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alt title(s): Warhammer 40 K; Warhammer Forty Thousand
Suffer not the unclean to live.
Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Warhammer 40,000, known informally as "Warhammer 40k" or just plain "40k", is a miniatures-based tabletop strategy game by Games Workshop. Drawing heavily on their previous Warhammer Fantasy game, it began as "Warhammer In Space", but has over time grown distinct from (and far more popular than) its fantasy counterpart.
Thirty-eight thousand years in the future, the mighty Imperium of Man has expanded across the galaxy... to discover that the galaxy is a hell that would make Hieronymous Bosch shit himself in terror, and that it has a hell. From without, the Imperium is assailed by alien monsters from the depths of space, nightmare death-machines and soulless daemons (as well as soulless death-machines and nightmare daemons); from within, treachery, heresy, mindless incompetence and the festering taint of Chaos threaten to tear it apart.
Warhammer 40,000 is not a happy place. Rather than just being Darker And Edgier, it paints itself non-reflective matte black, takes a running jump and hurls itself head first over the edge, bellowing "WAAAGH". The Imperium of Man is an oppressive, stark, and downright miserable place to live in where, for far too many people, living isn't something to do till you die, but something to do till something comes around and kills you in an unbelievably horrible way - quite probably something on your own side. The Messiah has been locked up on life support for the past ten millennia, laid low by his most beloved son, and an incomprehensibly vast Church Militant commits hourly atrocities in his name.
The problem is, as bad as the Imperium is, they're not quite as bad as many of the other factions. Death is about the best you can hope for against the vast majority of the other major players in the battlefields of the 41st Millennium. The basic premise of 40k, insofar as it can be summed up, is that of an eternal, impossibly vast conflict between a number of absurdly powerful genocidal, xenocidal and in one case omnicidal factions, with every single weapon, ideology and creative piece of nastiness imaginable turned up to eleven. The basic sidearm of a Space Marine is a fully automatic armour-piercing rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The Astronomican, a navigation aid, has the souls of thousands of psychic humans sacrificed to it every day, dying by inches to feed the machine. The faster-than-light travel used by most factions carries with it a good chance of being eaten by daemons. There are also chainsaw swords, armored gloves that crush tanks, mountain-sized daemonic walking battle cathedrals, tanks the size of small cities and warships that level continents, if not simply obliterating all life on an entire planet just to be sure. And sometimes even that doesn't work. There is no time for peace, no respite, no forgiveness; there is only war.
The 40k universe is a spectacularly brutal playground of tropes and horrible things taken to their absolute extreme. Entire planets with populations of billions are lost due to rounding errors in tax returns. Orders of capricious, fanatical, genetically engineered Super Soldier Knights Templar serve as the Imperium's special forces, while the trillions of soldiers in its regular armies take disregard for human life further than most people could believe possible. A futuristic space Inquisition ruthlessly hunts down anyone with even a hint of the taint of the heretic, the mutant, or the alien, and is backed up by legions of supercharged daemonhunting super soldiers and fanatical power-armoured battle nuns. The ancient and debased manipulator-race contrive wars that see billions dead so that they can survive; their depraved cousins cannot live without torturing numberless innocents to death in unimaginably horrible ways. There's a Bug Swarm trying to eat everything in the galaxy, a light-years wide hole in reality through which countless daemons and corrupted daemon-powered super-soldiers periodically attempt to destroy the universe, and an entire civilisation of undying Omnicidal Maniacs serving their star- god masters' desire to exterminate all living creatures, down to the last bacterium. There's a genetically-engineered survivor warrior species infesting every corner of the galaxy and cheerfully trying to kill everything else in the galaxy because it's literally hard-wired into their genetic code. The closest thing to the good guys you can find in this setting is a tiny alien empire sandwiched between all the other factions, and they have a thing for forcing new subjects into their empire through orbital bombardment, sterilization, and concentration camps, but they will at least offer you admittance to their club.
