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The 2 headed Aquila is taken from the Rostov eagle i think too. Also the imperial guard itself is got many influences (many many many) but the heavy use of artillery both small and large is based on soviet era fighting. But each regiment has flavours from all over the place.

Same thing goes for marines from what i can tell.

 Swastakowey wrote:
but the heavy use of artillery both small and large is based on soviet era fighting.

Not the Western Front of the Great War by any chance? Prior to the Battle of Loos, during a six-day bombardment, over 2.1 million shells were fired. Prior to the Somme 1.5 million shells were fired off by the Royal Artillery, with another 250,000 fired during 1st July - the first day of the offensive. Apparently the bombardment was so massive it was heard 300 miles away in London, 'pon Hampstead Heath. As another example, the rather famous bombardment prior to the start of Operation Lightfoot & the Second Battle of El Alamein, where 882 guns fired off 520,000+ shells in the space of less than 6 hours. Those are perhaps amongst the largest artillery bombardments seen in modern times. Massed artillery was not a 'Soviet' thing.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
but the heavy use of artillery both small and large is based on soviet era fighting.

Not the Western Front of the Great War by any chance? Prior to the Battle of Loos, during a six-day bombardment, over 2.1 million shells were fired. Prior to the Somme 1.5 million shells were fired off by the Royal Artillery, with another 250,000 fired during 1st July - the first day of the offensive. Apparently the bombardment was so massive it was heard 300 miles away in London, 'pon Hampstead Heath. As another example, the rather famous bombardment prior to the start of Operation Lightfoot & the Second Battle of El Alamein, where 882 guns fired off 520,000+ shells in the space of less than 6 hours. Those are perhaps amongst the largest artillery bombardments seen in modern times. Massed artillery was not a 'Soviet' thing.

Very true but stalin loved artillery. He had a huge huge amount of faith in it. But if you read my post i said that there are many many sources of which the guard draw from, i was merely stating one of them. But you miss out the mechanized artillery which is famously seen in huge soviet military parades etc. I know its not a soviet only thing but still they are the popular choices.


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Sorry for the long link but its images of soviet parades etc that scream Imperial guard but for me its notably the mechanized artillery.

Its also something they where renowned for. So instead of assuming i said only soviets used massed artillery see it as where i think they drew their inspiration from.

Well, IMO IG reminds every army which has huuuuuge amount of sources - of weapons and bodies....but yeah, we have commisariat which is simply soviet NKVD. And commisars are politruks. In space.

ORC = Oxford Rugby Club

Dark Eldar: Hellraiser/Cenobites

IG is pretty much whatever you want them to be, really.

 Daba wrote:
ORC = Oxford Rugby Club

Tolkein named them Orcs.

 Swastakowey wrote:
But if you read my post

I did and;

 Swastakowey wrote:
I was merely stating one of them.

...that was what I responded to, your assertion that the basis for Guards use of artillery comes from Stalinist-era Red Army forces, which is indeed a potential source of inspiration but not a defining one - I'd agree on the aspect of self-propelled guns but not towed artillery pieces. I pointed out several quick examples of heavy use of artillery, which involved both small and large calibres, in Western Europe, two of which predated Stalinist Russia. The grim nature of the Great War, the clash of new technology & means of killing people colliding fist first on to the 'traditional' ways of fighting battles, the way fighting in many places degenerated into a near-static war of attrition over trenchlines and fortifications, the massive use of artillery by both sides, the introduction of slow, heavily armed fighting vehicles to the battlefield, the last true 'Huzzah!' of cavalry forces (except for a few latter instances, such as the Poles using their lances effectively against Wehrmacht infantry in 1939). It all adds up to inspiration for many elements of the Guard but like so many things GW have created, it's an amalgamation of various sources - I'm not saying there aren't any Soviet Russia influences (as I've mentioned in previous posts, you've got the Valhallan's as the absolute blatant example), just that there are many sources of inspiration for every piece or part of the Imperium & Imperial Guard.

