General (40K) Warhammer 40K Testing/Includes Thread

TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

This is a testing/includes thread. Post pictures using /ci or a text list using /c with what cards you plan to include and what cards you plan to test.
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Testing:


Too Cool to Ignore but Not Good:


There are actually more cards here worth testing than I had expected when reflecting on the spoilers, but honestly, I'm not sure how many of these cards (if any!) I'm actually going to get. I really like the Chaos Demons, but they seem underpowered for the most part. Old One Eye is good but in the most boring way possible. Drach'nyen and Helbrute are cool, but they're in a gold section that doesn't really need the help. I like Sicarian Infiltrator, but I think {2}{U} upfront could be too much mana. The only two cards that I'm really into are the Great Unclean One and Triarch Praetorian, but they're both in a color that really does not have the space for tangential cards like these. To be honest, the Great Unclean One is probably worse than the new Shelodred (which is itself worse than Siege Rhino), so I probably shouldn't be entertaining it. The art just looks awesome and it looks like a really fun Midrange card.

What are your plans for this set?
 
B

blacksmithy

gonna try:
-the Unearth Sign in Blood dude Triarch Praetorian, but fixed to also sign in blood when CAST from a graveyard

-the Lost and the Damned but it makes 4/4s instead of 3/3s and costs GUR instead of 1UR

overall, a good set for my cube
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
For all my talk of loving these cards, only some are right for my cube at present:

That's still 8 cards, which is an insane batting average for a commander set (I'm still undecided on necron deathmark or primaris eliminator)
I'm not entirely sold on Horagaunt horde either, as it's at its best in topdeck wars, which given the current state of grindy decks in my cube might be putting the cart before the horse.
 
inscho

inscho

Certain:
Triarch Praetorian: Easily my favorite card of the set. Solidifies blacks role in aggressive artifact decks...plays nice with welders and larks, but is also good on its own. The best type of card.
Necron Deathmark: I was never in love with Noxious Gearhulk, and this is a ideal replacement
Royal Warden: Artifact-based army in a can? Yes, please. This is what I wanted Marionette Master and Weaponcraft Enthusiast to be.

Near Certain:
Chaos Defiler: Amazing, but maybe too much?
Old One Eye: ^^
Hormagaunt Horde: Green needs more things that are worth putting in the graveyard. The only thing keeping this from being a "certain" is my doubt over how slow it is to recur. I don't run Genesis for being glacially slow, and while this has more value on curve, it's often going to take two full turn's worth of mana to land a vanilla X/X. However, Genesis' timing is one of its biggest knocks, and with Horde you can at least crack a fetchland at the end of your opponent's turn to return it to your hand. Will just need to test before deciding for sure.

Uncertain but Interested:
Hellbrute: Might test if Defiler proves too oppressive. I don't think I'd want this and Kroxa in the same Rakdos section.
Night Scythe: Solid card, but 3cmc is an awkward spot for the decks that will want this.
Mawloc: My Gruul section is pretty tight.....It's good on curve for gruul's aggro decks, at home in the wildfire deck, and a mana sink in the ramp deck..the question is if Radha, Heart of Keld is better or worse for those same decks.

Interested but Doubtful:
Pink Horror: This card is super fun, but I think it's just an awkward fit.
Skorpekh Lord: I've never really felt like I've needed a lord for the artifact aggro deck. The decks that pump out a lot of artifact bodies tend to be more focused on sacrificing. The artifact aggro decks tend to focus on going large with equipment and recursive threats. I'm not sure this is the right connective piece for my cube.

Pretty pleased at the offerings of this release. A couple important gaps filled.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Velrun said:
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Same. Just not into Universes Beyond as a concept at all; it's likely I just never include any of these cards because they're just so jarring to me aesthetically and as a concept.

