Edit:
WALL OF TEXT!!!!1
tl;dr
Read Dune, then W40K, and remember that W40K came before your favourite IP which more than likely based on W40K..
But you should totally read it, there's a Penny Arcade link in the rambling text.. 'dangles link'
/Edit
Ok.. Think of the Ultramarines like monks.. Actually, think of all Space Marines as monks, but the Ultramarines as more boring monks. I mean come on, they have "ultra" in the title.. It's a decent game, I get to kill things in amusing and violent ways. Have you never played Serious Sam? Same kind of thing but with a monk as the character. Have fun killing things, the backstory is cool if you're into W40K. Cliched as all hell.. But cool nonetheless.
cefm said:
What bugs me about WH40K is that it PRETENDS to have a back-story but doesn't really. There's just no real explanation of motivations, economy, politics, etc. And from the extremely limited story that is there, these other levels of detail are rendered impossible. It's just WE KILL THEM, and THEY KILL US. That's it.
What I couldn't ever understand is why those huge imaginary table-top army clashes were ever considered possible or even desireable. Since the invention of the rifle it's been bad form to mass troops and advance in large numbers. It's just too easy to put too much explosive power in a targeted area for the opponent to survive. So it's all about small unit tactics and staying out of sight and behind cover. The only reason human waves worked a little in North Korea was that they were HUMAN so tactical nukes weren't used. No such problem with Orks.
It's all just unrealistic bull that only the most juvenile middle-schooler would find engaging.
That comment is sooooo.. 'throttles' On so many levels.
There's a huge backstory. Lots of novels considered canon, lots of game material, both wargame and tabletop rpg, video games, huge list. I think the backstory of the fall of Horus is covered in.. Five novels? Something silly. Motivations are definitely there. For instance, Horus, one of the primarchs... Wait.. I'm not explaining this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MeVxKZBOfM
Amusing and helpful, you should now be up to date on the basics. The plot goes from Bible to Dune to Lord of the Rings (the temptation is pretty good, can we all say Gríma!!! Or the Bible, very Satan-esque here, I am greater, nobody loves me, lets fk up someones day and kill daddy. Condensing five novels into a sentence.
Horus rebels, half the Space Marines side with him, epic war between marines, Emperor defeats Horus, almost dies but is kept alive by large sacrifices of low level/dangerous psykers. Which is understandable, the Warp (Think Star Trek's wormholes) is actually the ships ripping reality apart and traveling through the tears.
And yes that's as dangerous as it sounds, an astronomicon (psyker who specialises in navigation) can home in on the Emperor's mind since he's the most powerful psyker in existence, so it pays to keep him useful since inter-galactic and FTL travel is now possible. That's the beginning of the backstory.. Now, if you said "Lord of the Rings is about this magic item that people destroy and has no backstory whatsoever because I just summed up three books most people don't read because of the length", then I would refer to you as an uncouth cur, tell you to watch your language and start reading the books instead of watching half of the first movie and giving up because it was too slow. Same goes for W40K.
Second point, I like large armies but they usually aren't in the table top game, it's much more focused on skirmishes rather than epic battles between millions of forces. Which I always felt wasn't as true to the story (Imp Guard v Orks for instance), but it's fun. More like Company of Heroes than Age of Empires in video game terms. If we're talking planetary wide infestation of Orks, then yes, nukes are used. Or virus bombs, a few of the inquisitors seem fond of those. Space Marines are more orbital bombardment. Imperial Guard are very much into artillery given how weak they are compare to their enemies, so they'll use trenches and arti, but that's not all of W40K. Space Marines are walking tanks so you can drop the cover a bit, but usually they'll be fighting people they're on par with like Chaos. Larger Orks can 1v1 them but there's not as many that can rip a Space Marine apart compared to Imp Guard.
The last point about "juvenille bullshit"... Well see, the thing is, yes it takes ideas from sources like Dune and the Bible, but it's still inspired most games, movies and sci fi books you will read and love. Starcraft for instance, put a picture of a tyranid next to a picture of a.. Mutalisk? Most of the zerg anyway. Hell, Zergs pretty much are nids, Protos are Eldar, and humans are still powered armor humans with space marines. Halo, original concept art made him look Imperial Guard, now he's just a Space Marine fighting against Tyranids. Gears of War is another one, the comparisons to GoW were inevitable given GoW is W40K with a different name. Even ADnD was less original than W40K, although that doesn't stop TSR shutting down every possible instance of a character sheet, badly scanned page or fan fiction with legal threats... Bastards. Love the dark elf one.. That was hilarious.
But anyway, W40K, learn to love it, you probably already do just in another form.
Fan boy, of course. I love the setting, dystopian futures are always nice. Also a fan of Neuromancer and 1984, but you'd have to be juvenille and dull to enjoy those wouldn't you..
Yahtzee is probably trolling since he even went so far as "Glory of war", forgetting that a Space Marines duty is to die fighting to keep humanity alive. Kind of like the kamikasi of Japan or the suicide bombers of a Muslim nation. The crusades never end, you are probably going to die screaming, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Now pick up a rifle and start shooting, you may live through the next 48hrs.
^ ^
lul. Penny Arcade say it better though.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10
Also, BReftwe A'N-1 is my captcha. What happened the old ones that made sense?