As for the Aquila, whilst the double-headed eagle was used by Imperial Russia, the Austrian Empire & also by the city of Köln (Cologne), and are possible sources of inspiration, in my opinion it's much more likely to come from the latter days of the Byzantime Empire. Originally they retained the single-headed 'Roman' eagle but later on there was a transition to a double-headed version, and this fits in with the Imperium to me, with pre-Heresy being akin to the Roman Empire* & post-Heresy being more like the Byzantine Empire - powerful but eventually in decay and pressed on all sides. Just my mad, crazy opinion of course

Other possible sources of inspiration may be from the Holy Roman Empire which used a double-headed eagle, and a bit more far-fetched, several Indian kingdoms used the double-headed eagle from memory.

*The God-Emperor is often depicted with either the Aquila, single-headed eagles or both on his armour.

What is the background of 40k races inspired by?

Beer + History majors on the design team.

 Psienesis wrote:

So,if I may ask, why are you arguing this?

As other people pointed out, the Imperium is far less Nazi and far more Soviet. The Inquisition, specifically, is really not Nazi-specific at all, and is far more just general "secret police", whether that's KGB or Orwell's Ministry of Love/Ministry of Truth.

That is nonsense. The Imperium has little in common with the SU. The Imperium during the Great Crusade did (atheist and striving towards a 'better future' for mankind) but the Imperium in the 41st millenium has more in common with the Nazi's: "Fear The Alien. Hate The Alien. Kill The Alien." Just subsitute alien for Jew. Of course, the Imperium is not just based on either the Nazi's or the Soviets, it has lots and lots of influences both from history and fiction. It would be far better to trace the influences in each Imperial institution seperately rather than in the Imperium as a whole.

 Daba wrote:
ORC = Oxford Rugby Club

Of course, Rugby was always the upper crust gentleman's game. Soccer is the game of the unwashed masses. So other than the fact it's not spelled the same it's stretching (and I played soccer for years, so I'm not prejudiced against it).

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Imperium has little in common with the SU. The Imperium during the Great Crusade did (atheist and striving towards a 'better future' for mankind) but the Imperium in the 41st millenium has more in common with the Nazi's: "Fear The Alien. Hate The Alien. Kill The Alien." Just subsitute alien for Jew..

...and that's not true either. In 40k it is 'the Xenos','the Witch' and 'the Heretic'. It's based on/inspired by the 'witch-craze' of c15-c17 Europe when the combination of the availability of the printing press & subsequent publication of Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of (the) Witches) poured essentially hot oil onto the burning flame of religious turmoil that gripped Europe. It got to the point of being ridiculous where you could be burnt at the stake for something so minor as being left-handed*. Whole communities would turn on each other, quick to inform on their neighbours if something 'bad' happened to them (such as ill cattle, crops not growing particularly well). It was a horrific time in Europe, so many people killed by the Catholic church in their search for 'heretics' and 'witches' - sickening in fact.

*Information that worried three of the chaps in my history class (me being one of them) when we were informed of this by our tutor - all three of us were left-handed.

 Psienesis wrote:
Eldar: Tolkein High Elves. In Space.

Ork: English Soccer Hooligans and Tolkein Orcs. In Space.

Stunts: Dwarves. In Space.

Horus Heresy: Biblical Tale of The Fall of Lucifer. In Space.

God-Emperor of Mankind: Jesus. In Space. With a job-title taken from a Frank Herbert novel.

All of the Chaos Gods: Michael Moorcock's various Chaos Gods from all of his Eternal Champion books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Champion)

Grey Knights: The legends of the Knights-Templar... and their heresies. In Space.

Sisters of Battle: Renegade Nuns on Wheels
(http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3094) In Space.

Tau: Gundam Anime. In Space.

Necrons: Terminator. In Space.

Tyranid: Aliens. Still In Space.

Also Orks were a mix of world war I Germany really early on.

I'd have personally said more 80s tropes (bikers, punks, football hooligans) meets with a bit of c5 'Germanic barbarian' tribes;

squidhills wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:


As other people pointed out, the Imperium is far less Nazi and far more Soviet. The Inquisition, specifically, is really not Nazi-specific at all, and is far more just general "secret police", whether that's KGB or Orwell's Ministry of Love/Ministry of Truth.

