Is Warhammer Fantasy Better than 40k? (PancreasNoWork Reaction)

This is my reaction to PancreasNoWork's video, "Why Warhammer Fantasy is Better than 40k". As a newcomer to both worlds, I think he makes a lot of good points, but ultimately I believe its up to preference. What do you guys think?
Why Warhammer Fantasy is Better than 40k by PancreasNoWork: • Why Warhammer Fantasy ...
Patreon: / thelegitweebs
Channel Membership: / @thelegitweebs
Twitter:
Xero - / xeroxds
Kiwi - / sweet_kiwi_draw
Cerby - / tommicerberus
TikTok: / the_legit_weebs
Steam Group: steamcommunity.com/groups/the...
- Weeb Friends -
Szk'krrj - / @szkkrrj
Leo Lovelace - / @leolovelace
BatCat Ch. - / @batcatchannel
#TheLegitWeebs

[@WurrzagsMorkyMischeif]

And ofcourse fantasy is superior because they have the one, tye only, the greenest of the green ladz, WURRZAAAAAG!

[@SerLoinSteak]

DA GREAT GREEN PROPHET

[@kabutoisgay]

Don't forget the Once and Future Git! Grimgor Ironhide!!

[@WurrzagsMorkyMischeif]

​@@SerLoinSteakDA GODZ SPEAK THROU ME!

[@chill-lady-brook]

Not only are the Do or Don’t videos all great but the character and story episodes are great too. Thorgrim Grudgebearer, Gotrek and Felix, Karl Franz, ‘Making Warhammer Fantasy’s End Times “Better”’ even 40K episodes like ‘The Emperor is a C-Tier God’ are very good.

[@josephgatts1679]

True dat.

[@skullgamer9436]

You should react to Book of choyer "the old world factions overview" They overgo every factions motives and accomplishments from total war games including insane narration and cinematics.

[@beomcheolkim8543]

One of the things I like about Fantasy more than 40K are the clear historical or mythical parallels. The Empire of Man is Germany, or more accurately the Holy Roman Empire. Brettonia is France with a lot of Arthurian legends mixed in. The High Elves and Dark Elves mirror Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. You see some of it in 40K: Necrons , the White Scars, and the Space Wolves. But they are usually just portrayed as 'random Earth culture' but in SPACE. Other than a few armor aesthetics and naming schemes, little of the original culture really shines through. This is just a personal thing. I majored in History.

[@gstellar96]

I honestly wish they had the opportunity to go even harder with it pretty much being historical fantasy vs traditional fantasy. I hope they delve even deeper into cultures that are mentioned but not fully explored like Nippon, Araby, Albion, Ind, and Khuresh in either total war or the Old World

[@belbekstrullour4996]

​@@gstellar96there is mods to add thosesome of those factions in total war warhammer 3

[@punpundit5590]

I too prefer Warhammer Fantasy to Wrahammer 40K, but I come at it from the other side from PancreasNoWork; neither ranks particularly high among the settings that I like. I really like fantasy and science fiction, though, so I like them well enough anyway.

[@TheLegitWeebs]

Fair enough! For me it's still something new and exciting to discover more about, so I don't know yet where the setting would land in a list of my favorites.

[@Drakefance5]

I hadn't watched this video prior to this reaction. But after your post the other day asking the same question and actually trying to think about my answer. I came to alot of the same points that's he's bringing up now. He's definitely managing to articulate his points alot clearer than i ever could. that's for sure.

[@mp5284]

I like fantasy more, used to collect fantasy more than 40k. Main reason though is that they killed fantasy so games workshop can’t fuck up the lore anymore like they constantly do with 40k

[@TheLegitWeebs]

It's so funny that games workshop killing fantasy is actually a good thing for the lore.

