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This thread is about strange things that you've noticed about 40k, but can scarcely explain!

I actually had a handful of items but can only remember one, right now. I'll post the other things if I remember.

Anyway: why are so many space marines left-handed??? Thing about. Go look at your assault marines; how many of them are holding their swords in their left hand? Like, half, right? I dunno about you, but I'm a righty and it seems like it would be pretty awkward to use your sword in the off-hand.

I was thinking about this and I only came up with two things:

1. It's simply an oversite by the model makers who wanted to have a diverse looking squad.

2. Something about the population of potential space marines is that they are left handed. Maybe GW is implying that lefties are genetically superior? I dunno.

Oh, I dunno. If I had to choose between using a sword or a gun in my favored hand, I'd choose the gun. Putting the sword in my off hand by default.

Besides, space marines are almost certainly ambidextrous.

ashrog wrote:Oh, I dunno. If I had to choose between using a sword or a gun in my favored hand, I'd choose the gun. Putting the sword in my off hand by default.

Besides, space marines are almost certainly ambidextrous.

yep they are, check out Inquisitor, shows you what a real marine can do lol

Iirc Deathwatch, says all Space marines are genetically enhanced(?) to be ambidextrous


EDIT:Ninja'd

Yeah all space marines are ambidextrous, so have no off-hand.

although they will still likely use the favored hand they were born with as a matter or preference.



although, even though i am right handed, i feel that certain weapons would be better in my left then right.


I would use a sword with my right, but if i was given a PF i would actually feel more comfortable with it on my left. especially if i also have a stormbolter in my right(better aiming)




the Ambidexterous bit also explains why bolters have ammo ejectors on both sides of the gun.

Back to OP.
How about the concept of eldar rangers having hoods when they are an alien race, the hood was used by humans 38 millennias ago! How did the eldar start using them in their prime without voodoo mindmelding.
Also the fact that weapons like guns, knives, grenades, etc, look the same as human's is strange. I mean look at the tau pulse rifle, similar shape to that of a lasgun, classic rifle shape.
P.S. I look back at what I said and think proper, deep si-fi. lol

well, if a design is useful to a race, wouldn't it be useful to another race with the same basic body style.

a hood can shield your eyes from the rays of the sun. it can also have a certain color to hide the wearers head by breaking up the profile.


a knife is very simple. a cutting edge attached to a handle. as long as a race has a hand of the same basic shape as another won't it make sense that they would develop similer looking things to use in those hands?


a grenade is, at it's most basic principal, a case with an explosive charge. the case is designed to shatter into deadly shards when the charge explodes. the logical result is a cannister of cylindrical or round shape that has an explosive charge.

Tyranids with "guns" is rather bizarre. I know they're biomorphs and very alien in their construct, but they still resemble "conventional" firearms and I would expect things like the Fleshborer to resemble handguns less.

Fleshborers ar a little wierd in that regard. they look like a living Ak-47


all the other Tyranid guns look sufficiently alien though.

I guess there's only so many ways to accelerate an object to sufficient speed whilst maintaining an accurate and predictable trajectory. Most of these ways involve a tube, rails or a catapult etc. Anything without a solid object to fire still needs aiming, the simplest way is to point it. This will then require a long enough object to be pointed with any accuracy over battlefield distances. Only so many ways to skin that particular cat.

In second edition Orks and Eldar didn't even have their own basic weapons. Orks used bolters and Eldar had lasguns

on the original question, why are emperors children still called EMPERORS children if the are renegade.....l

lion_el_johnson wrote:on the original question, why are emperors children still called EMPERORS children if the are renegade.....l

They do that to mock the Emperor.

I would imagine still being called the emperor's children is a big two fingers to the imperium. Knowing that they were favoured and still turned as a reminder that nothing the emperor had or did is safe from chaos. Or something like that.

Edit: ninja'd

Reanimator wrote:I would imagine still being called the emperor's children is a big two fingers to the imperium. Knowing that they were favoured and still turned as a reminder that nothing the emperor had or did is safe from chaos. Or something like that.

