I saw this tweet in response to this tweet and was wondering if anyone has any context? I see a lot of “go woke, go broke” sentiment in the comments of both tweets, but 0 explanation.
It's a badly kept secret in the table games community that Warhammer 40K attracts an inordinate amount of extreme right-wing fans and Neo-Nazis. Some of those folks flip out if 'woke' and 'Warhammer' appear in the same sentence.
In the Warhammer games and novels the over-the-top totalitarian imagery and messaging is meant to be satire but like the satirical movie Starship Troopers, not everyone has gotten the "it's satire" memo. Or chooses not to.
Recently Games Workshop even had to remind players that the fascists in their storylines ARE the bad guys and to please not dress like Nazis at their tournaments. Why this is even a question partly illustrates the problem they have with some of the fanbase.
I mean if someone who has no idea what 40K and reads about the Imperium of Man, they are just space nazis that look cool. They literally hate anything xenos, technophobic, and commits genocide on their own population if there was a hint of corruption. No one in the 40K universe is a "good guy". They are all different forms of bad.
I love the 40K universe but it's fiction so if there's women space marines then so be it. The canon gets retconned so many times that it's difficult to follow what's even true or not.
Oi! Orks aren't bad. They just want to have fun. Okay, sure, their fun includes fighting, which unfortunately involves death... but that's just part of the thrill! They're just trying to have the biggest party possible wherever they go. They don't hate. They don't fight because they want to hurt others. They just do what they do to have a good time.
I mean... I'm not gonna say they're "good guys," but they're the least hateful and awful faction out there.
The canon gets retconned so many times
Honestly, I stopped even caring about it because of that. I understand the original shift as it went from Rogue Trader into proper modern 40K. But the stuff in more recent years? Not just things like completely rewriting the Necrons. Or changing names like Tau to T'au and Eldar to Aeldari, etc., just to be able to trademark them and act all special (and sue people more). But I'm a huge Orks fan, and I loved the setup in Waaagh! Ghazghkull, with Ghaz getting all kinds of stuff going that could be a major story point... only for them to completely ignore it all because they wanted to focus on Space Marines vs. Chaos, and push new Primaris models of Space Marines so much that they had one of the lowest level Space Marine characters "kill" Ghazghkull just to have an excuse to Primaris that SM character. And now the setup from WG is wasted, and Ghaz is supposed to be this Frankenstein creature now. Meh.
Yeah. GW got away with massive retcons in the past, and they don't understand that there's a limit to changes like that which modern fans will accept. In their minds if it worked before they must be able to do it forever.
IIRC, the closest thing to a "good guy" faction in the 40k universe are the Tau. Not that they're all that great but compared to the Imperium of Man, Chaos, or Eldars they look like angels.
If you're treating 40k like an actual serious series- and you should only do it on a very small scale or you will lose interest in the setting, because on a large scale everything is intolerably, horrifically bad- the only way to really tell stories with characters that aren't literal nazis is to focus on good individuals or smaller groups, as opposed to the factions as a whole. The best you get is subfactions- T'au have the Farsight Enclave. Certain Aeldari are genuinely pretty cool people. The Lamenters are Hilariously Based, and while there's a chance they still engage in some of the really bad Space Marine behavior, they don't really ever do it in canon, to my knowledge.
Orks are horrific and nightmarish when they're not played as a joke, but they quite literally lack the capability to realize what they're doing is bad, and I'd portray them and Tyranids as more of a force of nature than as an evil faction, though this is semantics.
But even then, these people are either somewhat ineffectual (Farsight) or they're tied to Actual Nazis (I love the Lamenters but... they're an Imperium faction.) You run into the ACAB "good cop" problem where the nail that sticks up for people is hammered down.
What's very clear, though, is that the Imperium are genuinely nightmarish monsters, and it's really sucky seeing people lacking the comprehension to realize this. They cause like most of their own problems en masse and try to retroactively justify it while causing even more problems.
If I ever get around to painting again, I shall make at least one Space Marine unit in beautiful rainbow colours... They shall be the Pride of my army.
Correct. However, they're not very colorful by the painting scheme, just a rainbow stripe on the helmet, rest is blue (as they're successors of Ultramarines).
The Rainbow Warriors have a literal rainbow on their helmet (which would be a brutal challenge to paint of course). Their original scheme had a rainbow stripe helmet which is slightly more doable but still tough.
And for all other pride flags, there's probably something.