[@lewdington3498]

Book of choyer do great lore videos for fantasy, you should check them out

[@user-pg9qb3wy7s]

I love warhammer fantasy for its atmosphere. Despite everything, this universe is quite dark in its essence. The peoples who live there have no hope. Sooner or later, chaos will win, it is predetermined. And in 40k there is the same thing, but there seems to be more hope. There will always be some new primarch who can be resurrected and who will save the day. Or it will always be possible to bring back the emperor, who will certainly save everyone. There are no such tools in the FB. And the battles in 40k are more balanced, then in fantasy. What do we see most often? We see battles between space marines and chaos space marines. Two killing machines are fighting each other. Is it cool? Without a doubt. But I prefer the concept of an insignificant person overcoming impossible circumstances. As this magician of the school of light said in the first trailer of the total war warhammer I "What hope is there? Against counless horors that cannot be named, let alone fought by mortal means?". That's why I love fantasy more.

[@TheLegitWeebs]

David vs Goliath in storytelling is inspirational and definitely seems to be one of the strong points for Fantasy. You could do something similar for 40k, but because of the scale it ends up being the story of a man who saved a world instead of the story of a man who saved the world.

[@sentient_trash]

I’ve always loved what I like to call “Science Fantasy”, my first love being Destiny when it comes to the subgenre 40k is like Destiny If it embraced the darker side of it’s lore, and that’s why it’s my favorite universe

[@bludgerabled]

Ciaphas Cain and Gaunt's Ghosts are book series. I haven't read Ciaphas Cain but I've heard it is good but I would definitely recommend Gaunt's Ghosts if you have some patience. The first two books are decent action books but the third is where it really hits its stride and the amount of character development and interesting worlds the author depicts is definitely worth the read.

[@richardduska1558]

13:55 Also this argument can be used for Fantasy as well. Since he already did it at the begining of the video with the Elf, Dwarf example.

[@theemissary1433]

I agree with your points about how in the end, it all boils down to personal preference. I love 40k in general when Im in the mood for sci-fi, (or when I really want to *SHATTER THEIR SKIES* . That was a Dawn of War reference. You should play that 40k game. Its epic). However, what PancreasNoWork points out, there still are some things Fantasy does better than 40k, so though I love both settings, Id settle for Fantasy above 40k. Still, there are some things that he didnt mention in the video (or maybe he did, and Im just crazy) that I would like to voice out. One reason why Fantasy is more appealing than 40k because not every character from each race is racist for the sake of being racist. Everyone in 40k wants to kill any other race, if theyre already not having enough infighting. Granted, its a horrible galaxy, and everyone is a certified poopyhead, thats part of the whole grimdark business. However in Fantasy, there's... ACTUAL diplomacy. The races of Order will occasionally fight amongst each other (High Elves and Dwarves, and just Wood Elves in general) but when crap hits the fan, they get serious. The Empire of Man would not have advanced in tech, if it werent for the assistance of the Dwarves and the Empire would not have the Colleges of Magic for their sanctioned wizards if it werent for Teclis, one of the High Elves PancreasNoWork mentioned in the video. The races of Order dont like each other, but they do try to put their differences aside if the time comes unlike 40k where communication between species **typically** ends if not starts with a gunshot to the head. A subpoint to that would be the diversity of Humanity. This is leaning towards my own personal liking but I dont know, this is perhaps something. In 40k, there is only the Imperium for Mankind. Any human that refuses to bend the knee to the Imperium's banner is gunned down on the spot. Sure, there are human castes in the Tau Empire, but thats pretty much it for diversity for Man in the setting. I may be wrong on this, so if anyone can correct me, please do. However in Fantasy, there is indeed a humanity, but not all Humans flock under the same banner. Aside from the Empire, there's other Human nations like Kislev, Cathay etc and yes, even the French too. There's a lot more flavour amongst Humanity, and their nations have their own agendas in mind, dont get me wrong. However, they still are dedicated to the preservation of Mankind in a world where Humanity is surrounded by enemies on all sides, and so seeing them work together in times of great crisis is all the more heroic.

[@TheLegitWeebs]

Dawn of War is a game that we'll be streaming here on the channel in the future! Looking forward to it myself. You make good points when it comes to the diversity and political intrigue between different races. I think when the rule of thumb for 40k is that everything can only get worse, you limit the things you can do, but specialize in a type of storytelling that other settings can't do as well as 40k. That being said, I'm a sucker for political intrigue in my media. I think stories in general are universally appealing to humans, but no one story can appeal to all humans. And I appreciate that there's still so many different flavors of storytelling out there for me to discover. Life would be boring without it.

