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Hey,

When you think about it, alot of the races in 40k are just advanced versions of Warhammer Fantasy ones

Obviously Orks are the same, but how come they're on what I'm assuming is Earth/Terra in Fantasy? Wouldnt they still be there?

I may just be being silly and this has been done purposefully...

Alaitoc Eldar = Wood Elves
General Eldar = High Elves
Necrons = Tomb Kings
IoM = The Empire (obviously)
Orks = Orcs (Again, obvious)
Dark Eldar = Dark Elves

Tyranids would probably just have been in other galaxies, and don't come into contact with us until the 41st Millenium
The Tau Empire is a mere few thousand years old, and their race not much more, so it wouldn't have been advanced enough or even there to come into contact with us

It's not just aesthetics either, some of the background maches up, too, like Dark Elves and Dark Eldar both thrive on causing pain, and Necrons/Tomb Kings were both tricked into becoming what they are (That may not be 100% correct)

The major question is how they would come to leave the planet...


Thoughts?

Tyranid are Beastmen...killing everything and taking all the resources..and then repeating the process.

Fantasy came first, then 40k.
40k used to essentially be Fantasy in space before they deliberately changed it so it differed...

Hmm, I see...

Good point, J0kerr
Maybe the magic spells they use in Fantasy are actually phsycic powers, and magic is the warp, they just didn't know about it. The Beastmen probably ran out of stuff to pillage, and messed with magic in hope of finding somewhere new, and Warp-Travelled?

You know, somehow i don't think so...

It does seem a bit far fetched, doesn't it...

They aren't the same races, there are just parallels. Originally the fantasy realm was supposed to be in the warp, or one of the many worlds visited by the Eldar, etc etc. Plenty of different thoughts, but the deciding reason (in my opinion) they are different is this: Slaanesh was created by Eldar excessively drinking, fighting, screwing, smoking pot, and every other naughty act they could think of. Eldar doing that. Not high elves, not dark elves, Eldar. So technically the 40k universe happened at the same time/earlier. There are correlations between 40k and fantasy, but they are not the same. They just recycle the gods (chaos and elven) and make parallels between races.

Ah, That makes sense

You forgot chaos and daemons.

Necron have existed for Millennium. The only reason they didn't swoop down and destroy the Tomb Kings and all you little fantasy races is because they weren't sent there by the CTan.

Now that that is settled, it does seem odd that things are so similar. It's like someone was creating these things out of their imagination and they, intentional or not, imagined similar traits for the Fantasy and 40K versions of the races. Maybe they thought it would give people a natural way of transitioning from one game to the other (and sell more models).

This actually has some grounding in the fluff. The necron codex keeps making veiled refrences to the old ones (chained to the lizardmen of lustria, thus you can do lizards vs necrons via necron codex). It also speaks of Eldar when the race was new, and it seems like it refers to eldar as the high elves of fantasy (this is through half formed ideas laid scattered through the codex). Orks and the imperium have always been conflicting since the dawn of time (which easily could be the fantasy realm). It really isint too much of a strech to say that the two universes, while they may not be the same, are connected somehow.

It's definatly an intresting thought. I'm pretty sure there is some truth to it. Im just not sure how much.

No the writers just aren't that creative. Lets rewind to the early 80's. Games Workshop has this great idea going called Warhammer. They are making money but not as much as they would like. So somebody in the office says "hey lets make a new game system!". So they sit down and start writing but realize they have basically exhausted their ideas on fantasy. Some someone says "no problem. Everywhere in the army book it says 'crossbow' change that to 'lasgun'. And every time it says 'magic' or 'spell' change that to 'psychic'." Badda-bing Badda-boom 40k is born.

/thread

There's slightly more to it than just that - one of the most obvious influences on Games Workshop's early material was Michael Moorcock, who'd spent the preceding two decades mucking about with fantasy/mythological tropes in futuristic settings.

You forgot the dwarves and the ....

Brets are suppossed to be the SM of fantasy from what Ive been told lol

English Assassin wrote:There's slightly more to it than just that - one of the most obvious influences on Games Workshop's early material was Michael Moorcock, who'd spent the preceding two decades mucking about with fantasy/mythological tropes in futuristic settings.

You're absolutely right here. There is far more to it than simply slapping a futuristic veneer on fantasy fluff. The two universes were very close originally, however, and there was some small effort in 'uniting' the two to some degree. This changed at some point in the 90's and the universes are supposed to be entirely separate now... don't forget GW's motto of 'rumour, myth, or outright lies' though.

I might be corrected on this point, but I also believe there was a time where 40k 'gear' found its way via the warp to the fantasy realm. I can't remember where I read about this, maybe some of our more dilligent members could elaborate.

Nicholas wrote:You forgot the dwarves and the ....

Nice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PraetorDave wrote:No the writers just aren't that creative. Lets rewind to the early 80's. Games Workshop has this great idea going called Warhammer. They are making money but not as much as they would like. So somebody in the office says "hey lets make a new game system!". So they sit down and start writing but realize they have basically exhausted their ideas on fantasy. Some someone says "no problem. Everywhere in the army book it says 'crossbow' change that to 'lasgun'. And every time it says 'magic' or 'spell' change that to 'psychic'." Badda-bing Badda-boom 40k is born.

/thread

Pretty much sums it up IMO.

Except that back in those days GW did things because they thought it was cool, rather than to boost sales.

