Analyzing WH40K: Roks and other quantification odds and ends

[The Dude]

I'm unearthing this, but I noticed, in the very first post, that Roks... are shielded?

They can be, like everything else to do with Orks it's basically up to the Meks or group of Meks involved but Orks have an innate understanding of technology and they apparently have a higher rate of shield usage then the Imperium.

[The Dude]

I also don't recall the core material becoming somehow secondary canon.

There was a GW statement years ago to the effect of "the novels are the true universe". I've been looking on and off for a couple years and have never found it, apparently it's buried on SB.com somewhere but I don't have the patience to slog through a bunch of threads.

It generally makes sense though, seeing as the TT game and codex's are designed in a way to make things balanced and fun. Otherwise no one would play as the IG or Tau.

Edit: When you get right down to it, WH40K is written to be over the top pulp sci-fi and it's authors and the owners of the IP are more interested in a fun and entertaining setting then crunching numbers to satisfy nerds on the net.

Which of course leads to the blatant cherry picking involved in any WH40K VS x thread. It's absurdly easy to find low and high ends to prove your side.

[Mike DiCenso]

It's not like 40k is "Over the top" either, people who think it is have obviously never heard of the Culture, Hyperions FORCE: Ground or the Xeeleeverse.

You know, I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone invoked those stories or the races and organizations themselves, including the novel and later series version of the Timelords and Daleks from the Whoverse, in order to justify insane power figures in the SW ICS or WH40K. ;-)
-Mike

[The Dude]

WH40K was purposely designed to be "over the top", firepower wise it isn't "over the top" unless the stuff in question doesn't fit in it's own universe. And I honestly can't think of anything in WH40K that fits that description.

[Mike DiCenso]

Yeah, I know. But I just get annoyed by people trying to justify upper limits estimates as being okay and normal in their pet franchise because the Culture or Xelee or what-have-you are vastly more powerful.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

WH40K was purposely designed to be "over the top", firepower wise it isn't "over the top" unless the stuff in question doesn't fit in it's own universe. And I honestly can't think of anything in WH40K that fits that description.

I would agree that it's intended to be "over the top," but I don't think it's necessarily designed to be "over the top" technologically so much as completely absurd in term of behavior. It's absurdist dark comedy; technology is simply window dressing there.

Technologically, there are parts of WH40k that seem to be designed to be Dark Age warfare "IN SPACE!!!" or World War I "IN SPACE!!!" and most commonly, traditional Tolkein-D&D-etc tradition fantasy "IN SPACE!!!"

And analyzed logically, there's a lot of effects that don't fit with each other - on a technological and scientific basis. Story-wise, most of it hangs together reasonably well with the theme, but the sort of radical inconsistency between low and high outliers documented in this thread does not work very well with analysis that attempts to be scientific, and I would hardly say it all fits together.

IMO, the bulk of examples aren't "over the top" in terms of raw power, not compared to other SF/fantasy franchises. I will say, as a footnote, that in my debate with Thanatos, he indicated he didn't feel GW really had a very clear canon policy; game mechanics clearly are not on a level with fiction/fluff, but there's not much to guide us in sorting out which fiction/fluff is a more "true" look into the WH40kverse.

[The Dude]

I would certainly agree that GW doesn't seem to have a coherent canon policy.

[Mr. Oragahn]

It's not like 40k is "Over the top" either, people who think it is have obviously never heard of the Culture, Hyperions FORCE: Ground or the Xeeleeverse.

You know, I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone invoked those stories or the races and organizations themselves, including the novel and later series version of the Timelords and Daleks from the Whoverse, in order to justify insane power figures in the SW ICS or WH40K. ;-)
-Mike

It is an honour to lose against such groups or civilizations, so even it may be unwarranted, it's totally tolerated to give them high stats. It's actually encouraged. It's a sort of "bully-bandwagon" system : defend yourself and your own weaknesses by looking meaner among a group of even meaner-looking people.
Having read some WH40K threads, I can say that it's a spawn between SDN's habit for biiig numbers, and the fact that they allowed, even pushed WH40K to be Wankhammer 40000 so to make ICS numbers legit.

[The Dude]

I'm going to mention this again because it doesn't seem to sink in. "Wank" and "over the top" only fit things if they exceed the capabilities of their own universe. I have yet to see something in WH40K that fits that bill, your talking about a setting that essentially has magic as an integral part of the story leading to things like a daemon possessed super titan and Vortex warheads.