As well as the game itself and its rulebooks, faction-specific, setting-specific and campaign sourcebooks, 40k has spawned a range of spinoff games and publications. Over sixty 40k novels and short story anthologies, including the successful Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, and Ciaphas Cain novels, are published by the Black Library, a subsidiary of Games Workshop, who also published the now out-of-print comic book Warhammer Monthly and short story magazine Inferno. Boom! Studios now publish comics set in the Warhammer 40K universe, in the form of various mini-series, rather than an ongoing title. There is even a full-length fan film, Damnatus, which was approved, made, banned over conflicts between British and German IP laws, then leaked online. Spinoff tabletop games include the space combat game Battlefleet Gothic, large-scale strategy Epic 40,000, gang-based Necromunda, all-Ork Gorkamorka, small scale Alien-influenced Space Hulk, RPG-influenced "narrative wargame" Inquisitor, and the more traditional RPGs Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. A small but growing number of 40k videogames have also been made, of which the most recent are Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War and its sequel Dawn Of War II, a pair of Real Time Strategy games for the PC, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior, a First Person Shooter, and Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command, a turn-based tactical game. Currently in development are a third-person shooter, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, and a MMORPG under the imaginative working title of Warhammer 40,000 Online.
A more in-depth look at the tropes specifically embodied by the various major factions can be found here.
Spin-offs and games of Warhammer 40000 that have received indexes of their own:
Tropes for the Trope God, Examples for the Example Throne!
- Absurdly Sharp Blade (Nearly every faction has an example; many races' basic close combat weapons have monomolecular edges, and it only gets sharper from there.)
- Abnormal Ammo (Guns which fire razor-edged molecule-thick ninja stars, guns which fire nets of Razor Floss, guns which fire wooden stakes, flamethrowers which squirt holy napalm, biological guns which use, um, muscle spasms to fire flesh-eating beetles/maggots or exploding tumours, guns which open holes into hell, guns which fire tiny goblins through hell, grenades filled with tears collected from a thousand crying statues of the Emperor.)
- Space Marine Sternguard Veterans ONLY carry abnormal ammo: rocket-propelled anti-armor rounds, rocket-propelled flaming airburst rounds, rocket-propelled vials of flesh-eating acid, and rocket-propelled miniaturized fusion bombs.
- Aside from a very few conventional laser weapons, Eldar ranged weapons use abnormal ammo — if they use ammo at all — more or less exclusively.
- Eldar Shuriken weaponry fire monomolecular razor discs.
- Don't forget the Necrons have guns which literally flay your skin, flesh, organs, then BONES into their molecular
components with bolts of green lightning.
- Abusive Precursors (C'tan definitely qualify.)
- The Dark and Craftworld Eldar to a lesser but still notable extent.
- Achievements In Ignorance (Ork technology as a whole, via Clap Your Hands If You Believe.)
- The Aesthetics Of Technology (Brutally averted for the Imperium. That huge, boxy, primitive-looking Leman Russ? That tank is so damn maneuverable it can practically tap dance. Also played straight for Eldar, whose tech is every bit as advanced as the inhuman sleekness suggests.)
- A Father To His Men (Literal in the case of the Emperor to the Primarchs and the Primarchs to their respective legions during the Great Crusade. Also see the image on that page for much lulz.)
- Affably Evil (Nurgle loves his little children, and shows it by giving them gifts (of horrible, flesh-eating diseases). His followers even refer to him as "Father Nurgle". He's like a festering, disgusting Santa Claus.)
- One of the three remaining Eldar Gods, Isha, the goddess of healing, is his prisoner, and he uses her as a test subject for his plagues. Since she's the goddess of healing, they are instantly cured. Her fate would be much worse if she had fallen into the hands of the other Chaos God who sought to claim her. Being taken alive by Slaanesh him(her? it?)self is, even in the 40k universe, perhaps the single worst fate imaginable. At least Nurgle does love her, though being a Chaos God with atrocious codependency issues makes him express it in twisted ways. It is unknown if the feeling is mutual, as Isha secretly sends out the cures to as many of Nurgle's plagues as she can to try and help the enemies of Chaos but Stockholm Syndrome would have undoubtedly taken some effect in the millenia since Nurgle rescued her from Slaanesh.
- After Action Report (Battle reports, a long-standing feature in White Dwarf magazine.)
- After The End (Though there have been about five "ends" for humanity alone, each more awful than the last.)