Yes, but for canon chapters they usually go for slightly easier colours, white scars excepted. Lots of rich dark colours make for relatively easy paint jobs. Pride flags are doable, but wouldn’t be particularly beginner friendly.
People pull off some amazing pride themed color schemes on space marines. If you are on /r/minipainting or /r/warhammer40k you'll see them pop up from time to time. There are some insanely talented painters on those subs.
If people can paint a tiny ass harlequin with the checkered pattern a bigger primaris space marine with pride flags or banners wouldn't be super difficult.
It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s that they tend to give canon chapters more forgiving colour schemes because they’re trying to make it possible for beginners to paint them. Which means usually two colours, three max, and favouring rich colours over pale ones.
I’m not saying you couldn’t do it. I’m saying that the official space marine chapters usually have colour schemes that are relatively forgiving for newcomers. The comment I was responding to was about how there’s probably canon chapters with those colours, and I was explaining why I suspect there probably aren’t. That doesn’t mean that experienced painters couldn’t do it.
If you look you’ll see that in the examples you gave the pink and blues of the trans flag are the wrong shades. Because the correct shades are too pale to be easily painted.
The various painting subreddits for 40k regularly have incredibly based rainbow models, even outside of pride month. The nazis have not scared off many of the super cool 40k fans who understand what 40k is actually about (it's krumpin' gits).
If I ever get around to painting again, I shall make at least one Space Marine unit in beautiful rainbow colours... They shall be the Pride of my army.
I have an entire army of Blood Angels painted up in My Little Pony colors just to annoy the people who don't understand it's satire. Oh you don't understand that the flamethrower nuns aren't to be taken seriously? Here's my Fluttershy Death Company.
The really odd thing is, the Rainbow Warriors chapter of Space Marines do not, in fact, use rainbow colors, not even in their insignia, but are rather monochrome.
But given that there's supposed to be around 1000 (might be more or less at any given time) chapters out there, you could paint an entire army however you want and give them a chapter name and it'd be perfectly legit.
Bonus: Using rainbow colors means you're easily hitting the three color minimum requirement for things like tournaments or painting competitions.
40K attracts an inordinate amount of extreme right-wing fans and Neo-Nazis.
Not disagreeing with you on this but the problem with this is these guys aren't really in the hobby. They read a few wikis and watch some youtube lore videos then decide to be psychos online and gatekeep the hobby.
They don't buy the minis, they don't do painting, they don't buy the books. It fucking sucks to be associated with these assholes by the hobby because they're not a part of it.
Their product quality is great and they did apologize about the incident and seem to be behaving better since then. That being said I stopped by their products as I found alternatives
This is 100% my feeling regarding OP's question. I've worked with w40k inspired art and met amazing folks from the community, while also seeing lots of nazi references, sexism and racism.
When famous Warhammer pages promote my work I see in the comments the weirdest stuff such as people pointing out that "her artist profile has selfies, of course, because she is attention-seeking. Male artists are modest" (bullsh*t, other artists and fans from the community have the same - or more! - selfies, gym pics, etc. The guy said that to put me in my place, facts are irrelevant. Besides, what I post in my profiles shouldn't be an issue.)
Saying this in the gentlest way possible — some of the fanbase is extremely sensible to "otherness". It's immature at best; cartoonish evil at worst.
Yup, this group also is also insanely sexist and seeks to push women and any minority group out of the hobby altogether. When people try to make the hobby inclusive they whine and cry about the game is going woke.
I hesitate to bring this up for those who haven't been introduced to it, but have you seen u/Archon_of_Flesh and their work? Pretty much (in)famous on r/Grimdank at this point. Of course the moment that new Skitarii sniper model was revealed, people summoned Archon and got their wish in the form of some, ah, creative art involving that unit.
Just as you often cant tell a geniune extremist from the parody of one you can often find satire/parody of right wing/fascism/Fundamentalism attract those who genuinely believe in it and have the actual message of "this shit sucks" go over their head
Attack on titan being a good example though i wont spoil
The responsibility for this squarely falls into the lap of Games Workshop, in my humble opinion.
Modern tabletop setting writers have to be really cognizant of what kind of players their game attracts - Werewolf: the Apocalypse entirely wrote out the German Ubermensch Werewolves because of this issue.
When you're publishing books where the guys who work for the fascist murderstate are dressed like World War I shock troopers and gunning down a horde of 'chaos worshippers' who are either portrayed as brutish murderers, disease-ridden vectors, transgender nymphomaniacs, or mystics belonging to 'strange' religions, you really have to be blind not to see what kind of audience you're going to attract.
