40K - could you make a game with less interesting factions?

[Foxwarrior]

It's not directly applicable to science fiction wargames because there's specifically a win condition that doesn't require you to actually kill the tentacled space god on the other side. You can go around and smash the runes and say the words and just win while the space god rampages uncontained.

Incidentally, having played like five or ten matches of Warhammer 40k 3e, I'm pretty sure "destroy all enemies" was the least balanced and least fun mission objective on offer. Bigger creatures tend to be tougher and more destructive per point, so they tend to get unbalanced when stall tactics don't accomplish much.

[OgreBattle]

40k Apocalypse has players place hidden orders

A) Move and shoot or melee
B) Stand still and shoot with a hit bonus
C) Double move and melee

Then you take turns doing said orders.
Successful hits place blast markers
At the end of the round you roll saving throws for each blast marker, failing means you gain a damage counter
Then you do morale to see if additional damage is taken

So two opposing tanks can blow each other up in one round, or your boyz can run through a hail of fire, krump something in melee before succumbing to machine gun wounds, I think

https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-cont ... nguide.jpg

https://www.goonhammer.com/warhammer-40 ... -unboxing/

[Dean]

The 40k setting is hilariously dumb in a bunch of ways. Here's a few I really like.

The Necrons and the Old Ones waged war on one another for a million years. The story says that the Necrons big weakness is that the Old Ones had the webway so could teleport all around them and there was nothing they could do about the totally one sided technological advantage. That's the whole premise of their origin. Pop Quiz: What faction is defined by their ability to have every single member teleporting around and away when injured? Yes, Necrons, the one faction written as having every single person down to the most basic troopers teleporting in and out of combat is the one faction who's entire backstory is based on a complete lack of the ability to teleport. The dichotomy of the Necrons story going on and on about how they have no warp presence and can't interract with the warp and lost a whole war cause they couldn't teleport is super funny to put in the faction with universal teleportation. This was pointed out once to Gav Thorpe or someone who said that the Necrons go through some other dimension to travel, which is their 4th FTL dimension which is a hilarious fumbling of your conceptual space.

Speaking of Necrons I always thought it was funny that their story is the Old Ones kick the Necrons ass, then the C'tan are found who can kick the Old Ones ass, then the Necrons just kick the C'tans ass with no explanation.

The Humanocentricism of the setting is funny too. Like how Khorne is supposed to be born during Earth's middle ages because there was so much war it created a war god. Apparently the 60 million year space war just before that was no biggy but that just involved trillions of Eldar and Ork souls and not a few thousand Europeans being killed.

Humanocentric may be too forgiving a term honestly given how it's a universe exclusively full of white men. The absolute craziest backstory in the 40k universe belongs to the Salamanders and Vulcan. The opening fluff in their chapter book was about how their planet is so harsh and volcanic that the ash darkens their skin. That means that a whole room of GW people sat around pitching explanations as to how ONE FUCKING DUDE in their universe could have dark skin. They created a fucking batman like origin story to explain away the one dude who isn't light skinned. Their actual line of thought was that upon hearing mention about how a character was black anyone around would IMMEDIATELY demand an explanation and they would need an ironclad backstory as to just how he got that way. They probably had a room of writers up all night, scribbling notes on the back of discarded chinese containers, pitching radioactive accidents and demonic influence to explain one guys dark skin. There is a Primarch who is a maroon cyclops which gets less explanation than Vulcan not being a white dude.

Not to mention the Emperor being born in Mesopotamian, basically Iraq, and having the complexion of Morticia Adams.

Oh also every woman in the setting is expressly an affirmative action hire after the law demanded the Ecliasiarchy couldn't have armed men. The only other female character I know in the universe is the Emperors wife but who never got to fully lock him down. So you can be a diversity hire or the Emperors sidepiece. Rock on 40k.

[maglag]

The 40k setting is hilariously dumb in a bunch of ways. Here's a few I really like.

The Necrons and the Old Ones waged war on one another for a million years. The story says that the Necrons big weakness is that the Old Ones had the webway so could teleport all around them and there was nothing they could do about the totally one sided technological advantage. That's the whole premise of their origin. Pop Quiz: What faction is defined by their ability to have every single member teleporting around and away when injured? Yes, Necrons, the one faction written as having every single person down to the most basic troopers teleporting in and out of combat is the one faction who's entire backstory is based on a complete lack of the ability to teleport. The dichotomy of the Necrons story going on and on about how they have no warp presence and can't interract with the warp and lost a whole war cause they couldn't teleport is super funny to put in the faction with universal teleportation. This was pointed out once to Gav Thorpe or someone who said that the Necrons go through some other dimension to travel, which is their 4th FTL dimension which is a hilarious fumbling of your conceptual space.

