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Another 40K shift that has occurred over time has been the treatment of the regular army force, the Imperial Guard (excuse me, Astra Militarum). My recollection of early 40K was that the IG were the Poor Bloody Infantry, conscripted/shanghaied into service, given inadequate training, lousy equipment, fed reams of nonsense propaganda, and then sent off to die in huge numbers while their indifferent officers shrugged and order another newly-raised corps into the meatgrinder - basically a grim exaggeration of the pop culture memory of World War I battles like the Somme and Verdun (plus some other grim exaggerations for military history, like propaganda-spouting Commissars who would take out their pistols and start shooting people in the head if they didn't rally up and charge their targets). There was a lot of dark humor and clear satire (seen in things like the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, which was an in-setting book that was full of cheerful but objectively terrible advice). Being in the Imperial Guard was presented as not being entirely different from being a red-level Troubleshooter in Alpha Complex. I picked up some recent 40K books on the cheap a few weekends ago (gotta love con flea markets) and I was flipping through the Imperial Guard book and it was like a Tom Clancy novel. The Guard are super-competent, very well equipped and trained, have high morale, and are led from the front by brave officers. It was the propaganda version of the IG from earlier versions, except presented as objective fact and with no hint of satire. Just 100% rah-rah.
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Jun 20, 2023 19:57
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Yes but have you ever talked about Dungeons and Dragon's colonialism before Or for a dungeon crawl is just a home invasion
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Jun 20, 2023 19:59
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FMguru posted:Another 40K shift that has occurred over time has been the treatment of the regular army force, the Imperial Guard (excuse me, Astra Militarum). My recollection of early 40K was that the IG were the Poor Bloody Infantry, conscripted/shanghaied into service, given inadequate training, lousy equipment, fed reams of nonsense propaganda, and then sent off to die in huge numbers while their indifferent officers shrugged and order another newly-raised corps into the meatgrinder - basically a grim exaggeration of the pop culture memory of World War I battles like the Somme and Verdun (plus some other grim exaggerations for military history, like propaganda-spouting Commissars who would take out their pistols and start shooting people in the head if they didn't rally up and charge their targets). There was a lot of dark humor and clear satire (seen in things like the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, which was an in-setting book that was full of cheerful but objectively terrible advice). Being in the Imperial Guard was presented as not being entirely different from being a red-level Troubleshooter in Alpha Complex. I mean Gaunts Ghosts that do that and they are not new books (first and only is 1999) while also being some best regarded wh40k fiction
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Jun 20, 2023 20:04
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I think the Guard has always been both. There's glorious elite regiments and there's penal battalion human wave regiments, and everything in between.
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Jun 20, 2023 20:13
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The guard has to be somewhat competent because there's only a thousand space marine chapters and each chapter has a thousand dudes but the imperium of man is millions of worlds, if the guard were crap the other factions would just win. But the guard isn't really the issue. GW being unable to present the face of its franchise as both a horrific parody of fascism and simultaneously a cool neato thing to attract people to its games and products is the issue, it just can't do both and so "sell stuff" won.
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Jun 20, 2023 20:21
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Yeah, the Ghosts are in theory an elite recon unit but they get fed into meatgrinders all the same. They're supposed to be an exception, even Gaunt is an abnormality as a Commissar with command rank
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Jun 20, 2023 20:22
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Yeah, the Ghosts are in theory an elite recon unit but they get fed into meatgrinders all the same. They're supposed to be an exception, even Gaunt is an abnormality as a Commissar with command rank That would be true if other regiments were incompetent. While multiple commanders and soldiers are presented as complete asswipes its not really "This fascist regime creates morons and puts them in charge" and more in line with normal war literature when you will have regiment of asswipes that steals our heroes glory. And even noble regiments that get most mockery pull a win from time to time by their own competency
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Jun 20, 2023 20:26
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Yeah, the Ghosts are in theory an elite recon unit but they get fed into meatgrinders all the same. They're supposed to be an exception, even Gaunt is an abnormality as a Commissar with command rank Although allegedly this came about because Abnett was confused about the commissar rank.
