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So we have Necron who are practically metallic human skeletons, we have Tyranids that are space insects, plants or aquatic tentacloids such as jellyfish, squid or octopus inspired things, Tau are humanoids without a nose, wearing native american culture somewhat amalgamate with asian inspired whatnot (granted, which is much related historically but that aside), Orks are green monkeyesque people despite having a whacky lore of again earthly plantlife (mushrooms), still bipedal and indestinguishable from humans for the most part, Eldar/Drukhari are technically just humans with pointy ears/elfs and even their robots and vehicles are human-inspired tech, Kroot are like porcupine.. yet fully humanoid, perhaps a bit spacelizard' which is still earthly.. and the Votann as much as the demiurg are all humanoid aswell with earthly droid tech sporting the same humanoid appearance.

Is this because the idea of xenos/alien/something-that-is-strange as in different to us' is not understood or by choice to keep design still in the realm of "relatability"? (I would think the second?)

If I would have to think of an actual xenos/alien design I would avoid everything that is biological in the first place, as in everything that has a relation to any earthly biome. Something truly strange should as its bedrock be something that resonates with a law different to that of nature which is earthly.

Life-form that is for instance composed of a different chemical makeup, perhaps silicon life, aetheric life or sulfur life that is distinct and disconnected from carbon based life. Granted that on earth we do have some abyssal (under the sea) species that are self luminant for instance, boneless, sometimes senseless' (and the inspiration for many a cthulu deity) but these are still carbon based.

Why would any (fiction) planet removed from the source of carbonization which is char-(coal)-ization' being.. the Sun' have carbon based form?
Where are the crystaline Xenos, the luminary Xenos (elementals anyone?) or atleast any type of non-comparable Xenos (like a floppy gelatin/slime like species or something) that doesn't wear humanoid armor and uses humanoid flipping weaponry such as rifles, cannons, swords knifes maces, bows, pikes or african throwing javelins (I see you, Kroot).
I feel like this is a huge missed oppertunity that makes 40k come off as limited in terms of inspiration. It's also something I've noticed within the paradigm of Xenos all having political and hierarchical systems, which are human' systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry

Anyway that's what was griping me when I was thinking about 40k a bit yesterday.
-Helveine.

I don't know, dude. Were you expecting a Stanislaw Lem work?

 RaptorusRex wrote:
I don't know, dude. Were you expecting a Stanislaw Lem work?

Not the best example considering many of his alien species are exactly in the same field of earthly inspired and compatible with human technological capability. (I do have to say I very much enjoyed the film the congress based on his book)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/ (It's a must see for those who haven't yet)

Umbra are hard to sculpt.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
I don't know, dude. Were you expecting a Stanislaw Lem work?

Not the best example considering many of his alien species are exactly in the same field of earthly inspired and compatible with human technological capability. (I do have to say I very much enjoyed the film the congress based on his book)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/ (It's a must see for those who haven't yet)

When I think Lem, I think Solaris and its ineffable, uncategorizable world-intelligence. I had a liberal education in the classical sense, and Lem was very much of the postmodernist school that interrogated our assumed epistemology.

That said:

I'm not sure you understand that any fictional alien must be conceived by a human brain and if it's a popular fictional work, likely easily grasped by it.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
Is this because the idea of xenos/alien/something-that-is-strange as in different to us' is not understood or by choice to keep design still in the realm of "relatability"? (I would think the second?)

Exactly, keeping things relatable.

Warhammer 40K made its success by taking real world influences and shoe horning them into the 40K Universe. Just look at Space Marines as one example: Space Wolves are Vikings, Blood Angels are vampires, Ultramarines are Romans, etc...

The same applies to the Xenos in the game. Tyranids are not only insects, they're heavily influenced by the Xenomorph in the Alien series. Orks (apart from being fungus) are essentially British football hooligans of the 1980's. This is what makes 40K work. Although it's a sci fi setting thousands of years into the future it's conceived by real world ideas.

GW have unapologetically borrowed from many other sources to make their own little mixing pot. This isn't a coincidence, it's by design. Making aliens which are truly alien would go against this ethos.

 RaptorusRex wrote:


When I think Lem, I think Solaris and its ineffable, uncategorizable world-intelligence. I had a liberal education in the classical sense, and Lem was very much of the postmodernist school that interrogated our assumed epistemology.

That said:

I'm not sure you understand that any fictional alien must be conceived by a human brain and if it's a popular fictional work, likely easily grasped by it.

