Poll: Favorite Warhammer 40k faction?

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

In Dawn of War 1 I learned one thing... Imp Guard artillery is -AWESOME-. I enjoyed way too much setting the stuff up and creating killing zones that I could lure enemy armies in.

Though I don't know how any of them play in tabletop. I've only ever played these factions in videogames.

Oh man, I thought I was the only one! I love playing matches as Guard where I just castle up in overlapping bunkers with All the artillery just hammering anyone dumb enough to get close. By the time the rolling battle ends, the entrie map is just covered with Ork dead.

 

[Erttheking]

In short, Games Workshop decided that if the Tau were taking the anime approach, they would need a Char Aznable. The guy fought a freaking Swarmlord to a standstill.

Yikes, I hope they haven't made Sadowsun into Quess...

To be fair the pheromone thing has been around or hinted at since the very first codex how revered the Ethereals are, and the 2nd codex kinda implies there maybe some mind control going on with the vespid, but the tau were portrayed as respectful (though trying to wean the Kroot off thier 'bad habits').

Have they done anything more with the backstory hints that maybe the Ethereals were created by a third party as a way to 'Uplift' the tau?

She seems to be alive and well. She hated Farsight for being a "traitor" but calmed down after he bailed her out of a fight that was going bad. She took out a Tyranid splinter fleet without losing a single ship of her own, but I don't know if that's new or old info.

I think they mostly just let the Kroot eat whatever now, seeing as how it can help them. Except for Chaos. Apparently that happened once and it ended badly.

Yeah, apparently there are hints that the Eldar visited their homeworld. No idea how much they did, just that they visited. So far it still seems to say that they got most of their tech from crashed Imperium ships.

 

[Frankster]

I think they mostly just let the Kroot eat whatever now, seeing as how it can help them. Except for Chaos. Apparently that happened once and it ended badly.

Yeah, apparently there are hints that the Eldar visited their homeworld. No idea how much they did, just that they visited. So far it still seems to say that they got most of their tech from crashed Imperium ships.

To add a bit more to this:

Yup kroot ate chaos cultist dead once and got turned into chaos kroot and ended up going berzerk, forcing the Tau to fight them off and kill them all.

Regarding the Eldar having a hand in their creation..I think it's safe to say that's an aborted story arc, they were throwing around some hints to this when Tau were fresh and new but has never since been mentioned again along with the Pariah storyline. Re Pariah storyline, at one point Tau were hinted to be a race created so each member would have a pariah gene (aka immune to chaos), this was also around the time Necrons were still mysterious robots kidnapping random humans with the gene so they could be turned into pariah necrons. This story arc also seems to have been completely aborted, now the Tau have some presence in the warp, it's just miniscule.

The story of their tech development also got changed up a bit, whilst crashed Imperium ships jumpstarted their technological progress, from a certain point onwards their tech was driven primarily by trade and treaties with other races such as the Demiurg and this is how they got their current toys.

She seems to be alive and well. She hated Farsight for being a "traitor" but calmed down after he bailed her out of a fight that was going bad.

Wow really? So one of the few bits of interesting fluff imo and the biggest challenge to Farsight gets conveniently sidestepped? He bails out a character who is shown to be infaillible in every other story she is in to the point that she takes out hive fleets with no losses? Pff I liked the fact he was hunted down by an old frenemy who is more of a tactical genius then he is. The hunt between the brainwashed hardcore fanatic tau and the one who broke free of the brainwashing but at the price of betraying all the values they once held together, now that was going to be an interesting showdown when it happened.
....
I know you like Farsight's lore but damn do I really hate what they've done with it if this is the new direction, does ANYTHING go wrong for this guy?

 

[omega 616]

Fucking sick of Space marines, every game (My mistake we did get fire warrior on the Ps2) and book (as far as I know) is about the bastards ... 7 or 8 factions and the only one with any real attention is the space marines VS X. I think, barring the nids, you could write a good story about any faction, ork one might be a bit simple though.

