| 1 | %%When adding examples for rules and other information specific to a limited number of editions rather than the game/setting as a whole, please note which edition is being referred to. |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | By the will of the Immortal God-Emperor, the great reliquary, or "page" as it is known, of tropes has grown to the point that it shall be broken up into four different pages. These pages are divided by the letter that starts the trope, and misplaced tropes shall be returned to their proper place. This page is for those tropes that start with the letter I through the letter P. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | Venerate the God-Emperor. To deep-strike back to the main page, click [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 here]]. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[Warhammer40000/W40kTropesAToD Tropes A to D]] | [[Warhammer40000/W40KTropesEToH Tropes E to H]] | '''Tropes I to P''' | [[Warhammer40000/W40KTropesQToZ Tropes Q to Z]] |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 11 | |
| 12 | [[folder:I]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | * IDidWhatIHadToDo: The justification for many of the more sympathetic characters in the setting committing morally reprehensible acts (such as the destruction of entire planetary populations and the execution of innocents) is that when the threats they face can cause people to descend into murderous insanity with the mere knowledge of their existence then such acts are the only course of action. |
| 15 | * IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: Imperial astro-cartographers have a tendency to be somewhat literal when naming the more dangerous areas of the galaxy. The Eye of Terror (a large NegativeSpaceWedgie created when the [[SpaceElves Aeldari Empire]] wiped itself out), the Ghoul Stars (a region of space inhabited by a mysterious and dangerous alien races), and Krieg (a planet reduced to a nuclear wasteland after a centuries long civil war) being particular examples. |
| 16 | ** The Koronus Expanse sounds fine, but to get there you have to travel through ''The Maw''. |
| 17 | * IgnoredEpiphany: The Fall of the Aeldari resulted in the vast majority of the species having their souls consumed by a MadGod of their own creation, collapsing their civilisation and ripping open a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie giant hole in the fabric of space-time]]. While most of the surviving Aeldari cultures gave up the excess that led to their downfall, those Aeldari most steeped in their hedonistic ways discovered that they could use the suffering of others to fortify their own souls and deny She Who Thirsts, eventually evolving into the sadistic and twisted Drukhari. |
| 18 | * IllegalReligion: In the backstory of the game, the God-Emperor of Mankind promoted state atheism, banning religion in an attempt to starve the Chaos Gods to death. It didn't work due to a research failure on his part: the Chaos gods are fueled not by prayer, but by emotion. The Imperium now ironically worships him, though other religions are still not permitted, heathens who have lost contact with the preceding human government (and possibly regressed to the Stone Age, depending on the planet) are indoctrinated to the Imperial Cult (with polytheistic faiths having the leader deity be equated to the Emperor and the lessers to Imperial Saints), minor heretics are punished to serve in the military or in other conscripted ways, redeemable heretics are made into Arco-Flagellants or strapped with explosive collars and tossed into work gangs or the Penal Legions and major heretics are killed. There are, however, countless variations on the cult of the Emperor, as establishing a single version on the million worlds of the Imperium is impossible. Instead, whether or or not a particular cult is heretical or not is basically up to the local governor / Ecclesiarchy, and the Inquisition intervenes if they think they're getting too lax. |
| 19 | ** The Adeptus Mechanicus worships the Omnissiah, who provides them with technology and miraculous insights. The Empire of Man gets around this immediate contradiction by saying that the Omnissiah ''is'' the God-Emperor, and the tech-priests generally don't argue the point. |
| 20 | * ImAHumanitarian: [[CaptainErsatz Soylent Viridians]], a form of food ration, also referred to as "corpse starch." |
| 21 | ** There's also a widely known and somewhat popular religious sect whose main gimmick is cannibalism, though this behavior is generally frowned upon by the Ecclesiarchy as a whole outside of starvation rations (and corpse starch is mostly deployed when demand far outstrips supply on regular foods like Hive Worlds or long sieges) and some weird local Imperial Cult variations that are barely within tolerable deviance from the main Imperial Cult. |
| 22 | ** The Kroot have this as their [[PlanetofHats hat]], as when they eat something they incorporate parts of its genome into their reproductive DNA. They began as vultures scavenging ork corpses and eventually became a bipedal, if still distinctly avian, species that eats their own (and everyone else's) dead, if the individual was strong enough to warrant being incorporated into future generations. |
| 23 | ** Tyranids are the same, except that they're an entire species dedicated to consuming organic matter (even their own) and use biological weapons to the exclusion of all else (so they can "recycle" spent ammunition later). |
| 24 | ** Blood Angels and their descendant chapters are this under the influence of the Red Thirst. Some chapters like [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Flesh Eaters and the Flesh Tearers]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin even have it right in their names.]] |
| 25 | *** Space Marines as a whole do this because one of their implants allows them to learn from whatever meat they eat. The Imperial Fists make consumption of human flesh part of their initiation ritual for this reason. A few non-Blood Angels-descended chapters are known to eat their fallen foes. |
| 26 | ** Various Chaos cults and warbands practice cannibalism, in equal parts for fun and for specific sorcerous rituals. |
| 27 | * ImmortalityField: It is inverted with [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]] as daemons can be [[{{Permadeath}} truly killed]] there. A daemon's physical form in realspace is only a "manifestation," but their true "presence" is in the warp and destroying it causes their true death. "Killing" them in realspace only banishes them back to the Warp unless it's through knowing their {{True Name}}s, a special ritual or relic, or overwhelming [[PsychicPowers psychic might]] (that last one is easier said than done). |
| 28 | * ImmortalityInducer: |
| 29 | ** Gene Seed. One of the fringe benefits of being turned to an Astartes is that you could live indefinitely and can fight off aging for almost just as long, though extreme age does cause physical degredation (and the Iron Warriors have a specific mutation that causes limb deformation in very, very old age requiring cybernetic or cloned replacement, while the Blood Angels are said to be long lived even for Astartes). However, most Astartes die in battle (or get interred into Dreadnoughts after otherwise mortal injuries) long before any aging becomes a problem. The Custodian Guards are also immortal, in their case only losing prowess extremely slowly due to being individually genetically and chemically enhanced as opposed to the relative mass productin Gene Seed gives Astartes. The Primarchs are fully immortal, being soulforged into being demigods on top of their incredible super soldier bodies. |
| 30 | ** The Golden Throne appears to be one, but it's essentially a life support system, an immortality sustainer. The Emperor was roughly 40,000 years old [[note]]he was born as a Proto-Hittite in around 8,000 BC[[/note]] by the time he actually had to use it and his sheer psychic power made him flat out immortal before his injuries at the hands of Horus. |
| 31 | ** The powers of the Warp are sort of a rules-lawyering way this goes about, since time dilation allows the people who spend a long time in the warp or warp rifts to experience a relative few years worth of time, while centuries go by in real space. And then if they can get [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence promoted to daemon prince]], then that just goes full-on. |
| 32 | ** The Drukhari cheat death by capturing slaves and feeding on their [[LiquidAssets despair, pain, and suffering]] to rejuvenate themselves, staving off the problem of Aeldari souls not protected by [[SoulJar spirit stones]] being immediately by Slaanesh. |
| 33 | ** For Orks, the WAAAGH!! seems to fulfill this role for any ork [[HighTurnoverRate who can live long enough]] to fully appreciate it. |
| 34 | ** Higher Tyranid creatures, especially Hive Tyrants, will be reabsorbed into the Hive Mind, but it will go through the trouble of keeping their conscious preserved (while lesser bioforms are not sentient so much as biological robots), since experienced leaders are still of immeasurable value to it as it cannot give its full attention to any one point due to the sheer incredible amount it needs to manage. |
| 35 | ** Necrons are the settings best example, since every Necron was at one point a living being that transferred its soul to a cold automaton (though said souls got eaten by the C'Tan, leaving them as sentient robots). This turned out to be even worse than it sounds, since most have ultimately lost most of their higher functions or sanity to time (ca. ''60 million years''). |
| 36 | ** The Tau commander Farsight has a giant sword [[spoiler:which is a lost Necron weapon]] which drains the lifeforce of whatever it kills and gives it to him making him essentially immortal considering how many things he has killed with it. Farsight is not aware of this effect, though he has his suspicions and they disturb him greatly. |
| 37 | * ImmuneToBullets: Big daemons and monsters are generally more or less proof against [[FiveRoundsRapid small arms]], though not against heavy weapons. |
| 38 | ** The Dark Eldar have Grotesques, crazed BDSM fans who have turned upon their own bodies. Their special rule lets them ignore all shooting attacks with a Strength of 5 or lower. They have 2 wounds. Yeah. (They only die from shooting attacks which would automatically kill them ''anyway''. Nothing short of weapons designed specifically for punching through tank armor will drop a Grotesque.) |
| 39 | ** Armour Value 14. Especially the Monolith. |
| 40 | ** Currently only the Wraithlord, Talos, Cronos, Monoliths, and Land Raider Variants are able to actually completely ignore mainstream shooting (and, in the case of the Wraithlord, close combat too). This is due to the To Wounds chart disallowing you to wound something with a Toughness value 4 higher than your Strength Value. Same goes with Vehicles, where it is not allowed to penetrate something that has a AV 7 points higher than your strength (you're suppose to roll a dice and add it to your strength to see if you penetrated the enemy's armour, so by default 7 higher would mean it's nigh impregnable to you). This mechanic makes it so that Vehicle hunting weapons are actually a viable method and alternative to otherwise mono-purposed sniper rifles for taking down such beasties. |
| 41 | ** This trope disappeared in 8th edition. Even piddly Imperial Guard lasguns now have a small chance of inflicting damage on any target, even well-armored tanks. Lorewise you still won't burn through a Land Raiders armor with a single lasgun fast enough. |
| 42 | * ImmunityDisability: Followers of Nurgle are generally immune to pain, due to their bodies being so much dead or festering tissue. Likewise, Slaaneshi cultists are TooKinkyToTorture, but they require ever-greater amounts of sensory input to feel anything. |
| 43 | ** Blanks are rare individuals who are [[AntiMagic immune to all psychic powers]]. This causes a number of side effects: |
| 44 | *** Blanks not only nullify psychic powers on themselves, but often in a small area around them. Psychics in the area can normally find people by seeking out their psychic signatures. The dead-zone created by a blank is even more of a sign that something odd is there. |
| 45 | *** As emotions are a form of psychic power, blanks cannot feel emotion and drain emotions from those around them. This gives them an UncannyValley effect. |
| 46 | *** Being immune to all psychic powers includes healing or support abilities as well. |
| 47 | *** Because blanks are so rare, once discovered, you'll be picked up by the Inquisition and trained into a commando, recruited into the Culexus Temple of the Officio Assasinorum if you are relly good and powerful or the Sisters of Silence if you are even better. Depending on your viewpoint, this is either awesome or horrible (though most Blanks welcome any acceptance, as their negative souls cause extreme irritation and if sufficiently negative on the Psychic power scale pain to normal people making them socially shunned). |
| 48 | * ImmuneToMindControl: Some characters are immune to psychological effects, whether by possessing the heart of a possibly divine being or being blessed by the magic-hating god of war. Also, the Tau are naturally resistant to magic mind control and Chaos corruption as a racial trait. |
| 49 | * ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: [[ChainsawGood Frequently]] on a ''chainsaw''. |
| 50 | ** This is actually one of the ''least'' awful ways to die when fighting Tyranids. Compared to their crystalline toxins, flesh-melting acid sprays, and burrowing bullet beetles, getting impaled on a huge chitinous blade or riddled with nail-like barbs isn't so bad |
| 51 | * ImplacableMan: Things like higher-level Tyranids, Space Marines, Orks and Daemons are ridiculously hard to take down, but the Necrons ''really'' take the cake. |
| 52 | * ImpracticallyFancyOutfit: Standard fashion in the Imperium appears to include lots of skulls, chains, cybernetic implants, books and scrolls dangling off you, and maybe the odd brazier, over robes or elaborate armor with huge shoulder pads. |
| 53 | * ImposedHandicapTraining: Many SpaceMarine Chapters have their initiates fight against full Space Marines before, during, and after their surgical enhancements as part of their grueling TrainingFromHell, as well as getting them used to fighting enemies bigger than them (which the galaxy has no shortage of). |
| 54 | %% * ImYourWorstNightmare |
| 55 | * IncorruptiblePurePureness: The Grey Knights, a Space Marine Chapter that serves as the military arm of the Ordo Malleus specializing in anti-daemon combat. In over ten thousand years of service, not a single one of their number has ever defected to Chaos (YMMV, regarding Alaric, Grey Knight of Khorne). More impressive when you consider that at least ''half'' of all Space Marines had done so by the end of the Horus Heresy, which occurred somewhere around one thousand years after the Legions were created, and that Grey Knights are all psykers (and thus inherently more vulnerable to daemonic corruption). More to the point, the Sisters of Battle are incorruptible due to faith alone, while the Grey Knights at least use ritual magic to guard their souls. |
| 56 | * InfernalParadise: Warboss Tuska led his ork band into the Eye of Terror to fight daemons for the lulz. There they became trapped by Khorne, forced to fight, die and resurrect for eternity. These being orks, they consider the place paradise, and couldn't be happier. |
| 57 | * InfernalRetaliation: |
| 58 | ** In the 2nd Edition of the game, flamer weapons had a chance of setting those wounded by them on fire. Normally a burning model could do nothing except try to put out the flames but some models, such as those effected by Frenzy or Tyranid creatures under the control of the HiveMind, could continue to act and attack normally while burning. Later editions introduced the Soul Blaze special rule that also set the target on fire but allowed them to act normally. |
| 59 | ** The background material and novels are replete with instances of various alien, heavily armoured, psychotic and/or unnatural creatures continuing to attack despite being set aflame. |
| 60 | * InherentInTheSystem: Were the oppressive and xenophobic Imperium of Man ever to fall (or even undergo significant reorganisation), the resultant chaos might well lead to Mankind's rapid extinction at the hands of its many, ''many'' enemies. Thus, even those who see the faults in the system usually support the status quo. |
| 61 | ** Except of course against the Tau who would be more than happy to welcome more Gues'va into their empire, whether the humans were willingly or not. |
| 62 | * IgnoranceIsBliss: Ignorance is a virtue. Ignorance is your best defence. A small mind is a tidy mind. A small mind is easily filled with faith. Blessed is the mind too small for doubt. An Empty Mind Is A Loyal Mind. A questioning mind betrays a treacherous soul. All of these are just a few of the Imperial Thoughts of the Day and have a good reason to be pushed constantly. |
| 63 | * IndustrialWorld: |
| 64 | ** Forge worlds are planets that have been entirely stripped of useful minerals, water and plant life, the entire surface devoted to colossal factories dedicated to meeting the ever-increasing material needs of the Imperium, from ammo to bionic implants to Titans. Conditions there are usually hellish (sometimes the oceans and even the ''atmosphere'' are gone) [[WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture and the worker population enormous]], with most people being heavily modified just to survive working there. Despite the immense output of weapons, vehicles and wargear, some Forge Worlds are relatively defenseless and rely on Navy, Guard and SpaceMarine protection so as to leave room for more factories. The most famous is Mars, home of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It's also the location of the Noctis Labyrinth, the prison of the C'tan entity known as the Void Dragon, which is all but stated to be the Omnissiah worshipped by the Mechanicus (and also implied to have been intentionally locked away there for this purpose by the Emperor in the Middle Ages, making the Emperor St. George). Some Forge Worlds, including Mars, were made by the proto-Mechanicum before FTL travel collapsed near entirely and when the Cult Mechanicum joined the nascent Imperium and became the Adeptus Mechanicus after the Horus Heresy, more Forge Worlds were built (favoring worlds that already are not conductive to life). |
| 65 | ** Industrial worlds are a distinct category of planets, with their chief difference from forge worlds being that they are not owned by the Adeptus Mechanicus. They're otherwise still dedicated to planet-wide manufacturing, production and mining and are generally highly overbuilt, overexploited and polluted, although not to the extreme degree that forge worlds are. Many are also [[CityPlanet hive worlds]]. Within the Solar System, Venus is classified as an industrial world of this type. |
| 66 | ** Some ork worlds ruled by mekaniaks -- orks with an instinctive drive to create machinery -- can become cruder versions of this known as mek worlds. One of the most famous, Mordax, used to be an imperial Forge World until it was captured by orks, who harnessed the factories for their own use (and renamed it {{Moredakka}}). |
| 67 | %%* InitiationCeremony: Space Marines, especially the Grey Knights; also Chaos. |
| 68 | * InspiringSermon: Imperial Priests and Space Marine Chaplains often give inspiring speeches to motivate the troops into performing better in combat. |
| 69 | %%* IntangibleMan: Necron Wraiths. |
| 70 | * InterserviceRivalry: To the point that rival Imperial Guard regiments, Space Marine chapters, Inquisitorial task forces, or any combination of the above will often open fire on each other in the name of the Emperor. On some worlds fighting over who gets to enlist in the Guards in the first place can cause casualties matching small wars. |
| 71 | %%* InTheNameOfTheMoon: Every faction has their own equivalent. |
| 72 | %%* InsectoidAliens: The Tyranids, the Q'Orl and the Vespid. |
| 73 | * InvincibleHero: Every faction tends to get this treatment in its own codex, in a manner appropriate to the race (e.g. the Space Marines tend to emerge triumphant against overwhelming odds, the Imperial Guard tend to win through attrition and great loss of life, the Orks tend to win by being awesome, etc). Conversely, if a faction appears in someone else's codex, it usually means they're getting [[TheWorfEffect Worfed]]. |
| 74 | * {{Irony}}: |
| 75 | ** The Imperium of Man is a star-spanning, human-supremacist theocratic dictatorship, and a core tenet of the Imperial Cult is the purity and superiority of the human form. Yet their greatest soldiers, the Adeptus Astartes, are augmented so heavily through cybernetics and gene modification that they hardly qualify as "human" anymore, and the actual human soldiers in the Astra Militarum are usually pathetically outmatched and die in droves against their enemies (notwhitstanding their incredible armor and artillery strength, and facing lesser Xeno powers or poorly equipped rebels most of the time). |
| 76 | ** For dramatic irony, the pre-Horus Heresy Imperium is seen in-universe as a golden age of progress and reason cut short by Horus' treachery. In all stories set before and during the Horus Heresy, it's made very clear that the early Imperium was ''still'' a horrific fascist dystopia, being only slightly better by the fact that there was an actual R&D budget and [[StateSec the Inquisition]] didn't exist yet. |
| 77 | ** For even more dramatic irony, Horus' rebellion was inspired by a vision of a future Imperium that has descended into a totalitarian theocracy where the Emperor and some of the Primarchs are worshipped as gods while others lie largely forgotten and scorned. In truth, the Emperor's vision for the Imperium was a ''secular'' totalitarian autocracy and Horus' own actions led to the Imperium becoming the nightmare it is in the current time. It is entirely possible that [[MagnificentBastard Tzeentch]] presented the vision to Horus and engineered a BatmanGambit, with a good chuckle at Horus' expense. |
| 78 | ** But on the other hand, the Inquisition who enforce the rabid xenophobia and religious dogmatism that defines the Imperium have a recruitment policy that makes the T'au Empire's Greater Good ideology look downright exclusionary. Provided you can survive ten years of TrainingFromHell, ''anyone'' can become an Inquisitor, from a High Lord to a lowly planetary hive worker. Most Inquisitors are actually psykers, leading to hilarious situations where people who were once shunned as "mutants" and "freaks" [[TheDogBitesBack return to their homeworld with the authority to declare anyone they wish a heretic and drag them off to a]] FateWorseThanDeath. Because of their unorthodox methods, they tend to be followed around by a motley retinue of religious fanatics, misfits, abhumans and even alien mercenaries; when your mission is to thwart the forces of Chaos, nothing can be off the table. |