[@theemissary1433]

@TheLegitWeebs Aye, I believe you're right when it comes to not everything can appeal to everyone, and 40k really does excel in the department of making good stories given its setting. The Milky Way galaxy in 40k is absolutely horrible. There is unending war, and it's every species for themselves. Truly, a grimdark setting. However, as someone pointed out in a 40k video somewhere I unfortunately can't remember, 40k has recently shifted from truly grimdark to nobledark. With the return of Guilliman, the Indomitus Crusade, and the return of the Lion, there is now a genuine hope for Humanity in 40k now. It's no longer just a grimdark universe where nothing you do matters, but it's shifting to one where there is a _small_ chance yet it's _still_ a chance that somehow, hope for the future is possible. 40k is indeed a much darker and more horrible setting than Fantasy. There is a _lot_ of wrong in the galaxy, but that makes the story trying to save it all the more interesting. It would be one *heck* of a story. Can't wait for your DOW streams! Hopefully, you can do the DLCs as well, like Winter Assault and Dark Crusade. If you want to learn 40k in more depth, I suggest Majorkill, but I do have to say that he uses a lot more... vulgar language than PancreasNoWork does, so keep that in mind. He made a couple of entertaining yet more informative videos about stuff in 40k, like the Great Rift (The dark line you see on the map that splits the galaxy into two), the Indomitus Crusade that Guilliman launched since his return, and he also made a video about what each Black Crusade was about until the 13th one that finally destroyed Cadia. He still memes occasionally, but I think he's more informative than Bricky's videos (like he has a video for each Space Marine legion that is more in-depth than Bricky's Space Marine video. Also... shameless attempt here to get you to learn more about the Word Bearers .____.) Could be wrong on this, but as a newcomer who was officially introduced to 40k through Bricky like you, I did learn a lot more about 40k from Majorkill when heading further into my 40k journey, so I think it would be worth it giving him a shot.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

Well, in 40K everyone isn't racist for the sake of being racist. There are temporary alliances in the face of greater dangers that happen all the time and each galactic faction has a history longer then IRL humans controlling fire of doing horrendous things to each other. The suspicion of your 'allies' stabbing you in the back as soon as it's most convenient for them is founded, and gives reason for more backstabbing in the future, "They're just going to do it to us, so let's do it first!". It's just an example of hate begetting hate cranked up to 11, which I find darkly humorous. Humanity is supposed to be wildly diverse. It's one of the weaker points of the setting that they tell instead of showing, but as long as you worship the God-Emperor and pay your dues, the Imperium doesn't care how you go about it. You could worship him in a cathedral, a mosque, a cairn circle, or any other way and as long as it's not tainted by Chaos, the Ecclisarchy doesn't care. Same with governing. As long as the planet pays their taxes, the Imperium doesn't care _how_ it gets done as long as it's not tainted by heresy (either xenos or Chaos). All of the human factions that exist in WHF can (and probably do, they just haven't written about them yet) exist in 40K, just with a slight tweak. I really do want more examples of the supposed different cultures that are all in the Imperium to be explored more, but since they're focusing more on big, bombastic characters like the returning Primarchs now instead of the roughly million planets that they haven't touched upon in their lore, I feel it's a pipe dream. TBH even just their _ships_ should have a wildly diverse amount of cultures between them because they're basically self contained cities. It's like saying the US is all the same culture. People from Maine, West Virginia, Florida, Texas, Oregon, Illinois, and Hawaii are _vastly_ different despite living in the same country.

[@punkypony5165]

So glad you decided to check him out. As you said he's really funny.

[@zarthes]

Short answer: Yes Long answer: Does 40K have Sigmar? I didn't think so.

[@otakunemesis34]

So fantasy primarch you can.

[@gregorysiegel1178]

Pancrease no work is 1 of my favorite lore persons, he’s great with nothing fantasy and 40k I can wholeheartedly recommend ANY of his videos

[@richardduska1558]

13:00 That one depends on the given Space Marine. Like Huron Black Heart a Chaos Space Marine is an interesting character since he did not fall because of temptation or power but because he had no other choice by the end. Ahriman is also interesting sadly many GW writers for some reason just picks him when they need a generic big name bad guy, which dose diminish hes character. And let's not forget the Guardsman characters in general.

