< Warhammer 40,000 < Tropes

Warhammer 40,000/Tropes/Q to Z


By the will of the Immortal God-Emperor, the great reliquary, or "page" as it is known, of tropes has grown to the point that it shall be broken up into three different pages. These pages are divided by the letter that starts the trope, and misplaced tropes shall be returned to their proper place. This page is for those tropes that start with the letter Q through the letter Z.

Venerate the God-Emperor. To deep-strike back to the main page, click here.

Q

  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: HQ characters' retinues, of all stripes.
  • The Quisling: Several human worlds near the Tau Empire have been assimilated into the Empire, some more willingly than others.


R

  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Imperial penal legions, entire armies of convicts sentenced to death at the hands of the enemy; in death they may be forgiven for their crimes. The best known unit is Colonel Schaeffer's "Last Chancers", inspired by every war-movie Ragtag Bunch of Misfits ever.
  • Ramming Always Works: Killboy of Deff Skwadron, whose favorite move is to crash his plane into the enemy's plane.
  • Random Number God: A number of bizarre good-luck superstitions have arisen, such as never calling missile launchers by their proper name (it has the word "miss" in it), the idea that painted models are luckier than unpainted models, the usage of blue dice for important rolls and the practice of occasionally muttering prayers to the Emperor. Never taken seriously, but often endearing.
  • Rated "M" for Manly: Part of the Tagline is "There is only war.", after all.
  • Razor Floss: Many Eldar weapons.
  • Reality Warper: C'tan, distinct from the setting's other gods in that they are literal Physical Gods, immensely powerful in the material world rather than being warp entities. The more powerful psykers can also break the setting's (already tenuous) grip on physics.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Most wealthy Imperials, via juvenat technology.
    • Also most Space Marines, who have much longer lifespans.
    • Many of the Chaos Space Marines are from the original traitor legions of the Horus Heresy, likely kept alive by the warp.
    • Many Eldar and Dark Eldar are very old. The late Eldrad Ulthran of Ulthwé craftworld was over 10,000 years old, and before his death, he was one of the few people who met the Emperor in person. Also, Asdrubael Vect, the leader of the Dark Eldar Black Heart Cabal, claims that he was around to see the fall of the Eldar civilisation.
  • Recycled in Space: Began as a Recycled in Space version of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which predated it by four years, but has over time diverged from it. Now contains a Recycled in Space of nearly every fantasy and SF trope imaginable, turned Darker and Edgier to a ridiculous degree and armed to the teeth.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Orks' eye colour tends to be red, with some slight variations. Things like bionic eyes and Space Marine helmets can also have red lenses, and the entire Salamanders chapter has red eyes due to an interaction between their geneseed and the high radiation of their homeworld.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Angron and Kharn, respectively. The fact that the Blue Oni is still a raving fanatical berserker should tell you something.
  • The Red Planet: Home to the Adeptus Mechanicus.
  • Redemption Equals Death: One of the fundamental concepts behind the Church Militant's idea of "penance."
  • Red Shirt: Though not specifically called out as such, this tends to emerge from the gameplay mechanics. The wound allocation rules (barring special exceptions) allow the player who controls the unit being hit to designate which models in the unit fall in combat when the unit is attacked. Inevitably, it will be the models without special options, wargear, or abilities, who Take The Wound instead of the more important ones.
  • Redshirt Army: The Imperial Guardsmen are ordinary humans in a world filled with genetically engineered Super Soldiers in both religious-fanatic and daemon-corrupted flavours, unstoppable death robots, and aliens with horribly lethal weapons and/or terrifying Psychic Powers. They are surprisingly Genre Savvy about this, meaning that infantry have crap morale because they know exactly how expendable they are. Of course, Commissars are there to solve that little problem.
    • Typically, a world's Planetary Defense Force (PDF) has it even worse than the Guard, as their primary job in most stories is to die horribly at the hands of the invading forces until the Imperial Guard arrives. That's right, they're the Redshirt Army for the Redshirt Army.
    • As an aside, PDF also stands for "Please Don't Fight [Us]".
  • Refuge in Audacity: 40K basically runs off this and Rule of Cool.
  • Refuge in Cool: Rule of Cool in the sense of "governed by cool with an Iron Power Fist."
  • Reign of Terror: Began with the Emperor's unification of Terra and has since settled into a permanent state of affairs.
  • Religion Is Magic: Used to its fullest by both the Imperium and Chaos, especially the Sisters of Battle, who can literally stop bullets with their faith.
  • Religion of Evil: Chaos cults, and the Word Bearers' claim to fame. Not that the "good" religions are much better.
  • Retcon: The Squats, Zoats and the fifth Chaos God, Malal, were removed from the game background - the Squats because they weren't sure what to do with them, Malal because they weren't quite sure who owned the copyright. Other forces changed drastically, for example, the Tyranids turning from curiosity bugs into a galaxy-eating horror, and the C'tan changing from the Necrons' star gods to their former star gods who got betrayed.
    • There have also been a number of RetCons of technology, such as Terminator armour and plasma weapons being changed from utterly irreplaceable relics to simply very, very difficult to make.
    • The removal of the Squats is not a Retcon so much as a Dropped a Bridge on Him, as they officially existed, but were utterly eradicated by the Tyranid Hive Fleet Kraken. The Zoats get a quarter-page mention in the Tyranid book, as they were wiped out by the Imperium.
    • The general tone of the setting has shifted quite a bit over the years. In the original Rogue Trader rulebook, the Imperium had a ragtag, Scavenger World feel (still present but not to the same degree). In fact, the whole thing had kind of a Mad Max IN SPACE feel to it. The copious amounts of black humor and irony that marked Rogue Trader have also been downplayed over time.
    • Inquisitors were originally lone adventurers not unlike U.S. Marshals in Western fiction - our friend Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau would not fit in with the Inquisiton of modern 40K.
