Bolters suddenly suffering from recoil...

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Dont Like: Grey Knights since 5th Edition, Ollanius Pious (any version), Space Wolves since 6th Ed, New Black Templars, Dinobots, Perpetuals, Vulkan being a Perpetual, Tempestus Scions (as it was mentioned earlier the Schola being Torture Porn Hogwarts is dumb), Ratlings (they've always been around though and I've always hated them).

Meh Tier: Imperium Secundus, New Tau, FarsightxShadowsun implications, NewCrons, Alpha Legion (its really got this back and forth of good and bad with a healthy dose of completely stupid, looking at you Cabal)

I'm sure there is more for Don't like and Meh, but I cant think of them right now. There's also probably some retcon I like somewhere. Hell if I know what it is.

I don't mind the Imperial Secundus or new Tau out of those, but Dinobots and GKs I especially dislike.

 farmersboy wrote:
Bolters suddenly suffering from recoil...

it makes sense they'd have recoil though.

too many focus on the negative, so I'm gonna focus on what I like.

The fleshing out of the HH series, this is and has never been a retcon, previously it was a historical view on the HH 10k years after the event, so of course differences will crop up when we follow the lives of the characters that were actually there, this also explains the changes in olanius pious, some worlds who worship the emp think it was a custodies, a marine, or a normal human, none will know the truth that he was a perpetual, this also, to me, makes his death MORE of a tragedy, he is immortal, he literally gives up eternity to try to stop chaos, suffering a horrific death in return, just as sanguinius did, both knew they would die, but did it anyway.

 ChazSexington wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Dont Like: Grey Knights since 5th Edition, Ollanius Pious (any version), Space Wolves since 6th Ed, New Black Templars, Dinobots, Perpetuals, Vulkan being a Perpetual, Tempestus Scions (as it was mentioned earlier the Schola being Torture Porn Hogwarts is dumb), Ratlings (they've always been around though and I've always hated them).

Meh Tier: Imperium Secundus, New Tau, FarsightxShadowsun implications, NewCrons, Alpha Legion (its really got this back and forth of good and bad with a healthy dose of completely stupid, looking at you Cabal)

I'm sure there is more for Don't like and Meh, but I cant think of them right now. There's also probably some retcon I like somewhere. Hell if I know what it is.

I don't mind the Imperial Secundus or new Tau out of those, but Dinobots and GKs I especially dislike.

Yeah, I dont really mind Imperium Secundus or the New Tau, but Im not overly fond of them either. Hence "Meh"

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 KharnsRightHand wrote:
I feel like I'm the only one who actually likes the new Alpha Legion fluff. Subversion and guerilla warfare kinda go hand in hand, and it makes sense to me at least to not reveal your actual leader while doing so. There's instances of body doubles across fiction (and probably irl, I'm sure) already. It makes them that much more flavorful beyond things like, "This Legion rides bikes, this legion hits things with axes, these two(!) legions do siege warfare, this legion is ROMANS IN SPAAAACE"

Don't worry. Almost everyone likes the Alpha Legion.

More Alpha Legion propaganda.

BrianDavion wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
Bolters suddenly suffering from recoil...

it makes sense they'd have recoil though.

Why, when they have a booster charge that fires the round out of the barrel before the main charge kicks in? They were specifically described as having little to no recoil. It's just another example of BL's shoddy writing, like having Space Marines keep huge weapons across their backs, forgetting the huge power pack already there.

One particular thing that always bugged me that I don't know if it's still around or not was the Space marine new recruit system. In 4ed it stated that once a scout had proven his worth he was elected into one of the reserve companies. He was then given training in power armour and grew accustomed to the black carpace. The newcommers that "developed a fine eye for shooting" was organised into heavy weapon squads and those that showed particular talents in close quarter was organised into assult squads. Some marines showed an apptitude for technology and was thus sent to assist in the armoury and those marines that developed a knack for tending to their battle brothers wounds where sent to study with the apochatheries. This makes perfect sence to me. It's even stated in the 3ed codex that one of the tactical reserve companies was in a constant state of training on some deathworld, rather then rotating between guard duties, combat readinessm training and maintanance like the other companies. Read between the lines and you can see how this company would be new recruits learning to cope with the black carpace and learning to fight as space marines.
Basicly scout--->tactical--->specialist

In 5th it was changed to a scout being first accepted into a devastator squad, then sent to serve in an assult squad and then organised into tactical squads. It doesn't state anywhere how this actually worked though. I'd assume that they enter a devastator reserve company and then transfer to an assult company and finally move on to being tactical. However this is weird because squads are drafted from the reserves so a devastator reserve squad would somehow be the most unreliable in the chapter, being the newest with the black carpace. It's also weird that due to the high mortality of space marines one would think they'd micro manage their few numbers for maximum fighting potential, playing on individual streangths and weaknesses.

Is this still in the 5ed (and he who shall not be nameds) line of thought or did they change it back to the far more sensible one?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Retcons I like
Newcrons, Gave them more feeling IMO, before they where kinda bland. The new new crons feel like a legitimate threat, an army that is still unfeeling towards the for while still retaining some personality
Ones I dont like.
Tau using Giant suits, I really really dont like it.

Seconded...now I am not really big fan of Newcrons, but I really did not like Oldcrons. They felt detached and poorly thought out. 3rd Edition Necron codex has some of the worst 40k fluff I've read. 'Tomb Kings in Space' is not too imaginative but at least it's something.

Don't like the new Tau. Stompy giant robots, that's not The Way. Lot of the Tau fluff was rewritten for 6th edition Codex for no good reason, most notably Kroot.

I don't like the new Blood Angels. In the past they were a dying chapter standing in the shadow of their former reputation, now they're just another bunch of Baron Whoopass von Badass-strain of marines.

I do like that Native American theme from Dark Angels has been mostly faded out. It was a styles clash with their monastic outlook.

Sisters retconned to Inquisition was bad, re-retconned back to Ecclesiarchy was good.

In newer lore, Squats do exist and hints about them are dopped here and there. I think GW just doesn't like the name 'squat'. It is pretty daft.

I really don't like where the Tau are going.

The Riptide was a step too far but tolerable. Everything since, while pretty, pisses me off.

If GW wants to sell Tau players models, perhaps we could get some more of the dozen+ races the Tau have joined to the Greater Good. I want some lizardmen in my 40k.

Newcrons blow, as everyone else has said. Same to the nerfs to the Black Templar in fluff.

In general, we need a lot less of the founding chapters and a lot more of the other 991.

I like the idea of Native American space marines, but it didn't really fit in with the Dark Angels' fluff and history, so I guess I like the retcon, but am also disappointed by it?

 fallinq wrote:

A sweet fluff idea that I hated getting retconned out was in one of the old BL Dark Angels novels. At the end of the novel it revealed that

Spoiler:

it was THE LION and his forces, not Luther's, who were going to side with Horus. They beat down the real loyalists under Luther, but when Horus had already lost before they could get properly involved, they did a 180 again and pretended to be loyal all along, guarding the secret so closely it became completely forgotten by subsequent generations of DA. Now only The Fallen remember the truth.

I loved this twist. It was a genuinely good one for people immersed in 40k lore and this twist explains EVERYTHING that doesn't make sense about the Dark Angels. Tons of other chapters have had members and successor chapters turn to Chaos. Why is it such a big deal for the Dark Angels? Why the secrecy? Why the obsession? What's so special about this one particular batch of traitors? It all made sense with this. Only now it's been nixed, it was just a traitor lying, and Dark Angels don't make sense again. So I guess it was a retcon that I loved followed by a re-retcon that I hated.

I absolutely love this. Makes DA so much better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
The whole "Imperial Truth" angle is a ret-con, only popularized in the last decade or so as we have seen an uptick in "science vs religion" debates in the real world. The Emperor was not some arch-atheist, he knew full damn well that gods existed, he just didn't like them (and kind of wanted a piece of that action). His is a very long game with the goal of shouldering his way into a place at the divine table.

This is one piece of BL HH fluff I actually like. An atheist attempting to usher a secular empire ending up worshipped as a god is hilarious.

 farmersboy wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 farmersboy wrote:
Bolters suddenly suffering from recoil...

it makes sense they'd have recoil though.

Why, when they have a booster charge that fires the round out of the barrel before the main charge kicks in? They were specifically described as having little to no recoil. It's just another example of BL's shoddy writing, like having Space Marines keep huge weapons across their backs, forgetting the huge power pack already there.

because there's no way to vent that propellant. thus that booster charge is gonna have some kick to it. a bolter may not have recoil equivilant to what it should no, but it's going to have some recoil.

Newcrons are terrible. Fluff is full of cringe and they just became another minor xenos threat

 Harriticus wrote:
Newcrons are terrible. Fluff is full of cringe and they just became another minor xenos threat

their having personality doesn't change anything about their threat level

Yeah, in the old fluff they were no threat at all...

So many changes in this thread I don't like.

But one thing I do like without reservation is the changing of Space Sharks to Carcharodon Astra. All the Forge World changes were better than the previous fluff. While the changes to the chapter symbol and color scheme were ideal. Making them Ravenguard descents was really thematic, and expands on both chapters. I simply ignore that awful FF games Death Watch fluff, as it makes no sense.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I really don't like that they made the C'tan into the Necron version of Pokemons though.

i agree.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The newcrons aren't really a retcon, because that would imply the oldcrons had any meaningful fluff.

Exactly . oldcron lore ...........uh........what lore ?

Write even a short story of any depth or length about a mindless moron machine ? I would like to see anyone actually do that . Even with a generous slice of suspension of disbelief , it would have to have all the spice of reading a phone book , or be so dumb even an 8 year old would disdain it.

If you never actually read the necron lore, or went in expecting another epic tale of heroism, instead of a tale of a ancient evil beyond human understanding, yes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:
Yeah, in the old fluff they were no threat at all...

Oh yeah, 5 necron ships nearly landing on mars, despite the imperial defenses. Or a C'tan posing as a governor. Or the slaughter of Santuary 101. Totally no threat at all.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If you never actually read the necron lore, or went in expecting another epic tale of heroism, instead of a tale of a ancient evil beyond human understanding, yes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:
Yeah, in the old fluff they were no threat at all...

Oh yeah, 5 necron ships nearly landing on mars, despite the imperial defenses. Or a C'tan posing as a governor. Or the slaughter of Santuary 101. Totally no threat at all.

except it wasn't beynd understanding it was just "THEY WANT TO KILL EVERYTHING CAUSE..... C'TAN!" the "alien beyond all human understanding CAN be intreasting, but 99% of the time it's just an excuse to have a great evil critter do stuff "cause it can"

Kill everyone? No. Enslave humanity so they can become cattle for the C'tan? Yes. The C'tan eats souls. Killing everyone would be counterproductive.

The C'tan were basically the lawful antithesis to the chaos gods. That's what made them interesting.

Sanctuary 101 was Newcrons.

Epic tales of heroism I have never much cared for.

A tale of ancient evil beyond human understanding --- exactly ; eternal life ( or the closest thing to it temporally ) and fabulous power and wealth , and the result is they are rendered utterly miserable . And it's a coherent narrative.

