Indeed, so much this. GW have an unfortunate proven record for abandoning story concepts left right and centre. Thankfully, they've gotten past the bad old days of screwing up their own games, but they still can't write a coherent story for shit.Arguably, more original stuff the better IMO. Helps flesh out the WFB setting, even if GW left it to oblivion so it could hawk Age of Sigmar.
I feel you're playing the wrong set of games if that's how you feel (not a criticism, it's just a game-franchise after all) as both 40K & WHFB are set up that the good is always under threat of destruction by (epic trailer voice) powers beyond their comprehension and hence my "crapsack world, so crapsack mentality" quip.I'm personally sick of the Evil side being all Powerful angle.
Are Chaos Marines better these days? I haven't kept up with the meta in so long, but with the latest edition, I thought Space Marines were OP AF (they perennially get new stuff to the detriment of most other factions/races from what I can tell).It's everywhere. So many people complain if the humans/"good" side has some strength, but will love how much more powerful the 'evil' side gets. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the Chaos Marines (for example) be considered by many players "Space Marines but better" because of Ruinous Powers and what not.
Out of interest, what other games do you play? I play Warmachine & Hordes and it feels the power balance within that setting is a lot better. Their equivalent of the Chaos Invasion (closest analogue, even if it's wrong on several counts) recently kicked off but everything is treated with a great deal more abstraction. I don't consider the Infernals (the Chaos equivalent) to be evil, but rather arbitrary and perfunctory to a fault (they're paranoid entrepreneurs at their core) and the actual evil faction (necromancer-pirates) have thrown in with the "good" guys.
Powerful, I can get, but rarely unified. Even so, what about blatantly evil human factions (Warriors of Chaos/Chaos Marines are corrupted humans/human off-shoots, too, right?)? Nevertheless, the problem with an overtly powerful 'good' side is the natural conclusion: peace. That's never a good hook for a miniatures skirmish or battalion game. I think it all feeds into player agency and power fantasies, the brave defenders vs maniacal pillagers or what have you, and the archetypes are strewn all over high fantasy fiction with the difference that, as a tabletop game system, the status quo has to be perpetuated for the good of the game's life expectancy (why else has 40K been stuck in time pretty much ever since inception?). Once the good side becomes perceived to be powerful enough to be on equal footing vs the evil side, the balance of power instantly becomes skewed in the eyes of the players as the end is in sight, story-wise and this is a status quo that is tremendously difficult to maintain. Most people IRL subscribe to the idea that good should win, but here, that's not a good business strategy as evil still needs a stake in the fight to sell. Thus, the compromise is a setting in which "evil is winning, but can't win" (as opposed to "good is winning, so why bother") giving rise to good factions whose strength is generally in the ethos of the brave few and the strength of the individual as opposed to the whole. Evil outright winning leads to such marvelous clusterfucks as End Times (which is picture definition of what happens when a game's story is written for almost purely business reasons).I always pick Humans. Any game I play, I play Humans or human-offshoots. Playing other races makes me feel like those rebellious people in high school that dyes their hair to be edgy and stand out. Everyone do what they do to have fun. Be other races. It's just not for me. But it gets tired that they are always made to be not as unified or as powerful as the obviously ruinous side.