I have to say that I look at this from the Etymological field in that alien is defined as something that is different' from that human brain's conceptualization, which doesn't mean it cannot be conceptualized, but optimally' as distant possible from human familiarities, so not merely consisting of a warped function (like having more than two arms etc).

Considering I wasn't necessarily speaking of human' (while detecting Xenos as mostly being humanoid) but rather of earthly' and therefor carbon-based' I would remind of the link I posted concerning hypothetical types of (bio) chemistry, alternate lifeforms are not an idea limited to the brain's own chemistry (carbon) but include that of other chemistry such as' again'; silicon, sulfuric etc (the latter is hard to imagine, perhaps some lifeform that is practically a dust/particle construct which ventilates fumes or so.
I think the most alien species we have here are some of the microscopic entities such as snottites, bristle worms and tardigrades, yet fiction writers still use human-sense-surface level carbon based creatures as inspiration, sadly. (mostly insects or aquatic life)

I mean look this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychaete

El Torro wrote:

 Leopold Helveine wrote:
Is this because the idea of xenos/alien/something-that-is-strange as in different to us' is not understood or by choice to keep design still in the realm of "relatability"? (I would think the second?)

Exactly, keeping things relatable.

Warhammer 40K made its success by taking real world influences and shoe horning them into the 40K Universe. Just look at Space Marines as one example: Space Wolves are Vikings, Blood Angels are vampires, Ultramarines are Romans, etc...

The same applies to the Xenos in the game. Tyranids are not only insects, they're heavily influenced by the Xenomorph in the Alien series. Orks (apart from being fungus) are essentially British football hooligans of the 1980's. This is what makes 40K work. Although it's a sci fi setting thousands of years into the future it's conceived by real world ideas.

GW have unapologetically borrowed from many other sources to make their own little mixing pot. This isn't a coincidence, it's by design. Making aliens which are truly alien would go against this ethos.

Yes I suspected that 40k in particular is a sort of compendium of nostalgic' easter eggs wether or no for selling-value/success, it does look like Spacemarine chapters are fashioned after each distinct culture and people. Which isn't that strange considering the whole unified mankind (under a sum of all its hopes and fears made into a non human AI, aside)..

Tyranids indeed have that alien(trademark) vibe since its conception, and squats/votann are ofcourse just dwarfs going to the moon to delve moonpotatoes because we all love dwarfs, even in science fiction theme.

I mean, I have a complica(ting)ted mind and WH is for all ages, kids should be able to look at these species and go "I want to be that when I grow up" heh.
(inb4 they say that about genestealers.. -_- )

But the exotophile in me would like to be suprised with something new too.

Assuming you come with a genuinely alien Xeno, how do you model it and exclude anything earthly?

Take a puddle or a blob or a cube - they all exist on earth...

A puddle, blob or cube would also be infinitely boring.

It isn't just about coming up with something entirely alien, but also making it as complex as macroscopic "earthly species" so it can be distinguishable, memorable and recognizable.

Things can be too alien.

Things are scary when we can see a bit of ourselves or our world in them.

Tyranids, arguably, represent the natural order of things ramped up to Eleventy. A manifestation of the evolutionary struggle, where each race must constantly adapt to new challenges or face extinction. They also represent rampant consumption without forethought of “hey, maybe store some for later”. They also look a bit like Dinosaurs.

Orks are as said, ‘Ooligans. A race simply devoted to fighting, and loving every second of it. They’re anarchy incarnate. And the represent the classical Barbarian Hordes that have been the fall of many an empire which, at least on paper, outclassed them in purely militaristic terms.

The Sentient Blobs Of Yuck? Not so much. They’re just blobs, and not terribly visually interesting.

It's not really that hard to figure out why 40k has Humans/Elves/Dwarves/Halflings/orks, goblins, etc

It's because in the beginning (early-mid 80s) there was Warhammer Fantasy Battle. A game very prominently featuring all your typical Tolkien/D&D stuff. + assorted undead. The Slann (Aztec themed frogmen) were the oddest faction. Oh. And add in the demons!

It sold very well.

So the company decided to do a Sci-Fi game with similar rules.
And so they just made sci-fi versions of all that stuff
Thus you have Eldar (space elves), Squats (now called Votann as your space dwarves), rstlings = halflings, etcWorld's....
For the "bad guys"? They just made evil versions of the humans & ported in the demons.

And it sold well!

