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JOHIRA wrote:

Belathane wrote:I disagree. The 40k fluff has plenty of allusions to real world history and mythology, not to mention biblical lore.

Yeah, "allusions". Like how the black marines allude to the Teutonic Cross on their heraldry, or how the red marines allude to vampires. Or how the space elfs have craftworlds that almost allude to Celtic holidays.

I feel both Fantasy and 40k allude mostly to the same stuff, historical or otherwise. Space Wolves IMHO allude more to vikings than Dwarfs do.

I'm not saying that the 40K fluff is bad, mind. It's quite good in it's own way and I'm a fan. But a lot of its connection to real-world stuff is superficial. "We named the head guy for Chaos after a demon in Revelations! Aren't we edgy?" It just doesn't click the same way fantasy does for me. Now naturally anyone can play Fantasy Battles just as superficially, like how in previous editions the Lizardmen were just a bunch of puns. But if someone really wants to build in that historical connection, it's far more possible in Fantasy than 40K IMHO, because Fantasy actually takes place in an imaginary history.

The Fantasy world is not as a 'history', it's a theme. Sure you can bolt on some real life historical references to the theme, but essentialy they're just as superficial in an fantasy setting as a Sci-fi one. The overall theme is a mishmash of historical time periods, mythology and other cultural references blended into a pastiche. It's a history salad with mythology croutons so to speak.

But that's probably not what were alluding to in your comment so I'm getting off topic here.

There's something to be said for wanting to create a warhammer army with a authentic historical look and WHFB is probably the only fantasy setting where it would actually fit in with the overall theme. A samurai army would look right in it's place there.

40k has a rich, detailed and unique background story. A lot of players get sucked into 40k because of it and really care about it.

I've got no problem with people who care about the fluff. It's people who have decided they're experts in it and that everyone else has to model and paint to their interpretation of it that chafe me. And I've definitely seen that happen more for 40K fluff than Fantasy.

I never had the misfortune of dealing with people like that. I can't imagine any players around would put up with that kind of attitude.
Sorry to hear you have to endure that crap.

May your coming battles be victorious and your future free of fluff nazis!

I play 40K exclusivly because I don't know enough about Fantasy to form an intelligent comparison, and I started with 40K, so there I stay.

Also with my hoarding/collecting tendencies I simply cannot afford to play a second game system.

Fluff Nazis can be annoying, especially considering the fluff changes all the time. I think the reason you see more of that in 40K is because it covers such a broader scope than Fantasy. Fantasy has pretty set armies whereas 40K has a nearly infinite amount of variability. You can make your army really customized because the setting is so big it allows for nearly anything to be possible.

Basically my distaste for WHFB stems from the fact that once you've painted the front rank, painting the rest of the formation is just a wasted effort.

Also, we have lasers *pew pew*.

Painting WHFB units is literally the bane of my existence.

Until Warriors of Chaos came into my life.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Basically my distaste for WHFB stems from the fact that once you've painted the front rank, painting the rest of the formation is just a wasted effort.

Also, we have lasers *pew pew*.

Hmmmm, I dont necessarily agree with this...

1. The unit will just look bad... a front rank painted nicely followed by grey? No thanks
2. This could be said just as well for 40k? Why not paint a the upgrades and a few marines (or what ever army) and as they die you can take out the greys? I undestand this is not 100% correct with the rules but niether is your statement. What if my Chaos Champion dies? All of a sudden there is a grey in my front rank!

Thats just my opinion though, cause no unit is going to look better without paint or partially painted regardless of your game system.

Oh and we got tons of magic that makes up a large variety of "laser" type attacks... And our bolt throwers (Fantasy Laser?!?!?!) actually go through stuff :O Or at least thats how I look at it haha!

Basically, almost 3/4 of the unit is never going to be seen let alone used. They are just 'extra lives' for the front rank. (not rules accurate, but that's how it works)

In 40k, each and every unit is spread out. An individual. Or at least much more so than in a fantasy formation.

And of course, there is the fact that terrain and the tabletop play a far greater role in the gameplay and effects.

How long does a typical game of 40k usually last for you?
- 3-4 hours.

Whats your favorite edition of Warhammer 40k?\
- I've seen the tail end of 3rd, all of 4th and 5th so far. I give it to 5th.

Would you buy race specific Warhammer 40k Terrain?
-Probably not.

Would you buy pre-painted 40k miniatures?
-No shot, and I barely paint.

What 40k races do you buy or collect?
- I own Dark Eldar, Space Wolves (13 Company), Chaos(Slaanesh/Undividied/Lost And The Damned).

I intend on playing all three, as I don't see myself starting a new race beyond them.

I've never played Fantasy, but I've seen enough games and read the rules to understand how it plays out. I choose 40k over WHFB because Skirmish combat appeals to me over Army battles. I think that's mainly it. Trying to represent hundreds of models on a little table has always felt silly to me, and even though I like fantasy strategy games - GWS has always had a sort of British Flavour to their take on Knights and Sorcery. Growing up with a more Japanese cultured background in fantasy, WHFB doesn't cut it.

