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I've recently figured out that it is impossible for me to play the bad guys in Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. So when I started off I chose to play fantasy with the Chaos Daemons. That was short lived. I just couldn't get a good grasp on the "fluff", it didn't appeal to me. I've, since then changed to the Imperial Guard who I absolutely love. IT was a rough start but I eventually figured out how to run a good solid mechanized list. Now I get to my problem... I want to start up a new army, but want to steer away from Space Marines if I can, because they seem overplayed, though when I look the other armies that look good are "evil". Is this a curse or a gift? Can someone please help me out on this one. Thanks.

Cue people telling you there's no such thing as "good guys" and completely ignoring the nature of morality.
Check out the Dark Angels codex. They're what marines used be like before SW and BT. Interesting, powerful in their way, but no T6 heroes or Long Fang silliness.

I dont think Nids are evil. There is no great leadership telling people to hate, or steal, or kick puppies. Nids (who I just have no want to play) are no more evil than a bee, or a crab or a shark. It only knows that it needs to eat and make more in order to live. I am sure if Nids were able to speak, and able to reason past the natural need to do what they do, then I would think different.
Tau are not evil, for the greater good and all. Imperal Dogma just stats they are evil and wrong for being blue or something
The only "badguys" I would think of are Dark Eldar, and Necrons, cause even Chaos, while they do bad things, at times, I am sure people turned to Chaos for good reasons.

That's the beauty of the game. There really are no bad guys. Just differing shades of grey.

"Good" armies are as follows:

Tau
Eldar

Yup that's pretty much it for non-marine armies.

Now you could use space wolves and just spam wolf riders, fast attack wolves, guys riding wolves in elite and HQ slots, and furthermore with one guy you can take wolves as troops.

Then again, you can run whole biker armies with the normal codex for marines.

Sisters of battle are also marines in a sense, but then not really.

The only other thing you could do is run Grey Knights as an inquisition/assassin army.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:That's the beauty of the game. There really are no bad guys. Just differing shades of grey.

This is as opposed to real life in which objective boolean morality prevails, of course.

Joey wrote:Cue people telling you there's no such thing as "good guys" and completely ignoring the nature of morality.

There are no such thing as "good guys"...in 40k.

Lol, no seriously, there are some good guys, but they are few and far between. Even then, they've got a little bit of dirt on them. If you want clear cut good guys, you're pretty S.O.L. I think if you want that kind of three-color heroism sort of vibe, then fantasy might be more your speed. That being said, Salamanders, Grey Knights, Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, (and about a dozen other Space Marine offshoots) can be classified as "good guys" in some respects. Maybe Tau, Sisters of Battle, Imperial Guard, or Eldar, depending on your point of view. All of those armies have heroic people in them, they just are not, as a whole, "good guys" one hundred percent of the time.

In 40k, heroism and the moral high ground are experiences people have, not states of existence they live in.

40k has no good guys. All factions are evil, just some more evil than others. If you want the least evil faction, I would suggest Imperial Guard or Tau or maybe the Eldar. They're all non-Astartes who aren't quite evil as Chaos (arguably).

The Tau are the most benevolent and tolerant of the lot. They expand in the name of their ideal of civilization and peace, and you are free to join them. Else, well, let's say they're beginning to learn that diplomacy only gets you so far against ever-belligerant factions.

In reaction to another post, the Eldar only really care about their precious selves. They will oppose some big threats of galactic scale, mainly because they happen to be part of the endangered galaxy.

Joey wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:That's the beauty of the game. There really are no bad guys. Just differing shades of grey.

This is as opposed to real life in which objective boolean morality prevails, of course.

Why yes, have you ever discussed politics with a human being ? That's often the kind of impression you get

Or he was saying that in reference to, y'know, other works of fiction.

Play Eldar.

Id go with orcs. Their political views are simple. They have simple goals, and pretty straight forward mentality. They don't use deceit, blackmail, evil chaos psyker powers or follow the whims of some tyrannical hitler bent on genocide.

