What narrative purpose do the xenos factions serve in 40k? They're never shown to be a serious threat like Chaos is, so what's their role in the setting?
>>98480082to make the humans look good
>>98480082>They're never shown to be a serious threat like Chaos is>Tyranids>Orkskill your thread
Everything in warhammer is to sell miniatures like how all transformers stuff is to sell toys.The lore is to make them cooler and so more enticing.
>>98480091/thread
>>98480091Orks have tried and failed 4 separate times to take a single planet from the Imperium, the Imperium doesn't even take them seriously, there were only about 1.5 million Guardsmen fighting in the War for Armageddon in the entire subsector, that's a rounding error to the Imperium, the Orks are a complete fucking joke.The tyrannids could be considered a threat I suppose, since we don't now how many soldiers fought against them at maccrage, but it was surely hundreds of trillions at least.
>>98480082This is a troll thread.Anyways someone post that old greentext of all the ways Chaos was irrelevant for most of 40ks lifespan until nu-writers took over and it talks about how coincidentally right when Chaos became important every aspect of 40k (art, rules, etc) all went to shit at the same time
>>98480124>but it was surely hundreds of trillions at least.stop spamming your mentally disabled headcanon on the entire board
>>98480173So you don't think the Tyranids are a threat?
40k is not a story and does not have or need a narrative.
>>98480082Chaos isn't a serious threat in terms of an army
>>98480082>What narrative purposeHoly secondary
>>98480082>never a serious threat>ork waaagghhs reguarly fuck over entire sectors due to the fact orks are extremely tough and looking for a fight>nids are pretty much a massive threat to the point even chaos is starting to shit their pants since they are eating the things they need to function>necrons are giga advanced to the point trying to perma kill even the most basic necron warrior is a challenge, more and more of their tomb worlds are waking up making it harder and harder to contain them, and this is with said crons being heavily divided and led by actual robot schizos>despite being small, the tau continue to push the Imperium and rapidly advance in both size and tech making it harder and harder to fight them, their entire ideology is probably the biggest threat since the average imperial citizens loyalty is easy as shit to break when offered something thats better>despite GW personally hating them, eldar are shown to easily be able to manipulate events that can really fuck over the Imperium (Gaz even being a thing is because the eldar essentially manipulated event so some orks wouldn't bother them, didn't even really intend for them to fuck up the Imperium that was just a happy accident, now imagine what they do when they actually plan on fucking things up)also as for the why they are there it adds a cool background to the galaxy reminding you there is more than just muh Imperium and muh Chaos
>>98480082i would love to see a side game where minor galactic powers fight the established onesit would probably be unprofitable because of the sheer enemy variety and never go anywhere story wise but it would be awesome
>>98486433Chaos gets its army by corrupting your army.
>>98480082>a setting should be focused solely on the important narrative conflict between the blued guys and the red guys, and preferably only on the narratively important bigwigs of said factionDo you want star wars?Because this is how you get star wars.
>eldarcurrently they are lampooning a potential alliance which could be interesting but basically they exist in the setting to explain the current state of affairs, pretty similar to the entire heresy. also something something robert gullible >dark eldargirl flavor of chaos. interesting for their interaction with chaos in general but little else>necronsdark inversion of the mechanicum. basically what could happen if the ecclesiarchy of mars gets their end goal. also interesting to see immortals with more human sentiments>orksmost relevant xenos as they are everywhere and at least a hassle to deal with wherever they happen to be. besides being the "comic relief" of the setting they are also the best baseline opponents for humanity>nidsserve as cosmic horror element of the setting. considering you could have a conversation with basically any faction to some degree, a faction that doesn't comprehend you being anything but food is an interesting flavor >GSCexist to show that worship per se is not influenced by already existing power. each GS cultist could just as well fall to chaos (like in early editions) but they chose to worship their star gods which contextualizes chaos and makes both chaos and the nids more interesting>tauexist to show that fascism doesn't need to be religion flavored like in the imperium but can just as well function like Star Trek given the right circumstances. also mechas >Votanhonestly I'm stumped here. I hated them returning and I hate their entire concept. feels like a fan insert of a completely different setting
>>98488751what about daemonculaba
>>98486689>(Gaz even being a thing is because the eldar essentially manipulated event so some orks wouldn't bother themelaborate please anon or where I can read about this?
>>98486689>Gaz even being a thing is because the eldar essentially manipulated event so some orks wouldn't bother thembut the beast of ulanor happened naturally so there is no reason gazkhul couldn't either. the real problem with Gazzy is that he is not half as smart as he should be considering the size
>>98480082To contrast against humanity. Each xenos faction is a facet of humanity but ramped up and flanderized. They are purely there to show "see, if humanity went wrong in X direction, they would be Y xenos faction."
>>98489859which faction can honestly be compared to the imperium and its inner workings? the eldar have a completely decentralized form of government (if you can even call it that), the orks don't compare to humanity in any way at all, just like nids. GSC are chaos lite in their organization and votan are isolationists. you are left with tau (communist weeaboos) or crons (feudalistic technocrats) that even remotely compare to the imperium and both had entirely different origin stories
>>98489918NTA but he's on to something. The Nids for example are the Space Marine project taken to an extreme>what if we took young kids and psycho-conditioned them to be resistant to fear and then implanted them with all kinds of weird organs like a second heart and a third lung and acid spit to make inhuman supersoldiers? maybe an organ that lets them eat anything and digest it safely, and another one that lets them absorb memories from what they eat, stuff like that.>hell yeah! actually what if we took it a step further and didn't just psycho-condition them but literally lobotomized the parts of their brain that feel fear and then just controlled them psychically with bigger more powerful psyker-soldiers, and what if we added more implants to give them a second pair of arms so they can carry more weapons, and chitinous armour, and their guns were also grown organs that we implanted onto them, and maybe face tentacles to help them with that whole "eating things to absorb memories" stuff.The nids are what you get when you stop limiting how far you transmute your transhuman supersoldiers.
>>98480082>Eldarthe space marine captain can outsmart the super smart eldar and defy destiny and prophecy>Dark Eldarthe space marine captain can show how unfazed he is by Deldar horrors >cronsthe space marine captains can show how we can overcome a technological superior foe with courage and honor>orksthe space marine captain can butcher orks>nidsthe space marine captain can kill endless amounts of bugs>GSCthe space marine captain can uncover the cult and butcher it>tauthe space marine captain can show the reader how old and scary and mighty he is, compared to the Tau>Votanndo they even have books?
>>98490499>actually what if we took it a step further and didn't just psycho-condition them but literally lobotomized the parts of their brain that feel fear and then just controlled them psychically with bigger more powerful psyker-soldiers,honestly this sounds like edgy tau to me
>>98489747nowhere since it's made-up bullshit
>>98489747>>98492435the eldar codexes, mention the eldar (especially Eldrad himself) killed off several orks to orchestrate Gazs rises just so he could stomp around in the Imperium instead of a differetn warboss rising that would eventually attack the eldar, if you want a recent specific example looke at page 19 of the 9th edition eldar codex which states>Eldrad was once Ulthwe's High Farseer. On countless occasions he has used his immense psychic power and gift of foresight to avert disaster, not only for his own craftworld but for the entire Aeldari race. It was by his prognostications that Ulthwe·s armies ensured the rise of the Ork warlord Ghazghkull Thraka, and in so doing toppled a warlord more dangerous to the Aeldari. For Eldrad, the terrible misery this act brought to myriad other races was a price worth paying."