| 79 | ** Lorgar Aurelian wrote the Lectitio Divinitatus and inspired the rise of the Imperial Cult. Lorgar was also the first Primarch to fall to Chaos and his Word Bearers have become the most devout followers of the Chaos Gods, having spent the past ten thousand years fighting the very religion their own Primarch had a hand in creating. |
| 80 | * ItsPersonal: Some factions have an extremely bitter and violent history between each other, none moreso than the warriors of the Imperium and the Heretic Astartes' extreme grudges. Most Imperium and Heretic Astartes factions hate each other since the Horus Heresy and with good cause. The Battle of Isstvan V where four Legions they thought were allies attacked them from the rear was lived by the Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard as such a betrayal that even 10,000 years after they bitterly remember it. In their respective 8th Edition supplements, all have a stratagem named "Vengeance for Isstvan V" that buffs units against the Traitor Legions that were present. On the other side, the Word Bearers faction also has a "Vengeance for Monarchia" stratagem that buffs Word Bearers against the Ultramarines, showing that, yes, the chaos-worshipping Word Bearers are still sore about that time the Emperor and the Ultramarines punished them for believing the Emperor to be a god. |
| 81 | ** Some Xeno species have this against the Imperium. Unfortunately for them, the Imperium is only too happy to kill them to the last child and is the preeminent galactic superpower even after the Great Rift. |
| 82 | * ItsRainingMen: Deploying tropes straight into battle via grav-chute, jump pack or some other means from an flying transport is a relatively common tactic for many armies. In-game this is represented by the troop type in question having special deployment rules[[note]]known by a variety of appropriate names, such as Jump Pack Assault, in 8th Edition and as Deep Strike in previous editions[[/note]] that allow them to join the battle while it is ongoing. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:J]] |
| 86 | * JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: The "Nine Actions" are the Inquisition's specific guidelines on gradually increasing the intensity of their questioning, psychological manipulation, torture, and MindRape. Action Nine would kill any normal human pretty quick, but then normal humans usually give in at about the two-mark, which [[ToThePain involves explaining exactly what is going to happen through the next seven stages]]. |
| 87 | ** Dark Eldar are also adept at this, owing to their [[TortureTechnician experience with torture in general]]. Generally, however, they're more interested in the captive's screaming than in any information he might have to offer. |
| 88 | ** The fate of any of the Fallen who survive getting captured by the Dark Angels. If they 'repent' they're given a MercyKill. |
| 89 | * JackOfAllStats: Traditionally the Space Marines are a well-rounded army, not bad in a close assault but also having fairly accurate shooting (though perhaps lacking in volume due to the lack of numbers), relatively resilient with across-the-board T4 and good armour saves, and a lot of options to support any possible playstyle. This made them the classic beginner's choice. |
| 90 | * JeanneDArchetype: The [[ChurchMilitant Sisters of Battle]] are obviously based on UsefulNotes/JoanOfArc, at least visually. |
| 91 | * {{Jerkass}}: Arguably the God-Emperor's FatalFlaw. He was ''not'' a pleasant man and he often slighted his sons in petty and nasty ways without really thinking about it, which directly motivated many of them to turn on him after Horus did. For example, he showed no remorse in transporting Angron away from his friends and gladiator comrades as they were about to perform their LastStand, and he had Lorgar and his Word Bearers reprimanded and humiliated by razing their capital to the ground [[StopWorshippingMe just to teach them a lesson about worshipping him]]. |
| 92 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Roboute Guilliman, primarch of the Ultramarines. Sure he could be an ass, but he legitimately cared about the people. His actions and policies would eventually lead to the Ultramar system becoming one of the nicest (and least corrupt) places in the Imperium. |
| 93 | * {{Jetpack}}: The majority of races have some form of jetpack equipped assault tropes. The majority of these jetpacks (known as Jump Packs) consist of rocket engines that allow the wearer to make long leaps at a great speed but some races, particularly the T'au, make use of slower but more manoeuvrable versions. |
| 94 | * JollyRoger: Freeboterz, Ork SpacePirates who cross the inky black while fully DressedToPlunder, usually fly the Jolly Ork, an icon depicting a grinning, tusked Ork skull, often with an eyepatch or a pirate hat, and prominently display it on their ships and personal iconography. |
| 95 | * JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: Several organisations and individuals with this power. The Adeptus Arbites enforce Imperial law in the civilian populace (and they [[CaptainErsatz rather resemble]] the [[ComicBook/JudgeDredd Judges of Mega City One]], although this is superficial: according to ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', abandoning due process and using summary execution is the worst heresy an Arbites officer can commit). The Commissars ensure loyalty within the [[RedshirtArmy Imperial Guard]]. The [[ChurchMilitant Ecclesiarchy]] also get involved from time to time, and they tend to favour [[FateWorseThanDeath unusual punishments]] and/or KillItWithFire. And, of course, the Inquisition, with their ever infamous motto "Innocence proves ''nothing.''" |
| 96 | ** "A plea of innocent in my courtroom is guilty of wasting my time. Guilty." |
| 97 | * TheJuggernaut: Necrons, Tyranids, and the Space Marines. There's also a breed of Khornate daemon actually ''called'' the Juggernaut; for the uninitiated, it's the thing that looks like an angry metal rhino. |
| 98 | * JuliusBeethovenDaVinci: The Emperor is likely to have been Alexander the Great (his flagship is called the ''Bucephalus''), among numerous other historical figures (or at least [[MagnificentBastard he stole their stories to ease his transition to power]]). |
| 99 | %%* JustEatHim: What the Tyranid Mawlocs do. |
| 100 | [[/folder]] |
| 101 | |
| 102 | [[folder:K]] |
| 103 | * KarmaHoudini: It's rare major villains face any sort of comeuppance. |
| 104 | ** Special mentions to Asdrubael Vect of the Dark Eldar whose most recent lore has him achieving everything he wants while flouting the few moral standards the Drukhari have. |
| 105 | ** Few more egregious cases than Erebus and Kor Phaeron, the first Chaos Marines who corrupted Lorgar and Horus, engineered the Heresy and are responsible for the grimdark future. Rarely used, you'd think they'd have gotten theirs but both are still members of the Word Bearers' dark councils |
| 106 | * KickTheDog: Everyone, to everything, all the time. |
| 107 | ** The writers intentionally invoke this whenever a faction becomes more sympathetic. Eldar looking like a WoobieSpecies? Okie-dokie! Play up their [[MagnificentBastard callous, cruel and manipulative]] tendencies to make them look more like TheFairFolk! Imperium looking too good? Simple! Just add more deluded, paranoid {{Knight Templar}}s [[WeHaveReserves who just don't give a shit about the lives of innocent people]]! Tau looking too progressive and hopeful? No problem! Just make them the worst bits of UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]] and throw in rumours of mind control, orbital bombardment and forced sterilization projects for good measure. This game is EvilVersusEvil, and the writers ''will'' remind you of that when you begin thinking otherwise. |
| 108 | ** Same goes for individuals as well. For some time there was a prevailing (mistaken) idea that while the Imperium was bad, the Emperor himself was a decent person all-round. Cue the ''Horus Heresy'' novels which show he was not only a fascist overlord who became Emperor by ruthlessly crushing all his opposition whether they were evil or not, but also just a [[LackOfEmpathy petty and uncaring]] {{Jerkass}}, a {{Hypocrite}}, and a pretty terrible father to boot. |
| 109 | %%* KillTally: Kharn the Betrayer, BloodKnight extraordinaire, has a kill-counter in his helmet's HUD that lets him see how well he's doing in battle. |
| 110 | %%** Lucius the Eternal is a duelist who seeks out great champions in single combat, and scars himself for each one defeated. Given he's been at this ten thousand years and has a curse/boon where whoever kills him turns into him, he's pretty much a mass of crisscrossing scars by now. |
| 111 | * KillerRabbit: The Catachan Barking Toad, a large, [[https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/7/74/Toad-big.jpg sad-looking amphibian]] sometimes dubbed the [[FanNickname "Ronery Toad"]]. If attacked, hurt or even surprised, it [[TakingYouWithMe explodes into a cloud of obscenely virulent toxins]], killing absolutely everything for miles around and poisoning the earth so that nothing will ever grow there again. |
| 112 | * KillItWithFire: ''Imperial government policy'' towards ''everything.'' |
| 113 | ** The Salamanders chapter of Space Marines are known for placing an strong emphasis on fiery weaponry. |
| 114 | ** And the Witch Hunters specialize in fire based weapons. The Sororitas are also [[BurnTheWitch very fond]] of flame-based weaponry. |
| 115 | ** The Imperial Guard occasionally fields the Hellhound, which is an APC that's been converted into an flamethrower and is stereotypically manned by pyromaniacs. |
| 116 | ** On the Eldar side, the Fire Dragons kill tanks with fire, specifically with fusion guns and firepikes. |
| 117 | ** Ork Burna Boyz. Take your typical Ork with his usual lust for war and violence, add an unhealthy obsession with fire and give him a huge flamethrower, and you've got a Burna Boy. |
| 118 | * KillTheHostBody: One of the commissar's duties (other than shooting heretics, cowards and the insufficiently-motivated) is to keep an eye on the psykers as they call on the powers of the Warp, as they are particularly susceptible to being possessed at that moment, and shoot them in the head before they are fully possessed and/or erupt into a portal that will spit out more daemons. Psykers carry "mercy blades" for this exact purpose, but this depends on their still being sane enough to kill themselves. |
| 119 | * KingInTheMountain: The Emperor, several primarchs. Or so it is said. |
| 120 | * KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Zigzagged all over the spectrum. Every laser weapon (lasgun, lascanon) has a kinetic equivalent (autogun, battle cannon) in terms of raw damage, though not always in the same battlefield role.... and both have [[LostTechnology archeotech versions]] that are even better than their modern counterparts. So while a laspistol or plasma pistol may outdo a stub gun in terms of damage, there exist Adeptus Mechanicus and Custodes kinetic weapons that outdo said energy weapons. Played lovingly straight by the Tau's MagneticWeapons, bar none the best mass-produced tank-hunting weapons the galaxy has seen. |
| 121 | * KlingonPromotion: Considered perfectly normal in Ork and Dark Eldar society. If the victim doesn't see it coming, he/she clearly didn't deserve his/her job. |
| 122 | * KnightInSourArmor: The literature of Warhammer 40K has given us fairly decent people (for a given value of decent) who even in the face of all this madness keep trying to do what's right (for a given value of right... it's [[CrapsackWorld that kind of place]]). But next to none of them have any illusions that they'll actually succeed in the end, and only continue their works because it is their duty. |
| 123 | * KnightTemplar: Archetypical commissars, inquisitors and Space Marines will always be prepared to burn down whole planets to wipe out heretics and the unclean. |
| 124 | [[/folder]] |
| 125 | |
| 126 | [[folder:L]] |
| 127 | * LandShark: The death world Miral is home to carnivorous jungle-dwelling creatures named Land Sharks, whose description makes them look like eight-meter-long eyeless sharks with prehensile fins. They "swim" through loose soil and undergrowth, their teeth can slice through ceramite armor, and are quite stealthy. Colonel Straken of the Catachan Jungle Fighters was once attacked by one while tracking an Aeldari patrol; it tore off his right arm, only for him to (reportedly) tear off its own throat with [[ManBitesMan his own teeth]] in return (skeptics believe it's a metaphor for using a Catachan Fang, the most common type of combat blades among Catachan regiments). The incident is the reason why he has bionic prosthetics replacing his right arm, shoulder and the right half of his chest, earning him the nickname "Iron Hand". |
| 128 | * LargeAndInCharge: Orks actually get steadily bigger as they gain more authority, Chaos Lords who have ascended to daemonhood tower over their merely giant minions, and the size of Tyranid "Synapse Creatures" leads to one piece of advice in dealing with Tyranids: "SHOOT THE BIG ONES!". Also [[PhysicalGod the manifest gods]] of the Necron race-- C'tan-- have a special rule called "Above All Others" on the battlefield, which is pretty self-explanatory. |
| 129 | * [[LargeHam Large WarHAMmer]]: Given how the setting is batshit insane and RatedMForManly, and how insanity tends to feel good in this setting... players who don't treat the game as SeriousBusiness tend to get hammy as time goes on. |
| 130 | * LaserBlade: Most power weapons are a disruption field-based variant of this, but a couple of genuine laser swords have come up in the fluff. |
| 131 | * LaserSight: Tau markerlights are a variation of this, and they also appear on a lot of Imperial Guard weapons. To be more accurate, Tau markerlights are actually laser designators which improve the accuracy of any allied units trying to shoot at them, so they work as sights for ''other'' soldiers. |
| 132 | ** A common fan joke: What do you call a Lasgun with a laser sight? Twin-linked. |
| 133 | ** An Ork Targita or Gitfinda can be a crude version of this. |
| 134 | * TheLastDance: All over the place. The Imperial Guardsmen are indoctrinated from recruitment/conscription that they ''will'' die during their service, but they do so in the name of the Emperor, so [[HeroicSacrifice they need to]] [[TakingYouWithMe make it count]]. Space Marines are immortal but have been known to hold bastions for weeks on overrun worlds, just for the honour of it. The Craftworld Eldar take this to the point where it's practically their [[PlanetOfHats hat]]: they are hopelessly outnumbered by the Orks, humans and Tyranids and very likely doomed to extinction, and they know it, but keep fighting their enemies regardless. The followers of Chaos tend to be {{Death Seeker}}s anyway, since a good death in battle would likely grant them favour with their chosen god. The Tau tend to avoid this but if and when cornered, they [[TranquilFury calmly but ruthlessly]] pour fire onto the enemy until they die or the enemy dies. The only exceptions seem to be Necrons (semi-mindless cyber-zombies), Tyranids (hive mind insects who use spawn as ammunition), Dark Eldar (who try to stay alive for as long as possible, and given [[EldritchAbomination who's]] waiting for them on the other side [[FateWorseThanDeath that's probably a good idea]]) and Orks ([[BloodKnight who live to fight and die anyway]]). |
| 135 | * LastStand: |
| 136 | ** Some editions include specific missions that allow players to fight last stand battles. How these battles are represented varies with the 8th Edition Last Stand Narrative Challenge Mission,[[note]]from the Chapter Approved 2019 expansion[[/note]] for example, seeing a defender fight against an endless attacking force and rated on how long they last. |
| 137 | ** At the end of the First Tyrannic War, the climactic Battle of Maccrage saw the majority Imperial ground forces wiped out by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Behemoth. When relief forces arrived on the planet, after defeating the Tyranid Fleet, they found that the veterans of the Ultramarine's 1st Company had made their stand in the centre of the northern polar fortress, fighting back-to-back until they were eventually dragged down by superior numbers. |
| 138 | ** During the Fall of Cadia, the famous Cadian 8th Regiment performed stood their ground to protect the last evacuation ships from the victorious Chaos forces as the planet itself was breaking apart. While all the warriors of the 8th fighting on Cadia are thought to have died, Creed himself is rumoured to have survived and elements of the 8th subsequently fought on Vigilus during the War of Beasts. |
| 139 | ** At any given moment, somewhere in the galaxy, an Imperial force is being wiped out to the last man. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Imperium." Though individual worlds may enjoy centuries of peace, the Imperium as a whole has been fighting a war for survival on a hundred thousand fronts for ten millennia. |
| 140 | %%* LawfulStupidChaoticStupid: Plenty of examples of both. |
| 141 | * LawOfChromaticSuperiority: [[FunetikAksent Da blue wunz iz lucky, and da red wunz go FASTA!]] |
| 142 | * LawOfInverseRecoil: Averted-- firing an Autocannon has been known to break bones in an ordinary human, while Imperial missile launchers have been stated to have no recoil when fired correctly. |
| 143 | ** In 2nd Edition, Wazdakka Gutzmek (an Ork mekboy) rode a motorcycle that mounted a battle cannon, a fairly large ''tank cannon''. The recoil would knock his bike back several yards every time he fired it. |
| 144 | ** Bolters are a strange example, and have many inconsistencies. They would actually be a lower recoil weapon than a traditional projectile weapon due to the bolts being self propelled; some publications have them with little recoil while others demonstrate massive recoil for the imagery. |
| 145 | * TheLawOfPowerProportionateToEffort: Psychic abilities run up and down the scale. |
| 146 | ** In general, several rituals are seen throughout the franchise that require a long channeling time. |
| 147 | ** Untrained psykers are likely to have their heads explode into a daemon the first time they consciously try to use their powers, and psychic phenomena often manifests itself around them (if there's an Inquisitorial agent nearby, the psyker might be able to avoid burning at the stake and become sanctioned, providing a measure of protection against the Warp via soulbonding with the GodEmperor). This can be reduced with intense meditation (though not to the point of zero risk). |
| 148 | ** At the other end of the scale, there ''are'' characters who can snap a Titan in half with a thought, but one miscast and daemons can come pouring through. |
| 149 | * LayeredMetropolis: The Hive Cities, which have been varyingly described as planets hollowed out to make room for entire cities, or in the case of TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}, overpopulated and horrifically violent kilometer-high skyscraper arcologies the size of cities. |
| 150 | * LeaveNoSurvivors: The gist of the Mission scenario "No Mercy". In this mission, the players' goal is to destroy all enemy units or failing that, as many units as they can. They are awarded a victory point for each enemy unit that is destroyed. |
| 151 | * LegendFadesToMyth: |
| 152 | ** Human history up until and through the war with the Iron Men that destroyed the first great era of human civilization lingers as myth and cultural superstitions as the Age of Terra and the Dark Age of Technology. |
| 153 | ** The Emperor was ''not'' a god: half his campaigning was in order to eliminate the concept of religion (and one of his children turned against him because he ordered them to stop worshiping him). These days, he's the central figure of humanity's state religion. |
| 154 | ** Many of the more primitive worlds ascribe SpaceMarine landings as the GodEmperor sending his Angels of Death, sometimes the Marines looking for initiates are remembered as selecting the worthiest to live with them in paradise. |
| 155 | ** Since the destruction of their civilisation during the Fall, the Eldar have been reduced to a collection of nomads, pirates, wanderers and a mysterious cult dedicated to their last surviving god Cegorach. Their epic history spanning millions of years has been lost forever and now only lives on in allegories, songs and prophecies. It's heavily implied that most of it is based on fact: for example the "Talismans of Vaul" are actually gigantic space stations packing [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu weapons powerful enough to kill C'tan permanently]]. |
| 156 | ** Played very poignantly in one novel where the protagonist is looking through a shop on an Imperial world and finds a number of old beaten-up wooden toys with [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn "CCCP"]] carved into the bottom of all of them. When she asks the old shopkeeper what the characters mean, he simply shrugs and says "nobody remembers anymore". |
| 157 | * LethalJokeCharacter: The Apocalypse expansion includes rules for a Warlord Titan, four times the size of the biggest model they actually sell with the point cost of an entire army and almost certainly meant as a joke. Then some people actually scratch-built them, and they are so unbalanced that an equivalent-cost force of super-heavy tanks and artillery can't even get through the shields before being wiped out. |
| 158 | ** And if that's not enough, one of the datafax on the Games Workshop website is for the ''Emperor'' Titan, which is best modeled by someone [[{{Cosplay}} dressing up as the Titan]] and climbing on the table. It's all fun and games until someone's whole army gets squished... |
| 159 | *** To demonstrate, [[http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Images/Product/AlternativeFW/xlarge/ImpReavAlt24.jpg here]] is an official ''Reaver''-class Titan miniature on scale with other 40k models. [[http://www.puolenkuunpelit.com/tieto/galleria/GW/Butchery3/kuva5.jpg Here]] is a custom-built ''Emperor''-class Titan in the same scale. |
| 160 | ** No longer a joke-- Forge World recently released [[http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Mars-Alpha-Pattern-Warlord-Titan?_requestid=14016522 an official Warlord Titan model]]. Of course, this was after the Apocalypse rules had been updated and they weren't as overtly broken (although still immensely powerful). |
| 161 | * LetsYouAndHimFight: |