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Jun 20, 2023 20:26
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Don't turn around, uh oh
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Jun 20, 2023 20:35
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The Deleter posted:There's some meta joke about how overgunned and stupid the new marine gear looks is a parallel to the Bradley a la Pentagon Wars, but unfortunately that's not conveyed by the rules. I'd love a marine tank that did every single possible job very badly. hasn't the wargame in fact had issues with players constantly trying to deploy "troop transport" vehicles without any troops to fill them, purely for their firepower, with GW periodically making new attempts to penalize and discourage this behavior? it's the same ball park, at least
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Jun 20, 2023 20:50
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While Gaunt's Ghosts definitely uses a lot of tropes common to military fiction, institutional rot and the incompetence of the Imperium is a recurring theme. While the Ghosts are elite recon commandos, the Imperium is constitutionally incapable of recognizing their capabilities and doing anything but feeding them into meatgrinders. The upper echelon of the Guard is depicted as a nest of spoiled aristocrats, where the few capable generals are still forced to play politics if they want to survive. The bloated Imperial bureaucracy constantly makes mistakes and the Imperium's colonialist attitude and bigotry causes them to abuse and alienate both potential allies and Imperial citizens. The central theme of the Ghosts books is decent people and good soldiers having to work within a dumb and evil system that devalues them. Also sweet lasergun fights. FishFood fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jun 20, 2023 |
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Jun 20, 2023 20:51
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Leperflesh posted:The guard has to be somewhat competent because there's only a thousand space marine chapters* and each chapter has a thousand dudes** but the imperium of man is millions of worlds, if the guard were crap the other factions would just win. *that's the official number, yes **also, yes, the official number
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Jun 20, 2023 21:06
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:hasn't the wargame in fact had issues with players constantly trying to deploy "troop transport" vehicles without any troops to fill them, purely for their firepower, with GW periodically making new attempts to penalize and discourage this behavior? it's the same ball park, at least Lol yes, the current attempt is to make them actually good at transporting, and also if you don't fill the transports they count as dead.
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Jun 20, 2023 22:15
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FMguru posted:(plus some other grim exaggerations for military history, like propaganda-spouting Commissars who would take out their pistols and start shooting people in the head if they didn't rally up and charge their targets). Erika Chappell posted on twitter recently about how 40K's Commissars actually started out less like this (back in the 2nd edition days) and more like actual Soviet Commissars, or at least more like the conception thereof would have been at the time through the prevailing historical lenses. https://twitter.com/open_sketchbook/status/1629674635850661888 https://twitter.com/open_sketchbook/status/1629674637171781632
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Jun 20, 2023 23:39
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The only books i ever read were the Ciaphas Cain ones and i remember liking them. I like when the scaredy man bumbles his way into winning a fight and gets acknowledged for that success by being forced to do another dangerous mission.
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Jun 20, 2023 23:59
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I think commissars' role got even more confused thanks to that doofy movie about Enemy at the Gate which gave us that 'one man holds the rifle, one man holds the bullets' thing that to my understanding never happened to the Russian military.
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Jun 21, 2023 00:25
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A lot of the West's postwar understanding of the Red Army came from debriefed Nazisv soldiers, so everybody was basically chugging second-hand propaganda with a "US Approved!" stamp on it. Which unfortunately shapes a lot of wargaming to this day. Three good things to watch for in any WW2 system: 1) Are German veterans (or SS) rated "better" than other nations' veterans? Especially Russia's? 2) Is the Tiger a great tank with no downsides? 3) Are there favorable rules for Soviet commissars executing people? If the answer to any of these is "yes," you're veering into WW2 fantasy, which doesn't necessarily make it second-generation Nazi propaganda - but is more aligned with war movies and pop culture than any faithful reading of true events.
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Jun 21, 2023 00:56
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Dawgstar posted:I think commissars' role got even more confused thanks to that doofy movie about Enemy at the Gate which gave us that 'one man holds the rifle, one man holds the bullets' thing that to my understanding never happened to the Russian military. It happened to Russia in the first world war, but not the soviets in the second.
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Jun 21, 2023 01:00
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moths posted:1) Are German veterans (or SS) rated "better" than other nations' veterans? Especially Russia's? "But I read it in 'Tigers in the Mud!'" "Which was written by..." "Well I don't see how that's relevant."
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Jun 21, 2023 01:58
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I googled that one, and lol. Of course it had a Stackpole edition.
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Jun 21, 2023 02:03
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Kai Tave posted:Erika Chappell posted on twitter recently about how 40K's Commissars actually started out less like this (back in the 2nd edition days) and more like actual Soviet Commissars, or at least more like the conception thereof would have been at the time through the prevailing historical lenses. In some very early material Commissars are also very suspicious of the Cult of the Emperor, much like an ideologue Soviet political officer would have been very suspicious of religious soldiers. 3 Action Economist posted:It happened to Russia in the first world war, but not the soviets in the second. Levies at Stalingrad and encircled troops at Brest had it happen. It was rare and unusual, but not unprecedented.