Edit: ninja'd

“I'm a ninja of the [...] arts."
~Blink 182

Surely they might have the blade of a knife at a different angle? You know so that it is at right angles to the hilt, so it makes an L shape. Out of the multitude of races in 40k, one of them must make them different.
Also I except that the eldar, who are similar psychologicaly to humans, have similar ways of building things, but necrons? well we don't know much about the necrontyr, maybe their guns are the same as the guns used by necrons.

How the power weapon the Dark Eldar Sybarite wields is over half the size of the Sybarite but he does not fall over due to the weight.

Magic Eldar Materials...Their armor is much thinner and lighter than humans but can be the equivalent. A padded bodysuit is as effective as heavy carapace armor. If that is the case, I can can see Eldar blades being super light...

What is not strange in 40k?

Tanks using WWI design yet have piercing power much more powerful than today's most modern tanks.

Aliens with so weird motives that they themselves don't know what to do anymore.

Humanity so Xenophobic that when they see a bug with 7 legs they shoot it on sight.

And creatures from other dimension so powerful that they can take you very soul.

Add a war that has no end and you get a very strange - but interesting place.

How every sentinent species in the galaxy is bipedial.

winnertakesall wrote:How every sentinent species in the galaxy is bipedial.

Because all others where destroyed by Imperium?

And why Eldar look like Humans?

winnertakesall wrote:How every sentinent species in the galaxy is bipedial.

Thyrrus

Harriticus wrote:

winnertakesall wrote:How every sentinent species in the galaxy is bipedial.

Thyrrus

Not a race beyond fluff, there is less than ten full lines about them on lexicanum. No, I mean races actually made my GW, you could pick out lots of non-bipedial races from distant fluff and bring them up, but I mean ones with models and are actually an army.

Not every race in the galaxy was/is bipedel.


The Zoats, Interix, Nids, Jokearo...



and being Bipedal is a efficient bioform.

assuming a race only has 2 pairs of limbs, only having 1 pair for walking allows the other pair to be free for manipulating objects.


the Zoats, Interix, and Nids get/got around this by having more then 2 pairs of limbs.

the Jokearo only have 2 pairs of limbs, but we really can't call them true bipeds.

I'm sure that nids could be bipedel if the need arouses
As far as I know jokaero are bipedel. But my opinion is quoted from lexicanum, I don't know much about jokaero.

well, they are apes so they are kinda bipedal.

they CAN walk on their hind legs, but only for short periods of time.

Austragalis wrote:This thread is about strange things that you've noticed about 40k, but can scarcely explain!

I actually had a handful of items but can only remember one, right now. I'll post the other things if I remember.

Anyway: why are so many space marines left-handed??? Thing about. Go look at your assault marines; how many of them are holding their swords in their left hand? Like, half, right? I dunno about you, but I'm a righty and it seems like it would be pretty awkward to use your sword in the off-hand.

I was thinking about this and I only came up with two things:

1. It's simply an oversite by the model makers who wanted to have a diverse looking squad.

2. Something about the population of potential space marines is that they are left handed. Maybe GW is implying that lefties are genetically superior? I dunno.

They like Legend of Zelda games, so like Link they hold swords in their left hands.

Brother Coa wrote:

winnertakesall wrote:How every sentinent species in the galaxy is bipedial.

Because all others where destroyed by Imperium?

And why Eldar look like Humans?

Humans look kind of like eldar. Preserver theory, to use a Star Trek paradigm.

Eldar were DESIGNED to look as they do and designed to be "perfect" according to their creators.
Human evolution is an accident. It was not planned. It came about because of a galactic cataclysm that killed off any other sentient life in the galaxy (c.f. "Nature abhors a vacuum").
It is the result of certain mutations becoming dominant then successfully breeding true.

Which sister decided that a giant organ that fires mortars by playing an organ was a practical idea?