| 162 | ** The Chaos Gods have manipulated half of the Primarchs into staging a rebellion against the Emperor and the Primarchs who remained loyal to him, resulting in a lengthy and bitter civil war between Space Marine Legions. That way, Chaos managed to thwart the God-Emperor's plan to cut off Chaos from the material plane and turn the Imperium into a decaying state which would constantly fuel them with emotions. It helps that the Primarchs were already HeadbuttingHeroes during the Great Crusade. |
| 163 | ** The Aeldari are known for driving potential foes against one another so that both threats to their species are weakened or outright annihilate each other. For instance, the Second War on Armaggedon was encouraged by Eldrad Ulthran who tipped events so that Ghazghkull Thraka would become Warlord in the place of another competitor, said competitor being in favour of killing Aeldari while Ghazghkull had his eyes on the Imperium. |
| 164 | ** Tyranid lore mentions Kryptman's Gambit, in which the eponymous Inquisitor guided a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan into the Ork Empire of Octarius in the hopes of seeing both side exhausting each other and allow the Imperium to mobilize. However, those who know about it generally agree that since both Tyranids and Orks come out stronger from a conflict that hasn't annihilated them (the Tyranids adapt their tactics and convert all biomass into more Tyranids while veteran Orks grow larger and stronger as a conflict becomes worse), the eventual victor of the Octarius wars is likely to be a greater threat than Leviathan or the Octarius Empire ever were. Moreover, the gambit involved using Exterminatus on a cordon of otherwise viable Imperium planets and Kryptman was thrown out of the Inquisition for his costly plan. |
| 165 | * LighterAndSofter: [[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/BrightHammer40k BrightHammer 40k]]. For starters, the Emperor is rocking a goatee, Slaanesh is all about love & kindness instead of sadism, and there is such a thing as peaceful diplomacy with Orks. The Tau, on the other hand, are a brutal, nightmarish communist empire, with all their better points removed. |
| 166 | ** The Literature/CiaphasCain novels are essentially a LighterAndSofter version of the {{Literature/Flashman}} novels JustForFun/RecycledInSpace. Flashman is, incontrovertibly and unambiguously, a coward, a rapist, a betrayer, and an all around sociopath. Cain, by contrast, seems to be genuinely heroic; the later novels, especially, seem to depict a straightforwardly courageous hero who occasionally remembers to say 'it wasn't real courage though, because we all would have died anyway if I hadn't done a very brave thing to save us.' Flashman, on the other hand is a monster from beginning to end. |
| 167 | ** The Imperium in more recent editions is depicted less as an impossibly hellish dystopia and more like the modern world dressed up with ornate sci-fi technology. Which is to say its still pretty grim, with corruption, sadism and abject stupidity running rampant at the highest levels of power, millions dying hourly in horribly destructive and often pointless wars and the constant threat of extinction hanging over everybody's head, but there's still good parts if you know where to look. On the flip side the Imperium has many genuinely heroic (and sometimes even competent) soldiers to defend it, the Adeptus Mechanicus is actually effective (if a bit restrictive and... eccentric) at maintaining the Imperium's military-industrial base and even coming up with new stuff now and then and life generally seems to be pretty comfortable on planets that aren't currently being invaded by aliens and/or the ruinous powers. |
| 168 | ** The introduction of the Leagues of Votann and its Kin, human colonies that are independent toward the Imperium, along with their relation with Imperium (which is to say, not that bad) shows how the trademark xenophobia and fanaticism among the Imperium started to wane. |
| 169 | * ALighterShadeOfBlack: The [[HumansAreBastards Imperium]], [[CantArgueWithElves Craftworld Aeldari]], [[ScaryDogmaticAliens T’au]] and some of the more honourable [[MechanicalLifeform Necron Dynasties]] perform genocide and other morally questionable actions cross on a regular basis, but at least they recognise that a moral line ''exists''. The other factions either don't know the line exists (such as the [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orks]] and [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]]), or gleefully skip over it (in the case of [[TheCorruption Chaos]] and the [[TheFairFolk Drukhari]]). |
| 170 | %%* LightIsNotGood: The ChurchMilitant makes sure of this one. |
| 171 | * LightningBruiser: Necrons exhibit shades of this on the ground (assuming they make full use of their monoliths and other fast-moving troops), but their naval fleet ''really'' takes the cake. |
| 172 | ** The [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership commanders]] of many armies are wicked fast in combat, orders of magnitude tougher than basic infantry, and often capable of wiping out entire ''squads'' of enemy troops single-handed in melee. Even out of combat, many of them have ready access to wargear (bikes, wings, teleporters and such) that allow them to rocket across the battlefield with incredible speed. |
| 173 | ** A fair number of armies' units in the first place. Space Marines in particular are consistently noted as being more agile than anyone would expect given their bulkiness and mass. |
| 174 | ** All Asuryani vehicles can hover and have rapid movement, boast powerful offensive weaponry and their special flickerfields ensure that they can take a surprising amount of firepower to bring down. The balancing factor is that their points costs, which is quite high compared to the equivalent vehicles of other races. These flying craft are strong, but you won't be fielding many of them and they might struggle to make their points costs back. |
| 175 | * LimitedWardrobe: If the artwork and models are anything to go by, every single female Death Cult Assassin in the Imperium (and [[AmazonBrigade we've yet to see a male one]]) wears the same slashed-up bodyglove, the same skull-decorated corset, and the same [[CombatStilettos high-heeled boots]], and is armed with either the same katana or the same pair of daggers. And nine times out of ten, they'll be wearing the same gimp hood and have the same bionic eye, to boot. |
| 176 | ** Much of the 3rd and 4th edition artwork avoided this: the subjects tended to have only a general resemblance to the models that they represented, unless they were named characters or vehicles with standardised designs. This was most apparent with units that received rules and art a while before getting models, since [[CharacterizationMarchesOn the art direction for their factions had often changed by that point]]. 7th edition is playing this trope straighter though, as more and more of the Codex art is basically the artists copying the models and adding in backgrounds (probably due to a combination of a faster release schedule and relying more on freelancers). |
| 177 | * ListingTheFormsOfDegenerates: |
| 178 | ** "Burn the heretic, kill the alien, purge the unclean." Sometimes "{{mutant}}" replaces" unclean". |
| 179 | ** From ''Dark Crusade'', Aun'el's speech to his troops: "Soldiers of the fire caste, Kroot and Vespid allies! Today, we stand as a bulwark against the selfish, the soulless and the mad!" |
| 180 | * LiteralDisarming: In the Dark Eldar codex, it says that Lelith Hesperax once offered a Chaos warband freedom if their leader will manage to beat her in combat. [[CurbStompBattle She disarmed him this way with her first attack]]. |
| 181 | %% * LivingLabyrinth |
| 182 | * LizardFolk: Loxatl are [[strike:lizardmen]] amphibian-men that are very resistant to lasgun fire and have weapons that would be very nasty in any other setting. There are also the Slann, the JustForFun/RecycledInSpace version of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' Lizardmen, though they don't show up much in the fluff anymore. |
| 183 | * LoadsAndLoadsOfRules: ''Rogue Trader's'' comically huge rulebook, and ''Second edition's'' obsession with insanely complex special rules. Just try firing a Conversion Beamer or Thudd Gun without having to consult the rulebook repeatedly. |
| 184 | ** The Imperial Robot rules in ''Rogue Trader'' were probably the most complicated set of rules for a single model in the history of the game (though the Imperator Titan and Mega-Gargant come close). Basically, any time they wanted to use a Robot, the player would have to create a program for it before the game started using a series of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate logic gates]] to define how it would react to various situations (no visible targets, target in sight but out of range, target in sight and in range, etc), with the robot's points cost being partly decided by the number of instructions in its program. This was about as complicated and pointless as it sounds, and might well be the reason the later editions avoided the idea; the Legio Cybernetica seemed to go the way of the Zoats and Squats. |
| 185 | *** Legio Cybernetica robots have returned, in both 30K/Horus Heresy and regular 40K, and they're ''much'' easier to use now. The programmed behaviour of the 40K Kastelan robots has been distilled down to three "Battle Protocols", which are simple sets of special rules that you can cycle between to tailor the unit to shooting or melee on the fly (and there's also an all-purpose protocol that's active by default). The behaviour of the 30K bots (which are the superior LostTechnology cousins of the cruder Kastelans) is even less restrictive, and can be overridden by sticking character with the ability to direct them in their general vicinity. |
| 186 | * LogicalWeakness: |
| 187 | ** Space Marines, Custodes, Grey Knights and other {{Elite Arm|y}}ies may look daunting, but their hyper-elite infantry can be effectively nullified by [[WeHaveReserves swamping them with huge numbers of cheaper troops]]. The point of this isn't usually to grind down the enemy elite troops - they are probably going to win in the end given enough time, but they cannot target worthier units or capture objectives while chopping up fodder that is worth only a fraction of their exorbitant points cost. By the time they've won and are free to engage other units, [[ForegoneConclusion the ultimate outcome of the battle has largely already been decided]]. This is a tactic called "tar-pitting" in the community. |
| 188 | ** Dark Eldar are pirates who wage war for captives and loot. On top of that, simply being in Realspace causes their souls to rapidly deteriorate, and dying in Realspace leaves their souls vulnerable to the predations of Slaanesh. This dictates their military doctrine: Lightning-fast raids and terror war on lightweight skimmer vehicles and aircraft; get in, grab the captives and get out, hopefully taking as few losses as possible. [[CombatPragmatist Fair warfare is the height of foolishness to them]]. If, for whatever reason, they get bogged down in a shoot-out then [[GlassCannon they'll very likely get overwhelmed and/or blown to smithereens]] because their pleasure craft are poorly armoured to maximise their speed and their troops wear little [[{{Stripperiffic}} if any]] armour. The Asuryani will also fare similarly poorly in direct slug-outs; as they are a DyingRace and hopelessly outnumbered by humans, Orks and Tyranids, their doctrine primarily employs manoeuvre warfare along with stealth and misdirection, as attrition warfare is a waste of precious Aeldari lives. |
| 189 | ** The T'au are actually smaller and physically weaker than humans and have inferior depth perception and reflexes. Their army specializes in long-range precision firepower. As a result they are clearly the weakest faction in the game at melee combat, and engaging them in melee is a good idea even if your own army isn't exactly optimized for it; it's one of the few occasions where shouting "FIX BAYONETS!" to the Guardsmen makes some sense. The T'au rely on mobility and alien mercenaries to keep melee fighters at bay. |
| 190 | ** T'au venerate their Ethereal rulers with almost-religious reverence. Consequently, any T'au soldiers who witness one dying in front of them will suffer a brief panic attack. This opens up an opportunity for the opposing army, but it has to be capitalized on quickly before the T'au [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge overcome their panic attack and set every one of their powerful guns to full-auto]]. |
| 191 | ** The Graviton weapons employed by the Adeptus Astartes work by increasing the target's weight tenfold. Infantry wearing heavy armour and lighter vehicles are pulverized. However Grav-Guns are utterly useless against any infantry in lighter armour, and strong vehicles with more durable frames and engines are barely fazed. |
| 192 | ** Tyranids employ many kinds of powerful monstrous creatures with high Toughness values. The Drukhari employ many Poisoned weapons that ignore Toughness to wound on a flat rate (usually +4, so a 50-50 chance to wound each hit). A Carnifex, an alien monster that looks like the unholy union of a [[Film/{{Aliens}} Xenomorph Queen]] and a ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' and could shrug off a direct hit from a lascannon and barely flinch, can also be brought down by a squad of Kabalite Warriors getting lucky with their basic small arms. But then again, splinter guns are understandably useless against vehicles, necessitating the Drukhari use heavier firepower. |
| 193 | ** The now-obsolete Instant Death rule used to override many weaker units' ability to regenerate and revive by [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill killing them instantly several times over]]. Go ahead, Mr. Necron, do try to come back from a hit that vaporized your body into fine ash and bubbling metal slurry. This rule could itself be voided by the Eternal Warrior special rule. |
| 194 | ** One of the primary duties of the Commissars of the Imperial Guard is to enforce discipline among the ranks and execute soldiers for cowardice. For the Death Korps of Krieg, who are a ''bona fide'' MartyrdomCulture where every single soldier is fanatically determined to die in atonement for their ancestors' past betrayal of the Emperor, Commissars often find themselves in the position of having to ''rein in'' the Krieg's DeathSeeker tendencies, and some are even ''shot by their own men for cowardice'' in trying to talk them down. Likewise, the infamous [[UnfriendlyFire "Oops, Sorry Sir!"]] rule for the tough and rowdy Catachan Jungle Fighters. |
| 195 | * LongevityTreatment: Rejuvenat allows Imperial nobles and officers to live for centuries. It's hinted to be made from children. Also some space marines are nearly a thousand years old thanks to the Emperor's genes. |
| 196 | * LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: The Eldar and pre-Imperium humanity. Also the Necrontyr-- precursors to Necrons-- have achieved an incredible level of technological advancement before turning their souls over to C'tan and becoming the [[OmnicidalManiac legion of killer robots that held the entire galaxy in their sway]], but then of course something even worse came along in the form of Enslavers. |
| 197 | %%* LooksLikeCesare: Astropaths, due to their Soul Binding. |
| 198 | * LoopholeAbuse: When the rules of the Ecclesiarchy were rewritten following the Age of Apostasy, the Imperial Church was prohibited from maintaining any "men under arms," so as to avoid the wanton abuses of power that characterized the reign of the previous Ecclesiarch. The rule was ''intentionally'' worded this way so that the Ecclesiarchy could maintain the [[AmazonBrigade Sisters of Battle]] as an internal police force. |
| 199 | ** Also, Space Marine chapters are only allowed to rule one planet, to both prevent them from ruling over mankind and still allow them to have a base of operations. This doesn't stop the Ultramarines from ruling the multi-planet empire of Ultramar because, technically, they only rule Macragge, which just so happens to be the capital of said empire. They mainly get away with it because Ultramar is one of the nicest places to live in this setting. |
| 200 | *** Several other Chapters use a different loophole; they only ''rule'' one planet (or none, as it's most common on fleet-based chapters), but they ''recruit'' from several. Keeping them usable as recruitment worlds requires them to manipulate their cultures, of course... |
| 201 | ** Space Marine Chapters are legally limited to a maximum of 1000 [[SuperSoldier Space]] [[WarriorMonk Marines]] per Chapter-- unless they are on a Crusade. The Black Templars have been on Crusade for 10,000 years and have well over 6,000 marines in multiple theatres of operations. It has long since got to the point that even they have no idea how many marines they have and where, and are just running on pure AsskickingLeadsToLeadership. By the time anyone gets around to counting heads, the casualty toll usually makes things irrelevant. |
| 202 | * LosingTheTeamSpirit: Killing the Tau army's Ethereal has this effect. Either it breaks their morale, sending them fleeing, or causes them to go on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, gunning down any enemies on their patch. |
| 203 | ** It should be noted that such UnstoppableRage among the Tau typically takes the form of [[TranquilFury a slow, steady advance as the Fire Warriors methodically pour shot after shot into the enemy]] until they are killed, the enemy is killed, or they run out of ammunition. |
| 204 | * LostColony: During its first expansion, Humanity colonised a vast swathe of the galaxy but the various disasters of the late Dark Age of Technology and the Age of Strife caused the isolation of the majority of these worlds. While the Great Crusade rediscovered many of these lost worlds there are still many more in the most isolated regions of space that are stumbled upon by Rogue Traders and Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Fleets. |
| 205 | * LostInTransmission: Imperial vox systems are notorious for going on the fritz when they are needed most. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by a Silver Skulls chapter marine in one of the books, when he muses on the likelihood of a civilization that can genetically engineer SuperSoldiers being unable to create reliable comm systems. |
| 206 | * LostTechnology: The Imperium of the 41st Millennium is only the much diminished successor of a far more advanced human civilization that was destroyed by a number of disasters. As a result, many highly advanced pieces of technology can be found in the ruins of human civilization scattered across the galaxy. The Adeptus Mechanicus are obsessed with the search for this lost technology, known as archeotech, particularly the Standard Template Constructs, more commonly known as [=STCs=]. Dating from the Dark Age of Technology, when human technology was at its peak, a fully functioning STC is said to contain the entirety of human knowledge and even a fragment of information from one can lead to advances in anything from military weaponry to medicine. |
| 207 | ** In one story, a pair of Guardsmen scouts uncovered an STC printout for an old design of combat knife, lighter and stronger and more balanced than contemporary designs. The knife was adopted by the Cadians and over thirty Astartes chapters. For this relatively minor discovery, these men were hailed as heroes and ''each'' given ''a planet''. That is how valuable STC fragments are, so a working STC machine would be the Holy Grail. |
| 208 | * LovecraftianSuperpower: Psychic powers are fuelled by a connection to the Warp, and drawing too deeply from it invites disaster, such as opening a warp rift or suffering daemonic possession. Not to mention, the Warp is constantly tempting and influencing those who are attuned to it, forcing psykers to fight a never-ending mental battle against the gibbering voices in their mind. Consequently, even the most normal of psykers tends to come across as at least a little "off", with most being out and out crazy. |
| 209 | * LowCultureHighTech: Orks and Humans, due to the various scavenged and Lost Tech. |
| 210 | * LuckManipulationMechanic: Lots of special rules let you reroll dice if your shooters fail to hit or your melee warrior fail to deal damage or something else doesn't go as planned. That said, there is a hard cap on the number of rerolls allowed: one. Thus, adding Master-Crafted status to a weapon that's already twin-linked isn't going to help much. |
| 211 | ** In the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Trading Card Game'', numbers are printed on the cards, so a 'random' number is generated by revealing the top card of your deck. Naturally, this opens up plenty of combo opportunities with abilities that let you know (or even choose) what that next card will be. |
| 212 | |
| 213 | [[/folder]] |
| 214 | |
| 215 | [[folder:M]] |
| 216 | * MacGuffin: The mission scenario "The Relic" makes use of this trope. In this mission, the players battle for the possession of a "relic", which is an item of import that each side wants for whatever reason. The 8th Edition rulebook even says that it could be anything from a irreplaceable artefact to battle plans. What matters is that, at the end of the game, it is your army that has it. |
| 217 | * MachineWorship: The Adeptus Mechanicus worship the Machine God--who is notionally an aspect or avatar of the Emperor, but probably really a separate deity. The Iron Hands chapter of Space Marines also support a lesser machine cult. |
| 218 | * MacrossMissileMassacre: Sisters of Battle Exorcists, huge gothic church organs mounted on the backs of tanks, which fire anti-tank missiles as the battle nun in her armored cockpit presses the keys... 40k, quite literally, [[{{Pun}} pulls out ALL the stops.]] |
| 219 | ** The Tau has the Skyray Missile Gunship, which comes equipped with smart missile system clusters, and a rack of larger Seeker missiles, which are fired remotely by troops behind the lines. 6th edition added alternative armaments for the Broadside Battlesuits that exchanges their twin-linked heavy railrifles for a twin-linked High-Yield Missile Pods, which can be paired with the default twin-linked Smart Missile system. As of 7th edition, the king of this trope for them, and a fair chunk of the 40k verse, is the [=KV128=] Stormsurge battlesuit, an absolutely massive walking mech that stands as tall as an Imperial Knight. Three of its default weapons, which it always carries, are Twin-Linked Smart Missile system, a Cluster Rocket system, and several Destroyer Missiles. |
| 220 | ** The Apocalypse Missile Launcher. That is all. |
| 221 | ** Terminators can mount something called a Cyclone Missile Launcher. Not only does it allow said Terminator to fire it and his Storm Bolter (a rapid-firing RPG launcher), the Cyclone Missile Launcher itself fires twice as fast as a normal Missile Launcher. |
