Warhammer 40,000/Headscratchers

• Two things about the Horus Heresy:
  • 1. Why does the Emperor seem to suck at basic management 101? Not telling the Primarchs pretty much anything about Chaos, allowing the weirder looking ones (Mortarion, Konrad Curze) to be marginalized by their peers, allowing problems to fester and become tradition before saying "nope, you can't do this any more" and dealing with them in the most heavy-handed way (Lorgar and his Emperor-worship, Magnus and his sorcery), among other things; your average undergrad fresh out of business school could lead a team better than that.
    • In Magnus's case no matter what he did it would have turned someone traitor, he had to do something about The Thousand Sons Sorcery but if he did to much they would probably betray if he had done anything other than as far as he could go without killing them the Space Wolves would likely have turned traitor out of their hatred for the Thousand Sons.
    • The Emperor also rarely spent much time with primarchs other than Horus because in general the various legions where spread pretty thin usually conquering whole swaths of the galaxy with almost no input from the emperor, he may not have known about the problems until they had cemented themselves.
      • Among other things, he was busy with important projects - fixing the Golden Throne, building Human Webway, and whatnot. And perhaps he'd trust them to not do something stupid.
    • Not telling the Primarchs about Chaos may have been a good idea, at least in theory - Gods in the 40K universe run on the Power of Belief, so not mentioning Chaos at all is a good way to limit their power. Just a shame that other people already knew of Chaos...
  • 2. The final climatic battle of the Horus Heresy. According to Lexicanum, Horus saw that the Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Ultramarines were coming in hours and so lowered the shields on his ship, allowing the Emperor to teleport on board. But thinking about it from the Emperor's perspective, wouldn't it make more sense to stay and wait for the reinforcements? The fact that Horus is practically inviting you on shows that he has more confidence about fighting and beating you in single combat than he does about fighting your army plus three loyalist legions, why would you go with the option that your enemy has a better chance of winning at?
    • The Emperor was fully capable of beating the pulp out of Horus without too much effort -- he just didn't want to use everything he had to kill what had once been his favorite son. Perhaps he thought he could subdue him without having to kill him? However you spin it, the Emperor was clearly (justifiably) confident in his power, and so had no qualms about taking the fight to Horus. Heck, maybe he'd been planning to do it the whole time.
    • As far as I recall, the Emperor was not aware the reinforcements were inbound; in fact, they might not actually have been coming. So he thought this was a chance he could not afford to miss; he had betters odds of beating Horus than of winning the slow grinding defensive campaign.
• Why the chaos space marines aren't obliterated yet ? I don't doub their aptitude, but still : they are nine traitor legions, which bring us "only" 90.000 chaos marines. Horus Heresy had surely take an heavy death toll, not doubt about the World Eaters' disbanding and Kharn's ax crazy rampage... and the thirteen failed crusades of Abaddon. After ten thousand years of wars, treason, I wonder how the chaos space marines simply survive and replenish their ranks ?
  • While there is a point here, it should be noted the CSM retreated to the chaos warped eye of terror, a place where the very fabric of time and space are twisted and mutation runs rampant, while not confirmed obviously it is easy to imagine each marine lasting far longer than a loyalist counterpart. Skipping through time, surviving fatal wounds through sorcery and mutation, even stuff like spawning anew or splitting in two...anything is possible in the warp. And as others mention, more marines go traitor all the time and to varying degrees, although of course due to the Codex Astartes splitting legions into many more smaller pieces in less staggering quantities at one time. However, i don't see how they could "recruit" just like SM and don't remember reading that. If so its not the same...wouldn't make sense for the powers of chaos to conjure power armor from the warp and magically infuse gene seed only in the best even....why not just do so for every follower and have ridiculously more CSM than SM. And the worlds occupied in the warp are described as Hell worlds. Like Hell as in th firey pit of torment and madness. Not a lot recruits on daemon infested wastelands.
    • It depends on the warband but most of them recruit its even stated that a work with Fabius Bile to leave only the strongest candidates left. They tend to just have new Power armor made or use looted power armor, remember Chaos has access to many Forgeworlds that turned traitor. For geneseed its pretty much the same as the armor just make more or steal it from dead enemies most of the Chaos Primarchs are alive so they are entirely capable of making more. When you wonder about where they get recruits you have to remember that Chaos needs living people for it to actually exist and on most Daemon Worlds there is usually at least a small human population devoted to the various gods, Daemon Worlds are just inhospitable enough to be hellish Death Worlds that weed out the weak but not to the point where everyone dies, in fact that gives many candidates for becoming Space Marines the only flaw being that the recruitment process for chaos tends to be even more dangerous than the loyalist method. Also eventually a normal human servant of chaos has enough mutations to be close enough to a marine that when wearing Power Armor they are indistinguishable.
  • They recruit from the worlds their primarch has taken over or just from the best of the chaos cults. Its actually been stated a couple times that Marines who fought in the Heresy are very few and tend to be incredibly powerful warlords.
  • The majority of the troops that make up Chaos armies aren't Chaos Marines. They're humans who've joined Chaos cults for various reasons. The vast majority of the soldiers in any Chaos army are going to be corrupted, baseline humans. In addition, loyalist Marines can turn to Chaos, and do so often enough. In some cases entire chapters have turned Traitor.
  • All of that is true, but when Horus went Judas Iscariot on the Emperor, about one-half of the space marine legions sided with him. Keep in mind, that's LEGIONS, not chapters. Before the Horus Heresy, the space marines were organized into legions that could have numbered in the tens of thousands, if not millions, of marines. That's why the loyalists are part of 1000-man units called chapters; that way, if any more of them went rogue it would be much easier to stop a single chapter than a single legion. We don't really know how many loyalist chapters there are, but let's say there are 1000 chapters. That means there are one million loyalist space marines; in such a vast and grimdark universe it's quite possible that many of the loyalists were simply worn down over time, while chaos marines are kept alive through various means.
• Why are Space Marines so...immature? Only a few of them act somewhat like regular adults, and compared with the Imperial Guard, they seem to be a bunch of psychotic, superpowered teenagers, even if they lived several times longer than most humans.
  • Examples of Space Marines who act like this?
    • Pretty much all Space Marines less than a few hundred years old. Must be something about the fact they have limited emotions.
    • I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "examples."
  • Players with similar disposition is their target demographic. Must be since their Codex was written by Matt Ward.
  • What do you mean by immature they have massive character flaws but so does everyone else in the setting?
  • Space Marines are designed to be like the tragic heroes of old and they share common flaws, like arrogance and overconfidence, which I think you mean by saying they act like teenagers.
  • Space Marines are inducted into their training at a very young age. It's brutal, it's deadly and it leads to emotionally-retarded warriors whose only goal in life is to die fighting the enemies of humanity. I think the fact they act like teenagers is a reflection of the fact that they essentially don't get to grow up and understand things with an adult's perspective.
  • ... Okay, while most Space Marines are psychopathic, axe crazy jerk asses (from our perspective, anyway) by no means can they be considered 'teenagers'. If anything, they act every inch like the Knightly Orders of the Middle-Ages. Crossed with Saracen soldiers from the same era. Hell, marines like Dante, Logan Grimnar and Azrael are examples of wise warriors. Of course, as per their mission statements, they all have to be berserking lunatics.
  • I must have a massively different opinion on what is considered immature but in general I think of fart jokes, constantly talking about sex, and swearing more than a sailor with tourrettes who stubbed his toe as immature, Space Marines in general act more like mythical greek heroes with all the hubris and flaws that implies but also with all of the good things that implies too. Also what led you to expect them to act like regular adults? these are people recruited when they where 10-12 after most likely having spent much of their lives as child soldiers who are then taken away from their previous life implanted with many new organs possibly while fully awake and then forced to fight in conditions so bad that even by the standards of warhammer are hellish and you expect them to act like non-emotionally stunted PTSD sufferers in fact they take this remarkably well considering the circumstances.
  • What the dude above me said.
• Are the Old Ones still canon? They seem to have been forgotten about.
  • Unless they've been deliberately retconned out, they're still canon.
  • They still existed, but they're likely all dead, and not many people know about them. Probably only the Necrons really remember the Old Ones, but they're not talking.
  • The other possibility is that the Eldar and Ork gods (Khaine/Mork and Cegorach/Gork) are the last two surviving Old Ones.
  • The New Necron codex confirms that the Old One's are still Canon, but claims the Necrons and the C'tan eliminated every last one of them. Then again, GW's fluff policy means that isn't necessarily the truth.
• What are the Imperium's views on gay people. There seems to be a general lack of gay people out of the TRILLIONS of people in the galaxy. As far as I know there are exactly two cannon confirmed gay people.
  • Point the first: By your own admission, there are trillions of people in the Imperium of Man, let alone other races. We could not feasibly see even a small percentage of that number and still retain an interesting viewpoint. Point the second: Given the Imperium's methods, people may well be being bred and conditioned to be heterosexual, as this creates more workers and, therefore, weaponry and vehicles for the Imperium to use. Point the third: It's a totalitarian, brutal, militantly conservative-religious empire. How do you think they're going to deal with people who don't fit the religious perception of normalcy? Hell, they've probably declared any sexuality apart from straight (or asexual) to be examples of heretical behaviour.
  • No. The Imperium does not have a policy on homosexuality. Individual worlds may, but the Imperium as a whole doesn't. In the Cain books, the titular Commissar even notes that there is a lesbian couple in his regiment but it is nothing remarkable.
  • This troper concurs, in addition, since cloning is also used to make soldiers, or at least it is in the case of the Death Korps of Krieg, as well as to create servitors, the Imperium isn't totally dependent on birth rate for new troops.
    • Plus, look at Creed and Jarren Kell--you saying there's nothing there?
  • Let's be totally clear here - the Imperium isn't a homogenous culture. Every world is going to have its own rules and customs, some of them even democratically elect their governor. Provided they worship the Emperor in some way, the Imperium wouldn't bother to look any further.
  • Well, almost all lore material is focused exclusively on combat situations (where it is irrelevant), there isn't a huge amount of discussion on heterosexual relationships for that matter, there has been a homosexual relation depicted before and the Commissar (who would be the one to enforce anti-homosexual policies) didn't care in the least, as mentioned before this is not a homogenous culture, and almost any depiction of a homosexual character would be worse than just ignoring it due to the combat focus of everything written (basically they would have to be Camp Gay or Token Minority, which are more likely to be worse than better).
    • We also need to remember that there's no real reason for the Imperium to care. So much of the Imperial cult is based around being anti-Chaos, anti-alien, and keeping the Emperor alive that nothing else really matters. Keep in mind that Slaanesh is the god of excess, not sex or even somewhat socially unaccepted sex, so homosexual relationships wouldn't feed him/her.
    • I'm pretty sure any kind of sex or indulgence feeds Slaanesh.
      • And any kind of hate and bloodshed feeds Khorne, every single hope, dream, and ambition feeds Tzeentch, and the universal principle of entropy feeds Nurgle. The Imperium by and large realises that its impossible to get rid of everything that empowers chaos is impossible which is why the Redemptionists who are so fanatical in fighting chaos that they kill almost everything that isnt a redemptionist.
• In the third Word Bearers book, the Word Bearers use a Necron device that blocks the Warp to prevent enemy reinforcements from coming in. But somehow the Black Legion sorcerer was still able to open "a minor Warp rift". How?
  • By overwhelming the necron device with too much energy. Anti-psy tech is not infallible, see for example how the pylons of Cadia slowly fracture and crumble over time.
• If the Swarmlord is so valuable that every time it is killed and its consciousness is absorbed, the Hive Mind feels the need to reincarnate it immediately, why doesn't it duplicate the consciousness and crank out trillions of the things? Seems reasonable to me, "Bug #5890765435 increases the probability of winning by 35.62%. Make more Bug #5890765435."
  • Probably because it has a unique consciousness that can't be duplicated, as its description clearly implies.
    • ... If its conciousness can't be duplicated, how can it be reincarnated?
      • Actually, on careful reading of the Swarmlord's fluff: its consciousness is kept separate from the rest of the swarm, thus creating its unique cunning. Cranking out trillions of those things will simply fracture the unique "one-ness of purpose" that is the Tyranid's strengths...
        • For those of you who want to know what that would look like, it would be a bug version of StarCraft's Terrans where they would be hugely powerful, if only they could stop killing each other long enough to unitedly pursue an enemy. They'd be like unfunny om nom nom Orks.
  • The Swarmlord is valuable to the Hive Mind because it thinks differently from the Hive Mind. Making more would introduce the risk that they would eventually revolt over a disagreement with the rest of the Swarm.
• How do the Dark Eldar maintain their population? They are constantly taking casualties from raids, not to mention the enormous amount of betrayal and lethal backstabbing going on 24/7 in their society. To make all of that up, their birthrate would have to be huge. and somehow I don't see them as staying home to raise the kids.
  • I think because the DE are all the survivors of the Eldar worlds way back when, perhaps they started off with a huge population, but didn't have the resources to mobilize it. Alternatively, I see the Dark Eldar brainwashing captured Eldar or rival Dark Eldar, then using the victims as breeding slaves, and some of the kids they torture to death, some of the kids survive and become contributing members to society. Alternatively, the DE are in fact dwindling, but it is still taking thousands of years to finish them off. If there was a WH50000, then they might not exist (heck, maybe the lack of support the DE get is evidence that they are dying and not very graciously)
  • One thing the Dark Eldar have going for them that the regular Eldar don't is that they can have a prodigious birthrate - unlike their Craftworld cousins, they don't run the risk of Slaanesh ripping out their souls though their genitals if they have too much pleasure during sex.
    • Thank you for that mental image.
  • Dark Eldar are always looking for the extremes of pleasure; their rape rates must be off the charts, so it would stand to reason that they have a lot of children.
  • A theory for you: if we assume that dark eldar can have lovers, then it stands to reason that some female dark eldar might want to stay out of the fighting, so will keep getting pregnant. If we also assume that dark eldar don't have a menopause, then the population is being kept up via the few determined females who don't want to fight. Alternatively, playthings of the opposite gender of the capturer may find themselves "helping" keep the population up in exchange for being allowed to live for longer (presumably before discovering that they will never be allowed to die).
  • It seems the new codex provides an answer: While some Dark Eldar are "Trueborn", apparently a lot of them are Designer Babies. Being Dark Eldar, the Trueborn look down on the ones that were grown in vats.
    • What, not the other way around?
    • In a new article, GW has a Youtube interview with the creators of the new Dark Eldar. Thankfully(?), this is issue was one that they did discuss, rather than saying that there are just enough of them to last that long, which appeared to be part of the implied solution up 'til now. The Dark Eldar have higher birth rates than their Craftworld cousins, and they may have a number of Half-Eldar Hybrids in their ranks. Then the Haemonculi have a sort of "medical sarcophagus" that can restore one of them entirely from a simple body part were they to get killed in battle, although this can have potential downsides. Also, similar to real life, population can grow rapidly from keeping people from dying, which the Dark Eldar can do since they're practically immortal and regularly rejuvenate themselves.
      • It doesn't hurt that 5th Edition Dark Eldar are pragmatic villains, able to think things through and keep their casualties to a minimum with some sense of racial self-preservation instead of the cartoonish Stupid Evil Card Carrying Villains of the 3rd edition codex.
• What bother me about the game's (current, as far as I know it might have been different earlier) rules is that, apparently, frag grenades are used to make enemy defenders in cover duck and stop their fire before charging them into melee combat. They have no capability to harm anyone directly in the game, unless they are 'frag rounds' deployed from a launcher of sorts. It makes no sense to me at all that Imperium troops are essentially described as throwing frag grenades right outside the enemy's cover, so they can charge them. Throwing them into their enemy's cover would definitely interrupt their fire as everyone struggles to deal with the impending doom of a nearby frag grenade. Plus, I'm sure a frag grenade's explosive radius which sufficiently scares enemies to duck down would have to force the thrower to be at a rather far distance - probably enough for the defenders to just get up and continue firing again after the grenade goes off, which makes the whole process pointless. Why couldn't flashbangs just be standard issue and used for assaulting into melee and have frag grenades used as some sort of one-use, short-range blast weapon?
  • Do you really think they can get guardsmen to manage to throw into cover every time? Pitiful frag grenades are of no use against even flak armor which can stop bullets from a typical hiver slugthrower with every single part of it and any shrapnel from a frag would be travelling slower and thus hit with less force than a bullet because frag grenades are made for spread, not penetration like guns. Heavier explosives to make the shrapnel go faster would destroy any shrapnel unless the grenade was built out of stronger materials which would probably be heavier (thus harder to throw) and more expensive. Flashbangs may cost more to make than simply frags which are only good for distractions against enemies wearing or made of things as tough or tougher than flak armor which is most every enemy army.
    • Um... all else being equal, the more brisant the explosive--the more sudden its energy release, and this is strongly correlated with the total energy yield of the explosive for obvious thermodynamic reasons--the more efficiently it will create lethal fragments and the further it will throw them. RDX > PETN > Pentolite > Comp B > TNT > amatol > dynamite > blackpowder.
    • The average slugthrower 'autogun' is pretty much a modern rifle, right? While top-of-the-line modern armour can be capable of stopping rifle rounds, it still generally is useless against shrapnel. I don't really know why myself. Of course, in the game, while the strength stat of frag rounds (which are probably more powerful then grenades) varies, their armour-piercing value is insufficient against flak armour. But really, that just makes using flashbangs for the game's purpose even more sensible since frag grenades can be less-then threatening. My annoyance is more with Games Workshop just deciding to use frag grenades for the purpose of stopping enemies from firing at you while you charge them is oversimplifying it and causes the Fridge Logic like I said. While the Imperium may be too cheap to use flashbangs for that purpose instead makes sense for them, I think Games Workshop should of thought of something else.
      • It's the other way around. Late 20th Century/modern day soft body armor is pretty good at stopping shrapnel, but is only "bullet resistant," especially when we're talking about something more powerful than a handgun. But yeah, real-world, post-1900, artillery is the God of War and shrapnel wounds caused between 90% and 98% of battlefield deaths and injuries. Someone at GW gave grenades a heavy whack with the Nerf Bat, by the looks of it. And yes, an "autogun" is a generic late-20th-Century military rifle, anything from an AK to an FAL.
  • Someone Did Not Do the Research on frag grenades. Go pick up a copy of House To House: A Soldier's Memoir, which details tight urban warfare by a modern military, and note how frags are commonly used: they're deployed mostly to suppress, not to flush targets out of cover. In fact, one of the best moments in the entire book where they could use a frag grenade on enemies in cover, there are extremely good reasons they don't, among them the danger of the grenades being rolled back at them. Also, frag grenades are heavy. They're hard to chuck very far, which is why they're used at fairly close range, and chucking a grenade into a tiny gun hole while under fire by the enemy within is a lot harder than it sounds.
    • I probably did jump the gun by saying frags are just made for killing, but no soldier would be throwing frag grenades right in front of his enemies' cover before he and his squad charges them. It'd be a waste of grenades. Maybe one or two on their flank(s) to limit their ability to fire on them while charging, or throwing them to help a flanking squad succeed in assaulting, but throwing one or a bunch and expecting them to suppress before you charge in is just a waste of frags as you'd have to wait till' they all blow up before you charge to make sure they don't kill anyone. Which presumedly happens, considering how the game makes it sound as if the entire enemy squad is unable to return fire from those frags of the assaulting squad thereby allowing the charge to be unhindered.
    • Speaking as someone who's played 40K for fifteen years, the rules were changed so that battles could be completed in less than a day. In the original rules you could throw grenades at enemies, and it meant you had to roll for scatter, bicker about which models were under the blast template and then roll for wounds for every grenade. It Got Worse if you threw a Rad Grenade which required you to then roll for both it's diametre and strength and then go through the whole scatter/bicker/wound process.
      • I will now file it under Bellisario's Maxim.
  • Doesn't really fit Bellisario's Maxim on the basis it is still Did Not Do Research because the WH40K rules make more sense than most depictions of grenades.
    • Any prepared cover would have a grenade sump. This is basically just a hole you put grenades into that prevents them from doing any damage. Considering this can be made solely by digging a hole in dirt, odds are there are far, far more effective grenade sumps available in the WH40K universe. This means throwing a grenade into enemy cover is probably going to be a wasted effort that simply causes one soldier to pick it up and throw it into the sump.
    • Flashbangs are not usually deployed against military targets. They are unreliable and actually pretty easy to defend against if you don't panic upon seeing a grenade (unlike most civilian or paramilitary personnal who tend to be the main ones hit with flashbangs). Unlike frag grenades, you basically would have to throw these in cover and grenade sumps work even better on these than frag grenades.
    • Defenders aren't going to instantly pop back up after the grenade goes off because they have no way of knowing if the attackers didn't throw a couple delayed grenades. This means you end up with quite a few seconds to close the distance before anyone gets up.
      • They wouldn't pop back up instantly out of fear there are still grenades waiting to go off, but when you're close enough to actually get in hand-to-hand range, they'll likely be able to hear you moving closer and thus shoot at you...unless they are also suppressed by other methods, like standard rifle fire. That could be the additional thing I was wondering about, it just wasn't mentioned within the text. When I think about it, what really bothers me is how frag grenades can be used to suppress enemies, but only with the intention to charge them. If they are mentioned to be used for pinning in other manners when you aren't going to run at them bayonets fixed, it would make a lot more sense.
    • The WH40K actually compress certain aspects together to speed up the game. Some of the casualties from the assault phase when the grenades were thrown are actually probably due to the grenades, but Games Workshop decided that actually rolling for grenade casualties was not worth the time.
      • This troper forgets where, but somewhere the rules explicitly say "Close combat includes not just attacking with melee weapons, but also casualties from grenades, close range firing with both primary weapons and sidearms, throwing rocks, punching, kicking, biting, hair pulling, all forms of Suplex, environmental kills, etc;" or words to that effect.
  • In 6th edition frags became S3 AP- (Blast) and can be thrown in the Shooting phase. Problem solved?
    • In RPG frags are somewhat more killy, too. Deals to everything in 4 m radius 2d10X Dam 0 Pen. Typical flak armor soaks 4 (3 +1 for flak vs. Blast), common cannon fodder has 3 TB and 10-12 Wounds, thus with flak probability of any injury 0.79, being Heavily Wounded 0.28, but Critical Damage only 0.06 or 0.01, without it 0.97, 0.64, 0.28 or 0.15 respectively (not counting Righteous Fury, but it makes things much worse almost 19% of time). So for those who didn't take cover a non-critical injury is very likely even in armor, chance to get permanently crippled even with medical attention (or die, if unarmored and not very tough) is always here, and with a little bad luck things can get very messy.
• Ciaphas Cain series. Why doesn't Cain ever order Jurgen to, you know, bathe?
  • He's afraid it would only anger the smell.
  • He uses it to deflect attention from himself.
  • It's also that Jurgen is an Expy of Private McAuslan, GM Fraser's other classic series besides Flashman. McAuslan is depicted as something like Pigpen, and is occasionably forcibly washed by his comrades. On the one occasion he is shown clean, he is unrecognizable.
  • At one point, Jurgen does take a bath. The smell comes back damned fast. Its nothing to do with his actual hygiene, but rather it has to do with his status as a blank. Being a blank, normal humans have a natural aversion to him that manifests as his general repulsveness.
• If there are only a small number of Eldar left, why don't they make a law that each Eldar has to have, say, three children? That kind of birthrate would dramatically boost the number of Eldar in the long term. Especially the Beil-tan craftworld, which has made the decision to reforge the Eldar empire. For that, they're going to need a lot of troops. So why don't they increase their birthrate this way?
  • Because sex brings a possibility of having your soul torn out of your body and consumed by a dark god/dess.
    • You'd think that with their advanced technology, the Eldar would have some way of eliminating the orgasm.
  • Plus in 40k "small numbers" means millions per Craftworld.
  • Also, they can't use artificial breeding methods, because doing so generates Eldar who do not have souls. That is a Bad Thing for the Eldar.
    • It's such a shame that Eldar don't have souls just waiting around waiting to be put back into a new body to fight again...
    • Actually they don't, off the top of my head I don't recall the specifics but the soulstones of those Eldar who die in battle are either strengthening Khaine or being used to create a new god to battle Slaanesh.
  • Plus, how do we know if Craftworlds DON'T do this; a big reason their population drops is because lots of them either leave the Craftworld to become rangers or fall and become Dark Eldar.
    • As of the new DE codex, feels weird saying that, its been specified more clearly Craftworld Eldar can't become Dark Eldar, as Dark Eldar lack most of the Psychic presence of Craftworld Eldar, and have much more enhanced nervous system granting them faster reflexes and better sense. Eldar who fall are said to be Chaos Eldar, who are the most valued of the Chaos God's mortal servants, they're scary as hell, like Chaos Eldar can go toe-to-toe with Adeptus Custodes, psychically duel the Astronomicon at the same time and not break a sweat scary, but they never leave their Crone Worlds because it would nerf Grey Knights.

