If the galaxy is a galaxy, why jump around a timeline, when literally anything could happen in the space we know, and don't know, for almost any reason imaginable? Even with warp travel, there could be millions of worlds and wars going on in a small puff of gas, that nobody's ever heard of (or forgot about). So why constrain the setting to the scale of a few characters in a few stories, whose paths even cross, when there's so much room for new civilizations and armies? The timeline doesn't even matter, because we already know the Imperium will always be at war, or there isn't a game.

It used to be like this, but as GW's fiction wing started to get bigger and more popular, they started to go down the comic book protagonist route of concentrating the story on individuals rather than the setting itself.

40k was always a setting, with no specific point of reference. This made it huge and gave it a 'historical' kind of authenticity, with a external narrator like you get in history text books.

By focusing on just a handful of characters, they've shrunk the scope down to a tiny piece of the setting, In addition they've made each species have their own point of view characters, which results in every aspect of the faction needing to revolve around the actions of those characters.

It shackles the setting, scope and imagination.

The Thraka vs blackmane fight is IMO possibly the epitome of this shoehorning contrivance. Which then has just continued in 1v1 fights between these important people and the narrative turns only on their actions.


GW forgot the tenet they've been writing in the front of their book for almost 40 years -


To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. [...]
But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed.



Apparently to be a man in such times is now to be super special and to have the plot revolve around you and where you will definitely be missed so much you can never actually die.

 Hellebore wrote:
Apparently to be a man in such times is now to be super special and to have the plot revolve around you and where you will definitely be missed so much you can never actually die.

No matter how big the galaxy is, there are always going to be a handful of people who have a massively outsized impact on it. Yes, you have someone like Guilliman who can make choices that impact entire segmentums. But for every Guilliman there are billions and billions (if not trillions) of souls who may as well be nameless as they toil in obscurity for an Imperium that doesn't care about them.

Hell, for every no-name individual Space Marine there are billions of people in the galaxy.

 ultimaratio wrote:
If the galaxy is a galaxy, why jump around a timeline, when literally anything could happen in the space we know, and don't know, for almost any reason imaginable? Even with warp travel, there could be millions of worlds and wars going on in a small puff of gas, that nobody's ever heard of (or forgot about). So why constrain the setting to the scale of a few characters in a few stories, whose paths even cross, when there's so much room for new civilizations and armies? The timeline doesn't even matter, because we already know the Imperium will always be at war, or there isn't a game.

GW had decided that story will make the game more attractive then setting alone. Many people enjoy a sense of motion, even if all you are doing is running on a treadmill. That's current 40K. Lots of things are going on, but little has actually changed.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Apparently to be a man in such times is now to be super special and to have the plot revolve around you and where you will definitely be missed so much you can never actually die.

No matter how big the galaxy is, there are always going to be a handful of people who have a massively outsized impact on it. Yes, you have someone like Guilliman who can make choices that impact entire segmentums. But for every Guilliman there are billions and billions (if not trillions) of souls who may as well be nameless as they toil in obscurity for an Imperium that doesn't care about them.

Hell, for every no-name individual Space Marine there are billions of people in the galaxy.

When the story is entirely focused on a handful of individuals, it doesn't matter at all that there are hypothetically trillions of other useless people dying horribly. They are as unimportant to the story as the rocks no one talks about the protagonists walking on.

for it to matter, it actually has to matter - ie take up space in the prose. It has to be a chunk of the story, people have to die, protagonists have to die.

Otherwise you've just steampunked it - used a veneer of 'trillions of meaningless people die' to try and make your story seem more grandiose than it is. It has no weight or value, it's just window dressing for Dragonball Z 1v1 fights between a handful of characters.


And there is a difference between a character having an 'outsized' impact, and what the Guillimans, Eldrads and Thrakas of modern 40k are doing. Before this era, Macharius had an outsized impact, which consisted of a small chunk of one segmentum being conquered. But it was still put in perspective as a small cog in the machine. The modern take has entirely disregarded the reality of the scale of the universe and literally made Guilliman the fulcrum on which EVERYTHING turns.