- AI Is A Crapshoot (The first true human-created artificial intelligences, the Iron Men, wiped out humanity's first great interstellar civilization and plunged the human race into a galaxy-wide dark age. The Adeptus Mechanicus outlawed sentient AIs as a result, and for the most part the Imperium's modern-day "machine spirits" are pretty well-behaved.)
- Tau drones are also entirely well-behaved. Mind you, their AI is approximately the same as a squirrel (OK, pterasquirrel).
- Individually, they're not quite intelligent. However, these things can link up and create more intelligent systems by combining their processing power. Potentially, a large enough Gun Drone squad could become sentient. (say, +50?)
- Air Jousting (Eldar Shining Spears: space elf knights on flying bikes with laser lances.)
- AKA 47 (Some vehicles were quite clearly based on certain real-life vehicles:)
- The Imperial Guard's Bombard siege mortars were based on Nazi Germany's Karl-Gerat super heavy mortars. Their Chimera was based on the old [pre-Desert Storm] Bradley, including having Lasguns as firing port weapons.
- The Space Marine Rhino is a clone of the M113 APC; the original all-plastic Predator has a T-55 turret stuck on top. The Land Raider is apparently a copy of some kind of snowmobile.
- Alien Blood (Tau have blue blood and Tyranid fluids are generally described as "ichor". Eldar and Orks have red blood, although Eldar blood crystallizes instead of scabbing, and Ork blood used to be as green as their skin before Games Workshop retconned that. The Orks are now considered green due to thick amounts of algae that grow beneath their skin.)
- Alien Geometries (Try not to look too hard at Chaos buildings, or anything else Chaos makes, for that matter. Bad idea.)
- Aliens And Monsters
- The Alliance (The Tau Empire, who are the only faction with significant allies outside their own species. This being 40K, they don't always get along. And then there's the people who suspect brainwashing, and the evidence of forced sterilization and concentration camps....)
- All There In The Manual (Numerous rulebooks, novels, magazines, supplemental sourcebooks and spinoff games with their own sets.)
- Alternate Character Interpretation (Pretty much every organisation's actions and motivations can be "read" in several different ways.)
- Always Chaotic Evil (Chaos and the Dark Eldar. Conversely the Tau and the Imperium are Always Lawful
Evil Extremist, Craftworld Eldar are Always Lawful Neutral Manipulative, the Orks are Always Chaotic Evil Rambunctious, the Necrons are Always Lawful Evil Omnicidal, and the Tyranids are Always Neutral Evil Hungry. All subject to interpretation, of course.)
- And get this: in spite of all the atrocities they commit, the Imperials still consider themselves to be Lawful Good. Or at least Lawful Neutral, for those who aren't Space Marines or Grey Knights.
- Amazon Brigade (The Sisters of Battle and Eldar Howling Banshees. Not the Dark Eldar Wyches, oddly enough, unlike their Warhammer counterparts.)
- Howling Banshees do have male members according to the lore, though they are rare. This is not, however, represented in any of the models.
- It's stated in some sources that males walking the path of the Howling Banshee shed their gender identity and consider themselves female, so it's more like Amazon-Transsexual Brigade.
- A Mech By Any Other Name (Dreadnoughts, Wraithlords, Gargants, Titans, etc.)
-
A Million Ten Billion Is A Statistic
- Ancient Conspiracy (All over the place. Just as planned...)
- A key example of this is a multi-race super secret Illuminati like group, whose entire goal is to rid the universe of Chaos. And what, do you ask, is their genius way of doing this? Aid Horus in every single way so he kills the Emperor, hopefully relying on the fact this will trigger the last ounce of guilt in Horus, effectively driving him into emo mood, which will cause only more civil war, eventually ridding the universe of humanity and leaving Chaos' best plaything destroyed. Evidently their plans weren't that smart. Horus got a nasty headache.
- There's also the Cabal from the Horus Heresy novel, Legion - an organisation of various elder (and Eldar) aliens which aimed to prevent Chaos from killing the universe. They recruited the Alpha Legion to this end but their success is...unclear, to say the least...