The young do not desire the discipline of the Path, but rather their curiosity drives them to try every fruit from the tree. Thus it is that so many take the Path of Wandering or the Path of Damnation in their first years of adulthood, and so the great tragedy of our kind is played out again and again as the number of our people shrink from generation to generation.

• • • This quote can be taken either way then.

• Why don't the constant repairs ever affect the quality of Necron troops?
  • It does. Every time the resurrect, they get crazier and remeber less of their mortal life. According to the new fluff, half of the Necrons are now outside of C'tan control because of this.
  • The thing to remember about Necrons is: Necrons never talk. Ever. The only sources of real information about the Necrons, their history, and their abilities is the C'Tan. Nightbringer isn't very talkative (other than "KILL!", and the Deceiver always lies. The entire thing about Necrons being unable to make new troops is probably either a lie by the Deceiver for one of his ridiculous games, or propaganda by the Imperium to make the Necrons seem less unkillable. We know that Necrons can make new soldiers. That's the entire fluff for Pariahs.
  • The Necrons can no longer make new troops (including Pariahs). However, it is clear that yes, the Necrons do degrade (primarily mentally) after each reanimation, although much of the damage is more do to spending the majority of the human species' existence in stasis than the combat they've seen in the last few hundred years. It's also established that the Necron Warriors were the uninfluetial civillians of Necrontyr society, and as such, got the short end of the stick as far as control goes even when they were just stepping out of the transfer.
• When a Necron is severely damaged, it teleports away for repairs, right? But why is whatever technology they use to do this never damaged to the point where it stops working?
  • It's archeotech. You don't need to explain the details, just the effects.
  • Maybe it's not actually on the Necrons themselves but part of whatever Necron building they're near.
  • The Necron sends out a constant signal telling the tomb complex it's ok. When the signal is lost, the tomb teleports the Necron home.
    • Which leads us to the issue of "wireless security". So... the next point on the cogboys' to-do list: learn how to jam or DoS Necron Dead-Man Switch, so that their troops are either suddenly removed from the battlefield or lose those cheaty reanimations? Also, teleports are Warp based and there are devices messily destabilizing Warp interaction - Purgatus stakes, for one.
  • Fridge Logic here: Once the signal is lost, wouldn't the tomb thereby also lose its fix on the Necron's position?
    • They have the last position, and use that. Maybe they can even make it so it only teleports Necrodermis.
  • As the new codex states, it is rare, but not impossible, for a Necron to be irreparably damaged. If they can't be teleported out and repaired, they self-destruct instead, but in such a way that is visually indistinguishable from the teleportation method.
• Why haven't the Necrons taken over the universe yet? I mean, they're completely unstoppable. Reducing one to a puddle of liquid gloop is nothing but a minor inconvenience to them. They'll just be back by next week, good as new. Since they cannot take casualties, how have they not overrun the rest of the factions?
  • It's because they aren't all awake yet, half of the awake ones are crazy, Eldar Farseers are running interference, and they don't need to overrun the universe.
    • Half the ones awake are crazy? What does that mean? Aren't they just mindless drones animated by the will of their Star Gods?
      • The Necron Lords are saner. But several Necron Lords have gone insane due to faults in the revival technology, so they don't really follow the will of their gods anymore.
  • So long as their gods are happy with their amusements there is no reason for them to do anything more.
  • Because the last time they were fully awakened, they almost killed all life in the galaxy. If everybody died, what would we all do then?
  • Several reasons. One, the Inquisition will happily blow a planet to bits if they even think that ther's a necron on it. Two, Necrons only come back sometimes. Lasguns could turn them into a pile of goo and they would repair 50% of the time, but a Lascannon would vaporise it.
    • Correction, they may not come back on the field, but it is virtually impossible to prevent their remains from teleporting back to Necron facility with the appropriate equipment for repairs. Even melting or outright vaporization has failed to stop them from teleporting back for repairs.
      • I would like to point out that telleporting home for repairs does not automaticly mean repairs sucsesfull. It may be that they get a bucket of molten metal back and just discard it.
  • Also Necrons can never truly die, a Necron is really a mechanical body operated by a vengeful spirit, so even if the body is destroyed the host can find always find a new mechanical body to occupy.
    • No, that's just the C'tan. A Necron is trapped in it's mechanical shell, and once it's truly vapourized or cast into the Warp, it's gone for good. The 5th Edition rulebook fluff even tells of how the ravages of time are finally catching up to the Necrons, eroding their repair systems and minds.
  • Don't quote me on this one, but I've heard it might be possible that the Emperor's powerful pysker abilities is in fact blocking the majority of the signals sent to the Necrons while they slumber that would otherwise reawaken them, similar to how he prevents the walls of physics from collapsing and letting the Chaos gods loose on the galaxy. The one's already awake are the ones that the signal managed to get through too.
    • That's no longer the case in the new codex; The reason the majority of the Necrons have not woken up is that they didn't have time to ensure the stasis technology, and as such, the timing mechanism often malfunctioned. Some Necrons woke up early, some have woken up late, and a lot of them may never wake up at all if they aren't found by already active Necrons.

• Why is O'Shassera armed with two fusion blasters? She is the highest ranking military commander in the Tau's entire empire. Shouldn't she have a longer-ranged weapon, so she isn't at as much risk?
  • You misunderstand the nature of Tau philosophy. To the Tau (really, anybody in this game), even a commander's value is not irreplaceable- a commander will sacrifice themselves so as to save the lives of their fellows. Equipping O'Shassera with dual fusion blasters means she can plug a desperate hole in their close-combat profile, as well as giving her a badly-needed defense against close-combat threats. While she would clearly not throw her life away without need, if she can serve the Greater Good at the cost of her own life, she would probably consider it a fair trade.
  • In addition, there seems to be a sort of mystical philosophy around a suit's loadout- "Mont'ka" suits, or those designed for close-combat are often designed to provide a pilot already prone to selfish and risky actions a way to burn out their own internal demons. Perhaps O'Shassera has a checkered past, or feels she is slipping into a similar mindset?
  • She's also in a stealth suit... the weapons fit that.
  • The same reason army officers carry pistols and not rocket launchers. The guys in the field take care of the big threats, the fusion blaster are there to stop her from getting flat footed.
  • Then why can Shas O'kais and Shas O'res'ka end up getting equipped with a far more versatile and far more lethal loadout with things like a plasma rifle, flamers, shoulder mounted missile launchers, stealth fields, cyclic ion cannons (the tau's real more dakka weapon), jet packs, gun and shield drone companions, iridium armor, improved sensor load outs, and energy shields when they are presumably of a lower rank than Shas O'Shassera? Shouldn't she be as well equipped as they are?
  • Most likely, those guns were there in Dawn of War so the Tau would have cool commander wargear. Those 'suits were the same model as Shassera's, and she evidently prefers having a tank-hunting ambush loadout over having more guns than she can reliably control (or use without markerlights and massive tracking beacon support).
• Why do the Tau shun close combat so much? Even if they aren't very strong physically, surely the Battlesuits have futuristic pistons or something to make up for strength deficiencies? Also, surely a power sword could be standard issue. I mean, almost every mecha show includes "beam sabre" or what-not dueling.
  • Tau don't have power weapons because they haven't researched it; power field technology is difficult to manufacture and even most of the tech-priests have no idea how it works. Keep in mind that the Tau have only had a fraction of the time as humanity to develop their technology and though they have made great strides in a short amount of time, not all of their technology is as advanced as the Imperium's.
  • The Tau have poorer reflexes than other races, in close combat, lightning reflexes are a survival requirement, especially in melee combat. Hence why they stick to shooting the shit out of everyone at range, and let their mercenary Kroot (who can be assumed to have far better reflexes than the Tau) do the close combat and melee.
  • I've wondered about that myself, and this image is the best explanation I've found.
  • Supposedly, its because Tau society considers all physical contact to be extremely distasteful. Hand-to-hand training for them would be like making military recruits make-out with each other as part of their training.
    • Actually in the Codex Xenos article GW put out when the Tau were first introduced there was a cut out box on this subject, basically the way Tau eyes work, they really fucking suck at following rapid movements up close and personal in hand to hand.
  • A good real-life equivalent of why Tau ranged fire is a good idea would be the Spanish Conquistadors. The conquistadors relied on long-range powerful gunpowder weapons to mow down massive waves of Aztec soldiers while using proxy armies as cannon fodder (like the Tau). Had the Conquistadors had swords, and even if their training and armour had enabled them to kill at a 1:10 casualty ratio, they would have been overwhelmed (hundreds vs. thousands). Likewise the Tau are greatly outnumbered by almost all foes, if in ranged combat a Fire Warrior could kill dozens or hundreds of enemies before dying while in melee die at a 1:1 ratio, it's obvious why they choose ranged combat. Another good real-life example is the Anglo-Zulu war.
    • Nitpick: the Conquistadors did have swords and steel armor, and guns in that era were inaccurate and slow to reload. Cortez and Pizarro got an advantage from their guns, but it was more because of the This Is My Boomstick factor than anything else- the natives didn't know what guns were and assumed they were some kind of freakish death magic, much as they assumed that horses were bizarre monsters. With the terror factor out of the equation, the Aztecs would have been quite able to deal with a few hundred arquebus-armed soldiers.
    • Except the second largest force in the setting, the Imperial Guard, are also almost as shooty. Sure, they're not as shooty as the Tau, but a lasgun can punch through Fire Warrior armor just fine, and they've got more lasguns in one Imperial battle group than there are stars in the galaxy.
    • It'll only punch through about half the time, whereas pulse rifles can go straight through a flak vest and out the back of the poor sap wearing it. But Guard are better in melee; i.e. they have dedicated melee units rather than "yeah, we can do OK" units like Kroot.
  • Kroot are superior to almost any unit of guardsmen in close combat, with more attacks, better WS and Strength. Unless facing an entire unit in carapace armour with close quarters weapons and tooled up officers, they have the edge.
    • Unless they've been treated to a shot from a Hellhound or two.
    • Which is an overuse of firepower, like shooting an anti-materiel rifle at an infantryman. Meanwhile, even though the lasgun will only penetrate the Fire Warrior's armor only half the time, the Guard have more than enough men to make up the difference. Remember, the Imperium has individual hive cities with higher populations than entire Tau sept worlds.
    • What is this "overuse of firepower" you speak of? Besides, while the basic Tau will eventually be whittled down, there's the extra range (permitting Fire Warriors to begin killing lasgun-toting Guard first) and the battlesuits (with things like the airbursting frag projector, AKA "your one-stop dead Guardsman shop").
    • Overuse of firepower means that you're using far too much energy to kill your target. The tau would be better off resorting to lower-powered weapons against Guardsmen if only for efficiency's sake. And the superior range and special battlesuit weapons are fine and dandy, except that the Guard can easily withstand those losses and keep coming at the Tau, gradually grinding them down with superior numbers, durability, and industrial capability.
    • I'm not sure "I think we should kill less of them with each volley of shots" fits any sane definition of efficiency. Neither does "I think we should take away the ability for our troops to damage light vehicles". Besides, Tau aren't like the Imperium. They don't look at their troops' guns and think "These are inefficient at killing Guardsmen and other light infantry". They look at pulse rifles and think "These are effective at killing Guardsmen and other light infantry". Their power gives them a versatility that the Imperial Guard have to use special weapons to achieve - they can gun down light infantry, light vehicles, and can use the old "throw enough mud at a wall" tactic to bring down things like Carnifexes or Marines/Necrons. They've already gone for Crippling Overspecialisation by focusing exclusively on ranged combat, and they know that focusing on killing one specific type of opponent with that fire, on battlefields where anything can happen and very frequently does, is a recipe for disaster. (Besides, they're not going to release a Tau codex with "Normal Fire Warriors," "Marine-Killing Fire Warriors With Plasma Rifles", and "Guard-Killing Fire Warriors with Flashlights" entries.) Sure, if the Imperium was able to mobilise all its resources, the Tau would get wtfpwned. But they can't, because of Necrons, Tyranids, Orks, Chaos, Eldar, rebels and so on.
      • I just have to point out, one, the Guard do get special and heavy weapons, while Tau Fire Warriors do not: the addition of heavy and special weapons to basic Guard squads closes the gap between their ranged fire-power, and then some. Second, there are plenty of targets that the Guard can deal with, thanks to their special weapons, against which the Tau are useless. Go ahead, try to fight MEQs like Necrons or Space Marines with an equal points value of Fire Warriors: odds are overwhelming that you will be masacred. Or, to word that differently, the claim that "you can use the throw-enough-mud-at-the-wall tactic to fight MEQs or monstrous creatures" is laughably and obviously false to any Tau player who's actually tried. Tau Lesson One is: Fire Warriors are Garbage. One final note: the guard have easy acces to any number of heavy vehicles with template weapons that'll flatten pretty much any single Tau squad in a single voley (i.e. the Basilisk main gun, and anything with a Demolisher cannon).
  • This argument has officially become an exercise in Moving the Goalposts, since the original comparison was between an anti-infantry unit and an infantry squad, not between a single squad of Fire Warriors and an entire Mech Guard army, especially given that if Tau really are that weak then they should get a points cut when they get their codex for this edition (like the Guard already has). In addition, you're rather overestimating the effect of a single heavy bolter - that's what, one long-range kill per turn instead of zero? And a sensible Tau player will set up in pulse rifle range so the Guard lose half a squad in a single volley anyway. Finally, the uselessness of anti-infantry and anti-light vehicle Fire Warriors against OP tanks ^{[dead link]} extends to every other troops unit out there, given that Demolisher shells can vaporise Necron warriors in seconds. (While we're here, consider that the Random Number God often has quite a large say in which side will win - I've been rolling dice in simulated 8 Marine vs. 12 Tau ranged battles for ten minutes now, and the dice vary quite considerably. If nothing else, the Tau are better against Marines than Guard will be because they twice the chance of wounding them with their basic weapons, while the Guard's main anti-MEQ weapon will likely cease functioning after your first 1, since it's a Gets Hot weapon.)
    • And as an additional point, being better at killing Guardsmen at the expense of efficiency means the Fire Warrior is more likely to survive because there's less lasguns being fired at him.
  • The truest reason for this is because of gameplay issues. Hand the Tau Battlesuit a force sword, and you have a weaker dreadnought that can fly around at will. The 'in-universe' reason is that, while tau frequently warred amongst themselves and indeed did have close-quarters fighting, they're just not as good at it as the rest of the universe. They recognized this deficiency and simply stuck to what they were good at. Hence, battlesuits have guns, not swords.
  • Perhaps this is a better way to put it from the Tau perspective: "Why do all these lunatics keep charging our fire lines armed with chainsaws and metal blades? Ah, well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. FIRE!"
    • I know Dawn of War isn't accurate, but it is possible to beat levels with the Tau and take 0 casulties by simply massing enough upgraded firewarriors to gun everyone down. All you have to fear are teleporters and vehicles- and you will sill butcher light vechicles. Bottom line- ranged weapons give you the possibility of no casulty victories.
      • This fails miserably on the (presumably canonical) table-top, where Fire Warriors can mow down * light* infantry, like Guardsmen or Orks, but are almost completely useless against Marine Equivalents (e.g. Space Marines and Necrons).
      • Thank goodness for sniper drones and battlesuits with plasma rifles, then.
      • This gets much more effective if you support them with battle suits for the vehicles and move them in staggered formations so they can set up at the new location before moving on. Even Terminator Squads are hard pressed to dispose of them if you're careful.
  • Here is the actual reason: Tau have poor depth perception - ranged combat is harder for them than it is for a human. They use ranged combat because it is a mark of skill for them. Technically Tau can fight in melee - Aun'shi, for example, killed hundreds of Orks in melee. However almost all choose not to train in it. It was pointed out in the White Dwarf that accompanied the 4th ed. Codex, and was explained as the reason why most of the army, including veterans who are supposedly on par with Space Marines, are only BS3.
  • While the Tau COULD train in close combat, why bother? everyone else is better at it than them, including the Kroot. Who work for them. It would be a waste of time.
  • The real question is: Why does everyone in the 40k Universe insist on melee combat, when in reality, WWI and WWII proved that bayonet charges and katanas were a great way to get yourself killed? The reason is: everyone in the 40k universe has been driven insane by The Warp. The Tau, who think The Warp/Chaos/Demons are all ghost stories made up by the Imperium, and who have no access to FTL travel, think melee/hand-to-hand combat is idiotic.
    • They don't insist on melee combat. The Space Marines' primary combat unit consists of Tactical Marines, whose primary weapon is the bolter. The only Space Marine unit that insists on melee combat are Assault Marines who, shockingly, assault things in close quarters where melee combat is inevitable. The Imperial Guard relies heavily on shooting targets at long range as well. The Orks go for close combat because they were engineered to enjoy fighting, Chaos goes for close combat because Warp mutations make them faster and stronger and good portion of them are crazy, the Tyranids engage in both close and long-range combat, ditto for the Necrons. Eldar have shooty and melee troops who specialize in their particular fields of focus. Even the Tau recognize that close combat is a necessity and thus employ Kroot. And for a lot of them, it works, because of a combination of speed, armor, toughness, strength, and capability to bypass defenses (i.e. teleportation, jump packs, etc.) Bayonet charges didn't work in WWI and WWII because humans can be easily killed by most modern weapons, but that doesn't work in this setting; a shooting line backed by heavy weapons and armor that would stop a group of ordinary human soldiers dead in their place will just annoy an Ork or Khornate Berserker force, and wouldn't even slow down a Necron or Tyranid army. There's a reason why the Imperial Guard's default methodology is to dig in and pour fire from a distance.
  • A better question is, why do Tau ethereals exclusively equip themselves for melee combat, without even grabbing a pulse pistol? Do they have a bad case of Jedi syndrome?
    • That's what the Honor Guard is there for.
      • Speaking of Honor, the Ethereal's blades are there for bloodless honor duels within the caste. They just so happen to be really, really freaking good with them to the point that they are swinging their swords with enough speed to be practically invisible to the human eye and can mow down hordes of Orks at close range. Their Honor guard are skilled enough and well equipped enough to handle ranged combat, so it would be superflous for the Ethereal to carry ranged weapons of his own.

• How the hell do all the factions get the resources required for such massive, large scale, neverending conflict?
  • Let's see: The Imperium of Mankind has over a million worlds including thousands of Forge Worlds, Chaos has stuff they've stolen from them as well as literal Offscreen Villain Dark Matter, the Tau, Eldar, and Dark Eldar have relatively low populations to begin with and the Eldar factions do a lot of raiding anyways, the Tyranids have the weaponized biomass of several galaxies, the Necrons have had eons to procure their resources before they converted to Necrodermis, and even more eons afterwards, and the Orks have hundreds or even thousands of mini-Ork Empires that raid when necessary or for fun.
  • The Imperium is also, when talking about the bigger, more powerful and advanced weapons/machines, using things that are thousands of years old. The Imperium really sucks at making the more advanced stuff (like titans and dreadnoughts) because they've lost most of the technology used to do so, and the technology they do have, they don't really understand. In some cases, they literally can't make any more of something; they just repair and maintain the items they already have So when a particularly important piece of machinery goes down in battle, the Imperium will do anything to get it back. Entire companies/chapters of Space Marines will fight to get back the remains of a fallen dreadnought, for example.

• Something I don't get: In all the fluff, the Space Marines are nigh unstoppable. Quotes like "Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops" and "For every one of us that falls in battle one hundred enemies will die" are cool and all... but why doesn't that kind of thing ever hold up in game? I've seen space marine players (myself included) get slaughtered by orks and heretic traitor guardsmen, and even by the Eldar. From the games I've seen, it just doesn't seem like these marines - who have supposedly lived hundreds of years in almost constant combat - should get killed as easily as they do.
  • Apparently you have fallen for the Imperial Propaganda.
  • It's in the interests of Games Workshop not to do so. It would make smurfs even more overpowered than they already are. And if it were to be balanced by making individual marines more expensive, space marine armies would have fewer models. And then GW wouldn't sell as many, and earn less money. And the cheapness of having a smurf army, in addition to the coolness factor of having an army of four people in it who are all invincible, would drive even more newbies into playing smurfs than already is the case. And that means less models sold. Which means less money for GW.
  • This Troper can't imagine why anyone would want to play against movie marines more than once. Imagine crafting a large Ork or Tau force by hand, assembling 50-150 models and delicately painting them all. Then imagine some jerk setting six spray-painted marines on the table across from them and trouncing you. Oh boy, that sounds incredibly fun! For the marines to have anyone else to face in table-top, the balance can't match the fluff.
    • Keep in mind, movie Necrons, movie Ork Nobs, movie Tau, and movie Eldar would all be able to beat a large amount of space marines with few models of their own. Simply because marine fans are the youngest and most vocal does not mean their puffed up idea of space marines (or Black Library's) is more relevant than the other faction's codices.
  • Aside from all the balance reasons, the 40K fluff really is not comparable to the models actual capabilities. Even the humble Lasgun supposedly has the power to blow the arm off of an unarmored man. The Space marines where specifically addressed with a white dwarf supplement detailing "Movie Marines", supposedly actually closer to a fluffy space marine's capabilities, basically by making every member of a tactical squad into a Hive Tyrant.
    • VERY not valid for tourney play list. It asked the question about "How's come Marines aren't as good as they are in the books" So they made the marine profile, and pointed them out. You HQ was the Vet Sgt. at 250 points. Elietes were the "Grisled old vets." that allways pop up in those stories at about 200 points a piece. Troops were rank and file Space Marines, at about 150-200 points a piece. Fast Attack...well you get like one guy with a jump pack or something. And the Heavy Support was the guy carrying the LasCannon which wound up being heavy 4 or something like that...mabe rapid fire, i can't remember. But as I said...you wound up with about 6-10 modles giving you a 1500-2000 point army. It was a very funny read.
      • The lascannon was better than that. 1 shot with the best statline available for an anti-tank weapon, but to fire it you just laid out a line and hit the first thing it touched, then lost a point of strength and hit the next thing and so on till it didn't wound something. Then there's the flamer that hits everything within 12" and the assault 6 bolters and the small blast krak missiles that are frag grenades and so on.
    • Here is an example: Basically doing that would make them obscenely unbalanced- and they also have to convert the forces of Chaos... as it is, they strive more for balance than accuracy. And don't even think of bringing in the laws of physics!
    • However, being as tough as a Hive Tyrant/tank isn't so impressive when there's only 1,000 of you, while your opponents have many, many thousands of soldiers with tanks and anti-tank weapons of their own.
  • I've always been under the assumption that each model on the board represents a differing number of actual units that combine to form the model's given stats. A model representing, say, an Imperial Guardsman, would, in one's imagination, represent maybe 500 soldiers (or whatever number is appropriate for the scale of battle you're waging). Elite units, like Space Marines, would represent maybe 20 or 30 men on the field, while still having stats comparable to the Guardmen. I've always thought of a tabletop game of 40K like a scene from any number of World War II or Vietnam films, with a group of generals standing around a large battle board, moving unit markers around with shuffleboard sticks.
  • Let's put that another way: it's like the Meet the Team videos for Team Fortress 2. Everyone gets a turn in the spotlight indiscriminately slaughtering their enemies.
  • Personally, I think it's more the fact that the basic foot soldier of the Ork army is ten feet tall, has a gigantic knife that can cut a man in half, and a gun that fires golf ball-sized slugs that will never jam because the Boy using it believes it should always work. One of those guys can take on a dozen fully armed, outfitted, and trained guardsmen by himself. It's not that the Space Marines are that badass, it's that the universe is so ridiculously dangerous.
  • Movie marines are somewhat over the top representation of space marine cababilities. They are, however, significantly stronger than normal men. Difference between s/t3 and s/t4 may not seem much but that's just because the limitatiosn of the system. In Inquisitor, which uses a more detailed values, a marine can kill you by throwing a combat knife at your face through a brick wall.
  • On the other hand, I have seen some amazing space marine victories. I once watched a tabletop game where Blood Angels were placing defensive against Eldar in the meat grinder scenario. The amount of carnage was incredible. The Eldar kept coming back since they had without number, and the marines would mow them down fast enough for the unit to return next turn (or MAYBE the turn after that). I myself played a space marine army for years, and only ever lost one game with it (first time I played against orks, I had no idea what they were capable of, and accidentally started with the Tac squad with the missile launcher in reserve instead of the tac squad with a flamer).
  • Look, most of the factions are underpowered. A single Necron Warrior would easily kill any Special character nigh unto instantly. Eldar can matrix dodge bullets. Dark Eldar fly bikes well enough to cut specific arteries. Spess Mehreens are invulnerable killling machines. Abbadon isn't a retard, much as it may surprise some. And DO NOT get me started the others. Really, it's for balance, because otherwise everyone would play the Necrons.
    • You forgot "a single Ork can wipe out a small hive city by himself" and "a Tau pulse rifle can punch a significant hole in a tank".
  • A point could be made that the armies players use are tougher than average (since who wants to play mundane conflicts), meaning the Space Marines have a harder time.
  • Remember, being disabled on the battlefield isn't necessarily death, unless your side loses. The Marines who go down to small arms fire might well stand up again after decent medical care.
  • Or the most likely reason. One Space Marine vs one squad of about 10 Guardsman. The Space Marine takes at most a couple shots of las-fire but kills them all before they can do any real damage. Lather, rinse, repeat 10 times. You get a busted up but alive marine who has killed 100 men.
  • I have a theory, the kill to death ratio of the navy seals during the vietnam war was 200 to 1 (200 viet cong killed by the seals for every soldier the navy seals lost) and these are just normal humans with special forces training. I can pretty much guarentee that most navy seals could not engage ten viet cong at once unsupported and win, but because they were always supported (to my knowledge) and didn't end up horribly outnumbered they pulled it off. The Astartes having a 100 to 1 kill to casualty rate does not seem unreasonable especially since standard (codex) Astartes tactics dictate that they not let the enemy take advantage of their superior numbers.
  • I hate to be a party pooper, but this is just an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation. Space Marines are canonically god-like super soldiers, but that makes for a crazily unbalanced game.
    • That depends on the point cost.