And an actually different narrative, that is, not the exact same narrative to be found in Hollywood, Walmart, contemporary high school, etc, etc, etc, etc.

" The C'tan were basically the lawful antithesis to the chaos gods. " --- Now that's an idea worth development. But as I already stated I thought dubing down the C'Tan was going in the wrong direction.

Sanctuary 101 was originally from the 3rd ed necron codex. I verified it myself. It's on page 22.
The sacrifice of one's soul for eternal life, all for revenge, and damning themselves in the process, was also explored in the 3rd ed book.

It was a bit harsher there, as whilst in the 5th ed book they retained their freewill, they had nothing in the 3rd ed book. That's not to say they had no personality or intelligence; the lords were certainly intelligent, and it was possible for lords to think and have some level of personality, it just wasn't obvious as 5th ed lords, who were more or less human in their mannerisms.

Not to mention that the 5th ed book has a plothole considering the origin story; why would the C'tan not completely enslave the necrons, and delete their personalities? It doesn't make sense to me.
Like, what were they thinking? "oh we are going to steal your culture, your souls and make you into our pawns, but we'll let your Overlords think for themselves and continue having control of their armies, just don't betray us, k?"

Sanctiry101 was a White Dwarf article originally, to introduce the necrons to 40k. Supposed to be the first contact scenario.

 Selym wrote:
Sanctiry101 was a White Dwarf article originally, to introduce the necrons to 40k. Supposed to be the first contact scenario.

Huh, was it? That's interesting. Still predates 5th ed though.
What other lore bits were outside of the codex? I know about Xenology, and Medusa V, but anything else?
I still can't remember where I read that bit about Flayed Ones being insane, because I can't find the relevant passage in the codex.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Selym wrote:
Sanctiry101 was a White Dwarf article originally, to introduce the necrons to 40k. Supposed to be the first contact scenario.

Huh, was it? That's interesting. Still predates 5th ed though.
What other lore bits were outside of the codex? I know about Xenology, and Medusa V, but anything else?
I still can't remember where I read that bit about Flayed Ones being insane, because I can't find the relevant passage in the codex.

The C'tan where first mentioned in WD. IIRC it said something about the "Ancient star gods servants that sleep beyond the gates of -insert epic name-". They first appeared as art in 3ed. A necron warrior with the description "unkown".



On topic: Horus losing the siege of terra. techincally this is not a retcon since what actually happened is highly debated but I prefer the story in an old WD, the one for the first cityfight expansion. They had the entire battle for terra written down where it was quite clearly stated that Horus lost because the defenders outlasted his blits, which left him with the choice of retreating or to lower the shields and challenge the Emperor directly. He chose the latter and it was just mere luck for him that the Emperor took the bait as his army would have been crushed had the fighting prolonged. This tale has changed over the years back and forth. In the last one I read the Imperium was about to lose when Horus just happened to lower his shields. I prefer the old story where Horus is close to losing and bets all on a desperate gamble that ultimately fails.

EDIT: As a matter of fact I loved everything about this story. The legions fighting all out, the traitor primarchs being unleashed at the local populace and the loyalist primarchs performing heroic deeds, the titan legions shelling the imperial palace and the constant race againt the clock for the traitors, all leading to a climax that every 40k fan know by heart.

The whole oldones making everything annoyed me.

I dislike the loss of "True Grit". I think that its awesome, from a lore side, that some marines are just awesome enough to have pistol grip bolters, and are trained in such a way that they can use them in close combat.

I know GK, SW, and some other marines had them. To me, it gave those few marines a more elite close combat specialist feeling. Now they have bolter, pistol and CCW. Doesn't really feel like the same specialist, just makes me think they made sure not to forget something at home.... or have a fanny pack to carry it all.

Oh yeah, I remember true grit. That was a cool rule.

I miss Living Ammunition as well; that was a neat little fluffy rule for nids.

Conscripts in the 3rd ed IG book, iirc at a rule called Send in the Next Wave, where you recycled destroyed conscript squads.

Gaunts had a similar rule called Without Number.

 KesaAnna wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I really don't like that they made the C'tan into the Necron version of Pokemons though.

i agree.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The newcrons aren't really a retcon, because that would imply the oldcrons had any meaningful fluff.

Exactly . oldcron lore ...........uh........what lore ?

Write even a short story of any depth or length about a mindless moron machine ? I would like to see anyone actually do that . Even with a generous slice of suspension of disbelief , it would have to have all the spice of reading a phone book , or be so dumb even an 8 year old would disdain it.

Except even back in oldcron lore the Lords weren't mindless. Great example of this is provided in xenology.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:


Conscripts in the 3rd ed IG book, iirc at a rule called Send in the Next Wave, where you recycled destroyed conscript squads.

Gaunts had a similar rule called Without Number.

That was the 5th ed Guard book, & it was the Valhallan SC who gave that rule to his platoon's conscripts (Can't remember the name)

Chenkov, I believe.
And yes, he did have that rule, but I could have sworn the 3rd ed book had that a rule like that standard for Conscript squads. Maybe it wasn't called Send in the Next Wave.

Things I don't like:
Removal of all Ultramarine defeats. They were better with them.

Removal of C'tan as physical gods and Necrons as soulless/mindless automatons.

The Black Library Horus Heresy Series - nearly all of it. It's not just sort of wrong, it's straight up character assassination. It'd take me hours to type up all the retcons in it I consider bad ideas.

The notion that the Emperor was a psychic god in life. Although, the internet is responsible for most of this, but the internet perpetuated the idea long enough that it's becoming cannon. The Emperor's main strengths originally was his scientific genius and general knowledge. He was just also only arguably the most powerful Human psyker.

Trillions of Eldar.

Ollanius Pious' various backgrounds. He was best when he was just a normal guardsman. That had real meaning.

Things I like:
Tau, yes, really. Adding Tau is a retcon, and it's a positive one. They get to be the naive perspective in the setting and we get to see just how horrible that really is in 40k.

Dark Eldar, same as Tau. It never made sense that there were no survivors of the original Eldar culture.

4th edition Necrons. Every setting needs a bigger fish. They were one.

Saul Tarvitz in the BL HH series. Suck it 4 Primarchs, you got outsmarted and out-generaled by one forgotten Captain who was woefully outmatched. Putting down the fanboy-notion of unstoppable and infallible Primarchs is awesome. Now they just need to that to the Emperor and maybe the series will be worth it. If you didn't know what the retcon here was, Saul Tarvitz originally escaped Istvaan on the Eisenstein with Garro.

Garro in the BL HH series, although this isn't a retcon, but an expansion, since we didn't know anything about him except that he was on the Eisenstein. Turns out the setting does allow for a character to be heroic, rational, and religious all the same time. Usually they don't like to hit all of those points.

The Horus Heresy. No, not the book series, the event. The Horus Heresy was invented to sell the original Epic game so they only had to make marines for the main box and it would be two armies. This has become the single most defining event in the entire setting and the ultimate example of why pimping for the product is not objectively a bad idea.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
If you didn't know what the retcon here was, Saul Tarvitz originally escaped Istvaan on the Eisenstein with Garro.

*Originally* Each Legion (Chapter) seized a different vessel, Varren and his World Eaters seized the Eisenstein and made a break for it, the other seized vessels were tasked with causing a distraction so it could escape.

The Death Guard IA author fanboi'd it by stealing both Tarvitz and Varren's thunder. I'm glad they've given both some measure of it back (Varren appears in one of the Garro stories), but letting the blatant fanboism stand by making Garro something special still irks me.

The thing I hate most about the Netcron is that it suddenly made everyone who likes it forget everything they ever knew about the old Necron fluff... and half of the people who hate the Newcron fluff seem to have forgotten the old Necron fluff as well!

There was a six page spread of green on green text in White Dwarf about the War in Heaven in 4th edition, timed to match up with the Eldar codex release that repurposed Eldar as the 'ancient guardians against the necron threat'. It told a wonderful story about a Harlequin troupe re-enacting the Death of the C'tan by civil war, which left everyone confused as to whether the Deciever was really Cegorach all along or not. The Void Dragon? The Outsider? that's where that fluff came from!

Not to mention the fluff in the first 3rd edition Chapter Approved articles about how Necrons lost a little bit more of their soul every time they phased out for repairs. That was retconned away when the C'tan were made the Big Bosses though. That article was also where Necron Immortals were introduced, expanding the Necron range to five whole models (alternate Warrior poses notwithstanding).

Or how about the oldcron fluff where Harvest Ships would appear over a colony, abduct precisely 1/3 or 1/10th of the population, then vanish again with no clues as to what happened beyond the occasional mutilated herd animal and memory of flashing green lights? Anyone remember that? Anyone at al? Nobody ever learned why they were doing it, let alone what the criteria for who they chose to steal away were.

But, hell, even Matt Ward forgot that Necron ships don't have void shields, so what can we really expect?

I remember the bit about losing a bit of their soul everytime they phase out. I remember finding that bit of lore contradictory, as I read it after reading the 3rd ed codex.

I also remember reading about the harvesting.
I thought it was a nice reference to alien abuctions.

I remember the thing about the War in Heaven play as well. It was neat.

I liked how they humbled Vect a bit in the 5th edition Dark Eldar Codex, where he's stated to have been a slave or something during the fall. In older fluff he said he was one of the founders of Commoragh. This gave him a bit more character than if he just started off as the biggest tyrant in the city.

As for most disliked, it's a tossup between the Necron fiasco and the Warding of the Grey Knight.

Or just anything by Ward in general. That guy is a prime example of why fanboys should NEVER write official fluff.

People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

 Harriticus wrote:
People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

Actually I like that too. Especially as it allowed Horus to gain some in the same way

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Things I don't like:
Removal of all Ultramarine defeats. They were better with them.
.

just because a battle isn't spelled out in a codex doesn't mean it's been retconned out of existance.

Likewise just because the Ultramarines won the second battle of Damnos doesn't mean the first one suddenly no longer counts

 Harriticus wrote:
People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

Wait, what?

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

Wait, what?

he's proably thinking of spirit of vengance where it suggests the emperor stole power from the gods of chaos, I interpreted that as him stealing the power to create the primarchs

Imperial knights. God I hate them. Their fluff makes no sence to me.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

Wait, what?

he's proably thinking of spirit of vengance where it suggests the emperor stole power from the gods of chaos, I interpreted that as him stealing the power to create the primarchs

You mean Vengeful Spirit I also prefer explanation from that Horus Heresy novel over old fluff. Always found whole shaman theory stupid.

The entirety of the cabal stuff. So damn stupid

Nerak wrote:
Imperial knights. God I hate them. Their fluff makes no sence to me.

Have the Knights been retconned? They have always been a back ground part of 40k, they've only recently come into prominence though with GW's insistence that the game be apocalypse all the time.

IK have been around for a very long time, and showed up in versions of Epic, iirc.

there is a bit of a differance, at least IMHO to GW shining a light on nooks and crannies of 40k not seen in the past and an outright retcon.

