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Karol wrote:
Only problem I have with some of the names is adding unneeded vowels. Going from elf to aelf is just silly.

You mean going back to, since ælf is the Old English word that elf is based on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf#Etymology

 vipoid wrote:
This.

I'm pretty sure other companies manage to protect their IP without making it look like their unit names were badly translated from a language that doesn't exist.

What other miniatures company has a far-reaching IP like 40K? King of War can do generic unit names all day, because no one is going to copy their miniatures.

Here are some fine units from Warmachine

Iron Fang Uhlans
Dawnguard Destors
Exemplar Vengers
Bloodgorgers
Blighted Trollkin Marauders
Mechanithralls
Flameguard Cleansers
Precursor Knights
Tempest Blazers
Flame Bringers
Also better watch out for....the Deliverers.

Dang new fangled names.

Its Imperial Amry!
Crazy rebranding Imperial guard my patoot

Apple fox wrote:

But something like Feculent Gnarlmaw is a bit weird, since seems like you could just call it a Gnarlmaw. I would need to look that one up lol

Maybe they'll be releasing a Skankulous Gnarlmaw at some point, and need the distinction...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
This.

I'm pretty sure other companies manage to protect their IP without making it look like their unit names were badly translated from a language that doesn't exist.

What other miniatures company has a far-reaching IP like 40K? King of War can do generic unit names all day, because no one is going to copy their miniatures.

Here are some fine units from Warmachine

Iron Fang Uhlans
Dawnguard Destors
Exemplar Vengers
Bloodgorgers
Blighted Trollkin Marauders
Mechanithralls
Flameguard Cleansers
Precursor Knights
Tempest Blazers
Flame Bringers
Also better watch out for....the Deliverers.

I would just like to point out that some of those are used not as singular units.
Iron Fang Uhlans are a iron fang unit.
Just as Iron Fang pikemen, Iron Fang Kovnik and Iron Fang Kovnik Markov.
Black Dragons are also a Iron Fang unit.
As well Kapitan Sofya Skirova being both an Iron Fang and effecting them

I do not play khador tho, so I could be wrong there. I just looked it up.

Names can serve a very important reason, I think for the most part people complained at the sorta just made up to sound cool names with little substance.
Stuff like all the wolf stuff in space wolves, fine on there own. But can get a little silly fast, and often obserd when you look at it.

Deliverers are a fire bomb user from a highly religiosity faction that use fire to cleanse the unholy and is also a unit name I actually kinda like it, but it may be the more silly of those names.
But considering I think that list was not really that bad as a whole.
Internals probably have weirder names, but I not sure they are really naming there beasties in world. And maybe just named on what soldiers run away from.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
This.

I'm pretty sure other companies manage to protect their IP without making it look like their unit names were badly translated from a language that doesn't exist.

What other miniatures company has a far-reaching IP like 40K? King of War can do generic unit names all day, because no one is going to copy their miniatures.

Here are some fine units from Warmachine

Iron Fang Uhlans
Dawnguard Destors
Exemplar Vengers
Bloodgorgers
Blighted Trollkin Marauders
Mechanithralls
Flameguard Cleansers
Precursor Knights
Tempest Blazers
Flame Bringers
Also better watch out for....the Deliverers.

I don't think those are making the point you seem to think they are.

literally the only reason people are upset about Aeldari or Orruks is because they grew up with Orcs and Eldar. Objectively both naming conventions are just as childish/cheap fantasy sounding. Goshdarn newfangled cars, in my days we called them horseless carriages!

The other game I play is infinity. If only Games Workshop would adopt the un-confusing naming conventions present in this game.

My faction has access to the following units:

Corregidor Jaguars
TOMCATS
WILDCATS
HELLCATS
Tunguska Interventors
Bakunin Moderators
Mobile Brigada
REAKTON Zonds
STEMPLER Zonds
SALYUT Zonds
Bakunin Uberfallkommando

Luckily, my friend plays a different faction, with even easier to remember, shorter, and more intuitive names like

Kuang Shi
Zhanshi
Zhanying
Daoying
Daofei
Hac Tao
Hsien
Hulang

Cronch wrote:
literally the only reason people are upset about Aeldari or Orruks is because they grew up with Orcs and Eldar. Objectively both naming conventions are just as childish/cheap fantasy sounding. Goshdarn newfangled cars, in my days we called them horseless carriages!