• Why are there no Chaos Imperial Guard? If the Emperor's own sons and their entire Chapters can be corrupted, why do we never see the occasional legion turn to Chaos?
  • Most of the forces of Chaos are in fact former Imperial Guard. They just don't have an army in-game.
  • They exist but they are functionally the exact same as the normal Guard but with spikes.
• Where to start....Well, there ARE traitor guard. In fact there are infinite numbers of traitor guard and they are a fixture of the lore and world. There are many times more traitor guard than Chaos Space Marines for example, by a long shot. Literally countless regiments, units, and armies have gone over to Chaos - they are called Cultists (Blood Pact being ONE such cultist force), Traitor Guard, Lost and the Damned, etc. Actually until the last few years the Lost and Damned was an official 40k army that was playable in tournaments - so its removal pretty much invalidated whole armies.
  • In fact, in the current era its pretty rare for Marines to go traitor, and much, much more common for guard units.
  • Generally speaking, I believe they are called "Chaos cultists". Seriously though, they're called the Blood Pact.
    • The Blood Pact are a specific sect that worships Khorne, and seem to only exist in the Sabbat Worlds. There are plenty of other cults though.
  • Don't forget the Lost and the Damned.
  • There's a lot of traitor guardmen, some like Blood Pact and the Darksworn even retain their organisation more or elss similar to loyalists.
  • Traitor Regiments have been mentioned in fluff a few times, it's just that Chaos Marines are much more interesting, so GW devote more attention to them.
    • Plus you can just convert some IG into Chaos Gaurd and used the IG rules.
    • Also, most traitor guard are two parts cannon fodder to one part sacrificial victim. Which is so much like life in the regular Guard that entire regiments have "turned" when their commanders went rogue, without the majority of the grunts even noticing. Until it was far too late, of course.
  • In any case, Chaos traitors vastly outnumber Chaos Space Marines, but CSMs are more popular so GW writes about them more. See Imperial Armour V: the Siege of Vraks for an excellent example of non-Space Marine Chaos armies, as well as the Lost and the Damned army list (as mentioned before) from the time of the Eye of Terror campaign.
  • In terms of the game, a regiment of Guard who turned to Chaos wouldn't be substantially different to a loyalist Guard regiment, so they don't warrant their own Codex, variant list or special rules. Chaos Space Marines, on the other hand, are - or were, until the most recent Codex changed the focus - the original marines from the Heresy, so they've got archaic equipment and more advanced mutations, meaning they'd look and perform differently to their loyalist counterparts.
  • Indeed, this troper had a Traitor Guard army for some years. No difference from Imperial Guard except in terms of aesthetics.

• Why didn't the Emperor place somekind of psychic conditioning on the Primarchs, so that they wouldn't betray him? He probably had enough power and skill to do so.
  • They were his beloved sons. He trusted them implicitly. Besides which, they are extremely powerful psykers themselves.
    • I can buy the beloved son with Horus, but he didn't bring up the other Primarchs. He should realise he can't predict their behaviour as well.
    • Even if he didn't raise a lot of them, they're also still his flesh and blood and the God Emperor is generally depicted as being one of the only super powered beings that's genuinely a decent person who cares about every one under him. Brainwashing his sons might be a little out of line, and besides. His coma and the utter corruption of what he said that came after he fell is just too delicious not to make the basis of a horrible galaxy gone wrong.
  • All of the Primarchs were stolen away and hidden by the Powers of Chaos before they were 'born', which is why they are all so very different (having been raised on different worlds) and why the Emperor had to search them out one at a time. Quite possibly he WAS going to psychically condition the Primarchs into unblinking loyalty but never had the chance. It all makes sense to me as once that happened it would have been much, much harder for Chaos to corrupt any of them, which in turn would probably mean that the Heresy would never have occurred and Chaos would have been vanquished by the new Enlightened version of Mankind.
  • A possible answer to this (and the answer canon seems to be pointing to now) is that the Emperor did it on purpose: his sons were supposed to rebel. Spoilerific. Read Legion.
• In Horus Rising Horus shows a ring he got from the Emperor, which was apparently made a year before the Emperor was born. But as far as this Troper knows the Emperor was born 8000 B.C., so it was to early for jewlery made out of metal, wasn't it?
  • Gold and copper jewelry have been found in Neolithic archaeological digs; those metals could be found in pure form at the Earth's surface back then, so people started working them early on. And meteoric iron tools are sometimes found in the hands of Stone Age societies, too.
  • History in 40k is questionable. Remember, the Emperor was there, everyone else wasn't.
  • He's the Emperor. He was probably born in Atlantis, then sank the place to give himself a long-term technological advantage.
  • It is revealed in old fluff (don't remember any exact books) that the Emperor was born in 8000 B.C. in Anatolia (modern Turkey), but this might not be canon anymore since other old fluff are not.

• Just how evil ARE the Tau, anyway? I know they're not the "nicest" people out there, but depending on who you ask, the Tau are either well-intentioned and idealistic, though they have a few skeletons in their closet, or they're not much better than Nazis, sending any alien races to concentration camps and castrating them for no good reason, with the cynical Ethereals brainwashing the lower castes via pheromones. The truth likely falls somewhere in the middle, but I wish Games Workshop would just come out and say it instead of having them be intentionally ambiguous.
  • By the standards of Warhammer 40k, they're practically saints. By the standards of any other universe, they're the most despicable bastards that ever lived.
  • Seriously. They're the 'good guys' because they give you the choice of 'join us or die'. The Imperium on the other hand is 'Be Human, worship the Emperor, pay taxes or be BURNED ALIVE AT STAKE AS A HERETIC.
    • Heh, I do love the fact that the Tau are undeniably the "good guys" of the 40K universe, just because you COULD make an argument that they're not pure evil.
  • Keeping the Tau's relative morality ambiguous is kinda-sorta the whole point.
  • Look, when the Tau first came out back in 2001 (yes it really was that long ago) there was NOTHING in their background that implicated them as evil - thoroughly naive about the universe, yes, but not evil. Of course, then the Imperium had to go on that Damocles Gulf Crusade and invade their brains out. They've been made more "morally ambiguous" largely because people complained they were "too nice" for the setting! And so we come full circle...
  • From the fluff I would say that the average Tau in the street has a fairly enlightened outlook on life and many of the commanders/leaders are relatively benevolent, if a little cynical. But the higher-ups and the Etherials are more aware of how generally shit the universe is and act as ruthless as everyone else. The difference between them and Imperial authorities is that the humans don't bother to lie about being tyrants any more. Basically, Tau on the street are Lawful Good with Lawful Neutral rulers, while Imperial citizens are Lawful Neutral with Lawful Evil rulers. On a good day.
  • Tau may vary, just like other sentients.

• My question may sound highly ignorant: But why the hell, if both the Tyranids and the Necrons have enough strength to decimate everything that stands in their way (Except each other due to their lack of interest) why haven't they dominated the entire galaxy? Also: Why the hell hasn't anyone thought of doing a movie based on this? It's got enough popularity and the amount of stuff they could do without violating the fluff is immense! Again, sorry if I sound ignorant.
  • For the decimating everyone in their way bit fluff is taking it to the endgame now, the Golden Throne is failing, Chaos is breaching the Cadian Gate, the Tyranid main fleet is almost here, the Necrons are all waking up, the Orks are well Orks, the Eldar are making a new god to kill Slaanesh, pretty much The End of the World as We Know It.
  • The Necrons already did that once... and the boredom after made them sleep for millions of years (and the whole Enslaver thing). And the 'nids are only still scouting parties, with the main force taking a while to get here, if they're headed to this galaxy at all. But i think that the Orkz would challenge the assertion that either force is unstoppable (they already lived through the 1st Necron purge), if they unite that is.
  • You don't seriously think the Space Marines, Imperium or no, are ever going to completely be destroyed do you? As a popular race, they have a little thing called Plot Armor. No matter how bad things get, there'll always be some around.
  • To put it simply, merchandising rights. Any movie studio worth its salt is going to want a cut of that, and GW won't do anything to jeopardise their grip on their IP. So it will only happen if GW gets big enough to own their own movie studio.
  • The Necrons aren't all awake yet, and the majority of the Tyranid hive fleets haven't arrived yet. The Necrons also don't want to blow up the galaxy (yet), and 5th Edition implies that they aren't as monolithic as we previously thought. As for a movie... my god, nobody would sponsor it. It's too crazy.
  • Also, look up Damnatus: Der Feind Im Innern ("The Enemy Within"). Fan made 40k movie focused on IG vs Chaos Cultists, got finished with the tacit approval of GW. Then German IP laws prevented it from ever being released (it would evidently require GW to make all of 40k public property due to idiotic German law).
    • German copyright does not work that way. Maybe someone should have consulted a lawyer actually experienced enough with this "idiotic law" but Games Workshop basically overreacted and stalwarted any solution in this matter.
    • Any weakening of their copyright is probably seen as a bad thing by GW, and the whole "make everything public property" thing is obviously a Fan Dumb take on the situation.
    • Another reason for backing out of media deals is that GW is very, very protective of teh integrity of its IPs, and any liscensing will result in Executive Meddling. One example: back in the late 90s or so, there were plans to do a CGI cartoon series. GW backed out when the studio insisted on adding female Space Marines.
    • Why did they need to add female Space Marines? The Space Marines already have a female equivalent in the Sisters of Battle -- at least, one close enough for the purposes of whatever they were probably trying to pull off.
  • There is a concern about a big 40K movie... If such a thing were successful, the theatres would be drenched with movies about big muscly men with giant pauldrons calling those they disagree with "heretics". The filth of big business in Hollywood is like that.

• I've been wondering about this one for a while. How are the Tau more of the good guys than the Eldar? (Well, so to speak)
  • They didn't create a god of squick.
  • Who said the Tau are any better than the Eldar?
    • Aun'va.
  • The Eldar are perfectly willing to manipulate other races into sacrificing large numbers of themselves to protect even a single Eldar life. For example, the Eldar may divert, say, a Tyranid Hive Fleet or Ork Waaagh! into attacking Imperial space to protect a Maiden World or Craftworld. The Eldar have done and do ally with Imperial forces on occasion - but only when it suits them, and they'll probably find a way to screw over the Imperials during or after whatever battle they're fighting. The Eldar are in fact polar opposites to the Tau - they see everyone else as mere tools to be used and discarded, whereas the Tau just want everybody to join their club.
    • That depends on how you look at it. The Tau would probably do the same things as the Eldar given the chance.
    • The Tau are far too naive and still too idealistic, even given their moral ambiguity. The Eldar have no real ideals any more beyond surviving. And, in any case, the Eldar are far, far and away the best manipulators in 40K, barring Tzeentch. That Czevak quote comes to mind - "Ask an Eldar a question, and they will give you three answers, all true and all terrible to comprehend." That's somewhat paraphrased, but it's along those lines. This troper thinks the Eldar have survived this long due to their sheer manipulative cunning in maneouvering other races against each other. Tzeentch is the god of Manipulative Bastardy, but no mortal can match the Eldar.
  • That reminds me. Do the Orks really have a twisted sense of honor about them that makes them worthier opponents than the Eldar?
    • Well, Ghazkull let Yarrick go on the grounds that a good enemy was worth keeping alive. Orks will kill indiscriminately, but they'd much prefer a good scrap. Which means they won't attack noncombatants when there's actual combatants to fight. Eldar, on the other hand, are far more pragmatic -- they'd probably virus-bomb your planet rather than risk their lives in combat, then come back 10 years later and move into the ruins.
    • Orks do have a sense of honor, it's just fairly different from that of most races. Most races would considering having your head cut off and put on a stick a barbaric desecration. To an Ork, however, it's not an insult at all. Having your head on a warlord's point stick is the highest honor for a non-Ork.

• How big exactly was the Emperor? And did he somehow add all those funky improvements (two hearts and stuff) the Space Marines have?
  • The Emperor was normal human size, probably quite tall but still a normal human (not counting armour of course) and doesn't have all the extra bits that Space Marines and the Primarchs have. All his ability comes from his prodigious psychic powers (waaaaaay past alpha level psyker, probably leaves Eldrad eating his dust) which he uses to augment his strength, speed etc in combat.
    • Seeing as high-rank Imperial psykers can use biomancy to make alterations to their body in Dark Heresy, it would not be much of a stretch at all to believe that the single most powerful psyker to ever live could give himself a makeover. He's even been seen disguising himself when meeting the Primarchs for the first time.
    • On the other hand, Eldrad did tell the Emperor that his sons would betray him, so Eldrad was at least better at reading the future than the Emperor(which is what being a Farseer is all about, really).
  • The Emperor was enormous. He was at least the size of one of his Primarchs. To put that into perspective, the Primarchs were towering demi-gods of war whose gene-seed was used to create the Space Marine Legions, and the Emperor could best any one of them. Even Horus, even if it was close - and Horus had disposed of Sanguinius (Primarch of the Blood Angels) quite easily.
    • I remember reading somewhere (can't quote the source, alas) that the Emperor and his Primarchs quote unquote "towered as far above the Space Marines as they did above normal men". Assuming that towering means that a normal human comes to a Marine's shoulder or neck, that means that the shortest Space Marine would be somewhere around 6'6", give or take. Taking that to the Primarchs and the Emperor, a conservative estimate would be between seven-and-a-half to eight feet tall. With proportionate mass (presumably all muscle), a total weight, sans armor and gear, could be somewhere around 250 to 300 pounds.
    • Marines are about 8ft tall. The Horus Heresy novels have a Primarch's waist at the level of a Marine's chest. Yeah, they're big bastards.
  • Dawn of War 2 (possibly not the most accurate source possible) gives a more definite size for the Primarchs. It claims that they were 10 feet tall.
  • I have a illustration of the Emperor fighting Horus. They were about the same height as each other, but they were indeed head and shoulders taller than the marines around them.
  • Here I thought that the Marines were ten feet tall on average with the primarchs being 15 feet, though Magnus the Read was an exception for being freakishly big; so I'd say that he'd be eighteen to twenty feet tall. Your average member of the Adeptus Custodes would probably be in the area of twelve feet in height, as would Abaddon the Despoiler.
  • If you want to see how tall the average Space Marine is, take a trip to Warhammer World. They have a life-size marine there (I forget what chapter).
  • He's basically Conan... except also engineer and psyker. As to the extra organs, he already was demigod, and Primarchs were modded clones of himself. They were obviously superhumans - even to benighted death-worlders and while still babies; they probably didn't need enhancements that much. Spess Mehreens started as normal humans and had to be enhanced to almost this level.
• Why does everyone hate the Squats, anyway? Is it because they weren't GRIMDARK enough?
  • They didn't sell. GW simply decided to purge their existence from history afterwards.
    • Also, they were pretty badly written. I've read the Rogue Trader rulebook, and they don't come across well at all.
    • Most importantly is that they weren't asymmetrical enough. All of the races in 40k in some way have to fill some sort of style of play, and Squats simply couldn't be made different enough than other races. Far too similar to imperial units and tactics to be new and exciting.
• Why is that the older Inquisitors are radical and the younger ones are traditional instead of the other way around?
  • Because Inquisitors only get old if they don't stay traditional.
    • It was a deliberate choice by the writers, to subvert the expected pattern. They start out as indoctrinated fanatics, then become radical once they've had some practical experience.
    • Pretty much. A young Inquisitor comes out of training all fired-up and fanatical, full of zeal and purpose and indoctrination. But as he survives and fights on and experiences what the galaxy is really like, his beliefs get pushed and stretched, and he has to resort to more and more difficult means until ultimately he starts becoming a radical. Give Eisenhorn a read if you want to watch an Inquisitor's shift over time.
    • Commodus Voke subverts this slightly, as he was older than Eisenhorn when they met and he was so puritanical that he considered Eisenhorn a radical (this was still relatively early in Eisenhorn's career when he considered himself a puritan). In general, however, inquisitors do become more radical as time goes on, not only because they feel it is justified, but as they grow more experienced (and more arrogant) they believe (sometimes correctly, sometimes not) that they are powerful enough to control the powers they wield. Eisenhorn frequently used that justification when he did something shady. "Sure this is bad, but I can keep it under control."
  • So where does Mordecai Toth fall? Is he radical or traditional?
    • I'd say ignorant.
    • We don't really get enough information in Dawn of War to make a secure Radical/Puritan guess, and even less information when it comes to guessing which sect he's from... so all we can safely say is that he isn't an ultra-psycho Radical with daemonhost flunkies and a pitch black sword that drinks light. At the same time, we can guess that he's not an ultra-fanatical Puritan, based on his suggestion to work with the Eldar late in the game.
  • It's generally assumed, well I know from a few tidbits that Quixos in particular, Recongregators and Istaavians in general all turn Radical when they have an epiphany that the greatest threat to the Imperium from within is the Imperium itself. Their differences lie between whether it is better to start over, or simply shake things up and manipulate circumstances to better the system and replace the corruption, both however agree that nuclear weapons are a fun tool for these ends..
  • Desperate diseases, desperate cures. And horrified realisation of "just how deep we all are in?.." comes gradually. Insanity and Corruption accumulate gradually, too.

• So, which worker unit has it worse? The Heretics who serve Chaos or the Slaves who serve the Dark Eldar?
  • The Dark Eldar slaves, I'd say. Chaos may mess you up pretty bad, but it also makes you think that's what you want, so the heretics are actually pretty happy, unlike the poor insane slaves.
    • Don't expect Chaos to pay its heretics any mind. They're not getting any mutations unless they prove themselves worth the effort. The Heretics may want to be in Chaos but they're still pretty heavily abused slaves, and once they're in I don't think there's a retirement plan.
    • While the Heretics are far from happy, at least they have a chance of elevation, while the DE slaves will always end up as soul food to stave off She Who Thirsts. Would you rather have AIDS (slow, torturous guaranteed death) or Ebola (painful, degrading and you have a 1 in 9 chance to live)?
      • I'd have to agree. The Heretics only sound happy when they say "Thank you...thank you, master!"
      • Yes, but Dark Eldar slaves never even sound happy...

• Not to nitpick one of my favorite games or anything, but I'm curious: how did Gabriel Angelos earn the rank of Brother-Captain if he's not a Grey Knight?
  • Brother-Captain is a standard Codex Astartes rank for any Space Marine Company Commander. Its not exclusive to the Grey Knights in any way.
    • I don't know, according to this website, it is.
    • And according to that website it isn't. "Within a chapter the Captain is sometimes referred to as "Brother-Captain"".
    • To put it another way, Captain is the official rank but the Space Marines have a major Blood Brothers complex. "Brother-Librarian" probably isn't a rank either, but you'll get Marines using it.
    • Less Blood Brothers, more Warrior Monk. The Codex chapters are religious orders, much like the various Catholic military orders- and what do monks call each other? There are exceptions, of course- the Space Wolves are more likely to be going for Blood Brother than Monk (although they pretty much think they're gods).
  • The Grey Knights are their own chapter, not a rank. Angelos was a Blood Raven, so he couldn't be a Grey Knight. As for why he was called Brother-Captain, the marines tend to prefix most titles with "Brother" when talking to each other.
  • Brother-Captain is just a derivitive of battle brother. Other such title are brother, brother sergeant, and brother chaplain.
  • The ranks of Grey Knights are "Grey Knight", "Justicar", "Brother-Captain", and "Grand Master"; note the fact that they are definitely not a Codex Chapter. Other Chapters have the procession from rank-to-rank set by the Codex (even if a few odd ones, like Dark Angels or Blood Angesl, deviate a bit). "Captain" is a rank, as is "Sergeant". For the Codex Chapters, they use ranks formally, and most other people will append "Brother" to the rank as a mark of respect and solidarity. "For are we not all Marines? Are we not the Emperor's loyal servants, even unto death?"

• Are the Orkz aware of the Psychic field? They know that Wyrdboyz have to be separated, but do they know why the red ones go faster?
  • Of course they know why the red ones go faster: It's because they're red. The Orks don't have our perspective on the psychic field and so the effects they observe are to them as the laws of physics is for us. And they're about equal so the Orks beliefs basically are laws of physics whenever many Orks are around. Of course both can be bent or broken.
  • Orks perceive the physics of the universe "right", i.e.: governed by what should work. Since for it to work it has to be cool ork-wise, they do know that rule of cool governs the universe. Ergo they're genre-savvy about rule of cool, no need to be aware of anything complicated.