1-The necrons initially couldn't teleport willy-nilly, that's what they got their asses kicked-pushed them to make a pact with the C'tan for trading their weak flesh for new shiny metal bodies and other super tech like teleportation.

2-Necron FTL travel was retconned out of existence recently, although that may make things even dumber.

Speaking of Necrons I always thought it was funny that their story is the Old Ones kick the Necrons ass, then the C'tan are found who can kick the Old Ones ass, then the Necrons just kick the C'tans ass with no explanation.

You forgot the next step of "after having kicked everybody else's asses, the necrons just go to sleep for no reason whatsoever."

Although necrons vs C'tan was also recent retcon, about the same time as the removel of their FLT travel. But before the necrons were outright still following the C'tan orders.

The Humanocentricism of the setting is funny too. Like how Khorne is supposed to be born during Earth's middle ages because there was so much war it created a war god. Apparently the 60 million year space war just before that was no biggy but that just involved trillions of Eldar and Ork souls and not a few thousand Europeans being killed.

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Humanocentric may be too forgiving a term honestly given how it's a universe exclusively full of white men. The absolute craziest backstory in the 40k universe belongs to the Salamanders and Vulcan. The opening fluff in their chapter book was about how their planet is so harsh and volcanic that the ash darkens their skin. That means that a whole room of GW people sat around pitching explanations as to how ONE FUCKING DUDE in their universe could have dark skin. They created a fucking batman like origin story to explain away the one dude who isn't light skinned. Their actual line of thought was that upon hearing mention about how a character was black anyone around would IMMEDIATELY demand an explanation and they would need an ironclad backstory as to just how he got that way. They probably had a room of writers up all night, scribbling notes on the back of discarded chinese containers, pitching radioactive accidents and demonic influence to explain one guys dark skin. There is a Primarch who is a maroon cyclops which gets less explanation than Vulcan not being a white dude.

Not to mention the Emperor being born in Mesopotamian, basically Iraq, and having the complexion of Morticia Adams.

Oh also every woman in the setting is expressly an affirmative action hire after the law demanded the Ecliasiarchy couldn't have armed men. The only other female character I know in the universe is the Emperors wife but who never got to fully lock him down. So you can be a diversity hire or the Emperors sidepiece. Rock on 40k.

Don't forget how the IG is theoretically supposed to take in women, but a good chunk of the novels where the IG does show up has the regiments literally going "we don't take girls in our ranks, they have cooties" (not to mention the art where is all dicksdicksdicks).

Best case scenario is the xenophobic mouthfoaming Inquisition that actually has a nice female ratio and even multiple named characters.

[Username17]

Every so often some GW employee will remember that non-white people exist, and then we get weird embarrassing stuff like the fact that the Deathwing of the Dark Angels are all supposed to be Native Americans and hoo boy is that shit terrible in its weird casual racism.

But yes, the 40k universe looks like it was made by sheltered white teenagers for Nottingham because it was. And the original core concept was "Let's put our European Fantasy Setting into fucking space!" And the European Fantasy Setting in question was already something that looked like it was written by sheltered white teenagers from Nottingham. Because of course, it was.

Which doesn't actually excuse the game being like that today. It just explains why it was like that back then. Today we have the fucking internet and if you want to read up about Incans or Somalis, you can have Wikipedia up in seconds.

But all this goes back to what 40K was intended to be. It was never intended to be a coherent science fiction setting you could roleplay in. It was never intended to simulate any particular kind of historical or futuristic warfare. It was just supposed to be their dumb early eighties European Fantasy in fucking space! It has always been precisely that lazy and unambitious, and it will never be especially better.

-Username17

[Thaluikhain]

It would be nice to have actual tactical choices, which would probably require a ground-up rethinking of how units worked and what they could do. If you wanted things to play out like actual battles from some period where people had automatic weaponry you might want to provide rules to do that with. You could have suppression fire and snipers and maybe even figure out what role you want transports and armor to actually perform.

There's forces from all sorts of periods in 40k, which seems to be a big part of the appeal, though. Few of the IG regiments they sold models for are based on contemporary armies, for example. Sticking to one would invalidate the others, wouldn't it?

OTOH, and without putting too much thought into it, if they'd gotten rid of "lose 25% a phase" and replaced it with something about counting the number of ways you are attacked (direct fire, direct fire from outside that 90 degree arc, indirect fire, airstrike, magic etc), then you'd have flanking, suppressing fire and combined arms. Would need some ironing out, but at first glance looks promising.