I have zero issue with Orruks, my entire point was with Warclans. Since War is a bit redundant, unless Orruks have Cookclans as well or a washclan.
It’s mostly just saying the same thing but longer, and I do not Think that is a Orruk thing. Or anyone other when talking about them.

Cronch wrote:
literally the only reason people are upset about Aeldari or Orruks is because they grew up with Orcs and Eldar. Objectively both naming conventions are just as childish/cheap fantasy sounding. Goshdarn newfangled cars, in my days we called them horseless carriages!

It could be because it makes the game more confusing to talk about with new people if we all have to learn and remember multiple names for everything.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Cronch wrote:
literally the only reason people are upset about Aeldari or Orruks is because they grew up with Orcs and Eldar. Objectively both naming conventions are just as childish/cheap fantasy sounding. Goshdarn newfangled cars, in my days we called them horseless carriages!

It could be because it makes the game more confusing to talk about with new people if we all have to learn and remember multiple names for everything.

As opposed to such obvious things as striking scorpions, ogryns, tervigons, redemptor dreadnoughts, grey hunters, blood claws....let's be honest, learning that space elves are aeldari, and space terminators are necron hardly seems like a mental feat.

Cronch wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Cronch wrote:
literally the only reason people are upset about Aeldari or Orruks is because they grew up with Orcs and Eldar. Objectively both naming conventions are just as childish/cheap fantasy sounding. Goshdarn newfangled cars, in my days we called them horseless carriages!

It could be because it makes the game more confusing to talk about with new people if we all have to learn and remember multiple names for everything.

As opposed to such obvious things as striking scorpions, ogryns, tervigons, redemptor dreadnoughts, grey hunters, blood claws....let's be honest, learning that space elves are aeldari, and space terminators are necron hardly seems like a mental feat.

Whether or not it makes things much harder is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that it makes things harder than it would be if they didn't.

Or if they tried collapsing identical profiles instead of making more of them. Do storm bolters, combi-bolters, and twin bolters really need to have different names and weapons entries?

the_scotsman wrote:
The other game I play is infinity. If only Games Workshop would adopt the un-confusing naming conventions present in this game.

My faction has access to the following units:

Corregidor Jaguars
TOMCATS
WILDCATS
HELLCATS
Tunguska Interventors
Bakunin Moderators
Mobile Brigada
REAKTON Zonds
STEMPLER Zonds
SALYUT Zonds
Bakunin Uberfallkommando

Luckily, my friend plays a different faction, with even easier to remember, shorter, and more intuitive names like

Kuang Shi
Zhanshi
Zhanying
Daoying
Daofei
Hac Tao
Hsien
Hulang

Literally no one ever said Infinity was simple. You're deliberately being obtuse about it.

Okay then riddle me this. Which name tells you most about what the model is in terms of theme
a) stone troll
b) dankhold troggoth

Not that I expect you to answer honestly of course.

the_scotsman wrote:
...Luckily, my friend plays a different faction, with even easier to remember, shorter, and more intuitive names like

Kuang Shi
Zhanshi
Zhanying
Daoying
Daofei
Hac Tao
Hsien
Hulang

Wait, you find Yu Jing unit names intuitive? I'm curious what your thought process is in seeing, oh, I don't know, Hulang Shocktroopers and figuring out from that they're pseudo-HI close-quarters that carry D-charges and can score as specialists.

(I'm trying to figure out what it means in Chinese but I can't see the characters on the unit patch clearly, the best translation I've figured out from the pinyin is "lake wolf", which doesn't seem to help.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Wait, you find Yu Jing unit names intuitive? I'm curious what your thought process is in seeing, oh, I don't know, Hulang Shocktroopers and figuring out from that they're pseudo-HI close-quarters that carry D-charges and can score as specialists.

(I'm trying to figure out what it means in Chinese but I can't see the characters on the unit patch clearly, the best translation I've figured out from the pinyin is "lake wolf", which doesn't seem to help.)

I gather that they're being intensely sarcastic.

But I'm 100% with Sim-Life. When I started with AoS I found that my Ogre army can now take 'Troggoths'. I had no idea what a Troggoth is and had to look it up- lo and behold, it's a renamed troll.

Or Space Marine class names. Tactical, Devastator, and Assault are pretty easy to keep track of. But I regularly hear Intercessor, Inceptor, and Interceptor all used interchangeably.

