Warhammer 40k: Where did the beastmen go?

Ghraf

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This is something I've never really thought about or looked into, so I figured I'd try to start a discussion about it.

In Warhammer fantasy there are dwarves and beastmen, which aren't present in Warhammer 40k's universe. The explanation for dwarves not appearing in WH40k are that the creators thought dwarves in space would be a bit silly and that dwarves were only present on the planet that Warhammer fantasy takes place on. However, this doesn't explain anything to do with the beastmen, who showed up in some early versions of the tabletop in Lost and the Damned and Imperial Guard armies, and then kind of suddenly just disappeared. Assumedly, there are probably hundreds of millions of them in the Warp after living on a planet with direct access to it for centuries, as well, since when something wanders into the Warp it tends to get stuck there forever unless released by chance.

Were beastmen just phased out? Is there some explanation for their sudden disappearance? I feel like they should still be somewhat prominent in Chaos factions considering they were a large part of them in Warhammer fantasy, but all we have are very cut-and-dry subdivisions of Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Eldar factions. There aren't even any Chaos Orks, which we could assume would probably worship the shit out of Khorne, given their love for war and combat. Although, I think the lack of Chaos Orks has something to do with their general lack of intelligence and distrust of anything "magic". What happened to the beastmen?
 

Rayce Archer

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Dwarves and Beastmen were both in WH40k. Both are abhumans, stable strains of human mutant. Beastmen are derived from some unknown period in the Dark Age of Technology while Dwarves were known as Squats, humans mutated by millennia on high-gravity mining worlds. Squats were pretty well accepted and even had their own lexicon of sonic weaponry, while Beastmen, fully indoctrinated into the eugenic ideals of humanity, were bitterly self-hating and tended to either become suicidally loyal to the Guard or turn to Chaos.

In recent years, Games Workshop has tried to further separate WH40k from WHFantasy and the Squats and Beastmen have slowly faded from the material (canonically, the squats lost all their home-worlds to Tyranid invasion). The Squat's role as "dwarves in space" has been supplanted by the Demiurg, Advanced alien traders with distinct dwarven characteristics.

From the Warhammer wiki:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Beastmen
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Squats
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Demiurg

Finally, this guy made a whole army of Chaos Squats for the tabletop:
http://warmongers.ziggyqubert.com/tiki-index.php?page=Pint%20Sized%20Evil%3A%20Chaos%20Squats!!!&structure=Library

EDIT: ORks already have their own Warp deities, Gork and Mork, created fromt heir tremendous gestalt psychic power. Since on his own no single Ork has any meaningful psychic presence, and in groups they generate a massive collective fervor for their own gods and their Waaaaaaagh, and because most Ork society is just programmed into them, FORCIBLY tuirning an ork to Chaos would be all but impossible.
 
Aug 31, 2012
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Beastmen were just quietly forgotten about, unlike the squats that had a bit of a fanbase, beastmen were basically just extra troop choices for the guard, and turned up in chaos warbands, not an army in their own right. There weren't ever very many models for them in 40K, most of the ones I saw were converted fantasy.

Originally orks were very resistant to chaos, they were too self assured in their orkyness for chaos to take hold, but you did get Stormboyz of Khorne, Ork chaos warbands and ork mutants in the Freebooterz army lists and they could turn up in retinue rolls for chaos champions in LatD and StD.
Current fluff has been covered by the dude above.
 

Ghraf

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Antigonius said:
Ghraf said:
This is something I've never really thought about or looked into, so I figured I'd try to start a discussion about it.

all we have are very cut-and-dry subdivisions of Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Eldar factions. There aren't even any Chaos Orks, which we could assume would probably worship the shit out of Khorne, given their love for war and combat. Although, I think the lack of Chaos Orks has something to do with their general lack of intelligence and distrust of anything "magic". What happened to the beastmen?
1) Always learn what you're arguing about, before you...argue.

Dark Eldar are not Chaos Eldar - they are a distinct society, that despises and afraid of it just as their good counterpart, unlike WFB Elves, that can be corrupted willingly...

And technically you can still play beastmen and mutants in the Siege of Vraks
lol, I'm not "arguing" about anything, just asking a question.

And I know it's not "Chaos Eldar", that was a brain fart on my part when I was typing it. Dark Eldar actually go to great lengths of cruelty and evil to NOT become corrupted by Slaanesh, so yeah.
 

Ghraf

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Rayce Archer said:
Dwarves and Beastmen were both in WH40k. Both are abhumans, stable strains of human mutant. Beastmen are derived from some unknown period in the Dark Age of Technology while Dwarves were known as Squats, humans mutated by millennia on high-gravity mining worlds. Squats were pretty well accepted and even had their own lexicon of sonic weaponry, while Beastmen, fully indoctrinated into the eugenic ideals of humanity, were bitterly self-hating and tended to either become suicidally loyal to the Guard or turn to Chaos.