| 222 | *** In Second Edition, rather than simply firing twice per round, the Cyclone came pre-loaded with twelve krak missiles, and the Terminator carrying it could launch any number he wanted at a time: meaning, if he wanted, he could trigger all twelve at once for a truly Macross-y rain of death. However, the Cyclone was also prone to potentially disastrous[[note]](and hilarious)[[/note]] misfires if the Terminator carrying it was hit. |
| 223 | * MadDoctor: There are several examples of these in the setting. The most benign would be the Ork Painboyz who all have a morbid curiosity compelling them to replace limbs with bionics and turn the Orks to come to them into guinea pigs. Then there are the Plague Surgeons of the Death Guard who specialize in creating diseases or the Drukhari Haemonculi who routinely perform sick experiments and torture sessions. The most infamous MadDoctor in the lore is Fabius Bile, a Space Marine apothecary who turned into an EvilutionaryBiologist and is obsessed with creating a superior breed of men through torture, injection of noxious chemicals or grafting of random limbs at random places. |
| 224 | * MadGod: Plenty. There's Cegorach, the Outsider, all four of the Chaos Gods (''especially'' [[TheChessmaster Tzeentch]])... Even the Emperor of Man himself is given this interpretation sometimes, with his sanity having decayed along with his body. |
| 225 | * MadOracle: Precognition is a fairly well-known power of psykers, but carries with it TheDarkSide. Aside from the Eldar, TheDarkSide seems to win more often than not with would-be prophets. |
| 226 | * MadScientist: A great many Imperial tech-priests fall into this, though arguably ''all'' tech-priests are insane [[CargoCult by]] [[MachineWorship modern]] [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul standards]]. Non-Imperial examples include Fabius Bile, Dark Eldar Haemonculi, and Ork Painboyz and Mekboyz (also known, appropriately enough, as Mad Doks and Mekaniaks respectively). |
| 227 | * MadeASlave: All sorts of people. Orks enslave, Dark Eldar enslave, Chaos forces enslave: even Imperial Space Marines have slaves to do work that a Space Marine is not needed for (though the Marines' slaves are generally failed Marine candidates who somehow survived washing out, and are often [[HappinessInSlavery more than happy to help]], since they're ''still'' in a better position than the vast majority of Imperial citizens). |
| 228 | ** Imperial propaganda paints humans who join the Tau Empire as this, while the Tau propaganda paints them as becoming freed from the miserable existence of the Imperium. The actual result is likely somewhere in between, though which side it leans more toward varies on a case-by-case basis. |
| 229 | * MadeOfExplodium: While the exact mechanism depends on the edition, almost all vehicles on the tabletop have a chance of exploding when destroyed, often with a chance of damaging nearby units, with some editions making such an event so common that some players would forgo taking some vehicles altogether as they would become a liability. |
| 230 | * MadeOfIron: Many, many people, ranging from nigh-invulnerable Space Marines like Marneus Calgar and Captain Cortez (who has exactly two bones in his entire body that have never been broken, and once led a charge with a broken back), to Ork Warbosses, to powerful Daemons, to Commissar Yarrick, who takes a lot of effort to permakill. |
| 231 | * MadeOfPlasticine: When you do get through armor, most creatures splat real good. |
| 232 | ** Imperial Guardsmen, by nature of all the overpowered weaponry being lugged around by their superhuman adversaries. Tau weapons in particular tend to have horrific effects on unarmoured and unaugmented humans. |
| 233 | * MagicIsAMonsterMagnet: Psykers risk having their brains eaten every time they use their PsychicPowers. And they can't stop. |
| 234 | ** Prospero was actually inhabited by creatures that followed psychic power so they could lay eggs in the psyker's head. |
| 235 | * MagicIsFeminine: Followers of the WarGod Khorne don't use magic, seeing its use as cowardly or unmanly. Magic ''weapons'' are allowed since they make the wielder able to spill more blood while still risking his own. |
| 236 | * MagicalDatabase: The Black Library (not to be confused with the identically named in-house publisher), a library that stores the information of just about everything involving the supernatural and daemonic, guarded by the Harlequins of the Laughing God, thus making it inaccessible to most of them. |
| 237 | %%* MagicMisfire: Perils of the Warp. |
| 238 | * MagicOrPsychic: While all magic stems from the same source (psychic powers derived from the Warp), some factions believe they come from a separate source, such as the Sororitas' faith-based miracles and the Space Wolves' rune magic (which they believe involves channeling the spirits of their homeworld). In the latter's case, some of the higher-ups know perfectly well they're using Warp sorcery, but keep up the pretense anyway because nobody's about to question them and it's good for morale, especially when fighting Warpspawn. |
| 239 | * {{Magitek}}: Mostly the Eldar, though Imperial and Chaos gear crosses into this sometimes. |
| 240 | * TheMagnificent: Kharn the Betrayer, Abaddon the Despoiler, and Scyrak the Slaughterer, among others. |
| 241 | * TheMagnificentSevenSamurai: ''The Farsight Enclaves'' supplement for the Tau includes seven special characters that can be taken in place of Farsight's generic bodyguards, each with their own backstory. The fan nickname for them is the Seven Samurai. The book also contains a special scenario where a Tau army consisting of nothing but Farsight and the seven defending an outpost against an endless horde of [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]]. |
| 242 | * MakeThemRot: One spell available to followers of Nurgle (Nurgle's Rot) can do this. |
| 243 | * ManEatingPlant: Crop up all the time on {{Death World}}s. |
| 244 | * ManiacMonkeys: The Jokaero. In the words of [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Main_Page /tg/]]... |
| 245 | --> ''Lesser known fact: the entire Warhammer 40,000 universe and all its depressing crushing grimdarkness, from the wearisome toiling of factory serfs, the endless struggle of the Imperial Guard against overwhelming odds, the callous judgement of the Inquisition, the fiery fanaticism of the ecclesiarchy, the malevolence of the chaos gods, to the plots of the necrons and eldar and all the rest is just volumes upon volumes of set up for the fact that there are MadScientist Space Orangutans zipping around.'' |
| 246 | * MartyrdomCulture: The Imperium's media and spirituality ''strongly'' encourages this (as can be seen by their words taking up most of its quotes page), though like much of humanity throughout the galaxy in the setting, it heavily varies in practice depending on the individual and location. Regardless, it is one of more blatant aspects of the Imperium in the background. |
| 247 | ** The [[MeaningfulName Kriegs]] are probably the most egregious example of this: their planet's single purpose as a society is to provide soldiers for the Imperial Guard as a never-ending act of atonement for a thousand-year-old rebellion (as well as the fact their planet being a desolate irradiated wasteland makes offering anything else about impossible). They're even suspected of using forbidden cloning techniques in order to keep up with their recruiting quota. They're indoctrinated from birth to a grim mindset of self-sacrifice and being a cog in the machine, with appropriately brutal physical training accompanying-- which works ''so well'' their fatalism and zeal to fight and die in battle causes their regiments to require Commissars to occasionally advice them strategically that not fighting and dying could be more favorable and liaison with regiments from other planets that will usually be quite spooked by their obsession toward warfare and sacrifice, instead of maintaining order and fighting discipline as is usual. |
| 248 | * MasterOfNone: The current Vanilla Space Marines codex makes them fall under this. While they have a ton of varied units for nearly every combat situation, other more specialized armies can do the same but better and more effectively (example: Blood Angels and Space Wolves are far superior at close combat, Imperial Guard have better vehicles, Tau and Dark Eldar are better at shooting and speed, while Grey Knights are [[GameBreaker just better than everyone else]]. Its gotten to the point where the Vanilla Space Marines are only considered mid-tier at beast compared to other more specialized armies. |
| 249 | * MasterPoisoner: The Venenum assassins. Unlike some of their more overt operatives, they work behind the scenes, poisoning high-priority targets before the battles can begin, with good training in stealth and such a devastating array of poisons they can kill ''anything'', even daemons, with the right toxin in their injector/the target's tools or meals. |
| 250 | * MatingSeasonMayhem: Lukas the Trickster is mentioned to once have locked an Inquisitorial delegation inside a grox pen (a very badly-tempered five-meter-long reptile raised for its meat) while the creatures were in heat. |
| 251 | * MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: [=40k=] loves this one, given how blurry the line between magic and technology tends to be. Especially because A) there's {{Magitek}} around, and B) most people in-universe are really superstitious about their technology thanks to MachineWorship |
| 252 | * MeaningfulName: Pretty much everywhere, particularly in Imperial Guard and Space Marines. Both played straight and inverted where Space Marine Chapters are concerned; a popular joke pokes fun at this. |
| 253 | ** In a stunning display of originality, Corvus Corax (the scientific name of the common raven) is the primarch of the Raven Guard. |
| 254 | ** In an even more stunning one, Ferrus Manus (latin for "iron hand") is the primarch of the Iron Hands, and he has ''actual'' iron hands. |
| 255 | ** The prize goes to Canis Wolfborn, a Literature/SpaceWolf RaisedByWolves who rides a wolf. |
| 256 | *** He also [[OverlyLongGag uses a pair of wolf claws, and wears a wolftooth necklace and wolf amulet]]. |
| 257 | ** And Magnus was a cyclops and is now a [[OneWingedAngel Daemon]] [[PhysicalGod Prince]]. |
| 258 | ** Hilariously inverted with the Land Raider and Land Speeder. Indeed those names are appropriate for the purposes of the vehicles (The Land Speeder is rather fast and can only glide over land, never achieving true flight, while the Land Raider is one badass tank that will make any serious player crap their pants), they're not named because they're Land vehicles, but because their in-universe discoverer's last name was "Land". So it has two meaningful names in-universe, and one outside. Go figure. |
| 259 | ** And the Ultramarines? Their home planet is in the region of Ultramar.[[note]] They're also mainly the colour blue as well. Ultramarine is a specific shade of blue.[[/note]] |
| 260 | ** The apparently undying Knight Gerantius may be after gerontology, the study of aging. |
| 261 | * MeatSackRobot: Servators are "robots" made from lobotomised criminals or vat grown clones implanted with cybernetics and used for menial labour. This is to get around rules that forbade the creation of true [=AIs=] thanks to a RobotWar in the backstory. |
| 262 | %%* MechaMooks: Necrons. |
| 263 | * MechanicalHorse: |
| 264 | ** Krieg Death Riders and the like on the Imperial side, cyboars for the Orks. |
| 265 | ** Mogul Kamir of Atilla had a mechanical horse made for him by the Adeptus Mechanicus, because he kept riding the flesh-and-blood ones to death. |
| 266 | * MechanisticAlienCulture: The Tau, organic aliens who have embraced machine culture enough to section their society into castes based on their given functions in life and where they come from. Even their names denote their particular traits. |
| 267 | * AMechByAnyOtherName: Dreadnoughts, Wraithlords, Gargants, Titans, Crisis Suits, etc. |
| 268 | * MedicalMonarch: The God Emperor of Mankind's throne is a holy place, and as such pilgrims hoping for healing come to Terra by the million, most of them dying of old age while still waiting in line. |
| 269 | * TheMenFirst: With all the military tropes, this is the convenient go-to trope to give a commander a PetTheDog moment. (When such a moment is suitable.) |
| 270 | * MerchandiseDriven: Oddly enough, the majority of the background material and fiction does ''not'' fall to this trope, although rules modifications and new army lists are often accused of changing stats only to boost sales of certain models. The monthly magazine ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'' has also swung back and forth across this line over the years; at its best, it's a Warhammer-focused hobby magazine, while at its worst, it's a glorified miniatures catalogue. |
| 271 | ** The artwork in most official publications has moved in this direction in recent years. Most older pieces featured more individualised character designs, while recent illustrations tend to show the exact models that you can buy, detail-for-detail, in fight scenes. Part of this may, however, be due to Games Workshop relying more on freelance illustrators, who are often not too familiar with the source material. |
| 272 | * MercyKill: |
| 273 | ** "Giving someone the Emperor's Peace" is the usual euphemism for this. |
| 274 | ** Sanctioned Psykers also carry so-called "Mercy Blades" with them -- when they feel the Immaterium about to break into their heads, a quick stab through the heart is ''vastly'' preferable. |
| 275 | * MessianicArchetype: The Emperor. Although he would strongly disagree to be considered as such. |
| 276 | * MessyMaggots: Maggots are strongly associated with Nurgle, the Chaos god of disease and decay, who delights in filth and corruption. One of the reasons is that Nurgle is actually a FriendToAllLivingThings -- it's just that vermin, maggots, and bacteria are living things too. |
| 277 | * MightyGlacier: {{Power Fist}}s are slow and ungainly in close combat (typically either striking last or suffering a penalty to hit, depending on the edition), but can punch clean through tank armor and pound enemy infantry into a bloody paste. The Leman Russ battle tank is slower than most vehicles its size, but it's a stable firing platform capable of unleashing a level of firepower at combat speed that most other tanks have to remain stationary to match. |
| 278 | * MightMakesRight: Orks have very little concept of good and evil apart from whatever a Boss or a Nob allows them to get away with. Comes up depressingly often in the Imperium as well. |
| 279 | * MileLongShip: The Imperial Navy's ''escort'' frigates alone. Battleships are up to 8 kilometers. Oddly, the Imperium has the means to build the twenty six kilometer long ''Gloriana'' battleships, but chooses not to, since they were superfluous for a time of relative peace early in the Imperium's history, and they're not really needed now when the cheaper battleships and such are available. They were also built to be battleship and ground troop conveyance alike, which the Codex now discourages. |
| 280 | * MilitaryMage: Just about every race has these. Necron Crypteks are unique in that they serve the same function as psyker units using arcane science. |
| 281 | * MilitaryMashupMachine: The Imperium in particular has a recurring love affair with these, and the Tau may be starting to lean this way. |
| 282 | * TheMilkyWayIsTheOnlyWay: Mostly justified by the limitations of the various races' FTL. The Tyranids come from outside the Milky Way, but nothing more is known. |
| 283 | * AMillionIsAStatistic: Often invoked InUniverse. Millions, billions and whole planets are often killed off, and most people usually don't care, or even notice, unless they have some particular attachment to the victims. |
| 284 | * MindRape: 40k ''loves'' this one: |
| 285 | ** The process of turning a psychically sensitive human into an Astropath is basically a MindRape, though it has a few physical aspects as well, such as their eyes being completely burned out. |
| 286 | ** Daemonic possession. |
| 287 | ** A lot of psychic powers are basically this, most obviously an Eldar power called "Mind War". |
| 288 | *** [[AntiMagic Pariahs]] can also have this effect on nearby psykers, although the exact nature and extent of their abilities [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]]. |
| 289 | ** The psycho/hypnotherapy Space Marines undergo as part of their conversion from human to Astartes is a limited form of MindRape, a sort of mental TheSpartanWay. |
| 290 | *** And Grey Knight training takes this even further, involving as it does the [[MarkOfTheBeast "Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Rites of the Emperor", which is longhand for 666 mind rapes.]] |
| 291 | *** Also worthy of mention are the Exorcists chapter of Space Marines, who have a innate edge against Daemons due to their training involving getting deliberately possessed and then exorcised. |
| 292 | ** The Nightbringer Mind Raped proto-life so horribly that he ''instilled the fear of death in all living creatures in the galaxy'', except the Orks (whom he never met). |
| 293 | ** Slaanesh's birth was an act of mind rape upon the Eldar civilization so intense it spilled over from their collective minds and tore open a hole in reality. That's right, Slaanesh mind raped ''a galaxy''! |
| 294 | ** According to fluff, the [[MonsterClown Harlequins']] ''masks'' do this if they are worn by anyone untrained in their use (or at least humans) by causing them to hallucinate and psychically forcing the wearer to assume the role the mask is meant for. |
| 295 | * MirroringFactions: One planet hasn't been visited by the Imperium in millennia, which hasn't stopped them from breaking out in civil wars for supposed heresies as they await the Emperor's return. Chaos warriors who raid the planet for slaves take sadistic joy in either making the captives realize the Imperium doesn't even remember they exist, or by showing them a battle between the "righteous" and "heretical" factions on their own planet to show there's no difference between the two. |
| 296 | * MixAndMatchWeapon: Many factions within the game use -- or have used in previous editions -- combi-weapons, boltguns which are modified to have another weapon mounted under the barrel or attached to its side, giving another degree of tactical flexibility. Common variants are combi-flamer, combi-plasma, combi-melta, and combi-grav. |
| 297 | * MobileCity: |
| 298 | ** Ambulon, the wandering city, is built on the back of a titanic legged machine that walks across the unstable rocky centre of Scintilla's main continent. The machine itself predates the Imperium's arrival to Scintilla -- Ambulon was built on it secondarily. The city itself is a mobile settlement, making endless tours of the planet's oil, gas and gemstone deposits to harvest resources to send to its other, static cities. As with all other complex technology in the setting, Ambulon's mobility is poorly understood and kept going mostly by ritual -- no one knows exactly what would happen should it stop, and nobody wants to. As a result of these factors, the engineer guild that operates its engines and navigation wields immense political power. The city itself also experiences considerable UrbanSegregation, driven by a need for stable housing against the sway of the city's movements -- the powerful live in its center, the poor and the workers in more precarious spots along its edges, and the most disenfranchised and outcast have to cling to its underbelly and risk being scraped off when the city passes over a hill or ridge. |
| 299 | ** The planet Zayth has been left scarred, barren and borderline unlivable by millennia of warfare, strip-mining to feed the wars, and the ceaseless movements of the cities themselves. Its people are now reduced to living in hive-ships, tracked megalopoli carrying ridiculous amounts of (occasionally starship-scaled) weaponry, used to battle other hive-ships for Zayh's dwindling resources. |
| 300 | %%* ModernizedGod: It's all but stated that Nurgle (the Chaos god of pestilence) was worshiped on Earth as the Mesopotamian god [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nergal Nergal]] (a god of plague and war) but as time went on he was strengthened by disease, finally awakening after the Black Death. Nowadays he's a god of disease only (and of ''love'' of all things, it's just that he loves vermin and bacteria as much as people), with the role of berserk slaughterer being taken up by Khorne.%% A source on this would be appreciated. |
| 301 | * MonsterClown: The Harlequins, who paradoxically manage to be both this trope and the closest thing the setting has to a heroic faction. They are the followers of the sole surviving Eldar god Cegorach, the foremost opponents of Chaos, the guardians of the Black Library and the closest thing to a central authority the Aeldari race has (even the [[AxCrazy Drukhari]] are quietly terrified of them). They are some of the most skilful and dangerous fighters in the entire galaxy (said to be the only real equals to the Adeptus Custodes), with all kinds of advanced, esoteric weaponry that kill you in horribly cruel ways even for this setting -- like hallucenogenic gas grenades, and a gnarly thing called the Harlequin's Kiss that inserts a razor-thin wire into your chest cavity and violently whips around, blending your insides into fine bloody paste. Most noteworthy among the Harlequins is the Solitaire, who traditionally plays the role of Slaanesh in any reenactment of the Fall; because any other Eldar who try to play Slaanesh go completely insane and attempt to murder and eat others around them (it is suggested that Solitaires are able to because they ''forfeited their souls to Slaanesh already''). |
| 302 | * MonsterMunch: The Necrons were introduced by having them wipe out an entire convent of Sisters of Battle. |
| 303 | * MoodyMount: Juggernauts of Khorne are basically wooly rhinos made of hate, metal and lava. Taming one is essentially a mtter of riding it until it tires out. |
| 304 | * MookCommander: More powerful Tyranids can control and direct the less intelligent weaker ones, making them more dangerous. |
| 305 | * MookMaker: Some of the Tyranid critters, such as the Tervigon and the Parasite of Mortex, have the ability to spit out smaller creatures. |
| 306 | ** Also, the Necron Tomb Spyder is another noteworthy example, putting out scarab swarms [[CastFromHitPoints at a small risk to itself]] |