The simpler names can lean on the audience's presumed understanding of fantasy tropes or basic English words. You know what 'assault' means. You probably don't know what 'intercessor' means without consulting a dictionary.

And so many of the compound names are unnecessary. Ad Mech have an Ironstrider and a Dragoon, you don't need to call them Ironstrider Ballistarius or Sydonian Dragoon to tell them apart. Death Guard have Bloat Drones, Blightspawn, Putrifiers, and Blight Haulers- the Foetid, Foul, Biologis, and Myphitic prefixes don't add semantic meaning. Name + Title (Abaddon The Despoiler) is fine. Class + Variant (Skorpius Dunerider) is fine. Name + Name (Biologis Putrifier) is redundant. Sloppity Bilepiper is syllable salad.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Okay then riddle me this. Which name tells you most about what the model is in terms of theme
a) stone troll
b) dankhold troggoth

Not that I expect you to answer honestly of course.

Both are pretty bad in terms of theme. If every unit needs to be named after what they do, then the Dankhold Troggoth ought to be renamed to "Mushroom-Eating Underground Troll with hammer"

GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

 Thadin wrote:
GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able

They really don't. They choose to; for the dubious reason of forcing third-party manufacturers to then call their stand-in models 'stone trolls' instead of being able to use the copyrighted term 'dankhold troggoth'.

 Thadin wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Okay then riddle me this. Which name tells you most about what the model is in terms of theme
a) stone troll
b) dankhold troggoth

Not that I expect you to answer honestly of course.

Both are pretty bad in terms of theme. If every unit needs to be named after what they do, then the Dankhold Troggoth ought to be renamed to "Mushroom-Eating Underground Troll with hammer"

GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

How is stone troll a bad name? Explain it to me how a troll with stone elements would otherwise named better?

Also, browsing models I realised that stone trolls are actually called rockgut troggoths now. So theres that.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Thadin wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

Okay then riddle me this. Which name tells you most about what the model is in terms of theme
a) stone troll
b) dankhold troggoth

Not that I expect you to answer honestly of course.

Both are pretty bad in terms of theme. If every unit needs to be named after what they do, then the Dankhold Troggoth ought to be renamed to "Mushroom-Eating Underground Troll with hammer"

GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

How is stone troll a bad name? Explain it to me how a troll with stone elements would otherwise named better?

It makes me think of LOTR and that sunlight will kill it, neither one of which is true.

 catbarf wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able

They really don't. They choose to; for the dubious reason of forcing third-party manufacturers to then call their stand-in models 'stone trolls' instead of being able to use the copyrighted term 'dankhold troggoth'.

Round-about way of agreeing with me. Third-party stores can make their generic stand-in trolls, and call them Stone Trolls because that generic of a name can't be claimed by any one company. Meanwhile, GW can copyright the non-generic name they attatch to their model, and nobody else can use it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It makes me think of LOTR and that sunlight will kill it, neither one of which is true.

And another Stone Troll from the Witcher, where it's a hunched-over creature covered in stones, that eats stones.

 Thadin wrote:
...GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

Why?

bibotot wrote:
I actually like going from Imperial Guards into Astra Militarum.

To be fair, just because they are re-branding for the sake of copy-write doesn't mean you need to change how you think of them in your head. Just think of them how you want to

 Thadin wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It makes me think of LOTR and that sunlight will kill it, neither one of which is true.

And another Stone Troll from the Witcher, where it's a hunched-over creature covered in stones, that eats stones.

Oh wow my quote made your banner

 catbarf wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able

They really don't. They choose to; for the dubious reason of forcing third-party manufacturers to then call their stand-in models 'stone trolls' instead of being able to use the copyrighted term 'dankhold troggoth'.

Do you think it ever occurred to GW that the 3rd party copies are now more intuitively named than their own models?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
...GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

Why?

I'm a new customer to GW. I just saw my buddy playing and some models looked cool.

I wish to buy some Dankhold Troggoth.

I google the name. Now at this point I would get only GW links. If a third party were able to use the same name their links would show, too. Now I would have to hunt to find out that Stone Trolls from company X are a suitable stand-in.

I see Dankhold Troggoth images - reinforcing what I want to purchase. I see Dankhold Troggoth videos. What would happen if it was called Stone Troll? Well then I'd see some of the old GW Stone Trolls, a bunch of other trolls, and Tolkein stuff.