- Ancestral Weapon (Almost everyone's equipment seems to be ancient to some degree, most notably Eldar and Marine wargear and Necron everything. Somewhat justified by the fact that a lot of the more advanced wargear has to consist of ancient hand-me-downs, because humanity has largely forgotten how the technology works and considers it magical. More progress would be made in regaining that lost knowledge, but the Adeptus Mechanicus, the priesthood of technology, guards all their secrets jealously and takes a dim view of innovations that aren't based on pre-existing technologies.)
- And I Must Scream (The Outsider, victims of daemonic possession, possibly Necrons.)
- And Man Grew Proud (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.)
- Animesque (The Tau and the Eldar, albeit in two diametrically-opposed fashions.)
- Annoying Arrows (Half averted, half played weirdly straight - there's at least one instance of alien bows and arrows going straight through Space Marines, but failing to harm them because of their superhuman toughness.)
- Another Dimension (The Warp.)
- Anti Magic (Pariahs, Blanks and Untouchables nullifying psyker abilities. Which means you're immune to all the psychic and sorcerous nastiness out there, but everyone hates you because you have no soul and the Necrons will do unpleasant things to you if they find you. Oh, and some Pariahs will actually harm psykers just by standing close by.)
- Apathy Killed The Cat (Imperial domestic policy. "Only the awkward question; only the foolish ask twice.")
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape (Played straight by the Craftworld Eldar and the Tau. Thoroughly averted by everyone else, who gladly maim, torture, kill, and even eat members of their own race, and claim no moral superiority from avoiding such acts.)
- Apocalypse How (Has an example on every level of the scale.)
- Apocalyptic Log (A few have cropped up from doomed Imperial research expeditions.)
- Apologetic Attacker (The Tau claim to always be this, at any rate.)
- Aristocrats Are Evil (Or just corrupt and really stupid; various background pieces have members of the Imperial upper classes joining Chaos cults out of boredom, smuggling xeno artifacts, using Dark Eldar as mercenaries to sort out their rivals, trying to cut a deal with the Physical God of death...)
- Army Of The Dead (The Legion of the Damned, a Space Marines chapter that got lost in the Warp and became spectral beings. They occasionally emerge from the warp to turn the tide of a battle in favor of the Imperium before disappearing again.)
- To lesser extent, the soul-powered Wraithlords and Wraithguard of the Eldar.
- Artifact Of Death (Most Daemon weapons lead to their owner's doom eventually.)
- Artifact Of Doom (By the truckload in every size and shape imaginable, from simple daemon weapons to entire planets serving as the titular cans in Sealed Evil In A Can.)
- Arm Cannon (Chaos Obliterators are this all over: their bodies are partly made out of weapons.)
- The Grey Knights strap rocket-propelled grenade launchers to their wrists as standard armaments.
- Armour Is Useless (Generally averted - armour and force fields can and do make a difference most of the time. However, there's no shortage of weapons that make a mockery of even the toughest physical armour: AP2 and AP1 ranged weapons, rending weapons of all sorts (on a good roll), power weapons and their variants, and literally anything used by a Monstrous Creature in melee. And then there are weapons so powerful they could not care less about any conventional protection, including vortex weapons, C'tan phase weapons, and certain daemon weapons.)
- Within the background, the standard flak armour is considered to be almost useless against the weapons of pretty much every other race in the universe.
- Artificial Limbs (May be the above Arm Cannon. Even in the higher echelons of pretty much every Imperial organisation, there is some discrepancy over just what it is possible to replace damaged parts with. Sometimes actual flesh and blood vat grown limbs are referred to, but most of the time it's large, mechanical, piston-driven coolness.)
- Art Major Biology (First the genetically-engineered supermen are designed to look cool, then they later explain how it (doesn't) work.)
- Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence (The Emperor already has.)
- As Long As There Is Evil (Chaos, but the Necrons seem to have an... unorthodox solution to the problem in mind: permanently sealing the Materium from the Immaterium by killing everything, everywhere, down to the last bacterium.)
- Asskicking Equals Authority (Ork 'society'. It is said that a powerful enough Ork warlord uniting all of the galaxy's Orks could curbstomp every other faction. This is also how Space Marines get promoted, and how champions of Chaos gain renown.)