| 307 | * MoraleMechanic: Morale plays in a sizeable part of the game. Most models have a Leadership stat representing their courage in battle. In general, if a unit suffers from demoralizing events then they can be subject to Leadership rolls determining how well they take the setback. Failing the roll can mean whole units will desert out of the battlefield, and it is important to keep leaders with a higher Leadership stat near the grunts to minimize such losses. Said demoralizing event can be, depending on the edition, taking significant losses (losing a percentage of their original numbers or in the 8th edition even lose one model), losing a round of assault, or special terrifying events. |
| 308 | %%* MoralistVersusPragmatist: this is the divide between "puritan" and "radical" inquisitors. Inquisitors tend to start as puritan, believing in following the rules at any cost and never compromising. As they grow older and see the unfortunate results of their intransigeance, they tend to become "radical", focused on getting the job done by any means necessary. But this comes with [[HeWhoFightsMonsters its own risks]], which often lead to a radical inquisitor becoming one of the Inquisition's targets. |
| 309 | * MoreDakka: The TropeNamer. The term itself comes from the Ork language, who say "dakka" to refer to a high firing rate. The Orks themselves extensively use weapons with a high firing rate because they love noisy weapons and also because it somewhat compensates for their abysmal aiming skill. However, other factions do use similar weapons. Space Marine Terminators commonly wield Storm Bolters which are basically double-barrelled Bolters, the Astra Militarum can field Leman Russ Punishers whose Punisher gatling cannon shoots up to twenty times in a single shooting phase, and the T'au commonly put burst cannons (which are gatling pulse weapons) on their vehicles and battlesuits. |
| 310 | %%* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: Tyranids. |
| 311 | * MoreThanMindControl: Chaos is insidious indeed. |
| 312 | ** Any Tau who can smell an Ethereal will be completely fearless and free of doubt, following any instruction from that Ethereal without hesitation. However, Ethereals cannot always be present. As such, Tau society has been groomed over the generations to follow the will of the Ethereals even when they are not present. A Tau will generally attempt to do what they believe the Ethereals think would be best when separated from one, and to be near one is a source of joy. For the most part, an Ethereal does not need to compel a Tau, as a Tau will be more than happy to obey already. It helps that Ethereal themselves are not immune to their own mind-control pheromones, which makes them automatically immune to going mad with power. [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch Commander Farsight]] is a notable exception to this. |
| 313 | * MosesInTheBulrushes: The Primarchs (Mortarion especially) were found by the natives of the planet where they'd landed (not necessarily human -- Leman Russ was RaisedByWolves), and the culture that raised them influenced their later character. |
| 314 | * MotileVehicularComponents: Ork battlewagons can have what is called a "Grabba," a huge power klaw(sic) on the end of a mechanical arm. It grants a melee attack to the vehicle. Canonically, it's to well, grab an enemy vehicle and hold it in-place for boarding actions. Some versions have a gigantic buzzsaw instead. |
| 315 | * MotiveDecay: Due to the corruptive nature of Chaos, it's common for people to start out seeking to use it as a tool for good ends, but be steadily further away from their original goals until they seek only the glory of Chaos or their own pursuit of power. |
| 316 | %%* MultiArmedAndDangerous: Warp Spider Exarchs, the mandrake Decapitator, certain Mechanicus adepts, some cyborks, every Tyranid ever.%%Are what? |
| 317 | * MultipleDemographicAppeal: Supernatural vs. Sci-fi! Super soldiers vs. Giant robots! Alien invasion vs. Government conspiracy! A dystopian future that can either be played serious or farcical! This series appeals to every taste! |
| 318 | ** Probably a good case study for the sheer versatility of this setting is the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' and ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novels. Both books feature a Imperial Guard commissar as the protagonist leading a squad of guardsmen against the enemies of the Imperium, but the tone of each book is miles apart: ''Gaunt's Ghosts'' is like Literature/{{Sharpe}} -- sombre and quite human stories of war with gritty combat and a tough [[AFatherToHisMen Father To His Men]] whose personal morals clash with the ideals of his service and the nature of his world; while ''Ciaphas Cain'' is [[Series/{{Blackadder}} Blackadder Goes Forth]] -- a tongue-in-cheek comedy about a cynical, self-loathing AccidentalHero who would rather not be fighting at all. |
| 319 | ** Each army offers something different to players as well. The Space Marines are the mascot faction and so the setting's iconic combination of futuristic and medieval gothic themes are on full display with them. The Imperial Guard play most like a conventional World War [=I/II=] military and so appeal most to history fans. The Eldar give enthusiastic painters a chance to shine with their sleek lines and vibrant colours, while Chaos and Orks allow passionate modellers and converters to add their own flair due to the inherent insanity and kitbashed gear of both factions. The Tyranids are ideal for fans of big scary monsters, while fans of TechnologyPorn would prefer the Tau. |
| 320 | * MultipleGovernmentPolity: Given the difficulties in interstellar travel and the vastly different living conditions of different planets, there is little incentive or attempt at making a universal system of government: there's usually a planetary governor who may or may not have inherited his position, and as long as he pays the tithes on time and keeps heresy stamped out he's pretty much left to his own devices (the Inquisition is always happy to send an assassin in cases of incompetence or treachery). Space Marine recruiting worlds and forge worlds are also exceptions to Imperial rule (as much as the Administratum would like to change that), as they form their own hermetic societies within the Imperium. |
| 321 | * MushroomSamba: Imperial hallucinogen grenades can invoke all manner of humorous and potentially self-destructive delusions in their victims. |
| 322 | * MusicalAssassin: |
| 323 | ** Noise Marines and Goff Rokkerz kill with ThePowerOfRock. |
| 324 | ** The Sisters of Battle's Exorcists, tanks armed with rocket-launching ''organ pipes''. |
| 325 | * TheMusketeer: Imperial military training teaches proficiency in both melee and ranged combat; most Imperial troops, Guard and Marine alike, are equally skilled with gun and blade, even when equipped for a more specialized melee or ranged combat role. |
| 326 | ** In the tabletop game, however, it's pretty clear the average Imperial Guardsmen just have no chance in hell against anyone else in close-combat aside from other humans or the Tau. |
| 327 | * MutantDraftBoard: The Adeptus Astra Telepathica, responsible for human psykers. They are best known for the League of Blackships, a fleet of vessels which travels across the Imperium collecting tithes of psykers from Imperial worlds and bringing them to Terra. Once delivered, these psykers undergo an extensive array of testing by the [[ExtranormalInstitute Scholastia Psykana]]. Those found to have enough power and self-control to be useful will be funneled into a variety of important roles, from Navigators to Astropaths and even Inquisitor trainees. Those who do not will be [[LivingBattery used to fuel the Astronomican and Golden Throne]]. |
| 328 | * MutuallyUnequalRelation: |
| 329 | ** One planet is a backwater that was colonized millennia ago by the Imperium, with the natives living in hope that the Emperor will return one day and they can be part of the galaxy-spanning civilization of mankind again. Chaos forces who raid the planet [[HopeCrusher take sadistic glee]] in demonstrating just how little they matter in the galaxy and how long-forgotten they are by the Imperium. |
| 330 | ** The average citizen of the Tau Empire is generally certain that the Imperium will either willingly place itself under the Greater Good's banner or be destroyed by them, because they are kept carefully ignorant of just how much the Imperium outnumbers them (the Tau's expansion can be measured in star systems, the Imperium in percentage of the galaxy). The Imperium considers them a threat, but a relatively contained one that serves as a useful buffer between them and several other enemies the Imperium would rather see blunt their teeth on the Tau first (and have collaborated with the Tau in the past against AlwaysChaoticEvil threats like Tyranids). |
| 331 | ** Beasts of Nurgle are acid-sweating giant slugs with the personality of a BigFriendlyDog, who love nothing better than to run and frolick and wrestle with the little creatures they encounter on the battlefield, who also seem to love to play keep-away. Unfortunately, [[AndCallHimGeorge their new friends get tired very quickly]], so the beasts have to find new playmates. |
| 332 | * MyopicConqueror: |
| 333 | ** While the motives that Chaos forces have when they attack a world vary, they rarely involve ruling the conquered territory and normally include some combination of creating monstrous war machines, using the population as slave labour and/or sport, using the planet as a base for further raids, turning the planet into a Daemon World, [[HellOnEarth where the Warp intersects with realspace and usually the private playground of a Daemon Prince]], or simply to kill and destroy in the name of their insane gods. |
| 334 | ** With war and violence hardwired into their biology, [[SpaceOrcs Orks]] are more interesting in invading than ruling worlds. Being irrepressible scavengers, Orks will usually make use of conquered worlds and facilities to strengthen their own armies, but don't really care about anything beyond building up their forces for the next fight. |
| 335 | ** Before their 5th Edition {{rewrite}}, the [[MechanicalLifeform Necrons]] only woke up to purge all life from their planet and surrounding systems, or abduct populations for mysterious purposes, before going back to stasis without any intention of ruling the areas they attacked. |
| 336 | ** Subverted by the T'au Empire who not only strive to make every world they take over a full part of their Empire, including sharing their advanced infrastructure and technology, they normally try to convert the planet peacefully before the first shot was even fired, through use of diplomacy and commerce. |
| 337 | ** Due to the soul-sucking deity that their forebears created, the [[TheFairFolk Drukhari]] faction of [[SpaceElves Aeldari]] attempt to control the worlds they attack, emerging from the realspace, only to kill, slaves, and feed of the terror of their victims, before retreating back to their bases within the [[PortalNetwork webway]]. |
| 338 | ** Once the Tyranids have conquered a planet, they reduced all organic matter (including their own troops) to a chemical soup, which is then absorbed by their hive ships, along with the atmosphere and any useful minerals in the planet's crust. |
| 339 | * MySignificanceSenseIsTingling: Psykers can sometimes feel the psychic backlash of mass deaths or other strange events in the Warp. They can also detect the warp shadow of an oncoming Tyranid hive fleet... by going insane and dying. |
| 340 | * MysticalPlague: Nurgle mages get these kinds of spells. |
| 341 | [[/folder]] |
| 342 | |
| 343 | [[folder:N]] |
| 344 | * NamedAfterTheInjury: Old One Eye is a legendary Tyranid Carnifex that was originally believed dead after taking a direct shot from a plasma pistol in its eye. It has since resurfaced many times, but its missing right eye and the patch of exposed bone around it appear to be the only things that its powerful HealingFactor can't regenerate and have given it its common appellation. |
| 345 | * NamedWeapons: In a war-torn galaxy, wargear of exceptional quality or historical significance often bears a name of some sort. The style of these names varies depending on the race that created the weapon, with the Aeldari often using names tied to their mythology while the Orks tend to use straightforward and simple names like Git-rippa. In-game terms, these named weapons often have superior characteristics and/or special rules that increase the battlefield effectiveness of a character using them. |
| 346 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Chaos leaders' names like Kharn, Abaddon and Scyrak sound scary enough, and then you find that their respective epithets are "the Betrayer", "the Despoiler" and "the Slaughterer". Ork names tend to be made up of words like "smash" and "skull," and that's before you get to the self-given titles like "Arch-Arsonist," "Arch-Dictator," "Arch-Maniac," "Deffkilla Ghostkilla Deffscreama Bloodspilla Gunsmasha Daemonkilla" and for a change of pace, "Da Big Bad Beast." |
| 347 | ** Abaddon literally means "the destroyer". It also means "the Devil" and "Hell". |
| 348 | ** Also names like Decapitator or the Red Terror. |
| 349 | ** Dark Eldar get in on this, too. Lelith Hesperax, Kruellagh the Vile, Urien Rakarth, and Asdrubael Vect, Supreme Lord of the Kabal of the Black Heart are all about as nice as they sound. |
| 350 | ** Special mention should go to Nurgle's Chosen Plague Marine, Typhus. His name is bad enough on its own merits. Add his title, "Host of the Destroyer Hive," and you have a name to run away from really fast indeed. |
| 351 | * NecessarilyEvil: Imperial servants in general, and Inquisitors in particular, knowingly and willingly do horrible things to innocent people on a regular basis because the consequences for ''not'' doing so could be catastrophic for humanity as a whole. |
| 352 | * TheNecrocracy: |
| 353 | ** The Necrons are a futuristic version of the trope. They're an updated version of the Tomb Kings from ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', an entire race of the spirits of long-dead aliens encased in metal skeletons by their divine overlords. They inhabit the dead Tomb Worlds in the galaxy, and have a carefully structured imperial hierarchy, with Necron soldiers at the bottom, Necron Phaerons and (Over)Lords were the middle and now the top, and the godlike but abusive C'Tan were at the top until the Necrons shattered them in a rebellious war, and the living C'tan shards were either enslaved or forced to flee. |
| 354 | ** The Iyanden Eldar are a downplayed example. Previously one of the most well-populated craftworlds, after an attack by Hive Fleet Kraken wiped out nearly all of the living Eldar on the worldship the Iyanden Eldar had to raise large numbers of them as wraithbone constructs (something that the Eldar consider akin to necromancy and, thus, only resort to in the most desperate of times) in order to defend themselves from subsequent attacks. While most normal craftworlds return the spirit stones of wraithbone constructs back to the infinity circuits after battle, the Iyanden Eldar discovered, to their horror, that they were largely unable to do so. The wraithbone constructs now freely roam the halls of the ship, treated with a mix of respect, sorrow, and fear by their living kin, and entire wings of Iyanden were taken over by them. They are now included on war councils by the Farseers and seem to hold councils of their own, with none of the living in attendance. |
| 355 | * NeglectfulPrecursors: More like neglectful ''moderners''. Back in the golden age of technology, people were smart enough to create standard template constructs ([=STCs=]). Anyone who had one could build anything from a house to a tank if the situation required, regardless of ability or technology. Ten thousand years later, these same items created millennia ago are still in use, but the massive galaxy-spanning Imperium appears to be having trouble finding the things. |
| 356 | ** To be more exact, the Imperium is having trouble finding even drawings of the things. A single ancient sketch of a blueprint taken off a broken STC (broken is as good as they come after 20,000 years or so) is a prize enough to burn entire star systems. Or gift said systems to the blueprints' finders. |
| 357 | * NephariousPharaoh: Necrons have always had some Egyptian-ish design elements, but after the latest codex they have embraced this trope. The Necron leaders in the new codex are called "Phaerons" and their armour and headgear has some very obvious Egyptian influences. A lot of the Necron lords also have Egyptian-esque names, such as Imhotek (strangely enough, the ones that don't seem to have Polish names. Go figure). |
| 358 | * NeverBringAGunToAKnifeFight: Despite their advanced technology and powerful energy rifles, T'au infantry are at a tremendous disadvantage in close combat against anything remotely optimized for it. Ork Boyz, Howling Banshees, Khorne Berserkers, you name it and it can probably grind Fire Warriors into ground beef without too much hassle. Even lowly Guardsmen with the "Fix Bayonets" order can expect to come out on top against Fire Warriors in melee. |
| 359 | * NewTechnologyIsEvil: |
| 360 | ** A cornerstone of the Adeptus Mechanicus. |
| 361 | ** Ask any two Magi and you'll get at least two answers, though. They all believe in the existing rituals of construction and maintenance, most believe in reverse engineering, enough believe in "respectful improvement" that new weapons do emerge, and they sometimes fight each other over whether xenos tech can be studied and recreated in a "purified" form or is just a blasphemy against the Machine-God. |
| 362 | * NightmarishFactory: Mars and forge worlds in general, with thousands or millions of slaves (either humans or [[AndIMustScream roboticized servitors]] hopelessly toiling in monstrous mills. |
| 363 | %%* NightOfTheLivingMooks: Necrons. |
| 364 | * NightVisionGoggles: Tau blacksun filters, Imperial "heat see" devices and Space Marine autosensors. |
| 365 | * NinjaPirateZombieRobot: *deep breath*: |
| 366 | ** Repentant fanatical bondage nuns with chainsaw flamethrowers. |
| 367 | ** Psychic space elf torture-obsessed ninja bondage pirates/psychedelic ninja ''killer clowns''/knights on flying bikes with laser lances/wizards/split-personality warriors with chainsaw swords and guns that shoot ninja stars/Luddite wood-elf hippie dinosaur riders. |
| 368 | ** Skin-stealing soul-eating green-lightning-spraying undead doom robots. |
| 369 | ** Psychic genetically engineered fanatically religious daemon-killing knights. |
| 370 | ** Genetically engineered green-skinned soccer hooligan axe-crazy techno-barbarian space-orc aliens who are subconsciously psychic. |
| 371 | ** Asian caste-based bunny-eared-mecha-using alien hooved collectivist suicide bombers. |
| 372 | ** Axe-waving blood-drinking/mutated burning tentacley/rotting maggot-ridden cyclopean/androgynous crab-clawed sex-fiend psychic emotion daemons. |
| 373 | ** Space Viking/Mongol/Roman/Spartan/perverted SenseFreak bondage-obsessed/AxeCrazy/magic zombie/cyborg/vampire/Daemon-possessed genetically engineered power-armoured super-soldier {{warrior monk}}s. |
| 374 | * NobleDemon: The Blood Gorgons Traitor Legion refuses to use fear and intimidation to achieve their goals, and rank their obligations to each other over their service to Chaos Undivided, but they still serve Chaos just as loyally as any other traitor Chapter. |
| 375 | * NobleTongue: The Imperium's language is Gothic, of which there are two forms, Low and High. Low Gothic is the one transcribed into English and used by all classes, High Gothic is the [[GratuitousLatin faux-Latin]] one used by the more aristocratic, ecclesiastic and [[AveMachina technotheocratic]] classes. |
| 376 | * NoHuggingNoKissing: In general, romance is downplayed in favor of the SpaceOpera and war aspects. What's more, Space Marines are largely asexual (whether by choice or conditioning is a matter of no small fan debate), the Eldar largely repress sexual desire to avoid [[EmotionsVsStoicism falling prey to the urges that brought about the Fall]], the Tau view sex simply as a matter of procreation, Orks are MonogenderMonsters who reproduce via spores, the Necrons can no longer procreate, the Tyranids are hatched, and most Chaos followers are too furious, too mutated, or too rotten to care about sex. The only groups which do engage in this aspect are the Imperial Guard, the Inquisition, the Slaaneshi, and the Dark Eldar... and you really don't want to know the details about the last two. |
| 377 | * NonHumanUndead: Undead Daemons (the Vile Savants, essentially avatars of disease in flesh), undead robots (Necrons) and mecha (Dreadnoughts to a degree and Nurgle Titans), undead statue robots (Wraithguard and Wraithlords), and undead ''wizard'' statue robots (Wraithseer and Warlock Titans). Surprisingly no Undead Dragons (then again, their fantasy counterpart fills in whatever holes it has). |
| 378 | * NonStandardGameOver: A handful have popped up, most notably in the Necron's ([[{{Irony}} now defunct]]) "Phase Out" rule. If the Necrons lost more than 75% of their starting number of models with the "Necron" rule, the rest of the army immediately teleported away and the opponent was granted an automatic victory, regardless of other factors. |
| 379 | * NoodleIncident: The setting features several that pop up now and again: |
| 380 | ** The most infamous and frequently referenced is the fate of the two lost Space Marine legions and their Primarchs. The official answer is that [[spoiler:there'll never be a straight answer, as it allows SpaceMarine players to use the Unknown Primarch to create their own Chapters]]. |
| 381 | ** The Dark Age of Technology is generally untouched by the lore. What is known is that humanity created robots called the Iron Men (as opposed to the cyborgs and machine spirits used in the modern Imperium) and that those robots TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and nearly destroyed humanity. True ArtificialIntelligence has been [[AIIsACrapshoot banned]] ever since. |
| 382 | ** Though it has largely been abandoned with the removal of the Squats, "The Contagion of Ganymede" was a disastrous attempt by the Imperium to replicate Warp Core technology (previously the exclusive domain of the Squats, though one made an appearance in ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine''). Exactly what happened is never known, but the location of the experiment-- Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons-- has been under strict quarantine ever since, with nothing allowed on or off the moon. |
| 383 | ** The Rangdan Xenocides during the Great Crusade. There are multiple obtuse references to it, at least a half-dozen Space Marine legions were involved (including the two "lost" legions above), the Dark Angels in particular were so mauled in the fighting that they lost their spot as the biggest legion, thousands of worlds were destroyed, and they ended when the Emperor himself "broke the Labyrinth of Night". Beyond that we know absolutely nothing about the hardest fighting in the war, including what a Rangdan even is. |
