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This is going to be a thread were you list in order of decreasing Icon-ness (?it's a word now) the armies of 40k.
1. Generic Space Marines
2. Orks (We da best cuz wez orks and deyz not )
3. Tyranids (At this point we get to conjecture)
4. Chaos Space Marines (BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE)
5. Eldar (a rather unique take on elves, at least now adays)
6. Imperial Guard (We shall cover the enemy in our bodies)
7. Dark Eldar (everyone I met who disses 40k always thinks the grimdark is ok, but they quote the Dark Eldar as taking it too far. So theyre moderately well known among non wargamers it seems)
8. Chaos Daemons (really creative demon designs with giant mechanical scorpions and robo-rhinos)
9. Blood Angels (a kind of standard SM chapter that most well versed non wargamers are aware of)
10. Grey Knights (allot of the people I talk to say they're kind of iconic)
11. Necrons (They seem to be almost unkown to non wargamers)
12. Space Wolves (I talked to a lot of people in book stores for this and the Blood Angels seem to way more well known.........for some reason)
13. Dark Angels (Almost no place among non war gamers)
14. Sisters of Battle (I've trashed them a lot and while they have a place in the fluff, they are completely unknown to non wargamers)

Put your lists here too, I'm curious as to what people think.

1.) space marines
2.) orks
3.) imperial guard
4.) everybody else

I mean, seriously. Just do a google image search for "40k" and look at the top 50 entries. 33 contain space marines, 6 contain orks, 4 contain imperial guard.

There was also some CMS and SoB in there as well, but even those were mostly in the context of fighting space marines or orks.

1) Marines
2) Orks
3) Eldar
4) Chaos
5) Imperial Guard

As much as I hate Chaos I realize they are an integral part of the fluff.

Top 3:
1. Ultrasmurfs (and all [Chaos] Space Marines in general)
2. Tyranids
3. Orks
4. Eldar (Space Elves)
5. Sisters of Battle (actually pretty popular, due to the whole "nuns with guns" thing)
6. Imperial Guard
7. Necrons
8. Dark Eldar
9. Chaos Daemons (people might know the Chaos Gods themselves, but most of the daemons themselves are pretty much unknown to many people)

Not sure why people keep ranking the tyranids so high considering they are newer than orks guard and eldar and somewhat derivative.

Space Marines
Orks
Eldar
Chaos

Imperial Guard using Cadians and looking more like a generic/modern military sci-fi force means they don't come out near the top. If Steel Legion were the main IG force, then they would be better qualified.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Not sure why people keep ranking the tyranids so high considering they are newer than orks guard and eldar and somewhat derivative.

It's not about age. It's about what people recognize and like the most. Personally I would never rate Eldar more than a notch above tau.

Probably

Space Marines(All lumped together)
Orks
Tyranids
Chaos(lumped together. Technically Undivided and Khorne are probably the most well known)
Sisters of Battle
Imperial Guard(while popular they are too generic to rank higher. I would rate them even lower if it weren't for the Leman Russ and Baneblade.)
Necrons
Dark Eldar
Eldar
Tau

This may just be my dislike for Eldar coming out. After all, this is all 110% opinion. To me the space elves aren't iconic because that's exactly what they are. Space elves. Orks differentiate themselves from normal orcs through a colorful language, their stupidity, their logic, humor, etc. Tyranids are iconic because of their unique appearance, now that they've stretched out from their not-aliens origins. Chaos is Chaos. Sisters are space nuns, which while like many of these is just some word with space put in front of it, is special because no one has done space nuns before. Necrons are(were? I chose not to read the new fluff) an undying race of soulless robots, who are totally space tomb kings, which is itself pretty cool. The eldar tend not to be main villains, so they don't get a lot of screen time. It's all about space marines vs orks/chaos/nids.

What really makes 40k iconic is that all of this silly /rip off stuff is in the same universe and taken seriously.