I suspect (and have heard) that the older hero hammer editions would have sated my need for high fantasy.

But as for sci-fi, 40k pulls off their universe pretty well. The rules are getting better and the last 4 codex's have been very strongly balanced.

Conclusion : 40k Is on a smaller scale and they don't suffer from lack of "high fantasy".

Edit - One strike against 40k though, however is the point raised above. Fluff Nazi's are much, much worse than in WHFB.

@ Emperors Faithful: Imo, thats only partially correct... yes most of the models wont be seen fully however you will always see the models between grey and painted. Take a look at this unit... from the controlling players view you see the back... so infact from your opinion you should actually paint the back and front? Since you pull from the back you are constantly seeing the backs of more models and really all of them should be painted. But further more, your looking diagnally downwards from above. If you had the sight of the models on the table I would 100% agree with you, however you will most of the time be able to see more than the front rank.

Again, this is just my opinion so yeah. I respect yours all the same and hope you do too! You have some good points, 40k models definitely can have their entire detail seen but I dont believe that you should only paint the front rank because "thats all you ever see"



EDIT: Im going to just edit the OP so people dont keep answering the Dakka Poles questions since they were just examples lol >.<

Nobody wants to paly against my daemons in fantasy (Though i have yet to play a game with them), so i have to play them in 40k.

@Buttlerthepug: A fully painted anything definitely looks better than a mass of grey. However, I would still think that it 'shows' more on a 40k unit. That's just me though.

Another thing that's never made sense to me is how the people on the front rank (Champion/Musician/Banner Bearer) always survive when the rest of the unit is dying in droves. In 40k we have wound allocation so that there is at least a fair chance for the specialised guys to die as quickly as any other grunt.

enmitee wrote:Nobody wants to paly against my daemons in fantasy (Though i have yet to play a game with them), so i have to play them in 40k.

I think thats something people have to get used to and will only do so by playing daemons more often... my friend whom I play almost every week tended to stomp me every time with daemons and I used to hate it and get infurated and what not but overall Im glad. Every game had its twists, funny moments, and was over all fun. I also vary rarely get angry with stuff while playing (upset and let down sure... such as failing 3 terror tests in a row when trying to charge a blood thirster which costed me a game >.< ) and you get used to it over time and even learn certain ways to get around stuff and even draw! I can definitely understand where your comming from as there are alot of people that just wont play them which isnt fair to the daemon player imo... If it means anything, I would play you haha!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Emperors Faithful: Yeah I used to wonder that too actually. Well firstly, you CAN kill the unit Champion so that settles that. But I agree the other two always confused me. I guess the way I see it is in 40k, all the specail weapon guys are trained to use special weapons and stuff... where as the musician and standard bearer, even if the original two people holding the horn/drums or banner die, the people behind them can pick it up. It doesnt require training to blow a horn, beat some drums, or carry a flag. It also says in the main rule book that the people whom and picked from the unit to for go such tasks and the strongest and toughest in the unit as to say they are more than willing to fight with their normal profile even while carrying the additional stuff (and they are better/able to stay alive long in the combat! At least thats another way to see it) But true enough, I used to wonder the same thing!

Well, it makes sense I guess.

Why?
My answer: Bolters, Redeemers, Space Wolves AAAAAND chainswords !

40k > Fantasy

I've collected armies and both and 40k just sits better with me because...
a) More people at my FLGS play 40k, giving me more opponents.
b) For a 40k army i generally have to buy less models, and spend less money.
c) I was going to play fantasy because of new skaven coming out soon(at the time), but the day i came into the store after a 3 year break i was told a 40k campaign was starting next week (go figure)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

enmitee wrote:Nobody wants to paly against my daemons in fantasy (Though i have yet to play a game with them), so i have to play them in 40k.

I hate people like that, there is this one guy at my FLGS...
"hey do you fancy a game?"
"yea sure, what are you using?"
"blah blah blah"
"oh actually look at the time... i don't think i can play a game afterall..."

i don't really enjoy the history based models of fantasy and have never tried it.

I do enjoy 40k though and the models are more for me.

@butler

Lol, yeah there are occasional good souls who'd play for the fun of it.

@dayve

I've never seen anyone use that excuse for real without joking about it.

daemon wrote:i don't really enjoy the history based models of fantasy and have never tried it.

Yeah, Empire models look so lame! I know some people dig it but, cod pieces, feathers, pantaloons and what not? Give me a break, that is so lame. I know that is just an opinion, but I can't stand that look. WoC on the other hand, now those guys look awesome.

If Imperial Guardsmen could have pantaloons, I would totally buy them.

enmitee wrote:Nobody wants to paly against my daemons in fantasy (Though i have yet to play a game with them), so i have to play them in 40k.

It always amazes me when people wont play against someone based on Army Comp. or choice... Even if they've got a reasonably balanced force it always smacks of power gaming to me... If people are so desperate to win at any cost that they'll not play against an army theirs isn't designed to beat then they're not really the kind of people I want to play against...