    • At first, Orks were capable of sexual reproduction; now they are created from spores like fungi. Also, they were originally created by the Snotlings, who eventually devolved into semi-sapience; now they're creations of the Old Ones.
    • Daemons and Chaos were originally not part of the setting; the Warp was instead inhabited by a variety of dangerous but non-daemonic "Warp Creatures", such as Enslavers, Psychaneuein, and Vampires, though it was mentioned that some inspired legends of demons on especially superstitious planets, and they still were drawn to unprotected psykers.
    • The Tyranids at first were less bestial in appearance, and the Hive Mind concept wasn't as thoroughly fleshed out. The Genestealers were originally unconnected to them.
      • Genestealers were also described in the Rogue Trader book as intelligent creatures which weren't necessarily hostile, as opposed to the Alien-influenced monsters they became in the expansion that first introduced Genestealer cults.
    • There was a lot less romanticization/fetishization of the Space Marines in Rogue Trader - they were clearly Badass mofos, and the most dangerous fighting force in the setting, but they were also played as the most brutal and insane individuals in a brutal, insane universe. In fact, most were recruited from psychotic murderers on feral planets. Most of their transhuman elements (such as all those extra organs) were also added in later.
      • The Soul Drinkers novel Crimson Tears has a Guard general describing them pretty much exactly like that.
    • Ollanius Pious, in first edition, was an ordinary Guardsman who pulled a You Shall Not Pass on a DEMIGOD. Later editions retconned him out of existence. The fandom most definitely did NOT rejoice.
    • New models and characters are routinely retconned into previously discussed events. The Tyrannid Swarmlord character was recently retconned into leading most of their major battles back to first contact, and the new vehicles in the most recent IG Codex were now mixed into their armies all along.
    • The C'Tan were retconned again with the fifth edition Necron book, radically so. Instead of completely dominating the Necrons and using them to harvest the galaxy for life-energy, they were betrayed by the Necrons and shattered into shards that the Necrons use in the campaign to conquer the galaxy. How the rest of the canon will be altered to deal with this change remains to be seen.
    • The Imperial Guard used to field the same vehicles as Space Marines -down to dreadnoughts and land speeders- before the IG vehicle range was introduced in the mid-90s.
    • Primarchs were absent from the Rogue Trader rulebook. The Horus Heresy was initially introduced -in the background for the original Space Marine game- as just a huge civil war, and Warmaster Horus as a mere corrupted general. In this early version of the background, the Emperor had simply grown old and weak over the millenia until he had to be placed on life support.
  • The Right Hand of Doom: All those Power Fists give this effect, often occurs in the mutations of daemon princes but special mention must go to the Crimson Fists who all paint just one of their hands so that it at least looks a little bit more prominent.
    • One member of the Soul Drinkers has an extremely large mutant hand, which he either uses to wield his power axe to great effect, or uses to splat people dead while using his normal hand to use the axe.
  • Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Common in the Imperium, standard operating procedure in the Inquisition.
    • The Dark Eldar, being an entire race of backstabbing, paranoid Starscreams, are like this at the best of times.
    • This is also common among the forces of Chaos, who routinely act at cross-purposes to one another even when they're ostensibly working towards the same goal: to say nothing of when they aren't.
      • It's often argued that the only reason that Chaos hasn't overrun the galaxy yet is because the forces of Chaos are all so insane, backstabbing and Stupid Evil, the full power of their force can't be consolidated and focused to any real degree. Take note of what happened the last time someone was able to fully unite Chaos.
  • Robe and Wizard Hat: Eldar Farseers, some Chaos sorcerers.
  • Robo Cam: The standard depiction of space marine battle helm readouts. Bonus points for directly scrolling across the retina.
  • Robot War: One of them was partly the reason for the end of the Dark Age of Technology. Nowadays, they happen wherever the Necrons show up.
  • Roboteching: Tau Smart Missile systems.
  • Rock Beats Laser: A setting of world-splitting superweapons, ludicrously powerful weaponry and interstellar empires, and the standard tactic of most factions is to charge screaming at their foes waving a sharp thing. And it works.
    • To be fair, if you're 8 ft tall, largely immune to firepower and can flip tanks over, it is a lot more logical.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: They live in the underhives.
  • Room 101: Commorragh, the home of the Dark Eldar, is implied to be a City 101.
  • Room Full of Crazy: Psykers are prone to this.
    • Apparently Pariahs, people who are literally born without a soul and thus have no presence in the warp, can turn other people into this, as their innate lack of a soul drives normal people mad, or at least REALLY irritates other people for no apparent reason.
  • Rubber Forehead Aliens: Eldar resemble tall, thin humans with pointy ears. Also, Tau are just stocky grey humans with funny feet and faces. Justified and Lampshaded in Xenology.
  • Rule 34: Sexy Tyranids, loli Daemonettes, Cultist-chan, the Ronery Wych, Faptau... among others. Beware some of the stuff that comes out of /tg/.
    • In some ways Slaanesh is the in-universe personification of this.
  • Rule of Funny: The Orks. Seriously, they're Bloody Hilarious. Just read their Codex, any Codex.
  • Rule of Perception: According to 40k's What You See Is What You Get rules, if a particular upgrade or piece of wargear isn't somehow visible on a model, the model can't claim to have it. This encourages players to come up with interesting conversions[1] to represent these upgrades, particularly in the case of things like veteran skills and other non-physical traits.
    • Okay that's a LITTLE unfair. While What You See is What You Get (Pronounced Wissiwig) is encouraged, there is a logical limit to it, even in tournament settings. Most people will accept that your Eldar Farseer has a Singing Spear, even if his model only has a Witchblade, so long as you put it down in the list. And trying to model for some things, such as Melta Bombs or Icons of Chaos (much less Marks or PSYCHIC ABILITIES) could get silly after a while. There are limits in the other direction to, especially in units, but usually people are forgiving enough to not make you model TOO heavily.


