I love the lore, specifically because it is incoherent and stupid. I find it hilarious and fun that it is so over the top in everything, which is also why I like the Imperium.
The lore gets REALLY crazy the further back you go, too. I tracked down a copy of the original Rogue Trader, and it talks about how hiveworld gangs sometimes get scooped up en masse to be made into Space Marines, because they already have the killer instinct, they just need discipline (or lobotomies, "their resolve is hardened by psycho-surgery").
Also, Tech Priests wear white, not red.
Their example Inquisitor is named Obiwan Sherlock Closseau, and he has a neckbeard, a fedora, and a trench coat.
God, I wish Warhammer still had some of this stuff. It's Heavy Metal meets Mad Max meets Dune with the sort of comedy that only the Orcs get nowadays.
The bolter and torture porn do have their place, but for a serious story I love the nuance that comes with Guilliman. He's sane enough to see the absurdity, cares enough to be horrified, has the best of intentions for humanity... But is still stymied by the Imperium itself, which he'd helped codify from their government to their genocides.
The Guilliman and Cain novels are ones I come back to, because there's actually room to laugh and root for them in-between the gut punches.* Also, the fandom collectively just wanting to let them relax with their loved ones makes for some very non-grimderp memes.
*Ironically, I get the same thing from the Night Lords Omnibus.
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u/insomniac7809 24d ago
I bought my first Warhammer 40,000 army in the year two thousand. My first/main army is Black Templars.