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Jun 21, 2023 10:25
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LatwPIAT posted:In some very early material Commissars are also very suspicious of the Cult of the Emperor, much like an ideologue Soviet political officer would have been very suspicious of religious soldiers. That was a fun read, thanks.
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Jun 21, 2023 10:48
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The Deleter posted:"Brother Hansius... are we the baddies?" I always thought that the Bradley was basically a Razorback. Apparently some of the Traitor Legions actually have the opinion that it does too many things not well enough. FishFood posted:While Gaunt's Ghosts definitely uses a lot of tropes common to military fiction, institutional rot and the incompetence of the Imperium is a recurring theme. While the Ghosts are elite recon commandos, the Imperium is constitutionally incapable of recognizing their capabilities and doing anything but feeding them into meatgrinders. The upper echelon of the Guard is depicted as a nest of spoiled aristocrats, where the few capable generals are still forced to play politics if they want to survive. The bloated Imperial bureaucracy constantly makes mistakes and the Imperium's colonialist attitude and bigotry causes them to abuse and alienate both potential allies and Imperial citizens. Pretty much the default setting for Guard fiction is grim war stories with WW1 stylings, Catch-22 and such, with the emphasis that the Guard can be incredibly effective with good leadership and support which they very rarely actually get. A big chunk of the Space Marines' effectiveness may be that they have the clout to intervene and act on their own terms, and conveniently get to charge in and steal all the glory.
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Jun 21, 2023 12:21
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It's interesting that Dan Abnett seems to be mostly credited (or to blame) with making the 40K universe more functional - as in easier to write novels in - which as people noted have also sandblasted a lot of the satirical bits away. On the other hand its led to a novel with a pair of Necrons bickering at each other like a catty old theater couple so who's to say if it's good or bad really.
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Jun 21, 2023 13:16
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:hasn't the wargame in fact had issues with players constantly trying to deploy "troop transport" vehicles without any troops to fill them, purely for their firepower, with GW periodically making new attempts to penalize and discourage this behavior? it's the same ball park, at least Yes, because the game doesn’t model things like repair and fuel and so on. Currently, all dedicated transports explode before the battle starts without at least one rear end in a seat inside them.
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Jun 21, 2023 13:27
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I'm honestly not sure makeing imperium complete morons would work as satire will always go over intended targets head and to everyone else it will be just meh read. I reckon putting black space marines on book covers does have decent effect of causing veins poping. I can imagine its not happening quickly enough tho
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Jun 21, 2023 13:33
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Mors Rattus posted:Yes, because the game doesn’t model things like repair and fuel and so on. Currently, all dedicated transports explode before the battle starts without at least one rear end in a seat inside them. I wonder if there are Heartbreakers like for D&D but for modding WH40K into Advanced Squad Leader
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Jun 21, 2023 13:47
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Goa Tse-tung posted:I wonder if there are Heartbreakers like for D&D but for modding WH40K into Advanced Squad Leader Alas, no, 40k has never really had someone try to make it a serious wargame with either fidelity or depth.
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Jun 21, 2023 13:55
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Panzeh posted:Alas, no, 40k has never really had someone try to make it a serious wargame with either fidelity or depth. ???? Goa Tse-tung posted:I wonder if there are Heartbreakers like for D&D but for modding WH40K into Advanced Squad Leader The Sword Weirdos guy is making "platoon weirdos" eventually. Source: discord
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Jun 21, 2023 14:26
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Covermeinsunshine posted:I'm honestly not sure makeing imperium complete morons would work as satire will always go over intended targets head and to everyone else it will be just meh read. I reckon putting black space marines on book covers does have decent effect of causing veins poping. I can imagine its not happening quickly enough tho Honestly just doing a bland 'Warhammer is for everyone' statement caused a considerable amount of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments and deciding that the company whose game setting is focused mostly on religious genocidal extremists was now 'woke.'* Ignoring the advice of Ray Stantz and looking at the trap, I found the really funny part is most of the comments came from people who said things like "I haven't bought GW stuff in YEARS but now I REALLY won't!" *GW C&Ding Arch Warhammer who is now just Arch, was also cited as a tipping point. (For the uninitiated, Arch is an incredibly racist and antisemitic Norwegian affecting a bad British accent because that sells to chud Americans better who did crappy 40k lore videos. Naturally he still does 40K lore videos despite saying he wouldn't because 40K is woke but nobody gives a poo poo about anything else he does so.)