I think there's a lot in this set that works design-wise if it were skinned differently, within an actual Magic setting, but I've always hated the flavor keyword thing since AFR and I just don't like how these sets are basically advertisements in Magic. There is just nothing resonant to me in terms of flavor. I like Magic the Gathering as its own self-contained thing, not into the insane product dilution we've had the last couple of years. Feels hollow to me.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Onderzeeboot said:
I now wonder what you think of Innistrad, which very much incorporates both scientific and (a lot of) macabre themes?
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It’s not my opinion. It is just the definition. Or some of it. I nit picked from the part that excluded fantasy from science fiction. There’s also some things about deriving from folk lore and litterature.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Velrun said:
By definition fantasy is distinguished from science fiction and horror by the respective absence of scientific or macabre themes. While fantasy, science fiction and horror do share some similarities they also differ on some themes.

Warhammer 40k is not fantasy by the definition of the word. It’s science fiction and possibly also horror.
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I guess you have a different definition of "Fantasy" in Denmark. In English, fantasy in writing is defined as "a type of story that is set in a world, or a version of our world, that does not really exist and involves magic, monsters, etc." Basically, if it has actual Magic, it counts as fantasy, even if it integrates science fiction or horror. Warhammer definitely has elements of science fiction and should also be considered a part of that genre, but saying "it's not fantasy because technology" is fundamentally not true.
 
ellogeyen

ellogeyen

Velrun said:
Once again, this is not about me.

https://www.masterclass.com/article...-subgenres-and-types-of-fantasy-in-literature
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy

If you want to turn me over, I am open to good and strong arguments. Post a link and I will read it.
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Neither of these links say Warhammer 40K can't be fantasy. Your wikipedia link even argues it is a subgenre of fantasy:

Science fantasy, fantasy incorporating elements from science fiction such as advanced technology, aliens and space travel but also fantastic things
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TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Velrun said:
Tell that to the people who couldn't help themself

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/40k-warhammer-40k-testing-includes-thread.3644/post-118545
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Woah, no need for hostility.

In both the Oxford and Webster dictionaries, the definition of "fantasy" in relation to fiction has nothing to do with technological or macabre elements. Instead, fantasy is defined as involving the usage of magic or other strange things not derived from the real world. Warhammer 40k is full of fantasy elements like Demons, Wizards, Elves, Orcs, Gods, and general magic, so calling it fantasy makes sense. There are also science fiction elements present, and it should also be considered a work of science fiction, but it's definitely a fantasy piece as well. That's why I wasn't sure why you were saying it's not fantasy; it has many fantasy elements.

Later, I was only under the impression that it was due to cultural differences because fantasy is not definitionally "distinguished from science fiction and horror by the respective absence of scientific or macabre themes," at least according to what I have previously seen. This happens sometimes, where I'll be talking to friends of mine from different areas and we'll start talking past each other because certain things have different meanings depending on where we're from. I thought in this case you were just listing a different definition of fantasy because we're from different backrounds. That's even why I asked you to explain it!

I didn't realize you were just going off of a Wikipedia article and not the dictionary or another source. Sorry.
 
safra

safra

folks, didn't we all learn not to cite the wikipedia in high school? Especially not in matters of art, where the only writing that "matters" is that of genius, quotes and ideas polished into diamonds.

Sharing because it's genuinely worth sharing: UKLG's thoughts about the power of fantasy. Ursula K Le Guin, of course, is one of the most miraculous writers (in English) of the past century, and the only one for whom "fantasy" wasn't an insult (one of two, if you count Tolkien or CS Lewis - but I don't accord them her greatness). (My other two bodhisattvas: Isabel Allende and Susan Orleans)

in 2004, at an industry event for children's books:
Some assumptions are commonly made about fantasy that bother me. These assumptions may be made by the author, or by the packagers of the book, or both, and they bother me both as a writer and as a reader of fantasy. They involve who the characters are, when and where they are, and what they do. Put crudely, it’s like this: in fantasy, 1) the characters are white, 2) they live sort of in the Middle Ages, and 3) they’re fighting in a Battle Between Good and Evil.
[...]
Immature people crave and demand moral certainty: This is bad, this is good. Kids and adolescents struggle to find a sure moral foothold in this bewildering world; they long to feel they’re on the winning side, or at least a member of the team. To them, heroic fantasy may offer a vision of moral clarity. Unfortunately, the pretended Battle Between (unquestioned) Good and (unexamined) Evil obscures instead of clarifying, serving as a mere excuse for violence — as brainless, useless, and base as aggressive war in the real world.

