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[EnigmaticHat]

They're inspired by different sources, 40k took a lot of inspiration from things like Mad Max, Alien and Judge Dredd and so on. Dystopian sci-fi was very much in when the basic concepts of 40k were being laid down, while Fantasy was inspired by D&D, historical trivia and pulp fantasy.

Fantasy is mostly just 'the good guys hate each other more than usual for fantasy, and we don't shy away from Ogres eating children or mutant babies being abandoned in the woods' type dark, with a lot of black humour thrown in.

Yeah, 40k is very 80s.

It's a quest to build a house and keep everything else out of the house, as you say, but you should realize that you're building it on the ashes of the mansion you burned down the last time something got in. The overarching theme of Fantasy is that the greatness of the past can never be truly rebuilt, and something is lost every time the pieces are put back together; it's an unavoidable spiral towards utter decay, but maybe, just maybe, we can slow it down if we fight for what we believe in.

In contrast, the overarching theme of 40k is that we've reached the end of that spiral, everything is truly lost and nothing matters anymore. We've forgotten what we fight for and thus have become only barely distinguishable from our enemies. We keep fighting not because we want to, but because it's the only thing we still know how to do.

I've been told that 40k has gotten slightly lighter lately with humanity having more hope.  But back when I was playing (4th or 5th edition) in the lore the demise of humanity seemed pretty much inevitable.  With the lore of Tyranids in particular, by the established rules of the universe its really hard to see how humanity could possibly survive their invasion.  The only equivalent I can think of to that in fantasy is chaos, but from what I understand chaos is no longer oozing into reality and as long as the agents of chaos are pushed back things won't get worse.  Fantasy in takes a more freeform, Discworld style approach to gods where like yeah the chaos gods are a huge threat but all the other factions have their own faith powered avatars including the empire.  In 40k its implied that the chaos gods ARE humanity's only gods and any plan to defeat or contain them in a permanent way would require wiping out humanity alongside most or all other organic life (orcs and dark eldar in particular).  Which is... yeah.  You just can't win in 40k.  Again some of that may have been retconned.  I remember when I first started playing Tau were still bright eyed idealists.

[IcyTea31]

With the lore of Tyranids in particular, by the established rules of the universe its really hard to see how humanity could possibly survive their invasion.  The only equivalent I can think of to that in fantasy is chaos,

The Skaven are the Fantasy equivalent to tyranids, being the devouring swarm of omnicidal nazi rats they are.

but from what I understand chaos is no longer oozing into reality and as long as the agents of chaos are pushed back things won't get worse.

In TW:WH2, the Eye of the Vortex campaign is about this very thing. In short, the thing keeping chaos from oozing into reality is up for grabs, and everyone is screwed if it falls to the wrong hands.

[Teneb]

With the lore of Tyranids in particular, by the established rules of the universe its really hard to see how humanity could possibly survive their invasion.  The only equivalent I can think of to that in fantasy is chaos,

The Skaven are the Fantasy equivalent to tyranids, being the devouring swarm of omnicidal nazi rats they are.

but from what I understand chaos is no longer oozing into reality and as long as the agents of chaos are pushed back things won't get worse.

In TW:WH2, the Eye of the Vortex campaign is about this very thing. In short, the thing keeping chaos from oozing into reality is up for grabs, and everyone is screwed if it falls to the wrong hands.

Also orcs saved the world one time but it was retconned.

[EnigmaticHat]

Both of them have endless numbers humanity will never be able to defeat.  However the Tyranids have a much more significant power imbalance, they are absolutely unified across space in a setting where no one else can maintain unity across even a single galaxy, and they will not stop coming until they've devoured humanity.  They're also not threatened by either the warp or the necrons; the other inevitable killers of the setting are effectively boring to the Tyranids, they just don't care either way.  Compare to the Skaven who are discordant, cowardly, and still need to be afraid of all the other bad guys.  Also the very most powerful Skaven low-key understand that their god hates everything and actually completing their ultimate goals would be a bad idea.*

*I have no evidence for that last sentence but its my fan interpretation and I'm sticking to it

[IcyTea31]

Yes, as said before, the Fantasy world is only slipping to its doom, it's not already there. Every once in a while, the Skaven unite in a scheme and take a step forwards in their goals, a step they won't be taking back any time soon. Give it a thousand years, and maybe they become a unified force only stopped by humanity taking more and more drastic measures against it...