S

  • Same Character but Different: The White Dwarf cut-out boardgame based on the fight on Horus' Battlebarge featured two Greater Daemons on Horus' side, named Doombreed and "Kraxnar." Years later when Codex: Chaos came out, this was referenced, but poor never-described-at-all Kraxnar had been ousted by the rather less goofily-named N'Kari.
  • Sand Worm: Raveners, the Red Terror, Trygons and Mawlocs, in that order from least to most matching.
  • Sapient Ship: The Eldar ships combine elements of this and the ghost ship, with the implanted spirits of the dead giving the ship its own personality.
  • Scale of Scientific Sins: Unsurprisingly, pings on all 7 sins.
  • Scary Black Man: The Salamanders are an entire chapter of this, and they're one of the nicer chapters of Space Marines.
  • Scary Dogmatic Aliens: All the factions, even the Imperium. Yep, we are Scary Dogmatic Humans:
  • Scenery Gorn: About half of the art. A fair proportion of the other half is just regular Gorn.
  • Schizo-Tech: Planets in the Imperium of Man range from Stone Age-level Feral Worlds to hyper-tech Forge Worlds, and pretty much all technology levels in between. Even within a given world, examples of Schizo-Tech often abound: it's not uncommon for an adept to ride a flying bus into work and then spend the day copying numbers onto rolls of parchment with a quill. And of course, "DRIVE ME CLOSER! I WANT TO HIT THEM WITH MY SWORD!!"
  • Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Orks.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Has a love-hate relationship with this one. At times, distances, timescales and the number of soldiers needed to launch a sector-spanning crusade are handled "realistically", but just as often a few hundred Space Marines defend - or purge - an entire world. But then again, they are Space Marines...
    • The models also have some scale issues; for example, the Leman Russ tank, compared to a Guardsman figure, has a 16-inch main gun and two 3-inch repeating cannons.
    • Epic had this going on with weapon-related rules; all weapons of a given class had the same stats no matter what the model looked like. This got odd with "bolters" (any bolter, sometimes two only counting for one attack dice) and "battle cannon" (the Battle Cannon in a Stormblade's sponson is a quarter of the size of the one in a Baneblade's turret, yet both had the exact same stats). This results in some weirdness when trying to scale up a Superheavy tank to 40K; a Stormhammer, for example, might have anything from 12 bolt pistols in firing ports to 24 heavy bolters.
      • In addition, Epic models have a tendency to be too small directly proportional to the actual size of the model; a Leman Russ is slightly smaller in comparison to an infantry figure than the 40K equivalent, while vehicles supposedly as big as city blocks tend to only have a few times the footprint of a regular tank. Perhaps the biggest case is the Imperator Titan; the Imperator model is around four inches tall, and the head has just about enough room to contain one Epic-scale Terminator figure, despite being described in fluff as containing a whole battle bridge for the Princeps and Moderati. Most likely this is because a true-to-scale Epic Imperator would be two or three feet tall.
      • Then again, nobody seems able to decide how tall Titans are, with official figures for the Imperator varying from Graham McNeill's books (43m) to Dan Abnett (>140m). The cover of the graphic novel Titan showing a smaller Warlord Titan features access ladders and details on the gun implying the barrels are each the size of a house, making the whole Titan over half a kilometre tall.
    • Another time-related example: A fair amount of the Imperium's equipment, such as some of the older Marks of power armour that are still in use by the Space Marines, is still around and functional after at least ten thousand years of regular use. Even with maintenance, that's a bit of a stretch in most cases.
  • Screaming Warrior: Eldar Howling Banshees, who - thanks to a psychosonic amplifier in their masks - can actually shut down someone's nervous system by screaming at him.
    • Likewise certain Noise Marines, who use a similar piece of technology known as "The Doom Siren".
    • One word: WWWAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!
    • So common that the Necrons are notably intimidating for NOT doing this.
  • Screw You, Eldar
  • Scry vs. Scry: Primarily between Eldar farseers and Tzeentchian sorcerers; human and even Ork soothsayers sometimes try this as well, but are generally far less successful at it.
  • Sealed Army in a Can: Subverted with the Necrons, in that they can't be controlled. Overlaps with Sealed Evil in a Can.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Many, many examples.
    • Just about everything can have a daemon sealed in it, turning an ordinary weapon - or monument, or tank, or planet - into an Artifact of Doom.
    • It's heavily implied that the Forge World of Mars imprisons the Void Dragon, a sleeping C'tan star-god. The Outsider, another C'tan, is currently trapped in a Dyson sphere (also batshit insane.)
    • Done both metaphorically and literally by the Necrontyr, a short-lived, life-hating race who had themselves sealed in undying living-metal battle shells, becoming the Necrons. "In a can" indeed.
  • Sense Freak: Followers of Slaanesh. Dark Eldar as well.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: There are many Heroic Sacrifices in 40K, "But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed..."
    • On the other hand, there is another saying which goes "No man who died in His service died in vain", so make what you will of it. Imperial dogma is occasionally contradictory. Pointing this out is heresy.
  • Sentient Cosmic Force: The Warp is this.
  • Separate but Identical: All races suffer really badly from this, although it's being gradually fixed with different Craftworlds, bio-augmentation, regimental doctrines, etc.
  • Serious Business: The Fan Dumb, of course, but considering what this game costs, you can kinda see their perspective.
  • Sexy Jester: Eldar Harlequins, though most of their opponents are too busy screaming in pain and terror to notice.
  • Shadow Dictator: The God-Emperor of Mankind. The official story is that he was mortally wounded in a duel with Horus and has been hooked up to the Golden Throne and preserved in a state between life and death ever since, but sometimes it's alluded that he might be, in fact, long dead. Of course, those making said statements generally happen to be enemies of the Imperium, so it's impossible to know whether or not they're true.
    • It's also important to note that the Eldar believe that if the Emperor died, he would ascend to full-on Godhood upon fully transitioning to the Warp, which they're convinced would make another Eye of Terror. Also, it's heavily implied that if this happened, he'd utterly curbstomp the Chaos Gods, who were so terrified of the Emperor that they actually worked together to eliminate him.
    • As long as the Astronomican remains coherent and Sanctioning (and even soul-binding) works, he is still kind-of-here.
  • Shaped Like Itself: Orks wired into Deff Dredds "soon find out that the disadvantage to being permanently enclosed inside a metal can is being permanently enclosed inside a metal can."
  • Shared Universe: Particularly in the novels; most fans regard anything written by some authors, especially C.S. Goto, as automatically non-canon.
  • Sharpened to a Single Atom: Most combat blades have an edge one molecule thick. This includes combat knives, swords, some types of ammunition, etc.