40k was so big no one character truly lynchpined anything, they had their impacts big and small in different parts of the galaxy, but on the whole, they were not galactic drivers. By turning characters into galactic scale drivers you shrink the setting.

The narrative provided by GW is for those that wish to use it, and you are absolutely free, as you always have been to say: "I'm in venting the Gloobglorb system. It exists in a far flung corner of space, cut off from the rest of the Imperium. No one in Gloobglorb is aware that Cadia fell, or even existed at all; nobody knows the rift happened, and no one knows Primaris exist.

Or you can choose to let Gloobglorb be affected by some parts of the story and not others. It's just as much an option as it always was... It's just that now you ALSO have the option of attaching your games to an ongoing storyline IF YOU WANT TO.

My system (the Desdaemona system) has been cut off from the Imperium since the Plague of Unbelief at the tag end of the Age of Apostasy- fiction which has existed since the 2nd ed Sisters dex. The only thing that has affected the system at all (so far) is that when the Blackstone Fortress woke up and started transmitting it's distress signal, it brought the larger galaxy closer, and depending on how the campaign plays out, Desdaemona may or may not be reunited with the larger Imperium.

Simple. It can be done, because we did it. If that's what you prefer, just do it. No one is forcing anyone to read BL, to buy campaign books, etc. And in fact, GW very much backed off packing extra Matched Play rules into campaign books to facilitate your ability to completely ignore them; they are now 100% Crusade content.

It is true that Centerpiece models like Primarchs are so powerful that people feel like they have to take them to win. It is also true that retiring some first born units to Legends made this harder for people who want to ignore that plot train. But these issues are separate from the issue of the progressive storyline. Which isn't to say I don't feel sorry for Ynarri fans who want that narrative to go somewhere; my pet theory is that the emergence of EC will reactivate Ynarri and push them marginally forward in their plotline for 11th.

The difference is that in the past, Macharius was an npc with their own gloobglorb system that was an example of what you can do while also being part of the setting.

Guilliman's actions are singular and unique, non replicable and influence things in binary ways that are clearly outside the realms of what you and your own creativity can do.

By making his actions extra special, it gives them a relevance and importance that can't be replicated by any players own actions without using him and his narrative.


protagonist narratives like Yarrick and Macharius are aligned with player narratives.

Protagonist narratives like Guilliman and Eldrad are above players and reduce the meaning of actions outside their own spheres.

The first Marneus Calgar Mini was released during Rogue Trader.

I think Dante has existed since second.

Heck I think even the sisters got Jacobus and Kyrinov in 2nd.

I think Eldrad was 2nd as well.

If not second, then they came in third? These guys have been around for a long, long time.

 PenitentJake wrote:
The first Marneus Calgar Mini was released during Rogue Trader.

I think Dante has existed since second.

Heck I think even the sisters got Jacobus and Kyrinov in 2nd.

I think Eldrad was 2nd as well.

If not second, then they came in third? These guys have been around for a long, long time.

"Being around for a while," is not the same as "Is worth keeping going forward."

 Hellebore wrote:


GW forgot the tenet they've been writing in the front of their book for almost 40 years -


To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. [...]
But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed.

The books I get in the USA haven't had that specific line since for over 30 years, I checked just before posting. GW didn't forget about it. Instead, a person made a deliberate decision to omit that line, and another line that uses the second person pronoun. (A universe you can enter if you dare)

To be wistful for a bygone time, and to indulge in a stabbed-in-the-back by an undefined entity narrative, I like to be specific. Back in your glory days of the 90s and 00s, the forgetting of that tenet had already been initiated.

 alextroy wrote:

 ultimaratio wrote:
If the galaxy is a galaxy, why jump around a timeline, when literally anything could happen in the space we know, and don't know, for almost any reason imaginable? Even with warp travel, there could be millions of worlds and wars going on in a small puff of gas, that nobody's ever heard of (or forgot about). So why constrain the setting to the scale of a few characters in a few stories, whose paths even cross, when there's so much room for new civilizations and armies? The timeline doesn't even matter, because we already know the Imperium will always be at war, or there isn't a game.

