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Which aspect of Warhammer 40000 style - medieval, gothic and fantasy or futuristic, technological and sci-fi - do you prefer and why? Which of them do you emphasize on your miniatures?

Futuristic. 40k wouldn't be 40k without the 40k years.

I emphasize the style that best suits the army I'm modelling. My Word Bearers have a lot of 'purity' seals, chains, ammo belts and pouches, and lettering painted onto the flat parts of their amrour. My Rhinos have Warrior's of Chaos Shields on the hulls, with a lot of the same stuff on my foot marines.

Gothic-Futuristic. The towering cathedrals, cybernetic priests, etc. is what immediately comes to mind when I think of 40k

The ridiculously Gothic style is what really gives the series its trademark look. We've all seen visions of the future, but few with 500 foot tall Gothic cathedrals covered in the skulls of every person who died building it. There's plenty of versions of power armor, but not many where the head is a SKULL HELMET and it has a tiny chapel on the back of the power plant.

It's ridiculous, over the top, and often hilarious, but 40k isn't 40k without the Gothic style.

It's the stark contrast of far-future technology + gothic designs that does it for me. Without the former, 40k would just be another fantasy game, without the latter it would be just another sci-fi one. This way, it is truly unique, so I'm fully with Brother SRM on this one.

That said, just like iproxtaco, there are degrees by which I would include this in a specific army. For the Imperial Guard I'd lean far more towards a WW1/WW2/dieselpunk style, for example.

Brother SRM wrote:The ridiculously Gothic style is what really gives the series its trademark look. We've all seen visions of the future, but few with 500 foot tall Gothic cathedrals covered in the skulls of every person who died building it. There's plenty of versions of power armor, but not many where the head is a SKULL HELMET and it has a tiny chapel on the back of the power plant.

It's ridiculous, over the top, and often hilarious, but 40k isn't 40k without the Gothic style.

So true.

Futuristic Science Fiction with a healthy dose of Comedy

I love the fact that 40k is crazy, and I can include all of those in the army I'm doing.

But personally, I love the image of a feral world being indoctriated into the Imperium.

With a bolter.

Depends on the army, but I love the convergence of opposites. I like the high tech mixed with the high Gothic look on Space Marines. I like the mad-science teleporters and big serrated axes on the orks. I like the sweaty, grungy camos and the laser rifles of the Catachans. I think the mixture of elements is what makes it work.

The Gothic design is totally what draws me in. And just how vividly massive the world is...Easy to get lost in.

Personally I think of the old picture of a bunch of Black Templar holding the line, some are half blown apart showing cybernetic blimbs the black and white faceless armor, the knight-esqe tabards, and the thunder of their bolters.

That is 40k.

In my DH games, with the retinue often hopping from planet to planet, I prefer to deal with extremes and sudden shifts between them. On the one hand, their ship is a rather bog-standard Inquisitorial frigate: narrow halls, dim lighting, comfortable but spartan chambers. When they went to the Lathes? I decided to super-tech that, and instead of it being a series of three planets in irregular orbits... in my DH game, the Lathe Installation is a HALO ring encircled by a trio of planets captured by gravitic generators. The interior of the HALO ring? Sci-Fi Art Deco... like something out of Bioshock.

Scintilla? Imagine Coruscant, as envisioned by a 16th century architectural madman. Iocanthos? A red-sand desert scattered with animal-hide huts and battered flat-bed haulers. I blend, mix and match all sorts of 40K imagery at various places, depending on the world and the setting.

Shadowbrand wrote:The Gothic design is totally what draws me in. And just how vividly massive the world is...Easy to get lost in.

Personally I think of the old picture of a bunch of Black Templar holding the line, some are half blown apart showing cybernetic blimbs the black and white faceless armor, the knight-esqe tabards, and the thunder of their bolters.

That is 40k.

You mean this piece?

I wish I could find a bigger image. It's one of my favorite John Blanche pieces, and as a teenager who was just getting into 40k, that image was a great introduction.

What caught my interest was the sci fi and the posters of the Imperials loosing... and then I saw what they were fighting against. That such a fantasy-esque army as Chaos could be so effectively used in the 40k era and still keep the arcane evil feel was probably what's held my attention.