Vindicare-Obsession wrote:This actually has some grounding in the fluff. The necron codex keeps making veiled refrences to the old ones (chained to the lizardmen of lustria, thus you can do lizards vs necrons via necron codex). It also speaks of Eldar when the race was new, and it seems like it refers to eldar as the high elves of fantasy (this is through half formed ideas laid scattered through the codex). Orks and the imperium have always been conflicting since the dawn of time (which easily could be the fantasy realm). It really isint too much of a strech to say that the two universes, while they may not be the same, are connected somehow.

It's definatly an intresting thought. I'm pretty sure there is some truth to it. Im just not sure how much.

There isn't any...
As much as it would be cool for there to be some there isn't...
GW has stated that there is no connection.

As much as I'd love for them to be connected, as per GW, the games take place in separate universes and are in no way related.

There clearly is significant influence from Fantasy in 40k. Not just the basic race design, but inside the fluff, there's plenty of references to one another. (See Eldar vs High Elf runes and names of things)

The breakdown of races are (IMHO):

IoM = The Empire/Brettonia
CSM = Warriors of Chaos
Daemons = Daemons
Eldar = High Elves
Dark Eldar = Dark Elves
Necrons = Tomb Kings
Orks = Orcs mixed with Skaven (the pure horde feel, and the unreliable technology aspect)
Tyrandis don't have an exact parallel. They resembled Beastmen once, but the two have deviated significantly over the years.
Squats = Dwarves
Tau = Dwarves

Used to be a direct connection, though. At one point it was canon that the Warhammer world was in the 40K universe, trapped in a warp storm, hence no contact. That piece of fluff went the way of the Squats though.

I admit I didn't read it too closely, but didn't Liber Chaotica have a little story about someone from the Fantasy realm who gazed into a warp gate and saw the 40k universe on the other side?

And from what I understand (which is admittedly just from some fluff nut in our FLGS), the Fantasy world used to exist within the Eye of Terror, its timeline constantly resetting in order to keep the universes together. Though htj says they nixed that bit...

htj wrote:Used to be a direct connection, though. At one point it was canon that the Warhammer world was in the 40K universe, trapped in a warp storm, hence no contact. That piece of fluff went the way of the Squats though.

A little off topic
I might be blowing smoke here but I've heard that the squats are making a comeback. Any truth to that?

Vindicare-Obsession wrote:

htj wrote:Used to be a direct connection, though. At one point it was canon that the Warhammer world was in the 40K universe, trapped in a warp storm, hence no contact. That piece of fluff went the way of the Squats though.

A little off topic
I might be blowing smoke here but I've heard that the squats are making a comeback. Any truth to that?

None. There is some rumblings that the Demiurg (another dwarfish race) will be appearing as a unit in the next Tau codex.

Grakmar wrote:

Vindicare-Obsession wrote:

htj wrote:Used to be a direct connection, though. At one point it was canon that the Warhammer world was in the 40K universe, trapped in a warp storm, hence no contact. That piece of fluff went the way of the Squats though.

A little off topic
I might be blowing smoke here but I've heard that the squats are making a comeback. Any truth to that?

None. There is some rumblings that the Demiurg (another dwarfish race) will be appearing as a unit in the next Tau codex.

Also, FW produce ships for them for BFG. (Demiurg, that is)

Empire-IG
SM(all but GK)-Dwarves.Better wepons and tougher than humans/Empire /IoM
Sisters-Bretonia.Humans,but better.
Tau-Beastmen.All that is left.
Necrons-Tomb Kings,possibly Vamps as well.
GK-Orgres.All GK are Psykers,all Ogresd are monstrous.Best I could do.
Orks-Orcs,Gretchin - Goblins.
Eldar-High Elves.
Exodites-Wood Elves
DE-DE.
Chaos Marines-Chaos Warriors
Daemons-Daemons
Lzardmen-Tyranid.Ancient race,highly psychic,not native to the area.

Uhlan wrote:I might be corrected on this point, but I also believe there was a time where 40k 'gear' found its way via the warp to the fantasy realm. I can't remember where I read about this, maybe some of our more dilligent members could elaborate.

Quite correct! The old and much-missed Realm of Chaos books (and, if I recall, Warhammer Armies for 3rd ed.) allowed assorted 'tech weapons' to surface in the hands of Chaos champions.

Grakmar wrote:
CSM = Warriors of Chaos
Daemons = Daemons
Eldar = High Elves
Dark Eldar = Dark Elves
Necrons = Tomb Kings
Squats = Dwarves

Yes.

Grakmar wrote:Orks = Orcs mixed with Skaven (the pure horde feel, and the unreliable technology aspect)
IoM = The Empire/Brettonia
Tyrandis don't have an exact parallel. They resembled Beastmen once, but the two have deviated significantly over the years.
Tau = Dwarves

But no. Orks are pretty much Orcs, albeit with extra fungal fluff. Skaven have no direct analogue in Warhammer 40,000. The Empire and Brettonnia are, respectively, mediaeval/early-modern Germany with a bit of clockpunk, and mediaeval/romantic France/Britain; the Imperium's background pillages from all over human history and literature. Tyranids really aren't, and have never been, Beastmen, who weren't even a distinct army when 40K was launched. Tau are... Tau; the fantasy world doesn't really lend itself to giant anime robot suits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadshot wrote:Lzardmen-Tyranid.Ancient race,highly psychic,not native to the area.

Or maybe they're the Slann, who exist in both settings... just a wild guess.

The Eldar word for human is Mon-keigh, but the Elvish word is Kegh-mon, chew on that

Maybe the High Elves are Exodites?