In recent years, Games Workshop has tried to further separate WH40k from WHFantasy and the Squats and Beastmen have slowly faded from the material (canonically, the squats lost all their home-worlds to Tyranid invasion). The Squat's role as "dwarves in space" has been supplanted by the Demiurg, Advanced alien traders with distinct dwarven characteristics.

From the Warhammer wiki:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Beastmen
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Squats
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Demiurg

Finally, this guy made a whole army of Chaos Squats for the tabletop:
http://warmongers.ziggyqubert.com/tiki-index.php?page=Pint%20Sized%20Evil%3A%20Chaos%20Squats!!!&structure=Library

EDIT: ORks already have their own Warp deities, Gork and Mork, created fromt heir tremendous gestalt psychic power. Since on his own no single Ork has any meaningful psychic presence, and in groups they generate a massive collective fervor for their own gods and their Waaaaaaagh, and because most Ork society is just programmed into them, FORCIBLY tuirning an ork to Chaos would be all but impossible.
This is a good post, that explains a lot.

I actually completely forgot about the Squats existing. And I always thought the Demiurg were considered Tau, so I never really looked into them that much, not being that interested in Tau lore.

And for some reason I was thinking most Orks were kind of like blanks and had no connection with the warp. Gork and Mork aren't really mentioned all that much until you get into the creation of Gargants and things.
 

Ghraf

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Antigonius said:
Ghraf said:
lol, I'm not "arguing" about anything, just asking a question.

And I know it's not "Chaos Eldar", that was a brain fart on my part when I was typing it. Dark Eldar actually go to great lengths of cruelty and evil to NOT become corrupted by Slaanesh, so yeah.
Ah, sorry then.

Still, mutants and beastmen are playable in Renegade army - reincarnate Lost and the Damned. To kind of think of it, there are no playable mutants in 40k either. I mean they have a massive list of abhumans (yes most of them have like one planet or so, yet still), but the only thing they did with them was made an optional rules in White Dwarf (and only for 5 types).

Still no mutants in Chaos and Ratlings and Ogryns for the Guard. This is kinda baffling, since you motherfuckers have the White Dwarf magasine, and Forge - publish rules there! Fuck the miniatures - if you're not sure it will have success just give the rules, and see how many proxies will be...
That's basically exactly why I was asking. I didn't get why Ogryns, Ratlings, even fucking Scalies were apparently a pretty big thing, yet there were no Chaos beastmen anymore, like Bestigors or Doombulls.
 

Rayce Archer

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Note that you can make your army look however you want, so it's popular for customizers to build mutant/abhuman figurines for appropriate roles as generic guardsmen. As in "look, the guard from this planet have Squat weapon teams," etc.

I don't play the tabletop but I imagine it must be very frustrating to build a diverse and expensive army that takes full advantage of the rulebook, only to be told in the next edition that half of you painstakingly assembled force no longer canonically exists.
 

Bertylicious

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I think it came down to sales and a certain degree of streamlining. Back in the day of the original Rouge Trader you could have impy guard on jetbikes fighting orks armed with shuriken catapults. As time went on the models for the different armies became more thematic and the rules were simplified to boost interest amongst new customers. Some things, like squats, were lost along the way.

Same thing happens with fantasy, I mean do they still have chaos dwarves?
 

Muspelheim

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It is a bit of a shame. Perhaps they didn't think the theme of "Mean satyrs but now in space!" worked well enough. Beastmen are at their best when they are set against a dark, spooky forest, and finding a space-related erzats might've been a bit too much work for what it was worth. They could've at least been thrown in as generic Chaos mutants in the background, that is were the poor things usually end up.

It's a shame, I've always liked the dear Beasties. They're not as powerful as Tomb Kings, they're not as aloof as the Lizard Men... But they've sure got heart.

Hell, I think they're actually in the 40K universe somewhere. They're just not noteworthy enough to describe. If you're in a more relaxed 40K enviroment, you could probably toss a few modified beasties in and it'll work just fine. But with GW going the way they are, the last thing they'll do is give us some more Beastmen fluff.

Rayce Archer said:
Note that you can make your army look however you want, so it's popular for customizers to build mutant/abhuman figurines for appropriate roles as generic guardsmen. As in "look, the guard from this planet have Squat weapon teams," etc.

I don't play the tabletop but I imagine it must be very frustrating to build a diverse and expensive army that takes full advantage of the rulebook, only to be told in the next edition that half of you painstakingly assembled force no longer canonically exists.
Heh, I got around it by playing my Imperial Guard as a penal regiment. Mutants and freaks from ten systems bundled up and sent off to die in a useful manner. When you could still get away with stuff like that, of course.