GW had decided that story will make the game more attractive then setting alone. Many people enjoy a sense of motion, even if all you are doing is running on a treadmill. That's current 40K. Lots of things are going on, but little has actually changed.

I get that, but I think the motion should come from pushing further into space, not falling into the personal dramas like Star Wars. If the setting is always 11:59 on the Doomsday Clock, jump to a new star, instead. Maybe the writers are too attached to their characters.

 PenitentJake wrote:
The first Marneus Calgar Mini was released during Rogue Trader.

I think Dante has existed since second.

Heck I think even the sisters got Jacobus and Kyrinov in 2nd.

I think Eldrad was 2nd as well.

If not second, then they came in third? These guys have been around for a long, long time.

and when they were released, they didn't have galactically shattering impacts on the setting. their protagonism didn't exist, they were just characters that did stuff, like every other character that did stuff.

 pelicaniforce wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


GW forgot the tenet they've been writing in the front of their book for almost 40 years -


To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. [...]
But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed.

The books I get in the USA haven't had that specific line since for over 30 years, I checked just before posting. GW didn't forget about it. Instead, a person made a deliberate decision to omit that line, and another line that uses the second person pronoun. (A universe you can enter if you dare)

To be wistful for a bygone time, and to indulge in a stabbed-in-the-back by an undefined entity narrative, I like to be specific. Back in your glory days of the 90s and 00s, the forgetting of that tenet had already been initiated.

I don't know why they would print a different one - but the line 'to be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions' is front and centre in the 2nd paragraph of the plate in the current Leviathan rulebook.

In fact, the last line, 'whatever happens, you won't be missed' was still in the preface up to the 8th edition rulebook. It's only been since 9th that they removed that line.

 ultimaratio wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

 ultimaratio wrote:
If the galaxy is a galaxy, why jump around a timeline, when literally anything could happen in the space we know, and don't know, for almost any reason imaginable? Even with warp travel, there could be millions of worlds and wars going on in a small puff of gas, that nobody's ever heard of (or forgot about). So why constrain the setting to the scale of a few characters in a few stories, whose paths even cross, when there's so much room for new civilizations and armies? The timeline doesn't even matter, because we already know the Imperium will always be at war, or there isn't a game.

GW had decided that story will make the game more attractive then setting alone. Many people enjoy a sense of motion, even if all you are doing is running on a treadmill. That's current 40K. Lots of things are going on, but little has actually changed.

I get that, but I think the motion should come from pushing further into space, not falling into the personal dramas like Star Wars. If the setting is always 11:59 on the Doomsday Clock, jump to a new star, instead. Maybe the writers are too attached to their characters.

The Imperium is kinda set in its ways

And that also means the poor bastard GW writers don't have to flesh out all the hundred billion different stars in our galaxy...

It’s kind of the opposite. The galaxy is so vast, any story can only affect a small percentage of it.

Also keep in mind the Imperium isn’t akin to a large landmass. Its worlds are far flung, with significant “nobody knows” between them. It may well consist of a million worlds or more. But in truly galactic scale? That’s a drop in the water.

So we as players and fan fic writers can still do pretty much whatever we want, with only a few strict rules.

 Hellebore wrote:
The difference is that in the past, Macharius was an npc with their own gloobglorb system that was an example of what you can do while also being part of the setting.

Guilliman's actions are singular and unique, non replicable and influence things in binary ways that are clearly outside the realms of what you and your own creativity can do.

By making his actions extra special, it gives them a relevance and importance that can't be replicated by any players own actions without using him and his narrative.

protagonist narratives like Yarrick and Macharius are aligned with player narratives.

Protagonist narratives like Guilliman and Eldrad are above players and reduce the meaning of actions outside their own spheres.

Spot on. Should be tattooed to all GW writers. Harsh, but clearly necessary.