- A Team Firing (All Orks ever, who consider More Dakka far more important than such nonsense as "aiming". The one exception would be Warboss Nazdreg, who has learned that dakka + aimin' = bigga 'splosions.)
- The Atoner (Cypher and the Fallen Angels, also the Lamenters chapter and (most of) the Craftworld Eldar.)
- Atop A Mountain Of Corpses
- Attack Attack Attack (Orks)
- Attack Drone (Widely used by the Tau. Imperial servo-skulls are also somewhat like this.)
- Attack Pattern Alpha (Tau and Imperial militaries follow this.)
- Authority Equals Asskicking (Many Chaos leaders are warp-enhanced, the original Primarchs literally were demi-gods, and Ork and Tyranid leaders are Large And In Charge. Prevalent for all races in the tabletop game, though in later editions, either justified or rectified - taking away things like the unrealistically high Toughness of human characters, justifying the amazing weapon skills of certain heroes because they've literally been doing this sort of thing for centuries.)
- Also, this trope is arguably justified in that surviving to be promoted so high in Warhammer 40000 is really unlikely to be based off your luck. And if it is, you just won't survive in that position for very long.
- Marneus Calgar, chapter master of the Ultramarines, has a special rule titled "God of War". 'nuff said.
- Automatically Violent (Generally the case with Chaos-inspired madness, though in most cases those afflicted were already violent.)
- Ave Machina (The Adeptus Mechanicus first and foremost, but also the Iron Hands chapter of Space Marines.)
- Axe Crazy (Two words: Khorne Berserkers. The worst of the bunch is Kharn the Betrayer, who's so blood thirsty that any missed attacks in close combat hit anyone in the same squad as him. Known to randomly kill anyone in his way, even other Khorne Berserkers.)
- Lesser Axe Crazies include Imperial Penal Legion troopers, Blood Angel Space Marines in the throes of the Black Rage, and the entire Ork race.
- It should be noted that while every single Ork is an Omnicidal Axe Crazy Complete Monster by human standards, members of the Goff klan are considered Axe Crazy by other Orks.
- Badass (Pretty much every character. Hell, pretty much every foot soldier. Characters get a whole new level of badass.)
- Badass Abnormal (The Sisters of Battle used to be nothing more than power armored nuns with guns; better equipment and training aside, they were just ordinary humans like the Imperial Guard. Recent Sisters lists have weaponized the Sisters' faith, allowing them to manifest battlefield miracles that protect them from enemy fire and further increase their combat prowess.)
- Badass Army (EVERY PLAYABLE ARMY.)
- Badass Biker (How much more badass do you get than screaming green maniacs on ramshackle scrap-metal motorbikes laden with giant machine guns? Oh yeah, that would be the Super Soldiers on giant armoured bikes the size of cars. Or the evil Super Soldiers on hell motorbikes covered in blades and skulls... or maybe the space-elf knights on flying bikes with laser lances... or the evil space elves that can fly their bladed flying death bikes with enough skill to cut specific arteries.)
- Let's not forget about DOOM RIDER, who's basically the Chaos equivalent of Ghost Rider (and who may or may not do cocaine... oh, who are we kidding. He's a daemon prince of Slaanesh, of course he does cocaine. And a bunch of other horrifying substances that make cocaine seem like powdered milk by comparison).
- Don't forget to mention the White Scars, which is basically an entire Space Marine chapter of Badass Bikers.
- Or Wazzdakka Gutsmek, who is this Trope personified. This Ork does things like ramping his monstrous bike off a cliff to ram it into the cockpit of a Titan just so he can personally punch out the pilots. His bike has fully-automatic tank cannons mounted on it.
- Badass Boast (Too many to count.)
- Badass Creed (Just about everyone barring Tyranids and Necrons. Generally shouted as a battle cry.)
- Badass Decay (The Necrons in general and the Void Dragon in particular have been steadily losing their mystery and power since being introduced.)
- Badass Grandpa (Lots. Pretty much every Space Marine will see their first century, the Craftworld and Dark Eldar can live for millennia, the original Traitor Legions are going ten thousand years and still counting, while the Necrons, being older than most other things in the universe and with regenerating metal bodies, outlive most of the opposition.)
