Here, I mean all of WH 40K, not just the video games. There is something about the game universe that Games Workshop has created that makes it particularly appealing and gives it a lot of potential. What is it?
I remember stumbling upon one of their games in a store more than 20 years ago when I was at most 10. English isn’t my first language and I didn’t speak it much then but even despite that, I spent a lot of time just looking at/reading the manual that came with it.
Also, which is your favorite race and why?
They built an entire universe out of heavy metal album covers and a 14 year old’s idea of “Cor ! Brilliant !”. It has its goofy charm, as long as you don’t take it seriously (though as time goes by and the original team moved on, I’m afraid more and more writers of the fluff do take it seriously, as do the fans. I met people who no shit thought the Imperium of Man was great and ethically justified).
As for me, I like the Orks the best, because they’re brutally cunning. Or cunningly brutal, I forget. Also their currency is teef. And you can make a million “GET TO MAH CHOPPAH !” jokes per game.
Sure, you never win a game, or at least you never did back in my day, when the Ork hat was “randomness”. As in “that gun can fire 2-10 times per turn, or violently explode. You have to [del]open the box[/del]roll the die to know”. But a game was never boring or predictable. Sometimes that Great Gargant gets taken out in one lucky boiler room shot precipitating a huge chain reaction, sometimes it just refuses to die and keeps kneecaping Titans.
Second place is the Imperial Guard because WW1 tanks, tanks, artillery, tanks, barrage, tanks, flashlights, holding the line and ELEVEN BARRELS OF HELL ! Did I mention tanks ?
Both armies are of course problematic in that they tend to inflict critical damage on one’s wallet. I expect it’s no coincidence that the coolest armies are also the most expensive to build :).
And oddly enough, the premise makes for an interesting Live Action Role Play. A group that Liz and I regularly game with at GenCon and Origins once challenged to due a LARP version of Warhammer tabletop. They turned it into a 5 year story arc (and continued with a different story arc after that one wrapped up) with each episode premiering at Origins and being replayed at GenCon.
If you think Orks are ridiculous on paper, they’re even more so in a LARP. Ditto the Space Marines.
Oddly enough–because in any ridiculously over the top setting, someone’s got to play the straight man–the Inquisition and their obsessive-compulsive tendencies are pretty amusing as well just because they try to bring order to a universe that’s pretty much pure chaos.
That’s why they managed to break out the planet-cracker in four out of the 5 LARPS of the first story arc. The only reason they didn’t crack a fifth planet was that episode took place on a space station.
Of course, they blew the space station up in the end, so it wasn’t as if they weren’t trying.
And what do they do in the first scenario of the second story arc?
They started things rolling by cracking yet another planet.
I never did a true LARP in WH40K’s universe, but I have fond memories of a large scale murder party. I was a random Imperium tech guy who got corrupted by a genestealer cult (or was it Chaos ? I don’t recall) in reaction to finding out the higher ups had plans to turn me into a Servitor because I’d lost a Power Wrench.
And, yeah, eventually the Inquisitors had to purge the entire Hive - can an Imperial-themed game end any other way ? :). Good times.
I think I agree with the general consensus here - it’s both detailed, and ridiculous, if interpreted correctly. It’s sort of like a subtler Discworld, in a way. (Subtler in the sense that you can’t quite tell it’s supposed to be comedic, NOT subtler in … any other sense.)
But as to people thinking the Imperium has it right… ugh. There’s a crypto-fascist lurking in far too many nerds’ hearts. Same thing happens with the RIFTS setting (where the Coalition is the Imperium analogue), in comic books (Iron Man’s side in Civil War) and elsewhere.