  • Shiny-Looking Spaceships: Eldar and Tau, mostly.
  • Shock and Awe: Necron ranged weapons typically fire bolts of green lightning that strip away the target's flesh one molecular layer at a time. A great many psychic powers also involve using bolts of lightning to fry people.
  • Shoot the Dog: Happens very, very often in the Imperium. One of a commissar's duties is to maintain unit cohesion and discipline - by execution, if necessary. Discovered psykers are usually killed to stop them getting daemon-possessed and destroying worlds, fed to the Astronomicon to preserve it and the Emperor, or put through brutal conditioning to serve the Imperium as "sanctioned" psykers. And, if that weren't bad enough, in extreme catastrophes planets are subjected to Exterminatus in order to prevent the taint from spreading and put the inhabitants out of their misery. To highlight how monumentally fucked up this galaxy is, people are actually awarded medals for such acts.
  • Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: Shamelessly prevalent in the tabletop game, even the artillery. The worst offender is the Imperial Guard Basilisk, whose range is both unnecessarily long for the tabletop game - twenty feet, several times the length of the average game table - while also far, far too short for an artillery piece of that size.
    • As of the 5th edition Imperial Guard codex, the Basilisk has passed its crown to the Deathstrike Missile, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 12" - 960". In other words, an ICBM with a maximum range of less than a mile, that can also be used to shoot at people standing sixty feet from the launch site. Short-Range Long-Range Weapon indeed. (As of the latest errata, the Deathstrike's maximum range is now officially unlimited, but it can still shoot people standing just off the launch pad.)
    • Apparently when asked why they changed this, the designers said "If you are playing on a table where this actually makes a difference, then good for you."
  • Shoulders of Doom: If you look at the Games Workshop site, "Shoulder Pads" is an entire category of modeling bits, along with scenery and weapons.
  • Shout-Out: Tonnes, some subtle, some obvious.
    • Most obviously, much of the backstory is heavily based on Dune. If you're wondering why, here's a short sentence: The God-Emperor of the Imperium. And the navis nobilitae eventually turns into something like the floating bollock-frogs from the movie, and they have more or less the same function. And the AI ban after a Robot War.
    • The Swords Trilogy was started in 1977 and had the Order Versus Chaos motif, complete with Chaos Gods and an eight pointed star as the sigil of Chaos. So Warhammer is H.P. Lovecraft meets The Swords.
    • One of the elite fighting forces in the imperial guard are know as the storm troopers, and most wear fully enclosing gas masked helmets
    • "All Orks is equal, but some Orks are more equal dan uvvas."
    • The Adeptus Arbites are the Imperium's police, with big guns, eagles and ginormous shoulder pads. Hmmm...
    • Commander Farsight was a prominent leader of an Empire's military forces. He eventually led some of his brethren in a rebellion against the powerful ruling cast, who's whims most Tau serve their entire lives. He is also known as O'Shovah.
    • The cover art for the 3rd edition Blood Angels codex has someone who looks suspiciously like Christopher Lee. (Compare the lower left Marine to the DVD cover for Scars of Dracula.)
    • The two gods of the Orks are stated in Gorkamorka to be Gork and Mork.
    • The Space Marines Codex makes reference to the Zeist Campaign, a shout out to Highlander 2. The fandom was NOT pleased.
    • Quite possibly, several to Rogue Trooper — or at least, the Gland Warriors.
  • Shrouded in Myth: Space Marines are seen as legends by most of the Imperium. An average Imperial citizen will occasionally get to see how much of the legends are true; unfortunately, this is generally in a Marine-worthy combat situation, meaning the citizen's life expectancy can probably be measured in minutes at most.
    • One comic story describes an Ork invasion of a medieval-level Imperial world and a Black Templar counterattack, from the perspective of one of the world's peasants. At the end, after the Orks are driven off, the peasant hopes that they never come back again: not because he's scared of the Orks, but because he's scared of the Space Marines.
  • Shrug of God: Games Workshop has deliberately left everything regarding the two "missing" Primarchs open for fan speculation. Ditto for other major characters, like Commander Farsight.
  • Sickly Green Glow: Necrons in general and gauss weapons in particular.
  • Sighted Guns Are Low Tech: One of the few science fiction works to avert this trope.
  • Sigil Spam: Most Imperial organisations. Chaos Marines and cultists are often depicted in this fashion also.
  • Single Biome Planet: Used and averted equally often.
  • Sinister Scythe: Trademark of Nurgle followers and the Nightbringer.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Take a wild guess. This is a universe where extreme prejudice and xenophobia against anyone remotely different: psykers, mutants, etc.: is truly the best option, since anything else will, in a best case secenario, get you possessed by demons.
  • Slave Race: The Gretchin to the Orks, handling all the non WAAAGH!!!ing operations.
  • Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Looked at from an out-of-universe perspective 40K has the tongue so firmly planted in cheek its punching through, in-universe it is so serious and depressing its rather surprising you have productive people at all considering how depressing it must be to be in charge of anything in 40k.
    • This is often based on whichever perspective it's coming from. Read something written from the point of view of an Ork, and the descriptions and dialogue will take on an amusing and humourous tone. Take the point of view of a Guardsman seeing an Ork, and all he's going to see is a terrifying green monstrosity howling barbarically, waving either a monstrous cleaver or improbably sized gun around. Definitely not something to be taken lightly.
  • Sliding Scale of Turn Realism: Turn by Turn.
  • The Slow Walk: Necrons are masters of this, as is any unit with the Slow and Purposeful rule (e.g. Obliterators, Meganobz, Thousand Sons). There is also a drawing in the 5th edition rulebook of several Imperial heroes performing a Slow Walk.
  • The Smurfette Principle: A dearth of female special characters usable in the game proper, although the fluff doesn't suffer from this so badly.
    • Turned on its head with Dawn Of War II Retribution which has half the playable Eldar being women and the Imperial Guard is run by a female inquisitor.
  • Some Call Me... Tim: Some call me Commander Farsight (Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr or O'Shovah for short) . Standard practice with Tau.
  • Soul Cutting Blade: Force weapons.
  • Soulsaving Crusader: The forces of the Imperium of Man are examples of this and also the other races that appears to be fighting for what seems right in this setting.
  • Sourcebook: By the bucketload.
  • Sound Off: Imperial battle hymns, Ork war chants.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: It begins with the Tau (for whom peace talks are - usually - the first resort), then the Eldar (who will not normally screw you over unless the lives of their own species are at stake), then the Imperium (which has to be this brutal so that mankind as a whole can survive), Orks (WAAAGH!), then Tyranids (driven by hunger rather than any genuine malice), then Chaos (let's convert the materium into more warp!), Necrons (who hated the universe at large even before they were made the slaves of maniacal star-gods who want to farm every sentient species in the galaxy), and Dark Eldar (just pure, unrepentant evil, even by this settings standards).
