History Warhammer40000 / W40kTropesQToZ

* UnusualEnemyEquipment: Often {{Justified|Trope}}. The reason a Guardsman cannot just pick up and use a slain alien warrior's weapon is down to the difficulties of using the technology; Aeldari weapons are just inert lumps of plastic without the psychic abilities of their wielders, T'au weapons often have built-in DNA locking systems to specifically prevent their opponents from using them, and Necron gauss weapons are just far too advanced to figure out. This is besides the point that any Guardsman ''seen'' using an alien weapon would be summarily executed for tech-heresy. Touching a [[ArtifactOfDoom Chaos Marine's weapon]] is a very bad idea as even if you aren't immediately shot by the Commissar, [[DemonicPossession you would probably be wishing he did]].

* TacticalSuperweaponUnit: Epic'' has Titans, HumongousMecha with devastating weaponry that require either dedicated Titan-killer units or another Titan to stop (well, usually).

* StrawHypocrite: The Ultramarines, most outspoken supporters of the Codex Astartes, rule over an entire sector despite the Codex explicitly prohibiting Space Marines from ruling more than one homeworld (barring short periods of emergency government). Mind you, they have a HundredPercentAdorationRating and their realm is unprecedentedly well organised, so they must be doing something right.

* WhipItGood:
** ''Very'' non-fetishy: Arco-Flagellants.
** Fetishy: The [[{{Stripperific}} scantily-clad]] Sisters Repentia units are led into battle by a Mistress of Repentance. The Mistress wears [[OfCorsetsSexy corset-inspired]] power armour, naturally.
** Chaos has a psychic power called Lash of Submission. Guess which god it's associated with.
** Ork runtherdz often carry grot prods and whips.

* TakeThat: When PETA decided to take a shot at Warhammer's setting for its various uses of fur (nevermind the fact that most factions prefer more...[[GenuineHumanHide humanitarian]] forms of decoration), Matt Ward of all people decided to step in and penned a short story where some eco activists tried to protect a native species from the Imperium's state policy of cleansing xeno life forms (in anticipation of colonization). Such activists managed to get the xenos onboard only to realize the reason why the Imperium deemed the xeno life harmful is because they're extremely violent carnivores. The activist's ship soon went silent as the beasts broke free of the holding cells.

* SealedBadassInACan: Several. Eversor assassins are kept in stasis tanks when they're not on active missions because they are [[AxCrazy too psychotically insane]] to not be, and in fact they are given mission directives through subconscious conditioning and deployed by ''shooting their stasis pod'' at the planet. Astartes Dreadnoughts are also kept asleep until they are needed to fight, and Heretic Dreadnoughts too but it's [[DeathSeeker played differently]]. The T'au do the same with many of their best commanders, most notably Commander Shadowsun - from a Doylist perspective this justifies the commander from a race of aliens who rarely live past fifty being active across a millennia of duty. Eldar warriors also, but the "badass" is a SplitPersonality that is locked away in the backs of their heads until its time to don the armour and fight, and Exarchs are what you get when the "badass" seizes control and refuses to be put back in the can...

** Tau's military doctrine views any last stands ordered by a commander to be this unless escape was truly impossible; being one of the few factions that values practicality over honor, they view last stands not as a heroic feat, but a waste of resources and total incompetence on the commander's part.

* ShootTheDog: Happens very, very often in the Imperium. One of a commissar's duties is to maintain unit cohesion and discipline-- by execution, if necessary. Discovered psykers are usually killed to stop them getting daemon-possessed and destroying worlds, fed to the Astronomicon to preserve it and the Emperor, or put through brutal conditioning to serve the Imperium as "sanctioned" psykers. And, if that weren't bad enough, in extreme catastrophes ''planets'' are subjected to Exterminatus in order to prevent the taint from spreading and put the inhabitants out of their misery. To highlight how monumentally fucked up this galaxy is, people are actually ''awarded medals'' for such acts.

* SpyCatsuit: Several Eldar have one, but it's pretty much standard issue for the Officio Assassinorum agents of the Imperium. Some employ chameleon-like mimicry abilities, others have no special reason for this apart from being fetishes. In one of the ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' novels, this tendency is repeatedly {{lampshaded}} when several characters can't keep their eyes from the girl-assassin brought up by a [[ChainsawGood rather]] [[KillItWithFire puritanical]] [[SexIsEvil sect]] who would most likely kill them if she had any idea ''why'' they looked at her like that.

