chaos fleet headed your way.

They look silly first, yes because they look like caricatures of every space marine trope, that is until you hear them speak.

youtube.com/watch?v=ilSDgI1JONw
youtube.com/watch?v=PJ5s81NRdQE

Protoss are basically Tau, aren't they? But I do know what you mean with their appearance.

Good summaries, dude

youtube.com/watch?v=FyeoBm5QFnA
youtube.com/watch?v=UUAAM1WE3Ng
Actually a solid rundown of the pre-Imperium backstory to 40K.

Protoss are quite literally nothing like Tau apart from orange being kind of like yellow.

Protoss are closer to Eldar if anything, but even then not quite really.

>he doesnt know
Blizzard was in negotiations to acquire a Warhammer gaming license for what became Warcraft Orcs & Humans. When negotiations broke down, they adjusted the art assets just enough to avoid a lawsuit and then launched what was to become the biggest gaming franchise for PCs.

This is applicable to Starcraft as well, straight down to unit designs as well as the overarching plot and race designs you mentioned. (example: Ultralisk = Tyranid Carnifex)

pasty fat dudes trying desperately to market to edgy teenagers with disposable i but only managing to attract more pasty fat dudes and lanklets

>This is applicable to Starcraft as well
Can you please explain to me how after, according to you, outright stealing the setting of WH:FB, several years later Blizzard was again negotiating making a game based on Warhammer, this time 40k? I'm just wondering, how do you think that works.

Not him, but here's how it went down:
>Blizzard: give us the license or we'll just steal your shit again without repercussions and you will not get ANY money
>GW: No,
>Blizzard: OK *proceeds to rip off WH40k without any legal repercussions and rake in millions*

>implying our spiritual liege won't lead us into a glorious new Noblebright future after he makes a rational temporary coalition with all the xenos to beat back Chaos once and for all

There are other factions.
ALso, what about the Primaris Marines?

ask tg

>implying reboot doesn't just want that xeno puss

Feminism and diversity.

...

An IP with so much potential for video games yet developers find it so fucking hard to put out decent games for some reason.

This particular stupidity of 40k fanboys triggers me to no end. Not because I think Blizzard stuff is particularly original, no, they've always excelled at regurgitating popular culture and applying polish to it, but because 40k itself is a combination of a thousand sci-fi cliches and archetypes. It borrows heavily and liberally from Dune, Star Wars, Starship Troopers (book and the movie both), Aliens, Dungeons and Dragons (and by that proxy, Lord of the Rings). Eldars are LITERALLY Elves-in-space! And so does Blizzard, you have dropship pilot quoting Aliens while the dropship sprite LOOKS like the dropship from Aliens, you have cutscenes quoting Aliens pretty much literally, the whole attitude of Marines is directly from Aliens.

And yet people will insist Terran Marines are carbon copy so Space Marines even though Terran Marines are disposable ex-criminal space rednecks with average life expectancy on the battlefield of about 5 minutes and Space Marines are highly disciplined and genetically enhanced warrior monks with thousands of years of war experience.

>guy asks about 40k, vast universe with so many warring factions
>only comprehensive replies are of muh imperium
No wonder why no one can do anything good with 40k, everyone that even looks at it is a boring fucking faggot.

He's describing actual gaming history, you blizztard. That was exactly how it went down and how a prototype 40k game turned into an original IP.

But space marines are some of the best designed powered armor troopers in science fiction? Their armor is refreshingly simple and practical in design and the decorative elements are only ever [appropriately] tacked-on rather than being integral to the armor's design.

>He's describing actual gaming history, you blizztard. That was exactly how it went down
There wasn't a single proof of that, not a single person from Blizzard or GW ever confirmed that. And even then, the story was only about Warcraft (which is not original at all and I honestly don't care about it, I'll even admit they stole the green color of orc/ork skin from WH:FB). It's about Starcraft, which is like the only good thing Blizzard ever done (before they ruined it with Starcraft 2, of course).

...

this game was awesome

youtube.com/watch?v=87XfLhNUBkg

>practical
>xbox hueg shoulder plates that restrict shoulder movement greatly
>xbox huge leg armor that probably restricts movement greatly as well
Dude. I mean sure I love how they managed to keep the design relatively simple and still be cool and all but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

>Not linking German chaos space marines
youtube.com/watch?v=uKHOL-EIGCY

Because the Imperium is the main focus.
The Eldar can be explained in a paragraph, the Orks in a few sentences, and the Tau and Nids in a few less.
And most of Chaos's doings are intertwined with the Imperium.

>Chaosfag
Read the rest of the posts.
This is Sup Forums not /tg/. If I go into the War in Heaven, the Fall of the Eldars, the Ullanor Crusade, the Horus Heresy, The War of the Beast, the Age of Apostasy, the Wars for Armageddon and Dark Imperium, we will be here all day.

On that note, vidya to serve as introduction
DoW1 and its expansions (single player) to get a quick look at the factions.

DoW2 single player and expansions to see moar Space Marines. Closer to the fluff. Also, a tidbit of the rest of the races, and some Tyranids
More Navy, see Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.
More of the tabletop, see Sanctus Reach

Space Marine single player is okay too.

Space Hulk for more Tyranids and a game that's more about Space Marines getting murdered.

>anything in 40k
>practical

daily reminder that this is what Tyranids looked like before Starcraft came out

Are you trying to imply that they don't still look like that?

a universe where everything went to shit and being turned into a servitor is actually one of the more desirable outcomes

it's not a story, it's a setting.

To elaborate, a servitor was a human, lobotomized to serve as a maintenance, repair and general utility approximation of a robot.
They are mindless cyborgs.