Imperial knights = not a retcon

Skitarii refusing to sue wheeled vehicles = retcon.


just for example

BrianDavion wrote:
there is a bit of a differance, at least IMHO to GW shining a light on nooks and crannies of 40k not seen in the past and an outright retcon.

Imperial knights = not a retcon

Skitarii refusing to sue wheeled vehicles = retcon.


just for example

Speaking of which that is a stupid Fething retcon. They are the MECHANICUS! they should be one of the most tank happy armies in all of 40k! not to mention it's a poor, poor excuse for them not having it upon launch that Alongside the fact that they apparently don't use the HH style cybernetica units is probably the stupidest fething thing about them.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
there is a bit of a differance, at least IMHO to GW shining a light on nooks and crannies of 40k not seen in the past and an outright retcon.

Imperial knights = not a retcon

Skitarii refusing to sue wheeled vehicles = retcon.


just for example

Speaking of which that is a stupid Fething retcon. They are the MECHANICUS! they should be one of the most tank happy armies in all of 40k! not to mention it's a poor, poor excuse for them not having it upon launch that Alongside the fact that they apparently don't use the HH style cybernetica units is probably the stupidest fething thing about them.

the lack of HH style units I'm fine with, if every unit from the HH reappered in 40k the HH loses a lot of it's impact.

the idea that the admech prefers walkers? intreasting idea, but they need a transport.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
there is a bit of a differance, at least IMHO to GW shining a light on nooks and crannies of 40k not seen in the past and an outright retcon.

Imperial knights = not a retcon

Skitarii refusing to sue wheeled vehicles = retcon.


just for example

Speaking of which that is a stupid Fething retcon. They are the MECHANICUS! they should be one of the most tank happy armies in all of 40k! not to mention it's a poor, poor excuse for them not having it upon launch that Alongside the fact that they apparently don't use the HH style cybernetica units is probably the stupidest fething thing about them.

the lack of HH style units I'm fine with, if every unit from the HH reappered in 40k the HH loses a lot of it's impact.

the idea that the admech prefers walkers? intreasting idea, but they need a transport.

imho, AdMech should have been filled with high-point-cost units. For example, Jetbikes for a fast-attack unit. Why? Because if the Dark Angels can maintain a Jetbike, then so can the bloody Mechanicus! Also, Volkite weaponry for an elite unit, along with some uber-powerful Plasma weaponry that has a high point cost. The AdMech should have had all of these crazy unique toys that had high point costs, but were hugely powerful, like black hole guns, or insanely accurate artillery vehicles. There is so much missed potential with the AdMech faction's Codices I want to host a book burning just to destroy every copy of those blasphemous books.

the admech does have a fair number of powerful high cost weapons though, you can equip troops with grav cannons for crying out loud,

that said my over all feeling on the matter is "it's a good start"

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

Nerak wrote:
Imperial knights. God I hate them. Their fluff makes no sence to me.

Have the Knights been retconned? They have always been a back ground part of 40k, they've only recently come into prominence though with GW's insistence that the game be apocalypse all the time.

Slightly. Apparently only boys can drive Knights now, that never used to be the case.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

Nerak wrote:
Imperial knights. God I hate them. Their fluff makes no sence to me.

Have the Knights been retconned? They have always been a back ground part of 40k, they've only recently come into prominence though with GW's insistence that the game be apocalypse all the time.

Slightly. Apparently only boys can drive Knights now, that never used to be the case.

well how can they do game of thrones in big stompy robots if women are eqal to men?

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

Nerak wrote:
Imperial knights. God I hate them. Their fluff makes no sence to me.

Have the Knights been retconned? They have always been a back ground part of 40k, they've only recently come into prominence though with GW's insistence that the game be apocalypse all the time.

Slightly. Apparently only boys can drive Knights now, that never used to be the case.

I thought there was at least 1 Knight who was a woman?

pm713 wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

Nerak wrote:
Imperial knights. God I hate them. Their fluff makes no sence to me.

Have the Knights been retconned? They have always been a back ground part of 40k, they've only recently come into prominence though with GW's insistence that the game be apocalypse all the time.

Slightly. Apparently only boys can drive Knights now, that never used to be the case.

I thought there was at least 1 Knight who was a woman?

their is, she was a freeblade, generally speaking most knight houses only allow men to drive a knight, given the throne mechanium's tendancy to imprint a string sense of tradtionalism, heirarchy etc, that's likely the reason for it. that said I'd certainly not have a problem with someone making a custom knight house that allowed women to become knights, or even one with an amazonian reversal of gender roles. it's a big setting.

that said the freeblade mentioned earlier is proably where the bulk of the female knights come from, Mulan's and Joan d'Arcs etc

BrianDavion wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

Wait, what?

he's proably thinking of spirit of vengance where it suggests the emperor stole power from the gods of chaos, I interpreted that as him stealing the power to create the primarchs

That isn't what happened in that book.

In that book, daemons told Horus that the Emperor got his powers from chaos gods.

Because daemons are totally forthright and believable. They also have a bridge they'd like to sell you.

I like the new Necron fluff and Perpetuals.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
People gonna crucify me for this, but I prefer the new backstory for how the Emperor got his powers than the old Shaman thing. It has a great Prometheus vibe to it.

Wait, what?

he's proably thinking of spirit of vengance where it suggests the emperor stole power from the gods of chaos, I interpreted that as him stealing the power to create the primarchs

That isn't what happened in that book.

In that book, daemons told Horus that the Emperor got his powers from chaos gods.

Because daemons are totally forthright and believable. They also have a bridge they'd like to sell you.

None of the sources on what exactly went down between the Emperor and the Chaos Gods are credible. Stole, bargained, cheated, exchanged; all have been suggested and none of them are verifiable.

Then again, neither is Horus' "I won my new god-like powers fair and square" attitude either. He's trusting his perception of what went on in the Warp (commanding Daemon armies etc and taking the power by force) when at the same time he acknowledges that his perceptions must be a bit screwed because he was only gone for a moment. Time moves differently in the Warp, and nothing is as it seems. For all we know, he actually just had a 20 minute meeting with the Pantheon and his limited mind was unable to grasp the reality of that, so he imagines it as a thousand years of Daemon-war.

Have the Knights been retconned? They have always been a back ground part of 40k, they've only recently come into prominence though with GW's insistence that the game be apocalypse all the time.

Knights used to be part of epic 40k. I just thought they where a part of the titan legions back then.

I have two problems with them that serves as fuel for my anger. The first is the faction they represent and the other is the ones they don't. First theese guys represent noble houses, I know they are deployable through help from the mechanicus but primarily the knights are a part of the noble houses of the knights worlds. Given the relative ease of production, their outstanding performance and the fact that they are not strictly part of any adeptus I don't see why the mechanicus doesn't just go "small sized titan? Awesome" and start mass producing theese things everywhere. I don't understand why a knight contingency isn't incorporate into the imperial guard or even as an offshot to the titan legions. It buggs the hell out of me that they are an organization outside the adeptus bureaucracy. This would make them more akin to the space marines then anything, where anyone who want their assistance must ask for it and have damn good reason for it. An inquisitor could easily acquire the schematics of one and then mass production all over should be easy. If the knights are a remnant of the dark age of technology then how the hell did the Emperor not put knights in the space marine legions? We know the titans where strictly a part of the mechanicus so they couldn't really be easily be placed anywhere but the knights has got nothing but wealth protecting them. The Astartes legions should have been equipped with theese things the second they where found and, failing that, they should have replaced the dreadnoughts for the astartes long ago. Let's asssume they where recently found, why hasn't the high lords of terra decided that this awesome new piece of battle tech gets put into the imperial war machine instead of being allowed to remain their own ruling body? Does anyone else see the issues here? Noble houses have power but are quite frankly the least powerfull faction in 40k when push comes to shove.

all of which is explained in the codex.

BrianDavion wrote:
all of which is explained in the codex.

Do enlighten me. I have not read the codex but I did go through the warhammer wiki and the lexicanum pages on the subjects and they did not explain the issue.

well ok first of all re noble houses, remember that the IoM mostly leaves worlds to do their own thing so long as they reckongize the god emperor, and pay their taxes. Knight worlds are in an enviable position that their forces are in a high eneugh demand that they can essentially pick and choose where they fight. Also Knight worlds had an advantage over many other worlds in that both the Mechanius (or later AdMech) and the Imperium proper where basicly compeiting for the worlds, and thus where proably offered a better deal. as for why no one is mass producing knights, it's because they're STC relics. (thats the admechs intreast in the knight worlds. STC fragments. a knight world is almost a garenteed STC fragment) they can be repaired and updated, but new ones proably can't be made, (gonna take a wild guess that it's the throne mechanium that's the stumbling block) also all throne mechanium's basicly brain wash the pilot to think like a Knight. so even if you could produce em, you'd swiftly end up with.. more noble houses.

I suppose I just never found the concept of memebrs of noble houses running around in old heirloom 1 man mecha fighting each other as that odd a thing, but.. I play Battletech

I very rarey go on rants but this bugs me so much because I simply can't make sence of it. I'll break down the stuff above and show you what I mean. First off is that it is correct that the Imperium does not care much about how a world is governed as long as five criteria are met. 1-The taxes are paid. 2-The world follows the Imperial creed. 3-soldiers are provided to the imperial guard. 4-The planets psykers are provided to the black ships. 5-The planet forms a PDF. Now as far as theese are concerned the knight worlds seem to be doing fine with the possibly exception of number 3, but seeing how they provide knights to the imperial cause this could easily be a special case.
The next par, "Admech was competing for the worlds so they where offered a better deal" does not make sence to me. Since the 31M the Imperium has beeen focusing on one thing, which is to stop heresy and traitors. This is the whole purpose of the Inquisiton and partly the reason why the adeptus arbitors are so important. these two bodies, with the addition of the adeptus administratum, governs all the military assests provided so that no single planet has the ability to raise up against the Imperium with a force powerfull enough to do any long term damadge. Now take the knights, what the sources say is that "they where offered a deal of trade" and "are called upon by the Imperium to make war" due to "honor". Tell me if this rings a bell. An immensly powerfull military faction left largely to it's own accord with very little outside scrutiny, assumed to do the Imperiums bidding. Sounds familiar? Huron? Goge Vandire? Horus? The thing is this would so easily be fixed with just a single line of text. Add a "The knight worlds are left largely to their own accord under the scrutiny of the Inquisitons ordo Auxilia" or something.

Lets say that for whatever reason not having the adeptus govern theese hundreds of worlds is a good idea then there's the issue of getting the knights to fight where they are needed. As of now the communication in the Imperium is a mess. Often enormous ammounts of imperial guard regiments must be raised quickly to go fight somewhere with very little information about anything. The knights are always "called upon" and "asked" to fight. It does not seem to me like they are subjects to the Imperial authorties. They probably would not send their armies out without first knowing what's going on and who's asking. This is important because since the Knights and their men at arms fill up the roles of the PDF (as in criteria 5) we must assume they also fill up the roles of Imperial guard, as in criteria 3. Even with the special case as is implied by the demands of their suits the Imperium needs to be able to raise them swiftly and send them off to whatever close by hellhole is causing trouble. The fact that it does not seem to work this way implies they are above the high lords of terra, in the same way that space marine chapter masters are, and thus what you're really looking at is an empire within the Imperium. A bunch of worlds that follow their own creed of laws, honours and trade outside how a whole galaxy is run. Because they have big machines. This could also so easily be fixed by a single "The knight high king is destined to serve as a high lord of Terra after years of service" or "The knight worlds are under direct authorities of the adeptus mechanicus".