* StableTimeLoop: Thanks to the acausal reality-warping nature of the Warp, this had happened on more than one occasion. In one story, for example, has two rival Imperial Guard regiments from the same world finding themselves stranded on a world being overrun by the Tyranids after the Imperium received a mysterious garbled distress call through the Warp calling for help and sent them as reinforcements. While they never found who sent the distress call, over the course of the story they [[FireForgedFriends put aside their differences]] and became a BandOfBrothers as they successfully fend off the Tyranids' attack. However, the remnants of both units find themselves on the verge of being overrun by fresh Tyranid swarms, and they desperately sent an Astropathic distress call through the Warp for assistance just as they prepare for their LastStand... a distress call which became garbled through transit and was received by the Imperium in the past, who would send the two regiments before their reconciliation as part of the relief force, effectively [[ViciousCycle dooming them to fight the same battle]] and face [[BolivianArmyEnding their implied annihilation]].

* StraightForTheCommander: Tyranids use synapse creatures as commanders, who relay the HiveMind's orders to each individual 'nid in range. Taking out a synapse creature (which can best be summed up as "shoot the big ones") causes momentary confusion amid the 'nids, until a synapse creature gets back in range.

** In one book, the Emperor's Children accidentally trigger an ancient Aeldari defence system while invading a planet that causes the Astartes to be attacked by swarms of spectral warriors with swords that pass clean through their armour and kill the Marines inside without leaving a visible wound, and without the intervention of [[PhysicalGod post-ascension Fulgrim]], the Emperor's Children would have been wiped out to the last. In another book set during the Horus Heresy, the Cabal agent John Grammaticus was gifted a pair of Aeldari scissors that ''cut through time and space'' and allowed him to cross the galaxy to reach Terra in time for the siege. The Aeldari regularly launch suicide missions to their lost Crone Worlds to recover these incredible technologies and hopefully turn the tide of the war against the rest of the galaxy -- one example being the Distortion Cannon, a powerful weapon that shoots ''miniature black holes''.
* SufficientlyAdvancedBambooTechnology: High-ranking Eldar may be seen with decorative spears and ribbed body armour, and carry little runes that look like they're made of carved bone in a little pouch -- the uselessly impractical looking spear actually projects a force-field that lets it cut through PoweredArmor like butter, the mail-looking bodysuits rapidly harden when struck and repair any damage all by themselves, and the little runes are made from a form of reactive living plastic that also acts as a conduit for their immense psychic prowess. Necrons have access to thing like Resurrection Orbs (little glowing crystals that enhance the self-repair protocols of the robotic warriors), Sempiternal Weave (which is a force-field that looks like a scale-mail suit of armour) and various staves. Quite a few of the more esoteric Imperial pieces look deceptively primitive as well, retaining a sort of Renaissance or Victorian aesthetic but leaving modern technology well behind-- the boxy Leman Russ looks like something that belongs in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the muddy trenches of Northern France]], but it handles like a European sports car and would thrash a top-of-the-line Abrams with little trouble.

* TakingYouWithMe: Once again, taken to extremes; a good example would be the Eversor Assassin. When you kill him, his ''blood explodes'' with tank-destroying force. All vehicles in the game have a chance of exploding, to the misfortune of everyone around, when destroyed.

* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Armies tend to go for one side or the other. Elite armies and close combat-based armies tend to be the Performer, while hordes and gunlines tend towards the Technician. Armies like the T'au, the Astra Militarum, Tyranids and the Necrons are more likely to win by sticking to a strict gameplan[[note]]that is usually, moving little and blowing the enemy to smithereens with overwhelming firepower from the far side of the board; maybe saturating the table with artillery and armour or going for a "castle" strategy where buffing characters nearby make certain shooting elements very strong[[/note]] and using point-efficiency to carry the day. Armies like the Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Aeldari and Drukhari can rely on the versatility and quality of the army to switch things up as the game changes and avoid strategic pitfalls, using terrain, deep-striking elements and overload with multiple different threats to keep the other player on their toes and force them to concede those ever-valuable objectives, all the while rushing up to blast them apart with close-range fire or just shred them in melee. However it can be [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]] as armies are flexible and varied by design and there is much room for deviation: Maybe a Militarum gunline keeps a small handful of competent melee fighters (some Ogyrns, characters or just sergeants with power weapons) to provide a little protection for the big guns; or the Orks, usually stereotyped as a horde of axe-wielding savages, instead have a decent go at a gunline-style army using Meks, Lootas and vehicles -- nothing says humiliation quite like being tabled by the jury-rigged contents of a tatter's yard. Players might also TakeAThirdOption and use a more esoteric strategy -- psyker-heavy armies, [[DeathFromAbove flyer spam]], mechanised infantry, and "Hero Hammer"-style armies (where the real strength is in the characters buffed up the wazoo to be {{One Man Arm|y}}ies and the troops are simply there to be CannonFodder).