Actually, the Inquisition is less Soviet or generic secret police, and far more... the Inquisition, as in: the Catholic Church's department of torture and general douchebaggery. As for the Imperial Guard, the only Soviet influences there are the Valhallans and the Commissars, with the Commissars being slightly less Soviet than the Valhallans... Everything about the Valhallans is WWII-era Soviet Red Army (the way they look, the way they fight, and their lone SC) but, while the Commissars have a definite Soviet name, and serve pretty much the same purpose on the battlefield that the Party Commissars did in the Red Army, GW decided to give them a distinctly late 19-early 20th century Germanic or Prussian look. Seriously, every Commissar model in the IG codex looks like it should be named "von" something...

Actually, the idea of Commissars as party thugs who executed you for retreating is not really what soviet political officers were about at all.

Yes, they were authorized to perform executions in certain situations, but they didn't follow regiments of conscripts around shooting people who didn't run, screaming, into the waiting machine guns of the fascists. They were there to boost morale and were often popular with their men, as many of them were quite good at boosting morale in a positive manner.

Stalin's victims in general (outside of the Holodomor famines) were purged for political reasons. The Imperium kills in the name of religious dogma and racial purity. They really don't have a whole lot in common other than the cartoonishly-portrayed russian IG regiments.

The Imperium and Inquisition are very much the pop history version of medieval and renaissance Europe in space. Similarities to modern dictators are more coincidental than anything, I think. I mean, really, the Imperium doesn't have any political purges or death camps or any sort of modern totalitarian apparatus. It's all inquisitors and daemons and "you know too much, you must burn!" None of that really screams "Hitler" or "Stalin" or anyone modern.

Actually commissars aren't only there for execution. The commissars are there to boost moral, to inspire them to glory! They don't all lead through terror. Many do, but so are there many that lead through heroism or some combination of the two. They stand at the front out of cover shooting the enemy waving his sword. The trigger happy commissars aren't uncommon to find later on dead with wounds that look like that of a stray lasgun.... how odd...

The eldar always struck me as being analogous to any kind of elves in other works of fantasy. They're elegant, artistic, elitist, while also splintered and scattered. Tolkein's elves are like that, same with D&D, and various others. But eldar get special treatment, 'cause they're elves... IN SPACE!

And as we know well, putting anything in space automatically makes it more awesome.

The Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition, I believe, are similarly analogous to the Spanish Inquisition in the Dark Ages. They look tirelessly for any signs of opposition to their religion, and viciously exterminate any they find, often in horrificly violent ways. They even both refer(red) to it as "heresy".

Chaos is lifted straight out of Michael Moorecock's eternal champions books. They use the same iconography, symbols, personalities and only slight change in spellings.
The same goes for the elder which are also pulled from the same source, same imagery, same everything (aloof space elves) with only the slight name spelling difference of going from eldren to elder.

Those who have ben around since the beginning of GW will know that they don't even try to hde or deny this. Many of the models and such even started out as eternal champion models that were later renamed. Look at the high elves and melnibonians as an example of this.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Imperium has little in common with the SU. The Imperium during the Great Crusade did (atheist and striving towards a 'better future' for mankind) but the Imperium in the 41st millenium has more in common with the Nazi's: "Fear The Alien. Hate The Alien. Kill The Alien." Just subsitute alien for Jew..

...and that's not true either. In 40k it is 'the Xenos','the Witch' and 'the Heretic'. It's based on/inspired by the 'witch-craze' of c15-c17 Europe when the combination of the availability of the printing press & subsequent publication of Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of (the) Witches) poured essentially hot oil onto the burning flame of religious turmoil that gripped Europe. It got to the point of being ridiculous where you could be burnt at the stake for something so minor as being left-handed*. Whole communities would turn on each other, quick to inform on their neighbours if something 'bad' happened to them (such as ill cattle, crops not growing particularly well). It was a horrific time in Europe, so many people killed by the Catholic church in their search for 'heretics' and 'witches' - sickening in fact.

*Information that worried three of the chaps in my history class (me being one of them) when we were informed of this by our tutor - all three of us were left-handed.

The Imperium is based on many things from both history and fiction. The nazis are certainly among them. The soviets too, but too a much lesser extent.
Soviet influence can mainly be seen in the IG: Commisars, penal batallions and massed artillery anyone? Not to mention the massive armoured onslaughts...