Also the very most powerful Skaven low-key understand that their god hates everything and actually completing their ultimate goals would be a bad idea.

They're fine with that: the Skaven hate everything, including themselves. Omnicide means omnicide, no?

[ZeroGravitas]

They're inspired by different sources, 40k took a lot of inspiration from things like Mad Max, Alien and Judge Dredd and so on. Dystopian sci-fi was very much in when the basic concepts of 40k were being laid down, while Fantasy was inspired by D&D, historical trivia and pulp fantasy.

Fantasy is mostly just 'the good guys hate each other more than usual for fantasy, and we don't shy away from Ogres eating children or mutant babies being abandoned in the woods' type dark, with a lot of black humour thrown in.

Yeah, 40k is very 80s.

You know, I hadn't appreciated to what extent a lot of 80s stuff had influenced 40k until I read this (rather poor) article: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Blizzard-manage-to-get-away-with-ripping-off-Warhammer-40k-in-such-an-obvious-manner-when-it-made-starcraft thought it has plenty of good references to 80s culture.

edit: although, no mention of Bruce Sterling's short story, Swarm, which seems like it was a big influence on the Tyranid/Zerg

[Retropunch]

Like don't get me wrong, I'm digging it.  Its like Tolkien in the age of sail.  The Empire seems to be the Holy Viking Empire (deifying a Conan the Barbarian dude instead of ancient emperors as happened in Rome), which I'm fine with.  And the "chaos" races seem to be a metaphor for wilderness, anarchy, and decay.  Essentially what the world is if humans don't tame it.  So the whole game is basically a dramatization of Man's ancient quest to build a house and keep everything else out of the house.  Which is a better definition of good + evil than most fantasy stories have, in the end.

Whilst a lot of the black library books are trash, there's a few good ones which go into it more which are worth a look at (especially Blackhearts, my personal favourite). The main difference for me between Warhammer and most other fantasy is that ALL the races are terrible - there's no good guys. The Empire are religious fanatical imperialists posing as keeping order (and both sometimes using dark magic whilst simultaneously shunning it), whilst Bretonnia seem good until you realise their whole system of peasantry etc. etc.

Skaven are my favourite, as they almost seek like a joke race (Splinter from TMNT lol) until you look into it a bit deeper and they're truly horrifying. I honestly believe they're one of the best creations of GW.

There have been some good GW writers, but I honestly believe that if someone really good came along and wrote a sort of Warhammer Epic it'd be up there with all the majors like GoT and the like. There background and lore is there, it's just that it's often squandered by terrible pulpy rubbish.

[forsaken1111]

Do you mean Splinter? Shredder was a human.

[Retropunch]

Do you mean Splinter? Shredder was a human.

Oops! I did - will edit!

[MCreeper]

They're inspired by different sources, 40k took a lot of inspiration from things like Mad Max, Alien and Judge Dredd and so on. Dystopian sci-fi was very much in when the basic concepts of 40k were being laid down, while Fantasy was inspired by D&D, historical trivia and pulp fantasy.

Fantasy is mostly just 'the good guys hate each other more than usual for fantasy, and we don't shy away from Ogres eating children or mutant babies being abandoned in the woods' type dark, with a lot of black humour thrown in.

Yeah, 40k is very 80s.

You know, I hadn't appreciated to what extent a lot of 80s stuff had influenced 40k until I read this (rather poor) article: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Blizzard-manage-to-get-away-with-ripping-off-Warhammer-40k-in-such-an-obvious-manner-when-it-made-starcraft thought it has plenty of good references to 80s culture.