Finally about the Knights themselves. They where created sometime during mankinds golden age (1m-15m) as a form of PDF/work machine. Later on they where repurpoused as full on war machines untill their society collapsed. Fast forward some 20thousand years and the mechanicus finds them and goes "Cool. Lets fix theese up". This means that the knights found functioning here has remained functioning, through constant combat, with medieval level tech for at least 5 thousand years (give or take depending on how the dark age of technology went down for them). Think about that for a sec, what did this world look like 5000 years ago? How many machines doyou think will survive 5000 years into the future? So then the knights are restored to fighting strengh but if no new ones are made and they can only piece togheter bits of the old ones then they should all be long long destroyed and by the 41m all should be gone. Hence what the Admech must have done is figure out how to build new ones. Remmember that it clearly states they "brought technology to them in exchange for food and other trade". So now we have the mechanicus building knights and then explain to me again why these super war machines are not spread across the entire imperium and put on par with the leman russ battle tank in how they are deployed? Or at least why the Space marine legions where NOT outfitted with theese beasts of walkers instead of their dreadnoughts? Even with the mind altering throne shouldn't they put a bunch of soldiers in there to act as supportive troops?

No, to me this fluff does not hold up. This is not how the Imperium operates and there's no way the knights could remain operational after so long. This stuff is simply poorly written to satisfy the ability to sell the models. Honestly I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. I suppose most of this stuff can be explained away by things that are't written down. Like the adeptus could have a presence on theese worlds or they could be officially ruled by the mechanicus whilst letting the nobles do whatever they want to get on with their research. If so it feels very, very stupid since that raises even more issues I don't want to have to go into.

As a side note I like the idea of noble houses going at it in huge mechs, it just that it does not hold up in 40k lore to me but could be easily changed through some tweeks and changes. It's sort of like the "why does imperial guard not have power armour while the sororitas do" type of questions.

Well, literally all of the "lost the capability to make more" tropes in 40k won't hold up under any scrutiny. For example it is proof they make new warships, which are massively complicated collections of technology, any small part of which has to be made from scratch. That single warship requires the capability to make thousands, if not millions, of different parts/systems from scratch in factories.

Following 40k's dark age trope to the letter would result in the eventual destruction/loss of anything used for war, followed soon by everything else. I can't imagine the Imperium can't make new titans or knights when they can make kilometers-long warships.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Following 40k's dark age trope to the letter would result in the eventual destruction/loss of anything used for war, followed soon by everything else. I can't imagine the Imperium can't make new titans or knights when they can make kilometers-long warships.

Perhaps this is true, but I don't see how it is a problem for the 40k setting. It is the Time of Ending, it is heavily implied that the Imperium is not going to survive for another 10k years (certainly not in it's current state, at least).

Perhaps it would be a problem if the setting stretched from 40k to infinity.

Of course they can still do Titans and warships, but they aren't as good/powerful and as many as before.
In the v3 or v4 (IIRC) Space Marines Codex, there is a little story of SM fighting orks.
One of the marines take a shot, go to ground, and think about how is armor was quicker to put him back on feets, when he was young.
This is what happens in the Imperium: they can still do things (except some rare tech) but even the tech they have are worse than before.

Imagine they knew how to make Iphone in the 31st Millenium, now, they can still do phones, but they lost a lot of it.
Now they are making low range (low end ?) huawei.

*Nokia brick phones.

Comes with an attached flashlight. 5 point upgrade to an IG sergeant.

Nerak wrote:
I very rarey go on rants but this bugs me so much because I simply can't make sence of it. I'll break down the stuff above and show you what I mean. First off is that it is correct that the Imperium does not care much about how a world is governed as long as five criteria are met. 1-The taxes are paid. 2-The world follows the Imperial creed. 3-soldiers are provided to the imperial guard. 4-The planets psykers are provided to the black ships. 5-The planet forms a PDF. Now as far as theese are concerned the knight worlds seem to be doing fine with the possibly exception of number 3, but seeing how they provide knights to the imperial cause this could easily be a special case.
The next par, "Admech was competing for the worlds so they where offered a better deal" does not make sence to me. Since the 31M the Imperium has beeen focusing on one thing, which is to stop heresy and traitors. This is the whole purpose of the Inquisiton and partly the reason why the adeptus arbitors are so important. these two bodies, with the addition of the adeptus administratum, governs all the military assests provided so that no single planet has the ability to raise up against the Imperium with a force powerfull enough to do any long term damadge. Now take the knights, what the sources say is that "they where offered a deal of trade" and "are called upon by the Imperium to make war" due to "honor". Tell me if this rings a bell. An immensly powerfull military faction left largely to it's own accord with very little outside scrutiny, assumed to do the Imperiums bidding. Sounds familiar? Huron? Goge Vandire? Horus? The thing is this would so easily be fixed with just a single line of text. Add a "The knight worlds are left largely to their own accord under the scrutiny of the Inquisitons ordo Auxilia" or something.

Lets say that for whatever reason not having the adeptus govern theese hundreds of worlds is a good idea then there's the issue of getting the knights to fight where they are needed. As of now the communication in the Imperium is a mess. Often enormous ammounts of imperial guard regiments must be raised quickly to go fight somewhere with very little information about anything. The knights are always "called upon" and "asked" to fight. It does not seem to me like they are subjects to the Imperial authorties. They probably would not send their armies out without first knowing what's going on and who's asking. This is important because since the Knights and their men at arms fill up the roles of the PDF (as in criteria 5) we must assume they also fill up the roles of Imperial guard, as in criteria 3. Even with the special case as is implied by the demands of their suits the Imperium needs to be able to raise them swiftly and send them off to whatever close by hellhole is causing trouble. The fact that it does not seem to work this way implies they are above the high lords of terra, in the same way that space marine chapter masters are, and thus what you're really looking at is an empire within the Imperium. A bunch of worlds that follow their own creed of laws, honours and trade outside how a whole galaxy is run. Because they have big machines. This could also so easily be fixed by a single "The knight high king is destined to serve as a high lord of Terra after years of service" or "The knight worlds are under direct authorities of the adeptus mechanicus".

Finally about the Knights themselves. They where created sometime during mankinds golden age (1m-15m) as a form of PDF/work machine. Later on they where repurpoused as full on war machines untill their society collapsed. Fast forward some 20thousand years and the mechanicus finds them and goes "Cool. Lets fix theese up". This means that the knights found functioning here has remained functioning, through constant combat, with medieval level tech for at least 5 thousand years (give or take depending on how the dark age of technology went down for them). Think about that for a sec, what did this world look like 5000 years ago? How many machines doyou think will survive 5000 years into the future? So then the knights are restored to fighting strengh but if no new ones are made and they can only piece togheter bits of the old ones then they should all be long long destroyed and by the 41m all should be gone. Hence what the Admech must have done is figure out how to build new ones. Remmember that it clearly states they "brought technology to them in exchange for food and other trade". So now we have the mechanicus building knights and then explain to me again why these super war machines are not spread across the entire imperium and put on par with the leman russ battle tank in how they are deployed? Or at least why the Space marine legions where NOT outfitted with theese beasts of walkers instead of their dreadnoughts? Even with the mind altering throne shouldn't they put a bunch of soldiers in there to act as supportive troops?

No, to me this fluff does not hold up. This is not how the Imperium operates and there's no way the knights could remain operational after so long. This stuff is simply poorly written to satisfy the ability to sell the models. Honestly I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. I suppose most of this stuff can be explained away by things that are't written down. Like the adeptus could have a presence on theese worlds or they could be officially ruled by the mechanicus whilst letting the nobles do whatever they want to get on with their research. If so it feels very, very stupid since that raises even more issues I don't want to have to go into.

As a side note I like the idea of noble houses going at it in huge mechs, it just that it does not hold up in 40k lore to me but could be easily changed through some tweeks and changes. It's sort of like the "why does imperial guard not have power armour while the sororitas do" type of questions.

Couple of things...

One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

The Knight Houses are relatively few in number and feature very few suits per world. In the scales of conflicts in 40K, the presence of a Knight and its auxillia might win a battle, but it's not a decisive war-winner. Much like the Space Marine Chapters, those Knight Worlds that refuse a "request" from the HLoT will likely find themselves in all sorts of trouble... the sorts of trouble that lead to "regime change" orchestrated through the Inquisition and/or the Assassinorum.

New Titans and new Knights cannot be built. They can repair broken parts. New armor plate can be forged. Fried electrical systems can be replaced, possibly even retro-fit with something the Mechanicus can create (but it's not as good as it used to be). In true 40k fashion, the fluff assumes that most Knights decisively win the battles they are present in, and so the total loss of a Knight is extremely rare. This is the same fluff where a single squad of Space Marines is sufficient to topple a planet of billions. War in 40K is basically fought like a chess game: topple the king, the game is yours. Machines and systems surviving many thousands of years is a theme of 40K. The extant technology is *constantly* maintained, because it is, in many cases, literally irreplaceable. Hive Worlds use atmospheric recyclers that have been in service since the Hive was founded sometime in M27. There are relic vessels that have been in service since before the Great Crusade. When the Golden Age built something, they built it to *last*. When facing medieval technology? Well, in that case, the Knight is invulnerable. Steel swords cannot pierce adamantine armor. Thus, the Knights survived their Feudal Worlds just fine, because hurling rocks at a battle-mech is entirely ineffective. Between the armor and the void shield, those catapults, ballista, archers and horsemen had absolutely no hope in ever scratching its paint, let alone actually damaging it.

... Titans can be built. There are new Titans all over the bloody shop. Hell, Graia is an entire Forge World dedicated to building Titans.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... Titans can be built. There are new Titans all over the bloody shop. Hell, Graia is an entire Forge World dedicated to building Titans.

This kind of thing is why I don't understand the ignorance of a lot of the people on this thread. All over the place, we see examples of shipyards, Titan Manufactories, brand spankin' new suits of Power Armour, and yet, there seems to be this illusion that the Mechanicum is the most incompetent organization imaginable, and can't build the very bread and butter of its own technologies.

 Lord_Inquisitor_Doge wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... Titans can be built. There are new Titans all over the bloody shop. Hell, Graia is an entire Forge World dedicated to building Titans.

This kind of thing is why I don't understand the ignorance of a lot of the people on this thread. All over the place, we see examples of shipyards, Titan Manufactories, brand spankin' new suits of Power Armour, and yet, there seems to be this illusion that the Mechanicum is the most incompetent organization imaginable, and can't build the very bread and butter of its own technologies.