  • Space Amish: The Imperium actually has "medieval worlds" and "feral worlds." The Eldar have exodites, and the Orks have feral tribes and the Snakebite clan.
  • Space Is an Ocean: Complete with starship-sized kraken and moon-sized leviathans. Also see the Battlefleet Gothic page.
  • Space Marine: Imperial Guard Stormtroopers, Tau Fire Warriors, Eldar Aspect Warriors, just about any Necron, but especially...
  • Space Opera: Emphasis on the epic heroes, villains, and battles - not so much on the love stories.
  • Space Pirates: Eldar, Dark Eldar and sometimes Orks, Chaos and Humans.
    • Kaptin Badrukk of the Orks even wears a pirate hat.
    • The Red Corsairs, yarr! Their leader even has only one eye (the other is bionic) and a sentient pet that allows him to slow down time.
  • Space Romans: The Imperium, right down to the Latin. Especially the Ultramarines.
  • The Spartan Way: Taken to utterly ridiculous extremes by the Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. Just look at the page quote.
  • Sphere of Destruction: Eldar wraithcannons and D-cannons and Imperial vortex weapons work this way, neatly removing perfect spheres of matter and sending them straight to hell.
  • Spider Tank: Chaos, specifically Defilers and Brass Scorpions. Necron Tomb Stalkers may also qualify.
  • Spikes of Villainy: Chaos all the way. Dark Eldar go for more of a bladed look, while Orks will mix spikes with blades and add anything else brutal you can think of.
  • Split Personality: Eldar on the path of the warrior deliberately cultivate a separate "warrior" personality so that their "true" selves can remain untainted by the violent and murderous things they have done. Those who screw up and lose the ability to switch back become Exarchs.
  • Spy Catsuit: Several Eldar have one, but it's pretty much standard issue for the Officio Assassinorum agents of the Imperium. Some employ chamaeleonic mimicry abilities, others have no special reason apart from being Fetish Fuel. In one of the newer novels, this tendency is repeatedly Lampshaded when several characters can't keep their eyes from the girl-assassin brought up by a rather puritanical sect who would most likely kill them if she had any idea why they looked at her like that.
  • Squishy Wizard: Played straight by most races' psykers, but subverted by some being real hardcases, such as Tyranid Hive Tyrants (but not Zoanthropes), Space Marine Librarians, Grey Knights and most Chaos Daemons. Eldar Farseers are actually tougher than most other Eldar, due to slowly turning into crystal.
  • Stab the Sky: Common pose of characters in artwork; not so much in actual tabletop models these days, unless you pose them that way yourself. Older models did tend to have their swords held high over their heads, due to pewter- and plastic-casting limitations of the time.
  • Standard Sci-Fi Army: Considering its focus on war, every single type of unit conceivable has been used in the games.
  • Standard Sci-Fi Fleet
  • Standard Sci Fi History: The Imperium and Eldar follow the trope closely. They explored, found aliens, built great empires, and are now falling.
  • Standard Sci Fi Setting: Only painted black and covered in skulls.
  • Standard Time Units: The Imperium officially runs on Terran years, and presumably Terran days onboard starships.
    • Sort of: the Imperial calendar is explicitly based on the Gregorian, but rather than having 365 days, it has 1000 "Days"/"Year Fractions"/"Chronosegments" of roughly 8hrs 45min apiece. If you think of each Chronosegment as a work shift, it makes it easier, especially if a "week" is 20 Chronosegments, and a "month" 100, as you wind up with roughly the same breakdown as the 7/30 you have now. The fluff explicitly has the "Year Fraction" part of the system used only by those who have to deal with lots of different local calendars.
  • Stanley Steamer Spaceship: And Stanley Steamer Tanks.
  • Star-Killing: The C'tan.
  • State Sec: The Imperium's secret police are called the Inquisition. It suits them.
  • Status Quo Is God: The huge fate-of-the-galaxy-depends-on-the-outcome-of-this summer global campaigns never seem to change anything. However, 5th Edition advances the plot a couple of hundred years, and the Imperium, though it hasn't collapsed yet, is apparently more screwed than ever before.
  • Stealth Pun There are demonic beasts of the Chaos God of Bloodlust that resemble large canids. So that would make them... wait for it... Khorne dogs.
    • The Ultramarines are a chapt
  • Stepford Smiler: Nurgle is suspiciously too nice for a god of disease...
  • Stop Worshipping Me!: The God Emperor of Mankind when he was alive.
  • Stout Strength: Generally anything associated with Nurgle gets this treatment. Especially the daemonic servants who the fatter they are, the more powerful they are.
  • Straw Hypocrite: The Ultramarines, most outspoken supporters of the Codex Astartes, rule over an entire sector despite the Codex explicitly prohibiting Space Marines from ruling more than one homeworld (barring short periods of emergency government). Mind you, they have a 100% Adoration Rating and their realm is unprecedentedly well organised, so they must be doing something right.
    • The whole mini-empire was a united alliance, ruled from Ultramar by Guilliman, before the Empire even got there. They only directly rule one world, it just happens to be the capitol.
      • And as Guilliman actually wrote the Codex, it probably is not against it.
  • Stripped to the Bone: Necrons make wide use of gauss-flayer weapons, which strip the target away layer by molecule-thick layer - although most have so much power that even a single shot usually ends up vaporising the victim whole.
  • Strong as They Need to Be: Depending on the writer, the Guard can be filled with competent men and women able to pull their weight against the superhuman enemies of the Imperium or full of redshirts only good for cannon fodder and buying time for the tanks or Space Marines.
    • Note that Imperial regiments probably vary like this, due to varied enrollment/conscription and training methods over the big galaxy.
  • Subspace Ansible: Sending telepathic messages... through hell...
  • Sufficiently Advanced Alien: C'tan/Necrons, and to a lesser extent the Eldar.
  • Summon Magic: Summoning daemons.
  • Superpower Meltdown: Happens to psykers. A lot.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: The Primarchs and the Space Marines. Also Orks.
  • Super Registration Act: An extremely euphemistic way of describing the treatment of psykers who aren't sacrificed to the Astronomican.
  • Superpowered Mooks: Psykers and those "blessed" by the Chaos gods.
  • Superweapon Surprise: Eldar Maiden worlds and Imperial medieval worlds - Do not touch without a force big enough to repel the reinforcements.
  • Survival Mantra: The many, many little prayers and litanies recited on a regular basis by the Imperials. Often have Chaotic counterparts.
  • Swallowed Whole: Stay away from Mawlocs, because you'll still be alive when you get digested.
  • Swiss Army Weapon: Obliterators again.
  • Sword and Gun: Generally favoured by every somewhat-sentient race in the game for close-quarters combat troops.
  • Synchronisation: Titans and their Princeps, some ships and their captains.