Macharius, GW's Alexander. Conquered 0.1% of the Imperium, got a tank named after him. Greatest Guard hero. Could write stacks about him, but leaves the setting intact for other writers. Honestly poor writers can't resist leaving 'their mark' but fundamentally changing established set ups but do that and you eventually run out of road. They should do their own settings if they want to do that...


As a side note, time.

The setting used to run with decades and centuries as units of time. New tank? 200 years of petitions and presentations. All that PowerPoint.

The new character based setting? Its a few months to set up, a year to get loads and then a couple of weeks travel to get them to the warzone.

 pelicaniforce wrote:
To be wistful for a bygone time, and to indulge in a stabbed-in-the-back by an undefined entity narrative, I like to be specific. Back in your glory days of the 90s and 00s, the forgetting of that tenet had already been initiated.

Tend to agree. 40k was maybe a "setting" in 3rd and maybe 4th, because from what I remember, the codexes were "thin" on lore, with lots of empty space to make up your own stories/alternate interpretations of any aspect of the fluff. (This was I think also the era where special characters required your opponents permission, or were regularly just banned at tournaments/in clubs etc).

I don't however think that really applied in 2nd or, perhaps more relevantly, from 5th onwards. (So... the past 16~ years.)

I don't think its surprising that GW try to keep things small, as yes, it provides some degree of narrative. I think people want to imagine that say Space Marine Chapters (or indeed any other meaningful character/subfactions) have long and storied histories. If every piece of lore focused on a different subfaction and different characters, with no continuity at all, the universe won't necesarilly feel bigger, just disconnected. Some incidents can be cool - I liked the Primaris vs Custodes fluff put out for Fabius Bile's release for instance. But I think you want some sort sort of linkage rather than everything official being a one-shot.

I guess my siding on this is that you don't need to make things as small as Saturday morning cartoons. Damocles Gulf and the Badab War are examples of things that happened, tied up certain factions/elements, but don't impose universe-changing effects. Then again I guess GW tried that with Vigilus and it all seemed a bit small/inconsequential. Then 9th sort of froze things up as "its just a setting, time is an illusion" and any interest disappeared.

I strongly disagree that "being a setting" means to be "thin on lore".

The difference is how the lore is focussed. I agree with Hellebore.

I don't get how the canon lore being centered around certain characters (which there are still a ton of) suddenly means that you can't narrative yourself a fight for x reason in y system.

Just because named characters are the focus doesn't suddenly mean the galaxy is a single neighborhood and that every system that isnt mentioned doesnt exist.

The galaxy is huge and it gives you scope to forge your own narrative and have really matter in that bit of the galaxy outside of the fiction gw writes. Look at the sabbat crusade. That was a setting in the galaxy that has been entirely self contained. It doesn’t impact the main story line at all, but in that bit of space it’s a huge all consuming crusade that has created a fantastic ongoing narrative. Use your imagination and use the official bits as inspiration not restrictions.

The response 'you can do x' kinda misses the point. The criticism is about the companies approach to its setting. We can obviously do anything at any time. Up to and including rewriting the rules and setting.

But for a commercial product that attracts customers that we play games with, if they move heavily towards 'massive galaxy altering actions of the skywalker family in no time at all', you doing your own thing diverges more and more into alternative fan fiction as with their customer base harder to engage others.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
The response 'you can do x' kinda misses the point. The criticism is about the companies approach to its setting. We can obviously do anything at any time. Up to and including rewriting the rules and setting.

But for a commercial product that attracts customers that we play games with, if they move heavily towards 'massive galaxy altering actions of the skywalker family in no time at all', you doing your own thing diverges more and more into alternative fan fiction as with their customer base harder to engage others.

Even the biggest things like Cadia falling or the cicatrix maledictum doesn't mean you can't narrative something in a rando system that is mostly untouched by those events.

Do you NOT want the story of 40k to have characters? Because every single story is centered around characters.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Do you NOT want the story of 40k to have characters? Because every single story is centered around characters.

The existence of stories does not require 40k being turned into a Saturday morning cartoon.