• What motivations would certain races like say... The Tau and Eldar have for fighting one-another? Or Tyranids and Necrons, or Orks and Dark Eldar? (considering the Dark Eldar could wisk away from them)
  • Eldar vs Tau: Farseer: We must prevent the Tau from spreading their Greater Good to this planet to prevent an Avatar of Khaine from tripping over a drone 6000 years from now. Ethereal: The Greater Good demands we procure that webway gate. Tau Soldier:Some Eldar appeared and gave us a long vaguely worded speech about some mysterious threat if we took it. Ethereal: Take it anyway.
  • Tyranids vs Necrons: Some Necrons wake up on a planet where the Tyranids are harvesting and kill them like anything else. Some Tyranids land near where some Pariahs are being collected by the Necrons and the Necrons fight to protect their new soldiers. A C'tan thinks fighting some Tyranids would make good sport.
  • Orks vs Dark Eldar: The Dark Eldar leader is bored and wants to fight some Orks. An Ork Warboss insults a Dark Eldar leader or kills the people he was going to enslave, they fight.
  • For the Tau vs. Eldar, any number of reasons. Tau could have landed on an Exodite or claimed Eldar world, which will provoke a holy hell of an Eldar response. Tau could be attempting to capture Eldar technology, or Tau could be doing something else the Farseers disagree with. Or this particular group of Tau are believed to threaten Eldar lives in some way, so they get attacked.
  • Necrons vs. Tyranids: Both groups respective methods of killing and consuming are mutually incompatible. Therefore, they have to fight to decide who gets the yummy souls/biomatter.
    • The problem with that reason being that, if I remember the fluff correctly, the Tyranids stay away from the Necrons whenever they can. Necrodermis is pretty much the only thing Tyranid digestion pools can't break down into usable material, so the Tyranids avoid it -- I'm not clear whether it's simply a pragmatic decision by the Hive Mind to avoid expending Tyranids that can't be replaced after the battle, or because it freaks the Hive Mind out.
  • DE vs. Orks: Orks make good pain-slaves. Dark Eldar are propa shooty. Both make for a great fight for the other.
    • Do orks even feel pain?
  • Orks vs. anyone: Because they were there. Its a defining trait of the Orks that they have nothing better to do than constantly pick fights -- with each other, if there's no other fun-looking targets around. Likewise, Anyone vs. Orks: the Orks are going to take a swing at you anyway as soon as they notice you're there, you might as well use the surprise advantage and hit them first.
    • Orks vs. Orks: we'z havin a party! Waaagh!
    • Other versions include "Dat git Boss Krogsnik is a panzee 'umie-lovin' git an' 'e spat on my fav'ritest bootz. 'E needs ter be tawt a lesson" and "OY! Dose boys didn't foller me! We 'as ter give 'em a thump!"
    • Hell, one ork warboss attacked his past self just so he could have two of his favourite gun.
  • I wouldn't consider taking too close a look at it. Forces that would otherwise be allies could degenerate into fighting each other over conflicts of interest. In this case it would probably be if there was a breakdown in diplomacy or one side would think that there are good reasons to fight the other side (i.e. Heresy, dogmatic differences, obedience to conflicting authorities, ect.) This is why you could get something like a Daemonhunters vs. Witchhunters scenario. Other times, your scenarios specifically, Necrons and Tyranids would be vying for a strategic world that would be a prime place to launch an offensive into Imperial space, Dark Eldar would be raiding an Ork settlement for slaves, or the Eldar are raiding the Tau in one of their attempts to manipulate the future. Basically, any reason at all, even if the other army was simply there, in fact you can make a mad libs template, insert the two armies in there and fill in the rest, and it do as well as any other reason in terms of the tabletop.
  • Anybody vs. Anybody: Faction A really likes peanut butter but only has chocolate. Faction B really likes chocolate but only has peanut butter. Faction A attacks faction B to get their peanut butter/ Faction B attacks faction A to get their chocolate. Logically this works well for teaming up incompatible factions too for team tournaments (I i.e. Dark Eldar and Eldar, Orks and Space Marines, tyranids/Necrons and anybody).

• The power fists have fields which disrupt solid matter right? So why not stick the fields on power armour and render yourself impervious to all ballistic and melee attacks?
  • The ground falls apart when you take a step, gouging out craters at best and dropping you multiple stories inside buildings at worst. You bolter blows apart in your hands. You sit down on the Land Raider, and your rip it to shreds. You brush up against your buddy, he blows up, and so do you. And so on, and so forth. Also, though the power fist dirsupts matter, it doesn't stop kinetic energy; the impact behind a bolter round or a chainsword swing will still affect you.
    • There's an off switch, power fields cancel each other out, and if our hypothetical marine put it on his armour, he'd make sure he didn't put it on his hands and soles (Hmm... Do marines have common sense?). Also, if the disruption field works the way I think it does, it should turn the incoming item in question into fluid. That means a larger surface area to impart the force on, and since the bolter round turned to fluid or some other equivalent state, the explosive in it wouldn't detonate. Oh, and inertia dictates that a bunch of molecules moving at bolter round speed is going to hurt a lot less than a bolter round at that speed. Hey, come to think of it, you'd make the marine himself a very effective anti-armour system.
      • All very well as far as it goes, but when does the guy turn his thing on and off? That's another layer of complexity in an already complex suit of armour. Plus the brushing up against your buddy and mutaully killing each other is still and issue.
  • Honor, reason, good engineering sense, and practicality all have have nothing to do with it. Once more, for the benefit of those sitting in the back: there is no such thing as inventing in the universe of 40k. Heretical or not, mankind simply does not have the knowledge to create anything new. What they DO have is maintained through religious rote and superstition. That power fist? It was made in a manufactorum by a Techpriest Engiseer who applied all the sacred oils, recited the proper litanies in the proper cants, and pressed the button marked with the mystical "ON" rune. They don't know even know the fist generates the field it does, let alone how to reproduce its effect in a very precise and controlled manner.
    • Actually, there is evidence that innovation does take place within the Imperium. Its just that the Mechanicus surrounds all its research and study with the trappings of their religion, slowing it down significantly. The Mechanicus higher-ups know and understand the science and engineering behind a lot of the technology they use, but the lay tech-priests don't.
    • Yes there is some inventing, since the power armor has gotten better since the Horus Heresy, and some other things I forget right now. The Adeptus Mechanicus are just loathe to implement new technology( except in their Skittari and personal warriors), mostly because a new technology needs new factories, new shipping lines, new orders for distribution, and new training to actually use the item all of which costs a lot of money and resources which the Administratum isn't usually willing to pay for. Also because they want to keep the best technology to themselves. There are Mechanicus factions which demand no new tech at all, but the opinion on the matter varies wildly between groups. A too-lenient attitude towards new inventions could also result in the accidental rebirth of the Iron Men, and we all know what happens then. Don't forget about Chaos and how it often corrupts minds open to new ideas as well.
    • Although some upgrades in power armour and bolters may be due to finding pieces of a Standard Template Construct system instead of actual research. Even the research they do do is more like back-engineering than actual science - the klepto Archmagos in Soul Drinker wanted to find out how the Soulspear worked by having someone take it apart, rather than taking existing vortex technology and trying to figure out how to make it better.
    • The way I remember it (and honestly, asking for consistency in 40k lore is laughable), The AdMech generally dislike inventing stuff because it interferes with the Quest for Knowledge. In short - you shouldn't be wasting your time thinking about how to make something new. Your time should be spent on searching for the STCs and finding the pattern the Ancients already made for whatever it is you were thinking of inventing. That and the AdMech believe that the technology the humans held in ancient times is perfect (and really, if that star ship was made several thousand years ago and still works, can you disagree with them?) and thus trying to invent something is like saying you are better than the Ancients. And you're not. And that's heresy.
    • It boils down to their philosophy that "Knowledge is sacred," being literally a part of their Machine God. They also tend to believe that all knowledge already exists in the galaxy, just waiting to be found. It essentially becomes a case of "Better to not know, than to be wrong".
  • On a related Adeptus Mechanicus note- what's stopping a Magos from doing some research, throwing in a few random references from previous research, telling the Mechanicus Tenure Board "yeah I totally found this in, my, pocket, yeah," and having it accepted as a found piece of knowledge? Not to mention- what is the functional difference between a piece of knowledge that has been refound versus a piece of knowledge that has been found anew? I can't for the life of me work it out.
  • On the proposed "disruption armor": Where are you going to get a portable power source small enough not to weigh the Space Marine armor down too much more, and run the suit's normal functions AND the disruption field? I'm assuming the reason the Power Fist is so big is that it needs a large power source just to make that smaller disrupting field(than what you're proposing) which already makes it unwieldy for the marine using it. Unless it makes the wearer invincible to incoming lasweapons as well as projectiles it would most likely weigh down the marine too much and make them get hit more instead of less. Also if they have a problem with the cost of making new Terminator parts how would they justify these? Any attempt to make such armor would have to overcome those issues first, if they even thought of it in the first place.
    • Cost and weight are definitely major issues here, considering how heavy a single powerfist is. Equipping an entire suit of armor with that kind of technology would result in something even larger than a Terminator suit but about a tenth as fast, and would have all the agility in close combat of a drunken hobo. Not to mentiont he power issue, as Marine armor already requires those fuckall huge backpacks to power their normal suits, let alone Terminator armor. Cramming the power generators for the rough equivilant of about fifteen to twenty powerfists onto the suit is just ridiculous, especially when Marines are supposed to be a speedy, fast-reaction force dependant on mobility.
  • Marines do use this technology for defense: It's called a conversion field, and the device that generates it is small enough to hang from your neck (a Chaplain's Rosarius) or stick on top of your backpack (An Iron Halo). They don't issue them to everybody for the same reasons that they don't issue every Marine with Terminator armor, plasma cannons, and vortex grenades.
  • How quickly disruptor fields work? Power weapons are all melee, and Eviscerator's teeth aren't anywhere near supersonic either. No bolts or other missiles/shells. Maybe it just doesn't add much "BANG" to collisions that are too fast? If so, this would, at best, negate other power weapons' effect on the armor. But we know some expensive exotic alloys (like the stuff used for Lathe Blades) are immune to destruction by Power weapons, maybe power armor has a layer of that already?..
  • Also, Storm Shield] apparently does work like Power Weapon... it doesn't contain moving parts, maybe that's the problem?..

• Bolters are rapid-fire rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, yes? Then why do video games always portray them as being little more than large-caliber machine guns? Their visual effects are particularly unimpressive in Dawn of War 2, but I note with dismay that even in Space Marine, which is supposed to give you the sense of being a gargantuan super-soldier, your bolter just produces a wimpy muzzle flash. I want rippling explosions, damn it! Don't say the next-gen systems can't handle it!
  • I always imagine bolt weapons as going "Phut...Pow!", where most of the sound is the shell exploding in the target's face. Look up the Youtube video of the Gyrojet firing for an example.
  • Dawn of War doesn't quite fit with 40K Canon. Remember, Tau guns are described in fluff as producing a high-pitched whine, but in Dark Crusade they go "pew pew pew". (We're disregarding Soulstorm).
    • Well I dont think the failure to portray them was intentional, just a limitation of the engine and graphics. There is a clear distinction between the regular machine-guns like the Orks have that have a muzzle flash and realistic effects, and bolters that shoot big thick orange tracer rounds. Knowing nothing of WH40K fluff when I first bought Dawn of War, even I knew the bolters were some sort of ultra-caliber weapon just by how much more powerful they looked compared to Ork weapons. Although the bolt PISTOLS seem to be the problem, shooting regular dakka out
    • I wasn't implying it was a failure to do the research - there's, to the best of my knowledge, maybe two pieces of fluff that discuss the noise Tau guns make at all.
    • Actually Dawn of War is for the most part really accurate to the fluff with only a few minor failings.

• Another Tau question: this troper often finds claims on /tg/ that the Tau authorities tell their troops that there are no such things as Titans. Yet nobody ever bothers saying where they get this information; it certainly isn't in the Tau codex. Does anyone know, or is it just one of those things that's spawned from the Internet?
  • /tg/ hates Tau? They seem to have their own Canon there, a Canon that fits their ideas on who are cool and who are not. All fun and games of course.
  • In answer to the question - this troper remembers reading something about that, possibly in the first Tau codex - in which the Tau were only just encountering the Imperium and rumours of building-sized killing machines would be likely to be dismissed as Imperial propaganda.
  • Not so much told as they have trouble believing the things exist- being so colossal, ridiculous, and impractical (which is why the Tau don't have Titans of their own, yet anyway). The main character in Fire Warrior novelisation (better than the game, though that's not saying much) has a rather interesting reaction towards finding one - at first he thinks it's some massive, weird building, and once he comes to grips with it he muses on how destructive and terrifying it must be, but ultimately impractical (as he rigs it to explode).
  • Seconded that the source for this is the Novelization of Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior. However, that takes place shortly after the Damocleas Crusade, when contact between the Tau and the Imperium was still scarce. As such, Tau had heard of Imperial Titans, but had not really ever confronted them by that time, believing them to be Imperial scare-tactic propoganda. It is kind of easy to see why they would believe so, as the laws of physics would require a lot of Techno Babble Handwaving before a Titan could be believed to not sink into the ground it stood on, let alone move in combat. The Tau believed that any civilization with enough Applied Phlebotinum to make such a thing work would certainly find better uses for it. Fluff taking place later (specifically Imperial Armor Volume III: The Taros Campaign which is a great read if you are interested more in overall military doctrine and large scale strategy and logicstics than character driven plots of most Black Library works) do show the Tau reversing this earlier position when they realized that the Imperium actually took such Crazy Awesome concepts seriously and they would be in a world of hurt if they did not have an effective countermeasure to them. Thus was born the heavy railgun version of their Tigershark aircraft, designed to kill Titans at a fraction of the material cost.

• Which way do the blades spin on a Chainsword? If the teeth grind towards you, then the sword pulls itself into the target and out of your hand, and you get blood and goo all over your greatcoat. If it's reversed, then you keep cleaner, but wouldn't it be harder to push into somebody and wouldn't entrails get sucked into the mechanism?
  • The teeth on the models are pointed towards the hand on the cutting edge, and some (like the Space Marine commander kit) have special hilts to ensure they don't inadvertently avert Throwing Your Sword Always Works.
  • All of the movies from Dawn of War indicate that the teeth rotate dowards. That being said, most of the fluff indicates that the teeth spin so fast and are so sharp that very little gore actually splashes on the wielder; the Ciaphas Cain books indicate that it is possible to pull of a Clean Cut with one.
  • I seem to recall Gaunt noting in one of the novels (first one?) that chain swords can spin either way - knowing when to reverse the spin is an integral part of chainsword dueling.

• So, the Howling Banshees is an "order" of female Eldar warriors. Alright. But then, why are the Autarchs wearing a Banshee mask (which means they followed and mastered this path at one point) always male? And if the Banshees actually accepts both sex, why, on the other hand, is there no male Banshee figure ? They do put a few female torsos in the Guardians' boxes, after all...
  • Most of them are female; the option is there to convert a male Banshee or a female Autarch should you want one. It could be that female Eldar are for some reason less likely to succumb to Becoming the Mask (pun not intended) and as such tend not to become sociopathic Blood Knights Autarchs.
  • Actually, it could be some of those Howling Banshees are male, but wear the armour patterned after the Howling Banshee founder.
  • It is my understanding that the banshee from eldar myth is a female spirit. Since aspect warriors already have MPD, emulating a woman wouldn't be unreasonable.
    • According to an older Codex, thats the reason- the founder of the Howling Banshees was female, so all Howling Banshees are female, even when they're male. During their stay in the shrine, the male ones feminize their name, get referred to with female pronouns, wear armor shaped for a female body, and in general become women for the duration of their stay.

• I'm confused. If the 40K Universe is practically made of overkill, then why were the pre-Heresy World Eaters always reprimanded for their constant use of overkill?
  • Pre-Heresy times were nicer than post-heresy times. The Emperor wanted to reunite humanity under his banner and lead them all to a glorious new future, not smash their planets into wastelands and rule over the shattered remains like a carrion crow.
  • Also, the World Eaters are just that ferocious. How murderous were they, you ask? So murderous they almost got kicked out of the Space Marines for unnecessary roughness.
  • Consider that when Angron attacked the betrayed Space Marines on Isstvan III -- thus preventing Horus from just bombing them again -- Horus blamed himself for not seeing that coming. Of course Angron would do something that stupid.
  • Also consider this: many worlds re-conquered in the Great Crusade were lost human colonies that the Emperor wanted to re-unite, not destroy. The idea was to bring them into the Imperium with a minimum of strife. Unfortunately, the World Eaters' modus operadi leaned towards "butcher everything in sight".
  • To put even more context into this, Kharn, famous for being a pretty fun guy shattering two Legions in one night because they dared to take shelter during a deadly blizzard, was considered to be a calming influence and a counter to Angron's rages. That's how nucking futs the World Eaters were.
    • Do note that Kharn is considered psychotic by the War Hounds World Eaters as well, perhaps even more psychotic than pre-Daemonization Angron. (Though this seems to be that he was loyal by nature and threw himself--mind, body and soul--at whoever's feet Angron told him to, thus he gave himself more completely to Khorne's ways-- that's why he's a Champion and borderline Avatar of The Brass Lord Of Battle.)
• Are the Alpha Legion really bad guys? They seem to not get along with the other Chaos forces and seem self-aware of their place in the galaxy.
  • Their ultimate goal is to bring the Imperium of Man crashing down. That makes them Bad Guys.
    • I dunno, there has been a recent revelation that their battlecry of "For the Emperor!" was not being said in a mocking way...
  • It's called "Necessarily Evil".
• Why is it that even though every Space Marine Chapter has Chaplains, their Evil Counterparts, the Dark Apostles, are exclusive to the Word Bearers?
  • Because the Word Bearers are religious fanatics devoted to Chaos as a whole. The Dark Apostles are a sign of just how fanatical they are; most Chaos Marines are priests in and of themselves, and Sorcerers generally fill in the role of full-time priests in most other CSM groups. Only the Word Bearers are sufficiently faithful and fanatical enough to have developed a cadre of non-Sorcerer priests.
  • Most chapters who go rogue (remember, we're supposed to focus on them now) tend to casually murder their Chaplains, because Chaplains generally go for Incorruptible Pure Pureness. In the other Legions, some were taken out in normal battle (like the one Lucius decapitates in Galaxy in Flames), some simply became Chaos Lords (or Chaos Spawn), and some are stabbed in the back.
  • Those Chaplains who remained part of the Traitor Legions, along with the Apothecaries and Techpriests, often became slightly odd warband leaders rather than remaining focused solely on their specialization. The Word Bearers are the only ones who maintained their equivalent as a distinct institution.

• Wait, if Ork technology only works because their latent psycher powers allow it to, what happens when Blanks and Pariahs take them on? Does their stuff break down or something? I am speaking as someone who doesn't know the material beyond what he reads on TvTropes and the Warhammer wiki.
  • It's less of it only working because the Orks believe it to - an Ork shoota or buggy, for example, would work regardless. Pretty much the only thing actually subtle about the Orks is this particular characteristic - it's not quite as blatant as something working if they believe it to work, just something working more efficently because they think it should - like a buggy painted red going faster. Ork engineering, crude as it is, doesn't require pure belief to work.
  • Seconded. The "a stick would shoot bullets if an Ork believed it would" talk is hyperbole. Ork vehicles require engines, and fuel, and axles, and wheels, and such. The Ork psychic gestalt just keeps these ramshackle devices from malfunctioning constantly.
  • What the others said, though I have to say, from what I've heard, it varies wildly according to edition -- some of the older editions have ork tech as being little more than inert hunks of metal that look like they should work to Orks. More recently, it tends to vary from "Works, but poorly" to "more likely to explode than anything." So... yeah, Up against a Blank/Untouchable, they'd have problems with their tech, but it wouldn't just stop working entirely. Not to mention that their tremendous physical strength leaves them far from helpless even without their technology.
    • Mechanically, it should not break outright, but "Make It Work" trait (negates Unreliable for Ork weapons) would be disabled... and perhaps something similar for other features. If the Imperium could produce limpet version of Null Rod sturdy enough to be delivered with missile or mine, it would be hilarious. But such devices are expensive - basic Null Rod costs what, 9000 Thrones? Still good idea against Gargants, obviously.
  • Orks use their own psychic ability for this. The enemy's psychic ability or lack thereof doesn't come into play, so they get the same results fighting anything from Greater Daemons to Pariahs and Necrons. Anti-psychic abilities and weapons are all employed to counteract the enemy's conscious use of psychic powers and defenses. And, in battle, you'd have to shut down the psychic fields of a lot of Orks, simultaneously, to prevent their red vehicles from moving a bit faster. Waste much?
  • There's more than a few hints, at least in earlier editions, that a lot of the "it only works because the Orks think it does" is because the Adeptus Mechanicus looks at this Xenos tech, says "Well, that just doesn't make sense," and instead of admitting that they don't understand it just chocked it up to Ork psychic power. That said, the WAAAGH!! does enable *some* things, like red vehicles being a little faster, louder guns being by default more damaging, or purple and orange camouflage working at all.