T

  • Tactful Translation: This happened to White Dwarf's battle reports. At one point they were blow-by-blow accounts, until a farcical Titan Legions battle report where one side with a Mega-Gargant suffered a ridiculously one-sided defeat against a Space Marine army with no Imperator Titan. Presumably the worry was that they'd made the supplement look bad, so battle reports were changed to a story-like format, presumably for easier "equalising."
  • Tagline: "There is no time for peace. No respite. No forgiveness. There is only WAR!" "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war!"
    • Most of the armies have one as well, like Chaos' "Death to the False Emperor!"
  • Take Cover: Terrain on the table is not just for decoration, as hiding behind a bush can protect you from even anti-tank weaponry (though not flamethrowers).
    • This is because in practical terms cover also represents the firer missing the target due to obscuring, or simply not seeing the target and not firing at all.
  • Taking You with Me: Once again, taken to extremes; a good example would be the Eversor Assassin. When you kill him, his blood explodes with tank-destroying force. All vehicles in the game have a chance of exploding, to the misfortune of everyone around, when destroyed.
    • Lukas of the Space Wolves, in keeping with being an analog for the Norse god of trickery, has this as an actual battle plan. He has a specialized stasis bomb in place of his second heart, rigged to detonate if he dies. As a result, who ever finally slays him will be frozen forever in undying stasis with Loken's laughing face to look at for eternity.
  • Talk to the Fist: Standard Imperium policy with talkative xenos filth.
  • Tannhauser Gate
  • Tank Goodness: Naturally, taken Up to Eleven. Every race has its armoured death machines, but honestly the Imperial Guard Armoured Companies are the kings of this trope. TANKS FOR THE TANK GOD, TREADS FOR THE TREAD THRONE!
    • Before the 5e codex, the Iron Warriors were this. Is being able to play with an extra tank not enough for you? How about borrowing Basilisks from the Imperial Guard and Vindicators from the Space Marines?? (At least, now all the Chaos Space Marines can use Vindicators)
  • Tarot Motifs: The Emperor's Tarot. Used seriously for divinition: and it works: and as playing cards.
    • This troper recalls a card game (in-setting) called Hearts and Titans. No idea whether The Emperor's Tarot is used or not though...
  • Technopath: Eldar are and know it, Ork Meks are but don't, and the Adeptus Mechanicus think they are.
  • Techno Wizard: The Adeptus Mechanicus takes the "wizard" part seriously, to boot.
  • Tele Frag: The Ork Shokk Attak Gun - see BFG.
    • Inverted with units that teleport into the battlefield; due to the Deep Strike rules, accidentally teleporting onto an enemy has a chance of killing you and does nothing to him.
  • Telepathic Spacemen: Imperial Astropaths.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: The Imperium has a few of these, though they have the kind of reliability you'd expect when maintenance consists of a lot of chanting and application of sacred oil (and when the actual function involves firing people through hell). The Ork mek Orkimedes also created a "tellyporta" device for the Battle of Armageddon; in fact, teleporters are one of the few pieces of technology that Orks can build better and more reliably than humans, much to the tech-priests' chagrin.
    • A lot of factions, for instance Space Wolves, refuse to use teleporters because they don't trust them; they can't put units down accurately, if the unit even arrives at all.
    • One of the Ork's weirder weapons teleports snotlings (the smallest and least intelligent Orkoids) into an enemy tank; the passage through the Warp makes them insane and very violent.
  • Teleport Interdiction: There are teleport jammers that can disrupt, stop or relocate things that are teleporting down into combat.
  • Temple of Doom: Necron tombs form the majority, although there are (probably) other cases.
    • Chaos and Dark Eldar leaders have been known to consecrate temples to themselves. And by consecrate, I mean decorate with skins and spikes.
  • Temporal Paradox: Though Time Travel is rare in the 40K universe, the Warp does strange things sometimes. Take, for example, the waaagh of one Ork Warboss traveling back through time via warp-storm, meeting up with his army's past self, then attacking it so he could have two copies of his favorite gun. The remaining Orks were so confused by the result that the waaagh was called off.
  • That's No Moon: Necron tomb-complexes tend to look relatively small and innocuous at first...then they're revealed to be much, much bigger, and often occupied by their builders.
  • Theory of Narrative Causality: Why do things keep getting worse and the factions less sympathetic? Inertia and because the writers say so.
  • There Are No Therapists: Because those who need them are weak, and thereby not worth the resources and time to fix it. There are many to take their place, anyway.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Standard operating procedure for the Imperium. Justified in that there are some things you'll want to kill really quickly in this universe, and some things you want to stay very dead.
    • Generally the only way to permently kill a Necron. As Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) found out, the best way to stop a Necron Army is to pour 8 MILLION GALLONS OF PROMETHIUM on them and light the match.
  • These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Be strong in your ignorance!
    • More often than not taken literally, as deep knowledge of Chaos will corrupt and/or drive insane all but the most strong-willed of humans.
  • This Is a Drill: Corvus assault pods for Titans, the bizarre-yet-cool mole mortar.
  • This Is Your Brain on Evil: Chaos tends to have this effect on the mind - goes double for psykers. SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK!
  • Throwaway Galaxy: The Tyranids have literally eaten empty three entire galaxies and they apparently think the Milky Way will make an interesting dessert.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: The 5th edition Imperial Guard codex does this for Imperial Guard players.
    • I will see your Imperial Guard and raise you a Dark Eldar. After TWELVE. FUCKING. YEARS. They FINALLY got an update. And while it won't be outdoing Grey Knights any time soon, what an update it was.
    • Inverted for Chaos Space Marines. They spent most of third edition as an incredibly dangerous force, then got the fourth edition codex, which removed the legions as anything other than a paint job, removed most of their customisation and nerfed most of what remained.
    • And of course, played straight and inverted for Chaos Space Marines in the thirteenth Black Crusade. After thirteen tries, Chaos wins the campaign and takes Cadia. Then Games Workshop retcons it so they only have a foothold on the planet.
  • Throw the Pin: Ork Stikkbommaz are noted for being above average intelligence for Orks, as they know that stikkbommz are the bit you throw, not the pin...
  • Time Abyss: Most Eldar, but a few ancient Marines and Chaos Marines cross into this trope as well. The Dreadnoughts are prominent even among the Marines: the oldest one of them has seen the Emperor and fought by his side in life, which is almost 11 000 years from current in-universe time. Truth be told, though, Necrons own this. The C'tan are outright stated to be the oldest living things in the universe, and the actual Necron race is ancient on par with the Old Ones themselves. The Necrons and C'Tan are actually old enough that they have to periodically wake up and move their tomb worlds when they stars they orbit die.
  • Tin Tyrant: Pretty much every commander wears a high tech suit of armor. Artwork of Khorne and the Emperor also has them fall under this.
  • Took a Level in Badass: The Imperial Guard went from the whipping boys of the entire setting to the utterly terrifying gods of mechanised combat in the space of one codex.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Black Library is an entire extradimensional stronghold full of these. See also the Book of Lorgar.
  • Torture Technician: Dark Eldar Haemonculi, quite a lot of Inquisitors. Most Ork painboyz have got the Torture part down, but the Technician (keeping him alive) part is usually ignored.
  • Touched by Vorlons: Not always a good thing...in fact, almost never a good thing. Partly because you're liable to get nailed to a stick and purged with flame if you get touched by any alien...or listen to them...or look at them...or live in the same general area as someone who looked at them...and Emperor help you if someone on your planet was engaged in a Chaos Cult.
  • Touch of Death: Mainly used by C'tan and daemons, but the odd high-power psyker has been known to do this.
  • Tournament Play: The kind of competition at a 40k Grand Tournament is enough to give the casual player horrible nightmares. Quite appropriate for the setting.
  • Training from Hell: Pretty much the only training there is. The only way they can top it is by having people trained inside the universe's hell.
  • Tranquil Fury: Usually this or an Unstoppable Rage.
    • Given what they know about Chaos (especially Khorne), Space Marines and Eldar try to fight in this state.
  • Translation Convention: "Low Gothic", the common language of the Imperium, is presented as English, while "High Gothic" is rendered in Pseudo-Latin. Ork language is generally shown as English with a Funetik Aksent, and is sometimes explicitly said to be pidgin Low Gothic. Depending on the context, nonhuman languages are either translated as English, or shown to need interpreters.
  • Treachery Cover-Up: Most of the Imperium's citizenry don't know anything about the Horus Heresy, including the fact that fully half of the Space Marine Legions rebelled against the Emperor.
  • Tron Lines: Necron technology.
  • Trope 2000: ...wait, why settle for two when you can have 40?
  • Troperrific: See above. This is one of the few works pages to have folders.
  • Tsundere: 1d4 chan's interpretation of Commander Shadowsun(dere), a female Tau general. Pretty much completely unsupported by canon, but funny nonetheless.
    • A large number of Eldar females (especially the ones who get shipped with Space Marines) are a bit closer to canonical.
    • In fanon, Battle Sisters (almost always; with other Sororitas may vary) and Commissars (occasionally) tend toward this. Also, in what may be second-generation fanon, Commissar Raege (after some re-education) learned more subtle ways to manipulate people than brandishing a bolt pistol and shouting. Because even at the point where soldiers feel resigned about being shot either way, they still are so unprepared to deal with this, they'd rather perk up and charge into familiar almost-certain death just to escape the awkwardness. Played For Laughs, yet canon has some moments (like "only we can *BLAM* our Guardsmen!" purge during Tranch war) that may make you to wonder...
  • Tunnel King: The Tyranids have tunneling creatures with the size and power of tanks.
  • Turn-Based Strategy