We had characters for multiple editions before this silly decision was made, and they were no lesser because of it.

They also didn't shrink the galaxy down by having the same few people appearing in pretty much every conflict within a very small window of time.

 Dysartes wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Do you NOT want the story of 40k to have characters? Because every single story is centered around characters.

The existence of stories does not require 40k being turned into a Saturday morning cartoon.

We had characters for multiple editions before this silly decision was made, and they were no lesser because of it.

They also didn't shrink the galaxy down by having the same few people appearing in pretty much every conflict within a very small window of time.

I just don't get it, it litterally gives MORE room to homebrew stories since the canon ones are so focused on a smaller scale, leaving more room for custom stuff.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
I don't get how the canon lore being centered around certain characters (which there are still a ton of) suddenly means that you can't narrative yourself a fight for x reason in y system.

Just because named characters are the focus doesn't suddenly mean the galaxy is a single neighborhood and that every system that isnt mentioned doesnt exist.

Right, but with a galaxy-sized milieu, wouldn't it be time better spent if the writers and artists were expanding the setting, instead of going deeper into personal conflicts and biographies? We recently got Leagues of Votann, but they're only rebooted squats. There's room for new races, armies, and worlds everywhere. I think the smaller focus ultimately comes back to production and shelf space. It must be easier to move familiar characters than new armies, but its also constraining the growth of the setting.

 ultimaratio wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
I don't get how the canon lore being centered around certain characters (which there are still a ton of) suddenly means that you can't narrative yourself a fight for x reason in y system.

Just because named characters are the focus doesn't suddenly mean the galaxy is a single neighborhood and that every system that isnt mentioned doesnt exist.

Right, but with a galaxy-sized milieu, wouldn't it be time better spent if the writers and artists were expanding the setting, instead of going deeper into personal conflicts and biographies? We recently got Leagues of Votann, but they're only rebooted squats. There's room for new races, armies, and worlds everywhere. I think the smaller focus ultimately comes back to production and shelf space. It must be easier to move familiar characters than new armies, but its also constraining the growth of the setting.

Isnt part of the complaint that the setting IS growing and evolving?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 ultimaratio wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
I don't get how the canon lore being centered around certain characters (which there are still a ton of) suddenly means that you can't narrative yourself a fight for x reason in y system.

Just because named characters are the focus doesn't suddenly mean the galaxy is a single neighborhood and that every system that isnt mentioned doesnt exist.

Right, but with a galaxy-sized milieu, wouldn't it be time better spent if the writers and artists were expanding the setting, instead of going deeper into personal conflicts and biographies? We recently got Leagues of Votann, but they're only rebooted squats. There's room for new races, armies, and worlds everywhere. I think the smaller focus ultimately comes back to production and shelf space. It must be easier to move familiar characters than new armies, but its also constraining the growth of the setting.

Isnt part of the complaint that the setting IS growing and evolving?

No, where did I say that? I don't agree that its growing, but I guess its still changing.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Do you NOT want the story of 40k to have characters? Because every single story is centered around characters.

The existence of stories does not require 40k being turned into a Saturday morning cartoon.

We had characters for multiple editions before this silly decision was made, and they were no lesser because of it.

They also didn't shrink the galaxy down by having the same few people appearing in pretty much every conflict within a very small window of time.

I just don't get it, it litterally gives MORE room to homebrew stories since the canon ones are so focused on a smaller scale, leaving more room for custom stuff.

We're talking about a galaxy, so there's never going to be more or less room, but concentrating all the worldbuilding effort on a space opera seems like wasted potential. How long have the conflicts of certain two or three chapters of a thousand space marine chapters been the center attention?

 ultimaratio wrote:
Right, but with a galaxy-sized milieu, wouldn't it be time better spent if the writers and artists were expanding the setting, instead of going deeper into personal conflicts and biographies? We recently got Leagues of Votann, but they're only rebooted squats. There's room for new races, armies, and worlds everywhere. I think the smaller focus ultimately comes back to production and shelf space. It must be easier to move familiar characters than new armies, but its also constraining the growth of the setting.