• In Winter Assault, is the Sanctioned Psyker supposed to be a crazy old man or a young man who sounds like a crazy old man because his psychic powers made him crazy?
  • Most psykers come back from their Sanctioning on Terra somewhere in their thirties. After that... well, few psykers reach an old age naturally.
• What happens to Necron troops when they get hit by those Eldar weapons that chuck people into the Warp? Does the Necron resurrect, have a sufficiently fast warp out effect that they can come back, or are they actually effectively perma-killed because they are no longer in the same dimension that their repair device is and therefore cannot do anything?
  • Hasn't come up as far as I know, but I'd think they're permanently stuck in the Warp, unless they somehow manage to grab onto something travelling by, like a space hulk without shielding.
  • That's probably one of the few reliable ways to perma-kill Necrons (they're not as God Mode Sue as the complainers would have you think, a melta will vaporise them good). They're weak against pure Chaos, and a Daemon on its home turf could probably tear em apart without thinking.
  • In the game rules, IIRC, if they're hit by a weapon that causes Instant Death! they can't resurrect. For example, being hit with a lascannon.
    • This represents the Necron's self-repair processes being overwhelmed. The technology used after a phase out is more sophisticated, and capable of putting the Necrons whose bodies are reduced to puddles back into a new Necrodermis body most of the time.
• How did humanity evolve before they went into space and got drawn in all this malarkey? We kinda had a lot of wars in our history long before space travel, yet you don't see Khorne running around eating people's souls.
  • You didn't see Champions and other magical Chaos stuff on Earth because A: The Psykers didn't appear en mass in humanity until Slaanesh started to be born during the Fall of the Eldar, around 30,000 AD. No Psykers means little chance of bargining with the Chaos Gods, unless you go to a place where they rule (which would be hard to do without knowing how to enter The Warp) B: Most of the greater Chaos stuff requires specific rituals and all that, we might kill a ton of people but if we don't set up the proper stuff for using that death to tear into the Warp it's not gonna give us magical power. C: They probably are eating the souls of the people that appeal to them after they die. However they have no psykers to talk to their food/followers through and the birth of Slaanesh helped rip apart the barrier between the Materium and Immaterium, allowing Chaos to become as good at corrupting as it is, which is alot more than pre-2000 AD times.
  • Also, the Emperor was out and about early in human history keeping everything under control, and the Eldar were in full force across the galaxy maintaining order until they squicked a god into existence. Then, as they say, the Hilarity Ensues.
• We all know there is More Dakka, and no such thing as Enuff Dakka. What would happen to an Ork's mind if someone introduced him to the concept of Too Much Dakka? Would his head explode? Discuss.
  • "Dere ain't no such ting beecuz More Dakka is best an' Enuff Dakka iz even bester!" *smacks previous troper's head* "You iz mukkin' about!"
  • The Orks are already familiar with the concept of "too much dakka," It's just something they don't believe in.
  • In Dawn of War II, the Orks actually scream, "Waaaah! Too much dakka!" when they come under surpressive fire from, you guessed it, a lot of dakka. My guess is that their ideas of dakka are very Ork-centric. There is only too much dakka if the enemy is sending it your way, but not enough dakka if you are sending it the enemy's way. After all, where is the fun in a fight where the enemy shoots all your forces down before you can get to grips with them?
• So, how is it that Horrors are described as "cheerful" if they serve Tzeentch rather than Nurgle? I can't imagine being happy under a guy who meticulously manipulates events so that he can safely say "You Have Outlived Your Usefulness" a lot.
  • He manipulated them to be happy so they'd do their jobs better? He wouldn't be a very able god of scheming and treachery if he let everyone see that he's just using them, most of his pawns probably think he's a very generous god. Right up until the end.
  • I always thought it was the irony of a grim god having cheerful daemons and the cheerful god having grim daemons.
• I understand that the war is supposed to be eternal (and from the sound of it, only getting worse from here on in). But what if, and at this point, it's a pretty big "if", one of the sides won? Not just Armageddon, not just Lorn V, not just Kronus, not just Kaurava (if you count Kaurava, that is), but the entire galaxy? What would happen then?
  • They'll then get eaten by the Tyranids, consumed/obliterated by the Necrons, or sucked into the Warp. One of the above will win eventually.
    • If that's the worst case scenario, what would happen if one of the alleged good guys won? (Imperium, Eldar, or Tau)
    • Tau: either we end up with a repeat of the Imperium, or Chaos wins as daemons turn up on all the subverted human worlds. Imperium: everyone suffers under the heel of a totalitarian theocracy until the end of the galaxy (not gonna happen, read Legion). Eldar: the Eldar have pretty much given up on winning and are concentrating on just killing Slaanesh by getting slowly wiped out and creating their own pet god of death; if that happens, Chaos will be set back but will win eventually. (If the Orks win, the entire galaxy becomes a giant repeat of Deff Skwadron. GO ORKS!)
      • Ah great. That's all we need. A Tau version of Horus.
        • O'Shovah possibly?
      • Not strictly necessary. It's just that the Tau don't have any real anti-daemon measures (what with the lack of warp presence), and no Emperor, so either the Gue'vesa populations give rise to swarms of rogue psykers and thus a daemonic incursion large enough to block out the stars, or they get wise and end up rather similar to the Imperium (so we go from Catholic Space Nazis to, presumably, Mormon Space Commies).
  • The Blue Scribes reform Tzeentch's Staff, the Gods go on a rampage of galactic proportions. Each doing their own things. Nurgle's diseases infecting everyone, Khorne murdering them all before the diseases take hold, Slaanash, you know, and Tzeentch chassmastering it all.
    • The thing is, if Chaos wins - which might not happen if either the Tyranids, who don't have emotions to feed on, or the Necrons, who will cut the Gods off from the materium, manage to overrun the galaxy, but even then there's more than one galaxy in the universe, and Chaos can just move on - Nurgle wins. When all sapient life dies, Slaanesh and Khorne starve into nothingness. No war, no excess, no gods. Then, trillions of years afterwards, as the heat death of the universe kicks in, Tzeentch freezes to death in the changeless void. And all that's left is decaying particles and a laughing Nurgle.
      • Nurgle would die in that scenario as well, The Chaos Gods are born of and feed off of EMOTIONS, Death and Decay aren't emotions, he doesn't feed on those, he feeds on the emotions brought about by them primarily Despair, but also Acceptance, also, in some fashion, Determination, if everyone is dead, if the universe dies, Chaos loses, unanimously.
    • A Chaos victory result is an enslaved galaxy populated by Humans who are still very numerous, constantly being abused and tortured, but also maintained, by their gods, and trapped in a vicious circle of breeding and petty wars amongst themselves, while on the macro level, the Great Game is played out. Slaanesh ensures that sufficient breeding takes place, Khorne ensures that the wars control the population, Nurgle ensures that humanity remains strong enough to survive under the abuse of himself and the other gods, as well as being primarily responsible for stamping out any attempts by humanity to throw off the yoke and Tzeentch ensures that nothing happens to throw the vicious circle out of its unstable balance. The Chaos Space Marines, Daemons and Chaos Undivided factions keep the galaxy against external treats, such as additional Tyranids, and if it becomes possible, will spearhead invasions into other galaxies.
  • I'm no expert in W40K, but I can perfectly see a way for the good guys to win (or at least for the galaxy not to be destroyed/consumed/ corrupted). What if the Emperor is successfully reborn/revived (see Star Child and sensei)? I know we're not gonna see it happen because the war must continue forever for the game to exist, but it's still a possibility (in-universe). With the Emperor around and no treacherous Primarchs to oppose him, Chaos would pretty much be put back in control over time. With the galaxy unified under the Emperor's rule, winning over the Necrons is only a matter of pinpointing their bases and destroying them so they can't repair themselves, and with all other threats eliminated I'm pretty sure the Imperium could stand it's ground against the Nids when they come (since the Emperor is supposed to be nigh unstoppable and they would start researching technology again since superstition would be banned).
    • You forget that we haven't seen the greatest of the Necrons army, what we've seen is but a harvesting force. Also the sensei were declared a Tzeentchian cult by the Inquisition, so it's unlikely that even if they aren't chaos worshippers that they will be able to do their thing. The Emperor might be able to take command but a good amount people may believe it to be false and splinter off, resulting in a new crusade to bring them to heel. Also when the Orks hear the Biggest Baddest Warboss of the humans is up and walking around they will all make a beeline towards Terra in order to fight the most powerful humie of all!
    • "Emprah is active again, retrieved the missing Primarchs, allied with the Eldar and managed to royally screw over half of the enemies" is what happens in The Tales of the Emperasque. Which notes this best-case scenario only gave a respite to somewhat fix Imperium. Also, rebirth itself would be troublesome in any less crazy scenario, since Emprah is needed on the throne to keep Astronomicon focused and the Gate of Terra closed.
• Space Marine command structure. You have a Chapter Master in charge of ten companies? Fine. Under him are his ten Captains, each in charge of ten squads. Wait a minute... What happens if a conflict doesn't need a whole company? I know the Librarians, Master of the Forge and Chaplains can lead an in-game army, but they're outside the command structure- they wouldn't usually be in charge of a campaign, not being trained tactically. So who takes over if a company needs to split in two?
  • It would vary from chapter to chapter but I'd think the most experienced or trusted squad leader would lead his and a couple other squads while the Captain splits off with the rest.
    • That does make sense, it just irks me that there isn't an intermediate rank along the lines of Space Marine Lieutenant for such a dude.
      • There is, or rather there was. The original ranks during Rogue Trader were Commander (Chapter CO), Lt. Commander (Chapter XO), Captain (Company CO), Lt. (Company XO), Sergeant (Squad leader), Corporal (squad XO/section leader). Abbadon, for example, was originally Lt. Commander of Horus's Legion. It's possible these ranks still exist, for example, the Captain of the First Company also acts as 2inC of the Chapter, and the senior sergeant of a Company might have the honorary rank of Lieutenant. Besides that, however, there are plenty of other leaders around, particularly Chaplains which are assigned one-to-a-company, have plenty of authority, and are definitely not noncombatants. Beyond that, it simply goes by seniority. There are few enough marines in a chapter for that to work easily.
  • Space Marines could quite easily take care of themselves. Fluff wise, there are records of one side of an entire civil war on a feudal world being coordinated by 4 Ultramarines.
    • There's a difference between 4 Marines coordinating a whole defence and four squads of Marines- it's a lot easier to organise four individuals and avoid cock-ups in the chain of command.
    • I think he meant the 4 marines were leading an army of PDF or guardsmen across the planet in place of any generals, not that they were the only ones fighting the other army or were defending one city. Remember these men train for war 18 hours a day when not in combat and normally live for hundreds of years, they each probably have more than enough time to take the futuristic version of officer training.
    • I agree that they're all capable, it's just who they put in charge- you'd think they'd've noticed they need someone... I thought it was 4 marines coordinating, but that's my point- much simpler command structure, you just bung those 4 on top of the existing PDF or Guard one.
  • They send a Librarian or Chaplain to lead the army.
    • That's work, but they're non-military ranks- I know all the Marines are soldiers first, but their focus isn't on leadership, it's keeping the Marines sane, untainted and properly recorded.
      • That doesn't mean they're not capable of leadership. The special character Chaplains and Librarians are both noted as being smart and charismatic enough to lead troops in battle, while Captains tend to have additional duties (Master of the Fleet, etc) beyond leading the Company.
  • There are also mentions in various places of Force Commanders or just Commanders (Dawn of War II being the most recent). I imagine that this is some sort of brevet rank, and the Marine in question remains part of the command squad or chapter Honour Guard on detached duty.
• Eldar agenda and general mindset in Dawn of War 2. I can understand stirring up the Orks to fight the Tyranids but what's the point of blowing up the Angel Forge and, apparently, the whole Meridian? How exactly was that supposed to help against the 'Nids? Besides, even being the unbelivable bastards they are, certainly the Eldar couldn't fail noticing that the humans were trashing everything the Orks, the Eldar AND the 'Nids had thrown at them so far? So wouldn't it be reasonable to think at some moment: "Hey, you know what? Fuck the Orks, let's use the humans to stall the 'Nids! They seem to be quite well versed in this trades, and with a little help/manipulation they would do even better!" Personally, my jaw dropped in exasperation after a dying Eldar Ranger boss wheezed out: "And all that time you could have been killing Tyranids..." Oh, really? Why yes, I could and I would have if you, scumbags, DIDN'T DISTRACT ME BY RAIDING MY SUPPLIES AND STRATEGIC ASSETS!!! The fucking Eldar are so erratic I get an impression that somewhere in the screenwritng department some pages with Eldar and Ork parts got mixed up!
  • The Eldar probably were running another ploy alongside that ploy. Eldar Farseers have a well-earned reputation for being manipulative bastards who play chess games 20 moves ahead of the current situation. Odds are they saw another secondary reason to screw with the Imperium on that planet that was a nice bonus to the Orks doing it. I'm also betting the Eldar saw the Imperium as a more useful tool better applied elsewhere while Orks, on the other hand, would not stop fighting the 'Nids once they land. There's one example in fluff of where an Ork world was hit by 'Nids and that world is a constant warzone because neither side will stop or run out of soldiers. I'm willing to bet the Eldar had that exact effect in mind for using the Orks to do the job and hold the 'Nids instead of letting the Imperium do it and possibly fail.
  • I think the implication they couldn't quite make out was that the Eldar could disrupt the hive fleet be destroying it's resources, or divert the hive fleet to another direction once the 'nids saw that these worlds, just a few minutes ago were ripe for the feast, were now reduced to charred shit. They could have said something like "buy the craftworld enough time to escape by holding up the Tyranids with Orks and fire," but they decided not to go that route apparently. It's also an important note that in the Dawn of War series the Eldar have an unusually bad streak of failed attempts at pulling strings.
    • Also the Eldar did continue operations against the Blood Ravens in Chaos Rising after the Black Legion arrived to lay down the hurt. In retrospect, the Eldar might have been trying to destroy the Blood Ravens' worlds to prevent that from happening, since the Black Legion could present a very real threat to their Craftworld, but they might have also not seen that possibility until they were a likely possibility after the events of DoW2.
  • Games Workshop hate Eldar, and that has obviously transfered to Relic as well. If they can't even win in their own Codex it is improbable that anyone else will portray them as intelligent or successful.
• I'm curious. In one of the cinematics in the original Dawn of War campaign, when Mordecai Toth admits that he was wrong about Captain Angelos's suspected heresy, is that the only time an Inquisitor ever apologized for his accusation, even if he didn't quite word it that way? Because come on, these are the guys who suspect their own mothers of heresy.
  • Not if you look at the background. Inquisitors are one giant Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, they come in every flavour...see Ravenor and Eisenhorn.
• Why do I get the feeling there aren't a whole lot of fraternities and sororities in the Imperium of Man?
  • There are Sororitas and the Orks seem to fill the role of frat boy for the entire galaxy.
  • Universities exist within the setting, as does alcohol. therefore, fraternities and sororities exist.
    • They just don't have them on the galactic scale. I don't think the Fraternity Kappa Beta Epsilon For The Emperor would have influence beyond a subprovince of generic developed planet 8'659.
    • Not quite what I meant. Stop me if it's just a Hollywood cliche, but fraternities and sororities seem to have a bizarre obsession with forming equally bizarre cults. And in the Imperium of Man, that's BIG no-no, to say the least.
      • In the Imperium of Man, that's too common to be noteworthy. Anomalies in local religious practices are uninteresting enough that the Genestealer Cults often manage to blend in among the legit sects and function half-openly without anyone noticing. The acceptable level of deviations on a planet scale is likely to be much be less than across galaxy-scale heterodoxy, but there are always some anomalies up to death cults. Unless it's a shrine world under the thumb of a particularly control-freaky or paranoid priest, no one gives a damn. After all, it's easier to just let people mess around as long as they praise the Emprah.
  • Because Warhammer 40,000 is a British IP, and Britain doesn't have fraternities or sororities. :p
  • Proper university societies and other educational-institution-related cliques do exist, though. Some of which All of which are little more than excuses to get drunk.
• How do Genestealer cults actually work? Why are the kids loyal to the Hive Fleet? How do sapient independant life forms have to obey the Hive Mind?
  • All the Genestealer and Genestealer hybrids are telepathically connected to and controlled by the Genestealer Patriarch, just like a Zerg Brood is controlled by a cerebrate. This mini-hive mind also works as a beacon for Tyranid Hive fleets. The hybrids might have some mind of their own, but even so their minds are controlled by the Patriarch. When a Patriarch is killed the telepathic link is disrupted and the cult is thrown into chaos (lower case). Another Genestealer can grow and become the new Patriarch however.
  • Also note that the Genestealer infiltrators and their cultists don't know the true nature of what they are calling to, particularly the bit where they get consumed with the rest of the biomass even if their insurrection succeeds.
• So, what exactly happened when the Kroot ate the creatures of Chaos that one time? Or is it one of those Noodle Incident things that shouldn't really be brought up?
  • There was a fiction piece in WD about it, which I think started the whole thing- basically, they went all multicoloured and mutated and turned on the Tau.
    • Not surprising that they would become Chaos tainted, mutate, go insane and then renegade. It is surprising that they would eat flesh from Chaos creatures if they were smart enough not to eat the flesh of Genestealer cultists. Though to be fair, the ones that hadn't eaten the genestealer brood had a shaper with them that could tell that they were infected.
• Where'd this idea that lasguns could blow off limbs come from? In all the years I've been involved with 40K, I never came across anything that said that.
  • It's been stated repeatedly within the setting. Lasguns have variable power settings, and at full power they can tear limbs off and shoot through two meters of concrete. I don't remember the exact soucebook (I think 2nd Ed. Imperial Guard Codex?) explicitly mentioned that power level, and both the Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain books are consistent with this interpretation.
    • Only War and other WH40k RPG has details on Lasgun Variable Settings - the top mode ("Overload") gives +2 Dam +2 Pen at the price of expending 4x charges and losing Reliable quality. Aside of critical effects, lasgun hit profile in normal mode (1d10+3 Pen 0) is equal to that of a common bullet from assault rifle (except of Energy type rather than Impact), but in overloaded is equal to that of a common shotgun slug ^[1] - which indeed could be enough for distinctly more messy results.
  • On that same note, several times in the Ciaphas Cain novels, someone's been shot, but the medic wasn't too worried about short-term death because the lasgun shot punched through the body and cauterized the wound, so there was no worry about death from bloodloss or infection.
• If Ork tech works as long as they believe it does, why aren't they invincible? Surely one Ork has looted a Rosarius at on point, and having seen what it does, is now bulletproof?
  • Orks do not work that way. It's their only subtle characteristic. If they believe a gun to be able to fire quickly, it will fire slightly faster; if they believe their vehicles will go faster if painted red, their vehicles will go slightly faster; it's a question of slightly increased efficiency. Emphasis on the word "slightly". And in any case it requires something of a collective belief - an Ork who believes himself to be invincible because he has a Rosarius and then charges towards a hurricane of lasgun fire isn't going to live very long regardless.
  • Also, Ork Meks are the only unit that do operate a force field, and it's likely that it works in the same way most Ork tech does, although Meks tend to have a certain, if perhaps limited, understanding of equipment that do have a certain technological aspect, also like the Shokk Attakk gun. It's probable that Ork meks are the only ones with the knowledge to keep a force field in proper enough order to keep it working on Ork faith and to give the mek, and perhaps only the mek who understands it, the confidence to believe he can operate while other Orks won't have that confidence that comes with the technological mind. Or perhaps this is an overanalyisis of one aspect of the original question. How 'bout them cubs?
  • "Invincible" is a relative term. Orks' belief systems may warp reality, but it can't warp reality that much. Even if you get an entire WAAAAUGH! believing that the Boss is invincible, a big enough weapon will kill him. That itself will be pretty difficult, as convincing enough Orks to belief that a given Ork is "invincible" will be pretty difficult. That being said, Ork belief in the strength of a given Ork warrior actually does benefit that warrior; Orks that do well and appear proper 'ard grow bigger, stronger, and tougher. If the Orks believe a given warrior is "invincible", he will be tougher, but he won't be unkillable.
• If Fire Caste Tau are warriors, and Air Caste Tau are pilots, why do Fire Caste Tau drive Hammerheads/Devilfish/Pirhanas?
  • Because they're ground vehicles?
    • But they're all capable of flight (at least in the fiction).
    • They're still "ground" vehicles. The same way most modern militaries have an Army with an aviation wing.
  • There's a thing in the Codex about the Tau organisational structure, and it mentions that the four Castes' chains of command only get coordinated at quite a high level. Since vehicle tactics are an integral part of the battleplan, they need to be coordinated with the rest of the battlegroup, and thus need to be Fire Caste. Also, they're combat craft, and you need a nice warrior-type in that; space combat's a bit different, and that's where the Air caste are particularly important.
  • See below.
  • Air Caste have this beef with Gravity, it just wants to pull them down and crush their fragile organs. Seriously, Air Caste HATE being on a Planet and outside their special environment Domes. Why would put someone who is effectively like Samuel L. Jackson's character in Unbreakable, in a tank in the middle of a battle on a probable hellhole of a planet in this depraved a universe?
• And while we're at it, why do the Tau use the names of (Earth) fish/sea mammals for their aircraft?
  • I always assumed that those weren't the actual names for the vehicles, just human (most likely Guardsman) nicknames for them.
  • Yep, they're Imperial designations.
  • Agreed. The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, however, claims, "Tau name their vehicles after fish, for no discernable reason."
    • Because the IIUP is *clearly* a work of impeccable accuracy. =p
• Does Humanity still have nuclear weapons? The only reference I've seen is how the Krieg corps was formed, but if they do, why aren't they used more often?
  • Possibly because of all the far more insanely powerful ways to commit genocide that already exist elsewhere in the universe? That said, a Space Marine with a Fat Boy-alike would probably be very handy, especially with power armour's radiation shielding.
  • Nukes are mentioned in the background of the Death Korps of Krieg, and are considered ancient but (like many other weapons in 40K) still viable in a pinch.
  • Yeah, nukes exist. Deathstrike missiles are implied to be nuclear weapons of the tactical variety.
  • Why waste money, reasources, and time on building nuclear weapons when you have bio-engineered viruses that can be deployed much cheaper and much more effectively. Plus, using nukes ineffectively could leave many things (albiet mutants, but still) crawling around in the sands, as opposed to the other forms of Exterminatus, which are more effective. Basicaly, what I'm saying is that 40,000+ years into the future, I kind of assumed they have much better ways of killing many things at once than nuclear weapons.
    • Yeah, there are things that are better in some situations, but a virus only kills living things. There's not much that can beat a hydrogen bomb for massive EM-spectrum explosions with a side order of kinetic.
    • Their virus doesn't just kill living things, it breaks down all organic material to an organic, goopy, volatile material. (We know, an actual virus wouldn't work that way.) The material would then turn a planet's surface to an organic bog and then be used to create a firestorm. In the fluff, several sources say that this leaves the world hot enough that the surface would glow for about a month. Also, the planet-killing protonic torpedoes are implied to be to nukes (we know, nukes are fissioning masses of protons), as nukes are to high-grade firecrackers. Or to the very least, as nukes are to conventional bombs.
    • Yes, nukes have their side effects, but isn't it implied that virus bombs are rendered obsolete because they feed Nurgle?
  • Nukes have been mentioned in fluff a few times, they're often held in reserve by PDFs or Naval craft, as well as certain IG heavy artillery and the 3 largest classes of Titans. You're all also forgetting serveral key points: a) The Imperium is an expansionist entity, you can't grow crops on irradiated soil very well, b) Using them on planets you own is bad if you want to have healthy populations to feed the warmachine, c) More Muties, and let me remind you that being a Mutie is like being Black in the pre-civil rights era, Deep South, only much more worse, d)
  • There are even "rad cleanser" personal weapons, but anything of this sort is considered extremely undesirable. The Imperium doesn't like stuff that messes up the sacred Human genome, as simple as this. And this goes double for even more sacred Astartes geneseed.
• Wait a second, If the Emperor tried to suppress religion in general and the worship of himself in particular, than why are all the 10,000 year old, pre-heresy, irreplaceable machines of war like Imperator Titans and Battleships have all the Gothic-Cathedral aesthetics like stained-glass and gargoyles and Baroque-style ornate bling on it? Surely skipping those decorative flairs would allow for more resources to be used conquering the Galaxy. Having all those frills was just begging for them to become objects of worship. Maybe use all that metal saved by designing efficiently to make radios for everyone in the Empire, so the Emperor could have Fireside Chats with his people, and that way they would know not to worship him!
  • The various races and factions of the 40K Universe don't put a whole lot of stock in practicality. That's why you get things like Titans that can overshadow the Sears Tower and Sisters of Battle using flamethrowers in deserts.
  • The Cult Mechanicus also predates the rise of the Emperor (though not his existence), and whilst He may have been working to diminish the ritualism, it was fairly low down the list of priorities. Also remember that in 40K the various decorative flourishes and extraneous bits sometimes do have an effect, creating geometries that either repel or invoke the Warp.
    • You're looking at ten thousand years of embellishments. They likely started out looking more utilitarian. Plus, factor in constant maintenence, and it's highly unlikely these machines have a single original part left in the first place.

• In Forgeworld's Siege of Vraks series, the stated problem is that the planet of Vraks, essentially a massive munitions depot, has been taken by Chaos, and Cadia will need said munitions. The stated solution is to lay seige to Vraks, outlasting the enemy and his stores of equipment and ammo. In other words, take the planet back by forcing the enemy to run down the stores that are the actual objective of the war! How does this make sense? You win the siege, but then you have an empty planet with no useful equipment to supply the Imperium because all that equipment has been either destroyed by you or expended on the bodies of your dead soldiers! Can somebody explain this?
  • It's 40K - monumental administrative stupidity is the name of the game! (Actually, I don't think anyone'd play Monumental Administrative Stupidity 40,000, but the point stands.)
  • Maybe they need the planet as a munitions store close to Cadia. So once they take it back, they can fill it up relatively quickly and use it as a forward ammo dump, but not while Chaos are on the planet. Or maybe there are certain munitions that are desperately needed on Cadia but the troops on either side of the conflict have nothing that can use them, like Super Heavy Artillery shells or Anti Orbital Weapon Platform ammo.
  • The deep vaults were still active as the primary source of equipment and materials over a decade past the initial projection of time for victory. If the forces on Vraks were purely, as was initially assumed, renegades with tainted leadership the expenditure of men and material would have been worthwhile given what would be recovered and the usefulness of the position. Declaring the world a lost cause would also damage the credibility of the Munitorium as a political entity within the Imperium, which none of their masters was willing to be responsible for. By the time the Inquisition became involved the war had become both an act of honour and a denial of resources to the enemy, along with being propelled by pure momentum and unwillingness to cut losses after so much had been expended.
  • Its not so much that they need to have the material, as they need Chaos to not have the material. "If I can't have it, no one can!"
• The Tyranid infestation level in Dawn of War 2. Does it bear any in-game significance at all? I keep finding advices on how to lower it, yet I can't find one single word about why I should even care.
  • If Tyranid infestation gets to high, you automatically lose the campaign.
    • Really? I thought you just lost a tonne of points (preventing you from getting the Epic Victory ending in the end, potentially).
• Minor Dawn of War nitpick: Tau blood is cyan. Not red.
  • I'm guessing it's engine limitations.
  • Also possible: it's a choice by the developers to make it more obvious to those not familiar with the setting. Or they just forgot to look it up.
• When and where in the Dawn of War series did Scott McNeil talk like Silverbolt?
  • One of the Squad Sergeants in the first game, and the Chaplain in Winter Crusade.
• I apologize in advance for asking what might be a dumb question, but I'm curious. If the Emperor was indeed Jesus at one point, then how exactly did He unite humanity by promoting war and hate instead of peace and love? Wouldn't all the racists and terrorist groups take it the wrong way and see it as a free pass to cause chaos and anarchy? I understand He probably meant making war and hate on the alien races, but like I said, some cheeky terrorists might have twisted His words.
  • It's fanon based on very very early fluff, it doesn't have to make sense. Alternatly, he gave up on peace and love after they got him crucified.
    • Option one: Matthew 10:34 (Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.) Option two: he changed his mind, and/or the message has been misreported, over a great many millennia. Option three: he was working on some extreme long-term plan based on logic inscrutable to mere humans. Option four: it's fannon based on material from The Lost And The Damned in the Rogue Trader era, and not all that consistent.
      • Either two possibilities I see. Option two, and GW hadn't considered all of the implications of the religion-inspired violence based on zealotry or misinterpretation being part of the Emperor's plan (or he hadn't realized that would happen). Or option four, probably the latter option four.
  • Going way back into the fluff its more a case that the Emperor was Jesus's 13th disciple, its stated that he would had manipulated those who would forever change the history of humankind, the full piece hints that the Emperor "hung out" with Jesus, Da Vinci, Einstein, Galileo, Tesla AND Edison. The whole founding of the Imperium is what happens when he rolls up his sleeves and does the job himself...
  • They never state that the Emperor was Jesus its heavily implied though that he was St Peter which actually makes sense given the attitude of the pre-modern catholic church on people who where non believers. The Emperor also didn't promote as much hate and war as later Imperials actually say he did, in fact the death to all aliens belief was actually Horus's idea not the Emperor.
• Why is it whenever GW changes the rules or makes edits or... pretty much does anything, that the players always say "It's to sell more models!" It doesn't even make sense! The play-testing and game design division has little to nothing to do with the marketing department! What is this I don't even-
  • Chalk it up to They Changed It, Now It Sucks.
    • If it were just complaining due to change I'd understand, but this is complaining as well as giving a ridiculous reason! Some people like the changes being made and still say it's to sell more!
  • The perception that they change underpowered units to powerful ones and vice versa, thus creating demand for a different type of army. One that you'll have to buy new models at stupidly inflated prices to fill out and keep your army as uber as you can isn't valid? I don't play the game so I can't say if this is true or not, but just like Magic the Gathering it seems to be the case.
  • Chalk it up to Did Not Do the Research, as company GW has some very strange business practices, especially recently, in the 90s they were a little more sensible.