I hope that teenagers find the real heroic fantasies, like Tolkien’s. I know such fantasies continue to be written. And I hope the publishers and packagers and promoters and sellers of fantasy honor them as such. While fantasy can indeed be mere escapism, wish-fulfillment, indulgence in empty heroics, and brainless violence, it isn’t so by definition — and shouldn’t be treated as if it were.
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So often, we talk about "fantasy" as if it's a nothing for children. Perhaps the best example of this realized (white, european, middle ages) 'nothing, for children' is Eragon; incendiary-and-frequently-banned Something Awful poster-from-a-decade-ago avshalom wrote once about her own experiences of feeling overshadowed by Christopher Paolini's ghost as a child. Underlining mine:

all through high school i was working on a hundred thousand word pastoral travelling scene that i called a novel, all the adults in my life encouraged me because they were all certain i'd be published on the basis of my age alone and at least make a few novelty bucks out of it, and i hated christopher paolini with fierce, theatrical violence. i loathed that man. sometimes i would open my copy of eragon, which was given to me by my sweetest cousin who later committed suicide so i simultaneously despised the book and was driven to hold onto it like a talisman, and stare at paolini's author portrait in silent hatred. of course i never got published and now i'm almost thirty and my youthful promise has gurgled down the twin infested drains of university education and the global financial crisis. i am haunted by paolini. the toilet paper comes away from my ass with his face smeared onto it like a jesus toast. i see him in the rainless clouds. when i catch the bus to my welfare appointments, where a tired-looking woman tries to convince me to get a certificate in aged care and spend the rest of my life scrubbing the elderly, the bus driver with his competitive hourly rate and his union membership and his fucking long-service leave is christopher paolini. the welfare lady is paolini. the elderly are paolini. i look at myself in the mirror and all i see is the teenage paolini, proudly smirking. worst of all i think eragon survives as something like a perfect cultural object, a fantasy novel that was written by an actual adolescent rather than the psychosexually adolescent adults that populate the genre
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Onto the card:



A humanoid figure, perhaps made of metal (certainly not made of flesh and bone) floats above a mangrove swamp. It "wears" a charcoal-gray breastplate and wields a strange glowing spear. The green glow of the spear is replicated in the figure's armour; what could easily be a pair of emeralds, located at its hips, provide some kind of glow-related hover. It is clear to the viewer that the green glow of the spear is to some extent related to the green glow that provides flight; this is made even clearer by the butt of the spear, which vanishes into the background of the hovering figure, occluded by the hover-glow.

That's a golem, man. Could be a golem, any number of "magical" or 'magitech' constructs. Checks out as Saruman's just as easily as it does science fiction's. It doesn't even have a gun, for god's sake.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
[... excellent rant ...]

May I recommend Headley's Aerie / Magonia, a two-part youth novel fantasy series set in the modern day that I really enjoyed, and Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World, a (to me, at least) fascinating fantasy novel that has intelligent trains in it? (@TrainmasterGT this should be your favorite fantasy novel, honestly ;))

Really, fantasy is so much broader than just orcs and elves.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

@safra Eragon is a stellar example of nepotism. It turns out that it's rather easy to get your mediocre fantasy novel published when your parents are in the book publishing business. That part was, of course, left out of all of the "hey, kids, you can be successful too!" spiels.

Also, just to the thread at large... Magic's lore already has mechs and cloning vats in it. As well as this dapper fellow — are you going to tell him to his face that he isn't "fantasy"? It'd break his heart!
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Onderzeeboot said:
[... excellent rant ...]

May I recommend Headley's Aerie / Magonia, a two-part youth novel fantasy series set in the modern day that I really enjoyed, and Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World, a (to me, at least) fascinating fantasy novel that has intelligent trains in it? (@TrainmasterGT this should be your favorite fantasy novel, honestly ;))

Really, fantasy is so much broader than just orcs and elves.
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These books sound interesting… I’m going to have to find a copy!!
 
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