In part yes, production and shelf space play a big part of it. But that is just a part of the core issue that creating fiction requires money and needs a monetary return of that investement. Even at its most basic, lore writers still need to be paid.

They could write about a war in an unknown corner of the galaxy bewteen unknown alien civilizations, and it would do nothing for 40k as a game and a comercially viable product.

Moreover the fanbase doesn't really want the true scale of the galaxy even if they claim they do, because at that scale humanity is irrelevant, a million world empire is nothing in a galaxy with hundreds of billions of stars and planets. Every war humanity has ever fought is like bacteria fighting each other over a square milimeter of your skin, utterly irrelevant. But that makes poor fiction and even worse sales, so we get a human centric narrative and even Space Marine centric narrative.

And while at it, 30k/HH is even worse at making the galaxy small, hell it manages to make the universe/multiverse small with the cancerous nonsense that is the Dark King.

 ultimaratio wrote:
Right, but with a galaxy-sized milieu, wouldn't it be time better spent if the writers and artists were expanding the setting, instead of going deeper into personal conflicts and biographies? We recently got Leagues of Votann, but they're only rebooted squats. There's room for new races, armies, and worlds everywhere. I think the smaller focus ultimately comes back to production and shelf space. It must be easier to move familiar characters than new armies, but its also constraining the growth of the setting.

The amount of work that was put into the "squat reboot" has been huge; there's been sooo much development that Votann don't really resemble the squats of old.

As a guy who LOVES a big sand box, I can agree that I would like new species and factions... But have you seen how many people on the forums say that there are already too many factions? We've got people saying Deathwatch and GK never should have been armies; we've got people who want everything chaos in one book; we've got people saying Agents shouldn't have received a dex.

I don't thnk the community at large is as behind new factions as you or I might be.

 ultimaratio wrote:
We're talking about a galaxy, so there's never going to be more or less room, but concentrating all the worldbuilding effort on a space opera seems like wasted potential. How long have the conflicts of certain two or three chapters of a thousand space marine chapters been the center attention?

I don't outright disagree with this, but it needs context, because the conversation here is mostly about how the storyline narrative that began with Gathering Storm in the transition to 8th is responsible for these conditions. But the question about how long certain factions have been involved in certain conflicts is WAY beyond the scope of how things changed in 8th. Wasn't Armageddon a conflict that took place from 2nd in the 90's to 7th in 2016?

The entire era of 8th-10th doesn't span as many years.

 Tyran wrote:
And while at it, 30k/HH is even worse at making the galaxy small, hell it manages to make the universe/multiverse small with the cancerous nonsense that is the Dark King.

Holy heck yes! The way you shrink a universe is not by having characters and an ongoing plot, but by removing more than half the factions from the game.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 ultimaratio wrote:
Right, but with a galaxy-sized milieu, wouldn't it be time better spent if the writers and artists were expanding the setting, instead of going deeper into personal conflicts and biographies? We recently got Leagues of Votann, but they're only rebooted squats. There's room for new races, armies, and worlds everywhere. I think the smaller focus ultimately comes back to production and shelf space. It must be easier to move familiar characters than new armies, but its also constraining the growth of the setting.

The amount of work that was put into the "squat reboot" has been huge; there's been sooo much development that Votann don't really resemble the squats of old.

As a guy who LOVES a big sand box, I can agree that I would like new species and factions... But have you seen how many people on the forums say that there are already too many factions? We've got people saying Deathwatch and GK never should have been armies; we've got people who want everything chaos in one book; we've got people saying Agents shouldn't have received a dex.

I don't thnk the community at large is as behind new factions as you or I might be.

The issue is GW isn't really able to keep up with their existing factions.
I think some Kill Team releases, usable as Mercenaries in some or any faction, would be a manageable addition that could expand the setting.

And of course, part of the issue is that Marines are such workhogs. If half the attention lavished upon them was spread to other factions...

 JNAProductions wrote:

I think some Kill Team releases, usable as Mercenaries in some or any faction, would be a manageable addition that could expand the setting.