They do have a might makes right attitude, and want to bash break steal and burn whatever they can, but that's just the way they are, and they don't BS you About it. a horde of orcs shows up and the intent is clear. Not so much with other factions.

Orcs are the least evil out there because they have a simple, straightforward mentality that does not take orders or direction from evil sources.

- Imperium (sm/IG/meq/sob) -'if your diffrent then us we are going to bomb your planet untill it's a radioactive toxic wasteland, or burn, Bolter, crucify you as required.
- tau: if you don't do what we say, we will shoot you and make you do it anyway.
- necrons: GET THE EFF OFF MY LAWN!!!! **gauss fire*** GET THE CORPSE OFF MY DIRT!!
- eldar: your diffrent then us, stoopid and ignorant, so we must "do the galaxy a favor and remove you for your own good"
- dark eldar: BDSM soul vampires
- chaos: evil daemon worshippers
- tyranids: hungry hungry hippos meets aliens multiplied with a bad. Case of the munches.

How are imperial guardsman "good" guys. They worship a ruined corpse of a guy who's doctrines are worse than the leader of the 3rd Reiche. The commissars execute the platoon leaders if they fail a moral check. Heck, Chaos only kills its champs to summon a greater demon, not just for failing morale checks.

They're all evil!

DarthSpader wrote:Id go with orcs. Their political views are simple. They have simple goals, and pretty straight forward mentality. They don't use deceit, blackmail, evil chaos psyker powers or follow the whims of some tyrannical hitler bent on genocide.

They do have a might makes right attitude, and want to bash break steal and burn whatever they can, but that's just the way they are, and they don't BS you About it. a horde of orcs shows up and the intent is clear. Not so much with other factions.

Orcs are the least evil out there because they have a simple, straightforward mentality that does not take orders or direction from evil sources.

OY! You fink we's is simple and cuddly? Ask any families uv' dem Imperials wot got stomped on Army-geddon or got enslaved on Mordax if we's is good an un-genocidey. You fink we doesn't use blackmail? lemme read ya a quote from da ork codex:

"You give us a thousand shootas each time we visit and yer ain't got no more worries, see?" -quote box, an ork warboss to a planetary governor. Codex Orks. Page 53

Now I'm off ta stomp more humies!

Ok well... Perhaps. But at least Dey is straight up 'bout it.

I think its really about the fluff and your creativity. Eldar can be good and bad, depending on your army's story.

Necrons too - remember it's all relative views, just red about each army and create your own little story. Good luck

If by "good guys" you mean IoM, your only real non-MEQ option after IG is SoB, and even they have fair share of 3+ armour. Luckily for me I'm the compete opposite to you, I cant get myself to use a "good guy" army, being opposed to power army is much easier if you're a fan of Chaos/Xenos forces

Eldar and Tau are towards the brighter end of the grimdark scale as far as Xeno's go, and depending on how your IG list is built, both could offer you a different play style.

The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Awesome. Just awesome.

I suppose though that the Imperial Guard and other non marine humanoids would be the least evil. You may say that the Imperium is terribly xenophobic and all that nonsense but when it comes down to it, the normal human soldier is probably fairly innocent- save for the indoctrination regimen they are subject to.

Also, if we still lived with dinosaurs, I'm pretty sure you would want them killed off because they are a threat to humans-much like xenos are.

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Good by merit that they're just doing what they have to to survive.
I doubt you can subjectively call a totalitarian state which has highly repressive tendencies good, but objectively it's for survival, so it can be argued to be good in the long run.

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

The Imperium are definately not the good guys.

The cloest to the 'good guys' in W40K would be the Tau, although you could argue Orks or Tyranids aren't either. The Tau do not shoot people who do not join them, i don't know why people say it's "Join us or die" as i have seen no evidance of this in fluff. They are out to conquer the galaxy like everyone else, though - but they will let you join them instead of just killing you.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Good by merit that they're just doing what they have to to survive.
I doubt you can subjectively call a totalitarian state which has highly repressive tendencies good, but objectively it's for survival, so it can be argued to be good in the long run.