So then they started taking inspiration from other existing sci-fi properties.
●Ever see Terminator?
Why do you think necron warriors look like T-800s? They even started out with a rule called "We"ll be back". Sure, they also went on to borrow cues from GWs own recent Egyptian themed Tomb Kings & then some re-boot Cylons (just look at they're flyers!) & then some War of the Worlds.... But the heart of the Necrons is the T-800 endo-skeleton.
●Tyranids?
As others have pointed out. You've got GW borrowing cues from Alien/Aliens. And then later there's a nice flavoring of Starcraft.... Add in other creepy crawly insect/tenticle things....
●Tau?
Take some Martian Gray's, give them a hefty dose of animae inspired mecha, and then borrow the Droid tank from SWhantom Menace. Paint studio army droid brown... oh. And add the winged aliens from Attack of the Clones a few years later.

GW doesn't create its own xenos from scratch for mass sale because it's much easier to sell you "thier" version of something you're already familiar with.
(Or something that was popular near when the xeno in question came out).

That's why 40k xenos look like they do.

There is an interesting discussion in the 'how alien is alien' area, in regards to earth biology and forms.

I used scoff a little at the star trek ridge nose style of alien, but when you look at a few factors, it's not AS far fetched as it appears.

the hydrocarbons that make up life are common products of natural forces. The nucleotides that make up DNA molecules form just as often and easily. We can detect them in the ice of comets. So it's not entirely far fetched to consider that most life is going to form around this chemistry, it's just very common and practical.

organisms that can get to a far future level of technology will require a set of solutions the same problems of construction, like large brains and manipulators. Whether these are hands, tentacles, telekinesis etc. There are only so many ways to have fine motor/manipulatory capability. Coupled with this will be some form of light sense, a good depth of field to be able to see the things you're making.

you will also need some form of locomotion to move to the areas that have the materials you need to make stuff.

You will need a culture in which knowledge is collected and shared, which requires cultural structures to form. It requires cooperation at a level that a civilisation can form.

There are only 3 methods of energy consumption that we know of on earth and I don't think you can invent many more. Solar energy directly (autotrophs), indirectly through the consumption of other life (heterotrophs) and chemical energy (chemotrophs). in 40k you could add warp energy (ectotroph?).

But life will need energy to survive and there are only so many places to get it. The chance of an autotroph becoming like us is relatively low because of how low the energy consumption is. Hetertrophs let other organisms concentrate energy and then consume them as a short cut. A tree would need to be massive to consume the equivalent.

Heterotrophs require a means if ingesting that energy, so that's some form of mouth or absorber system.


tldr, to be a space faring technological organism you are very likely going to have:

the same chemical building blocks as earth
a brain, manipulators, light senses, energy consumption system and locomotion.
Plus culture and gregarious cohesion for continual knowledge building and sharing.

Which will make you somewhat similar to us and to earth life, by dint of practicality.

Leopold Helveine wrote:Kroot are like porcupine.. yet fully humanoid, perhaps a bit spacelizard' which is still earthly

Porcupine? Try avian-inspired.

El Torro wrote:GW have unapologetically borrowed from many other sources to make their own little mixing pot. This isn't a coincidence, it's by design. Making aliens which are truly alien would go against this ethos.

How dare you, sir? We have them on court record in the US saying their design team never lifts anything from popular culture, and you wouldn't want to accuse them of perjury, now, would you? Even if they were trying to defend their claim over the use of Roman numerals (amongst other things) at the time...

On top of not wanting to be too alien, in order to provide something relatable for the audience, there's also the fact that you need to be able to sculpt this stuff. The background serves the game, so developing an alien race that is an amorphous blob, or pure energy doesn't directly lead to the visual spectacle you want. You could do something like the Vorlons in B5, but then they'd likely be contained within their biomechanical suits, making them just another "typical" alien species, visually.

That's also why most sci-fi has humanoid aliens, often with random bits of rubber attached to their faces - they're cheap, quick and fairly easy to depict on-screen, compared to doing a full CGI race. It's not so much that the writers lack imagination, they just have certain limitations imposed by the medium.

Also, it’s really hard to imagine a functional body plan other than those we see in nature.

Winged, bipedal, quadruped, insectoid, arachnid. Those are mostly it, barring slugs and other molluscs.

You could upscale a bacteria or virus, but it’s just gonna look odd, not weird. Because we’ve little to no point of reference.

And in terms of sculpting a convincing anatomy, that matters. GW have various non-insectoid six limbed gribbles, from various Tyranids to Slaanesh daemons.