But you can sleep easily, the scale and severity. of the 'witch craze' is often overstated. The importance of the Malleus Maleficarum especially. In fact, the Maleficarum was already declared as 'false' by the Catholic Church in 1490, and Inquisitors were warned not to believe it, which is quite logical, as the Maleficarum is really a ridiculous book, I couldn't bring myself to read more than a few chapters from it. It's banishment nicely shows us that medieval people were not always as stupid and superstitious as we are sometimes led to believe.
And left-handedness was as common in the Middle Ages as it is now. It was looked upon unfavourably, and left-handed people were often forced to use their right hand instead, but it was nowhere near enough to get you burnt at stake.
The death penalty was not something that was issued lightly in the Middle Ages, and only reserved for severe crimes and those that were actually 'proven' to be in league with the devil.
While there were undoubtely many innocent women (those in league with the devil are almost always women, for women are weak of will and devious by nature, as the Maleficarum tells us ) burned during the 'witch craze' the whole matter is subject to a lot of sensationalism. The total death toll of witch persecution in Europe during the period is estimated at about 60.000.

So you should not really be worried being left handed. According to the Maleficarum, you should worry about witches trying to steal your penis instead.

edit: should you want to read the infamous Malleus Maleficarum yourself, here be the link: http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/downloads/MalleusAcrobat.pdf

Necrons- I like the old fluff. Turning them in to Tomb Kings in SPACEeee! sux. I prefered the mindless horror they represented previosly. Unstoppable phalanxes of the robo-undead, mindless and destructive was cool. Now...just Tomb Kings in space

Eldar- Celtic stuff with a heay dash of chinese mysticism.

Orks- Football hooligans. American football AND European Futbol. Seriously, the Raiders fan club, you gotta get "jumped" in like a frign street gang.

Space Marines- Knights in space. Add in a spalsh of special forces, vampires, werewolves, Romans etc.

I.G.- Anything WW2, but IN SPACE!!!!!

As far as IoM and the Nazi stuff, Im gonna have to say there certainly an influence. But id say thats because they were the first totalitarian regime with incredible propaganda. I mean, Hugo Boss designed thier uniforms. Leni Riefenstahl's movies are a shot for shot hand book for modern movie cool. Im glad there all dead, and thier ideas are now relegated to fools and sociopaths. But they really knew how to look like bad mo' fo's.

 Red Marine wrote:

Im glad there all dead, and thier ideas are now relegated to fools and sociopaths. But they really knew how to look like bad mo' fo's.

There's a reason they were voted the 'Best Dressed Corpses on the Eastern Front' for three consecutive years!

I hate these threads, although this one is slightly better because half the people arnt shouting AMERICA after every army name. What i'm annoyed about is how "IG must be China or Russia due to X awful reason". Please don't belive everything you hear from western TV and don't judge if you have never been to X county,.just because you once read a history book does not count.

Anyway my veiw on the Tau os that their a "pan asain" army, i see their fluff as more islamic than anything with a desert world that was in war which united by a profit caste (Muhammed and Abu Bakr), their caste system is Hindu and the culture/politics is slightly Chinese (art of war, equelness etc) mech design is anime based and the script to me is a little korean! TDLR: Asian not just one country.

Humanity is a mix of all past cultures, when you look at a regiment and think "hey! This is like..." your most likely right, but may i add to my first point that the imperium can't be "communist" because its racist, xenophobic, blatently unequal and religous, nothing at all like China or Russia, so before you say "oh their like this place" please do some reserch because we can all get away by saying places like "rome or nazi germany" but some places still exist and your being just as xenophobic as the imperium saying this. POI commisars are Russian in nature but all armies used them in WW1 including the British army. The most Russian thing about them is the same and hats, the closest thing to communist China in the whole 40k setting is the dakkajet...a old copy of a Mig...which was Russian anyway and the Taus (sort of) only eldar and tau have real blatent Chinese culture in them (ying and yang, art of war etc).

Sorry to rant but the other side needed to be defended from an early post.

 tau tse tung wrote:
POI commisars are Russian in nature but all armies used them in WW1 including the British army.

Can you provide a source for this?