| 384 | * NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Thoroughly averted for the most part-- the Tau and Eldar are about the only ones who ever try, and the Eldar consider recovering the waystones of the dead good enough consolation for being unable to save the bodies of the living (because the waystones [[SoulJar contain the soul]] of the dead Eldar). Similarly, although the Marines consider it the highest honour to die in battle, they'll fight hard to recover the progenoid glands from the still-cooling bodies of their battle brothers. |
| 385 | ** Black Templars will risk life and limb to recover the body of a fallen Emperor's Champion. |
| 386 | ** Necrons have an automated version of this. |
| 387 | ** Also, given the CargoCult[=/=]AncestralWeapon nature of technology in the Imperium, the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Space Marines will often insist, and go to sometimes-absurd lengths to ensure that No ''Tech'' Gets Left Behind. If it's a choice between saving a soldier or his high-tech gear, standard procedure is to save the gear since men are much easier to replace. |
| 388 | * NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: Even the best and brightest Mekboyz don't know how some of the things they build work, or occasionally even what they had in mind when they started nailing bits on. Often the purpose of a Mekboy speshul invention can only be determined by testing it, a dangerous pursuit. |
| 389 | ** Also justified for a lot of Imperial tech, thanks to it being LostTechnology. |
| 390 | * NothingButSkulls: Mostly associated with the Imperium. Yes, the [[strike:good guys]] protagonists. They're also known for using skulls as {{Attack Drone}}s. |
| 391 | ** Most 40k miniatures by games workshop have at least one skull or skull motif. Even the current Space Marine helmets are based on angry, skeletal faces. Especially so for chaplains. |
| 392 | ** Games Workshop even sell [[https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/Citadel-Skulls-2017 a literal box of nothing but skulls]] for modellers who want to spruce up their builds with a few extra death's heads. The product description is only too happy to [[LampshadedTrope lampshade]] the cranial abundance in their games. |
| 393 | ** SubvertedTrope: the skull is a symbol of their culture. Whereas the skull represents death in RealLife, to the Imperium it represents the pure core of the human. Orkz, followers of Khorne, and Dark Eldar aren't slouches in the skull-taking department, either. |
| 394 | * NothingIsTheSameAnymore: The events of ''The Gathering Storm'' pretty much took the Status Quo and hurled it into the warp: The Thirteenth Black Crusade has destroyed Cadia, the Eldar have ''finally'' brought Ynnead into existence, and Roboute Guiliman has returned and promised to ''fix'' the Imperium, allowing the setting to ''finally'' move forward. Furthermore, it appears the Orcs are returning to Armageddon and the Forces of Chaos are massing for an attack on Ultramar. |
| 395 | ** Also applies from a gameplay perspective too, as 8th Edition, released in 2017, represents the first time that major, fundamental changes have been made to the game since 3rd Edition, from 1998, ''nineteen years'' prior. All interceding editions were small, incremental adjustments to the same basic system. |
| 396 | * {{Noun Verber}}s: Lots of Space Marines, both Imperial and Chaos: World Eaters, Word Bearers, Soul Drinkers, Flesh Tearers, Flesh Eaters, Blood Drinkers, Skull Takers, Deathmongers, Fire Reavers... |
| 397 | * NoWarpingZone: While it [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the lore]], many depictions of warp travel state that the gravitational pull of stars and planets can interfere with the translation between warp and real space, leading to catastrophic consequences, up to and including causing the star to explode. To prevent such disasters, Imperial ships must travel far enough from a system's star to be able to use their warp drives, although, some desperate or foolhardy crews may attempt emergency warp jumps within a star system in extreme circumstances. |
| 398 | * NukeEm: Standard Imperial policy on dealing with anything more dangerous than an angry dog. Usually the right thing to do. Occasionally not enough. |
| 399 | ** A particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} example is the Death Korps of Krieg, who "[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill subjected their homeworld to a 500-year campaign of atomic cleansing]]." |
| 400 | * NumberOfTheBeast: The Grey Knights are Chapter 666, and their initiation involves the 666 [[MindRape Rites of the Emperor]]. They hunt daemons. |
| 401 | ** Sadly, later retcons made it so that we knew only 20 Chapters could have existed before "Chapter 666," making this FauxSymbolism unintentionally hilarious. |
| 402 | * NumberedHomeworld: Zigzagged, depending on the planet. |
| 403 | [[/folder]] |
| 404 | |
| 405 | [[folder:O]] |
| 406 | * ObstructiveBureaucrat: Planets of them. At least one of them is actually on the verge of civil war because they're running out of places to store the paperwork. This factors into allowing fan-made Imperial Guard armies: the people in charge of keeping track of the Guard in-fight and lose so much paperwork that it's easy for ''entire armies to technically not exist''. The Inquisition exploits this as much as possible to keep the rabble and average soldier from knowing too much about certain xenos or cults -- if the Imperium says they don't exist, they don't exist. |
| 407 | %%* ObviouslyEvil: Played straight, but also possibly subverted [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation depending on just how "evil" you consider the Imperium]]. |
| 408 | * ObviousRulePatch: |
| 409 | ** ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'' used to give out official rulings against interpreting the second edition rules in stupid ways. For example, your Imperial Assassin using the shape-changing drug Polymorphine is not allowed to disguise himself as a tiny Gretchin while wearing Terminator Armour and riding an armoured motorbike just because the rules don't specifically say he can't. |
| 410 | ** It was clarified that "A {{Commissar}} (of any rank) will never [[YouHaveFailedMe execute]] [[DrivenToSuicide himself]]" since summary execution (depending on the edition) may kill the highest ranking officer of a unit, and ''he'' might be the highest ranking of said unit... |
| 411 | ** At a certain point, the rules were changed to grant a player an automatic loss if there are none of his/her figures reamining on the table at any moment of the game, regardless of what they may have in reserve (known informally as being "tabled"). While this change was made for a few other reasons, most prominently it was to prevent players from [[OutsideTheBoxTactic starting the game with their entire army in reserve]] or something similar. |
| 412 | ** Rule patches and other [=FAQs=] are still handed out via .pdf files on Games Workshop's official website. |
| 413 | ** With the release of 8th edition, it took almost no time for people to come up with a way around the new allies system (where all models in your army must share at least one faction keyword) by claiming that they can replace the variable faction keyword (such as <Regiment> or <Chapter>) with the same word in all your armies (e.g. giving your Astra Militarum units the Regiment name "Ultramarines" to exploit any rules that apply to keyword Ultramarines), thus completely negating the intended allying method. The ''Designers themselves'' had to come out with a document that largely read "no you can't do that you dingus, use common sense" to stop the shenanigans. |
| 414 | * OfficerAndAGentleman: The Imperial ideal. True to real life, many are also corrupt, incompetent, treasonous, or all-around bastards. |
| 415 | * OffscreenVillainDarkMatter: Ten thousand years of continuous war, and the Traitor Marines are ''still'' in bolter shells. This has been made somewhat less ridiculous in recent fluff, with mention of Chaos and Dark Mechanicus forge worlds, and a change in focus towards Renegade (recently-corrupted) Marines to distract from the question of how the original Traitor Legions even still ''exist''. And since they do reside in the Eye of Terror, where "physics" [[RealityIsOutToLunch is even more of a joke than elsewhere]], they have ''literal'' OffscreenVillainDarkMatter. |
| 416 | * TheOgre: Ogryns of the Imperial Guard, armed with automatic shotguns designed to be equally useful as giant clubs and Feral World Ogryns, from the abhuman rules in ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'', who don't even get the shotguns. By and large, they're all as dumb as rocks but the best and "brightest" of them can under go Biochemical Ogryn Neural Enhancement, or BONE, and become Bone'eads to serve as sergeants for their squads due to being capable counting without fingers and using tactics more complex than "GET EM!". |
| 417 | * OhCrap: The general logical conclusion from infantry squads taking a leadership test in the tabletop. While some examples are psychic powers messing with them, it's otherwise watching the rest of their squad get killed horribly and/or in quick succession and reasonably figuring that they'll be next. |
| 418 | * OlderIsBetter: Thanks to the Imperium's habit of forgetting how to build their own tech (or at least mass produce, as masterful artificers can still build some gear that would have been considered half way decent before the Iron Rebellion and Age of Strife). Same goes for the Eldar, who less forgot and more "locked behind incredible psychic power that would get their souls torn off by Slaanesh without very expensive workarounds". |
| 419 | * OldMaster: Many Space Marines on both sides, since the expected lifespan of an Astartes who doesn't catch a bullet is measured in millennia. And a lot of them were also selected as Astartes candidates in the first place by proving themselves to be badass by the standards of a DeathWorld where reaching ''thirty'' makes one an OldMaster. |
| 420 | * OmnicidalManiac: Tyranids, and certain Chaos factions to some extent. Orks too, just for fun. |
| 421 | ** Necrons were this until the most recent codex, where their motivation was changed from wanting to kill all life out of hatred, to wanting to exterminate all other life so that they can regain their former empire. |
| 422 | * OneManArmy: The entire point of Space Marines. A particular individual example is the unusually tough Tau soldier Shas'la Kais from the novel and [=FPS=] ''Fire Warrior''. Also the Primarchs and the members of the Adeptus Custodes. |
| 423 | * OneSteveLimit: {{Averted|Trope}}: |
| 424 | ** "Salamander" refers to either a Space Marine from the Salamanders chapter or a specific tank used by the Imperial Guard. |
| 425 | ** The legendary Commissar Sebastian Yarrick was named after Sebastian Thor, one of the greatest figures in the Ecclesiarchy. |
| 426 | ** In the ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' novels, Horus Lupercal has a subordinate named "Little" Horus Aximand. |
| 427 | ** Leman Russ is both a Primarch and a battle tank. They existed concurrently, too. |
| 428 | ** There's at least ''five'' characters named Lucius, including three Space Marines ([[BodyHorror Lucius]] [[AndIMustScream the]] [[ResurrectiveImmortality Eternal]] of the Emperor's Children, Captain Lucius Mysander of the Ultramarines, and Captain Lucius of the Blood Ravens), the [[TheGunslinger gunslinging]] [[HiredGuns mercenary]] Lucius 'Slick' Devlan, and an Imperial saint, Confessor Lucius of Agatha. There's also an Imperial [[EternalEngine forge world]] named Lucius, with no known relation to the aforementioned characters. |
| 429 | ** Both the Legio Custodes and the Thousand Sons Space Marine Legion had members named Amon, who came into contact during the events of the novel ''Prospero Burns''. |
| 430 | ** Lampshaded in universe with planet naming - one character notes that her recently renamed world "Redemption" now shares its name with 218 other recorded instances. |
| 431 | ** It is a RunningGag in ''Cadia Stands'' that people refer to General Creed, only to be asked which of the four General Creeds they mean. They clarify General Ursarkar Creed, only to be asked which of the two General Ursarkar Creeds they mean. They then clarify General Ursarkar ''E.'' Creed, not the General Ursarkar Creed who is retired. |
| 432 | * OneWorldOrder: The Tau Empire is driven by a manifest destiny to unite the galaxy under the guidance of the Greater Good, though as their fluff is expanded, differences between Tau Septs are starting to appear. |
| 433 | * OnlyGoodPeopleMayPass: The Black Library. Despite the imposing name, it is actually a catalog of all the known information regarding Chaos. The [[OurElvesAreDifferent Eldar]] Harlequins that guard it are known to grant access to anyone they feel has both the need and the strength of character to be useful in the fight against Chaos. Notably, the [[GodEmperor Emperor of Mankind]] has entered. |
| 434 | * OnlySaneMan: Possibly the Tau Empire, the only ones who realized that in the Future, [[NeverBringAKnifeToAGunfight you don't bring a chainsword to a gunfight]]. Though this is more of a subversion-- it's the insane people who are correct and realistic about things, and the sane Tau seek to play by the rules in a universe that has none. |
| 435 | * OnlyUsefulAsToiletPaper: The [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Imperial_Infantryman%27s_Uplifting_Primer Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer]] is commonly known in universe as "emergency toilet paper", although Guardsmen are required to keep a copy on hand at all times despite its absence of useful content. |
| 436 | * OpposingCombatPhilosophies: Very common. |
| 437 | ** Speaking from a meta perspective, armies generally come in three types: Assault armies (like Orks and Tyranids) are all about closing with the enemy force as quickly as possible to rip them apart with a mass of attacks. Gunline armies (like Astra Militarum and Tau) are all about hanging back, usually not even moving position unless to acquire a new sightline and bombarding the enemy with firepower to end the battle before it ever comes close to melee. Midfield armies (like Space Marines and both flavours of Eldar) are all about controlling the middle of the table to contest those ever-valuable objectives while peppering the enemy with close-range firepower and closing for melee opportunistically. This is speaking in very general terms; Orks can have a decent go at long-range fire support [[MoreDakka if they have enough of it]], the Tau might keep a handful of melee specialists on stand-by if only to guard the big guns, [[JackOfAllStats Space Marines are flexible enough to go to either extreme]], and Eldar can TakeAThirdOption and go with something more esoteric, like psyker or flyer spam. There is a lot of room within each army for different playstyles. |
| 438 | ** The most famous is the rivalry between the Tau and the Orks. The former prefer to wipe out the enemy with precise and powerful firepower at extreme distances, while the latter prefer to either close within fifty meters and open a can of MoreDakka or just run all the way and bash you in the face. |
| 439 | ** The Orks have their own opposing philosophies as personified by their gods, Gork and Mork. Gork is the god of brutal kunnin', whilst Mork is the god of kunnin' brutality -- although it might be the other way around; even the Orks aren't always sure which is which. They can, however, clearly distinguish between the two philosophies: one is to hit the enemy really 'ard when they aren't looking, whereas the other is to hit 'em even 'arder when they are. |
| 440 | ** Another example is Khorne vs. Tzeentch. Tzeentch prefers magic and trickery, while Khorne prefers [[TheBerserker simply getting into combat as fast as possible and wrecking anyone and anything he can get his fingers on]]. |
| 441 | ** The Imperium vs. the Craftworld Eldar. Tactical Marines are equally adept at attack or defence, melee or ranged combat against various targets and capable of switching gears easily to adapt to a changing battle, whereas Aspect Warriors are absolute masters at one facet of warfare, [[CripplingOverspecialization and one only]]. The common explanation is that if you pit five Marines against five Aspect Warriors, the Marines will either kill all the Aspect Warriors quite easily... or they'll kill ''four'' and then the sole survivor will [[CurbStompBattle single-handedly massacre the Marines by herself, because heavy infantry is what she is trained and equipped to fight]]. For Eldar vs. Imperial Guard, its a LightningBruiser EliteArmy vs. a ZergRush with combined-arms warfare. |
| 442 | ** The Imperial Guard, the Emperor's Hammer vs. the Adeptus Astartes, the Emperor's Scalpel. The Space Marines rely on small squads of highly elite superhuman warriors with the most advanced weapons available, entrusted with the most critical assaults and strikes where the enemy is weakest and where the most damage can be done -- Astartes are however very few in number, each loss is considerable and training replacements takes time so they can't afford to be wasted. The Imperial Guard relies in vast numbers of conscripted fighting men backed by a galactic empire's worth of war materials to bear the brunt of the enemy's assaults and eventually bludgeon them into submission -- casualties are always obscenely high, but with near-limitless reserves of manpower, this matters little. |
| 443 | ** The Ultramarines and the Alpha Legion had a bitter rivalry during the Horus Heresy due to their combat doctrines [[OrderVersusChaos antagonising each other]]. Guilliman trained his legion to be highly disciplined and professional soldiers operating under a carefully considered plan established by a strong chain of command, while Alpharius trained his legion to rely more on unorthodox tactics and personal initiative, performing XanatosSpeedChess and operating like guerillas to keep the enemy guessing. Things tended to go the Alpha Legion's way, in fact Guilliman was only ever able to beat Alpharius [[BatmanGrabsAGun by breaking with Codex Astartes protocol]] -- the very document he had created and claimed to Alpharius was superior to any of the younger primarch's complicated deceptions. |
| 444 | ** The Tau operate with two main schools of strategy: ''Kauyon'', the "Patient Hunter", focuses on guerrilla combat and wears the enemy down gradually with ambushes and tricks; and ''Montka'', the "Killing Blow", which is basically like real life American shock and awe warfare, [[AttackItsWeakPoint overwhelming force directed at enemy leadership or other key targets to shut down the enemy in one strike]]. Both approaches compliment each other but many Tau commanders focus on one or the other. |
| 445 | * OrderVersusChaos: Generally accepted as Imperium, Eldar, and Tau for Order, and Orkz, Dark Eldar and, well, Chaos for Chaos. Necrons and Tyranids are off to the side a bit. |
| 446 | ** One could argue that the Necrons are also on the side of Order-- just that their method of defeating Chaos (the ideology, not the faction) is to kill off anything and everything else that could possibly upset the natural order of the universe, i.e. sentient life. |
| 447 | * OrganicTechnology: Everything the Tyranids use is really an organism, rather than a weapon or tool. Even their space ships are organic. |
| 448 | * OriginalPositionFallacy: Many people who join Chaos cults do so in the hopes of attracting their chosen god's favor. Unfortunately for them, said gods are just as likely to ignore them, give them what they want or subject them to horrible (or benign) mutations. |
| 449 | * OtherworldlyAndSexuallyAmbiguous: The Chaos God Slaneesh has a nasty habit of sending hermaphroditic daemons at people. Not to mention being one itself. By default, Humans speak of it as a god, Eldars speak of it as a goddess ("She who thirsts"). |
| 450 | * OurDemonsAreDifferent: A daemon is technically any being that dwells in the Warp, but true daemons in 40k are the personifications of rage, despair, pleasure, or hope (and not even those last two are pleasant) created by one of the Chaos Gods out of their own essence. |
| 451 | * OurDragonsAreDifferent: Dragons are creatures of Eldar myth, but it's recently been indicated that the C'Tan Void Dragon takes a dragon-like avatar as well. |
| 452 | * OurElvesAreDifferent: Two main subspecies, the Eldar and the Dark Eldar. Both are pointy-eared clairvoyant bastards; the Eldar place more emphasis on the "clairvoyant" part of the description, while the Dark Eldar put more emphasis on the "bastards.""bastards". You can also TakeAThirdOption and opt for the Harlequins (elves as ninja {{Monster Clown}}s with weapons that liquefy people; also weirdly the closest to a "good" faction in this setting) or the Exodites (the settings' wood elves) |
| 453 | * OurGargoylesRock: Rather than the standard magical stone statue, Gargoyles are Tyranid air units that cling on to a bigger flier for long-distance flights. |
| 454 | %%* OurGiantsAreBigger: Big Mutants, larger subtypes of Ogryn. |
| 455 | * OurGodsAreDifferent: |
| 456 | ** The Chaos Gods, the C'Tan and the Ork gods of cunning brutality and brutal cunning. No one actually knows how many Chaos Gods there are, except that you really only need to worry about the big four. Other gods were created by the beliefs of sentient beings, but... |
| 457 | ** Subverted with the Eldar, as their gods were all {{curbstomp| battle}}ed and devoured by Slaanesh, the weakest of the main Chaos Gods, while in its birth throes (save Cegorach who ran, and Isha whose horrible fate as Nurgle's prisoner/guinea pig is still probably a better alternative: note that Isha is a goddess of life imprisoned by a sadistic god of disease, and she's still trying to help out everyone she can, thus making her one of the only strictly good characters is Warhammer, if not ''the'' only.). They're trying to double subvert it with Ynnead, but the jury's still out on whether that plan can work, or even be properly implemented. |
| 458 | %%** Not to mention the GodEmperor. |
| 459 | %%* OurSoulsAreDifferent: The Warp, mostly. |
| 460 | * OurVampiresAreDifferent: 1st edition 40K Rogue Trader also had actual creatures called Vampires, which were [[ShapeShifter polymorphic]] giant [[BatOutOfHell humanoid bat-things]] which originate in the Warp and can [[ParanoiaFuel mimic any other vaguely human-sized organism]]. |
| 461 | %%* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Wulfen, failed/corrupted Space Wolves. |
| 462 | * OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture: And if you're the Imperium or the Orks, so will your vehicles and buildings. Tau also have boxy weapons, though their vehicles and their architecture tend towards more rounded and organic-looking shapes. |