Anyway, I like the Necrons ... they just seem so terrifying, especially the flayed ones. They are like "what would happen if skynet like Egyptians".

If the dawn of war game is anything to go by, lore wise, it must really fuck with you to mow down a legion of Necron units and then they rise back up and start walking at you again.

Next would be nids, the bigger ones are just so awesome looking! Bio titan, carnifex, Swarmlord, Zoanthropes, Mawloc and Tyrannofex to name a few. I could just imagine their homeworld being a brutal place where evolution forced them to be so potent. All the others (as far as I know) adapted to war ... especially the marines, genetic engineering as well as building armour and tanks etc but the nids are just animals who evolved to be.

(unless there is some kind of lore that says they are a failed genetic experiment or something)

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Bleh, you know 40k. They're never going to actually GO anywhere with any of this. Farsight is always going to be what the current Tau Empire hates, he's going to last, the Tyranids are going to be near Tau space but not quite there yet, the Black Crusades will always get close to taking Cadia and will accomplish "Tactical objectives" but will never overwhelm the planets, the Ultramarines will do some stupid bullshit and it'll be handwaved with "They won but took heavy loses", the Eldar and the Imperium will always be in the brink of extinction, a brink that's been taking an awful long time to go over, the Orks will do their thing until the end of the universe, the Tyranid main fleet is always five times more than the galaxy can handle and always five years away, long story short names and attitudes may change, but the battle lines of the galaxy will never change. Did you know that the Imperium actually managed to assassinate the Ethereal Supreme, the head and face of the Tau Empire, and it didn't change a damn fucking thing? They just made holograms of him and kept it quiet.

Khorne is the strongest Chaos God, but that's bullshit. It should be Nurgle. The god of STAGNATION! Or would that be a little too close to home for Games Workshop?

The Sabbat Crusades may end in victory, Ciaphas Cain will win against impossible odds, the Smufs will fuck reality in the eye, and not a damn thing will change.

If there's finality you can't keep printing new codexes can you? So if this annoys you don't worry. It'll probably be retconned out of reality in five years to make room for how Farsight and Shadowsun had to team up with the Necrons and then became BFFs or something.

 

[Zontar]

Tau but the farsight enclave. That shit is basically the magnificent 7(8 really) with commander farsight being the most badass tau in existence.

God among men is the man who turned a meme into an official game mechanic and canon combat tactic.

 

[Erttheking]

book (as far as I know) is about the bastards

Allow me to point out some non-Space Marine books. I hope you find at least one of them interesting (Only read the first Gaunt's Ghost book myself)

Gaunt's Ghosts: About the Tanith First and Only, the first and only Imperial Guard regiment of Tanith, a planet devastated by Chaos as it was formed. Gaunt, the Comissar in charge of the regiment, gave the order to abandon the planet and save the First and Only, mainly because they didn't stand a chance and hell. Being the only survivors of the planet, they First and Only resent Gaunt, but they're stuck with him. Because they've been folded into the Sabbat World Crusades, a crusade to reclaim a hundred star systems from Chaos. It's a well liked series and heavily inspired by Sharpe.

Ciaphas Cain: Another commissar focused story, with a bigger focus on humor. Two regiments from the ice planet of Valhalla are heavily devastated and the survivors are folded together to compensate for losses. Since one was all male and the other all female, they don't get along that well, so Cain is sent to keep them in line. Funny thing about Cain though. He puts on a brave face, but internally he's shitting his pants at everything he sees and constantly tries to get away from the fighting, only to accidentally blunder into the thick of it. It's constantly questioned whether he's a coward who gets by via sheer luck or if he's more skilled than he gives himself credit for. He did get into a swordfight with a Khorne Berserker and survive long enough for his aide to pop up with his melta-gun.

The Last Chancers: Colonel Schaeffer runs an experimental regiment manned entirely by convicts. If they survive the suicide missions they go on, they receive a full pardon. If they refuse, their sentence is upgraded from life to death.