It's more due to the only good table top players use imperial factions.

>Except for 2 of them
Did they release any new fluff on them? Last I heard it was kinda implied that they were found but did something that got their records scratched from history and only Emps and the Primarchs know what it was.

The shoulders have enough movement for the job and marine weapons often use their autosenses to aim so they never really need to bring their weapons all the way up to their eyes. In artwork it is clear that they are attached to the top of the shoulders so they can easily follow the arm 180 degrees upwards if they have to.

Considering the nature of their work, fighting in close quarters and chaotic melees, having armor plates protecting the vulnerable shoulder joint is a big deal. Not to protect their shoulders but to seal up that one big hole in their chest armor that leads directly to their lungs and heart.

The proportions of their leg armor and space available to articulate vary greatly between artworks so I can't say anything about it, but the art of the primaris marine it looks good enough for most humanly poses. Armor plates may always shift to give way; its just that well designed armor won't make it obvious where it will shift and does not split wide open to reveal weaknesses, which is a problem I have with many other armor designs.

>Last I heard it was kinda implied that they were found but did something that got their records scratched from history and only Emps and the Primarchs know what it was.
Nothing more, as far as I know.

>Considering the nature of their work, fighting in close quarters and chaotic melees, having armor plates protecting the vulnerable shoulder joint is a big deal.
Considering the nature of their work every fucking thing slices through armor like butter so why even bother

Magnus did nothing wrong. All he ever wanted to do was save Horus from Lorgar and then warn his dad when that didn't work.
And then Leman came to fuck his shit up and force him onto the side of chaos.

Looking from it from outside the 40K universe, it's goofy and over the top as shit. You should not under any circumstances take it seriously, because therein lies the path to the autistic manchild. In the beginning it was pop-culture references of the day (the first named Inquisitor was Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, that should give you an idea of the silly tone it started with), smashed together with space, war, misery, and fantasy races, borrowing ideas from everywhere.

It evolved into a product.

It's still missing from history. Even Cawl and Girlyman don't want to bring them back for reasons unknown. They're probably somehow even worse than the traitor primarchs.

Debatable.
Magnus had a decent idea, but he was being freely manipulated by Tzeentch.
Of course, Leman Russ was being manipulated as well and has a hate boner for Magnus.
And the Emperor is partly responsible. Its the setting, everyone fucked up.

Not everything has rending claws

because the bulk of the fighting is not in conflicts with the tyranids. when you just send one suqad to flush out a heretic governor power armor makes you more or less immune to whatever he could possibly field

probably won't ever be explained either because the only reason they exist is to give people the option to make their own donut steel primarchs

You see this handsome motherfucker?
Imagine that instead of this guy being your emperor it is a skellington on life support.

Because not every single enemy is that lethal. Even then a jeanstealer's claw is merely capable of cutting through termie armor, not that it is guaranteed to do it especially if it is a poor or misaligned hit.

>‘Look at that,’ said Guilliman. ‘The arrogance of the Neverborn remains as great as it ever was. But it is
we who remain, and it is we who shall prevail. Dante, there is a lesser task I will set you.’ He lifted his
hand up to encompass three worlds. ‘These planets were hells. For generations we have recruited the
strong over the weak, in the belief it makes our warriors better. I do not think this is so. Cruel men make
cruel warriors make cruel lords. We need to be better. We need to rise over the need for violence and
recognise other human qualities in our recruits. Your Chapter has ever understood this. If we do not, then
we will fall prey to our worst excesses, the kind of thing that that represents.’ He pointed at Ka’Bandha’s
name. ‘It has long been in your capability to transform these worlds. Baal Primus is dead, but you need
not let your remaining people suffer unnecessarily. Will they fight any better for dwelling on a world that
kills them? By sacrificing their children to the Emperor’s service, they have earned a better life. Once you
have torn that blasphemy down, raise up the population of Baal Secundus. Teach them what we are
fighting for. A line must be drawn between what is good and what is evil, for if the Great Enemy comes
with offers of power to a wretch, what reason does he have to refuse hell if he dwells in it already?’
Guilliman was tense. Dante had not expected that in the Lord of Ultramar. Guilliman was impatient to
change things. He was angered by what he had found upon his rebirth, and he was not hiding it.

Alright, maybe "Magnus never wanted to do anything wrong" would have been the more accurate sentence.
Horus, Lorgar, Angron, Fulgrim and so on knew pretty well that what they were doing was wrong and yet still went ahead. Magnus only ended up on the side of chaos due to unlucky circumstances.

not even he will succeed. maybe he could if all he had to deal with is what's currently on the table, but the necrons still keep waking up and there are more tyranids on the way.

80's sci-fi tropes and grimdark edge cranked up to comedic levels.
Be sure to laugh at anyone who takes the setting seriously and/or thinks the Imperium are the "good guys"

nice

they where scratched from the records.
GW will more than likely keep it that way so that players use them for their own chapters/legions

youtube.com/watch?v=-MeVxKZBOfM
>inb4 cancer memes

>tyranids are the only ones that can pierce SM armor
Just about every other army has a hundred things that can. If the writers would follow the codexes objectively (as in every one, not just SM) instead of sucking off space mary sues at every turn we'd see a lot more of that.

>Just about every other army has a hundred things that can.
and a thousand that can't.

also most of the novels don't even show the space marines as all that powerful, apart from the MC who has plot armor. they tend to sacrifice so many of them to show that the enemy is a big bad that you wonder how the chapter is supposed to ever recover.

the space marines were primarily used to combat the greenskin and to crush human rebellions. this was during a time where alot of the fucked up shit was still unknown

I was wondering for a moment why there's a Master Sword on the table.