14. Sisters of Battle (I've trashed them a lot and while they have a place in the fluff, they are completely unknown to non wargamers)

That's because you're a terrible person.

1. Space Marines
2. Chaos
3. Orks
4. Daemonhunters (Inquisitor w/ Retinue... those images are everywhere, thanks to DoW: Retribution)
5. Eldar/Dark Eldar
6. Sisters of Battle
7-whatever. Everything else.

Eldar fit the ancient 3rd party archetype, who may or may not ally with the protagonist (SM) at a glance.

Eldar are very unique in comparison with other 'elf-like' races, even if they look more like elves than other race's equivalent.

They also are important to the geography of the Galaxy (Eye of Terror) so are quite ingrained into the overall central (Space Marine / CSM) background.

In appearance, they have the pointed helmets based on a historical design and unique concepts like Aspect Warriors and shrines and also cementing them as the 'wizard' faction with seers. The 'blank' face and shape of Wraith units is also pretty iconic.

If you think about what GW choose to put in, and what the partner companies put in when they make 3rd party games for GW, you see it is almost always Space Marines, Orks and Eldar who appear, with Chaos and IG generally following. (FFG seem to be the exception, though they are really humano-centric in the RPG systems, which is a shame as Ork and Eldar roleplaying could be really fun).

 EmilCrane wrote:
Not sure why people keep ranking the tyranids so high considering they are newer than orks guard and eldar and somewhat derivative.

Space Hulk is the reason.

I didn't start playing 40K until the 2000s, but ever since the late 1980s (when ads for Space Hulk appeared in roleplaying magazines), I've known that, in the 40K universe, Space Marines in bulky powered armor fight with giant fists against purple creatures inspired by the films Alien and Aliens. In addition to those ads, Space Hulk was turned into a fairly successful computer game during a period when there weren't a ton of computer games out there, which made it that much more likely that a lot of people were introduced to the 40K universe via the game or at least the box art. I don't know how fleshed out the fluff for the Tyranids was back then, or even if Genestealers were "officially" Tyranids, but Space Hulk did a lot to solidify the idea that Space Marines fight space bugs.

Also, the fact that the space bugs were so derivative probably helped to make them so iconic. Pretty much every boy who grew up in the 1980s saw and loved Aliens, so the idea of Marines in space fighting space bugs was kind of a thing back then...

My own "iconic rankings":

1.) Space Marines (all types, especially those armed with power fists and/or chainswords).
2.) Tyranids
3.) Orks
4.) Chaos Space Marines
5.) Everything else with the exception of Tau. (Tie)
6.) Tau.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Not sure why people keep ranking the tyranids so high considering they are newer than orks guard and eldar and somewhat derivative.

The Nids have been around since Rogue Trader, try again.

As some one who knows something of the 40k universe, I would place Chaos above Orks.


If I didn't know much about 40k, I imagine the Space Marines along with Dawn of War trailers would be the icons of 40k.

This is kind of a hard question because it depends on how you define the word. In terms of "recognizability to people who don't play the tabletop game" I think the rating would go about like:

1. anything that wears power armor (including space marines, inquisition, and chaos. With the possible exception of sisters of battle)

2. Orks

3. A tie between all the other factions in the first Dawn of War and DOW 2 (i.e. eldar, imperial guard, tyranids). Tyranids probably a little higher than the rest because they're basically zerg/xenomorphs.

4. Necrons, because Terminator

5. The bottom tier. Stuff that people who aren't GW fans have never heard of (dark eldar, tau, chaos things that aren't wearing power armor, probably sisters of battle unless they receive the magical "power armor boost")

For what it's worth, I put Orks above Chaos simply because, well... Rogue Trader, the 2nd Edition starter set, the 5th Edition starter set, the trailer for the first Dawn of War, the trailer for the Space Marine game were all about Space Marines and Orks. Space Marines versus Orks is pretty much THE iconic 40K matchup. I think that the image of space knights in bulky armor fighting in melee with bulky weirdly-proportioned space orcs is something that's probably more recognizably 40K (and 40K alone) than anything else.