Huh. Interesting. Anything specifically wrong with the article(except claims of suability?  )?

[ZeroGravitas]

They're inspired by different sources, 40k took a lot of inspiration from things like Mad Max, Alien and Judge Dredd and so on. Dystopian sci-fi was very much in when the basic concepts of 40k were being laid down, while Fantasy was inspired by D&D, historical trivia and pulp fantasy.

Fantasy is mostly just 'the good guys hate each other more than usual for fantasy, and we don't shy away from Ogres eating children or mutant babies being abandoned in the woods' type dark, with a lot of black humour thrown in.

Yeah, 40k is very 80s.

You know, I hadn't appreciated to what extent a lot of 80s stuff had influenced 40k until I read this (rather poor) article: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Blizzard-manage-to-get-away-with-ripping-off-Warhammer-40k-in-such-an-obvious-manner-when-it-made-starcraft thought it has plenty of good references to 80s culture.

Huh. Interesting. Anything specifically wrong with the article(except claims of suability?  )?

oh it just lacks an analysis of its comparisons while just saying "x was ripped from y" without discussing the characteristics of x and y. if you follow up on them they make sense. yes, tyranids are like xenomorphs in some ways, but it helps to explain why.

on the other hand it's also worth noting what 40k left behind from its sources, which can be as important as what it takes. for example, over the decades, a large amount of the "tongue-in-cheek" parts of 40k were lost in favor of just grimmy grim grimdarkness. which is something that, say, Heavy Metal had more of.

[Frumple]

... man, when people say heavy metal I'm never sure exactly what they're talking about when it's outside the context of music. The first thing I always remember so far as other media goes is heavy metal magazine, which was, y'know. Substantially composed of porn.

[Persus13]

Huh. Interesting. Anything specifically wrong with the article(except claims of suability?  )?

In addition, the person who wrote the article seems to have confused the book version and the film version of Starship Troopers with each other. I'm also inclined to doubt his claims of anything with a race of bug aliens or skinny aliens is a rip-off of Starship Troopers, because those two tropes are fairly generic and science fiction as a genre had started before the 1950s.

[Teneb]

Huh. Interesting. Anything specifically wrong with the article(except claims of suability?  )?

In addition, the person who wrote the article seems to have confused the book version and the film version of Starship Troopers with each other. I'm also inclined to doubt his claims of anything with a race of bug aliens or skinny aliens is a rip-off of Starship Troopers, because those two tropes are fairly generic and science fiction as a genre had started before the 1950s.

It *might* be Starship Troopers only because it popularized the "Alien Bug Swarm of DOOOOM (In Sphess!)" as a sci-fi staple.

[ZeroGravitas]

Huh. Interesting. Anything specifically wrong with the article(except claims of suability?  )?

In addition, the person who wrote the article seems to have confused the book version and the film version of Starship Troopers with each other. I'm also inclined to doubt his claims of anything with a race of bug aliens or skinny aliens is a rip-off of Starship Troopers, because those two tropes are fairly generic and science fiction as a genre had started before the 1950s.

i don't know about that. War of the Worlds pretty much started the alien invasion subgenre, without any real focus on the nature of the martians. even thought it was originally published in serials in 1898, it wasn't until the full republication in the late 1920s that it became really popular (and the infamous radio show). even when you had a lot of interactions with aliens in early sci-fi, you had a lot of "they're just green humans" or extra arms. the barsoom stuff is a good example (along with any other planetary romance).

existential war with a non-humanoid race is really an element of cold war culture. part of the cultural milieu of the time is the second red scare, and the association of Soviet and Maoist economic policies with collectivization, which is then likened to eusocial insects (bees and ants) that work for the good of the hive, and don't actually reproduce themselves. that the war will either result in the total destruction of one side or the other is also an element of nuclear war, which, again, something new to the 1950s.

ironically i would say heinlein's power armor is less original. specifically human-sized suits with mounted energy weapons were in short stories in 1930s, maybe earlier.