Subjectively you can since the alternative is the end of humanity...that'd suck. And objective morality doesn't exist.

Ignatius wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Awesome. Just awesome.

I suppose though that the Imperial Guard and other non marine humanoids would be the least evil. You may say that the Imperium is terribly xenophobic and all that nonsense but when it comes down to it, the normal human soldier is probably fairly innocent- save for the indoctrination regimen they are subject to.

Also, if we still lived with dinosaurs, I'm pretty sure you would want them killed off because they are a threat to humans-much like xenos are.

Well yeah. Also bare in mind that xenophobia in 40k is literal. Irl it means being afraid of foreigners, in 40k it's a rational reaction to external threats. Life is a struggle, men do what they can to survive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mentlegen324 wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

The Imperium are definately not the good guys.

If the Imperium acted in a way that you consider "good", humanity would be wiped out in a matter of years.

Joey wrote:

Mentlegen324 wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.

The Imperium are definately not the good guys.

If the Imperium acted in a way that you consider "good", humanity would be wiped out in a matter of years.

Which means that, since humanity hasn't been wiped out, you agree with the poster that the Imperium isn't good.

Eldar and Tau are towards the brighter end of the grimdark scale as far as Xeno's go, and depending on how your IG list is built, both could offer you a different play style.

Eldar: Armageddon was caused because those orks would have killed 100 eldar in their lifetime.. They killed trillions of humans of Armageddon over two major wars

Eldar are xenophobic, and Hate Everyone, they'll agree to work with you only to kill you later. They'll sacrifice billions of innocents for their plans, they'll divert and use you and than throw you away, with only the harlequins being the "good" ones...And even than they still work and help the Dark Eldar, and want to unite the two, even without fixing the dark eldars problems.

To put it simply, an Eldars life would be above an entire Star system of your kind's life. Though a "few" don't see it this way, Biel-tan doesn't even consider your life important regardless of what you do.

Joey wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Good by merit that they're just doing what they have to to survive.
I doubt you can subjectively call a totalitarian state which has highly repressive tendencies good, but objectively it's for survival, so it can be argued to be good in the long run.

Subjectively you can since the alternative is the end of humanity...that'd suck. And objective morality doesn't exist.

Ignatius wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

Awesome. Just awesome.

I suppose though that the Imperial Guard and other non marine humanoids would be the least evil. You may say that the Imperium is terribly xenophobic and all that nonsense but when it comes down to it, the normal human soldier is probably fairly innocent- save for the indoctrination regimen they are subject to.

Also, if we still lived with dinosaurs, I'm pretty sure you would want them killed off because they are a threat to humans-much like xenos are.

Well yeah. Also bare in mind that xenophobia in 40k is literal. Irl it means being afraid of foreigners, in 40k it's a rational reaction to external threats. Life is a struggle, men do what they can to survive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mentlegen324 wrote:

Joey wrote:The Imperium of Man are the good guys. People who don't see this are very closed-minded.
Also eldar, possibly. Or Tau, but they're sissies.

The Imperium are definately not the good guys.

If the Imperium acted in a way that you consider "good", humanity would be wiped out in a matter of years.

Would you view the Empire from Star Wars as the good guys? Because the Imperium is alot worse than they were.

Joey wrote:Subjectively you can since the alternative is the end of humanity...that'd suck. And objective morality doesn't exist.

This is the sort of statement I frequently hear from undergraduates in seminars; it's a problematic one since it manages unhelpfully to be both correct and incorrect at the same time.

Human beings can, as your statement demonstrates, possess a concept of objective morality, even if they cannot agree upon its details, or by what, if any, authority it is empowered or defined.

Warhammer 40,000's universe does not appear to contain any kind of omnipotent (let alone omnibenovelent) deity, which throws out many of the most common arguments for objective moral values. However Kant and Bentham both put convincing arguments of "moral universalism" based upon, respectively, the objectivity of reason, and that of quantitative evidence.