U

  • Ubermensch: The Emperor himself was an immortal great warrior, psyker, armorer, weapon designer, genetic engineer...
  • Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Nurgle and Isha.
  • Ultimate Evil: The Emperor and the Chaos Gods all get this treatment to varying degrees.
  • Unholy Nuke: The game is full of these. Any time Chaos is involved, expect Unholy Nukes to be flying thick and fast.
  • The Unmasqued World: The realisation that daemons actually existed was the death knell for Imperial Truth, and helped kick-start the Horus Heresy.
  • Unnecessarily Large Interior: All Imperial ships. Also covered in religious iconography and kilometres-high skulls-and-eagles gold bling.
  • Unobtainium: Plenty of it; Wraithbone, Necrodermis and Adamantine are the widest used examples.
  • Unpredictable Results: Anything connected to the Warp or Ork technology. Represented ingame by psykers suffering "perils of the warp" attacks and more esoteric Orky wargear having its own tables of random effects. Ork psykers are beyond random, rolling just to see what completely-unpredictable power they get...every turn.
    • Weapons and effects that use scatter rules (typically big artillery pieces, and troops that deep strike to enter the battlefield) can impact well away from the intended targets, even on to their own troops or in dangerous terrain.
    • Plasma guns are powerful weapons that are able to fry even Space Marine Terminators. The problem is, they also tend to fry their operators rather a lot...
  • The Unpronounceable: Tau names can get hard to pronounce - but ask any Battlefleet Gothic player about Tau ship names...
  • Unusual User Interface: A lot of Eldar and Imperial gear.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Black Templars. Blood Angels. Khorne Berserkers. Even Eldar, when the Avatar is nearby.
  • Unwanted False Faith: The God-Emperor didn't wish to be worshiped and banned any practice of it in the earlier days of the Imperium. There is also a small sect that worships Ciaphas Cain as the embodied will of the Emperor although Cain has never heard of it.
  • Up to Eleven: Everything. And often to twelve, thirteen and several over nine forty thousand.
  • Urban Segregation: Taken to utter extremes with hive cities.
  • Used Future: Again, taken to extremes. Almost all of the current technology and equipment being used by the Imperium is thousands of years old, and much of it they can't even make any more.
    • Human tech is so old and outdated that Orks can copy them. They can't do that with the Eldar or the Tau.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Blast weapons can sometimes fall into this. Many are extremely powerful (particularly the massive vehicle-mounted Ordnance weapons), but their tendency to scatter off-target makes them unreliable, particularly if your troops have low Ballistic Skill (which makes the blast scatter farther) or you just tend to roll poorly.
  • The Usual Adversaries: Orks (usually). But also... Chaos Space Marines, Dark Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids...
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: For the Greater Good!


V

  • Vader Breath: Because of the wildly differing techlevel of the setting, cybernetic lungs can work perfectly well and even better than the natural ones - or they may let the recipient do an unwilling Vader-impersonation, which is not practical when you're trying to be stealthy.
  • Vapour Wear: Dark Eldar Wyches practically wear anti-clothing.
  • Villain by Default: Upon close inspection, everyone.
  • Violent Glaswegian: Orks.
  • Violence Is the Only Option: No comment necessary.