| 463 | * OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: |
| 464 | ** The Imperium was created as a galaxy-wide example of this trope, and during the course of the Literature/HorusHeresy became a [[HeWhoFightsMonsters comprehensive and horrible subversion]]. Of course, there is a school of thought that says the Emperor only tried to steer humanity away from religion precisely because he ''knew'' there were gods out there, and nasty ones at that. Then there's some subtle references in at least some of the novels that suggest the Emperor to be the '''latest''' Warp God, who is only prevented from kicking the snot out of the other big four because he is still tethered to his mortal form... |
| 465 | ** The Tau may seem to exhibit divine worship of their Ethereal caste, but this is more obeisance to their leaders than religion, and they otherwise have no belief in gods or the supernatural... including the very real daemons and other supernatural beings that inhabit the warp and the galaxy. |
| 466 | ** The Eldar believe in the existence of their gods and occasionally invoke them (much in the same way a human would exclaim "Oh my God!"), but they don't actively worship their pantheon because ''[[GodIsDead they're all dead]]''. The exception is the Harlequins, who worship the sole surviving Eldar god, Cegorach. |
| 467 | ** In the Drukhari city of Commorragh, there is a pit known as the Pit of Idols. It contains untold numbers of pendants and symbols representing different gods of the Drukhari's victims throughout the millennia. If one were to delve down to the very bottom of the pit, they would find idols to the long-deceased Aeldari pantheon - of Asuryan, Khaine, Isha and others - discarded by the Drukhari's ancestors and long forgotten. |
| 468 | ** The Necrons no longer believe in their gods, but this is largely in part due to 1.) 95% of the population are mindless drones and 2.) they ended up ''shattering and enslaving'' their own gods. |
| 469 | * OutOfTheInferno: Happens a lot, especially with Space Marines, Orks, and particularly Necrons. |
| 470 | * OutscareTheEnemy: Part of the Commissar's job is to embody this. Probable death at the hands of of reality-defying abominations or a HordeOfAlienLocusts may be terrifying, but ''certain'' death for "cowardice" is a big motivator. |
| 471 | * OutsideGenreFoe: [[HordeOfAlienLocusts The Tyranids]] were this to the Ultramarines because the latter's BigBookOfWar had no combat plans against that kind of enemy, leaving them tactically flat footed. |
| 472 | * OutWithABang: Any form of sexual intercourse with Dark Eldar or Slaaneshi warriors are practically guaranteed to end this way. |
| 473 | * OvershadowedByAwesome: |
| 474 | ** Real life special forces units would kill to get their hands on the standard-issue kit of the Imperial Guardsman. The humble lasgun is depicted in the ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' books as being able to blow limbs clean off people and reduce heads to PinkMist on standard setting, and having the same power as a hand grenade on maximum setting - for a weapon that works so reliably and easily that you would think it runs on EasyLogistics, you can recharge the power packs in fire pits, for crying out loud. In-game however, Guardsmen are actually hilariously outmatched by most of their contemporaries, and it shows in their morale (meanwhile fans [[ScrappyWeapon derisively mock lasguns as "flashlights"]]). Space Marine bolters fire fist-sized explosive shells, and Aeldari shuriken catapults can ''liquify'' grown men in a single short burst. Don't even get us started on how destructive T'au pulse weaponry or Necron gauss flayers are. Meanwhile a lot of things Guardsmen often fight can [[MadeOfIron shrug off lasgun shots like a light shove]]. This is quite what makes the humble Imperial Guard so endearing for many players however, because they are just [[BadassNormal ordinary men and women]] fighting on against what are, make no mistake, odds that are ''massively'' stacked against them. |
| 475 | ** Outside the universe and in the context of game mechanics, this is often true for at least a few units in most armies. Few units are ever obviously "[[JokeCharacter bad]]", but many ''good'' units get passed over by players because the same army can take a slightly ''better'' unit, or at least one that fills the same niche while being more cost-effective. Thus some models will very rarely be fielded while others will be fielded much more frequently. The Space Marine Predator tank or the Tau Skyray missile defense platform are examples of such good units which are often ignored because better ones are available. |
| 476 | ** Space Marines not only managed to do this to every other race, but also somehow managed to do this to ''themselves''. See the standard space marine's armor and weapons would be considered a godsend in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the game 40k was originally based off of, where only mounted knights and/or a combination of specialty armor can grant you anywhere near the gear they're rocking. However, with Space Marines being so popular, they became the majority, and thus a lot of players don't understand why they are depicted in fluff as being nigh invulnerable and their bolters being devastating to enemies. This had a consequence of "lowering" everything in the game down a peg in terms of perceived power; all instances of "heavy" armor became mocked as cardboard shirts, armies that would have been considered "normal" were considered swarms simply because they outnumbered marines, and even the rate of casualties were affected as well. |
| 477 | ** A lore example of a tragic subversion is the relation between Lion El'Jonson and Luthor. Luthor would probably have been the greatest hero in the history of Caliban, if he hadn't lived at the same time as the Lion. However, while Lion was a great warrior and brilliant strategist, he was to Human Resources Management what Steven Hawking was to competitive paintball, and a lot of the tragedies that befell Caliban and the Dark Angels would never have happened if Lion had been content to be a wartime leader and turned the day-to-day stuff over to Luthor. |
| 478 | * OverzealousUnderling: |
| 479 | ** A frequent problem when SpaceMarines (or Sororitas) and Imperial Guard are working together, as the former have a tendency to forget the Guardsmen don't have their superhuman physiology/insane devotion to sniffing out and purging heresy, preferably with fire, resulting in entirely avoidable losses because they didn't wait for the Guard to catch up. |
| 480 | ** Exploited by the Space Wolves chapter, whose newest recruits are taken from their [[UsefulNotes/TheVikingAge Viking Age]]-level societies convinced they're now in WarriorHeaven. They use them as land and airborne assault troops, reasoning that if they're going to rush into battle instead of using proper tactics, they may as well do so with the appropriate equipment. Once they've gotten it out of their system after a few battles, they can be trusted to hold different roles such as line troops or heavy weaponry. |
| 481 | --> If they are so eager to die, and they will not heed the advice of their superiors, then let them rush headlong into the jaws of the lion. We can only hope some of them get caught in its throat. |
| 482 | -->-- '''Solar Macharius''' |
| 483 | [[/folder]] |
| 484 | |
| 485 | [[folder:P]] |
| 486 | * ThePaladin: Deconstructed with the Grey Knights, who exemplify GoodIsNotSoft to the point that many might not consider them good. They are a monotask force that specializes in fighting the forces of Chaos at any cost. At ''any'' cost-- taken to the point where they are known to exterminate friendlies if it would somehow aid them in fighting daemons, or kill off[=/=]mindwipe entire populations to keep [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow certain pieces of forbidden knowledge]] as forgotten as they can make it. They do these things out of extreme pragmatism, because they know that, for the citizens of the Imperium, better to be dead than to be damned. [[BlackAndGrayMorality "Grey" Knights]] indeed. |
| 487 | * ParadisePlanet: Garden Worlds, also known as Paradise Worlds, are planets of great natural beauty that have become centers of relaxation, entertainment and recuperation for the upper crust of the Imperium. For good measure, they take great pains to preserve said natural beauty. |
| 488 | * TheParagonAlwaysRebels: Horus was held to be TheParagon by the other Primarchs, and ended up leading half of them against the Emperor. However, in Horus's eyes, Sanguinius was the Paragon. |
| 489 | * ParentalIssues: The Emperor and the Primarchs. |
| 490 | ** TrulySingleParent: The Emperor was responsible for the creation of the twenty Primarchs before the start of the Great Crusade, at least partly from his own DNA. |
| 491 | ** ParentalAbandonment: The infant Primarchs were scattered through [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Warp]] by the Chaos gods, coming to rest on various human worlds throughout the galaxy. It was, to be fair, hardly intentional, but they were all adults before the Emperor found them again. |
| 492 | ** LikeFatherLikeSon: Of the eighteen known, each Primarch had risen to a position of power before they were found, and most were the rulers of one or more planets. |
| 493 | ** RaisedByWolves: Literally in the case of Leman Russ, more figuratively for some of the others. |
| 494 | ** ParentalFavoritism / TheUnFavourite: Horus was the Emperor's "first son", both in order found and as the Warmaster of the Great Crusade, while some of the Emperor's decisions about his other children (especially concerning Magnus the Red) have been... [[WhatTheHellHero questionable]]. |
| 495 | ** CallingTheOldManOut: The Horus Heresy. Never let it be said that 40K does things on a small scale. |
| 496 | ** OffingTheOffspring: As a direct result of the above. |
| 497 | ** CainAndAbel: Guilliman killed Alpharius after Horus' followers scattered, and was later mortally wounded and forced [[HumanPopsicle into stasis]] by Fulgrim. [[spoiler:(Though it was hinted that either Alpharius or his identical twin Omegon may [[FakingTheDead not be as dead as was thought]].)]] |
| 498 | *** In all likelihood, [[spoiler:both Alpharius and Omegon are probably alive, as the entire Alpha Legion present themselves as Alpharius at one point or another. It is quite possible that the Alpharius killed was just a high up Space Marine sent to prove their worth]]. |
| 499 | *** Horus killing Sanguinius for refusing to join him before the final fight with the Emperor. |
| 500 | ** PromotionToParent: Roboute Guilliman essentially promoted himself after the Emperor's death/ascension/interment. |
| 501 | ** RageAgainstTheMentor: Alpharius, against Roboute Guilliman, although Alpharius admitted nothing more than a pragmatic indifference to his brother's boasting. Other examples include Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, masters of fortifaction and endurance and Peturabo, the Primarch of the siege expert Iron Warriors. |
| 502 | *** Perhaps the biggest example of this trope is that of Horus and Abaddon. Abaddon looked up to Horus, and his loyalty (before and during the Heresy) was greater than any other... except for when Horus eventually loses the siege of Terra and Abaddon starts having second thoughts. Cue taking immediate command of all chaos forces and retreating back to the Eye of Terror, thus coining the phrase "Horus was weak, Horus was a fool". Such was his hatred of Horus's weakness, Abaddon renamed the Sons of Horus legion to the Black Legion and, upon hearing about even the potential to clone Horus, launched an all out attack to destroy the project. Not that Abaddon [[GeneralFailure has done much better]] than Horus-- 13 Black crusades later and [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption not an awful lot has changed...]] |
| 503 | * PassionIsEvil: The Chaos Gods are the sum of every sentient being's rage, hope, lust and love. Worshipped via mass slaughter and warfare, mutation and ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, rape and torture, and spreading disease and pestilence like a demented SantaClaus. The only workable alternative is to cut off the emotions, either by turning the entire world undead ([[WellIntentionedExtremist which was one vampire's plan]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'') or by killing everything down to the last bacterium (the Necrons in 40K). |
| 504 | * PeltsOfTheBarbarian: The [[Literature/SpaceWolf Space Wolves]] (heroic space vikings) often wear wolfskins over their armor, usually one they've killed during their rites of passage. The Literature/WhiteScars (heroic space Mongols) do it to a lesser degree. |
| 505 | * PeopleJars: How you get a new [[SuperSoldier Space Marine]] Chapter, amongst other things. |
| 506 | * PeoplePuppets: Occasionally seen as an ability of psykers. |
| 507 | * PercussiveMaintenance: One battle report jokes about a Techmarine fixing a ''complete tank engine'' with "a lot of chanting, and a few hammer blows." The startup procedure for hololiths and cogitators throughout the Imperium also includes a "ritual blow to the side of the casing." |
| 508 | ** According to supplementary materials, this is actually an official Adeptus Mechanicus repair procedure: "The Ritual of the Knock." |
| 509 | * PerpetuallyProtean: Chaos Spawn are wandering masses of ever-shifting organs, limbs and perpetually-warping flesh, most commonly created when a Chaos champion or mutant receives too many "rewards" from their patron god, causing their bodies to collapse into an unending series of random mutations. Reduced to feral madness by the experience, Chaos Spawn will eventually die from their condition as the Chaotic energy mutating them will quite literally rip them apart -- though most tend to die in battle first. |
| 510 | * PerplexingPlurals: Good luck getting the fans to agree on a plural for "Carnifex". |
| 511 | ** Or whether "Alpharius" should take a Latin plural when joking about the Alpha Legion's IAmSpartacus tendencies. |
| 512 | * PersonOfMassDestruction: Untrained Psykers are regarded as these by the Imperium, with good reason. |
| 513 | ** And there's [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Legienstrasse Legienstrasse]], the first and last graduate of the Maeorus Assassin Temple. Heavily modified so she could absorb biomass through her skin and rapidly mutate any natural weapon she needs in battle similar to [[VideoGame/{{Prototype}} Alex Mercer]] or the [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil6 C-Virus]], she decided she no longer want to bow to the Imperium and went rogue. A massive manhunt was launched against her, and in the process she took on Captain Lysander of the Imperial Fist, Assault Marine Squad, 1st Company Veterans, Grandmaster of the Culexus Temple and Grandmaster of the Vindicare Temple. ''[[OhCrap She won.]]'' A second manhunt was called, which succeeded after a grueling fight by repeatedly smashing her body with a Thunder Hammer until none is left but fine dust. |
| 514 | * PhallicWeapon: Plenty of examples of models holding their guns in, shall we say, suggestive ways, but kings of this trope are the old Ork Gargant and Imperator Titan models, both of which featured rather unfortunately placed trouser cannons. |
| 515 | ** The heavier a Tyranid weapon is, the more likely it is look like a chitinous, ambulatory dick. The Pyrovore is especially bad about this, and the new Biovore models actually ''have a scrotum'' at the base of their "gun". |
| 516 | * PhantasySpelling: Chaos "daemons" might or might not be an example of this. The word technically means "minor deity", but since that's what a lot of daemons actually ''are''... |
| 517 | * PhantomZone: The Warp. It's an AlternateDimension created and empowered by the emotions and feelings of sentient beings, and it is the home of the Chaos Gods and their legions of daemonic servants. Traversing it is also the only way interstellar travel is possible for Humanity and most other races. |
| 518 | * PhysicalGod: The Emperor may have been one of these, and the Primarchs were basically demigods; also, the Avatars of Khaine and the C'tan. Daemon Princes can sometimes have pretty god-like powers, too. |
| 519 | * {{Pilgrimage}}: The Earth (known as Holy Terra) has become ''the'' major pilgrimage site, as it houses the barely alive body of the GodEmperor of Mankind. The waiting lines in the Imperial Palace, which takes up most of Eurasia, are measured in generations. The Adeptus Mechanicus have their own pilgrimage on Mars. There are other, lesser sites across the galaxy, usually the birthplace of a saint or a place where a miracle occurred. |
| 520 | * PinkIsErotic: Pink is one of the sacred colors of Slaanesh. A Dark God of [[ChaosIsEvil Chaos]], famous for being the embodiment of pleasure, lust, desire, passion, and basically any kind of earthly gratification that is pursued pure hedonism. Including pain as pleasure, and any kind of sexual kink. |
| 521 | * PistolWhipping: Used to be a game mechanic. With 8th edition, the rules just let you shoot pistols in melee (which isn't allowed for other ranged weapons). |
| 522 | * PlanetBaron: The planetary governor's job is holding authority over a planet or the entire star system in the name of the Emperor of Mankind. Since the Imperium rules over a million star systems, so long as the governor pay his taxes, keep the mutant and psyker population in check, paying the tithe in form of pskyers, and actually maintaining order, they can do whatever they want with the planet. |
| 523 | ** The Adeptus Mechanicus are so devoted to finding Standard Template Constructs (computer blueprints for weapons, war gear and vehicles) that a pair of Imperial Guard scouts who found an STC for a slightly better combat knife were given noble status and granted governorship of a planet. [[DisproportionateReward Each.]] |
| 524 | ** Overlord Herman von Strab of Armageddon is a specific villainous example; a micromanager and GeneralFailure bar none, von Strab botched the defense of Armageddon during Ghazghkull Thraka's first invasion of the planet, benching veteran Commissar Yarrick over political differences and sacrificing an entire Titan Legion to the orks because how dare someone else tell him how to defend his planet. Von Strab was deposed for this and other failures, but would return during the Third War for Armageddon on ''Ghazghkull's'' side, with the ork intending to use him as a PuppetKing to spite the humans opposing him until he got bored and had him killed. |
| 525 | * PlanetEater: The Tyranids are this, and intend to do it to every life-bearing planet in the galaxy. |
| 526 | * PlanetLooters: Occasionally the Imperium. Tyranids and Necrons go [[ApocalypseHow some way beyond]] "looters". Note Orks will occasionally loot a planet and use it to build a spaceship of ridiculous size. The Leagues of Votann are massive resource hoarders, and will strip any given planet of any resource they need. |
| 527 | * PlanetOfHats: Most inhabited planets are [[SingleBiomePlanet Single Biome Planets]] whose population is remarkably uniform in terms of customs and habits. Somewhat justified as the original Terran colons were grouped from the same nation. For humans, it results in this: everyone from Cadia is a soldier, everyone from Krieg is an exceptionally grim and dour soldier in a longcoat, everyone from Praetoria is a ''Zulu'' extra, everyone from Catachan is Rambo (but more hardcore), everyone from Vostroya is a tsarist Russian soldier, everyone from Attila is a Hun/Mongol horseman... \ |
| 528 | The trope also applies to several races to try and reduce their SeparateButIdentical nature. The Aeldari Craftworlders for instance are split into five major subfactions defined by a couple of characteristics: everyone from Ulthwe is either a professional soldier or a [[PsychicPowers Seer]], everyone from Alaitoc is a [[ColdSniper hooded loner with a sniper rifle]], everyone from Biel-Tan is an [[SplitPersonality Aspect Warrior]], everyone from Saim-Hann rides a [[AirJousting flying]] [[BadassBiker bike]], everyone from Iyanden is ''[[NightOfTheLivingMooks dead]]''. |
| 529 | * PlanetSpaceship: |
| 530 | ** The Necron World Engine, unsurprisingly, is a Necron ship the size of a planet. An entire space marine chapter sacrificed itself to destroy it. |
| 531 | ** Also, the [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Phalanx Phalanx]] is the moon-sized fortress-monastery-spaceship of the Imperial Fists. |
| 532 | ** Eldar Craftworlds, as their name implies. |
| 533 | * PlanetTerra: Earth still exists in the 41st millennium, but is usually referred to as "Holy Terra" in most contexts. It is the capital planet of the Imperium as well as the holy planet of its religion. |
| 534 | * PlanetaryNation: Usually the case for human inhabited planets and partially justified in that the original colons were often from the same nation. The Imperium usually appoints a single governor (how he's chosen varies from planet to planet) to oversee the entire planet. They're usually given full control of their planet and left alone, as long as they pay their tithes and don't show signs of sedition (and they don't call for help, although that's usually less effective at getting someone's attention). Exceptions exists, mostly in Feral Worlds where the colons have regressed into warring tribes and kept that way for the Imperium who needs recruits that have battle experience. |
| 535 | * PlanetaryRelocation: Moving an entire planet without destroying it is an [[WhamEpisode extremely rare event]] and a clear sign of an exceedingly advanced technology or powerful sorcery that usually no one in universe believed possible, but moving moons and giant asteroids to make [[AsteroidMiners extracting their resources]] easier or for use as space fortresses and factories is far more common. |
| 536 | * PlantAliens: The Orks, believe it or not. Well, technically they fall somewhere between this and MushroomMan -- they reproduce via spores (which is something usually associated with fungi, though many plants also reproduce in this manner), but they also have chlorophyll in their skin and can photosynthesize (which is something exclusive to plants and algae). |
| 537 | * PlasmaCannon: A few factions use plasma weapons, which are powerful, have great armour penetration and have a good range too. The downside is that plasma is unstable and dangerous. The Imperium, Heretic Astartes, the Eldar and the T'au all use plasma weapon, as well as the Tyranids who generate bio-plasma. In-game, plasma weapons were dangerous to field for the Imperium and Chaos because a To Hit roll of 1 automatically killed the weapon bearer, but with the 8th Edition, plasma weapons became safer and the player can choose not to supercharge a plasma weapon and avoid the dangerous roll. For their part, Xenos factions use weaker but safe plasma weapons. |