And of course, part of the issue is that Marines are such workhogs. If half the attention lavished upon them was spread to other factions...

Yes! That mercenary concept rocks. Someone earlier in the thread talked about Aeldari Agents... and yeah! Another thing that has been float was now the jump packs are in KT, maybe an additional unit of Eldar Corsairs that jump- I know we're likely getting hawks instead, but think about it: GW could give the existing Corars an upgrade sprue for jumping and release Hawks in a five-box.

Also, on the mercenary front: Kroot can be an army now, but Vespids (despite their awesomeness) can't- they fall into the minor auxiliary concept. So give'em a Guev'sa team and a Demiurg team, then you've got four races to pull on for auxilliary support, and the Guev'sa represent essentially a second Xenos cult for the Hereticus to go after, while the Demiurg could be allies to some of the LoV.

Unfortunately, GW does seem to like throwing money away by not allowing any model to be used in more than one way right now (ie, way cooler on HH crossing into 40k than in the golden days of my beloved 9th ed).

My real issue with the galaxy isn't that its "small" - its that GW seemingly forgets what's going on.

II thought were were going to get "narrative" from the Gathering Storm onwards. But we didn't. We got "here's Guilliman and the Primaris, bye". 8th was dangerously close to stepping forward (what has your faction been up to over the past 100 years) - but then that was retconned and everything got locked down again.

I guess if I go digging there's stuff. But it feels like say the Lion coming back should matter in a way that it just doesn't seem to have. Necrons are waking up? Did anyone mention this after the opening 9th edition fluff? 10th is meant to be about Tyranids - but again, is it mentioned elsewhere?

Some people would hate it - but arguably 9th should have been "how's every faction coping with rising Necrons". 10th could be "how's every faction coping with seeming resurgent Tyranids". A bit reductive - but would suggest a galaxy spanning thing. It would give you scope to talk about new conflicts in new places. Instead... pretty sure GW are just regurgitating everyone's situation, and these threats are just the same as ever. But the videos were cool, looking forward to 11th's. (Dark Eldar pls.)

I'm with Tyel here. Everything after the Rift is the same stalemate as everything before the rift. The only character to ever get something done is Abaddon by winning the 13th Black Crusade. But even that didn't result in him shattering terra, instead he did something somewhere and then attacked Vigilus with a force already much weaker because CSM started splitting up everywhere.
Guilliman? Couldn't solve anything in the Imperium, Primaris were a joke and will be forgotten when 12th Edition arrives.
Mortarion? Came full force and created an empire of 3 Star systems. Wow, 3!

Open up lexicanum and look at the timeline of m41 and you'll see hundreds of events there compared to hardly anything in M39. There were narratives before the rift and there are narratives now, but in the grand scheme of things nothing changes because the galaxy is too big for anything to matter. The actual problem I see is that all the build ups GW did before 8th couldn't be solved, they wrote themselves in a corner there. Ghazghkull was supposed to do Ragnarork and then just... didn't. Abby collected items for the end of the galaxy and then just... forgot he had them. Guilliman returned and the Imperium just... didn't change at all aside from being ripped in half.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 ultimaratio wrote:
We're talking about a galaxy, so there's never going to be more or less room, but concentrating all the worldbuilding effort on a space opera seems like wasted potential. How long have the conflicts of certain two or three chapters of a thousand space marine chapters been the center attention?

I don't outright disagree with this, but it needs context, because the conversation here is mostly about how the storyline narrative that began with Gathering Storm in the transition to 8th is responsible for these conditions. But the question about how long certain factions have been involved in certain conflicts is WAY beyond the scope of how things changed in 8th. Wasn't Armageddon a conflict that took place from 2nd in the 90's to 7th in 2016?

The entire era of 8th-10th doesn't span as many years.

What do you mean by this? There are three Armageddon wars. The 3rd war appeared in 3rd edition lore with a global campaign, but otherwise the conflict has existed across multiple editions, but it hasn't been a narrative between 3rd and 8th. It was a setting (and mostly was in the global campaign to, although the outcome shaped the stalemate). 8th then progressed the narrative a little with Chaos joining the war. It stil exists in 10th. The conflict started in 998.M41 and is still ongoing.