W

  • Walking Tank: Dreadnoughts, in all flavors except the Wraithlord (a.k.a. the Eldar Dreadnought), as well as Defilers. Soul Grinders, considering their esoteric nature, sit in a more gray area.
  • War for Fun and Profit: The Orks, who go on interstellar sprees that leave billions dead because they're fun. "Orks iz made for fightin' and winnin'."
  • War God: Khorne for Chaos and Khaine for the Eldar.
  • The War Has Just Begun: Countering the Gotterdammerung of the Eldar and Imperium, increasingly heavy hints have been dropped that the Necrons are just beginning to wake up for their galaxy-wide omnicidal spree and the Tyranid Hive Fleets have barely started to turn their attention on our galaxy.
  • War Is Hell: In some instances, literally.
  • Warrior Monk: Sisters of Battle are the most blatant example. Numerous but a relative few Ecclesiarchs may fit into this trope. Space Marines, including the more devout Chaos Marines, have shades of this; many Loyalist chapters are a militant and monastic order, but the Warrior part has far greater emphasis for obvious reasons.
    • Militant psyker temples (like Psykana Temple Calix), who specialize on force blades.
  • Warrior Poet: The Craftworld Eldar.
  • Wave Motion Gun: Bombardment Guns, Nova Cannons, the appropriately-named Planet Killer, etc...
  • We Are as Mayflies: Eldar are immortal; so, biologically, are Space Marines and Orks, though their entire lives being devoted to war somewhat gets in the way of that. Nobody's found anything that can stop the Necrons getting back up.
    • It is worth mentioning that in at least one case in the novels the Necrons in question had been partially vaporized and the remainder was a little puddle of liquid metal on the ground. They still managed to teleport back to their base for repairs.
    • It's also hinted at that, up until this point, not a single Necron has been truly "destroyed". This is in contrast to everyone else, who usually suffer casualties in the 7 figures on an hourly basis.
    • Played straight with the Necrontyr. They would die very young due to the intense radiation from their sun.
    • Averted by the Tau. They're pretty short-lived, with fifty years being considered ancient to them. They're painfully aware of this.
    • Averted more so by the lesser Tyranid creatures, being grown during a 100-day invasion and digested back into biological gruel at the end of it. Most aren't even born with a digestive tract, as they weren't expected to live long enough to starve.
  • We Are Everywhere: The Inquisition.
  • We Are Team Cannon Fodder: Kroot, Imperial Guard anytime they aren't the protagonists, Gretchin, everyone else for the Eldar.
  • We Have Reserves: Basically the Catch Phrase of the Orks and Imperial Guard. Tyranids take this to such an extreme that their Mooks don't even have digestive systems - they are created, sent into battle for a few hours of frenzied combat, and then recycled.
  • We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: Health care for military veterans and Imperial nobles is so good that just about anything short of having one's brain destroyed is survivable. Spectacular advances in surgery and augmetic enhancements allow just about anyone to live for two hundred years or more, and that's assuming you don't splurge on a mechanical coffin that can preserve you for millennia. Of course, if you're not a veteran or noble, this trope is brutally, horribly averted.
  • We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: As an example, gigantic anti-ship missiles with onboard reactors and homing AIs are loaded with the back-breaking labour of thousands of deckhands. Using ropes. While being whipped.
    • That's nothing. Orks use Gretchin as guidance systems in their giant missiles.
      • That's nothing. The imperials (and Chaos) use slaves to power their ships, by walking on giant stepped axles.
  • Weapon of Choice
    • The Imperial Guard almost universally tote laser weapons and tanks. Lots and lots of tanks.
    • The Space Marines favour bolt weapons and chainsaws.
    • The Chaos Space Marines prefer spiky bolt weapons and chainsaws. Various specific cults have sonic weapons, chainsaw axes, and pus as their Weapons of Choice.
    • The Daemonhunters (Ordo Malleus) have a bit of a thing for hammers. (As a side note, "Ordo Malleus" means "Order of the Hammer")
    • The Eldar mainly use absurdly sharp shuriken weapons, though individual Aspect temples have their own ritualised Weapons of Choice.
    • The Witch Hunters Kill It with Fire.
    • No Ork is happy without his choppa and his dakka. Except if they pass up one for more of the other.
    • The Necrons kill you with green lightning that literally flays you layer by layer. Except when they tear you apart with claws and wear sheets of your flesh for a hat.
    • The Tau stick to mere railguns and pulse rifles. Extremely powerful ones at that.
    • The Tyranids prefer the tactic of jumping on you and eating your face. When they're not doing that, they're shooting at you with the usual array of toxic, electrified, high-velocity crystals; angry, life-seeking beetles and brain-eating flesh-borer worms; biologically generated plasma; and, occasionally, dragging you screaming to your doom with lengths of flesh hooks.
  • Weird Science
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Tau. The "well intentioned" bit is what sets them apart.
    • The Imperium, and the Emperor who created it, could be seen as this. They have committed many, many crimes and exist in several grey areas, but by their efforts, they have created an empire whose subjects can live a life free of Chaos, and even achieve a paradise in death. That's right: an Empire so big it loses entire worlds due to clerical errors, which practices genocide, torture, and murder on a daily basis, whose religion emphasizes hate for aliens and fanatical devotion for its figurehead and puts people to the stake for the slightest bit of doubt... is the best place to live in this galaxy. Think about that.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Several primarchs. Giving up on that was one motive to join the Horus Heresy.
  • Wetware CPU: Servitors, in all their various flavors.
  • We Will Wear Armour in The Future: Every army. Space Marines have the aforementioned Power Armor, Tau and Eldar have full body covering plate armour, and the Imperial Guard have flak jackets (though unfortunately for the Guard, nearly every faction in the game has basic weaponry that can punch straight through their personal armor, which earns Guard flak such unkind nicknames as "t-shirts" and "cardboard vests").
  • What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids: Given the subject matter you wouldn't think this would be a problem, but in England Games Workshop stores are usually deliberately set up to appeal to 12 year olds who compose the target demographic. In the US it's considered a very adult setting.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Although, to be fair, pretty much every other race sees those not of its kind as worthless too.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: The Imperial Guard. When all you have is men and tanks...a lot of men and tanks... The Imperial Guard has been even referred to as 'The Hammer of the Emperor'.
  • Whip It Good: Has Fetish Fuel examples with Dark Eldar Agonisers and Sisters of Battle "Mistresses", and a rare non-fetishy example with Arco-Flagellants, which are just plain horrible.
    • Oh, and Chaos has a psychic power called Lash of Submission. Guess which god it's associated with.
    • Ork runtherdz often carry grot prods and whips.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Pre-Heresy Fulgrim.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: The Sisters of Battle often bleach their hair white, though whether they're actually pretty varies from artist to artist.
  • The White House: The Imperial Palace, which is said to cover most of Europe and to be visible from Mars. How's that for Beyond the Impossible? No really, that is Beyond the Impossible, you couldn't make out continents from Mars, much less see anything that would set any one of them apart. Then again, why am I asking for realism from this setting?
  • White Magic: Sisters of Battle Acts of Faith...maybe.
  • White Mask of Doom: Chaplains and their skull helms.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: Everyone else's thoughts about Guard players when the Guard finally got a good codex.
  • Who You Gonna Call?: The Sisters of Battle or the Inquisition, generally, including the Grey Knights and the Deathwatch. Calling might get you killed, but not calling will often have worse results.
  • With Catlike Tread: "Recite the Litany of Stealth to reduce your chances of being heard."
  • With My Hands Tied: Just about everyone, hence why more...exotic...measures are commonly employed.
  • Winged Humanoid: As well as troops in the Eldar, Dark Eldar and Chaos who use "jump packs" with mechanical wings, there are examples of humanoids with actual wings. The Primarch Sanguinius, known as "the Angel", had perfect white wings, and the Battle Sisters' Living Saint manifests them as part of being a saint. Of course, this being 40k, the Angel was a vampiric demigod who fought giant blood daemons.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: And with that insanity comes even more power!
  • With Us or Against Us: The Imperium, the Tau. The rest generally don't even bother to ask, and even the Imperium generally only bothers to ask if you're human.
  • Witch Species: Eldar. Human psykers are also regularly referred to as "witches".
  • A Wizard Did It: The Warp did it. Or the Eldar. Or the C'tan Deceiver. Or Tzeentch.
  • Wolf Man: Wulfen are basically werewolves...in space..with guns...in power armour.
  • Wolverine Claws: Lightning Claws are this combined with Power Fist. Generally they are only distributed to Terminator Marines.
  • Womb Level: The interior of Tyranid hiveships.
  • Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Life on board Imperial Fleet ships is this trope Recycled in Space.
  • The Worf Effect: New races or factions are commonly introduced in the background completely dominating Space Marines. One particularly memorable example has a Necron destroyer firing straight through a near-invulnerable Land Raider tank, accompanied by an After Action Report of tech-priests talking about the obscene amount of power required to do such a thing.
  • World Gone Mad: Creeps into this territory at times - the universe is a Crapsack World taken to such a ludicrous extent that one sometimes wonders if the setting hasn't well and truly lost its marbles.
  • World Half Empty: Played straight with the Imperium, which struggles to maintain its slowly slipping grasp on galactic supremacy and survival, and the Craftworld Eldar, who are struggling to survive the galaxy. The Tau appear to avert this trope, but there are hints that things aren't going so smoothly. Averted by everyone else, where the sky is the limit.
  • The World Is Always Doomed: "World" meaning the entire galaxy. Or just any world chosen at random.
  • World of Ham: INDEED!
    • It is a shame the Tagline isn't as exclamatory as it is on the Laconic page. It'd be even more self-explanatory.
  • World of Badass: If there is indeed only war, it would make only the Badass survive. Well, it's generally 'survive for a bit longer...'
  • Wretched Hive: The "Underhive" in hive cities always qualifies - sometimes the entire arcology, with its population of billions.


X


Y


Z

  • Zeppelins from Another World: The Squats had ironclad airships.
  • Zerg Rush: Tyranids - unsurprisingly, as the Zerg themselves were based on them. A lot of "horde" armies, such as Orks and Imperial Guard, employ this one as well. The Imperial Guard is probably the single most emblematic example; as the largest fighting force around, numbering in the billions, you get so many of them.
    • Previously Tyranids were given a rule that allowed them to recycle their basic troopers, the Termagaunts, whenever the squad is wiped out. This has since been toned down and a less broken version was introduced in the form of the Tervigon, a mobile birthing sac which can run out of eggs as soon as the battle starts. It is again reintroduced in the Imperial Guard in the form of Special Character Commander Chenkov, where the rule is literally named "Send in the next wave!".
  • Zombie Apocalypse: After occasionally menacing the depths of Necromunda, plague zombies cropped up in force during the 13th Black Crusade, courtesy of Nurgle. Dark Heresy introduces many more new and exciting ways for characters to find themselves up to their eyeballs in shambling dead.
    • And there's another kind in The Bleeding Chalice, where it's all the fault of a super-mutant produced by a Techpriest experiment on cleansing mutations, and who can psychically create viruses through ship hulls and hard vacuum that have this effect. His main battlecruiser is essentially intended as a massive drop assault ship that breaks apart and spews down a ridiculous number of zombies, making the first air drop Zombie Apocalypse.
  1. ↑ (pronounced "spend more money on toys")
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