Henry Cavill back again as Superman! Oops, nevermind.
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The Orks are British Classism at it's best.
But yeah, if your Warhammer isn't "Everything's fucked but if we go down we're going down swinging" then someone has done something seriously wrong, thematically-speaking.
Or Mad Max. Or British racism at British people the next town over. Or football hooligans.
You are entitled to disagree, but you are unfortunately wrong.
Most fantasy to the 1990s was sub-Tolkein. DnD is very obviously Tolkeinesque - sure they borrowed stuff from elsewhere too, and made up some extra creatures, but no-one can really pretend they were heaeding anywhere out of the comfort zone (e.g. just the basics of diminished elder races of elves in forests and dwarfs in mountains and orcs / trolls / etc. roaming around messing shit up plus quests and grand battles). Sure, some of it has a different tone, but the fundamentals are that fantasy was pretty much re-doing the Tolkein basics over and over for decades. WFB is incredibly obviously smack bang in the the most routine of sub-Tolkein cliches. Chaos of course essentially take the place of the more conventional "Dark Lord" threatening to dominate the world.
There certainly were other models of fantasy around - one might consider the (Anti-)heroic fantasy model of Conan, Gor, Lieber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser or Vance's Dying Earth. And way outside the genre core we might consider low fantasy etc. These others much less suited to a tabletop wargame.
Space opera is epic fantasy in space. Or epic fantasy is space opera on a planet with magic. 40k is WFB in space, right up to the point all the stock fantasy archetypes were translated straight across. Elves (eldar), orcs (orks), hobbits (ratlings), dwarfs (squats), ogres (ogryn). There's even a shared quasi-pre-history of intelligent lizards (Slann). WFB pretty much could literally be just one lost planet in the 40k galaxy except the races there lost their tech and declined to primitivism. It has of course diverged a little, but hardly radically and without much conspicuous imaginative novelty. Of the "new" races in 40k, they just copied across the undead (Necrons), Aliens from the movies (Tyranids/genestealers), and the dwarfs again (killing off the originals and resurrecting the concept as the Demiurg - although I almost cannot fucking believe this but apparently GW have just retconned the Demiurg back into being squats.)
This is why I don't really have any time for some weird insistence that it would be unacceptable to make female space marines because it would offend against the lore. The lore is such junk, (badly) written then re-written and retconned and confused and compromised, that it just doesn't merit that much respect. In terms of the narrative garbage, you see the same in Battletech, which is the same old godawful tosh where they just have to keep the same old factions going, and then make a load of fucking stupid plot devices to chuck in a bit of novelty with temporary others that they just need to kill off next expansion to return to the same stultifying status quo.
Don't get me wrong, WFB and 40k are perfectly good fun, make decent games and setting for games, and I'm happy to play them like many. It's a bit like McDonalds or KFC: sure it's trash on many levels, but you can still enjoy it.
They didn't retcon the Demiurg, they brought back the squats as the Leagues of Votann.
Anyway, quoting you again here:
You say that Necrons are undead (well, I'd say they are Lovecraft crossed with the Cybermen as well) and Tyranids are from the Aliens movies (I'd say they take some of the style, not the substance, but ok). Unless you are going to say that undead (specifically ancient Egyptian themed) and the Aliens films are part of Tolkien, Starship Troopers and Michael Moorcock, they themselves prove that it's not just Tolkien, Starship Troopers and Michael Moorcock.
Likewise, Meso-American Lizardmen aren't something that really fits into Tolkien's work. Not saying they are an original, or even a good idea (non-European cultures for the non-humans is dubious at best). Likewise, the Skaven don't.
You can say that WHFB is influenced by Tolkien, sure, but then you have to list any number of other strong influences, which means it's not really Tolkien anymore.
Not, I'm not saying that the setting is particularly clever or original, just that they found lots more things to draw inspiration from/rip off than just Tolkien. One source is plagiarism, many is research and all.
Tolkien wasn't particularly original anyway, he stripmined Western and Northern European mythology and folklore for ideas and influences.
Congratulations to them for achieving the raw minimum of adding a few extra things on top of the Tolkein staples, even if those things have painfully obvious antecedents. What's the saying? "Your work is good and original. Unfortunately the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good."
