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Do you think Warhammer 40k is becoming less grimdark? Perhaps GW wants it to become less grimdark to appeal to a wider audience? Recent lore, like Guilman returning and the status quo in 40k now changing might be indicative of things to come. Also, I don't know if its just me, but I noticed that orks, which were once the posterboys of the grimdarkness of 40k are sort of being pushed aside and I don't really see them around that much anymore, both crunch and meta wise. It seems to be all space marines now.
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So... Orks. Is their grimdarkness wearing off?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/12 11:12:21
Orks Grimdark? Only when viewed from the human perspective (see Space Marine video game overheard conversations etc), from the omnipotent narrator's perspective from the very beginning orks were comic relief.
You have to understand that the Grimdark in 40k originally came from sources like Robocop, Judge Dredd, Mad Max, Canticle for Liebowitz, and Starship Troopers. In most of those settings during that era, the overwhelming depressingness of the setting was constantly punched up to 11 for comic effect.
40k's evolution to serious grimdarkness is pretty similar to how modern movie remakes miss the point in exactly the same way.
Take, for instance, robocop. Do you remember the super-badass minigun walker that says "You have 15 seconds to comply"? Wasn't that awesome and badass and grimdark? The new remake certainly thought so. What people forget is that in the original film, that walker is basically comic relief. The first time it appears, it's pitched as a solution to basically minor routine policing duties, and it malfunctions and shoots a corporate toadie for about three full minutes. The whole sequence is about as serious as the Monty Python Mr. Creosote sketch from Meaning of Life. The next time you see that robot, it flips out at a flight of stairs and flips over with its legs waggling in the air.
Sure, in Gorkamorka the orks accidentally wipe a planet of human life in the opening few paragraphs. But that's part of the joke! The orks are portrayed as lovable genocidal goofballs.
To answer the question of the thread though...yeah, 40k has become more of a straightforward power fantasy setting than a grimdark one. In terms of the current swing towards cloying noblebrightness, I'm going to pin the blame on the Horus Heresy series and its endless parade of Mary Sues starting to leak its garbage into mainline 40k. But all hope is not lost! I actually really liked the recent adeptus mechanicus codex fluff and the Genestealer Cult stuff remained goofily bleak. And even though Death Masque turned very quickly into standard GW-brand bolter porn, at least they kept enough focus on the fact that the marines were basically brainwashed morons incapable of reason.
GS2 and 3 though...yeah, I gotta agree that vibe is going to get real old real fast if GW continues it.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Entire species quite possibly full controlled by a single caste that showed up from nowhere, and then annexes other species into their collective?
Nope. Not a hint of evil there
I was thinking more about the Robotech / Gundam aesthetic more than the lore.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Entire species quite possibly full controlled by a single caste that showed up from nowhere, and then annexes other species into their collective?
Nope. Not a hint of evil there
I was thinking more about the Robotech / Gundam aesthetic more than the lore.
You can do robotech/gundam aesthetic with Grimdark.
See Evangelion. And you absolutely can do Grimdark with Tau - take a look at the Dark Eldar "Cultural Exchange" story. They're the bright shiny idealists encountering an increasingly vast and hostile galaxy that's pushing them to greater and greater atrocities and violations of their moral codes. Mix that in with a little 1984 brainwashing sterilization and mind control and they fit in just fine. Nobody complains that the Blood Angels aren't grimdark, but looking at their army aesthetic alone....I mean, Sanguinary Guard, c'mon...
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
It may be dialing down the senseless grim dark and replacing it with more pragmatic reasonable grimdark. Less of the millions of deaths for nothing, more millions of deaths because it's the best option.
40k drinking game: take a shot everytime a book references Skitarii using transports.
gnome_idea_what wrote: It may be dialing down the senseless grim dark and replacing it with more pragmatic reasonable grimdark. Less of the millions of deaths for nothing, more millions of deaths because it's the best option.
Well with the Imperium Nihlus I think that will be more over the top grimdark for survival of old since they are cut off from Gullimans Imperium. I think they have lightened 40k as a whole, but just a little. Honestly I think this is a good thing. It was getting to this ridiculous point and a little too silly.
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