Speaking of Slaaneshi Daemons? The Fiends are essentially centaur inspired. Bestial, four legged body, and a humanesque torso with a further two limbs. But look at the layout, especially the rear legs. Not only is it overall an unnatural, if mythologically familiar body plan? Those rear legs have their own pelvis, and it’s facing backwards, adding to the overall wrongness of it, without going into “what the hell is that” territory.

Warhammer 40K is quite literally "Warhammer In Space". So for 40K a big reason is that a lot of the races were lifted right from fantasy and put into a sci-fi setting.




As for why its common in general within a lot of fantasy I'd argue there's a few reasons

1) Familiarity. The same reason fantasy often has orks, goblins, elves and so forth is that common tropes and elements are much easier to convey and for the audience to grasp. Reading especially you can spend pages upon pages describing really wild crazy things; or you can say "elf". One aspect most of your readers will grasp very quickly and continue with the story; another and they might feel lost, confused or like you're bombarding them with worldbuilding. Not inherently bad, but it might lose traction compared to those that rely on more common elements.

2) Monkey see monkey do. A LOT of creative work is derived from other creative work and from reality. So often as not people are inspired by similar things to create further things.

Both 1 and 2 basically mean that you get a lot of repetition and derivative ideas. That is not a bad thing; its just a thing. It also means that if you get some landmark creation it can change it. Lord of the Rings created a lot of the foundations for many fantasy races today - it was a huge inspirational landmark.


3) As slipspace says in creative works there's often barriers on complexity. Even in video games you've still got animation work and other aspects that make it a lot easier to work with a known design of animal/creature and adapt it rather than starting fresh with something that might be super creative; but which is very hard to animate because there's no real world elements you can draw from or library you can dip into.

4) Understanding. A great example of this is the new bioficers faction from Dropfleet Commander. They use a very alien design to their ships and some who dislike them have noted that part of the issue is they can't always see the functionality of something.
If the audience can't understand what a thing is or what it does or how it might do something then their ability to engage with it is reduced.
The same is true of alien creatures. If they are vastly different it can be harder to engage with them and understand; which can mean that whilst they might be really cool; people might just not latch onto them

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Things can be too alien.

Things are scary when we can see a bit of ourselves or our world in them.

Tyranids, arguably, represent the natural order of things ramped up to Eleventy. A manifestation of the evolutionary struggle, where each race must constantly adapt to new challenges or face extinction. They also represent rampant consumption without forethought of “hey, maybe store some for later”. They also look a bit like Dinosaurs.

Orks are as said, ‘Ooligans. A race simply devoted to fighting, and loving every second of it. They’re anarchy incarnate. And the represent the classical Barbarian Hordes that have been the fall of many an empire which, at least on paper, outclassed them in purely militaristic terms.

The Sentient Blobs Of Yuck? Not so much. They’re just blobs, and not terribly visually interesting.

I would think a blob with needles or pores is pretty scary, I recall a (likely fake.. possibly some amalgamate thing) video of a sewer that had a slimy thing moving that had such needles (don't recall where I ever found it, probably somewhere obscure) and it really gave me the jeebies.
https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cameron_Village_Sewer_Blob (only decent source I can still find which has the video as the YT page seems to be blocked these days, not sure why)
Same with how a lot of people had the jeebies when that image of a photoshopped skin condition went around, looking like seeds inside of holes, theres a word for the fobia; trypofobia.
https://www.iflscience.com/this-photo-deeply-disgusts-some-people-and-scientists-are-trying-to-understand-why-42474
(that's the same plant that was eventually used for a memetic rampage)

NSFW/not-for children or faint of heart; google this prompt; "trypophobia photoshopped image"

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Things can be too alien.

Things are scary when we can see a bit of ourselves or our world in them.

Tyranids, arguably, represent the natural order of things ramped up to Eleventy. A manifestation of the evolutionary struggle, where each race must constantly adapt to new challenges or face extinction. They also represent rampant consumption without forethought of “hey, maybe store some for later”. They also look a bit like Dinosaurs.

Orks are as said, ‘Ooligans. A race simply devoted to fighting, and loving every second of it. They’re anarchy incarnate. And the represent the classical Barbarian Hordes that have been the fall of many an empire which, at least on paper, outclassed them in purely militaristic terms.

The Sentient Blobs Of Yuck? Not so much. They’re just blobs, and not terribly visually interesting.