They canned the squats as a product because they didn't work as a faction and de facto killed them off in lore, then created the Demiurg which were distinctly dwarf-like as a replacement, then eventually went for a third time lucky and created the Leagues of Votann, announcing that the Demiurg were part of the League of Votann. The whole thing is a mess, made up on the fly with little care.
Although, credit to them, someone needs to make the dwarfs more credible, because a fantasy staple is to move them distinctly towards the realm of comic relief. I can only assume because they are short, and people think it's fun to laugh at short people.
Huh, a little checking and not only did they do that, but they did the retcon in seemingly a throwaway part of the League's codex for no reason.
I agree, but simultaniously don't.
I don't have the time or inclination to go through every similarity and difference between LOTR and WFB, but I'll try and be as succinct as possible.
On one hand, yes, there's obvious Tolkien influences in the setting, via the stock fantasy races (elves, dwarfs, orcs, goblins, ogres, halfings, etc.) Whatever differences may exist between them, the tropes are still there.
On the other hand, there's stuff in WFB that owes nothing to Tolkien - Lizardmen, skaven, Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, not to mention that while both settings use human cultures as inspiration, there isn't that much overlap between the sources of said inspiration (Tolkien wouldn't be caught dead using Arthurian inspiration ala Bretonnians for instance). A lot of these are tropes and/or real-world inspirations (though skaven seem to be pretty unique), but whatever their sources, LOTR isn't among them.
On the third hand, I also think it's a stretch to compare Chaos to the Dark Lord trope. There's some similarities, sure, and from the outsider's perspective you could argue that the differences aren't without distinction (rule/destroy the world), but even then, I don't think it's 1:1 in that:
1: Tolkien's dark lords (Morgoth, Sauron) are primarily Abrahamic in their inspiration. Morgoth is basically Lucifer (angel/maia that rebels against God/Illuvatar, sullies Earth/Arda, will return on Judgement Day), and Sauron is basically Morgoth-lite. Evil in LotR often runs with the 'fallen' motif, of good being corrupted (the orcs are a case in point).
2: To me, the Chaos gods are more akin to Lovecraft, or that trope of "unknowable entities with unknowable goals." There's nothing 'fallen' about the Chaos gods, and there's no particular Abrahamic inspiration (yes, you could compare the Realm of Chaos to Hell, but onyl in the broadest sense). And while both Chaos and Morgoth corrupt, the handling of them is different - Chaos corrupts on a literal level that can change flora, fauna, even the landscape itself. Morgoth/Sauron corrupt more on the spiritual level.
By extension of this, I'd say there's another key distinction in that LotR is largely a moral binary world, where WFB is very much shades of grey. There's also the thematic differences, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.
The TL, DR version is that yes, obviously WFB is inspired by Tolkien in a number of ways, but there's plenty of stuff it doesn't owe to Tolkien. And while we may disagree, I'd call it one of the most fleshed out worlds in fantasy fiction, regardless as to how original that world might be.
Really don't see the necrons as undead, and you left out the tau, but that isn't the crux of your argument, so I'll move on.
Okay, here's my crux:
1: I don't really buy the argument of "x is bad, so don't care about x." If the lore of a setting is haphazard, that's cause for being more congruent with the setting, not just throwing up your hands and giving in.
2: I've already given my issues with female Space Marines many times from the perspective of the universe itself, and to be clear, if female Space Marines ended up in the setting tomorrow, there'd be far more egregious shifts in my eyes (e.g. the necron retcon thing, the Primaris marines are a similar asspull, etc.) But the difference here is the ideological underpinnings behind a lot of it. You may roll your eyes, but here's the facts:
a) The call for female Space Marines often comes from outside the fanbase itself.
b) Calls for female Space Marines are never accompanied by calls for male Sisters of Battle (we can extend this to other all male/female orders in the setting, but these are the big two)
c) If there's a reason why there's a "need" for female Space Marines, but other single-gendered orders are fine, the people demanding the change owe an explanation. Is it something about the Space Marines by themselves that demands this change, or are we operating under the principle of single male orders are a no-no, single female orders are fine?