It is more inconsistency in fluff. In some bits of everything is irreplaceable to the point that you would fight wars to recover a titan's body. In other fluff bits, your literally churning them out on giant factories.

They look at the fluff that says that the AdMech don't know why most of the things they do works, and assume that that means they're incapable of producing and fitting together the parts.

The Mechanicus' lack of fundamental background knowledge in no way inhibits their ability to supply the Imperium, because they know how to make a diode, they just don't know what a diode is or why it works. But they do know that if you solder a million diodes to this board in the right places and screw it into this bit of a Titan, the Titan will start working assuming nothing else is broken or missing.

It's like... you don't need to know how a gun works and how a bullet works to put a bullet in a gun and fire it at something. What the AdMech as is a bunch of bullets and a bunch of guns that they know how to load and fire, but they don't know that you need to clean the gun to keep it working well.

Except they kind of do, because the Ritual of Maintenance is a set of instructions on how to clean the gun. The problem is, they think that the ritual is the reason the gun works better afterwards, not what you do as part of the ritual.

My understanding has always been that they don't understand why or how things work just how it fits together. Some things like Titans will have a large recovery force because they are hard to make so it's worth the loss of life to get one back. Repairing is a lot easier than rebuilding from scratch.

pm713 wrote:
My understanding has always been that they don't understand why or how things work just how it fits together..

This trope is mostly a fan-perpetuated myth. There was never really any fluff support to the idea that the Mechanicus had forgotten how to make things and were just deconstructing things like Chinese engineers with American and Russian jets, lol.

The Imperium has lost some technology, and humanity lost a ton after the DAoT, but they continue to innovate and invent. And they actively search out lost technologies. They also understand how the technologies they use work. The idea of a lack of foundational knowledge is another player-myth. It's not really clear where this concept originated, because it's certainly not supported by any of the older fluff (2nd, 3rd, 4th edition books, etc). Nowhere in there will you find language suggesting any idea of a bunch of guys just memorizing schematics. It talks specifically about "knowledge", and "design" and "research" and "inventors" and "explore new sciences" etc. The AdMech maybe dedicated to rediscovering technologies, but it's talking about pre-Dark Age of Technology stuff.

People kinda just invented this idea in their heads, and it sorta became a common consensus through repetition I think.

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

Is it because they dumped the imperium and declared their unconditional love to the smurfs? Might be related.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Sanctuary 101 was originally from the 3rd ed necron codex. I verified it myself. It's on page 22.

I wasn't referring to a one ( ? ) or 2 ( ?) paragraph codex entry. I was referring to a 200+ - 300+ page SOB novel .

My contention was and is that killer slaves for the C'tan cannot amount to anything more than strictly and solely "fluff ". As any kind of developed lore it wouldn't just be alien, or lacking in political correctness, or hard to contextualize, or just plain hard to write, it would be impossible to write.
Codex entries have no baring on that argument. You CAN venture just about anything if no more than a few paragraphs and mostly pictures is all that is required.

 KesaAnna wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Sanctuary 101 was originally from the 3rd ed necron codex. I verified it myself. It's on page 22.

I wasn't referring to a one ( ? ) or 2 ( ?) paragraph codex entry. I was referring to a 200+ - 300+ page SOB novel .

My contention was and is that killer slaves for the C'tan cannot amount to anything more than strictly and solely "fluff ". As any kind of developed lore it wouldn't just be alien, or lacking in political correctness, or hard to contextualize, or just plain hard to write, it would be impossible to write.
Codex entries have no baring on that argument. You CAN venture just about anything if no more than a few paragraphs and mostly pictures is all that is required.

Sanctuary 101 was originally a battle report in White Dwarf. Hammer and Anvil was about the reclamation of Sanctuary 101 fifty to a hundred years after the Massacre at Sanctuary 101.

The Massacre at Sanctuary 101 was the second piece of Necron fluff ever revealed, coming as it did in month 2 of the army's original release for second edition in White Dwarf magazine (issues 216 and 217).

The only fluff more oldcron than Sanctuary 101 is the mission from WD216 in which Imperial troops must kill Necron Warriors and Scarabs in close combat, in order to attach disruptors to them to prevent them from teleporting home so the Mechanicum can study them.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Is it because they dumped the imperium and declared their unconditional love to the smurfs? Might be related.

No, it was when the desperate Orks began spreading rumours about 'Ghazghkull' and his imaginary feats to not lose the last of their reputation.

That certainly begs the question; what if enough orks start believing the rumours are true?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

you of course can provide the quote, as well as the codex edition and page number?

The same thing that happens when all those Orks believed Ghazghkull would conquer Armageddon.

He didn't, because 'they believe it is true so it becomes true' is a spammed meme based on an in-universe theory and with countless more plausible explanations (such as evil sunz favouring faster engines, and the red paint being irrelevant).

Yeah but that war isn't over and Ghazzy is still in command of it even from Octaria. He sees, hears and communicates to his command in real time as the events unfold putting all the astropaths and navigators to shame. Soon Orkimedes will have advanced the tellyporta tek so much that they cross the galactic distances instantaneously putting all other forms of travel to shame. Armageddon's fate is still on a knifes edge.

Edit add: Also Draigo is really Tzeentch breaking the 4th wall and messing with the reader's head. There I said it.

Ghazzy quit because even with his supposedly biggest ever Waaagh since the Beast and his great cunning, he could not break the defenses of a single Imperial world.

Orks are really not that dangerous. Their strength lies in that they are hard to get rid of completely. Many other xeno species would be by far more dangerous if they had the Orks' raw spread.

What you have there is a perfect example of lore outlined in the codex pg58; "Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin' so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!" - commonly held ork view of warfare.
Ghazzy can't lose with the weight of ork belief supporting him. That planet's days are numbered....

Also I'm not such a great fan of turning the necrons into another human fiefdom but I get what they were trying to do. Even if monotone I found the oldcrons creepier then what we have today.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ghazzy quit because even with his supposedly biggest ever Waaagh since the Beast and his great cunning, he could not break the defenses of a single Imperial world.

Orks are really not that dangerous. Their strength lies in that they are hard to get rid of completely. Many other xeno species would be by far more dangerous if they had the Orks' raw spread.

The 'nids have lost 2 hive fleets to Calgar's UMs, therefore they are not that dangerous.
Neither of these statements are true, the orks and the 'nids are definitely dangerous. When a huge portion of the IoM's strength is assigned to defeat a threat they usually do, thats what makes the IoM impressive. It does not negate power of the initial threat.
Also Ghazzy is still going, and HF Leviathon is just starting.

The nids lost two tendrils to the five hundred worlds of Ultramar, yes, and their UM-led defence forces.

Ghazghkull ran off to summon his gods because he has given up on breaking Armageddon without them, which is telling because Orks don't usually run.

Well, at least they say they don't usually do it. And as long as they win, that might even be true.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin' so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!"

I am sure telling themselves that is very comforting for the Ork hordes who died of IG artillery fire a day's march away from reaching the enemy.

umm Ultramar was only 9 worlds.

30k is not 40k people.

And the Ultramarines did not fight alone. They pulled in help to defend the system... from systems now held by their very friendly successors (guess which systems), as well as Navy ships.

Which goes to show how much was needed to stop the nids. The smaller branch of nids than those which Ghazzy and his boyz are now holding their own against in the Octarian sector. That Armageddon has not yet fallen shows how strong the unified IoM is, not how irrelevant the Orks are

It can equally easily show just as hard it is to get rid of the Orks, though?

 Ashiraya wrote:
And the Ultramarines did not fight alone. They pulled in help to defend the system... from systems now held by their very friendly successors (guess which systems), as well as Navy ships.

The had the entire segmentum fleet from Bakka to help and it was a close thing as I recall.

Thats Segmentum Tempestus not Ultima Segmentum, theres had already bought it

BrianDavion wrote:

Spoiler:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

you of course can provide the quote, as well as the codex edition and page number?

Here it is:

6th Edition Codex: Space Marines, page 79 wrote:A Chapter Master has the authority to act as he wishes and is answerable only to others of his rank.

Seems fairly cut-and-dry to me. Of course it does not mean that a Chapter veering off the path of the Emperor's light (by repeatedly refusing to take the fight to the Imperium's foes, for example) wouldn't be held in contempt and reported to Inquisitorial authorities or their fellow Chapters...

The Chapter Master can do as he likes, but the world his fortress is on can't. Which was Huron's problem.

 Lord Corellia wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

Spoiler:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

you of course can provide the quote, as well as the codex edition and page number?

Here it is:

6th Edition Codex: Space Marines, page 79 wrote:A Chapter Master has the authority to act as he wishes and is answerable only to others of his rank.

Seems fairly cut-and-dry to me. Of course it does not mean that a Chapter veering off the path of the Emperor's light (by repeatedly refusing to take the fight to the Imperium's foes, for example) wouldn't be held in contempt and reported to Inquisitorial authorities or their fellow Chapters...

That's how the Astartes see it, but in practice, it's a little less cut and dry. Chapters operate a lot more independently than any other part of the Imperium save for the Mechanicus and Inquisitors, but a Chapter Master throwing his weight around can still have the hammered laid down on his chapter for treason or corruption. Just ask the Rainbow Warriors. In reality, it works a lot like Inquisitors: in theory their above the law, but if enough forces decide they've got to go, they can still be excommunicated and executed.

 Lord Corellia wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

Spoiler:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

you of course can provide the quote, as well as the codex edition and page number?

Here it is:

6th Edition Codex: Space Marines, page 79 wrote:A Chapter Master has the authority to act as he wishes and is answerable only to others of his rank.

Seems fairly cut-and-dry to me. Of course it does not mean that a Chapter veering off the path of the Emperor's light (by repeatedly refusing to take the fight to the Imperium's foes, for example) wouldn't be held in contempt and reported to Inquisitorial authorities or their fellow Chapters...

that doesn't mean a Chapter master is ABOVE the High Lords, just that he does not ANSWER to them.

Does shoving the Necrons behind everything count as a retcon? Because all of a sudden they (and the C'tan) were responsible for the creation (or at least engineering) of the Eldar and Orks, everybody fearing death (except the Orks somehow). They caused the Warp to get roiled up in the first place. The Deceiver was implied to have led Abaddon to his Daemon sword and encouraged his 12th Black Crusade (because obviously arming an enemy with the Blackstone Fortresses makes more sense than him just trashing them with his god powers). They became the only faction with "gods" strolling around fully powered. Everyone else who had such beings had them handicapped in the Materium. They became the oldest and most technologically advanced faction because why would Eldar get to keep that.

The more I think about it, their 3rd Ed background half comes across as fan fiction. And then the other half is pretty cool.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Does shoving the Necrons behind everything count as a retcon? Because all of a sudden they (and the C'tan) were responsible for the creation (or at least engineering) of the Eldar and Orks, everybody fearing death (except the Orks somehow). They caused the Warp to get roiled up in the first place. The Deceiver was implied to have led Abaddon to his Daemon sword and encouraged his 12th Black Crusade (because obviously arming an enemy with the Blackstone Fortresses makes more sense than him just trashing them with his god powers). They became the only faction with "gods" strolling around fully powered. Everyone else who had such beings had them handicapped in the Materium. They became the oldest and most technologically advanced faction because why would Eldar get to keep that.