Distinct names aren't just smart for copyright. They're smart, because they carve out the internet in a way that focuses the customer on GW product.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
...GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

Why?

I'm a new customer to GW. I just saw my buddy playing and some models looked cool.

I wish to buy some Dankhold Troggoth.

I google the name.

This is a great point, on the flip side though, some of the names are so complicated that its hard to know how they are spelled, or what they are properly called if someone has just told you what the model is called.

"I saw my friend playing with a Dancold Toggoth"



Clicking the "did you mean" gets same results.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
...GW needs to assign names to their models that can be copyright-able, so they can't be generic fantasy concepts.

Why?

I'm a new customer to GW. I just saw my buddy playing and some models looked cool.

I wish to buy some Dankhold Troggoth.

I google the name. Now at this point I would get only GW links. If a third party were able to use the same name their links would show, too. Now I would have to hunt to find out that Stone Trolls from company X are a suitable stand-in.

I see Dankhold Troggoth images - reinforcing what I want to purchase. I see Dankhold Troggoth videos. What would happen if it was called Stone Troll? Well then I'd see some of the old GW Stone Trolls, a bunch of other trolls, and Tolkein stuff.

Distinct names aren't just smart for copyright. They're smart, because they carve out the internet in a way that focuses the customer on GW product.

I think you're being quite optimistic with regard to potential new players remembering not just the name of a faction but also the very awkward and unintuitive name of a specific unit.

It seems more likely they'd be thinking to themselves "What were those units called? They were big, troll things. 'Dark Trolls', maybe?"



And like magic Games Workshop and its stupid names are suddenly nowhere to be seen.

Sometimes there are advantages to calling a spade a spade, rather than a Malefesicic Splodulator (TM).

^Naming products can be aggravatingly complicated.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Okay then riddle me this. Which name tells you most about what the model is in terms of theme
a) stone troll
b) dankhold troggoth

Not that I expect you to answer honestly of course.

People seem to think that listing off names will somehow prove their point, but as you said, they're missing the point or being intentionally dishonest/obtuse about it.

I mean I even stated how these sorts of names could be fixed:

ME! wrote:So many of these could just be shortened and sound ten times better. Bilepiper over "Sloppity Bilepiper". Blighthauler over Myphitic Blight-Hauler. Grimghast over "Grimghast Reapers", and so on.

So GW can keep their copywritten IP stuff without needing to turn everything into an Adjective Nounverb bit of word salad.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I wish to buy some Dankhold Troggoth.

I google the name. Now at this point I would get only GW links. If a third party were able to use the same name their links would show, too. Now I would have to hunt to find out that Stone Trolls from company X are a suitable stand-in.

I see Dankhold Troggoth images - reinforcing what I want to purchase. I see Dankhold Troggoth videos.

And it could have just as easily been a Troggoth, and a Troggboss, and Grimgast, and a Gnarlmaw, and a Blight-Hauler, or the Bilepiper, and so on. We don't need all the extra extraneous words to achieve what you've set out above.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
What would happen if it was called Stone Troll? Well then I'd see some of the old GW Stone Trolls, a bunch of other trolls, and Tolkein stuff.

gak, I dunno... I'd put "Warhammer" in front of Stone Troll because I'm not an idiot and know how search engines work.

But simply you can remember just "Troggoth" and still get to where you need to be.

Even Warhammer mushroom troll gets you somewhere close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rippy wrote:

This is a great point, on the flip side though, some of the names are so complicated that its hard to know how they are spelled, or what they are properly called if someone has just told you what the model is called.

"I saw my friend playing with a Dancold Toggoth"

But this results in the user adjusting their search. They won't likely just give up at this point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
7Shit, I dunno... I'd put "Warhammer" in front of Stone Troll because I'm not an idiot and know how search engines work.

You may not be, but when dealing with SEO and getting customers dialed you never presume knowledge. You're also dealing with a lot of younger customers. There's more room for error and losing customers with Stone Troll than there is with Troggoth.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
But simply you can remember just "Troggoth" and still get to where you need to be.

Even Warhammer mushroom troll gets you somewhere close.

But if they are already searching by brand/company-name then surely it doesn't matter anyway?

If they are set on buying stuff from Games Workshop then GW could just as easily have called the thing a Mushroom Troll to begin with.

Meanwhile, it someone isn't set on buying something from GW (possibly because they saw GW's prices ), then they can probably figure out some appropriate searches to look at alternatives from other companies.