Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLIII: "This Is A New LoW For Us All"

[Cheesegear]

All of this can be explored in the fluff and novels, different spokes for different folks and all that.

The problem is that I haven't seen it explored, and I doubt you have either... Maybe in those Warhammer: Adventures novels for kids? I dunno. Haven't read them. Nothing about them appeals to me.

I give a pass on the Primarchs' dumb names because that's before 3rd Ed. - let alone 5th Ed.
I give a pass on Necromunda because the dumb stuff from that game has been around for as long as I have.

If you can point me to anything written post-5th Ed. that is abjectly designed to be stupid and made fun of, points for you, I guess.

Like, a designer went to GW's shareholders and said 'See this product? It's stupid and meant to be made fun of. I think it's neat.'
And the shareholders go 'We approve this laughing stock (pun unintended)!'

...Cause I can't think of anything even remotely like that.

Even The Waaagh! was retconned to actually make sense - a while back, at that. Orks aren't even a joke anymore...And yet Space Wolves are? Okay. Sure.

[Grim Portent]

If you can point me to anything written post-5th Ed. that is abjectly designed to be stupid and made fun of, points for you, I guess.

Logan Grimnar riding a grav-sleigh pulled by wolves? I cannot countenance that the designers weren't thinking of Santa Clause more than Thor and his goats or Freja and her cats when they designed that.

Or the Sloppity Bilepiper, which is weird and silly even for Nurgle unless you go waaaay back to the idea of a Nurgle carnival.

The other full model examples that leap to mind are from AoS, which has soaked up a lot of the goofy, but there's little also more little 40k things like the memed on smiley heads for chaos marine Chosen, the sassy nurgling from the Death Guard and so on.

[Wraith]

Like, a designer went to GW's shareholders and said 'See this product? It's stupid and meant to be made fun of. I think it's neat.'
And the shareholders go 'We approve this laughing stock (pun unintended)!'

...Cause I can't think of anything even remotely like that.

Trazyn the Infinite dumping the Bell of Gerstahl into the webway because it had trashed some of his collection - and hoping it would similarly mess up some passing Aeldari out of petty grumpiness - is pretty much the only thing I can think of.

We also made fun of The Gathering Storm in general, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't GW's intent....

[Eldan]

Most of the Infinite and the Divine, really.

[Blackhawk748]

Trazyn the Infinite dumping the Bell of Gerstahl into the webway because it had trashed some of his collection - and hoping it would similarly mess up some passing Aeldari out of petty grumpiness - is pretty much the only thing I can think of.

We also made fun of The Gathering Storm in general, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't GW's intent....

I think Trazyn absorbed all of the silliness that should be more spread out, cuz he's very difficult to take seriously.

[Cheesegear]

Logan Grimnar riding a grav-sleigh pulled by wolves? I cannot countenance that the designers weren't thinking of Santa Clause more than Thor and his goats or Freja and her cats when they designed that.

Sure. But were they designing it because they thought it was silly and stupid, or did they design it thinking that people would think it was cool - and they were just wrong?
(I wonder how the designer of the Wolf Helm sprue feels right now.)

I think Trazyn absorbed all of the silliness that should be more spread out, cuz he's very difficult to take seriously.

Fair enough. Trazyn is a Get Out of Jail Free Card because he's basically The Master. He can anything he wants, anytime he wants, he's evil and insane, and he can't really die. That gives creative writers - the serious ones and the stupid ones - a lot of freedom to write basically whatever they want. If it's serious, it's in character. If it's stupid, it's also in character. Do whatever you want and it works.

[noob]

I think Trazyn absorbed all of the silliness that should be more spread out, cuz he's very difficult to take seriously.

He goes around and collect the sillyness, for him nothing is impossible to collect.
Eventually everything but him will be completely serious.

[Wraith]

On further reflection, the funniest moment - and intentionally so - that I have read in recent 40k comes from a very unexpected source; Azrael, Chapter Master of the Dark Angels.

He had a short story called The Trials of Azrael where he ends up alone on a Space Hulk save for a lone Imperial Guardswoman, and through various shenanigans they get separated - she being chased by some Chaos Marines who are bashing down a door to get at her, while he is elsewhere trying not to get eviscerated by Khârne the Betrayer. Azrael escapes through luck and ingenuity, and runs off to help his human friend, who is about to die as the doors are giving way; preparing to sell herself dearly, she waits until the last second as the doors collapse and opens fire with her laspistol....

...And accidentally shoots Azrael in the chest. He's killed the Chaos Marines single-handed and kicked the door in to rescue her, only to get shot for his troubles.

And then he snarks at her. He says something witty like "Well, is that the thanks I get for saving your life?" and then smirks at her horrified expression.

It's a really good story, and it started a trend for depicting Azrael as actually being a pretty cool guy who doesn't sweat the small things and understands how intimidating he can be to the point where he uses it for... Well, not really jokes, but he's the least grim-faced and deranged Dark Angels Chapter Master since Corswain, and it's great. He's even (comparatively) nice to Luther at one point.

[Drasius]

On further reflection, the funniest moment - and intentionally so - that I have read in recent 40k comes from a very unexpected source; Azrael, Chapter Master of the Dark Angels.

He had a short story called The Trials of Azrael where he ends up alone on a Space Hulk save for a lone Imperial Guardswoman, and through various shenanigans they get separated - she being chased by some Chaos Marines who are bashing down a door to get at her, while he is elsewhere trying not to get eviscerated by Khârne the Betrayer. Azrael escapes through luck and ingenuity, and runs off to help his human friend, who is about to die as the doors are giving way; preparing to sell herself dearly, she waits until the last second as the doors collapse and opens fire with her laspistol....

...And accidentally shoots Azrael in the chest. He's killed the Chaos Marines single-handed and kicked the door in to rescue her, only to get shot for his troubles.

And then he snarks at her. He says something witty like "Well, is that the thanks I get for saving your life?" and then smirks at her horrified expression.

It's a really good story, and it started a trend for depicting Azrael as actually being a pretty cool guy who doesn't sweat the small things and understands how intimidating he can be to the point where he uses it for... Well, not really jokes, but he's the least grim-faced and deranged Dark Angels Chapter Master since Corswain, and it's great. He's even (comparatively) nice to Luther at one point.

That's also an Audiobook, and while I don't know that i would say that it's *good*, it was enjoyable. It was also one of the earlier Audiobooks - I want to say it came out around the same time as Ascension of Balthazar which was the tie-in with the DA/Chaos starter for 6th (and was also surprisingly decent/enjoyable). The one thing I distinctly remember was how it sort of stuck to the rules of 6th and was very obvious about Kharn only getting 2 hits in on Azrael, since he only had 3W.

[Lord Torath]

Wins? Nonsense.

Alpharius Omegon is named for the Alpha and the Omega, from the Greek alphabet meaning "First" and "Last".

His name means 'Mr. Firstname Lastname'.

Come to think of it, the only Primarch whose name isn't an obvious pun or silly reference is Perturabo, and that might just be because I've not worked it out.

Perturb: : to throw into confusion/disorder

I have many of the old pewter models, and I like many of them much better than the newer models. I particularly like the old, 2E pewter Howling Banshees, Striking Scorpions, and Harlequins. They give me the feeling that Eldar have perfected melee combat to the point that it's like a dance to them, as they gracefully flow between forms. I like the 3E Banshee Exarch, though.

But that's just me.

I like the 4E tyranids the best, although I also really like the 2E genestealers, Hive Tyrants, and Carnifexes.

[Eldan]

Still think he's more "Perdurabo" than "preturb". Maybe he's a bit of both.