Humanocentric may be too forgiving a term honestly given how it's a universe exclusively full of white men. The absolute craziest backstory in the 40k universe belongs to the Salamanders and Vulcan. The opening fluff in their chapter book was about how their planet is so harsh and volcanic that the ash darkens their skin. That means that a whole room of GW people sat around pitching explanations as to how ONE FUCKING DUDE in their universe could have dark skin. They created a fucking batman like origin story to explain away the one dude who isn't light skinned. Their actual line of thought was that upon hearing mention about how a character was black anyone around would IMMEDIATELY demand an explanation and they would need an ironclad backstory as to just how he got that way. They probably had a room of writers up all night, scribbling notes on the back of discarded chinese containers, pitching radioactive accidents and demonic influence to explain one guys dark skin. There is a Primarch who is a maroon cyclops which gets less explanation than Vulcan not being a white dude.

It's actually worse than that. Way, way back when Codex: Armageddon was released it was the first time that we really saw Salamanders in the rules or as models. They had pictured of the models painted by the Eavy Metal team, and one Salamander Captain wasn't wearing a helmet, and was black, in that he had dark brown skin (and bright yellow hair, IIRC). I was on the GW forum at the time, and there was quite a kerfuffle over this. People didn't seem to pay attention to the helmetless Salamander with a flamer (it being popular for Eavy Metal marines with flamers to wear respirators but not the normal helmet for some reason) who was white.

So, ok, we've got a First Founding chapter who aren't white. So, GW decided a bit later than becoming a Salamander turns your skin jet black and your eyes bright red, turning the one chapter of black people from black people to what other settings would call black demons. Sigh.

And the IG codex showing paint scheme variations for the Cadian body, some from different planets, and they are all white. At least the Tallarn and the Attilans weren't supposed to be.

[Grek]

Don't forget how the IG is theoretically supposed to take in women, but a good chunk of the novels where the IG does show up has the regiments literally going "we don't take girls in our ranks, they have cooties" (not to mention the art where is all dicksdicksdicks).

The explanation I've always heard for this is that the guard is mostly composed of all-male and all-female regiments for what should be obvious practical reasons. There's some mixed-sex regiments (including one in the Caiphas Cain books where two single-sex regiments got merged due to casualties) but the Munitorium prefers to avoid it.

[maglag]

Don't forget how the IG is theoretically supposed to take in women, but a good chunk of the novels where the IG does show up has the regiments literally going "we don't take girls in our ranks, they have cooties" (not to mention the art where is all dicksdicksdicks).

The explanation I've always heard for this is that the guard is mostly composed of all-male and all-female regiments for what should be obvious practical reasons. There's some mixed-sex regiments (including one in the Caiphas Cain books where two single-sex regiments got merged due to casualties) but the Munitorium prefers to avoid it.

Sooo, modern real-world armies can keep mixed armed forces just fine, but the super advanced imperium can't?

Not sure where you heard that explanation, since in the Ice Guard novels they literally go "women are to stay in the kitchen and making babies".

The Ice Guard protagonist team does have a woman in their ranks in one of their novels.

She's only there's because she's naturally sterile.

That's her whole character arc, she sees herself as a worthless person because she's a woman that can't have babies and expects to "redeem" herself for such a "sin" by dying in the frontlines.

And again, where's the art for those supposed all-female regiments? If they exist, showing even a pew pics of them would do a lot of goodwill for GW.

[Thaluikhain]

Not sure where you heard that explanation, since in the Ice Guard novels they literally go "women are to stay in the kitchen and making babies".

I thought that applied solely to Valhallan units. Though, the Cain books are also about Valhallans, and say most IG are male and most women are in their own regiments, but the Cain books aren't big on fluff and the IG is too big to count reliably anyway.

Gaunts Ghosts has mixed regiments, and mentions all female ones.

The Last Chancers books mention (and include) small numbers of female guard, the models for them had 2 of the 12 person team be women (one of the few places you could get female guard, the others being one Ghosts model and one old Catachan with grenade launcher, IIRC).

And again, where's the art for those supposed all-female regiments? If they exist, showing even a pew pics of them would do a lot of goodwill for GW.

All female? There was that IG codex where they had sketches of a bunch of different regiments, one regiment was represented by a woman, don't know if the entire regiment was supposed to be women, though. Just gave their name and something about serving the Emperor well.

The only other female IG art (Excepting novel covers) was for a sergeant for some regiment from a world full of tunnels, IIRC.

All-female regiments exist, in the sense they are mentioned off-handedly, they don't exist in the sense that GW or BL or anyone has any interest in developing them. Though, knowing GW, they'd probably be in bikini tops and definitely have loincloths if they did.

[Mord]

the super advanced imperium

The what now?