[@thundergaming155]

Fantasy has skaven so that alone gives fantasy a major head start for me on why fantasy is better then 40k.

[@brightestlight9462]

if you want a 40k game to play, you HAVE to check out ROGUE TRADER, which is a CRPG so same genre as baldurs gate 3, and it's ABSOLUTELY AMAZING also dawn of war 1 campaigns dawn of war 2 campaigns darktide honorable mentions: mechanicus boltgun inquisitor: martyr battlefleet gothic 2 chaos gate: daemonhunter for warhammer fantasy you should check out Vermintide, as well as obviously total war warhammer

[@TheLegitWeebs]

Definitely want to try out Rogue Trader. Been streaming Kotor and I'm absolutely loving it. Dawn of War is planned to come to the channel as well, and we're currently streaming Mechanicus. As for the others, that'll have to wait for a steam sale xD. Thanks for the suggestions!

[@leadpaintchips9461]

@@TheLegitWeebs If you haven't started it yet, I'd wait on Rogue Trader. It wasn't released in the best of states, so give it some time for the devs to iron out the bugs and (hopefully) finish the last 2 acts. Darktide I don't like their itemization or monetization at all, but if you're only planning on putting in like 20-30 hours into it and not cranking up the difficulty then it's fine. Martyr has some jank with their outdoor maps, but other then that it's my favorite ARPG. Daemonhunter's balance and implementation of DLC (as in how you use the DLC in campaign) is iffy, but can be a bit fun. I haven't played Boltgun, but it's on my to do list and I've heard pretty good things if your expectations are reasonable. The rest of them though I can highly recommend, they're fantastic games.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

One thing I would've disagreed with up until the 13th Crusade in 40K is the scale thing. They had a long stretch where they were starting to explore a lot more 'human' scale of the setting, where ya it might 'just' be a planet, but they showed us what it meant on a very personal level for those people on said planet. Campaigns took months, you got to see the lives of people there, and they were showing very personal consequences to these 'just' planets. Then the focus shifted to the Primarchs returning, and these larger then life characters and the normal person was being forgotten about in their focus. Now PancreasNoWork got it right. A planet is now just a planet out of a over million of them. The billions of people living there don't matter anymore, because they went too macro with their focus. TBH an issue that they had for a long time, started to correct, but snapped back to is that almost all the writing is about _extremely_ exceptional individuals and that warping the perception of what is supposed to be 'normal' for 40K. A perfect example is his example of 'Inquisitors destroying planets all the time'. That's _not_ supposed to be normal. It's supposed to be a big deal in the Inquisition when an Inquisitor destroys a planet, they even have a whole subgroup to investigate if it was *really* justified to destroying instead of retaking it. But since we're not hearing about the nearly countless normal Inquisitors who are being space detectives, finding and fighting Chaos/xenos/heretical cults as their normal, everyday jobs, we don't see that as normal despite it being dangerous, risky, and intrigue filled. Just like we don't hear about the involved politics involved in running a whole planet other then maybe a chapter or two in a book until the Space Marines show up to do more bolter porn or the 'important names' show up and roll over anything local. This isn't because 40K is too large, it's because the writers forget to write about human scale. They're too busy hyping up the larger then life characters instead of writing about 'normal' people. Gaunt's Ghosts (other then when they interact with the Chaos Space Marines, that whole part of the series was botched) is a good example of the more human scale that they abandoned. The threats weren't planet threats, they were threats to individuals. The losses weren't in the billions, it was people who had names and friends who mourned. The successes weren't planets, they were positions on a planet that _eventually_ led to the planet through great sacrifices and daring successes. He also forgets (or ignores) that FTL covers a _lot_ of speeds. Instantaneous travel and still having travel time are still FTL despite one being, well, instantaneous and the other can require months, if not years. 40K has the second, where distance from still matters in how fast you travel to a location (even webways have time taken in them). 3,000 light years in 40K is a LOT closer then 30,000 when using FTL that isn't instantaneous. Because the Warp is so sketchy to travel through (and the webway is slowly crumbling, so the paths through that aren't as surefire as they were), taking stops to recharge, refuel, and repair is something that still happens. There's still the equivalent of forced marches happening in 40K. There's still desperate defenses holding out until reinforcements arriving. Don't get me wrong, I love both settings. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I just disagree with the premise of a lot of his negatives towards 40K.

