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So this is your chance to point out anything you noticed GW might have taken from other sci-fi sources:

THE GK DREADKNIGHT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE JAMES CAMERONS AVATAR WALKERS... sorry I saw that thing and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Cadians look like the guys from Star ship troopers

Eldar striking scorpions are predator

Tyranids=Zerg.
Space Marines=Buzz Lightyear.

yep the "blizzard coppied GW" thing

but then there is the
"GW copied Aliens" thing

GW seems to be like the rest of us, they see something cool in a movie and go "OMG THAT WTFPWNED" and use a little of it in there game

IG starship troopers?

winnertakesall wrote:IG starship troopers?

And Canadians oddly enough

The space marines were actually copied from the novel "Starship Troopers" (not the stupid movies, the novel)... if you read the book, then look through the original SM rules that's pretty obvious. Granted, GW developed them tremendously on their own after that, but it was clearly a borrowed idea. The movies are an abomination. Entertaining in their own right... but they have almost nothing to do with the novel. The soldiers in the novel were jump packed space marines, not guardsmen.

Genestealers (there were no such things as tyranids at the time) from the Aliens movies, again... at the time it was a clear inspiration/borrowing of the idea. There were also insectoid opponents in the Startship Troopers novel, so there may have been carry-over influence into the later development of the Tyranids. Again, you need to go back to the original rules sets to see some of these relationships, but having lived and gamed through all of this, the relationships were clear.

Necrons from the Terminator movies clearly, just look at the average warrior and the original Schwarzenegger terminator.

Elves (both races), dwarves and orcs were all just roll-overs from fantasy with their origins in Tolkein and/or D&D.


So, while GW snatched a lot of it's original ideas from other popular fiction of the time, they developed all of them well beyond the original concept. That's why I don't get bent out of shape about 3rd party bits manufacturers or other companies working on the fringes of GW's IP. GW did *exactly* the same thing when it was a new company... so turn-about is fair play as I see it.

Gitsplitta wrote:The space marines were actually copied from the novel "Starship Troopers" (not the stupid movies, the novel)... if you look through the original rules that's pretty plain. Granted, GW developed them tremendously on their own after that, but it was clearly a borrowed idea. The movies are an abomination. Entertaining in their own right... but they have almost nothing to do with the novel.

Genestealers (there were no such things as tyranids at the time) from the Aliens movies, again... at the time it was a clear inspiration/borrowing of the idea. There were also insectoid opponents in the Startship Troopers novel, so there may have been carry-over influence into the later development of the Tyranids.

Necrons from the Terminator movies clearly, just look at the average warrior and the T-1000 (original Schwarzenegger terminator)

Elves (both races), dwarves and orcs were all just roll-overs from fantasy with their origins in Tolkein and/or D&D.


So, while GW snatched a lot of it's original ideas from other popular fiction of the time, they developed all of them well beyond the original concept. That's why I don't get bent out of shape about 3rd party bits manufacturers or other companies working on the fringes of GW's IP. GW did *exactly* the same thing when it was a new company... so turn-about is fair play as I see it.

Exactly, how GW can pretent to be all high and mighty is lost on me

Laughing God wrote:So this is your chance to point out anything you noticed GW might have taken from other sci-fi sources:

THE GK DREADKNIGHT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE JAMES CAMERONS AVATAR WALKERS... sorry I saw that thing and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Cadians look like the guys from Star ship troopers

Eldar striking scorpions are predator

I get the sarcasm

I think the walkers from avatar are much more like the walkers from the matrix films. Avatar ripped off Dances with Wolves/fern gully.

Everything comes from something else. The Greeks came up with all these stories in mythology. Then the Romans ripped it off and called it another name. The idea for Jesus was ripped off by the Christians from the Romans who called him Mithras.

It goes on and on

Gitsplitta wrote:Necrons from the Terminator movies clearly, just look at the average warrior and the T-1000 (original Schwarzenegger terminator)

The T-1000 model was this guy:


The Schwarzenegger model hasn't had a single consistent name. He's either the T101, T800, or T850, depending on the source.


As for the original topic, GW stole all their ideas from other sources. But, those other sources all stole all of their ideas from even older sources, who in turn had stolen their ideas from even older sources. And so on, and so on.

At one point, 5000 years ago, someone had an original idea. We've all been ripping it off ever since.

and it was a bloody good idea!!

Thanks for the catch Grakmar... I'll amend my post accordingly.

Your comment made me laugh, well said.