| 538 | * PleasurePlanet: Garden Worlds, having been set aside specifically to provide the elite of the Imperium with all the pampering they wouldn't find on the front lines. |
| 539 | * PlotArmor: Almost none of the characters of any faction have actually died despite spending the majority of their lives on different warzones, not even after the catastrophic apparition of the Cicatrix Maledictum and the ensuing daemonic invasions all over the Imperium. It is more justified for some since their are immortal daemons but also some factions have the power to return people back from the dead. Special mention goes to Marneus Calgar who in the campaign "Vigilus Ablaze", takes on Abaddon the Despoiler and gets his chest pierced by Drach'nyen, both of his heart being slashed open, and yet Calgar survives. The one big exception is Aun'va of the T'au Empire, who was assassinated at the end of a campaign, but the Ethereals then set up a fake with an hologram so that nothing changes in practice. The uncanny survability of these named character can be justified as these characters' miniatures are sold to players who then get to play them. Killing a character off means ending the sales for their models and depriving the players of a miniature they paid for. |
| 540 | * PluckyComicRelief: The Orks. The fact that the comic relief faction are a race of barbaric, bloodthirsty berserkers who wage war and slaughter whole populations for fun tells you everything you need to know about the setting. |
| 541 | * PocketRocketLauncher: |
| 542 | ** Bolters are a type of gun that fire armor-piercing rockets, assisted by a cold-launch system consisting of a conventional explosive cartridge[[note]] canonically, a caseless propellant cylinder, but the art department consistenty refuses to acknowledge that and always shows a SpentShellsShower pouring from a firing bolter[[/note]]. They also tend to be fully automatic. As for size, well it depends on whose pockets they're going into. The sort used by the [[SuperSoldier genetically enhanced]] SpaceMarines are .75 caliber, firing rounds that weigh in at about the size of a 10-gauge shotgun shell. The ones used by Imperial Guard, Rogue Traders, [[StateSec Inquisition agents,]] and gangsters are .50 caliber (the size of a contemporary magnum pistol or HMG). All of them come in pistol, rifle, and wrist-mounted varieties. Deathwatch and Sternguard are issued with bolts carrying special warheads, such as AntiMagic Psicannon bolts and Hellfire bolts carrying a potent chemical weapon, and Scouts are equipped with a "silenced" version that replaces the cold-launch cartridge with a capsule of pressurized gas. The bolt itself has a teensy computer in it that makes it capable of [[RoboTeching seeking a designated target]]. |
| 543 | ** The Aeldari Reaper Launcher is a rifle-sized mitralleuse-style weapon that fires a salvo of small armor-piercing rockets. It's roughly analogous to the Imperium's Heavy Bolter, except for its ([[GameplayAndStorySegregation lore-only]]) fancypants targeting suite that lets its wielder aim from the muzzle and see in the dark. "Exarch" (kinda like a sergeant but more complicated; basically, Aeldari can get addicted to their jobs) versions can arc their shots to bombard entire enemy squads at once. |
| 544 | ** Ork Rokkit Launchas are handheld weapons that can fire salvoes of rockets at the general vicinity of the target (orks and accuracy are not on speaking terms). The weapon (in some cases; orks and mass-production are also estranged) consists of an assault rifle stock with a rocket rack carrying half-a-dozen antitank rockets mounted on the barrel (this is the model used for ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'') or a single, big rocket fired from a rifle receiver (''[=DoW=] 1''). |
| 545 | * PointlessCivicProject: Members of the Ecclesiarchy will often demand the construction of new and lavish centers of worship for the Imperial Cult, even though the considerable space, time and resources they consume could be better used for more practical purposes, like food production or housing. |
| 546 | * PointsOfLightSetting: The Imperium rules about a million star systems, which amounts to 0.00001% of the galaxy; besides it, a few Eldar Cratfworlds and surviving colonies also shine here and there, while the Tau Empire maintains another small pocket of civilization on the galaxy's rim. Between these far-flung worlds there is space for roving hordes of Orks, high-tech ruins millions of years old, hostile alien empires, Chaos abominations, bizarre cosmic phenomena, and any threat or adventure you could care to imagine. This is particularly the case for the Imperium Nihilus, the half of the galaxy left cut off from the psychic lighthouse of the Astronomican by the formation of the Great Rift, which has made faster-than-light travel and communications difficult and unreliable and thus cut off many Imperial worlds and sectors from one another. |
| 547 | * PoisonIsCorrosive: |
| 548 | ** ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'' magazine #98 article "Chapter Approved". Most Space Marines have an implant named Betcher's Gland that creates a highly acidic contact poison. The Marine is able to [[SuperSpit spit the poison at opponents to damage and blind them]]. |
| 549 | ** The noxious substances generated by a Tyranid Venomthrope are not only lethally poisonous, they corrode armor and flesh on contact. |
| 550 | * PoliticallyIncorrectHero: The Imperium are basically CommieNazis with an added huge helping of [[KnightTemplar religious fundamentalism]]. However, they are only considered heroic [[BlackAndGrayMorality in comparison to everyone else in the galaxy]]. |
| 551 | %%* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Considering the trope listed above, it's more like Politically Incorrect ''Everyone''. In a slightly odd subversion, the Imperium is generally portrayed as fairly relaxed about things like race, gender and sexuality.%%ZCE, don't refer to other examples for context. |
| 552 | * PollutedWasteland: Most hive worlds and other heavily-industrialized human or ork planets, including Holy Terra, consist of continents of ash wastes, dust bowls, ancient strip mines and fields of debris and refuse, alternating with toxic seas filled with pollutants and dotted with the hulks of {{Hive Cit|y}}ies. |
| 553 | * PositionOfLiteralPower: A few factions follow this logic. The Astra Militarum Commanders can hail from privileged families and benefit from superior training since childhood, while the Adeptus Mechanicus' Tech Priests' ranks determines how much technology they have access to, so the higher-ups can have their bodies upgraded into more deadly mixes of metal and flesh. Also Tyranid Hive Tyrants are the ones responsible for leading other Tyranids on the battlefield so the Swarm engineers them to be as tough as possible. |
| 554 | %%* PossessionBurnout: Daemonhosts. |
| 555 | * PostApocalypticGasmask: Krieg is an even harsher example of a DeathWorld than most (in ''40K'', that's saying something): their planet was subject to a massive nuclear war, and as a result they wear gasmasks all the time, whether at home or off-world. It goes very well with the WWI trenches look (which Krieg now looks like). |
| 556 | * PowerBornOfMadness: Followers of Chaos are generally crazy enough to do ''anything'', but the Imperium itself acknowledges this trope: "In the darkness, a blind man is the best guide; in an age of madness, look to the madman to lead the way." |
| 557 | * PowerFist: TropeNamer. A Power Fist is an armoured gauntlet encased in a powerful energy field that disrupts any solid matter it touches, and also augments the strength of the wielder. When using a power fist, the wearer can tear apart the heavy armour of vehicles and kill monstrous creatures with relative ease. |
| 558 | %%* PowerFloats: C'tan. |
| 559 | %%** Also the Zoanthrope. How else could such an atrophied body support that enormous head? |
| 560 | %%* PowerGivesYouWings: Living Saints, daemon princes. |
| 561 | * PowerIncontinence: Usually human and Ork psykers, but also some Chaos sorcerers. |
| 562 | * PowerLimiter: Applied to psykers such as Astropaths and Guard Sanctioned Psykers, making them less powerful but a little less likely to go insane and melt everyone. |
| 563 | * PowerNullifier: Noctilith (more commonly known as Blackstone) is a mysterious substance that can affect the warp and warp-based powers in a number of ways. When properly shaped and polarized, noctilith can repel and neutralize warp-energy. The ancient Necrontyr used this substance to create arcane monoliths, such as the Cadian Pylons, across the galaxy that reinforced the boundary between material space and the immaterium, while the Drukhari use the material in an attempt to halt the widening of the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Chasm of Woe]] that is threatening the heart of the Dark City. |
| 564 | * ThePowerOfHate: Hatred is one of the most common emotions in the 41st Millennium and it can drive individuals, groups, or entire races to perform great feats of violence when they are confronted by their despised foes. How this is represented on the tabletop depends on the edition but rules such as Hatred and Preferred Enemy typically give bonuses when fighting against a hated foe in hand to hand combat as the model is driven into a fury by their opponent's existence. In addition to this, some editions also give a model bonuses to their [[MoraleMechanic Leadership characteristic]] as they refuse to run from their loathed enemies. |
| 565 | ** Hate is considered a moral virtue in the Imperium. The Imperial Creed demands that its adherents hate the alien, the mutant, and the heretic. This public celebration of hatred and exhortation to hate is probably inspired by dystopian science fiction like the Orwell novel 1984. |
| 566 | * ThePowerOfRock: Slaaneshi Noise Marines. Corrupt power armoured super soldiers armed with daemonic ''[[strike: killer guitars]]'' weaponized synthesizers, who blow people apart with their ''power chords''. |
| 567 | * PowerPerversionPotential: Slaanesh is literally the god of PowerPerversionPotential. If you're a servant of Slaanesh who ''doesn't'' use the god's Gifts in this way, you're doing it wrong. |
| 568 | * PoweredArmour: |
| 569 | ** Imperial: Varies from what-it-says-on-the-tin man-sized suits of armour that can carry themselves and protect against conventional small arms, to the ridiculous terminator armour (or tactical dreadnought armour) that originally was built to allow for handling of plasma cores, typically comes with an integral PowerFist and can let the user one-hand most heavy weapons, to dreadnoughts, walking tanks that use space marines preserved in integral sarcophagi after near-fatal injure. |
| 570 | ** Chaos: As above, corrupted by the forces of [[SpikesOfVillainy spiky Chaos]] and pulsating with daemonic energies, screaming faces and trophy racks of skulls . Also, might involve horns and tentacles. |
| 571 | ** Eldar: Advanced body-suits made out of living plastic covered in gems, can change shape according to the will of the user and frequently come with psychically activated helmet-mounted nasties. Generally doesn't enhance strength but can come with integrated weapons. Can also come equipped with holographic generators, which let them dance around while the enemy think they're somewhere else-- which while being utter genius, is useless against someone blasting you with a tank (in theory). |
| 572 | *** Dark Eldar: As above with blades and SpikesOfVillainy... [[{{Stripperiffic}} when they bother to wear it.]] |
| 573 | ** Tau: {{Animesque}} suits ranging from Tau-sized bodysuits with cloaking fields to mini-HumongousMecha mounting vehicle-killing railguns and packing small saucer-shaped drones for shielding. Usually lacks competent melee weaponry, though. Granted, the suit itself is strong enough to make a tank explode by kicking the engine, but that doesn't change the fact that the Tau inside fights like a little old lady. |
| 574 | ** Leagues of Votann: Being descendants of humanity, power armour is ubiquitous in the Leagues. Theirs is less bulky than Space Marine armor, more technologically advanced, and way more versatile, as it also has uses outside combat (mainly mining). |
| 575 | * PowerfulButInaccurate: A general rule for balance reasons, as the standard weapons include handheld rapid-fire grenade launchers and disintegrator rays and the weakest possible gun can blow a man's arm off. Less so in the fluff. |
| 576 | * PowerUpgradingDeformation: Basically anything naughty Chaos makes grow on you. |
| 577 | * PraetorianGuard: Most of the Primarchs had some sort of honor guard to protect them and/or to intimidate their foes. Some of these, such as Mortarion's Deathshroud and Sanguinius's Sanguinary Guard for Sanguinius, survive until the 41st Millennium. |
| 578 | %%* PreAssKickingOneLiner |
| 579 | * PreRenderedGraphics: ''VideoGame/FinalLiberationWarhammerEpic40000''[='=]s cinematics featured live-action mixed with pre-rendered graphics. |
| 580 | * {{Precursors}}: The Old Ones were the first sentient race to evolve in the galaxy and they were responsible for guiding, if not outright creating, many of the races that followed before being destroyed in their war with the Necrontyr and the C'tan masters. |
| 581 | * PrehistoricAnimalAnalogue: Various planets are home to a variety of dinosaur-like animals. The Exodite faction of Aeldari, who call them "[[DinosaursAreDragons dragons]]", even use them as mounts. |
| 582 | %%* PrescienceIsPredictable |
| 583 | * PrimalFear: Apart from being ''made'' largely out of hideous monsters and darkness, Sarpedon's main psychic power in the Soul Drinker series deserves points: it's called the Hell, and it conjures illusions of whatever Sarpedon thinks will scare the crap out of the enemy, such as making all his Marines three times as large or causing hellbats to come out of nowhere. |
| 584 | ** The C'tan ''Nightbringer'', who has the honor of being the origin for the fear of death in all living things (as well as the Grim Reaper figure)-- except the Orks and Tyranids, of course. |
| 585 | %%* PrimordialChaos: The Warp. |
| 586 | * PrivateMilitaryContractors: For all the Tau's efforts at securing their loyalty, the Kroot will work for anyone who can offer appropriate compensation. Ork and Dark Eldar mercenaries have also been seen on occasion (although hiring either would have to qualify you as TooDumbToLive), as well as Human ones. |
| 587 | * ProhumanTranshuman: |
| 588 | ** Space Marines, depending on the chapter. Most exemplified with the Salamanders (even more so than other humanitarian chapters like the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves), who have hurting civilians as their prime BerserkButton. |
| 589 | ** Other Astartes chapters have a bad habit of seeing themselves as too self-containted or too elite to really do anything but look down on humanity. [[JerkassHasAPoint Granted]], the average Imperial citizen is a superstitious peasant, just barely educated enough to do a job that s/he was born into and will be expected to die doing, and is in poor health due to a lifetime of living in a polluted hive; compared to a space marine who has access to some of the best education, and is highly physically superior to a human in perfect health, and you can see where they start to look down on the seething mass of humanity. |
| 590 | ** {{Averted}} with Chaos Space Marines, [[MisanthropeSupreme who see humanity as little better than animals]], and either enslave or exterminate regular humans, depending on their disposition. They will occaisionally recruit as a necessity, but they won't respect their recruits until they are elevated to a full marine, and many times not even then. It's technically possible for the trope to be played straight amongst the Heretic Astartes, genuinely seeing themselves as liberators and enlightened leaders against the darkness of Imperial ignorance, but it would be an incredibly rare attitude for a Chaos Space Marine. |
| 591 | ** Roboute Guilliman, one of the Primarchs who saw himself as an outsider to humanity and hence a leader and sponsor for the masses. Once he took control of the Imperium in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, one of his reforms was to ban transhumans from the Senatorum Imperialis, the ruling body of the Imperium, with the exception of the Captain-General of the Custodes being allowed on one of the rotating seats of the High Lords, in the case of Senate politics intruding on the work of the keeping the Emperor safe. Unfortunately, one of the results of ten thousand years of stagnation was the highest ruling body, the High Lords, becoming [[DeadlyDecadentCourt a pit of vipers and heartless schemers]] who are willfully blind to the broader effects their politicking and self-indulgent powerplays. This was the state of affairs right up until Roboute came back and assumed power, one of his first acts being to repeal his own decree. |
| 592 | * PromotedToPlayable: Over time, several characters who appeared in the franchise through the lore such as novels were eventually given their own tabletop models and rules. For instance, Ibram Gaunt and some of the named guardsmen from the Literature/GauntsGhosts series or Severina Raine from the novel ''Honorbound'' have models with their own rules. |
| 593 | * ProperlyParanoid: Justified -- if you're ''not'' paranoid in this setting, you should be: everything ''really is'' [[EverythingTryingToKillYou out to get you]]. This is to the point where in the first edition TabletopGame/DarkHeresy rules, 'Paranoid' is a purely beneficial Talent that is available for very little cost to most low level characters; it grants a +2 bonus to initiative tests. It's also explicitly described as an ''above-average'' level of paranoia -- all of you are assumed to be at least a little twitchy. |
| 594 | * PropheticNames: A note to anyone founding a Space Marine Legion: if they call themselves something like the Night Lords, Death Guard or World Eaters, you may want to keep an eye on them. Especially if any of the top officers have names like Night Haunter or Abaddon. This tendency led to the creation of the name "Brother Chaoslover Belial O'Satan" on the Inquisitor fora. No prizes for guessing where his allegiance lies. |
| 595 | ** Subverted by the Emperor's Children. There are also loyalists named Dark or Blood Angels (though a faction of Dark Angels did turn their backs on Daddy). |
| 596 | *** Flat out subverted across the board if you look beyond the Legions, with names like the Angels of Damnation, Marauders, Rampagers, Destroyers, Soul Drinkers, Flesh Tearers and Mortifactors. All belong to well known Loyalist chapters, although the Flesh Tearers subvert the subversion by behaving in a way [[BloodKnight Kharn]] would be proud of. |
| 597 | ** Similarly, naming your planet Tartarus or Armageddon is [[TemptingFate just asking for trouble.]] |
| 598 | *** Necromunda, oddly enough, is overly teeming with life (in the Hives, outside of them, it is actually covered in deadly earth). Still, manages to live up to its name. |
| 599 | * ProtectiveCharm: Purity seals can be attached to just about ''anything'' to protect them from DemonicPossession. |
| 600 | * ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Khorne Berserkers are one part this to nine parts AxeCrazy. And "Orks iz made for fightin'." Space Marines also qualify to some extent.%%Also: Biel-tan, Lucius the Eternal, Cadia, the Tau Fire Caste... let's just say ''40k'' is quite fond of this trope and move on.%%[=ZCEs=] |
| 601 | * PsychicPowers: The setting includes a lot of "psykers", individuals possessing psychic abilities who draw their powers from the Immaterium. Said abilities can range from shooting psychic fire to reading minds or even predicting the future, but are always dangerous since they involve the volatile energy of the Warp. In the background lore, Psykers are everywhere: to the Imperium, they are essential for FTL travel and interplanetary communications, but are also mostly shunned. Both in lore and in game, most factions can count psykers among their leaders and most dangerous individuals, from Aeldari Farseers to Ork Weirboyz and of course Chaos Sorcerers. On the tabletop, psykers also have a whole Psychic Phase devoted to them, during which they can use their esoteric powers in battle. |
| 602 | * PsychicStarshipPilot: Navigators are a specific class of mutant with a genetically engineered third eye that can see the Astronomicon in the Warp. |
| 603 | * PsychicStatic: The Shadow in the Warp is a manifestation of the Hive Mind's presence within the Immaterium, which greatly impedes or even blocks out all manner of psychic communications and travel (which makes it incredibly difficult if not impossible to call for help once a Hive Fleet begins invading a world) and drives all but the most powerful psykers insane upon contact. |
| 604 | * PunyEarthlings: Non-Space Marine Humans are among the most feeble things that can be seen on the battlefields of the 41st Millenium. The Imperial Guard attempt to compensate for this with [[MoreDakka weight of fire]], [[BaseOnWheels very large tanks]] and [[WeHaveReserves sheer numbers]]. To be fair, most Imperial Guard regiments have extensively trained in close-quarter combat and are quite skilled for their size, which is why it's possible (if sometimes unlikely) that a bayonet-fixed Guardsman can take down a huge Ork or a nimble Eldar in a fight. Heck, going up against the Tau (canonically averaging about a foot shorter than humans outside of [[MiniMecha battlesuits]] and focusing on ranged weapons) is about the one time the Guard gets to pull a banzai-charge with a fairly good chance of victory. Of course, that's why the Tau hire the Kroot... |
| 605 | %%* PutOnABus: Many of the loyalist Primarchs. |
| 606 | * PuttingOnTheReich: The uniform of many Imperial regiments, and Commissars in particular. |
| 607 | * PyrrhicVictory |
| 608 | ** The Necrons defeated the Old Ones and enslaved the C'Tan but their resources were drained and the Eldar and the Orks were multiplying too fast to be dealt with so the Necrons went into cryostasis hoping the younger races would just die out. The Necrons have awoken but there are still too many living races around. |
| 609 | ** The Horus Heresy is defeated but The Emperor is incapacitated, two of the loyalist Primarchs are dead, and the Imperium's reorganization would twist The Emperor's utopian vision into an Orwellian nightmare of epic proportions. |
| 610 | ** Exterminatus. While the Imperium technically "wins", the destruction of a former Imperial world leaves the Imperium as a whole permanently weaker for it: naturally, this is the go-to solution to when a planetary situation has spiraled out of control, reconquest would prove too difficult, or an Inquisitor has an itchy trigger finger. |
| 611 | [[/folder]] |
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