What is more relevant to Warhammer 40,000, however, is the philosophy inherent in Darwin (and indeed in Hobbes and Malthus): the simple logic of unending, unfettered competition to survive and expand in a universe of finite resources. Now many (Machiavelli and Hume, for instance) have applied that logic to arrive at perspectives we would call morally nihilistic or relativist - simply put, the conclusion that there is no objective morality, and that the laws we create are created invariably with the intention of benefiting some more than others. Others, however, particularly modern writers of a scientific or materialistic bent (Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, for instance), contend that, since pragmatic levels of altruism and co-operation are beneficial to survival, whether as an individual, a clade or a species, that what could be called universal moral values can be determined from evolutionary utility.

By that rationale, pretty much everybody in the war-torn universe of the 41st millennium is acting, broadly-speaking, in accordance with good moral values, by attempting to conquer or annihilate all others. The only possible exceptions to this would be Chaos-worshippers, given that "success" for the Ruinous Powers would entail the annihilation of all matter, energy and physical laws, and (presumably) their followers.

By that rationale, pretty much everybody in the war-torn universe of the 41st millennium is acting, broadly-speaking, in accordance with good moral values, by attempting to conquer or annihilate all others. The only possible exceptions to this would be Chaos-worshippers, given that "success" for the Ruinous Powers would entail the annihilation of all matter, energy and physical laws, and (presumably) their followers.

Also, the Chaos Gods subsist on the emotions and fates of the mortal races. Slaanesh survives on pleasure and was created from the decadence of the Eldar race. Khorne lives on a diet of rage and bloodthirst, Nurgle on sickness and Tzeentch on the usage of psychic powers.
Without the mortals in the materium, the deities of the Warp would severely weaken, thus Chaos can never win if they look out for their own good. Success to wipe out the universe would also wipe themselves out.

English Assassin wrote:

Joey wrote:Subjectively you can since the alternative is the end of humanity...that'd suck. And objective morality doesn't exist.

This is the sort of statement I frequently hear from undergraduates in seminars; it's a problematic one since it manages unhelpfully to be both correct and incorrect at the same time.

Human beings can, as your statement demonstrates, possess a concept of objective morality, even if they cannot agree upon its details, or by what, if any, authority it is empowered or defined.

Warhammer 40,000's universe does not appear to contain any kind of omnipotent (let alone omnibenovelent) deity, which throws out many of the most common arguments for objective moral values. However Kant and Bentham both put convincing arguments of "moral universalism" based upon, respectively, the objectivity of reason, and that of quantitative evidence.

What is more relevant to Warhammer 40,000, however, is the philosophy inherent in Darwin (and indeed in Hobbes and Malthus): the simple logic of unending, unfettered competition to survive and expand in a universe of finite resources. Now many (Machiavelli and Hume, for instance) have applied that logic to arrive at perspectives we would call morally nihilistic or relativist - simply put, the conclusion that there is no objective morality, and that the laws we create are created invariably with the intention of benefiting some more than others. Others, however, particularly modern writers of a scientific or materialistic bent (Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, for instance), contend that, since pragmatic levels of altruism and co-operation are beneficial to survival, whether as an individual, a clade or a species, that what could be called universal moral values can be determined from evolutionary utility.

By that rationale, pretty much everybody in the war-torn universe of the 41st millennium is acting, broadly-speaking, in accordance with good moral values, by attempting to conquer or annihilate all others. The only possible exceptions to this would be Chaos-worshippers, given that "success" for the Ruinous Powers would entail the annihilation of all matter, energy and physical laws, and (presumably) their followers.

Well from the rationalist/nihilistic world view that I, apparently, have; nearly all societies are "moral". In fact I would content that an unwillingness to embrace eugenics was humanity's biggest crime, fluff-wise.
I've no idea why people struggle with the "killing a million to save a billion" thing. If you sacrifice a small amount of people to save a much larger amount of people, that is a moral good.