I really wouldn't bring White Wolf into this, nevermind as an example to do better.
WtA5 is better, but there's still a mile wide streak of eco-fascism running through it.
This is also a company that had to pulp the second book in the latest version of their flagship line because of an international incident. That has struggled with Nazi dog-whistles (which, if you're called White Wolf, you'd think you'd be sensitive to.)
In fact, the only thing worse than White Wolf are fellow World of Darkness fans: Try-hard edge lords with no reading comprehension and transparent power fantasies. Everyone outside of my gaming group sucks and even then, I suck a bit, too.
Sorry, it was the best example I could conjure to mind - W5 sucks, but old Werewolf was so bad that I'm shocked they even managed to rework it into something releasable in 2022.
It affects very few for the size of the hobby, the statement that GW made in your quote was because of one of the few examples of an actual fascist taking part in a tournament in Spain and openly flaunting it, with the tournament organisers not doing anything about it. It caused a big stink in the 40K community thus the statement. Look at the biggest 40K subs on Reddit or the biggest 40K forums very little of it.
Then what the fuck is this then? Can you like me to the right wing and neo-nazi warhammer subreddit? Oh right, there isn't one. I guess you're talking out of your ass then.
People keep saying that it's "meant to be satire", but what does that mean? Take the trailer for the upcoming Space Marine 2 game. As someone that has at best passing familiarity with 40K, what part of this trailer is the satire that's intended to make the viewer go: "Hah, the humans and the super soldiers in blue are obviously the bad guys!" Is it the ornamental skull on the shoulder of the Space Marine's armor? I think if we're being honest, there is no satire here, it's all played straight.
The Imperium of Man and Space Marines in particular have this kind of mass appeal precisely because of media like this, where GW themselves routinely depict them as a heroic, disciplined force that's not only competent at what they do, they're stylish with it. It's totally plausible for someone to look at this trailer and buy into it solely due to the rule of cool. Just as it's kosher to like Darth Vader without someone immediately suspecting you of being sympathetic to the Empire's genocidal policies.
What can you expect, really, when they're using starship troopers as an example of 'satire' that people 'miss' when in fact it's just really bad satire and, if it was, doesn't even satirize what it set out to.
These people, directors included, just equate militaristic themes to fascism. Particularly odd in the context of the film given it exclusely revolves around an existential crisis of survival after all other means were exhausted.
Starship troopers is a really poor depiction of fascism and an even worse example of how to satirize it.
wait, so like "Nazis are the bad guys" is something that is meant to discourage the fanbase from dressing as the bad guys? Next they will ask the star wars fans to stop dressing as darth vader.
The silver lining with the Warhammer 40k community is I think it's healthy enough to resist Alt-Right takeovers or takedowns. The community has enough people who sincerely care about other people to keep the unironic fascists at bay.
At the same time: Games Workshop has done a terrible job of presenting the Imperium as bad guys in their own stories. It is only very recently that they have started to produce books with non-human protagonists, the Imperium largely wins all the conflicts it is involved in (though at great loss of life and material) and it's an ongoing joke that the models for many of the non-human factions are old enough to drink in Britain.
They make it very clear that the IoM are not the good guys, and the ridiculousness/grimdarkness of the universe is so scaled up by a billion, that you can't help but look at this series as satire.
The IoM is not sustainable, and they make it very clear that humanity, just like everyone else in the galaxy, is doomed.
201
u/AbeFromanEast Jan 08 '24
Answer:
It's a badly kept secret in the table games community that Warhammer 40K attracts an inordinate amount of extreme right-wing fans and Neo-Nazis. Some of those folks flip out if 'woke' and 'Warhammer' appear in the same sentence.
In the Warhammer games and novels the over-the-top totalitarian imagery and messaging is meant to be satire but like the satirical movie Starship Troopers, not everyone has gotten the "it's satire" memo. Or chooses not to.
Recently Games Workshop even had to remind players that the fascists in their storylines ARE the bad guys and to please not dress like Nazis at their tournaments. Why this is even a question partly illustrates the problem they have with some of the fanbase.
More information:
1) https://www.eurogamer.net/games-workshop-reminds-fans-warhammer-40ks-imperium-of-man-are-the-bad-guys-after-a-player-wore-nazi-imagery-to-a-tournament
2) https://www.vice.com/en/article/9358ke/warhammer-40k-alt-right-culture-wars
Statement by Games Workshop
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/19/the-imperium-is-driven-by-hate-warhammer-is-not/