• Do the Tau have public executions, thus further subverting the idea that they're the nice guys of the game? Or is crime comfortably scarce in Tau society thanks to the Greater Good?
  • .....why do they either need to have public executions or low crime? Why can't they have private ones, like happens in real life?
  • Do we know whether the Tau even have executions?
    • The Tau consider prisons to be counter-productive and prefer to focus on rehabilitating individuals into society. That statement can be as innocent or as sinister as you like, although personally I am getting sick of the Tau being more and more grimdarkified.

• Whoa whoa whoa…where on earth did "Death Korps of Krieg as clones" come from?!
  • According to the lexicanum, Imperial Armor Vol. V uses something called the "Vitae Womb" as an explanation for the extreme amounts of manpower Krieg produces despite the nuclear devastation. Also, making armies of clone-conscripts to feed the enemy cannons seems like the Imperium's style.
  • Cloning is tech heresy and thus is only allowed in very specific scenarios after showing fanatical devotion and having the living shit kicked out of you. Imagine if a clone using planet rebelled they would effectivly having infinite troops too fight in the revolution.
    • Not if the Imperium used Exterminatus.
      • Most planets with the resources to make clones have the resources to defend against orbital bombardment.
        • Its implied that the Imperium and the Mechanicus look the other way when it comes to Krieg. Probably due to their soldiers being really good and the entire planet being even more loyal than usual for an Imperial World out of atonement for the earlier rebellion.
    • Cloning in itself isn't heresy — as long as certified Mechanicus genetors oversee the project, anyway. It's just a mostly-forgotten method for humanity and a dubious idea in WH40k-verse even when done right: Afriel Strain are terminally unlucky, and even healing in Recovery Chambers (xenos-tech artifact from Rogue Trader) negatively affects the patient's luck for a while. Also, they certainly have opportunity, since they are known to produce cloned genetically modified horses, which involves necessary equipment and quality control, with Magos Biologis overseeing it all (such high rank indirectly confirms it's a planet scale industry with lots of personnel, both Mechanicus and laymen). And if some Krieg guardsmen have minor development defects resembling that of many vat-grown servitors... it's not like any of that flesh is ever visible normally. Since the Kriegers must have mass purity tests already (due to all the nuking), and those possible clones are cannon fodder either way, it doesn't really matter for most people with power to go and check whether they still do it.
• This may sound silly, but work with me here. Now, apparently each space marine has armour that would put some tanks to shame. This would easily make an average marine weigh about 1-3 tonnes at least (not counting those with heavy weaponry). So, how could an average Space Marine be able to move around in a multiple-floored building, or hell, stairs, without falling through? How would they move through muddy terrain without automatically sinking like a stone? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS IF ONE OF THEM TRIPS OVER!?.
  • Space Marines don't weigh multiple tons, and they have big boots to spread their weight around. They can move through mud just fine. If mud is loose or wet enough to hinder a Marine, it would hinder Guard troops as well. Upper levels of modern buildings are generally designed to handle tons of weights, let alone Imperial architecture. If they trip, they stand back up; they're not bloody turtles.
    • But they would weigh about a tonne, and this leads to another question; how do they even walk up the stairs with their huge feet?
    • Marines are pretty nimble for their size, and Imperial stairs are generally not particularly narrow. If they're having trouble moving up the stairs, can simply gouge out footholds for themselves, use Assault Marines (which is really the troop type of choice for assaulting tall buildings anyways) or send scouts/Guardsmen up the stairs.
    • You're falling into an old trap; Space Marines aren't clumsy, they're more graceful than baseline humans ever could be.
  • Serious answer: when the Imperium makes something, they make it to withstand that kind of weight, apparently. As for the mud thing, they have increased strength to get out of it and/or wade through it with little impediment, and they don't care about appearances overly much.
    • But what about buildings made by other races, such as Orks or the Eldar? Or ruins of older buildings?
    • Eldar structures are built out of wraithbone, which is incredibly durable. It can easily handle the Marines going up and down it. Ork structures are built to accommodate Orks, which are also pretty heavy themselves - particularly Warbosses and Nobs. Marines would have no trouble moving up and down them.
    • If the Marines can't go up the stairs, they blow up the building. Alternately, they call in either scouts, Guard Stormtroopers, or Imperial Navy assault troops to take care of it.
    • If a building in the 40k universe can't survive a Space Marine walking around in it, it's not going to survive period.
  • Marines would weigh, probably, not quite half a metric ton. They're so well protected because they have Power Armor. While this does give them considerable protection, the armor not as guaranteed to block a hit from conventional weapons as a tank's armor would. Also, a tank could concievably stand up to a hit that would pulp or vaporize a marine if their armor dodn't stop it.

• As intriguing and well thought out as the Chaos Gods are, there's something about them I'm a little confused about. I read somewhere that says they're Lovecraftian in nature, but at the same time, the four of them seem to neatly divide up the duties and attributes of Satan: a fierce and terrifying warrior (Khorne), offering pleasures beyond imagination and (Slaanesh), being nice and friendly to effectively lure people to the dark side (Nurgle), and coming up with clever plans to gain as many souls as possible and undermine God (Tzeentch) (although Satan is more likely to angrily shout "You Have Failed Me...!" in contrast with Tzeentch's cool and confident "You Have Outlived Your Usefulness"). So which is the true source and inspiration for the Dark Gods?
  • All of the above. 40K's Chaos Gods are a mixture of both Lovecraftian horrorabominationgods and a more Christian/Abrahamic-style Satan figure. Or rather, they're Satan fused with Cthulhu, for the extra unstoppable evil. It's worth noting that some interpretations and fluff surrounding the Chaos Gods posits them as not a wholly evil force, but rather as a neutral force made up of both good and evil elements; i.e. Khorne is a god of violence and murder but also honor and bravery. Slaanesh is a god of excess but also a god of love and creativity. Nurgle is a god of despair and waste but also a god of endurance and determination, and Tzeentch is a god of scheming and manipulation but also learning and hope.
    • More specifically, they really are pure evil, but embody some positive traits, and also the logical next step these traits can take when corrupted and evil. They just wouldn't be Chaos if they didn't embody how the feelings of mortals can be taken to extremes.
  • Who are the C'Tan gods based on? Now those guys are really Lovecraft-style incomprehensible, especially the Outsider and the Deceiver.
• Why is that Commissars are more (in)famous for shooting their own soldiers than, say, the Dark Eldar or the World Eaters or especially da Orks?
  • Because if I'm not mistaken, the Commissars are somewhat unique in that they're supposed to be doing it for the sake of maintaining discipline, as opposed to business as usual. A cat grooms by licking itself, but if you saw a human doing that you'd think he's weird.
  • Commissars A) have Nice Hats, B) have Badass Longcoats, and C) are the only units that routinely execute their men on the tabletop as a game mechanic (excepting Kharn). Thusly, Memetic Mutation.
    • There are other units where the leader would attack other units {including Ork Nobz and bosses with a bosspole and Kharne} but Commissars are slightly more unique in that they automatically kill outright. And it's probably that they're more infamed because they're kiling the members of the Imperial Guard, who are appreciated more for their memetically massive balls and their revised codex, and that they really do look cooler than their non-Imperial counterparts.
  • Also if you read the fluff, Orks and Dark Eldar are very good at working with each other when attacking other races. They wait until after the battle is over before turning on each other again.
  • Commissars kill their own men to prevent them from fleeing, Orks kill their own boyz because of any reason, often for laughs, the Dark Eldar kill their own people because they need to get-off and 7 hour torture sessions are a little too time consuming...

• Ok, Cadia has a population of 250,000. They are mostly self-sufficient. Their conscription rate and birth rate are the same. All fine for the most part; it's possible to be in the military and not ever hold a gun. But after all they've been through, and after everything that's happend to them (you know, being invaded constantly, having their troops sent all across the galaxy, being the poster boys for the Guard, and having most of their planet taken over by Chaos), how are they not suffering? They seem to be doing dandy, despite their main arms supplier go off the radar, and having casualty rates just as high as any other force in the Imperium. It makes no sense, especially if Games Workshop models all their Guard units after them. What the hell is Cadia doing fighting Orks in Segmentum Ultima while Chaos is at their doorstep? And don't say that many divisions copy the Cadian design, because it's still completely possible to field a Cadian force against an Ork army. I mean, it's possible to field any army against any army, the way the 40k world is set up, but still!
  • You need to tack about four more zeros on that number listing and you'll have an accurate assessment of Cadia's population.
  • Cadian units tend to take far lower casualties than other Guard units because of their extreme training and discipline. Also, Guard regiments have a tendency to "collect" other units that have suffered extreme casualties to add to their ranks, kind of how the Ghosts picked up troops from Vervunhive and the Belladon 81st. The Munitorium will often merge battered units into new ones as well. Coupled together, it makes sense that the Cadians would be able to deploy hundreds of regiments across the galaxy; after a few decades of service, a Guard regiment will likely have a fairly reduced number of genetically-descended troops from the homeworld itself, simply because they'll be picking up new troops in whatever theater they're in. Every few decades a Guard regiment will rotate back to their homeworld to be replinished with fresh troops as well.
  • Also, much of the "current" events are spread around the 41st and the early 42nd millennia. It's pretty reasonable to assume that any given match-up takes place within that time frame, considering that most players really won't really consider any lore behind the fight. If they do, they're likely a fluff nut or taking part in a more formal event like a campaign. However, some match-ups that can't really be explained away like this do happen; and it can be reasoned that the Imperium keeps numerous regiments an increasing distance from their home world, redeploying them from convenience or where their talents can be best appropriated. Like why you would have Cadians fight the distant Tau or Hive Fleet Kraken.
  • According to the Lexicanum Cadia has a ON PLANET (as in not counting soldiers deployed offworld) population of two hundred and fifty million, somewhat less than the total population of the United states. However, 71% of Cadia's population is in the military, a percentage that virtually none of the nations in the real world have ever, ever come close to reaching. This would mean that Cadia has 177,500,000 (one hundred seventy seven and a half million, or thirty or so million more soldiers than Russia has people) soldiers deployed at any one time which would easily allow for thousands of regiments to send wherever. One can reasonably guess that you would have about that many cadians deployed offworld, so again Cadians can easily be pretty much everywhere.
  • Not everyone in a Cadia-pattern uniform is from Cadia.
    • Everyone in a Cadia-pattern uniform is probably from Cadia, Cadian Regiments are very strict about serving non-Cadians as they can literally say that their kids can strip a lasgun faster, and that their grannies are a better shot "She won the Regimental Marksman trophy last year!". Another note is that all Guard regiments take their uniforms seriously, especially the very militant worlds like Mordia, Praetoria, Cadia and Valhalla. The tabletop models is only because GW realized the Cadians look the most normal and everyone was pretty much sick of the Rambo Catachans.
  • Cadia is a Fortress World. It's what they do: muster. From childhood, then between supporting war efforts otherwise. Everyone is either ready to be mobilised at a moment's notice, or prepares. All cities are fortresses. They all are prepared reservists. 1/10 joins PDF, best of PDF goes to IG, which is why their regiments are elite. Oh, and the fleet.

• In the first Dawn of War the Inquisitor tells that the Eldar imprisoned a daemon inside the Maledictum stone and have been guarding it since for centuries. And then he designates the goal of Blood Ravens to destroy othe thing. Uhm, didn't it occur to him that if destroying the Maledictum was a good idea, Eldar would've done it long ago?
  • Did you miss the fact that said Inquisitor is an idiot?
    • Let's not forget, of course, that they're Eldar. The Inquisitor probably doesn't trust their motives and for fairly good reasons. And the Eldar, of course, could have helped if they simply let you in on the plan from the start instead of attacking you. For all we know, he anticipated the Eldar intended to use Maledictum as a weapon against humanity.
    • So, he anticipated the Eldar, the ancient and vehement enemies of Chaos, to suddenly use an artifact of Chaos that they'd spent the last millenia NOT using? I tend to the "Inquisitor is an idiot" explanation.
  • Actual reason? HE was the Daemon in disguise, manipulating events so he can bust out of it.

• At the risk of seeming obvious, I would like to ask how Catachan is still a jungle world when it's full of toads that explode and render miles around a desolate wasteland for millenia if you so much as give them a particularly mean look.
  • Because the rest of Catachan evolved to give those toads a wide berth, and the rest of Catachan evolved to replace the ecological damage very, very quickly.

• Why does it seem like every rebellion against the Imperium is Chaos backed? It seems there aren't any rebellions in the background that exist for any other reason other than for the evulz.
  • Because you haven't haven't actually bothered looking? Off the top of my head, I can recall a popular revolt in Tactica Imperialis that was caused by general uprising, two genestealer rebellions in the Ciaphas Cain books - along with Cain mentioning that popular rebellions in the Imperium occurred regularly - and two more popular rebellions mentioned in the Gaunt's Ghosts books.
  • The Imperium doesn't terribly care about the type of government on a world in question so long as that world pays its Guard tithes, supplies materials for the Imperium, and venerates the Emperor. If the government is democratically elected, they don't care. If the government is a feudal kingship, they don't care. If the new government has just finished murdering the last government and says "Yep, we'll keep sending you men, material, and whatever else you'd like" to the administratum, everyone is happy. Except for the previous government.
  • A few sources also mention Tauist rebellions, inspired by propaganda sources which have have fallen into human hands.
  • Because The Emperor (glory be His name) is the one true bulwark against Chaos; a rebellion against His Imperium is as unto a pact with the Ruinous Powers themselves. Whether you personally summon a horde of daemons into the world, or simply facilitate another doing it when seeking out your own glory, it's all the same. At least, that's what we get told by The Ecclesiarchy.
  • Opportunism. Even if it wasn't Chaos backed at first, it probably will be, unless squashed too quickly. Except those genestealer cults... maybe.

• How come the Plague Marines are more resilient then ordinary Chaos Marines? Aren't they essentially bags of pus and rotten guts encased in rusted armor? I can understand indifference to pain, but which of those constituents provide for extra protection from bolts and laser blasts?
  • It goes way beyond pain tolerance. Nurgle is the Chaos God of resilience and determination as well as despair and disease. The power they wield as his servants and champions refelcts that by making them far, far tougher than other Chaos Marines.
  • How does one prevent opponents from continuing to fight? There is pain (removing their ability to concentrate), muscle damage (removing their ability to move), organ damage (long term for things like liver/kidneys or more instant for things like heart/lungs/brain), limb removal, or even the Chunky Salsa effect. Only the last two are guaranteed to be effective against Plague Marines, as they are already suffering so much pain and damage yet they are still moving regardless, so a bit extra isn't going to do much. Think of them as especially resilient and heavily armed zombies.
    • This is pretty much it. The Plague Marines have a bonus point in toughness, and the Feel No Pain rule, and all of this on top of their Power Armor; while they are harder to kill than roaches on steroids, they're not too dramatically difficult to kill (at least when compared to other marines). Notable ways of getting rid of them are power weapons, AP 2 weapons, AP 1 weapons, and anything that invokes the Instant Death Rule.

• Rephrasing this question: Where does it say that Inquisitor Toth was daemon possessed or anything similar?
  • Macha implies it.

• This is probably easily answered, so I apologize in advance, but there's something I'm confused about. It's said on numerous places on this wiki that if the Emperor ever woke up, he could probably stomp all of the chaos gods into oblivion. If he's that powerful, how was Chaos able to lay him low in the first place?
  • The Emperor is more powerful in the Warp than he was in the flesh. In his current state, he's reduced to ineffectiveness, but if he were to die, one of the prevalent theories among one of the Inquisitorial schools of thought is that the Emperor can fully enter the Warp where he can release his full power.
  • The Emperor was crippled by Horus because he didn't really want to fight his favorite son. Even after Horus cut his throat, old Empy didn't want to kill him until Horus obliterated a newcomer and laughed about it. Upon realizing Horus had completed his Face Heel Turn, the Emperor immediately curbstomped Horus with a psychic blast that obliterated his soul. This the Emperor managed as he lay dying.

• Is there a difference between psykers and sorcerors? From what I've read it seems like there isn't, but sometimes I see something that makes me wonder. Like, arcane runes are mentioned every now and then, and runes generally aren't associated with psychic powers.
  • There's no difference. "Magic"/"psionics" are the same thing and come from the Warp in this setting. The idea of magic and psionics being seperate is a brain bug brought about by certain RPG settings that specify that they are seperate. In WH40K, they are one and the same.
  • Actually, the difference seems to be that sorcery in the 'verse requires the intercession of the Chaos Gods, daemons, or other beings of Chaos. A Psyker, by contrast, wields tremendous power on his or her own.
    • My understanding of it is pretty similar to the previous comment, but I feel it's worth expanding a little- if you're a psyker, you're a psyker, and you can control the Warp (a bit) with your mind. If you're not a psyker, or you are but you want to be better, you can learn Sorcery- arcane gestures, chants, runes and stuff that will give you powers much like being a psyker. And eat your soul. Psykers run the risk of being attacked by demons and tainted with Chaos; Sorcery is inherently Chaotic.

• Lelith Hesperax in the 2010 Dark Eldar Codex has plasma grenades as part of her standard wargear. Where does she keep them in that outfit of her's?
  • None of your damn business.
  • Hard to say. She may have a pocket dimension in her pocket, stuff them in her top, swallowed them to spit them back up, braided into her hair, kept in her trousers, or perhaps even kept "in" her trousers. Although she's understood to have these, the core rules mention that the model should be modelled with them, if only particularly for the formal games. Creative or Lawful players will likely go to the trouble to model a few on her or something that she could carry them in.
    • They're probably tiny flash-bangs tucked into her wristbands or thigh-high boots. Or maybe it's a side effect of her super-hair, the same ponytail that counts as a shardnet and impailer/power weapon. We are talking about a woman so badass and skilled that she keeps up with power-armored supersoldiers and robots while wearing only a bra and thong.
    • it could just be a way of showing her skills ingame. Her prowess in combat means that its hard to get the upper hand.

• Lengthy -maybe overly so- discussions with a friend of mine made me ponder about whether he's right when he postulates that Kaela Mensha Khaine, the Bloody Handed God, Slayer of Eldanesh, etc., etc., is actually no other than an aspect of Khorne that was cursed/blessed with material substance after battling the Nightbringer, AKA one of the Yngir in Eldar lore. A particular piece of fluff mentions that when he defeated the C'tan, its body was torn into metal shards and some of them got lodged into Khaine's form. He made a compelling case... I mean, both C'Tan and the Avatar are literally made of molten metal. And just let's not get started about similarities between Khaine's and Khorne's behavior and ethos.
  • Khaine and Khorne are similar, but not the same. Khaine defeating the Nightbringer and gaining the "Aspect of the Reaper" when the shards of its body imbedded themselves in him was a story in Eldar mythology, and is probably hyperbole. Khaine is an Eldar god that embodies murder, destruction and war, but above that, he is still an Eldar god, constructed by the psyche of the Eldar. Khorne is a Chaos god, made from the psychic emanations of everything else, and he embodies rage hatred, violence, and honorable warriorhood, and just about every Chaos god embodies war anyways, even if Khorne does more than the others. While they do have a similar disposition, and their spheres of influence tend to overlap, they are separate because they draw on different wells of power.
• Is Cegorach, God of the Harlequins and the Webway, the Deceiver, or is the Deceiver, least powerful of the C'tan but manipulation incarnate, posing as Cegorach? Or are they both running a Xanatos Roulette on each other?
  • They're both Tzeentch.
  • They're both trickster gods. They're quite separate, but they do share a degree of professional respect.
    • This is actually stated in the fluff in one of the codices -- Cegorach and The Deceiver maintain a certain respect for each other, even while scheming for the other's demise.
  • They dated in college.
• Why doesn't the Imperium make greater usage of Combat Servitors and Robots (The mindless kind that were in the older editions and still pop up from time to time, not the Men of Iron) in concert with Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy, Adeptes Astartes, Adeptes Arbites, and Inquisitional forces? Yes there was a little tidbit about Combat Robots winning a battle for a Space Marine chapter and ended up becoming honorary members of the Chapter, but outside of that Combat Servitors and Robots don't seem to appear outside of the Skitarii even though the Adeptus Mechanicus has a presence in virtually every other branch of the Imperial Government and a Techmarine/Tech Enginseer could probably requisition at least a squadron of Combat Servitors or Robots each. And yes I am aware that the AM may not exactly consider Robots to be expendable regardless of how little time and resources went into making one due to their religious view of machinery (though they do seem to regard Combat Servitors as almost completely expendeble.)
  • Combat servitors are more expensive and specialized technology than Imperial Guard regiments. With the Guard, you can crank out ten thousand lasguns and sundry low-tech support weapons, hand them to ten thousand men with a month's training in drill and fire, and load them up for a fraction of the cost. Combat-capable sevitors are expensive, human lives are cheap; that's how its always been with the Imperium. Guardsmen are also more adaptable, being actually sapient, so that's a plus.
    • Not to mention that servitors are...faulty. They do the work that an advanced robot could do, but they tend to "mindlock" when not constantly supervised. That is, they tend to freeze up like an old computer, and it can last indefinitely and happen repeatedly (there's even a game mechanic for that). Since they can't be trusted to work alone, they are often worked as teams under a techpriest, or sometimes used as a part of an entourage. More autonomous models probably utilize pre-programmed work routines, not unlike a computer program.
    • Servitors are dumb and only perform simple routines. They are useful mostly if either a standing order is enough (servo-skulls used as guards and motile lamps), or someone constantly tells them what to do - which in turn means either they help at well-defined tasks where one have to command assistants anyway (which is how Tech-priests use repair and medical servitors), or they need a trained handler hanging around and "piloting" them (which is how Arbites use cybermastiffs).
  • As for robots, it's exactly because of incidents like the Iron Men that the Imperium has developed a deep distrust of A.I. They still use pretty simple A.I.s in vehicles and some machinery, that they call the Machine Spirits; but they tend to be simplistic. Any Machine Spirit advanced enough to replace, rather than aid a man in its operation would draw attention from the Inquisition.
    • ...unless the Secutors get there first for a (brief) discussion about 12th Universal Law and subsequent resupply of servitor bodies.
    • There is "mindless kind" of robots (of Legio Cybernetica), many using components compatible with Dreadnoughts, but expensive and mainly reserved for slow and hard missions - like sieges. Also, the "brain" is part organic, so in the end it's just a more artificial and tightly controlled version of a cyber-constructs - the next step after grapplehawks and cybermastiffs. And since they are given more rigid programming customized for the specific mission and handlers. They are, indeed, stupider than servitors made of beasts - and that's a drawback.
  • There are servitor options in tabletop. There are also "Servitor Accompaniment" and "Automated Artillery" (Tarantula sentry guns) doctrines in Shield of Humanity - either costs the same 2 Regiment points as combat drugs (more common for penal regiments), having it saturated with augmetics or converting the whole gang into snipers ^[2]. It's down to logistical problems both during heavy fighting and back on formation stage - if a world cannot supply, the only ones using servitors will be attached Tech-priests and maybe hospitals. These things are relatively "cheap" not in the sense that everyone can afford it, but in the sense it's something trivial for those who can. Much like mechanised variant for Close Assault regiment cost 2 points, but with the same change in equipment (Chimera APC for each squad) the difference between Line Infantry and Mechanised Infantry is 1 point: this may be in part because the latter usually comes from the worlds that build those APCs. Neither is likely to be the case for Death World units, but they specialize in other areas.