The more I think about it, their 3rd Ed background half comes across as fan fiction. And then the other half is pretty cool.

Necrons, the one 5th edition Wardex that saw the faction get downplayed from previous fluff!

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
They became the only faction with "gods" strolling around fully powered.

Except they weren't.
The Void Dragon is sealed on Mars, The Outsider is trapped in a Dyson Sphere, The Nightbringer lost a chunk of his power shortly before the enslaver plague, and the deceiver is considered to the be weakest of the C'tan, hence his reliance on trickery. Not to mention that they are all starved after leaving hibernation. They were hardly at full power.

If you actually read the fluff behind the blackstone fortresses, you'd find that the idea was that Abbadon would capture them, and the imperium would destroy them. The Blackstone fortresses were weapons designed to destroy C'tan, and the plan sort of worked. In the end there was only 1 fortress, but it got away.

That said, being able to field one on the table was pretty dumb, and the fearing death thing was kind of goofy. Like, it was a cool idea thematically, but it didn't make that much sense. What, did everyone commit suicide for fun before?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Does shoving the Necrons behind everything count as a retcon? Because all of a sudden they (and the C'tan) were responsible for the creation (or at least engineering) of the Eldar and Orks, everybody fearing death (except the Orks somehow). They caused the Warp to get roiled up in the first place. The Deceiver was implied to have led Abaddon to his Daemon sword and encouraged his 12th Black Crusade (because obviously arming an enemy with the Blackstone Fortresses makes more sense than him just trashing them with his god powers). They became the only faction with "gods" strolling around fully powered. Everyone else who had such beings had them handicapped in the Materium. They became the oldest and most technologically advanced faction because why would Eldar get to keep that.

The more I think about it, their 3rd Ed background half comes across as fan fiction. And then the other half is pretty cool.

Necrons, the one 5th edition Wardex that saw the faction get downplayed from previous fluff!

Oh yeah, the celestial orrery, tanks that can somehow blow up whole worlds if tampered with, being able to shatter gods and that guy who can go super sayan is downplayed alright,

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Except they weren't.
The Void Dragon is sealed on Mars, The Outsider is trapped in a Dyson Sphere, The Nightbringer lost a chunk of his power shortly before the enslaver plague, and the deceiver is considered to the be weakest of the C'tan, hence his reliance on trickery. Not to mention that they are all starved after leaving hibernation. They were hardly at full power.

If you actually read the fluff behind the blackstone fortresses, you'd find that the idea was that Abbadon would capture them, and the imperium would destroy them. The Blackstone fortresses were weapons designed to destroy C'tan, and the plan sort of worked. In the end there was only 1 fortress, but it got away.

That said, being able to field one on the table was pretty dumb, and the fearing death thing was kind of goofy. Like, it was a cool idea thematically, but it didn't make that much sense. What, did everyone commit suicide for fun before?

The Deceiver was wandering around for millennia by the 41st millennium. Weak compared to other C'tan it was still presumably vastly more powerful than more mundane lifeforms. Plenty of time accrue power both in terms of his own power and to awaken other tomb worlds. Forgot about the Nightbringer losing his ship but even still it'd just be matter of time before he regained most of his power.

Why would he need to rely on Abaddon? He was only C'tan awake by that point if I recall correctly. What stopped him from awakening and commanding hundreds of tomb worlds? What stopped this god of the Materium from destroying the Blackstone Fortresses whilst they were not activated in the first place? Why risk an enemy gaining such power when the Imperium had no idea of what they possessed? Besides all that, my point was that the Necrons were added and suddenly dominated the background of major factions. Also I think it was two Blackstone Fortresses that Abaddon escaped with.

Wasn't it supposed to somehow have eventually led to the Eldar being unable to reincarnate or something weird?

Why waste your own resources, when you can manipulate your enemies to do your work for you, who don't even know how to properly use such devices in the first place? That's how the deceiver works; he's never direct, he's always plotting. He's not a sledgehammer, he's a knife in the back. Which is why having the option to field him is dumb; he would not be fighting alongside necrons, he would be on the other side, pretending to be a military adviser.

Just because he is something of a god, doesn't mean that he can be everywhere at once. He somehow blows up a Blackstone fortress and then what?
The Eldar would notice, the others would have been reactivated, and that's something like 5 anti-C'tan / Necron devices he has to deal with. The Fortresses are really good at killing necrons, and making a full scale offensive like that would be risky, especially if you factor in Eldar reinforcements.
The Imperium would certainly notice as well, as they were using the fortresses as naval bases (albeit without the weapon systems), and they would start increasing their hunt for Tomb Worlds. Not to mention the likelihood of them making a pact with the Eldar.
Better to let chaos taint it, have the keys to activate them, and prompt the Eldar and Imperium to destroy their own weapons.

He did rally a bunch of necrons to finish off the last few fortresses, and they destroyed all but one.

I read there was only one fortress left. It got tainted by Slaanesh, and was heavily damaged by a necron fleet.

You say tainted... more like outright possessed. It's the daemon controlling the Blackstone Fortress that does for Eldrad in the end, consumes him entirely.

Eh, tainted, possessed, its all the same really. One just needs a bigger exorcism ritual. Just pour more holy water, it'll be fine


Wouldn't it be the worst, if the grey knights acted blase like that?
"Oh, the bloodtide? Its fiiiine. Just sacrifice a couple of sisters and call back in the morning."

Ikr? It would make no sense and totally break immersion.

Like, imagine bow bad a story would be if certain marines could waltz through the warp completely unaffected and take out a daemon primarch like it was nothing.

He didn't take Mortarion like it was nothing but that is a lot harder to get upset about I suppose.

On an unrelated note - Hellguns becoming hot shot lasguns. I really don't like how they became the same.

IIRC, the HSLG was a powerful but short ranged lasgun that deteriorates quickly due to the amount of energy produced.
It was not the same as a hellgun.

I'm probably wrong and the HSLGs are just replacing the hellgun. Which I still don't like, because to me the hellgun is an iconic stormtrooper weapon.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
On an unrelated note - Hellguns becoming hot shot lasguns. I really don't like how they became the same.

IIRC, the HSLG was a powerful but short ranged lasgun that deteriorates quickly due to the amount of energy produced.
It was not the same as a hellgun.

I'm probably wrong and the HSLGs are just replacing the hellgun. Which I still don't like, because to me the hellgun is an iconic stormtrooper weapon.

I had always thought that hellguns were the equivalent of Fallout's Gatling Laser, while HSLGs would be the shotgun of Lasguns.

Yeah, I can sort of see the comparison there between the gatling and the hellgun.

Not seeing the connection between the HSLG and shotguns though. Do HSLGs fire multiple beams at once in a spread?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, I can sort of see the comparison there between the gatling and the hellgun.

Not seeing the connection between the HSLG and shotguns though. Do HSLGs fire multiple beams at once in a spread?

Lots of stopping power at short range, but said stopping power drops off rapidly over medium-to-long ranges.

Behold, the skub in all its glory




Hope it makes a comeback because the fact it ever existed is too much for some people to cope.

The problem I have with Eldar/human hybrids is that it shouldn't be biologically possible.

Isn't Eldar DNA nothing like human? If there was some relation, it would be theoretically possible to create a crossbreed like that, albeit one that is sterile.
You see that today with mules; horses and donkeys are the same genus (Equus) but different geneses. As such they can interbreed, but any offspring they produce is sterile.

But Eldar and Humans are completely different genus.

Its a cool idea, but it makes the biologist in me cringe.
Now, if it were some sort of crazy DE / Radical Biologis experiment...yeah, I can deal with that.

Video related





Edit : Crossed Genus and Species. I R gud biologiz

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The problem I have with Eldar/human hybrids is that it shouldn't be biologically possible.

Isn't Eldar DNA nothing like human? If there was some relation, it would be theoretically possible to create a crossbreed like that, albeit one that is sterile.
You see that today with mules; horses and donkeys are the same Species (Equus) but different geneses. As such they can interbreed, but any offspring they produce is sterile.

But Eldar and Humans are completely different species.

Its a cool idea, but it makes the biologist in me cringe.
Now, if it were some sort of crazy DE / Radical Biologis experiment...yeah, I can deal with that.

Video related

well, technically speaking, humans and eldar are old one creations, yes? so isn't it entirely possible with how similar the races are to intermix?

I'm not too sure about that. Isn't Eldar DNA triple helixed? Or am I thinking of another alien race?
I just don't see how they are the same genus and are compatible, despite the external physiological similarities.

I mean, you might as well say Ork / Human hybrids are possible. Or rather would be if Orks had wombs or penises.

It begins... muahaha

*Just... as.... planned.....*

 Wulfmar wrote:
Behold, the skub in all its glory

Spoiler:

Hope it makes a comeback because the fact it ever existed is too much for some people to cope.

IT CANNOT BE!



The War in Heaven was around 65 million years ago, so it's not very likely that humans have anything to do with the old ones. Also, I too recall something about eldar having odd DNA and reproductive methods that are incompatible with humans.

That and to Eldar, boning a human is essentially bestiality.

I'm sure to a Dark Eldar that's still a pretty vanilla fetish
"Oh, you shag humans? Pfft, boring. Torturing them or making them crossbreed while torturing them is more entertaining"

The Succubus in Nightbringer was pretty squicked out by having to sleep with a human though.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The Succubus in Nightbringer was pretty squicked out by having to sleep with a human though.

Well most people aren't into bestiality either, even people who are pretty depraved in other ways.

Different pokes for different folks I guess.

as Carl Sagan once noted, "you've a better chance of a hybrid of a human and a petunia then a hybrid of a human and a vulcan"

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Why waste your own resources, when you can manipulate your enemies to do your work for you, who don't even know how to properly use such devices in the first place? That's how the deceiver works; he's never direct, he's always plotting. He's not a sledgehammer, he's a knife in the back. Which is why having the option to field him is dumb; he would not be fighting alongside necrons, he would be on the other side, pretending to be a military adviser.

Just because he is something of a god, doesn't mean that he can be everywhere at once. He somehow blows up a Blackstone fortress and then what?
The Eldar would notice, the others would have been reactivated, and that's something like 5 anti-C'tan / Necron devices he has to deal with. The Fortresses are really good at killing necrons, and making a full scale offensive like that would be risky, especially if you factor in Eldar reinforcements.
The Imperium would certainly notice as well, as they were using the fortresses as naval bases (albeit without the weapon systems), and they would start increasing their hunt for Tomb Worlds. Not to mention the likelihood of them making a pact with the Eldar.
Better to let chaos taint it, have the keys to activate them, and prompt the Eldar and Imperium to destroy their own weapons.

He did rally a bunch of necrons to finish off the last few fortresses, and they destroyed all but one.

I read there was only one fortress left. It got tainted by Slaanesh, and was heavily damaged by a necron fleet.

