Just wondering how many have truly realised what GW do to name their vehicles.

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**Cryonicleech**

Yeah, I've noticed this.

A lot of it stems from ancient symbols rather than literal translations, though I agree GW is getting sloppy.

Devil Dog? Deathstrike? Eradicator? Laem. Do something like Centaur (Which Forgeworld has done, to their credit) or Gorgon (Which also may or may not exist as a tank...)

Surprisingly, Lamia, Hellhound, and other similar beasts/humanoids make up GW's fluff, which is kinda cool.

**asimo77**

tavoittamaton wrote:
Mukkin'About wrote:
asimo77 wrote:Coincidentally dark eldar vehicles share the same names with what I like to call my member.

so your "Raider" likes to "Ravager" and shoots "Venom"?
Classy

asimo77 wrote:Something like that. I occasionally call him "obliterator" or "terminator" as well.

And here I was hoping for Talos Pain Engine

'Cept that the Talos is a monstorous creature. Get yo self knowledge-ified foo!

Actually now that I think of it monstorous creature ain't a bad name either...

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Perkustin wrote:Perseus entered the labyrinth of King Minos to face the ancient greek monster known only as 'Devil Dog'!

When did Perseus go to Crete? If it was on his return journey with the head of Medusa he could have saved Theseus the bother of having to slay the Minotaur.

Re Skyray

Rays are a family of cartilagenous fish as we all know the most famous is
Stingray.
Anything can happen in the next half hour!

The Skyray was also a lovely looking delta winged USN carrier jet aircraft

**micahaphone**

Well of course GW chooses understandable names for their vehicles. Not many people would play a relistic version, with genetically enhanced first strike rapid insertion soldiers in cybernetically controlled heavy infantry armor, wielding B-274 mk. VIIs, riding in the mk. IV S-293 Armored Personnel Carrier.
(That's space marines, with bolters, in a rhino.)

**tavoittamaton**

Cryonicleech wrote:Devil Dog? Deathstrike? Eradicator? Laem. Do something like Centaur (Which Forgeworld has done, to their credit) or Gorgon (Which also may or may not exist as a tank...)

Not sure how relevant this is, but US Marines are nicknamed Devil Dogs after this story...

Wikipedia wrote:The Battle of Belleau Wood was fought in France in the summer of 1918, in the midst of a heat wave. At some point during the battle, the Marines were ordered to take a hill occupied by German forces. As the Marines made ready to charge the hill, word came down from command that the Germans were preparing to use mustard gas to repel the attack. As a precaution, the Marines were ordered to put on their gas masks and take the hill. While the Marines fought their way up the hill, the heat caused them to sweat profusely, foam at the mouth and turned their eyes bloodshot. Additionally, at some points the hill was very steep, which caused the Marines to have to scramble on all fours to make their way up. Consequently, from the Germans' vantage point, they witnessed a pack of tenacious, growling figures whose lower faces were obscured by gas masks (which at the time had a prolonged shape that somewhat resembled a snout) but left open their bloodshot eyes and mouth foam seeping from the sides, advancing up the hill, sometimes on all fours, and killing everything in their way. As the legend goes, the German soldiers, upon seeing this spectacle, began to yell that they were being attacked by "dogs from hell."

asimo77 wrote:'Cept that the Talos is a monstorous creature. Get yo self knowledge-ified foo!

Actually now that I think of it monstorous creature ain't a bad name either...

Now which one sounds more impressive to you?

**Budgie**

Thats a cool story on the marines..

It seems that most armies have vehicle themes, but the Imperial Navy got lazy.... Marauder, Aquila, Thunderbolt, Lightning...

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

This is true Mica but I think the OP was drawing attention to the patterns.

For example Grumman's carrier bourne fighter aircraft were all named after cats

F-4F Wildcat
F-6F Hellcat
F-7FTigercat
F-8F Bearcat

But of course they were from the same stable.
In contrast the names of the Hundred series of fighter jets have little in common:
F-100 SuperSabre
F-101 Voodoo
F-102 Delta Dagger
F-104 Starfighter
F-105 Thunderchief
F-106 Delta Dart
being from different manufacturers.

**oadie**

At the risk of sounding elitist, I've always thought GW naming conventions, whichever vein they were in, were pretty... well, obvious. Since it was all hanging out there, I didn't give them a second thought until I started noticing people attempting to mimic the style and getting it wrong (inasmuch as one can get homebrew fluff "wrong").

I'll go shuffle back into my little academic hidey-hole now...

**Cantus**

oadie wrote:At the risk of sounding elitist, I've always thought GW naming conventions, whichever vein they were in, were pretty... well, obvious. Since it was all hanging out there, I didn't give them a second thought until I started noticing people attempting to mimic the style and getting it wrong (inasmuch as one can get homebrew fluff "wrong").

I'll go shuffle back into my little academic hidey-hole now...

Same here, just by reading the codex and seeing them next to each other I thought it would be fairly hard to miss. I guess if you don't automatically equate the names with the myths it wouldn't be as obvious.

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Okay please explain what Perseus was doing in Crete
I am still waiting for an answer.

Lets's put that to the test Cantus.
Rhino
Razorback- okay wild boar
Predator
okay two animals and animal behaviour so far so good
Vindicator
Whirlwind
wha... where did the zoology go?

**Jackmojo**

Victimized Tyrant wrote:Carnifex is latin for Executioner, not butcher. Thank you death metal!

Actually it's both.