• What is the Space Marine position on the Emperor's divinity? Most fluff says they view him as a very powerful human, but the Dawn of War marines definitely call him a god.
  • It presumedly varies chapter-to-chapter. Most fluff where they say "Space Marines" without specifying a chapter is talking about the Ultramarines, at least nowadays.
  • It's pretty much ancestor-worship, judging by the Codex. He's a father figure with aspects of The Messiah. The Eclessiarchy puts up with it becasue they're Space Marines.
  • Space Marines do worship the Emperor, as all loyal members of the Imperium do, and are in fact some of his most fanatical followers. This is because (1.) being the pinnacle of humanity, they are expected to be the most spiritually pure and dedicated of the Emperor's servants, and (2.) they are the living embodiment of his legacy. With their artificial organs they have his blood running through their veins, more or less literally, and they are his genetic "grandchildren".
    • They don't worship him as a god. The fluff is very clear on this. It's been a point of contention with the Ecclesiarchy for as long as both organisations have existed.
    • Some don't worship him as a god, even most don't worship him as a god, but there's nothing that says none of them revere him as a god.

• Are the average citizens of the Imperium (or even the Space Marines) aware of the difference between Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar?
  • No they look almost identical and your average imperial citizen doesnt even know the eldar exist.
  • Imperial military authorities in general are aware of the differences. Marines certainly will be. Whether or not your average citizen does depends on his/her education and the world he/she is from.
    • Until it's too late.
  • Ordo Xenos (and thus Deathwatch) knows the difference between Craftworld, Dark, Exodite and Corsairs. And doesn't like any of them. Ordo Malleus occasionally cooperates with certain Craftworlders against Chaos. For average citizen consorting with any alien is heresy, not that they'd expect anything good of any Xenos.

• One of the huge things that I don't get when the Imperium is fighting the Tyranids is, they know that Genestealers summon the Hive Fleet, so why don't they just transplant a few planets worth of them to a bunch of Necron tomb worlds and let the Necrons take care of the 'Nids?
  • Tyranids avoid Necron tomb worlds. There's nothing to gain from attacking a dead world, so the hive fleets would simply avoid them, sacrificing the relocated genestealers.
  • Transplanting genestealers to a Necron Tomb World requires several things: First, capturing genestealers. Second, finding a Necron Tomb World. Third, getting them down to the Necron Tomb World. Succeeding at any of these three tasks is exceedingly difficult. Achieving all of them is impossible. That also doesn't factor in that genestealers only summon Hive Fleets when they've established a major colony of infected indigenous lifeforms, which will require hundreds or thousands of hybrids. Also, the genestealers are smart enough to recognize that the world they're on is a Tomb World and won't call the Hive Fleet, and the Hive Fleet is smart enough to know that the tomb world is dead. Finally, even if by some miracle you managed to transplant hundreds to thousands of violent hybrids and genestealers onto a Tomb World's surface, they'll be wiped out by the Necrons in short order and the Hive Fleet will never come. In short, this plan is a fail plan.

• What is it about Chaos that makes you hammy and card-carrying?
  • Hammy? tell that to Eliphas and Magnus The Red. Card carrying is fairly obious anyone who openly serves chaos acknolages that the gods they follow want to kill rape disease and mutate the entire universe ONLY people who are sociopathic monsters would knowingly work with them. There are even cases of people serving Chaos subtley without knowing.
  • Here's the thing about Chaos: It corrupts. Completely and utterly. You think the legions of Chaos all started out as psychopathic monsters? Many who joined Horus believed that they were doing so for the good of mankind. That's all Chaos needs to get a foothold on your soul, and once it has hold of you you will become twisted and evil beyond redemption, both inside and out. This is part of the reason why the Imperium is so draconian about dissent.

• ...Anybody else find that Games Workshop really really likes making the Eldar the whipping boys of 40k these days? Honestly, they're a dying race and older fluff material makes a great impression that they're dwindling but still highly badass, but now GW seems content to have them get their butts spanked in every fight or win a VERY Pyrrhic victory as of 4th-5th edition. Examples. Examples everywhere.
  • The newer Imperial codices have wraithlords getting killed by mere sergeants and an Avatar of Khaine (this is, perhaps barring Phoenix Lords the most potent Eldar close combat fighter in their arsenal) getting punched in the chest by Marneus Calgar and exploding.
  • Another Avatar of Khaine being killed by the Blood Angels' Sanguinor and a subsequent rout of Eldar forces.
  • YET ANOTHER Avatar from Iyanden getting killed because twelve Carnifexes decided to stampede it since the synapse beast leading the attack had no concept of honour or duels after the Avatar challenged it to a one-on-one fight. Older fluff states that the Avatar survived the fight and was one of the major factors in pushing back the Tyranids alongside Yriel; now they're adding another Avatar destroyed to their list.
  • Even the books have similar occurences; Fulgrim in the Horus Heresy books kills the Avatar of Ulthwe by strangling it or something. Sorta understandable because he's a Primarch, but come on, the Avatar's a molten incarnation of a god. How you strangle something like that to me seems incredibly ridiculous.
  • But disregarding all of that, the thing that bugs me the most is how Angron, the Primarch of the World Eaters was supposedly ambushed by warriors from Biel-Tan, the most militant of all the Craftworlds, but butchers them effortlessly and their corpses strewn about him (granted, he was wounded), yet a bunch of human slavers just capture him and he can't break free of them despite dispatching far deadlier warriors earlier?
    • "Are they Space Marines? No? Then fuck their fluff." - Games Workshop. It's probably because SOMEONE has to be the whipping boy of the universe. The factions rely on being SO GRIMDARK BADASS that they have to win all the time...but that just can't happen. So the Eldar get hit because they're the tragic dwindling races, and loses for them won't raise that many complaints for that reason. And because their players are smaller in number and tend to be a bit older and less loud. So the Eldar are the new Imperial Guard. (And The Dark Eldar get it even worse. In the new Codex, the entire city of Commorragh couldn't wipe out a couple hundred space marines.)
  • Well, somebody has to do it. It used to be the Imperial Guard was the Butt Monkey of the 'verse, but after they got their new codex it had to be somebody else (presumably the Guard rolled their Leman Russes into GW HQ and demanded it be so). Give it a while and it'll be somebody else, probably the Tau.

• While I definitely agree that 40K is the ultimate Crapsack World, there are some bits of good luck here and there. For example, what was it that prevented the Earth from becoming a Necron tomb world?
  • No sentient life on the planet when they were active? The dinosaurs had "only" been wiped out by a giant asteroid 5 million years ago. They probably set up shop on the planets that had people to kill (even if by ork infestation), and left the planets that had none (at the time) alone.
  • Is it still good luck that there were no Necrons on Earth if it turns out they're actually on Mars? Primitive cultures can't open tombs unaided, but even with thirty five thousand years of martian colonisation they haven't woken the Necrons there yet.
  • There are so few tomb worlds that its more unlucky that they ended up on Mars.

• Here ^{[dead link]} are some pictures ^{[dead link]} of bolters and their ammunition. Doesn't look like you can fit a lot of rounds into one of them. Certainly not enough to make automatic fire practical.
  • Semi-auto is more likely, I think. It's only Dawn of War that flanderises them into full-auto assault rifles.
    • In Dawn of War 2 and from what I can recall in the opening cutscene to Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior the bolters were only firing in semi-auto.
  • Considering how the setting runs on Rule of Cool, I think they're supposed to be full auto in the other fluff as well.
  • Do note that the storm bolter has a double magazine.
  • The novels seem to suggest the commissar's standard-issue bolt pistol is indeed semiautomatic. The Spess Mehrens could probably mod theirs with belt feeds if they really wanted more dakka.
    • All bolt pistols are semi-auto, even Astartes. Garm (Lexicanum says typical for Commissars) and Ceres (usually Navy/Rogue Traders) bolt pistols by RPG stats has ammo 8. Sacristan (made for Ordo Calixis) and Mauler (high-end "normal human" model) - same deal, both ammo 6.
  • Hesh-pattern boltgun (Deathwatch) - full-auto, ammo 28. Mars Pattern Mark II 'Scourge' and Godwyn-De'az boltguns carried by Sororitas (who also wear Powered Armor) - semi-auto, ammo 24 and 30. Locke (Arbites) for some crazy reason is full auto, ammo 24. Storm bolters - More Dakka is kind of the whole point here, but their magazines are supposed to be 60(!) bolts total.

• Take a good look at Terminator armor. The shoulders are above the head. How exactly does one manage to fit into one?
  • Hunchbacked.
  • Good point. I'm tempted to Hand Wave it as an illusion from a design quirk (looking weird for wont of ample structure on the arms to help support the Shoulders of Doom), but you seem to be right there, I guess most depictions of the Terminators are poorly proportions.
  • Semi-donned looks normal. It's mostly HUGE pauldrons.

• Why does the Imperium continue to use the Gregorian calendar? It's based on the death of Christ, who is obviously no longer worshiped in the 41st millennium.
  • Inertia, probably. Calendars rarely change, and when they do, it is usually a minor adjustment based on new scientific observations (Indeed, in 40K the calendar has changed cosmetically, and days are broken down differently). Once a culture establishes a calendar, it usually stays unless the culture falls or is assimilated. And since everyone in space seems to be white Europeans, they use a variation on the Western European calendar. And who can prove that the Emperor wasn't Jesus?
  • "Emperor himself used this calendar, so it's good for us too."

• Having read about those super-nasty magic mirrors the Dark Eldar now have, do those work on the Sisters of Battle? Those ladies can use their faith to stop bullets Matrix-style; does their faith keep those mirrors from working too?
  • In game terms, the Shattershard is a template weapon that forces those hit (reflected in the mirror) to take a toughness test or be removed from play, no saves of ANY kind allowed. In the fluff, it's not even a psychic weapon...it just works. I think it's beyond the protection of faith, but make of it what you will.
    • So the Dark Eldar found a way to circumvent the Imperium's Clap Your Hands If You Believe / Religion Is Magic tropes? That's a scary thought.

Battle Sister: The Emperor's light will protect us from your vile tricks!
Kabalite Warrior: Wanna bet? smashes a Shattershard mirror
Battle Sister: Oh Crap. (falls over dead)

• • • The Dark Eldar's raids are designed to capture slaves, torture victims, and play things, the more spiritually powerful, the better. So why wouldn't they design a mirror that can capture the Light of the Emperor?
    • They would have to get to him first.
  • It's closer to Vortex grenade than bullet. "Nothing survives its touch, nothing escapes its grasp..."

• How come the Eldar didn't have any major problems with Chaos before their fall? Their civilization was more powerful than the Imperium!
  • Because Tzeentch wanted to make Slaanesh so he could piss off Khorne and have another divine pawn to dick around with, and the Eldar wouldn't be so self-destructively hedonistic if they had an actively visible enemy threatening them. He probably had his daemons secretly help defend the Eldar from the Khornates and Nurglites.
  • The Horus Heresy, especially in False Gods, gives the implication that the Chaos Gods had only a little interest in the material galaxy until it was going to affect them directly (i.e. the Imperial Truth), and then not until the Imperium became a psychotic, Gothic dystopia where mortal suffering became commonplace enough to empower the Dark Powers that they really wanted the material galaxy for themselves. For the Eldar empire, you had answered your own question: the Eldar didn't apparently have any interest in wiping out Chaos, so Chaos left them alone for the most part, but the odd, inevitable Chaos skirmish tainted Xeno species had been kept in check with relative ease.

• How exactly do the Necrons harvest things if they kill every lifeform on the planet? Does everything killed by a Gauss flayer automatically go to the C'Tan?
  • Yes. Remember, the C'tan are after delicious souls. Gauss Flayers help harvest that. However, the Necrons also appear to gather up survivors from an assault and load them onto their ships, probably to be harvested or expermineted on in a more efficient manner.
• I know it's far easier for readers to follow human characters and for writers to write them, but why aren't there more novels looking at the setting from the point of view of the Eldar, the Tau, or, heck, the Orks ? That would be very interesting to have an epic saga told from their perspective.
  • If nothing else, Most Writers Are Human. They do have a few stories told from other viewpoints, but these have either failed horribly or just come off as arguably human with just another cultural view. As far as I know, there are not many books from the Tau viewpoint, and virtually none from the Orks. Many writers could be reasonably reluctant since Orks are simple, and would be rather flat, or restricted to comedy (you know, like they are in the fluff); Eldar are supposed to be an enigmatic and complex species, and an effective story from their view would likely not explore their thoughts or make them seem a lot like the humans they hold in disdain.
  • The Eldar Path novels are giving an insight into the lives of Eldar, and a new Dark Eldar trilogy is starting in 2012.
  • /tg/ has Deffwotch, Emperasque, etc.
• Why does the fluff give physical attributes to the Chaos Gods and their realms if the Warp is a non-physical dimension?
  • It's probably the shape they actually take. Most Khornate Daemons look like devils, and Nurglites are filthy abominations. Although they are technically energy beings, they have a definite shape. As for their realms, it's likely a region of the warp that has a faux-physical representation that suits the Gods' needs for a proper realm. Likely pure energy, just illusion or the way the God's presence shapes the warp around him.
• What happens if two people kill Lucius the Eternal at the same time? Or if he gets killed by a natural calamity? Or if he kills himself?
  • Probably the one who takes the first, or the greater joy from the kill, or Slaanesh flips a coin. Otherwise they'll likely say that the killing blow was just by one of them. The more interesting one , and therefore the more fun, is that they will probably meld together in a parody of a Salvador Dahli painting as they turn into him. If he did die in either other manner, he would logically cease to exist. On the same note, he probably spends most of his time in a starship, cruising and marauding the Imperium, so he would probably not be on a planet long enough to die that way. And that's a boring way to go. Also he would likely never kill himself, since being evil, especially Slaaneshi, feels good.
  • What would happen if he got killed by someone who either has no emotions or takes no pleasure from killing, like Johan from Monster?
    • It's not who takes joy, it's who feels pride or triumpt and killing him. However if he was killed by someone who didn't do either (let's say for instance they never realised they did kill him, or died after inflicting a mortal wound), he would logically stay dead. So I'd say he avoids Necrons like the plauge, and to date nobody detached enough to not feel pride at slaying him as gotten the chance.
• The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer states that part of lasgun maintenance includes lubrication. Which is interesting seeing how as an Energy Weapon wouldn't need any moving parts.
  • Says who?
    • Modern lasers and Energy Weapons (Yes, they exist) don't use moving parts. Memetic Mutation aside, lasguns, when you get down to it, actually does work like a flashlight. Flashlights don't have moving parts, do they?
      • Presumably, it has some sort of coolant system that includes moving parts to allow it to be fired for any great length of time without melting.
      • Also, if nothing else there are probably some moving parts such as the magazine catch and trigger mechanism. Those could require the occasional lubing to ensure they work correctly.
  • Also, at least aperture, power pack housing and radiator(s) obviously must be kept clean. Maybe also application of thermal grease to heat contacts. After all, the Uplifting Primer was written by someone either with little to no practical experience, or near-insane, and certainly not a tech-priest, thus the author is extremely unlikely to understand what this or that "sacred unguent" does; at best, remembered which types must be used for maintenance of common las weapons.