Necron resources aren't wasted. They phase out and repair. Getting someone to activate the only things that could hurt you when as far as I know there's no evidence the Eldar let alone the Imperium know how to activate them is very risky.

Blows up the next five before the Eldar can react? He's pretty fast even on a Necron ship. Do the Eldar know how to reactivate the Blackstone Fortresses? Could they smash through the Imperial defences to claim them? The Imperium doesn't side with Eldar lightly.

Where did you read that there was only one Blackstone Fortress left?

The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Why waste your own resources, when you can manipulate your enemies to do your work for you, who don't even know how to properly use such devices in the first place? That's how the deceiver works; he's never direct, he's always plotting. He's not a sledgehammer, he's a knife in the back. Which is why having the option to field him is dumb; he would not be fighting alongside necrons, he would be on the other side, pretending to be a military adviser.

Just because he is something of a god, doesn't mean that he can be everywhere at once. He somehow blows up a Blackstone fortress and then what?
The Eldar would notice, the others would have been reactivated, and that's something like 5 anti-C'tan / Necron devices he has to deal with. The Fortresses are really good at killing necrons, and making a full scale offensive like that would be risky, especially if you factor in Eldar reinforcements.
The Imperium would certainly notice as well, as they were using the fortresses as naval bases (albeit without the weapon systems), and they would start increasing their hunt for Tomb Worlds. Not to mention the likelihood of them making a pact with the Eldar.
Better to let chaos taint it, have the keys to activate them, and prompt the Eldar and Imperium to destroy their own weapons.

He did rally a bunch of necrons to finish off the last few fortresses, and they destroyed all but one.

I read there was only one fortress left. It got tainted by Slaanesh, and was heavily damaged by a necron fleet.

Necron resources aren't wasted. They phase out and repair. Getting someone to activate the only things that could hurt you when as far as I know there's no evidence the Eldar let alone the Imperium know how to activate them is very risky.

Not always. It is possible to completely destroy a necron, past the point of repair. It turns out warp based weapons are good at that.
Considering how the Fortresses are Old One weapons used by the Eldar to fight the Necrons, and are referred to as The Talismans of Vaul...yeah, they probably know how to use them.
Think about it - if the Eldar didn't know how to use them, then there would have been no need to make sure that the Farseers can't reach them.

 DOGGED wrote:
The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

They were always undead in space.

Yeah, that's not a new thing.
They were also always Tomb Kings in space as well, its just its more apparent in post-ward.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Not always. It is possible to completely destroy a necron, past the point of repair. It turns out warp based weapons are good at that.
Considering how the Fortresses are Old One weapons used by the Eldar to fight the Necrons, and are referred to as The Talismans of Vaul...yeah, they probably know how to use them.
Think about it - if the Eldar didn't know how to use them, then there would have been no need to make sure that the Farseers can't reach them.

It's exceedingly difficult, the constructs can just be replaced (unless they use the "mind" of a Necron as well) and they had sufficient numbers to wage a galactic war. They aren't lacking for numbers.

Millions of years ago they were used. Two apocalyptic scenarios have occurred since then. I wouldn't be surprised if the Eldar didn't even know what they were (hence why they didn't keep a better eye on them or try to retrieve them). How would the Eldar be able to claim them in the first place? Without the ability shut down the Blackstone Fortresses like Abaddon they'd need vast numbers to assault them (and also ensure they didn't damage them). Instead the Deceiver apparently helped the most powerful Warp weapons in the galaxy to an enemy who half life in the Warp.

Plus going back to my original point it takes away agency from the main character of another faction just to make the Necrons seem stronger.

The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

The Deceiver is the C'tan that works best post-Ward too. The fluff around C'tan shards describes them growing stronger and smarter as they merge together, and the more shards that combine the closer the resulting C'tan is to the greater monster it once was; more and more of the original personality comes forth, and it desires ever more strongly to reunite with the rest of itself. Dozens of Deceiver shards running rampant around the galaxy, all of them playing the trickster, goes some way to justifying the massive reach of the Deceiver's influence on the fluff.

Heck, the shards might not even be properly aware of one another's existence; their plots to find one another and generally be giant douches could actually get in each others' way, which is an interesting concept too.

I actually like the concept of C'tan shards. Its just that I don't like how they came about; rather than Necrons rebelling, it should have been the Eldar who shattered them with the Black Stone Fortresses, preferably during the chaos of the Enslaver Plague.
Thus locating and reassembling the C'tan could have been a Necron strategic goal. The Deceiver in this case would have been a C'tan who's been partially reassembled, and working in the shadows to regain more shards and weaken potential threats.

But nope, gotta nuke the necron background and make them into warring robo-Egyptian human like dynasties, who somehow destroyed their creators, who in turn should have been smart enough to put into place some way of ensuring control.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

It might be scary if he wasn't introduced in such an encompassing manner like the rest of the C'tan.

Plus I maintain that helping the warpiest faction gain the most powerful warp weapons is weird for the anti-warp guys. How'd he even achieve that anyway? Going into the Eye of Terror would be extremely dangerous.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:But nope, gotta nuke the necron background and make them into warring robo-Egyptian human like dynasties, who somehow destroyed their creators, who in turn should have been smart enough to put into place some way of ensuring control.

I like the some are independant from the C'tan thing but it would've been simpler to say that it was Eldar\Old One\whatever attack X that caused some Necrons to regain free will. Then you get the still-slaves vs the dynasties with the C'tan still on top of some of them. Combined with the shards some Necrons would be trying to reunite them some would be striving to keep them separate.

Speaking of the Shards I think Forgeworld made the whole thing worse with the Transcendent C'tan. Despite them being playable the C'tan Shards in the Codex at least terrified the Necrons. They were supposed to be a last resort style thing and the idea of one escaping was horrific for them. Then with the Transcendent C'tan they apparently unleash combined Shards knowing that if their containment fails they'd be freed and are apparently okay with that.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

It might be scary if he wasn't introduced in such an encompassing manner like the rest of the C'tan.

Plus I maintain that helping the warpiest faction gain the most powerful warp weapons is weird for the anti-warp guys. How'd he even achieve that anyway? Going into the Eye of Terror would be extremely dangerous.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:But nope, gotta nuke the necron background and make them into warring robo-Egyptian human like dynasties, who somehow destroyed their creators, who in turn should have been smart enough to put into place some way of ensuring control.

I like the some are independant from the C'tan thing but it would've been simpler to say that it was Eldar\Old One\whatever attack X that caused some Necrons to regain free will. Then you get the still-slaves vs the dynasties with the C'tan still on top of some of them. Combined with the shards some Necrons would be trying to reunite them some would be striving to keep them separate.

Speaking of the Shards I think Forgeworld made the whole thing worse with the Transcendent C'tan. Despite them being playable the C'tan Shards in the Codex at least terrified the Necrons. They were supposed to be a last resort style thing and the idea of one escaping was horrific for them. Then with the Transcendent C'tan they apparently unleash combined Shards knowing that if their containment fails they'd be freed and are apparently okay with that.

I don't think they would be "totally ok with that" I always thought unleashing one of those things was the necron version of calling down an exterminatus on the planet they are standing on.

I for one am glad the necrons got redone. Having one faction be 'the big bad unstoppable evil who created all the races and is actually behind everything' in a game with multiple factions that are all supposed to be in perpetual war is just stupid.

Its like when nid players have to constantly remind people that nids are unstoppable and nobody can do anything about them. Cool plot armor bro.

I like competition. Not childish bragging.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:


Speaking of the Shards I think Forgeworld made the whole thing worse with the Transcendent C'tan. Despite them being playable the C'tan Shards in the Codex at least terrified the Necrons. They were supposed to be a last resort style thing and the idea of one escaping was horrific for them. Then with the Transcendent C'tan they apparently unleash combined Shards knowing that if their containment fails they'd be freed and are apparently okay with that.

GW did the transcendent C'tan in escalation. Forgeworld had nothing to do with it.

It's not really a retcon per-se, but it chafes me to hear so many people turning the Imperial worship of the "machine spirit" from a toungue-in-cheek parody of humans attributing spirits to everything, to everything mechanical harboring some sort of mechanical warp-sprit/pokemon that you have to literally appease or it won't work right.

Iin the older days it used to just be a Judge Dredd/heavy metal grim joke of "Machine doesn't work right? Oh, you must have pissed it off" being a horrible measure of how far upper-learning has regressed to shamanistic levels in the Imperium, not a reality.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:

I don't think they would be "totally ok with that" I always thought unleashing one of those things was the necron version of calling down an exterminatus on the planet they are standing on.

I don't recall it really being portrayed that way. Or at least not enough for me. Should the Tesseract Vault be destroyed or the C'tan let loose it'd almost certainly be able to escape. How that supposedly hasn't happened yet is beyond me. The unit doesn't mesh with the background. A single C'tan shard escaping is supposed to be terrifying for the Necrons. With the Tesseract Vault they will sometimes release a Transcendent C'tan with seemingly no controls or bonds. Yet none seem to have escaped for some reason.

King Pariah wrote:GW did the transcendent C'tan in escalation. Forgeworld had nothing to do with it

Righto, my mistake.

The more I think about the more I think that retconing the tau to be less good was a mistake. In theory it gives them a little edge and lets you do more, but GW was never able to do anything fun with that edge or more flexibility. Also it ruined one of the best parts about the tau. They remind people what bad is. With everyone being different shades of evil it's easy to forget that they are evil and not justified evil either. Just evil. Also good tau give a nice contrast to everything else.

nomotog wrote:
The more I think about the more I think that retconing the tau to be less good was a mistake. In theory it gives them a little edge and lets you do more, but GW was never able to do anything fun with that edge or more flexibility. Also it ruined one of the best parts about the tau. They remind people what bad is. With everyone being different shades of evil it's easy to forget that they are evil and not justified evil either. Just evil. Also good tau give a nice contrast to everything else.

Tau were always at least invadey and they also had the Ethereals at the top of their hierarchy.

They were never that friendly.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

nomotog wrote:
The more I think about the more I think that retconing the tau to be less good was a mistake. In theory it gives them a little edge and lets you do more, but GW was never able to do anything fun with that edge or more flexibility. Also it ruined one of the best parts about the tau. They remind people what bad is. With everyone being different shades of evil it's easy to forget that they are evil and not justified evil either. Just evil. Also good tau give a nice contrast to everything else.

Tau were always at least invadey and they also had the Ethereals at the top of their hierarchy.

They were never that friendly.

The farther you go back the more friendly they are particularity in the eyes of the fans. Fan theory actually informs a lot of tau fluff. For example, the idea that the tau are a hierarchy. That was never in the fluff and, as far as I know, still isn't. That is more of fan creation.

Uh, no, the Tau progression of advancement, with Trials by Fire and such, was laid out very clearly in the codex. Likewise, the status of Ethereals as the 'ruling caste' (being above the others). Non-Tau as being second-class citizens was at the very least talked about in Gav Thorpe's novel, Kill Team, as well.