My local gaming group used to have that problem with second edition Space Wolves...

The only time I'll ever refuse a game is when confronted by an unpainted, undercoated army designed solely to trounce every opponent... If your going to have the most unbalanced lethal force you can muster from your army book the least you can do is put a tiny bit of effort in... That's not to bash on people who field unpainted models, I'm an incredibly slow painter and I know it takes time, you just get sick of seeing the same kids come in week after week with ever more powerful armies featuring grey plastic figures and enough blu-tack to sink a small space ship...

Anyway, on topic:

Reasons I prefer 40K over Fantasy Battle...

1: Pose - I'm a modeller/painter primarily and a gamer second... Block regiments just dont allow much in the way of dynamic posing... Well not if you want the thing to rank up anyway...

2: Rank & File - I'm a big fan of troop heavy armies - I'd rather have another 10 man squad than a single special character, all the fantasy battle armies I've ever played/painted have had huge (30 to 100+ depending on race) blocks of troops, on a big table this is fine, on a small table the foot print of my units tend to restrict my movement options - a 20 or 30 man sqad in 40K just doesn't have this problem - I can still field 100's of troopers and have them nicely positioned in amongst the terrain insteadof trying to find a large enough path through it...

3. Background - Post apocalyptic "dark" sci-fi has always appealed to me, long before I had even heard of GW of 40K my favourite movies were Blade Runner, The Aliens franchise and Mad Max 2... All of which fit really nicely into the 40K universe...

I collect both, I've played both and I really enjoy both games BUT in the end from a modellers point of view I prefer 40K... That being said I was reading a post on here a while back about ignoring bases and the need for removing models and just using wound counters thus negating the need to rank up square bases which has got me very enthused about a couple of Fantasy projects...

Models and fluffwise I prefer 40k, but i'd rather have a game of fantasy, I just find it more satisfying. However a large part of this is based on the fact that when i play fantasy i have a range of different races to play against wheras when i play 40k I am almost always playing against marines as player diversity is very low for 40k in my area(which gets really dull after a while)

I prefer 40k because it's better than Fantasy! NYAH!

All jokes aside, I think it's just because I've grown tired of the high fantasy setting in general. I still like it, but that's all I ever knew growing up. I've never branched off into sci-fi games or anything like that, so 40k was kind of new and exciting for me.

I really don't want to get into which one is written better...I find the 40k fluff more appealing, even though it's basically every single good sci-fi setting all rolled into one. Fantasy is kind of the same, generic Tolkien-esque high fantasy with a couple of new things mixed in, but since I'm so bored of fantasy in general it doesn't bother me as much with 40k. Ruleswise, both games have huge problems with them.

The only real reason I haven't gotten into Fantasy as well is because of money. I've already spent a lot on 40k, and I would like to get into Fantasy too, but armies are expensive, and it's hard to convince myself to spend that much on a new game when I could use all that cash to buy a second/third army for 40k and use it more.

Ppl can also relate to 40k easier than Fantasy which might explain why its preferred. A lot of the existing 40k technology are derived from modern equivalent of things that exists, and i think that helps perk player's interest.

I prefer the sci fi look, and fluff of 40k. I also like the skirmisher movment style of 40k to the rank up movents of WHFB.

40k better than WFB

I dislike movement trays and moving the blasted things.

I mean really, really, really dislike movement trays and moving the effing things.

The WFB movement phase is a giant pain in the tuckus.

The WFB magic phase isn't much better, in fact, it's worse.



take care

I think 40k is simple and faster, thats why I like it compared to Fantasy.

I prefer 40k over fantasy.I like the fluffs,the teams and game play more den fantasy.

Hi ButtlerthePug,

Here is why I think I like 40K better. Guns beat swords.

I love swashbuckling films, swords and sorcery, and such. But one of the ingenious things about 40K is that is was Fantasy in a Sci-Fi setting. At least, when it first came out. Squats, Slann, Ork, Eldar, and the Chaos! I was really into Chaos.

How would my foul sorceries do pitted against a squad of space marines? Could daemons prevail in the age of starships, bolters, and super-soldiers?

I've loved 40K ever since then, even though it's changed a lot towards more sci-fi than sci-fantasy. But many of the changes have been good. I've given up the pastels and pleasures of Slaanesh to seek the monastic life of the ecclesiarchy. What GW has done with the imagery and emotions that the middle ages church and crusades evoke is almost as astonishing as what they originally did with elves and squats.

One other thing, I think some people find the 'every model counts as a warrior' scale of 40K appealing. Especially in the west we are taught about our independance and the value of each human being. Fantasy abstracts that a little, you can empathize with a character but not a rank and file trooper, that get pulled off the back ranks like they don't even matter, ha ha

Well, that's why I like 40K better

--- Frankie

More local players. That's the only reason, I'm usually a fantasy guy fluff-wise.

Augustus wrote:40k Missions
Tanks
Guns

QFT

Also...Bigger Tanks and Guns...