** Orks have several teleportation devices, and their "tellyportas" are unexpectedly advanced as their can teleport great masses at once and sometimes across interstellar distances, and are said to actually function more reliably than human ones, although they actively enjoy the risks it poses. The Shokk Attack Gun actually relies on HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace to work (it opens a Warp tunnel between the gun and the target, then encourages snotlings to run through, the snotlings are terrorized into violent madness by the horrible things they saw and viciously attack everything in sight on emerging). But because it's an ork gun, potential problems range from the gun exploding and sucking everything around it into the Warp to the crazed snotlings retreating and coming out the wrong side to the gun's ''operator'' being sucked through the tunnel.
** One of the Antiquity Relics that a character from any faction can acquire during the course of a Crusade campaign is the Dark Age Displacer Belt. A product of arcane science, these belts are compact teleporters that allow the wearer ti instantly move almost anywhere on the board[[note]]subject to the normal restrictions for mid game deployment[[/note]] instead of moving normally.

* ThatsNoMoon: Necron tomb-complexes tend to look relatively small and innocuous at first... then they're revealed to be much, ''much'' bigger, and often still occupied by their builders.

* ThemeNaming: Excluding the actual tanks, an lot of the vehicles and a few pieces of field artillery that the Imperial Guard uses are named after various monsters and races from Greek mythology.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Because those who need them are ''weak'', and thereby not worth the resources and time to fix it. [[WeHaveReserves There are many to take their place, anyway.]]

** The 5th edition Imperial Guard codex does this for Imperial Guard players. After being a underpowered for nearly four editions, the 5th Edition Codex improved the power level of the faction and allowed them to field some of the most devastating weapons the game had to offer. Having access to some of the Guard's armoury and design structure was considered a major advantage and the Guard, know knonw as the Astra Militarum, have been considered a higher tier faction in most subsequent editions.
** The Dark Eldar, as the Drukhari used to be known, went twelve years without an update. The outdated rules for an already fragile and unforgiving faction, along with dated minitures, resulted in the Dark Eldar being considered low tier until 2010 when their update brought them sleek, predatory looking models, some much-needed staying power, along with unique mechanics and a slew of new special characters.

* TimeAbyss: Most Eldar, but a few ancient Marines and Chaos Marines cross into this trope as well. The Dreadnoughts are prominent even among the Marines: the oldest one of them has seen the Emperor and fought by his side in life, which is almost 11,000 years from current in-universe time. Truth be told, though, Necrons own this. The C'tan are outright stated to be the oldest living things in the universe, and the actual Necron race is ancient on par with the Old Ones themselves. The Necrons and C'Tan are actually old enough that they have to periodically wake up and move their tomb worlds when the stars they orbit die.

* TimeSkip: Between 7th and 8th edition. Thanks to [[TimeyWimeyBall warp weirdness]] it's anywhere from nothing to 300 years depending on where you're standing. The battle on Baal notably had Imperial reinforcements arrive a century after the Warp Storms began by their reckoning but later the same day from the perspective of the defenders.

* TookALevelInBadass: The Imperial Guard went from the whipping boys of the entire setting to the utterly terrifying gods of mechanised combat in the space of one codex.

* UnpredictableResults: Anything connected to the Warp or Ork technology. Represented ingame by psykers suffering "perils of the warp" attacks and more esoteric Orky wargear having its own tables of random effects. Ork ''psykers'' are beyond random, rolling just to see what completely-unpredictable power they ''get''... every turn.

* UnreliableCanon: Both InUniverse and out, misinformation and plain lack of information is visible at all levels of classification. For example, in order to avoid lowering morale anymore [[RedshirtArmy than it already is]], the Imperial Guardsman's Uplifting Primer states that Orks are cowards who will flee at the first opportunity (Orks are eight-foot-tall killing machines who embody AttackAttackAttack) and whose teeth can be yanked out (while they do shed teeth like sharks, clubbing them out is just as hard as knocking out human teeth). Or that the Tau-- the army dedicated to ranged firepower-- have bad eyesight and can't see things that don't move (this is sort of true, but only within arm's reach). And as most of the information on other races comes from a xenophobic human point of view, what information is canon may not necessarily be true. Out of universe, you can create your own highly specific army with its own backstory and design (most popularly, SpaceMarines) precisely because of this UnreliableCanon.