Youngblood13 wrote:
For what it's worth, I put Orks above Chaos simply because, well... Rogue Trader, the 2nd Edition starter set, the 5th Edition starter set, the trailer for the first Dawn of War, the trailer for the Space Marine game were all about Space Marines and Orks. Space Marines versus Orks is pretty much THE iconic 40K matchup. I think that the image of space knights in bulky armor fighting in melee with bulky weirdly-proportioned space orcs is something that's probably more recognizably 40K (and 40K alone) than anything else.

Yep, Orks vs. Marines is basically what you expect to see.

Eldar come in a distant 3rd, as they represent the 3rd style/3rd faction archetype you often get.

Chaos comes next; they are important, but are more similar to the SM (protagonists) and are like a 'similar antagonist' compared with the different style of enemy that Orks and Eldar represent.

Guards are next, as they represent deeper information about the Imperium and the setting, but are not iconic in the same way (especially as they continue to use Cadians, who are more generic and less Imperial stylised)

Then the extra Xenos races, with probably Tyranids at the top of the pack, who add the texture and flavour to the universe.

Then the really specialist parts of the Imperium, Sisters and Grey Knights who further expand the Imperial faction.

Space Marines vs. Chaos Space Marines

For me at least... the main draw is the eternal battle of former brothers.

Nice to have some not-Borg and not-Romulans and Greenskins-in-Spaaace on board for diversity, but they're hardly essential.

IG really detracts more from the purity of the setting than it adds to it IMO, but I can understand why GW wants a slice of the money from tank-modellers and historical wargamers (which were larger in the 80s I guess).

 Zweischneid wrote:
Space Marines vs. Chaos Space Marines

For me at least... the main draw is the eternal battle of former brothers.

Nice to have some not-Borg and not-Romulans and Greenskins-in-Spaaace on board for diversity, but they're hardly essential.

IG really detracts more from the purity of the setting than it adds to it IMO, but I can understand why GW wants a slice of the money from tank-modellers and historical wargamers (which were larger in the 80s I guess).

A million men can't protect a million worlds. And plus, without the IG, who will the space marines rescue?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In my opinion the big six of 40k are the

Space Marines
Orks
Chaos (both of the space marine and daemon variety)
Eldar
Tyranids (interchangeable with the Eldar really)
Imperial Guard

The other factions follow this order in iconicness.

Necrons
Tau
Dark Eldar
Grey knights
Sisters of Battle (poor buggers get no love)

 Kain wrote:

A million men can't protect a million worlds. And plus, without the IG, who will the space marines rescue?

It's 40K. Who cares about the worlds?

And Space Marines ain't there for rescue missions, but to slaughter the enemy in righteous fury (and put the planet to the torch afterwards, just to be sure).

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Kain wrote:

A million men can't protect a million worlds. And plus, without the IG, who will the space marines rescue?

It's 40K. Who cares about the worlds?

And Space Marines ain't there for rescue missions, but to slaughter the enemy in righteous fury (and put the planet to the torch afterwards, just to be sure).

Space Marines need an Imperium to protect, and glorified meat shields to take the bullets for them.

The Black Templars have the right idea, they even bring their teenaged meat shields with them!

On that note I really want to start a project with a Terminator using one hand to swing a hapless khornate bezerker around while holding a thousand son with his other hand as a meatshield to count as an assault terminator.

"Beat a heretic with another heretic."

I would say Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, Chaos and Tyranids are the most iconic.

While they are all variations on a stereotype, they are also the races that most people who don't play 40K would expect to see in the game.

Space Marines - armoured super humans
Chaos SM - like the above but mutated and evil
Orks - enough said
Eldar - like space elves but with a unique twist (the Fall/Aspects/Wraith units)
Tyranids - Gribbly bug creatures are almost always in sci fi somewhere!