I am a huge Warhammer 40k fan and I once met someone who was also a 40k fan. Dude said he played Imperium cause he was (and he said this with zero irony) a “human supremacist.” Genuinely though the Imperium were good guys. I feel like it’s needless to say, but I stopped talking to him.
I was briefly into 40k in the 00s, but once the 2010s started I slowly started getting an ick feeling from it but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
specifically, I was still cool with most of the lore, but the Imperium fanboys were getting to be unfun to be around. As I got older and wised up, I figured out around the same time many others did, that these same people just had a fascism fetish in general.
so with all that said.
Death to the false emperor Let the galaxy burn BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
As someone who likes the Space Marines, but hates Nazis and understands that Warhammer 40k is satire, I’m greatly saddened by the Fascism fan boys in the community.
I also played around the same time as you, but by total chance almost our entire group played xenos. I was craftworlds and harlequins, there was a necron player, a tau player, a tyranids player, and an orks player. We had one space marine player, I had a very small grey knights army, the necron guy had a small guard army, and a couple of chaos players. It was quite jarring to see how much GW and the hobby at large focussed on the Imperium
i never even got to the play stage. I got frustrated with the cost of materials, and having to learn how to paint, it was like trying to run 2 hobbies at once. ended up selling my stuff. so my interest was mostly video games. and still then, theres only a handful of 40K games I liked
tried it again in the later 2010s, same effect, i wont make the mistake a 3rd time.
If the setting and tabletop gameplay interest you but the craft and painting side plus the associated cost puts you off, it might be worth looking into Tabletop Simulator. Basically a virtual tabletop, and one of the many things you can play on it is WH40k - and now, of course, all the models come pre-“painted” and at no additional cost per model
yeah played as a child, first lotr, then fantasy and then a little bit of 40k
for 40k i had a space marine army because they where in the starter box and i liked the bolters, but besides the generic space marines (which could be painted in any color sceme you liked) there where just the wolf chapter (grey wolfs or something?) and the blood angles back then, the other armies where all different races and in my local gw every faction was present.
but a year ago i dusted off my collection, got back into lotr (now mesbg), it was always my main game, but also took a look at the warhammer stuff on the gw website:
More then half the fucking 40k factions are now different flavors of space marines! What happened to coming up with own lore for your space marine chapter/color scheme?
There are now even space marines in fantasy! WTF?! (Stormcast Eternals)
I played Imps and I still cannot wrap my head around people thinking the empire is the good guy. The appeal to me is that they are normal people pulled into an unfair and cruel world led by people who are entirely indifferent to their suffering. The best IG stories always involve a lot of infighting.
These days I don’t really tell people I am into it.
It sounds like most people who are really into superhero comics, then start to question the whole “let these elites fight for their brand of justice without the consent of anyone else” and then you wonder what your principles are.
Mine currently swing between “huh, maybe elites with a good code of conduct is a net win” and “huh, maybe anarchy is ideal form of state”.
They only people I know who play 40k are obsessed with Orks. Dunno what kind of person that makes them, but at least they aren’t nazis.
It might be the same phenomenon as bimbofication / puppygirl stuff, where one longs to be released from the responsibility of thinking
It’s quite simple really.
If they play the Death Korps of Krieg, who look like they’re probably really nice people.
> join good group
> look inside
> neo-nazis
