Not Warhammer, but I’m hoping the community doesn’t care. I didn’t want to post to Lemmyworld, because BattleTech community is - like the Warhammer community - plagued with fans that can’t see the issues with the franchise.

These are Death Commandos, an elite military unit that are loyal to the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. They are canonically very skilled and ruthless pilots, able to conduct secret missions and leave no survivors, be it as infantry or as MechWarriors.

I could (and probably will) make a post about everything I find wrong about the Capellan Confederation in due time, but to summarize: imagine if you combined every negative trait about Nazi Germany (but dial the racism back from “master race and genocide” to “our culture is dominant and people should look and act like us”), the military incompetence of fascist Italy, and the underhanded deception and sinister machinations of the US and UK (particularly the overreliance on deception, proxy wars, war crime-grade weapons, and subterfuge). Now, imagine if you coded the entire faction as Han Chinese/Russian. To top it all off, the leaders are genetically disposed to being insane, and incestuous, and they have a rigid caste system and a violent, evil Thugee cult (the cult the British made up to help justify brutalizing India; it’s real in this setting, and members of the Capellan leadership follow it). And they call themselves socialist because centralized economy.

I could write a thesis paper about the Capellan Confederation and what it says about the creators, and the fanbase, but I’ll save more ranting for another post. Suffice it to say, it’s the biggest hurdle for leftists to enjoy the setting, and given the general libertarian bent of the fandom, that’s not surprising. Would love it if more comrades could like it, too. Just like Warhammer: why should rightoids get all the fun?