The assertion that Warhammer is KFC is an assertion I actually don't have too much of a problem with, but let's extend this to some more 'prestiguous' IPs. I can cite all-female orders in fiction (Bene Jesserit, Aes Sedai), as well as all male ones (Night's Watch). I've never encountered anyone demanding that these facts change. And even if you make the argument that 40K is less "prestiguous" than those IPs, well, okay then, we can look at all female groups in IPs of similar standing (MLP, Sailor Moon, WITCH, etc.) Do they need to change?
The Necrons are skeletons that live in pyramids that come awake to kill archaelogists. Very Egyptian undead themed, especially once they dropped the mysterious aspect and made the just like everyone else with the same sort of personalities, this time organised by dynasty and have names liked Canoptek this and Imotekh that. Which is boring and the Thousand Sons are Egypitan themed undead monsters already.
Anyhoo, I'd also like to add that baseline GW orks, being asexual and growing from fungus and having a psychic field that makes their rubbish technology work is pretty different from LotR orks. Gorkamorka is Mad Max with orks instead of Australians, which, ok. Big Toof River is Isandlwana/Rorke's Drift mixed with the Little Bighorn, with orks instead of Africans and Native Americans, which is a bit dubious. The 2nd War for Armageddon was originally mostly the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but with orks instead of Nazis and their leader is named after Margaret Thatcher for some reason, which ok. Then there's oodles of ork subfactions based around them being stereotypical pirates, or annoying rich people, or biker gangs or whatever.
I'm not sure how the stuff that was mentioned counts as the "raw minimum." Look at any playable faction in WFB, and you'll find detailed history behind it, that fits into a detailed history of the setting as a whole.
Doing the "raw minimum" would be along the lines of "here's some lizard people, they fight against the other factions, have fun or something." The raw minimum is something that a number of settings have where plot/lore is just window dressing.
We can also debate as to what's good vs. what's original in the setting, but I'd point out that the stuff that isn't Tolkien tends to be the stuff that's the most beloved. If I asked what were the most popular/iconic factions in WFB, I'd probably get answers along the lines of Chaos (demons from an alternate reality), skaven (sapient rat creatures that have an under-empire that spans the world) and the Empire (Holy Roman Empire with a dash of steampunk). None of these elements are in LotR at all, whereas the elements that take the most inspiration from Tolkien (elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings) don't have the same pop cultural status. Heck, there's a reason why people have never stopped clamouring for Chaos Dwarfs, and again, the Chaos Dwarfs have no LotR antecedent bar off-hand references to a handful of dwarves willingly serving Sauron/Morgoth.
Ultimately the Tolkien inspirations are there, but they aren't the bread and butter of the setting.
Well, yeah, sure, but that's "space Egyptian" themed, not "undead" themed. When I think of undead, it's hordes of enemies overwhelming the enemy through weight of numbers. The necrons, on the other hand, are among the most powerful forces in the game (point for point at least) - they also owe a lot to the "robot race from the distant past trope," at least before they were turned into space Egyptians.
Wait, you're saying "Gazgull Thraka" = "Margaret Thatcher?"
Yeah, sorry, really don't see it. Heck, don't see the 2nd War as anything like that - really don't see any similarities bar a comissar leading Imperium forces on the planet, and comisars are a staple in the Imperial Guard anyway.
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They are a race of skeleton monsters that hang around in buildings said to be tombs. And mummies tend to be quality, rather than quantity monsters.
But ok, yeah, undead in general tend to be hordes, there's that.
Way back when they had their 2nd War game (which, I believe was when they introduced the war, though now that I think of it, I'm not sure) which was explicitly inspired by games about the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Though, I did say the invasion, not games about it. I don't have a source for that off the top of my head, either.
And yeah, GW dropped "Mag Uruk" from the name in later years.
...maybe?
Sorry, I agree with the statement that "we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are," but that still comes off as a stretch. "Mag Uruk" to me is akin to "Mad Uruk," as in, Gaz is certainly mad, and "uruk" reminds me of uruk-hai (super orcs, orks, Gaz is a super ork, do the math).
Also, if there was a Thatcher parody in 40K, wouldn't that parody be within the Imperium itself? Taking the most negative interpretation of Thatcher I can imagine (cold-hearted, anti-union, anti-welfare, selfish), those are all traits I'd sooner associate with the Imperium than orks.
Well, if they wanted to do a parody, rather than a feeble name joke, yeah, Thraka and Thatcher have next to nothing to do with each other.