I would think a blob with needles or pores is pretty scary

Sure, and there were some deathworld plants with rules back in 3rd edition that were like that. The problem isn't so much coming up with a single thing that's very alien (spore mines fit the bill here too). You also have to extend that to an entire army, or at least a sub-faction of an army. Then you get into the issues Overread mentions about function and recognisability. There's value in being able to identify what you're looking at in a general sense, especially talking about gaming. When you have vaguely humanoid things carrying weapons of various types you can easily vary that within a design language and maintain intelligibility even for people unfamiliar with an army. Once you have to start identifying units base don the number of spikes on the main blob, it becomes much more difficult.

For an effective example of something "alien" working well, consider the Borg cube. It's about as simple a design as you can get, but it was jarring when first encountered because every other ship had a fore and aft, something usually recognisable as a bridge and some identifiable means of propulsion. Take that away and you get something disconcerting. But you have to be careful, because if you go too far, you get something that's just too confusing.

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Things can be too alien.

Things are scary when we can see a bit of ourselves or our world in them.

Tyranids, arguably, represent the natural order of things ramped up to Eleventy. A manifestation of the evolutionary struggle, where each race must constantly adapt to new challenges or face extinction. They also represent rampant consumption without forethought of “hey, maybe store some for later”. They also look a bit like Dinosaurs.

Orks are as said, ‘Ooligans. A race simply devoted to fighting, and loving every second of it. They’re anarchy incarnate. And the represent the classical Barbarian Hordes that have been the fall of many an empire which, at least on paper, outclassed them in purely militaristic terms.

The Sentient Blobs Of Yuck? Not so much. They’re just blobs, and not terribly visually interesting.

I would think a blob with needles or pores is pretty scary

Boo!

Model wise another good example is Starwars.

The actual spaceship models for them in games have very few actual guns visible on most of the larger craft. You get a few big turbolasers here and there, but most of the actual pew-pew guns are invisible.

And yet you know the Star Destroyer is going to be pew-pewing loads of shots* all over the place. Not because of visual language on the model, but from the films.

I think that's one area where if you want to go really wild; films do let you achieve some elements of it whilst conveying a lot of visual information very quickly. The Borg Cube is much the same.

If you just saw it with zero context it looks like an industrial box. Throw it in films with its green lasers, tractorbeams; the knowledge of what's inside etc... and it works.



*all aimed by cross-eyed donkey-caves

Daemons rather than aliens, but I have a soft spot for this bit of low-fi army building

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/355017.page

Perhaps my favorite species of creature is the Tardigrade or Waterbear. These things are crazy- they are the ultimate survivors, and if humans ever get to the point where we are looking into terraforming technologies, Cyanobacteria and Tardigrades will be our greatest allies in those efforts.

Thing is, the biggest Tardigrade you're ever going to encounter would be 1.5 mm- obviously that can't be represented on a table- you'd just have to move around bases and say "There's a bunch of Tardigrades on this base, they're just too small to see. You have a slim chance of killing them with a torrent or blast weapon, but they're so small that's the only thing that can target them.

I find Nids suitably alien, though I really hate their bio rifles and would far prefer such things be implemented more organically into them rather than held in hands.

 LunarSol wrote:
I find Nids suitably alien, though I really hate their bio rifles and would far prefer such things be implemented more organically into them rather than held in hands.

Interesting observation - early Tyranid models were nearly all very much holding their weapons. Whilst many guns had pipes to connect them to the body as well, they still held them in claws.

Today a lot more weapons are fused with the arm/body.

That said I've always found it interesting that weapons like Fleshborers have magazines and pipes connected to the body


For me I like it with Tyranids because it kind of shows that they have this sort of internal battle with themsleves in being living bioweapons and yet not being just a gun. A Termagaunt is trapped with a core design and elements that mean its not just a gun with legs. It has to hold a separate gun

it's also worth considering: until very recently, all models made for the game had to be crafted by hand. even in the era of digital modeling, there are pretty strict restraints. so even if someone made the most out-there unfathomable concept art ever, there would still be difficulties at the stage where you turn it into something on the table

furthermore, for as much as I like to think that humans are too limited in what we consider "life", and that if we looked for something that didn't just match us... as far as human conceptions go, we can only imagine what we have basis for. even viruses or ancient life can be understood in the context of other life they're related to. to come up with something truly unearthly, we've probably have to find it first

 Leopold Helveine wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
I don't know, dude. Were you expecting a Stanislaw Lem work?