* WarGod: Khorne for Chaos and Khaine for the Eldar.
** The GodEmperor of Mankind probably counts as well.
** And of course Gork and Mork.

** The Eldar firmly believe mentioning Slaanesh's name brings his/her attention, hence they refer to him/her as "She Who Thirsts" or "The Great Enemy".

** Ork Kommandos are as stealthy as any Ork can be... which is to say, not very much.
* WithMyHandsTied: Just about everyone, hence why more... exotic... measures are commonly employed.

* WithCatlikeTread: "Recite the Litany of Stealth to reduce your chances of being heard."[[note]]This becomes a BrickJoke later on: if you look in the appendix and read through all the Litanies, you'll find the Litany of Stealth doesn't actually exist[[/note]]

* WhosLaughingNow: The Imperial Guard languished in the bottom-rungs of the army tier list for many years, due to the relative fragility of their infantry, gimmicky playstyle, and relationship with the rules that made certain games effectively unwinnable. Cue 5th Edition, which transformed the Imperial Guard into ''the'' undisputed kings of mechanized warfare overnight. This was the general reaction from Guard players.

* UnfriendlyFire: Catachan regiments don't really appreciate Commissars pushing them around, and so Commissars asigned to said regiments tend to suffer "unfortunate accidents". This is reflected in the tabletop game in the "Oops, Sorry Sir!" rule.

* UnfriendlyFire: Catachan regiments don't really appreciate Comissars pushing them around, and so Comissars asigned to said regiments tend to suffer "unfortunate accidents". This is reflected in the tabletop game in the "Oops, Sorry Sir!" rule.

* {{Stripperrific}}: Drukhari Wyches. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since they are for the most part meant to be performers in the arenas of Commorragh, not frontline warriors.

* {{Striperrific}}: Drukhari Wyches. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since they are for the most part meant to be performers in the arenas of Commorragh, not frontline warriors.

** Sisters of Battle that fail to fully meet the standards of their Order are degraded to Sisters Repentia, basically cannon fodder dressed in rags wielding a huge chainsword. If a Sister Repentia '''dares''' to show any sign of cowardice, [[FateWorseThanDeath she's stuck inside a Mortifier]].

** Sisters of Battle that fail to fully meet the standards of their Order are degraded to Sisters Repentia, basically cannon fodder dressed in rags wielding a huge chainsword. If a Sister Repentia ''''dares'''' to show any sign of cowardice, [[FateWorseThanDeath she's stuck inside a Mortifier]].

* TheUnmasquedWorld: The realisation that daemons actually existed was the death knell for Imperial Truth, and helped kick-start the Horus Heresy.

* SpacePirates: Eldar, Dark Eldar and sometimes Orks, Chaos and Humans.

** All the different branches of the Imperium, while technically under the same banner, fight among themselves quite frequently for a number of diferent reasons, including but not limited to: suspected heresy and/or corruption, orders from a superior statement, a bureaucratic error from the Adeptus Administratum, etc.
** Orks, when not united under a WAAAAGH and if no other potential adversaries are present, will eagerly and happily beat the tar out of each other. This is the main reason why, despite their overwhelming numbers, they haven't completely taken over the galaxy.
** Chaos forces often despise each other as much as they despise the Imperium. In particular, followers of Khorne ''absolutely hate'' those of Slaanesh, while followers of Nurgle will happily destroy any follower of Tzeentch on sight (and viceversa).
** [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] with the Drukhari. Kabals in Commorragh spend their time backstabbing each other and engaging in what is basically constant gang wars, but one of the only rules all Drukhari follow is that sabotaging each other during raids outside the Webway is a ''BIG'' no-no, since Drukhari society needs these raids to be successful if they want slaves to torture.

* WeWillAllFlyInTheFuture: Numerous units have flight capabilities, usually either via a JetPack or by flying wings.
* WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture: Health care for military veterans and Imperial nobles is so good that just about anything short of having one's brain destroyed is survivable. Spectacular advances in surgery and [[{{Cyborg}} augmetic enhancements]] allow just about anyone to live for two hundred years or more, and that's assuming you don't splurge on a mechanical coffin that can preserve you for millennia. Of course, if you're ''not'' a veteran or noble, this trope is averted.