The heirarchical and fixed nature of Tau society is firm and definite GW fluff.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, no, the Tau progression of advancement, with Trials by Fire and such, was laid out very clearly in the codex. Likewise, the status of Ethereals as the 'ruling caste' (being above the others). Non-Tau as being second-class citizens was at the very least talked about in Gav Thorpe's novel, Kill Team, as well.

The heirarchical and fixed nature of Tau society is firm and definite GW fluff.

Often people aren't talking about hierarchy in terms of progress and advancement. They are mostly talking about it in the second sense you mention where tau are first class and everyone else is second class. It's explicitly not the case in the codex.

What's the codex quote on the subject?

I think it's worth noting the lack of vespid or kroot special characters etc. the Tau are very much "in the driver seat"

 AegisGrimm wrote:
It's not really a retcon per-se, but it chafes me to hear so many people turning the Imperial worship of the "machine spirit" from a toungue-in-cheek parody of humans attributing spirits to everything, to everything mechanical harboring some sort of mechanical warp-sprit/pokemon that you have to literally appease or it won't work right.

Iin the older days it used to just be a Judge Dredd/heavy metal grim joke of "Machine doesn't work right? Oh, you must have pissed it off" being a horrible measure of how far upper-learning has regressed to shamanistic levels in the Imperium, not a reality.

totally agree, the original premise was to do with tech priests and the populous as a whole not understanding how the machine worked and the rituals where jsut millenia of repeated dogma to get them to work.

"apply holy lubricate to the dowangle, strike thrice with the divine hammer of claw on the left dowaddey, and then while chanting the third machine code chant press firmly with holy rigtheous fury on the big red button of firing"

basically, apply lubricate, whack the thing into alignment and press fire.

The idea is that there is an element in the ritual that fixes the mechanical fault and its jsut human ignorance and religious fervour that leads them to believe they are apeasing some machine "spirit" with the religious aspects.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
It's not really a retcon per-se, but it chafes me to hear so many people turning the Imperial worship of the "machine spirit" from a toungue-in-cheek parody of humans attributing spirits to everything, to everything mechanical harboring some sort of mechanical warp-sprit/pokemon that you have to literally appease or it won't work right.

Even GW is 'guilty' of this. According to the Chaos Space Marine codex even something as simple as a scalpel has a spirit, which gets stronger the more harm it performs. It's pretty much the linchpin of mutilator fluff that they collect great/ancient weapons to commune with and consume their spirits.

 Arbitrator wrote:

Every new technological addition to the Space Marines (Centurions, Wolf Wolf Wolf Wolf Machines)
Astra Militarum/Tempestus Scions pointless name 'development'.
Chaos-sort-of-won-the-13th-Black-Crusade-but-not-really-because-that-would-upset-Loyalist-players.
Even seeing a Grey Knight gets you killed/mind wiped.
That weird indecisive nonsense about Guardsmen being killed if they fight Chaos once despite the entire existence of Cadia.

Dislike:
Retconning the Space Marines to have always had the following:
Stormtalon
Stormhawk
Centurions
Stormraven (should be Blood Angels and Grey Knights ONLY...and really just Blood Angels cause...boo Grey Knights)
Grav Weapons
Hunter
Stalker
Ironclads
Land Speeder Storm

The major army name changes, ALL of them:
Adeptus Asartes sure...the Space Marines have always had that name, but Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions is BS.

Retconning the Hrud from Space Skaven into stupid fish monsters with an even stupider backstory.

Horus going from having two talons to a talon and mace. (I just like the old version 10,000x times better.)
That looks so much more menacing.

The Grey Knights went from heroes that fight to protect the innocent against daemons to cowards that kill anybody that sees a daemon or fights chaos. As mentioned above, despite the fact of imperial regiments fighting them day in and day out regularly. They also went from a squad here or there ATTACHED to an Inquisitor, to being a full on army itself despite not even having the numbers or recruitment drive that other chapters have. You shouldn't SEE an army of Grey Knights, seeing one SQUAD is tantamount to 'oh shi- planet's being overrun by chaos'

Also not sure so much retcon, but splitting daemons away from Chaos Space Marines.

Also I thought it was the Raven Guard that were the Native Americans?

Like:

*crickets chirp*

Originally, the company of Dark Angel marines that became the Deathwing during the cleansing of a world from a Genestealer Cult had a very native American feel to them.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

Every new technological addition to the Space Marines (Centurions, Wolf Wolf Wolf Wolf Machines)
Astra Militarum/Tempestus Scions pointless name 'development'.
Chaos-sort-of-won-the-13th-Black-Crusade-but-not-really-because-that-would-upset-Loyalist-players.
Even seeing a Grey Knight gets you killed/mind wiped.
That weird indecisive nonsense about Guardsmen being killed if they fight Chaos once despite the entire existence of Cadia.

Dislike:
Retconning the Space Marines to have always had the following:
Stormtalon
Stormhawk
Centurions
Stormraven (should be Blood Angels and Grey Knights ONLY...and really just Blood Angels cause...boo Grey Knights)
Grav Weapons
Hunter
Stalker
Ironclads
Land Speeder Storm

The major army name changes, ALL of them:
Adeptus Asartes sure...the Space Marines have always had that name, but Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions is BS.

Retconning the Hrud from Space Skaven into stupid fish monsters with an even stupider backstory.

Horus going from having two talons to a talon and mace. (I just like the old version 10,000x times better.)
That looks so much more menacing.

The Grey Knights went from heroes that fight to protect the innocent against daemons to cowards that kill anybody that sees a daemon or fights chaos. As mentioned above, despite the fact of imperial regiments fighting them day in and day out regularly. They also went from a squad here or there ATTACHED to an Inquisitor, to being a full on army itself despite not even having the numbers or recruitment drive that other chapters have. You shouldn't SEE an army of Grey Knights, seeing one SQUAD is tantamount to 'oh shi- planet's being overrun by chaos'

Also not sure so much retcon, but splitting daemons away from Chaos Space Marines.

Also I thought it was the Raven Guard that were the Native Americans?

Like:

*crickets chirp*

I guess you hate the Horus Heresy that Forge World has done then.

 DOGGED wrote:
The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

They were just metal Tyranids.

Personally I'm glad that the atrocious oldcron fluff has been purged.

It's meh, overpriced meh at that. As far as Horus himself goes I mean. There's a certain rabid animal look he had in the old artwork, the dual talons with built in prototype stormbolters was cool. He also kinda reminds me of Kane from the WWE.

This: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Horus-the-Warmaster-Primarch-of-the-Sons-of-Horus

It's generic bad guy in black armor. He doesn't even really evoke a sense of fear in me.

Plus I could just imagine those claws breaking Sanguinius's neck and body more.

So TLDR, no hate, just Horus is bland....and Forge World is even crazier overpriced then the normal GW shtick.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 DOGGED wrote:
The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

They were just metal Tyranids.

Personally I'm glad that the atrocious oldcron fluff has been purged.

So now we have unbeatables instead. So much better.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
It's meh, overpriced meh at that. As far as Horus himself goes I mean. There's a certain rabid animal look he had in the old artwork, the dual talons with built in prototype stormbolters was cool. He also kinda reminds me of Kane from the WWE.

This: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Horus-the-Warmaster-Primarch-of-the-Sons-of-Horus

It's generic bad guy in black armor. He doesn't even really evoke a sense of fear in me.

Plus I could just imagine those claws breaking Sanguinius's neck and body more.

So TLDR, no hate, just Horus is bland....and Forge World is even crazier overpriced then the normal GW shtick.

This model is Face Horus.

I'm sure we'll get Heel Horus soon enough.

pm713 wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

 DOGGED wrote:
The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

They were just metal Tyranids.

Personally I'm glad that the atrocious oldcron fluff has been purged.

So now we have unbeatables instead. So much better.

Did the oldcron fluff need to be redone? Yes. But the current lore which was dumped upon us from the cancerous sphincter of GW's posterior (good on them for seeing the doctor and getting that malignant tumor removed) is no better. Different? Yes. Better? Oh god no. In my opinion, it manages to be worse. And anyone who claims that some personality is better than no personality either only bothers with fluff directly from the codices or is ignorant (deliberately or otherwise) or some pieces of personality expanding fluff outside of said codices (I.e. Xenology - a great read, Hellforged - a not so great read but at least made flayed ones seem like something you would tell a child about if you wanted them to never sleep for the next month or so, etc.)

 King Pariah wrote:
anyone who claims that some personality is better than no personality either only bothers with fluff directly from the codices.)

Nope, in more than one argument that some personality is better than no personality the codexes are rejected as a basis for the argument. Like in my case. I don't refer to the codexes at all , I could care less about the codexes. The codexes aren't novels, therefore the codexes are no part of the argument.

 King Pariah wrote:
or is ignorant (deliberately or otherwise) or some pieces of PERSONALITY EXPANDING fluff outside of said codices (I.e. Xenology - a great read, Hellforged - a not so great read but at least made flayed ones seem like something you would tell a child about if you wanted them to never sleep for the next month or so, etc.)

The writer attempts to discount the, " Some personality is better than no personality " - argument by proceeding to emphasize..........personality , and its elaboration.

Maybe not a retcon, but the way auto-senses are described have really gone downhill. The whole idea behind auto-senses was that, once a Space Marine put his helmet on, he didn't use his eyes and ears as we would - his suit did it for him. The suit's cogitator unit processed all incoming visual and audio data and then fed it directly to the marines brain, enabling the marine to see in different modes, 'see' information and control/interface with it, etc, etc. This was described in one of the early HH novels - I can't remember which one - where one of the marines removes his helmet and uses his own eyes for the first time in several days.

Now there's talk of head-up displays, retinal feeds and all sorts of nonsense. How can you even fit a HUD inside a helmet? Come on guys, stop all this lazy writing, these guys have got amazing suits of advanced life-sustaining-and-enhancing armour, you don't think they actually look out of those tiny little lenses do you?

 King Pariah wrote:
And anyone who claims that some personality is better than no personality either only bothers with fluff directly from the codices or is ignorant (deliberately or otherwise) or some pieces of personality expanding fluff outside of said codices (I.e. Xenology - a great read, Hellforged - a not so great read but at least made flayed ones seem like something you would tell a child about if you wanted them to never sleep for the next month or so, etc.)

Nice generalised sweeping statement. Allow me to retort with my own.

Anyone arguing against personality obviously has none of his own.

I miss the retconned Gods-
Malice, Neecho, Bork etc...

I loved the old necron fluff, people obsessed with longer lives willing to give it all up to their gods in exchange for service. Little did the know each death would cost them more of what they where and they would become more and more slaves to the gods.

Before they where completely lost they maganged to cast their false gods down into shards never truely being able to be destroyed. But the curse did not lift or end they simply became more and more lost in the nothingness that replaced their souls.

Now after countless years someone has awoken them. With all memory of what they where gone from time they seek now only to do their gods work. To end all life feed their gods, for once all life has ended and the gods have been fed they shall become whole again. Then and only then will all life truely end when god and servant are united yet again. The galaxy shall burn the galaxy shall feed them for they consume all life and essence, when they pass not even the stars shall remain. For they are the endless devourer.