- Commander Dante, the current Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, is 1,100 years old, the oldest Space Marine in the Imperium. He is so experienced, fearless, and powerful that the Chapter Masters of the Salamanders and Ultramarines, Tu'Shan and Marneus Calgar, when asked who should head the Armageddon intervention, picked him unanimously.
- Badass Longcoat (Fear the Commissar more than you fear the enemy!)
- Badass Normal (The Imperial Guard: ordinary human soldiers, taking on enemies that can kill ordinary human soldiers by looking at them funny, and winning. Admittedly more visible in the fiction than on the tabletop....until the latest Codex.)
- Retired Badass (more than can be counted. Commissar Sebastian Yarrick, any Space Marine Dreadnought, and Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! among them.)
- Aun'shi of the Tau got pretty close to retiring, before he was put back on duty by his bosses.
- Bad Boss (Ok, maybe many Comissars have the justification of shooting fleeing men because there are a lot that can follow suit, and their infantry depend on More Dakka via their numbers to kill stuff, but...)
- Commander Chenkov of Valhalla routinely abuses the Imperial Guard's reserves to overwhelm the enemy with endless waves of poorly-trained, disposable conscripts. He's also been known to use his troops to clear minefields for tanks and bog enemy units down so that the artillery can shell them, and once executed a million of his own men to build a dam from their bodies. His regiment, the Tundra Wolves, has been refounded more than a dozen times in recent decades due to casualties, and it's rumored that he's killed more of his own men than he has of the enemy. And of course, since this is the Imperium, he's routinely awarded medals and commendations for quickly defeating the enemy with these brutal tactics.
- Ork Nobz also aren't above "krakkin' a few uv da ladz' 'eadz" (often fatally) in order to restore order, and Runtherdz maintain the "morale" of their Gretchin charges by having their squighounds devour a couple of them whenever they try to flee.
- The grand master of this trope (insofar as the 40k universe has a grand master of horribleness) is Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos. A fairly unpleasant person BEFORE he turned to Chaos, Abbadon is very much a believer in the Darth Vader approach of anger control, namely immediately killing those who displease him. However, this being the GRIMDARK setting it is, Abaddon takes it just one step further and will happily destroy ships of his own fleet if the captain of said vessel displeases him. And keep in mind his flagship was at one time the aptly titled Planet Killer.
- Bad Powers Bad People (Chaos.)
- Bad Vibrations (Justified - if you don't feel the tremors of an approaching Titan, you deserve what you get.)
- Barbarian Horde (The Space Wolves and White Scars recruit solely from the Barbarians of their homeworld.)
- The entire Ork race is viewed as a Barbarian Horde by the galaxy's other races, given their penchant for fielding large numbers of screaming infantry armed with overlarge weapons. The Snakebite Clan in particular is considered a Barbarian Horde by other Orks, forsaking what few niceties Ork civilization has for the joy of riding enormous snorting warboars and squiggoths into battle.
- Base On Wheels (The Leviathan, a mobile command centre on treads the size of a small city... which acts as an APC for tanks.)
- Orks have their own version - A krawla will vary in size from a tank APC to a city on wheels which may in turn contain smaller krawlaz.
- Before the setting got rid of them, the Squats specialised in these, and it was said they built the Leviathans. Back in the days when Epic was still called Space Marine, there was also the Cyclops [a colossal anti-Titan assault gun], Land Train, Colossus [a Leviathan variant], Hellbore [a ridiculously huge drilling machine], the Ordinatus machines, and the Capitol Imperialis [the modern Leviathan is a ret-combination of this tank-carrying monstrosity and the old Leviathan which was just a mobile command post].
- The Imperator Titan is also essentially a base on legs which carries an entire castle around on it's back, particularly when the ridiculously complex Titan Legions rules are used; the same applies to the Mega-Gargant. This Troper also recalls the canned variant Imperators that were supposed to follow the release of the Titan Legions but never did, one of which would have had an entire aircraft carrier deck on it's back.
- Beam Spam (Imperial Guard infantrymen almost-universally tote rapid-firing laser weapons, and they field a lot of men.)
