/tg/ - Traditional Games

I'm in the exact same boat as you so I'll bump.

The occasional human element in all the grimdark. Pic related.

>>26836193
Not as touching as cross faction admiration.

>>26835924
The coolest things?
What do you mean?
That's an entirely subjective thing.
Half the stuff is so over the top you can count it as cool or silly at leisure.
Privateer space traders racing through a demon-infested dimension while steered by mad mutants is an interesting thought, either way.

Stop this "it's a parody!" bullshit. Yes, parts of it are silly. But who cares what it is or isn't "supposed" to be. Just enjoy the damn thing, at its silliest AND at its most serious moments.

Here's some cool stuff to get you started.

Well I don't have many examples that don't seem like parodies, mostly because it's Ork stuff, but there can be some really great Ork stories. One of the few ones can be seen as a cool story and funny at the same time, which is the story of Tuska the Daemon-Killa

Theres also The Beast, but barely anything is recorded of him, he was an Ork Warlord who raised the largest Waaagh! in history, larger than the one present at the Ullanor Crusade, which raised Horus to the rank of Warmaster. It was a Waaagh! that nearly overran the entire Galaxy, The Imperium only halted his advance at great cost and desperate measure, devastating the Adeptus Astartes.

The sheer scale of it, the fate of uncountable souls hanging in the balance in an uncaring universe. Hell is made real, nightmarish creatures from beyond time stalk realspace and somehow humanity endures through bloody-minded ignorance and arrogance.

>>26836193
this can be combined greatly with luls

I feel if you're an atheist, the closest thing you can get to understanding religion and faith is with mankind and the emperor.

>>26836264
And it isn't just hellish monsters from another realm, the galaxy is filled with alien creatures bent on destruction or wrapped up deeply in their heinous and complex schemes. As silly as Orks are portrayed, in a certain light they are a nightmare. Giant, hulking green creatures with massive jaws bristling with fangs, some larger than humanities greatest soldiers, coated in rusting, jagged metal armor and fielding great, crude war machines, roaring with foul black smog as they race into the carnage of battle. Unlike the more sophisticated Eldar, the disciplined Tau Empire and the cold, unfeeling Necron, the Ork threat are vast in number and with a brutality to match even the worst of Chaos' servants, Orks will rip tanks apart and devour the crew within, enslaving whole swathes of Imperium space to continue their grinding machine of war's eternal march. But worst of all, it's not always the Space Marines, humanities strongest and greatest soldiers, that face the Orks, it is usually the Imperial Guard, normal humans, fighting these monstrosities.

>>26836287
This is true.
The Imperial Cult is developed around an evident being of divine power and serves the vital purpose of developing confidence and dependency in the Imperium which through mental discipline as well as supposed -and occasionally recorded- divine intervention protects humanity from falling to Chaos and alien armies.

It is a form of religion that follows a distinct purpose outside its own continuation and wards against dangers so real denying them seems absurd, even if knowledge of them is proscribed. For good reason. Humans are stupid.

>>26836303
how do the imperial guard keep their numbers up?
Orks just become spores and resupply soldiers that way.

>>26836406
Through heavy recruitment on innumerable worlds.

>>26836406
a population in the hundreds of trillions (at least) where each world is required to give up a portion of everything it produces and its people on a fairly regular basis.

>>26836193

That's why I love the Cain novels so much. They make the setting feel so much better by contrasting the grim dark instead of just pouring more on. Makes the emotional impact far greater.

>Donal

Still the one thing in 40K that makes me genuinely sad.

>>26836406

You underestimate the size of the imperium. Hive worlds have populations in the hundreds of billions.

>>26836406
Hive worlds alone have such a massive overpopulation problem, they welcome IG tithes.

>>26835924
>The coolest thing in 40k
For me, its Orkoid biology and kultur. The fact that everything in ork life, from squigs to gretchin to nobs to the mushrooms shaped like spicy jawbreakers that they eat all come from the same exact spores is just plain neat as fuck.

>>26836434
I both agree and disagree. The Cain novels fuck up the lore quite a bit.

>>26836406
The greatest resource in the Imperium is humans, countless worlds and even more countless numbers of humans spread across the Imperium, with new worlds being added to the empire all the time. Whether by forced draft, volunteering, tradition, or being the very reason the world is colonized, the Imperial Guard always has an influx of new recruits, and the vast number of criminals in the Imperium are put to work on the battlefields as well, those lucky few that survive long enough are made official Guardsmen.

>>26836681
Examples?

Gotta love Orks

>>26836287
Very true. I'm an atheist, but I really do think that I've come to understand the fanatic's mindset a little better through my love of the SoB. I can even admire elements of it, like the refusal to give up and the utter dedication to a cause.

Only because its fictional though. If the Imperial Cult were a real thing then I wouldn't like it. But since it's fictional people fighting fictional beings, and the fact that they actually have some justification in operating like that, then it's fine.