Plus plenty of others. Eisenhorn follows the Inquisitor the books are named after, and apparently the Tech Priests and Sisters of Battle got some books too.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Snip

Bleh, you know 40k. They're never going to actually GO anywhere with any of this. Farsight is always going to be what the current Tau Empire hates, he's going to last, the Tyranids are going to be near Tau space but not quite there yet, the Black Crusades will always get close to taking Cadia and will accomplish "Tactical objectives" but will never overwhelm the planets, the Ultramarines will do some stupid bullshit and it'll be handwaved with "They won but took heavy loses", the Eldar and the Imperium will always be in the brink of extinction, a brink that's been taking an awful long time to go over, the Orks will do their thing until the end of the universe, the Tyranid main fleet is always five times more than the galaxy can handle and always five years away, long story short names and attitudes may change, but the battle lines of the galaxy will never change. Did you know that the Imperium actually managed to assassinate the Ethereal Supreme, the head and face of the Tau Empire, and it didn't change a damn fucking thing? They just made holograms of him and kept it quiet.

Khorne is the strongest Chaos God, but that's bullshit. It should be Nurgle. The god of STAGNATION! Or would that be a little too close to home for Games Workshop?

The Sabbat Crusades may end in victory, Ciaphas Cain will win against impossible odds, the Smufs will fuck reality in the eye, and not a damn thing will change.

If there's finality you can't keep printing new codexes can you? So if this annoys you don't worry. It'll probably be retconned out of reality in five years to make room for how Farsight and Shadowsun had to team up with the Necrons and then became BFFs or something.

I liked it better when Farsight was rumored to not just be one guy, but a mantle taken up. An idea. Like Batman or whatever. One dies, another steps in. Autobot Matrix of Leadership style. Made sense when they had like 6+ stories of the Farsight enclave dying. 'Nids, Orks, other Tau, daemons, Deathwatch...

Also I think Mala should be the strongest, because she embodies hatred. And that's an underlying theme in ALL the Chaos Gods. Khorne hates things that aren't bloody, magic, and weakness. Nurgle hates change, adaptation and lack of flies, Tzneetch hates stagnation, puppies and stupid people and by God Slaanesh can't stand un-raped people.

And to be fair, they've taken a few steps forward with the new Wulfen storyline. Apparently Canis Wolfborn was killed by a daemon, and according to my GW manager Russ is coming into 40k to fight Magnus on Fenris.

 

[Mister K]

OK, this comes from a really casual fan.

I picked Imperium, because, well, futuristic gothics look cool, space marines are cool and Emperor seems like a jolly fellow.

Though my second choice goes to Orks. Yes, they are vicious barbarians, who failed to destroy the whole WH40K universe only because they don't know about their own technopathy and because they are too bloodthirsty to not fight each other, but damn it they are fun.

 

[omega 616]

book (as far as I know) is about the bastards

Allow me to point out some non-Space Marine books. I hope you find at least one of them interesting (Only read the first Gaunt's Ghost book myself)

Gaunt's Ghosts: About the Tanith First and Only, the first and only Imperial Guard regiment of Tanith, a planet devastated by Chaos as it was formed. Gaunt, the Comissar in charge of the regiment, gave the order to abandon the planet and save the First and Only, mainly because they didn't stand a chance and hell. Being the only survivors of the planet, they First and Only resent Gaunt, but they're stuck with him. Because they've been folded into the Sabbat World Crusades, a crusade to reclaim a hundred star systems from Chaos. It's a well liked series and heavily inspired by Sharpe.

Ciaphas Cain: Another commissar focused story, with a bigger focus on humor. Two regiments from the ice planet of Valhalla are heavily devastated and the survivors are folded together to compensate for losses. Since one was all male and the other all female, they don't get along that well, so Cain is sent to keep them in line. Funny thing about Cain though. He puts on a brave face, but internally he's shitting his pants at everything he sees and constantly tries to get away from the fighting, only to accidentally blunder into the thick of it. It's constantly questioned whether he's a coward who gets by via sheer luck or if he's more skilled than he gives himself credit for. He did get into a swordfight with a Khorne Berserker and survive long enough for his aide to pop up with his melta-gun.