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished (Often played straight by the Eldar, and justified by the Callidus Assassins (who are all shapeshifters). Generally avoided by the Sisters of Battle, who are about as ugly, scarred and broken as you might expect "realistic" battle-nuns to be, and get older, more grizzled, and meaner as you move up the chain of command.)
- Beauty Equals Goodness (Subverted to hell by followers of Slaanesh.)
- Because I Said So (Frequently the only justification you'll ever get from the Inquisition.)
- Questioning an Inquisitor for a justification will get you executed for Heresy. If you're lucky that is.
- Repeat after me: The Commissar is always right.
- Notice how the quote for Apathy Killed The Cat only goes as far as two...
- Bee Bee Gun (The Tyranid fleshborer is a Beetle Beetle Gun, firing ravenous insects that chew their way into a target's insides. The Devourer does much the same thing with a horde of flesh-eating worms.)
- Bee People (Tyranids. Also the Tau's Vespid Auxilaries, though they're more like Wasp People.)
- Bellisarios Maxim (This setting runs on Rule Of Cool.)
- Belief Makes You Stupid (And keeps you alive.)
- Benevolent Alien Invasion (The Tau. At least compared to any of the alternatives.)
- Berserk Button (In-game with Arco-Flagellants, and also in real life. Try bringing up the Squats at any GW press event. See what happens...)
- There was a secret rule on the official GW forums before they were closed. If you ever mentioned the Squats, for any reason whatsoever, the moderators would permanently ban you and delete the thread.
- A similar thing happens if you bring up the idea of female Space Marines.
- Mentioning Squad Broken in a 40k forum.
- Suggesting harming civilians in front of the Salamanders.
- Suggesting haircuts, shaving, and restraint in battle and partying and, especially, uttering the words Codex Chapter/Codex Astartes in front of Space Wolves.
- Better To Die Than Be Killed (Considered an honourable end for disgraced Imperial Guard officers and those touched by the Warp, and much preferable to being taken alive by the Ecclesiarchy or Dark Eldar.)
- Or Chaos. Or the Inquisition. Or the Necrons. Or the Tyranids. Or....
- Beyond The Impossible (How much Dakka can the Ork Mekboys put together [Answer: never enuff]? How much more evil can we make the Dark Eldar? How loud can Kharn scream "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"? How big of a Big Bad can Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!, defeat through a combination of dumb luck, skill and fast thinking? Just how much worse can things get? It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the setting pretty much runs on Beyond The Impossible.)
- Big Bad (Abaddon the Despoiler is the closest to the traditional concept - the other contenders for number one evil in 40k are better described as forces and gods than true villains. Ghazghkull Thraka is another strong contender, though, and most other factions have their own Big Evil Overlords as well.)
- Big Badass Wolf (Fenrisian Wolves, chaos hounds.)
- Big Book Of War (The Tactica Imperium and the Codex Astartes. The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer would be this, were it not full of
outright lies uplifting Imperial propaganda.)
- The Primer is actually pretty useful in some places, containing useful and informative tips such as how to make a frag grenade into a booby trap, how to field-strip and clean a Lasgun, and how when you are on guard duty you should NEVER LEAVE YOUR POST. EVER.
- Big Brother Is Watching (And ready to burn you at the stake.)
- BFG (Way, way too many to list here. Let's just say that the Bolter, the standard issue Space Marine gun, rapid-fires .75 caliber armour piercing rocket propelled grenades. It fires 19mm caliber grenades. That's as large as a 10-gauge shell. And
that's terrible it goes upwards from there.)
- BFS (Eight-foot-long chainsaw sword with bolt-on flamethrower, anyone?)
- Eviscerator, Uge choppa. Dreadnaught close combat weapon. Titan close combat weapon.
- Special mention must go to the Dawn Blade wielded by Commander Farsight, which not only has to be mounted on a battlesuit, but can hack through tank armour. And it's got crackling energies all over it. About the only thing it
lacks is a chainsaw edge.
- And I think the masters of this trope are Imperial Titans. The Lucis Pattern Warhound Titan sports a Vulcan Mega-Bolter, a TWIN-LINKED GATLING bolter that is the size of a house. And Imperator Titans sport an even larger version, which is about the size of Sears Tower.
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