• Whatever happened to the Star Vampires?
  • I think they eventually developed into the C'tan, called Star Vampires in the Necron codex.
• Alright so based on the HH series, especially The First Heretic, it seems the two missing legions/primarchs were in the Space Marine's consciousness even a few years before the heresy itself. They must have played somewhat of a role in the Great Crusade, and thus conquered at least a dozen or so planets. At least. The Imperium was not nearly as repressive back then, so it follows that there ought to be some worlds whose history includes their subjugation/liberation/annexation by the missing legions. How can two legions, each with perhaps fifty-thousand marines (and hundreds of thousands comprising the support forces and civilians attached to them), making their way across vast swaths of space, be completely forgotten?
  • Largely, because the Emperor told them to. It's been verified that the two legions were expunged by the Emperor himself, and told to forget all of them. The worlds conquered by the Legions could have seen them as merely another part of the military force that subjugated them. Not likely but it's possible that these worlds were largely ignorant about these space marines. Other worlds that had been freshly subjugated had probably been ignorant of them, and when the records became available of other Legions, they had already been expunged. Beyond that, the army of civilian, support, and attached allied personnel...they could possibly be following the same thing, but then again, we don't even know if they even lived to remember them.
• Why did Magnus join Horus' Rebellion? He sacrifices his utopian world, legion and place within the imperium, because "the emperor will have need of the Space wolves in the coming conflict" and also to show his father that he acknowledged his mistakes and wants to atone. hell, he outright refuses tzeentch's offer to destroy the wolves before they reach prospero. This is probably as loyal as one can ever hope to be, so why did his legion join Horus after all that?
  • Because Magnus and the Thousand Sons get trapped in the Warp and were subverted by Chaos. Being utterly loyal probably made it easier for Tzeentch; the strongest emotions fuel the biggest falls.
• I've seen some fluff about a Necron Lord known as the Silent King forming an alliance with the Blood Angels to repel a Tyranid attack.
  • Ignore that. It was written by Matt Ward. There's nothing good about who he is or what he does.
  • That bit is blown out of proportion on the internet. The fluff bit (which is from the Blood Angels codex) states that the Blood Angels and Necrons were fighting on a planet when the Tyranids showed up. Both sides stopped focusing on each other in favor of not being eaten and manage to beat back the 'Nid invasion. Afterwards, both sides are too depleted and weakened from fighting the Tyranids to pursue further engagements so they just mutually leave the planet. The implication is that it was a temporary truce in the face of a greater threat, not a cultural exchange and pledge of friendship.
  • Except the Blood Angels were there to fight the Necrons in the first place, and Dante didn't want to fight somebody he was an ally with.
  • I've finally found an explanation with the massive Retcon in the 5th edition Necron codex, in which they are no longer mindless Omnicidal Maniac automatons whose only goal is to harvest all life in the galaxy. Now, they're rather a rather generic ancient race that simply wants to conquer, and the higher ups retain their personalities and emotions. It's much more likely for these new Necrons to join forces with other races.
  • The Silent King, the last true ruler of the Necron people as of 5th edition, has as his main goal getting the Necrons back into flesh and blood bodies (in the hopes of regaining their souls). They can't do this if they don't have any organics to experiment on. Therefore, the Tyranids need to be stopped. It's stated that the arrival of the Tyranids was what actually pulled him back out of a self imposed exile after he cost his entire species their souls.
• Are the Tau similar to Blanks in that they are heavily resistant to psykers and the Warp?
  • No.
  • I've seen some articles on the old Games-Workshop page about daemon possessed Tau Battlesuits. Also, it's been stated that the Tau have a minimal Warp presence. Minimal, sure, but they still have one.
    • Their warp presence is small enough to keep them sentient beings, pretty much - they're vulnerable to Daemons and psykers, but they're not able to be psykers themselves (the Ethereal Mind Mojo is pheromonal, if it even exists) and Chaos isn't really interested in them because humans and Eldar are just so much brighter in the Warp. It was part of a trend in 3rd edition to de-emphasize psykers - none of the races introduced in 3rd Ed had psychic powers (Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tau), and two of them hated them.
• The Necrons hate all life. Hate is an emotion. All emotions are stored in the Warp. Necrons are anti-Warp. How is that possible?
  • They have no souls. No souls means no warp presence.
  • Emotions are not "stored" in the Warp. The Warp is a realm of pure emotion and thought, and emotion influences the Warp if the one feeling it has a warp presence. In order to do that, you need to have a soul.
    • Emotions do go into the Warp, many of them form daemons, and mass amounts of the formed gods.
  • It could simply be that "hate" can be a relative term, in the sense that Necrons feel the need to destroy all life; beside their need to kill, few of their emotions, if any, are elaborated on. It's also important to note that their fluff tells us that the Necrons' technology and robot bodies leave them unable to sense, use, or interact with the warp. Because it's something that has rivals, spits out daemons and something is something that is almost completely out of their influence, they hate the Warp; beside the Pariahs, they are not exactly "anti-warp". There's also a bit of a discrepancy, since several novels show Necrons using what other characters call, or at least think happens to be, a Warp Gate.
• Where did the "C'tan devour souls" bit come from? Forgive me if my knowledge is a bit out of date, but don't they and the Necrons have no real concept of the Warp, and therefore no concept of a soul? I even remember one bit about a demon who was particularly looking forward to the "cast off souls" that result from the Necron harvest.
  • The Necron Codex. It says that they used to feed off stars, but when the Necrontyr made contact with them, they began to feed on souls because they tasted so much better. They had a concept of the Warp, they just hate it because it's horrible and only causes problems (especially since their enemies, the Old Ones, were powerful psykers). If a species already has a form of FTL travel that doesn't require the Warp, I think it would be justified in trying to separate that literal hellscape from the material world (especially, once again, if your archenemies feed of its energies). The "soul" thing doesn't make any sense, but souls just don't make any sense in WH40K anyway. Sometimes it's just a life force (Necron Codex), other times it's a Christian concept of a soul (In Imperial fluff), sometimes it's something that the Dark Eldar and Chaos can actually eat (and is it destroyed when its consumed, or just taken and tortured by the gods?), and other times it can basically be stored in a waystone external hard drive (Eldar codex) or even stay in a body part to be regenerated (Dark Eldar codex). The metaphysics of the setting are very inconsistent.
• Are the Zerg really expies of the Tyranids? I've heard somewhere that the 'nids only became a fully fledged Horde of Alien Locusts after StarCraft was released. I've also seen some photos of second edition models, and they looked nothing like the modern Tyranids or the Zerg.
  • Genestealers first appeared as enemies in 1989's Space Hulk. Here, they were plagiarized xenomorphs from Alien. Though they appeared all the way back in 1987's Rogue Trader, "Tyranids" as we know them today first appeared in Advanced Space Crusade in 1990, with biotech and the insectoid-dinosaur appearance instead of their original technological armaments. 1993 brought Warhammer 40K's Second Edition, featuring the first Tyranid codex and complete model range, with the Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, Zoanthropes, Lictors, Biovores, Genestealers, Gargoyles, Warriors, Termagants, and Hormagaunts. They were now an all devouring swarm. 1998 brought 3rd edition, in which Tyranids looked like this. Starcraft was also released in 1998.
• If the chaos gods are as powerful as generally assumed, why don't they destroy loyalist ships once they enter the warp? Or are we to expect that they cannot overcome some artificial "bubble of real space" in their very own dimension? "Ruinous powers" indeed...
  • Mostly because the Chaos Gods don't care enough to bother with Imperium ships. For the most part, they ignore them because they don't much care whether Chaos wins against the Imperium. They just care that their particular agendas are being pursued. The guys who are generally hostile toward the Imperium and perate under the "Chaos" namesake are mostly mortals who've earned favor of a warp entity of one sort or another.
    • There's also the Gellar Fields that keep daemons out.
    • They can fail or even be overwhelmed in certain circumstances. There are bits in the fluff where a Night Lords' ship had to make and emergency translation out of the warp to avoid being gobbed up by an uberdaemon.
    • The warp is a pretty big place, too. In Death Or Glory it's mentioned that an ork psyker attack (launched from a ship in the warp, at other Imperial ships in the warp) would be fatal to its crew because the energy would attract the attention of daemons who otherwise wouldn't have noticed the ship.
  • Most of the Warp is described as a "No Mans Land" of sorts, where a bunch of lesser Warp entities reside away from the domains of the Ruinous Powers, given that the Gods don't care about this "void" and so ships can go by unnoticed.
• I've always wondered, the fluff mentions in great detail on how a Space Marine is made in great detail especially the various new organ implants. However, are there any moments in the games or novels where a marine actually uses some of these abilities? Examples like the organ which lets them gain a creatures memories by eating it's flesh, or the marines acid spit, or the ability to track down a target by taste etc. Are many of these merely Informed Abilities? Though I must admit I've not read that much Warhammer 40k novels so it's probably quite common in them and I don't know about it.
  • Yes, they do. Hell, during the Medusa V campaign, there was an entry on one of the despatches for the Dark Eldar where a group of Space Marines had been captured at great cost but ended up escaping due to their acid spit and wreaking havoc inside the entire encampment before escaping.
    • Combat also tends to render these things moot. According to the fluff loss of the throat is a very common fate of melee fighters meaning the flesh eating and acid spitting are lost because of the implants.
  • The brain-eating memory thing is used in Soul Drinkers. There's also a scene where a severed Soul Drinker head sprays acid, and it's a sign of how degraded their gene-seed is since that organ doesn't work for Dorn's descendants.
  • Ian Watson's Space Marine novel has a group of marines operating a rebel Titan after eating the brains of its crew.
• Why is so much of the anti-Space Marine Hatedom directed specifically at the Ultramarines, as though they were the most egregious example? It seems like the Space Wolves are much worse offenders. They are one of the few chapters where the Primarch might still be alive (without being put into stasis after being mortally wounded), they have a 10000+ year old member that actually knew their Primarch and the Emperor, they are obviously mutated (serving the Imperium, who otherwise kills anyone with the slightest mutation visible), they worship pagan Gods (serving the Imperium, who otherwise kills anyone worshipping anyone other than the Emperor), and they have openly rebelled against the Imperium on multiple occassions even attacking Inquisitors (who is known for destroying planets over just the thought of being seditious). The explanation for why the Imperium leaves the Space Wolves alone basically boils down to "the Space Wolves are too good at what they do."
  • Because the Ultramarines are both the Spotlight-Stealing Squad and the Space Wolves are a fan favorite for their design aesthetic and general demeanor. Ultramarines are hated because they are bland. Hell most of these complaints are true of the Imperial Fists (still keeps their legionary numbers, have the most relics of their primarch, recruits from Earth directly) the Black Templars (more numerous than several of the founding legion, manage to not be bothered by the inquisition despite their flagrant disregard for imperial regulations on chapter size)
    • I was referring to Space Marine, not Ultramarine hatedom. Most of the complaints about the Space Marines, especially the fluff ones, are less applicable to the Ultramarines than most other major chapters.
      • Because GW likes to focus most of its advertising for newer players on the Space Marines. Specifically, you guessed it, the Ultramarines. So most of the players are given far more exposure to, and are thus more likely to blame, the Ultramarines.
  • Remember that not all mutations are anathema to the Imperium. Certain variations (like Ogryn) are tolerated. And the Space Wolves being good at what they do is a pretty good excuse. The Imperium needs all the Space Marines it can get.
• Do Sentinel pilots ever get you know... motion sickness?
  • If they did they wouldn't be Sentinel pilots. Anybody who regularly vomits in the cockpit wouldn't be permitted to keep driving.
• As somebody who's never played the tabletop game, what are Necron tactics like? And based on Dark Crusade, it doesn't seem like they have a particularly fast walking speed. Do they use cover in combat? The fact that they are always depicted firing their gauss flayers from the hip doesn't seem too sound, either. Can somebody explain?
  • They can use cover but they actually do move at normal speed, their tactics are pretty simple if a little weak by the modern standards. The whole firing from the hip makes more sense when you realize they are robots using impossibly advanced technology that aiming may not be necesary.
• Why does the Imperial Guard get screwed so often? They use far more advanced tactics and strategems than the ever-so-hyped Space Marines, namely COVER and ARTILLERY, their vehicles can chew through xenos like nobody's business, they have immensely greater numbers than SPESS MEHRENS, so from what I've seen, they have quality and quantity, yet somehow they're portrayed as bumbling, clueless retards who get by on numbers! Not to mention, they actually act like human beings and not one-note bloodthirsty jerkasses, so they're actually somewhat likeable, so really, why?
  • The IG seem pretty competent in Ciaphas Cain. Also,the Space marines use artillery (whirlwinds) and cover (in the novels atleast). Most of the enemies just have foot soldiers that are much more powerful than the average guardsman.
  • Most enemies the Imperial Guard fights fight through fast Hit And Run attacks that the Imperial Guard isn't expecting and which in general attack weak targets. The Guard are very good at fighting enemies who they know are coming and plan for such as Orks there just so happen to be a lot of pirates and raiders in the Imperium.
  • The Guard are fighting enemies that are just that damned powerful. Some have much better technology and gear (Space Marines, Tau, Eldar) some are more maneuverable (Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar) some use sheer numbers (Tyranids, Orks) some are just vastly more intelligent (Eldar, Tyranids) and some are MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAKILLMAINMBURNKILLMAIMBURNBWAHAHAHAHAHA!
  • They use far more advanced tactics and strategems than the ever-so-hyped Space Marines, namely COVER and ARTILLERY Space Marines do use cover when faced by weapons that can actually damage them. And what do you think the freaking Whirlwind is for?
  • The Administorum, knowing how easy it is for people to fall to Chaos, eliberately give them bad armor and weapons so they won't have a significant advantage if/when they do?
  • The Guard isn't screwed all that often, but if they aren't, there's no drama. What's more interesting, a fight between Guard and rebels where the rebels are obliterated without casualties, or one against orks where it goes down to the wire?
• Why didn't the Empereor just teleport down to the world Angron was on and save him that way?
  • The Emperor is not a good person. His son defied him so he let all of his sons followers die because of it.
• The Imperial Truth being pushed during the Great Crusade is a secular/rationalist/atheist doctrine that denies all gods and superstitions. So why did the Legiones Astartes have Chaplains (eg., Charmosian in Galaxy in Flames)?
  • According to the Horus Heresy Collected Visions, the Chaplain edict occurred after the Council of Nikaea banning the use of Psychic powers among the Space Marines. The edict was issued by Malcador the Sigillite in the name of the Emperor and their original purpose was to ensure that the Psyker ban was obeyed whilst maintaining morale among the rank and file.
• Did the Eldar Empire have any contact with humanity before their fall? Seeing how as they were at their height during humanity's Dark Age of Technology, it seems pretty feasible.
  • Yes.
• How do you pronounce the names of the four Chaos gods? I've never played the game but I know about it through cultural osmosis (and tvtropes!).
  • Nurgle- Seems straightforward. Rhymes with "burgle?"
  • Khorne- "Corn?"
  • Slaanesh- "SLAHnesh" or "sl'NESH?"
  • Tzeentch- "Tseench?"
    • If Dawn of War is anything to go by, it's Nur-gal, Corn, SLAHnesh and Zeench.
• During the history of the Imperium, was the Earth always a barren and desolate and yet supremely valuable desert world, or did the terrors of the Horus Heresy wreck it beyond recovery?
  • Its one of the largest Hive Worlds in the Imperium, its definately not a dessert but it is probably barren.
    • Barren Terra may be, but as a dessert, it is quite delicious. But you'll need a hell of a knife to cut it.
• Ok, heres mine. The Emperor sits on his throne so that gate stuff he created to connect Man to the webway is staying closed, and the demons that corrupted the man-made webway can not enter reality. Why not destroy/close the gate permanently? If he would be free to die or reborn or something, mankind would be free to reverse engineer necron FTL so wouldnt need the warp.
  • It's only a theory that the Emperor would be reborn if he died. Also, Imperial officials don't believe that the Emperor would be reincarnated, and so they will take every precaution to keep him alive. Plus, in order to reverse-engineer Necron technology, one would have to get their hands on it, which isn't such an easy task since damaged or captured Necron tech will always teleport to some unknown tomb world.
    • Ok, but thats not the point. The point is, keeping the Emperor alive is pointless, if you would shut that gate than he wouldnt have to suffer anymore. And you could TRY if the theory is true. Well, it would suck without the Astronomicon, but whatever. Even is you dont let him die, the fact that he wont have to maintain the blockade would free up much energy.
      • You seem to be drastically understating the consequences of allowing the Emperor to die. Say that the theory turns out to be false and the Emperor just stays dead. Now the Imperium has just lost its one and only method of FTL travel, effectively cutting all their sectors in space off from one another and leaving them in the dark to be picked off one by one by the Imperium's numerous enemies. Yes, they could try, but they simply have far too much to lose should the plan fail.
    • The bit about shutting down the FTL is especially important. FTL is the only thing keeping the Imperium together. Cut that, and there's no Imperium, just individual worlds that will die off one by one without Guard/Space marine support and interstellar trade. Hive worlds starve, agriworlds have no support to defend themselves, and the enemies of mankind have a field day. They won't risk it for possible zero return.
• In related news, why is the Astronomican made as retarded as possible? 1. It's a beacon, but still needs the Emperor's will to direct its power. Is that so. He's obviously not contributing any power, because he's trapped between life and death and can't do shit. 2. If the Empire's FTL travel uses beacon-based navigation, they are also using coordinates. Now everything in the Milky Way shifts around constantly, but on a cosmic time scale where even 40,000 years is about as significant as a second's fart. And updating the Galactic map would provide a nice bread-winning avenue for that many extra Imperial citizens. 3. It is a pointlessly evil solution. Why have just the one huge beacon that stretched even the height of the Empire's technological progress, and kills every one of its crew within months, instead of building smaller beacons on each world, creating a much more useful signal map in the Warp? 4. Why doesn't it use a lot more psykers, so they don't wear themselves out? If the Astronomican crew would live their full lives, that's two orders of magnitude AT LEAST shaved off the needed number in the long term. Moreover if these people live long enough they can reproduce. Way more Psykers = way more Tyranids etc. rendered extra crispy. The same % would fall to Chaos, so that's not an issue. I know common sense takes a back seat to horror in WH40K, but the Astronomican took a giant shit on my willing suspension of dispelief when I read about it.
  • Yes the Emperor does do stuff, he essentially acts as the power source and light of the Astronomican he is such a strong psychic presence that people can use it to track where they are in relation to Tera at all times meaning they don't get lost. Warp travel is impossible to reliably track a course for that will work twice on too because it is constantly shifting thus necessitating a relatively constant beacon for people to be able to track their movements. On the "why have one huge beacon" question, they would if they could but they cant the Astronomican is a technology that they have no chance of ever recreating, it was built and designed by the Emperor himself who has no way of telling them how to make one and they arent gonna try and reverse engineer it for fear of breaking the one thing that keeps the Imperium alive. They also are using as many Psykers as is physically possibly, they need the navigators to actually pilot the ships in warp so there is no way they could do that, the Inquisition uses a few Psykers and would cause hell if someone started using Grey Knights as fuel for the Astronomicon, and the Space Marines need their Librarians for combat support and much needed psychic protection. Psykers are rare and they already use a lot, it doesnt help that the Imperium
  • 1. It's a beacon, but still needs the Emperor's will to direct its power. Is that so. He's obviously not contributing any power, because he's trapped between life and death and can't do shit. Incorrect. You contribute nothing to the power of a car, computer, or other piece of machinery but you still direct it.
  • 2. If the Empire's FTL travel uses beacon-based navigation, they are also using coordinates. Now everything in the Milky Way shifts around constantly, but on a cosmic time scale where even 40,000 years is about as significant as a second's fart. And updating the Galactic map would provide a nice bread-winning avenue for that many extra Imperial citizens. Misunderstanding of the Astronomicon's purpose. It serves as a beacon within the Warp that Navigators use to keep them from getting lost within the Warp, which is unmappable and ever-changing. They have no trouble navigating in the Materium, but they have no FTL ability in the Materium.
  • 3. It is a pointlessly evil solution. Why have just the one huge beacon that stretched even the height of the Empire's technological progress, and kills every one of its crew within months, instead of building smaller beacons on each world, creating a much more useful signal map in the Warp? The technology itself cannot be reproduced currently, and prior to the Heresy it worked without constantly feeding psykers into it. It was only after the Heresy that the psykers were needed because the Emperor went down.
  • 4. Why doesn't it use a lot more psykers, so they don't wear themselves out? If the Astronomican crew would live their full lives, that's two orders of magnitude AT LEAST shaved off the needed number in the long term. Moreover if these people live long enough they can reproduce. The Astronomicon is a one-way trip, and you can only feed so many people into the chorus to sustain it at one time.
  • On top of all the other points raised above, there's the fact that the Astronomican was built by the Emperor as a stop-gap. It facilitated FTL travel until he finished his real ambition, which was permanent and stable access to the Webway. If that had been completed without a hitch, the Imperium would barely have need of Warp-ready ships any more, and if they did then the Emperor could have powered the Astronomican for what was needed without an issue. Part of the reason the Astronomican began to fade was the fact that he was having to push more and more power into holding up the nascent Webway gate, of which the Golden Throne is the proverbial keystone. Now, he's being kept on such a thin strand of life that Dreadnaught "pilots" seem at the peak of health in comparison; the fact that he's still both keeping the broken Webway sealed off, AND providing the main fuel for the "Warp Lighthouse", while barely even existing any more merely goes to show what kind of unbelievable power he has/had.
• The degeneration of the Empire's culture and technology from the Emperor's last days to the 41st Milennium would be more than understandable over 10,000 years... as measured against a normal human lifespan. Most if not all of the leadership of the Imperium is a lot longer lived than that, and there are people alive (for various stretches of the term "alive") who are over 10,000 years old and have served under the Emperor before Horus screwed up at shaving him. So a small number of the generation that saw the Emperor's unification wars and the Horus Heresy are still alive, most in high rank because of seniority... and they let the new blood turn the craziness up to such a degree?
  • Where does it say that there are people still alive from the days of the Horus Heresy?
  • No. The only ones still "alive" from before the Emperor was sealed in the Golden Throne are daemon Primarchs and some Space Marines in Dreadnoughts who are so old and senile they're pretty much useless. High-ranking noble humans live a few hundred years at best, longer if they're Adeptus Mechanicus, but they eventually go crazy or die of old age too.
• Judging from the new codex, the Necrons no longer seem to be Omnicidial Maniacs. Why would that be retconned? They were scarier when they were mindless automatons that harvested people.
  • Because they were boring. That was the biggest complaint about the Necrons. there was no personality to them, nothing interesting, just killer robots led by star gods who controlled the entire galaxy. The new ones were created because a lot of people found them really, really boring.
  • It could have been handled in a way that would have let them keep their scary factor, however. We have so much information on them now that they don't feel as implacable, as deadly, and as mysterious as before. They were an unstoppable and ancient force of evil, now they're... A bit more generic invasion army.
• Penitent Engines and Dreadknights have pilots that are exposed. The point of of a Penitent Engine is that the pilot can find absolution by getting killed in battle, but it still wouldn't make a very practical weapon of war if the pilot can easily be killed. As for the Dreadknights, there is a Hand Wave stating that the pilot is protected by Deflector Shields, but it wouldn't it not hurt to place some physical armor in front just in case?
  • You must be new to 40k. This is a setting where the factions that field these units go into battle with giant pipe organs and hundred meter-tall walking churches with nuclear cannons strapped to them. By comparison, Dreadknights and Penitent Engines are not terribly strange at all.
  • It's also worth keeping in mind that the Imperium is not a society where rational thinking and innovation are values. It's considered outright heretical in some circles to modify technology. This is in addition to the fact that humanity has lost most of its most advanced technology. Much of the Imperium's contemporary tech is based on scavenged remnants from its so-called Dark Age of Technology. There's a very good chance that the Penitent Engine and Dreadknight designs aren't from military templates but civilian ones, such as power lifters or construction units.
• If the Alpha Legion really are undercover Loyalists, how are they keeping their true intentions from the Chaos Gods, who are you know, GODS?
  • They aren't omnipotent or all knowing. Being a god does not necessarily mean you know everything.
• Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, especially since it's the game that coined the word "grimdark", but I can't help but feel a little sad about the Eldar's master plan. What's the point of destroying Slaanesh if there are no longer going to be any Eldar around to enjoy the new freedom? On the other hand, it would at least mean no more Dark Eldar.
  • They won't be alive, but at least their souls would be free.
  • Vengeance. And it frees their souls from being eaten on death.
  • For another potential bright side: what would become of the Emperor's Children when Slaanesh is no longer around?
• This may seem like a dumb question,but what is the biggest Tyranid ever
  • Well, if you're talking about the biggest known tyranid, than probably one of their Living Ships. The largest terrestrial tyranids are the bio-titans ^{[dead link]} , which are the size of- you guessed it- titans.

• Just for the sake of asking,is there anyway that Ollanious Pious could have killed or harmed Horus?
  • No.
    • Why not?
      • Horus was basically a walking demigod whose psychic power was so strong simply looking at him for too long caused Pious to explode into a red paste. Even if he could resist that much and manage to get a shot off at Horus, at the best of times your average lasgun shot will mildly annoy a basic Space Marine. Let alone a Primarch.

• How can you kill Necrons?
  • Complete de-atomization seems to do the trick most of the time. Basically damage it to the point where it can no longer be repaired. Or better yet, to the point where there's nothing left to repair. Both of which a Melta gun or Lascannon could probably do quite nicely.
• So the necron backstory has been retconned. Does that mean that necron and c'tan-centered novels, like Nightbringer are now obsolete?
  • That's not necessarily the case; perhaps it would be related more to one of the C'tan shards rather than the C'tan itself, and thus fit neatly into current canon.

• If the 41st millennium is the ultimate Crapsack World, then why did the writers create the Starchild theory?
  • Either they were trying to decrapsackify it, or they were intentionally setting up hope so they could dash it against the rocks.

• Who is the most badass human in the Warhammer universe?
  • Well the Emperor has powers rivaling that of an actual god, even when in a coma. The fact that he even is in a coma shows how badass the galaxy in general is.

• I am no authority on warp travel, but try as I might, I could find no answer in the fluff or elsewhere to the question: Why doesn't Abaddon simply enter real space beyond the Cadian Gate? I know that it's been established that the only stable route from the eye of terror lies here, and Cadia is in the way. I'm just wondering, what keeps Abaddon, or for that matter, any Chaos ship from entering the warp, and just navigating until they reach Terra or whatever other vital system they want to conquer, and return to real space basically on the doormat?
  • Even with the help of the Astronomican it's good practise to drop out of the Warp on occasion to get your bearings. Being in the warp for too long completely distorts your perception of time and space, so while you may think that you've been travelling for six weeks and crossing 100,000ly in a strait line, you may reappear four years later and 30,000ly off course (and that would be a mild case).
  • "is the only predictably stable way out". To be reasonably sure they'll exit more or less where (and when) planned and not end up with the ship made of giggling glowing cheese and screaming snails, they need to pass either the Arx gap in good "weather", or Cadian Gate. The rest is made of permanent warp-storms. Also, patrols at Cadia are likely to notice them and call support anyway, so they want to get a foothold of their own, rather than leave a major enemy base behind their backs. And being Chaos guys, when they set out to fight, they tend to jump at the first occasion.

• Why aren't there plasma/melta/laser weapons for Terminators?
  • Plasma weapons have a bad habit of exploding when you don't want them to, so it's not likely that any Space Marine chapter would risk their valuable Terminator armors by installing them on. Lasguns are among the weakest weapons in the setting, so it's not worth giving them to Terminators. As for meltas... you've actually got me there.
    • Laser wapons are only the least powerful if you don't include multilasers or lascannons. Or autoguns for that matter.
  • Because they don't need special weapons and may carry any Astartes weapon if needed for the mission? It's just that things like power fist and storm bolter are better fit for close combat, and for longer range there are assault cannon and cyclone launcher. A portable lascannon is a good weapon, but if you plan to engage targets that require it at the range that requires it, maybe using a vehicle in the first place would be a better idea than Terminators? A good anti-armor gun, but missions where you need those aren't typical Terminator job.

• Is there an afterlife in the 41st millennium? Well, I know that people whose souls are taken by daemons do in fact have an afterlife, and that the Eldar store their souls in spirit stones, but what about humans who die with their souls intact? I've read references to Space Marines "joining the Emperor" when they die, but there's no explanation as to whether this is what actually happens or whether it is simply what the Marines believe will happen.
  • Human souls do go to the warp but, unlike the Eldar, don't remain conscience or aware of it as their souls do not burn as brightly due to having a weaker physic presence. Those without souls, such as physic blanks, would simply cease to exist.

• Why don't the Tyranids farm? Okay, I realize that sounds absurd, but clearly the Tyranid hive-mind has the intelligence to understand what farming is, and to realize that, having conquered a life-bearing world, it can generate more biomass for consumption by continuing to farm it than by consuming everything and moving on. After all, there is no particular reason to assume that life-bearing worlds are especially common; out of all the planets and moons in our solar system, only one supports a biosphere (yes, it is possible that there are or were microbes on some of the Jovian or Saturnine moons, but nothing like earth). Isn't it kind of shortsighted for the Tyranids to constantly destroy their only food sources? It seems as though the Tyranid hive-mind forces itself to endure constant cycles of feast and famine, when it could easily maintain a steady source of food over the long-term. So why do the Tyranids consistently kill the golden goose?
  • For that matter, considering their high levels of biological adaptability, and their ability to absorb useful traits from the lifeforms they consume, why don't the Tyranids simply produce forms capable of photosynthesis? They could build organic Dyson shells around blue giant or super-giant stars and get all the energy they need.
  • Answer? It simply wouldn't be GRIMDARK enough.
  • They do. Once the Hivemind caught on the Imperial tactic involving luring large numbers of Tyranids onto a planet and dropping an Exterminatus on it at the last moment, it began seizing worlds and steadily farming biomass off it instead of just eating and moving on.

• How do the Mordians fare so well? The reason why we stopped using volley tactics in Real Life is that soldiers in formation tend to get utterly slaughtered by machine guns and automatic weapons (and not to mention aerial attacks).
  • They are both incredibly well disciplined and are better armed and equipped than most of their enemies. Think about it their most common opponents are the Orks and Rebellious humans, the latter are usually PDF troops (commonly equipped with poor equipment and poorly trained because the guard snaps up the most promising soldiers and officers) and the former is using tactics even more outdated then the Mordians. They basically lack competetion.

• If the Eye of Terror is the only way to go in and out of the Warp, how are Warp travels from other planets possible?
  • It isn't the only way in or out of the Warp. A ship with a Warp engine can enter and exit the Warp at any time. The Eye of Terror is simply a spot where the Warp intersects with real space, and it isn't even the only one. It's simply that largest.
  • How in all of the Imperium would anyone even get the idea that the Eye of Terror was the only way to enter the Warp? Every single 40k work that involves Warp travel makes it clear that one can enter the Warp anywhere as long as one has the right equipment on their ship. And a Gellar Field generator to prevent getting eaten by a trillion daemons.

• Why don't da Ork god's exist? They have the collective ability to make reality warp to what ever the species believes, why hasn't the belief of several trillion Orks in their two Gods created beings on level with the Chaos gods? Even the Imperium made one by accident.
  • Who says they don't?
    • They do exist. They're implied to be more than a match for the Chaos Gods. They just spend most of their time fighting each other. Occasionally they intercede via Weirdboy Foot of Gork.

Spotted inconsistencies in the work of the Emperor's scribes? That's heresy!

1. ↑ (1d10+3 Pen 0)+(Dam +2 Pen +2) = 1d10+5 Pen 2 = (1d10+4 Pen 0)+(Dam +1 Pen +2)
2. ↑ the latter isn't as crazy as it sounds - they just provide lots of small detachments as auxiliaries to others