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Jun 21, 2023 15:18
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Dawgstar posted:I think commissars' role got even more confused thanks to that doofy movie about Enemy at the Gate which gave us that 'one man holds the rifle, one man holds the bullets' thing that to my understanding never happened to the Russian military. It happened in the Russian military - that is, in WWI - far more often than it ever did in the Soviet military of WWII. The movie is full of strange exaggerations; things that happened very rarely are presented as utterly routine. LatwPIAT posted:Levies at Stalingrad and encircled troops at Brest had it happen. It was rare and unusual, but not unprecedented. And that's the thing about Enemy at the Gates. Zaitsev is shown and treated as one of those levy troops, and every stereotypical trope about the Red Army is inflicted upon him to show how cruel the system is. In reality he was already a career Petty Officer in the Soviet navy, a pay clerk stationed in the Pacific. He volunteered to go to Stalingrad; the idea that he would have been locked in a boxcar, etc., on his way to the front is ludicrous. Cessna fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jun 21, 2023 |
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Jun 21, 2023 15:47
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Cessna posted:It happened in the Russian military - that is, in WWI - far more often than it ever did in the Soviet military of WWII. The movie is full of strange exaggerations; things that happened very rarely are presented as utterly routine. Yeah, I mean the point of the scene is to show the desperation of the 62nd army of the time, and there's some truth to it, but the only real way to tell it in a story like that is to have Zaitsev be one of those guys levied into it, as part of the whole thrust of the movie. It's honestly a pretty hokey movie overall, but i don't really think the inaccuracies are the issue with it.
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Jun 21, 2023 15:58
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, I mean the point of the scene is to show the desperation of the 62nd army of the time, and there's some truth to it, but the only real way to tell it in a story like that is to have Zaitsev be one of those guys levied into it, as part of the whole thrust of the movie. Sure; if they hadn't used the name "Vasily Zaitzev" and just made it about some anonymous conscript who became a famous sniper it would be a lot less tempting to point out the stereotypes and inaccuracies. Hell, make a movie about some of the characters in Grossman's Life and Fate.
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Jun 21, 2023 16:11
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, I mean the point of the scene is to show the desperation of the 62nd army of the time, and there's some truth to it, but the only real way to tell it in a story like that is to have Zaitsev be one of those guys levied into it, as part of the whole thrust of the movie. That's because you're not a reenactor who has to hear that poo poo *all the time* 
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Jun 21, 2023 16:13
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3 Action Economist posted:That's because you're not a reenactor who has to hear that poo poo *all the time* Heh. I too reenact as Soviet. (Or, used to, reenacting has died out here post-covid.)  
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Jun 21, 2023 16:23
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Cessna, what have we said about joyriding in your T-34?
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Jun 21, 2023 16:34
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PharmerBoy posted:In more detail, to the end that 40k wants to claim to be satire it shouldn't be showing space marines as idealized versions humanity (any gender). The space marines should be something horrific that has been done, dehumanizing their people for the ends of creating a military force
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Jun 21, 2023 16:37
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yeah i both think some of the criticisms of 40k and suggested changes are overkill as an abstract concept, but at the same time Games Workshop doesn't give a poo poo about anything other than sales and is never going to attempt to thread the needle of actually-meaningful art in the first place
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Jun 21, 2023 17:25
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Halloween Jack posted:Judge Dredd is depicted as a lantern-jawed he-man, and the satire is conveyed by the fact that he's a fascist with no life. But like somebody said, Judge Dredd isn't written by dozens of people and has better editorial control. Dredd's had his moments, too, of course. You get the compelling one-shot story "Letter from a Democrat" which was the first time Dredd as a franchise really tackled democracy right after after a story about ghost pirates.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:33
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Halloween Jack posted:Judge Dredd is depicted as a lantern-jawed he-man, and the satire is conveyed by the fact that he's a fascist with no life. But like somebody said, Judge Dredd isn't written by dozens of people and has better editorial control. I don't think anyone's saying that Space Marines should be horrific because they're fascists; they should be horrific because the canonical process of creating a Space Marine is horrific.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:34
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