[@TheLegitWeebs]

I haven't read any literature on 40k yet, but I do agree that people connect to people. This is true in really any story that has been told. When the characters become too unrelatable, you end up losing your audience and the impact the climax of the story would have had on them. Not that you can't have these completely over the top characters in a good story, but the approach requires nuance that the writers might not understand.

[@gabrielkow8867]

Yey Also, starting from this one, bold choice, i like it

[@TheLegitWeebs]

Not afraid to get a little spicy every now and then. Lol

[@LukasJampen]

He also has a video series about halo factions being put into 40k which are pretty cool to think about and give better insight into halo

[@liambridgeman4529]

If you want a fantasy channel lore master of sotek did a series where he focuses on characters in the warhammer world (only fantasy)

[@chrisheretic7]

I see why that last part is called "tongue in cheek" xD

[@TheLegitWeebs]

It makes so much sense now why that's the most replayed part of the video xD

[@bigsadge747]

i hope you arent one of those eldar simps >:(. SKAVEN IS BEST RACE YES YES. also i would LOVE if u played total war warhammer itll be SICK

[@bigsadge747]

also if you do get total war warhammer, i recommend either the Skaven(throt the unclean the monster guy or ikit claw the one who legalized nuclear bombs) or the lizardmen (mainly GOR ROK the GREAT WHITE LIZARD). they have really easy campaigns for a beginner

[@TheLegitWeebs]

Planning to play it someday. Gotta wait for sale tho xD

[@bigsadge747]

@@TheLegitWeebs broo it is so good especially with mods. The mods allow for greater variety of units, for example the skaven have a mod that gives them Rat Hydras, or quality of life changes. on another note, if you plan on playing the white lizard gor rok, you shall know the power of itza, for what is the purpose of 1 nuke when you have an unlimited amount of them in your pocket

[@cegesh1459]

Of course WH Fantasy is better than 40K, no question.

[@ericbyo9472]

My problem with fantasy is that it is generic as balls. Just a big tolkien snorefest

[@soulsava8456]

No

[@SarthorS]

Wow, this guy's video is so biased. Much of what he is saying to put down 40k isn't even true. I am a fantasy guy. I have hundreds of fantasy novels and only a handful of sci-fi ones. Magic and dragons and wizards is where it's at for me. But 40k blows fantasy Warhammer away. There is no comparison. Plus, Games Workshop has all but abandoned the fantasy setting. It's barely limping along. Plus Warhammer fantasy is a lot more generic than 40k.

[@syrienangel4137]

I agree with that. They're both good in their own respective fields but you can boil down everything with, Warhammer Fantasy can just be a single out of a hundreds worlds in 40k. Even some of the Daemon characters have a better alternates in 40k. Look at Ku'gath for example, unlike in fantasy where his personality is the same as any jolly old Unclean One, 40k Ku'gath is a very depressed deamon and stands apart from any of his brothers. The fact that he's tired of all the jolly and music that he endures constantly and just wants his day to end is kind of hilarious seeing as he's a daemon of Nurgle.

[@SarthorS]

@@syrienangel4137 It makes you wonder how the fantasy setting would have turned out if they had put as much time and money into it as 40k. Although it could never have the sheer amount of variety possible in the sci-fi setting.

[@henryheavy8044]

No shit Sherlock the Batman of holmes, he already stated that it’s gonna be biased as hell. Also 40k is sometimes if not all of the time being guilty of being unnecessarily tryhard with how they wrote and scale things

[@SarthorS]

@@henryheavy8044 Riiight. Because 40k would be so much better if it was on a more reasonable scale, and the things happening in it were more sensible. It would be so much more popular if it had a far more generic sci-fi feel. Throw in more diversity and political messaging and we can see it go the way of Star Wars and Star Trek. Put more chicks in there. Make them gay and lame.

[@satyayuga0]

No grim dark, no future.