>>26837746
If the Imperial Cult was a real thing, then there would be no reason to be an atheist since you can literally believe a god into existence if you get enough people believing with you.

Imperial navy is best navy

>>26836681
>I both agree and disagree. Black Library fucks up the lore quite a bit.
Fixed that for you.

>>26837773
That would require the warp to also be a real thing, I was referring to the Imperial Cult itself.

But if the warp were real...

>>26836179
>Marines are seven feet

>>26837815
And I was saying that the events necessary for the IC to come about involves things like immortal psychic supersoldiers, evil gods, and giant golden toilets. But yeah, I get your point.

>>26836718
It has the Scholam Progenium teaching males and female together, for one. There's fluff saying that they segregate based on gender.

also, it's arguable that Cain himself shouldn't really have the mindset he has, since the Schola indoctrinates its students so hard.

>>26837815

the imperial cult worships a 40,000+ year old actual living god in case you forget

>>26837834
It probably would have been more accurate for me to say "something like the Imperial Cult", or to just compare the IC to modern day fanatics. Sorry for the confusion, budday.

>>26836718
Making out the SoBs to be dumber than orks, for one. He also completely failed at properly portraying Tallarns.

>>26837837
It's not that hard to ignore teachings like that. It happens every day in the army now. Also he follows the teachings and really does care for his soldiers. Most of his feelings of being a coward are from what he learned when it's time to do something he always stands up. That's the point of the books. He really is a hero he just doesn't realize it.

Sitting around thinking about how things might really be happening if the Imperium and Chaos are like the main character of Fight Club...

>>26837979

Quick question.

How would all this shit go down if humanity never collapsed?
Would it be easier on them?

>>26838009
>How would all this shit go down if humanity never collapsed?
The galaxy would be completely different. The Emperor would see no need to take direct action so there would be no Primarchs, no Space Marines, no Horus Heresy and all that crap.
There would also be no Adeptus Mechanicus since the Mars would not turn to shit and allow them to gain prominence.

Then again Mankind collapsed because Eldar were busy creating Slaanesh which created a lot of Warp storms which means you have to get rid of that element too.

So basically everything is noblebright instead of grimdark

>>26838009
humanity at it's height with DAoT and slowly evolving into a race of psykers?

either it's eldar 2.0 or humanity becomes the new old ones.

>>26838009
Never collapsed EVER?
Then, well, they'd still be Culture level advanced and buttraping everyone.

>>26838009

>collapse

Which collapse do you mean? The initial one after the first expansion into space, the Horus Heresy, what?

>>26838055
It says that they had their golden age, before all the tech-barbarians and such.

>>26838050
Do you ever feel, in your caves of steel,
The chill of an ancient fear?
Do you shudder and say, when you pass this way,
A human once walked here?

They've cut off our heads, but we're not dead,
And we're bound by an ancient vow.
That does not sleep which dreams in the deep,
We're the Great Old Ones now!

>>26837891
>>26837821
I'm really glad to finally see what Imperium space stations look like, because I had no idea what they would be, but the fact that they are basically churches in space should have been obvious to me.

I'd like to see more art of Ork vessels though.

>>26838099
Dark Eldar and Ork ships. Illustrations included

>>26838161
My dick, thank you anon

>>26837953
Right, but the Schola is far, far more hardcore than the modern military. To the point where not swallowing the indoctrination will get you shot, or just turned into a servitor.

>>26837865
He completely brutalised the SoBs in his books. Every portrayal of them was terrible.

>>26835924
Travel.

The Imperium of Man exists because the Emperor managed to find a solution to the real life problem in space: travel is very, very slow. Like, it takes us five years right now to get to Mars kind of slow. It isn't because we can't go fast (we can), and it isn't because we don't put enough money in (we could). The problem is that the distances are just so astronomically large and there is literally a finite limit on how fast you can go that it becomes unworkable very fast.

But then humanity started using warp travel, and suddenly it was possible not just to colonize other planets efficiently, but other solar systems. And then that happened over and over and over again. And in doing so, they accidentally ripped the universe a million tiny new assholes through which evil daemons from the 11th dimension could get in and start fucking up all kinds of shit.

Humanity is fucked: grown too large to shut down the warp, but actively harmed and impeded by the reliance on such technology.

>>26838218
It's strongly implied that some of his teachers were less hard on the indoctrination then the standard and that Cain got away with a lot because he was an exceptional student.

As for gender segregation, it's a big galaxy. Some things are different in some places.

>>26838264
>>26837865
Uh, I can remember a few that were far less then dumb. One gambling teacher in particular, but still. . . .

>>26838781
Yeah, theyre all either dumb or not devout at all. He did the same deal with the Mechanicus. Really, I think Mitchell just has a hateboner for religion.

>>26838161
It's a shame the Orks just suck so fucking horribly in Gothic... The 'revamp PDF' from several years back did a number of improvements for them... But the original rules, and Armada book, just did them no favors at all.