Jack

**115th Cadian Shock Troops**

ChiliPowderKeg wrote:The odd one out is the Skyray, I wonder how that wasn't named a fish

Maybe the air caste realised all their vehicles were being named after fish from earth and decided that they weren't going for that?

**loranafaeriequeen**

What is an immolator then?

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Something that destroys moles

**loranafaeriequeen**

right now, it is something that is sitting on my table waiting for me to paint it.

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

For a more sensible answer:

tr.v. im·mo·lat·ed, im·mo·lat·ing, im·mo·lates
1. To kill as a sacrifice.
2. To kill (oneself) by fire.
3. To destroy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Latin immolre, immolt-, to sacrifice, sprinkle with sacrificial meal : in-, on; see in-2 + mola, meal, millstone; see mel- in Indo-European roots.]

Interesting that the meaning of meal is implicit

**loranafaeriequeen**

after looking it up i realized all of the sisters vehicles have good inquisition names. I really was just curious if it maintained the pattern.

**zadelistol**

I always took the Banewolf as being switched words in Wolf Bane, i could be wrong since its Wolves bane.(the only thing other then silver that could kill a werewolf if I remember correctly)

**Elector**

Predators are aliens from a Shwarzenegger film, not an animal

Also, Perseus. son of Zeus, killed the Medusa and saved Andromeda from a sea monster Poseidon sent along...Theseus was the son of a primordial king of Athens as well as the son of Poseidon and slew the Minotaur

**BluntmanDC**

To be honest seeing as 40K was ment to originally be WFB in space i thought the naming of vehicules was obvious.

**Kilkrazy**

I thought it was done by playing Scrabble.

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Everything would be named with those 3 letter high scoring words that nobody use in conversation anymore, instead of mythological names that nobody use in conversation anymore.

**Ailaros**

Kilkrazy wrote:I thought it was done by playing Scrabble.

Were that true, the dedicated transport of the Imperial Guard would be the "Zygote" and it's artillery would be named things like the "Oxidize" and the "Cazique".

"Rhino" only gets you 8 points.

**Kilkrazy**

Hey, GW are gak at writing rules, they are probably gak at playing Scrabble too.

**Ailaros**

lol

"We need a new name for this new Blood Angels vehicle that is a wave serpent that throws assaulting dreadnoughts straight into close combat from the other side of the board."

"How about the kwijibo?"

hours later...

"Alright, we're down to the Storm Raven, or the Kwijibo. Can we please just vote so that we can go home?"

**skrulnik**

Perkustin wrote:Perseus entered the labyrinth of King Minos to face the ancient greek monster known only as 'Devil Dog'!

The best example is tyranids they are named after positions in Roman/greek society. Lictor (senator bodyguard) Haruspex (a prophet who divines the future from entrails) Carnifex (Latin for Butcher) tyrant (a greek king), Harridan is a classical word (not sure if greek or roman) for a horrible old lady. Zoanthropy was a greek word for some mental illness. pretty sure there was a Praetor in Epic. Then in third and fifth addition they got sloppy 'gargoyle', 'tyrannofex', 'tervigon' etc The oddest name for tyranids is termagant it was a word used in the Dark ages to refer to muslims.
Drizzle bolter, cloudy cannon, sleet missile launcher. My member is called the 'Grotesque' or 'Talos pain engine'

Termagant is another archaic term similar to harridan. Both meaning a scolding woman .
They also had the Dominatrix in Epic. All similar in that they refer to a female authority figure.
This is parallelled by the Tyrant, Lictor, and Carnifex being male.

**mwnciboo**

Here is a Question, have the Tau named their vehicles or is it the Imperial Designator name that we use?

Let me explain with an example from the COLD WAR,

The Soviet Submarine known in NATO as a "SIERRA" was actually called a "BARRACUDA" or PROJECT 945 in Russian.

Another would be a "TYPHOON" in NATO Designator (the massive SSBN "Hunt for red october") was known in Russian as an "AKULA" or Shark.

However the "AKULA" in NATO was actually the Russian "PROJECT 971". Confusing eh? This was deliberate by Russian Intelligence to sow the seeds of confusion within NATO.

The Reason I highlight this is because I am sure the TAU would call their Hammerhead a Tu'aele'edj (whatever) but Hammerhead is the Imperial Designator for the Vehicle in question.. Does anyone agree/disagree with this premise?

**Chibi Bodge-Battle**

Good call Mwnciboo

Eastern block fighters got called by names beginning with F
Fagot Fishbed Foxbat Forgot the rest of the NATO names

Bombers with B:
Badger Bear bloody useless memory

In WW2 the Japanese fighters had boys' names, girls' names for the bombers. eg Zeke Frank Tony Betty Lily etc

but again those were the names assigned by the Allies and not the Japanese.
By the end of the war they prolly just called them all coffins.

**Ailaros**

mwnciboo wrote:Here is a Question, have the Tau named their vehicles or is it the Imperial Designator name that we use?

The imperial designator.

Carnifexes don't call themselves carnifexes, they call themselves "RAAAAAAAWRRR!"

As consorting in any way with xenos or traitors of any type or to utter anything they have created is heresy, nobody really knows what they call themselves. Thus, people use the term that the Imperium has officially sanctioned that people can call them.

Well, except perhaps some of the ork stuff, as they appear to be able to speak low gothic.

**Mordoskul**

I noticed this.

I prefer to call my member the 'Striking Scorpian' or the 'Vibro-'cannon'.