Joey wrote:Well from the rationalist/nihilistic world view that I, apparently, have; nearly all societies are "moral". In fact I would content that an unwillingness to embrace eugenics was humanity's biggest crime, fluff-wise.
I've no idea why people struggle with the "killing a million to save a billion" thing. If you sacrifice a small amount of people to save a much larger amount of people, that is a moral good.

Oh oh. Here comes the moral relativity...

What about if I kill 999,999 people to save 1,000,000 people? What if I torture those 999,999 in the most horrible and reprehensible way possible to save those million people? What if all those 999,999 people are cute little toddlers?

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Eldar and Tau are towards the brighter end of the grimdark scale as far as Xeno's go, and depending on how your IG list is built, both could offer you a different play style.

Eldar: Armageddon was caused because those orks would have killed 100 eldar in their lifetime.. They killed trillions of humans of Armageddon over two major wars

Eldar are xenophobic, and Hate Everyone, they'll agree to work with you only to kill you later. They'll sacrifice billions of innocents for their plans, they'll divert and use you and than throw you away, with only the harlequins being the "good" ones...And even than they still work and help the Dark Eldar, and want to unite the two, even without fixing the dark eldars problems.

To put it simply, an Eldars life would be above an entire Star system of your kind's life. Though a "few" don't see it this way, Biel-tan doesn't even consider your life important regardless of what you do.

Do the Eldar willingly and happily oppress and kill their own people like the IoM does? the IoM is incredibly Xenophobic, moreso that the Eldar could ever be. Eldrad Ulthran has even said that he is greatly interested in the potential future of the Tau and that he feels greatly protective towards them, can you honestly say the high lords of Terra would say anything like that regarding a Xenos race? The main priority of the great crusade was basically to wipe out everything non-human from the entire galaxy, is that really less evil than what the Eldar have ever done?

The only thing that comes any where near close to the IoM's attempted galaxy wide genocide is the birth of Slaanesh, which the vast majority of their race didnt know was going to happen. Every one of the (non Dark) Eldar that did notice what was going on then stopped, fled their homes and has spent thousands of years grieving over their loss and trying to prevent their race from becoming extinct...That's not evil.

English Assassin wrote:

Joey wrote:Subjectively you can since the alternative is the end of humanity...that'd suck. And objective morality doesn't exist.

This is the sort of statement I frequently hear from undergraduates in seminars; it's a problematic one since it manages unhelpfully to be both correct and incorrect at the same time.

Human beings can, as your statement demonstrates, possess a concept of objective morality, even if they cannot agree upon its details, or by what, if any, authority it is empowered or defined.

Warhammer 40,000's universe does not appear to contain any kind of omnipotent (let alone omnibenovelent) deity, which throws out many of the most common arguments for objective moral values. However Kant and Bentham both put convincing arguments of "moral universalism" based upon, respectively, the objectivity of reason, and that of quantitative evidence.

What is more relevant to Warhammer 40,000, however, is the philosophy inherent in Darwin (and indeed in Hobbes and Malthus): the simple logic of unending, unfettered competition to survive and expand in a universe of finite resources. Now many (Machiavelli and Hume, for instance) have applied that logic to arrive at perspectives we would call morally nihilistic or relativist - simply put, the conclusion that there is no objective morality, and that the laws we create are created invariably with the intention of benefiting some more than others. Others, however, particularly modern writers of a scientific or materialistic bent (Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, for instance), contend that, since pragmatic levels of altruism and co-operation are beneficial to survival, whether as an individual, a clade or a species, that what could be called universal moral values can be determined from evolutionary utility.

By that rationale, pretty much everybody in the war-torn universe of the 41st millennium is acting, broadly-speaking, in accordance with good moral values, by attempting to conquer or annihilate all others. The only possible exceptions to this would be Chaos-worshippers, given that "success" for the Ruinous Powers would entail the annihilation of all matter, energy and physical laws, and (presumably) their followers.

That was a lucid, well thought, well supported argument.


I may take a picture of it to frame.