Not the best example considering many of his alien species are exactly in the same field of earthly inspired and compatible with human technological capability. (I do have to say I very much enjoyed the film the congress based on his book)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/ (It's a must see for those who haven't yet)

But that is because Lem assumes that we can ONLY communicate with rational humanoid beings who have "an intellectual imagination that is able to set tasks and model them. [Reason] must have the ability to imagine the universe as a whole in which intelligence participates - and the certainty that its image is inevitably incomplete, that it (this reason) can only model the chaossphere for itself.". People don't really look for things, they look for other people. That is why they make animals, things, feelings everything in to a human. A toy given by your parents becomes a human, just as well a god has to become a human too for people to want to interact with him, never mind try to understand. Which is always trying to give the god traits, ways of thinking etc of a human. The moment something becomes really abstract or not human it loses interest to majority of people.

Just for fun I made an alien race for our local gaming group, with models and rules. They are energy shapeshifters that manifest themselves into 3 physical combat types, essentially equivalent to infantry, cavalry and artillery. They are radially symmetrical blobs with 5 tentacles of various sizes, with the infantry being the smallest (monads). The monads are also building blocks which can with enough numbers turn into the other two types. The other types must turn into monads first before further alteration.

The army has very unique deployment rules and is very dependent on the loci, or leader units. The monads also may grow in numbers if they are near enough enemy casualties. Anyway, the whole point is an alien race can be made with a little creativity beyond making something that is very similar to human beings and still work as a table top army. If GW doesn't quite scratch that itch, there's no harm in creating something of your own.

 amanita wrote:
Just for fun I made an alien race for our local gaming group, with models and rules. They are energy shapeshifters that manifest themselves into 3 physical combat types, essentially equivalent to infantry, cavalry and artillery. They are radially symmetrical blobs with 5 tentacles of various sizes, with the infantry being the smallest (monads). The monads are also building blocks which can with enough numbers turn into the other two types. The other types must turn into monads first before further alteration.

The army has very unique deployment rules and is very dependent on the loci, or leader units. The monads also may grow in numbers if they are near enough enemy casualties. Anyway, the whole point is an alien race can be made with a little creativity beyond making something that is very similar to human beings and still work as a table top army. If GW doesn't quite scratch that itch, there's no harm in creating something of your own.

Got images?
They sound hecking neat!

I'm late to the discussion, but...

* In-universe, I think it's suggested if not outright stated that a lot of species in the galaxy were seeded by the Old Ones doing the Ancient Astronauts thing. So it's possible that the similarities in body plans between species is due at least in part to a lot of life using the same starter dough.

* As Hellebore pointed out, convergent evolution is a thing. Look at how many times Earth has attempted to make crabs. It's maybe a little human-centric to assume that bipedal humanoids are such a "good" body plan that that specific layout would become the galactic norm, but... *shrug*.

* The "real" answer is, as others have pointed out, that 40k is meant to be Warhammer Fantasy in Spaaaaaace, and the fantasy versions of various species are bipedal humanoids because reasons. Also, the general vibe of 40k is dudes chainsawing eachother on motorcycles, and it's tricky to get that Heavy Metal vibe with an amorphous slime blob or a nebulous collection of sapient triangles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I find Nids suitably alien, though I really hate their bio rifles and would far prefer such things be implemented more organically into them rather than held in hands.

Interesting observation - early Tyranid models were nearly all very much holding their weapons. Whilst many guns had pipes to connect them to the body as well, they still held them in claws.

Today a lot more weapons are fused with the arm/body.

That said I've always found it interesting that weapons like Fleshborers have magazines and pipes connected to the body


For me I like it with Tyranids because it kind of shows that they have this sort of internal battle with themsleves in being living bioweapons and yet not being just a gun. A Termagaunt is trapped with a core design and elements that mean its not just a gun with legs. It has to hold a separate gun

I'm with LunarSol on this one. Especially the way they're usually painted, 'nid guns feel too much like they're rifles that were picked up somewhere. They're basically what I would expect a chaos marine fused to his bolter to look like.

I feel like termagaunts should be a little more like the exocrine. Some sort of back/chest/mouth/tail gun that makes the entire gaunt feel like it exists to be a projectile delivery system. The fluff about how the gun is its own organism "piloting" the gaunt is a cool way to justify the "held rifle" design, but it ultimately still feels like a retrofitted justification.

 LunarSol wrote:
I find Nids suitably alien, though I really hate their bio rifles and would far prefer such things be implemented more organically into them rather than held in hands.

Maybe. But Nid bio-weapons arguably make them more unique / "alien" than most variants of space bugs/swarms/hives/insects from sci-fi literature/film/etc...