The Last Chancers: Colonel Schaeffer runs an experimental regiment manned entirely by convicts. If they survive the suicide missions they go on, they receive a full pardon. If they refuse, their sentence is upgraded from life to death.

Plus plenty of others. Eisenhorn follows the Inquisitor the books are named after, and apparently the Tech Priests and Sisters of Battle got some books too.

Thanks for trying but I count the imperial guard as space marines, ok they were different armies in dawn of war game but it's still humans, just that they weren't good enough to be 8 foot tall brick shit houses

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

Snip

Bleh, you know 40k. They're never going to actually GO anywhere with any of this.

Khorne is the strongest Chaos God, but that's bullshit. It should be Nurgle. The god of STAGNATION! Or would that be a little too close to home for Games Workshop?

The Sabbat Crusades may end in victory, Ciaphas Cain will win against impossible odds, the Smufs will fuck reality in the eye, and not a damn thing will change.

Funny that you say all this because GW is currently in the process of advancing the setting.

- a daemon outbreak on Fenris has exposed the Space Wolves secret and the Dark Angels (and other chapters) have shown up on The Rock to start orbital bombardment of the planet

- Eldrad attempted to awaken Ynnead (the Eldar god of the dead) so he can kill Slaanesh but a Deathwatch kill team found out and destroyed the MacGuffin, which was basically the Eldars trumo card for not going extinct, what effect this had on the Eldar soulstones (the souls were collected to power the MacGuffin) is unknown

- The 13th Black Crusade has officially beem launched (again) and Kharn and some random Tzeentch sorceror went to open an artifact from before humanity existed that can capture warp entities. They semi-succeeded and when it opens a new warp rift will be a stepping stone to Terra

Basically they're doing The End Times for 40k, but it probably won't end in the destruction of the setting.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Funny that you say all this because GW is currently in the process of advancing the setting.

- a daemon outbreak on Fenris has exposed the Space Wolves secret and the Dark Angels (and other chapters) have shown up on The Rock to start orbital bombardment of the planet

- Eldrad attempted to awaken Ynnead (the Eldar god of the dead) so he can kill Slaanesh but a Deathwatch kill team found out and destroyed the MacGuffin, which was basically the Eldars trumo card for not going extinct, what effect this had on the Eldar soulstones (the souls were collected to power the MacGuffin) is unknown

- The 13th Black Crusade has officially beem launched (again) and Kharn and some random Tzeentch sorceror went to open an artifact from before humanity existed that can capture warp entities. They semi-succeeded and when it opens a new warp rift will be a stepping stone to Terra

Basically they're doing The End Times for 40k, but it probably won't end in the destruction of the setting.

Based on how well that worked out for Warhammer Fantasy, I am not optimistic.

They'll probably put Slaanesh in a box somewhere, rename the Eldar to Eldaran, and the Orks to Orkorons. And the Space Marines to something dumb, like...Astra Militarum.

No, that'll never happen. That name is far too dumb.

 

[The Madman]

I love the ambiance that tends to surround the Eldar, at least in what little exposure I've had to them through the limited 40k media I've enjoyed. Wraithbone, mech's piloted by the souls of dead ancestors, giant Craftworld motherships, etc. Brilliant stuff.

Spoiler: They also have awesome music

Spoiler: Dramatic dialogue

Spoiler: Plus they just look cool

So yeah, Eldar get my vote. They might be arrogant dickish space elves, but at least they do it with style.

 

[HumanShale]

Good man, Eldar all the way, I say.

I'm making my way through the Fulgrim novel ATM and just came across the encounter with the Eldar.

Every HH novel has bits which make you say, "No, no, no - wrong decision", that's kind of the idea of the whole series, but to see the slight green shoots of co-operation between humans and Eldar only to be smashed by damned chaos again (that bloody sword) was heartbreaking.

If we (the Imperium) could just stop being such Nazis we could befriend the space elves, get the interex involved as well, get the Tau round for tea, have a beer with the orks and tell Chaos to piss off then we have a lovely little galaxy.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

If we (the Imperium) could just stop being such Nazis we could befriend the space elves, get the interex involved as well, get the Tau round for tea, have a beer with the orks and tell Chaos to piss off then we have a lovely little galaxy.

Well, the Interex are all dead by the 41st millennium, and the Eldar are kind of long past the point of befriending the Imperium. I think even if the Imperium did a total 180-degree turn in their policy towards alien races and opened their arms wide, it'd still explode in their faces.

It would've been real hard to do in the first place, considering that their cousins feed off pain and wear people's faces as underpants, and the race as a whole was pretty much responsible for creating a breach in the fabric of reality so large it can be seen on a galactic scale. Even the pre-Heresy Space Marines, all enlightened and innocent with the clear eyes and fresh faces of young boys, would have trouble overcoming their prejudice in light of...the very real evidence that their prejudices might be justified.

And then you've got the Heresy, and then Fulgrim's eating Eldar souls, and yada yada yada, ten thousand years of constant war. So it goes.

[sub]And don't get started on the Orks. You invite the Orks around for beer, it might be fun for about five minutes, but once they're juiced up it's all shouting and chair-throwing and terraforming the ecology of the local planet with the invasive species of belligerent fungus whose spores the entire race emits constantly as a form of reproduction.[/sub]

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I don't know much about 40K at all, and I'm generally not interested in it.

However, I have a soft spot for the Orks. They seem to be the only honest guys in the entire setting, and I like their "if I believe this busted hunk of junk can fly, it'll fly!" shtick. XD

 

[Fox12]

In a universe made up of sadists, masochists, and Emo's, the ork's are the equivalent of a bunch of frat boys. All they do is drink, party, and spread their seed, and their crappy car- I mean tanks are held together by a combination of faith and swearing.

Also, I'm pretty sure that their pinchent for achieving goals by believing in themselves makes them an anime protagonist.

 

[HumanShale]

Well, the Interex are all dead by the 41st millennium, and the Eldar are kind of long past the point of befriending the Imperium. I think even if the Imperium did a total 180-degree turn in their policy towards alien races and opened their arms wide, it'd still explode in their faces.

I'm stuck in the HH novels at the moment. Even though it's the same tragic fall story time and again I kind of just like the details the authors put in that keep it alive. Fulgrim prancing around like a dandy in a loin cloth in front of a demon possessed painting made of shit and blood while doing diplomacy was my favourite moment of this book so far.

I?ll come clean now as well ? never played the table top game. I got into this stuff after playing DOW and just being a guy who loves getting into the lore of fantasy universes. I read wikis and needed to know more so I got some books, watched some youtube lore videos (Vaults of Terra, 40k Theories, and, best of all, Emperor Text to Speech).

It would've been real hard to do in the first place, considering that their cousins feed off pain and wear people's faces as underpants, and the race as a whole was pretty much responsible for creating a breach in the fabric of reality so large it can be seen on a galactic scale. Even the pre-Heresy Space Marines, all enlightened and innocent with the clear eyes and fresh faces of young boys, would have trouble overcoming their prejudice in light of...the very real evidence that their prejudices might be justified.

Suppose in 30k the meetings hadn't gone so bad between Eldar and humans, would the Eldar be prepared to purge the dark Eldar for the sake of a better galaxy or do racial bonds always triumph over the impact on the warp and indeed any sense of goodness at all? One of the many fascinating (in my mind) questions this universe asks.

And then you've got the Heresy, and then Fulgrim's eating Eldar souls, and yada yada yada, ten thousand years of constant war. So it goes.


And don't get started on the Orks. You invite the Orks around for beer, it might be fun for about five minutes, but once they're juiced up it's all shouting and chair-throwing and terraforming the ecology of the local planet with the invasive species of belligerent fungus whose spores the entire race emits constantly as a form of reproduction.

I know, I know, but I'm getting used to the grimdark. I just keep seeing ways in which we bring the ideas of diversity and equality we have now to 40K. Ork lives matter, man.