 PenitentJake wrote:
Holy heck yes! The way you shrink a universe is not by having characters and an ongoing plot, but by removing more than half the factions from the game.

It's the founding myth of the Imperium. Complaining that HH has just Imperial factions is like complaining that the Mayans or Zhou Dynasty didn't get involved in the Trojan War.

Why weren't the Orks involved? Busy being dead after Ullanor.

Why weren't the Craftworlds involved? Because the biggest problem in the universe is beating itself up, and the entire race is reeling after it just had a massive cataclysm.

Why aren't there other Xenos? Busy being dead or unimportant to the story of the Horus Heresy and therefore not needed.

 Haighus wrote:
[
but it hasn't been a narrative between 3rd and 8th. It was a setting (and mostly was in the global campaign to, although the outcome shaped the stalemate).

Really? Because I remember that in one of the three battles, Angron showed up... But he didn't have a model at the time. If he had, it would have been no different than when Guilliman takes part in a battle that has been written about in the 8th-10th era. Ghazkul was there, Yarrick was there, both leading battles written about in great detail, so what's the difference between that (which everyone loved) and Guilliman leading a battle (which is the worst thing ever, and fundamentally changed the way the game is played)?

In fact, while Ghazkul and Yarrick literally fought each other as leaders of massive armies, when I skimmed the Wikki on Guilliman, there didn't seem to be any record of him fighting a named character with a model, meaning the conflicts from 8th to 10th were actually LESS of a character driven drama than the Ghazkull/ Yarrick conflict, because at least in Indomitus, the antagonist force left room for YOUR DUDES.

BTW, as for historical battles (which are, again, just as possible now as they were then), if you played a historical Sisters battle with OoOML that took place BEFORE the third battle for 'Geddon you'd have to paint them a different colour, because the narrative that you swear up and down wasn't a thing that happened prior to the nasty 8th-10th era says that the Martyrdom of the order at that battle was why they changed their robe colours. And if you play OoOML historical battles in the Plague of Unbelief, you have to change their name to Fiery Heart, because they only changed their name when Katherine was Martyred. And those actual game-affecting, narrative imposed limitations and guidelines existed LONG before 8th.

So yeah... Lots of narrative happening 2nd-7th, including narrative led by named characters with models, narrative that received Black Library books, etc.

Now look, you don't have to twist yourself into knots trying to explain how the ongoing character driven narrative functions differently now than it did in "the good old days" in order to justify your dislike of the new lore: it's okay to not like the new Lore. But it doesn't actually seem to be true that the narratives of named characters didn't exist and guide the growth, development and pace of the game until 8th happened.

 PenitentJake wrote:

In fact, while Ghazkul and Yarrick literally fought each other as leaders of massive armies, when I skimmed the Wikki on Guilliman, there didn't seem to be any record of him fighting a named character with a model, meaning the conflicts from 8th to 10th were actually LESS of a character driven drama than the Ghazkull/ Yarrick conflict, because at least in Indomitus, the antagonist force left room for YOUR DUDES.

Guilliman has one-on-oned Mortarion, Magnus, and Kairos, just off the top of my head...

Pretty sure he punched Mortarion out of reality.

 Gert wrote:
Pretty sure he punched Mortarion out of reality.

I thought so too. I don't read a lot of BL, and I have zero interest in Marines that aren't connected to the Inquisition, but I was positive I had heard or read about that in a thread somewhere. I was shocked to not see it in the Wikki (though as I said, I was skimming, because again non-chamber marines bore me to tears).

Either way... GW has been letting named characters dominate their games, steer the plot of their galaxy and including them in battles as well as writing novels about the whole thing since LONG before 8th, which is my primary point. If you want to say otherwise, don't say it here- grab your Yarrick* off the shelf, stare into the Bale Eye* and tell him he didn't lead the 3rd battle of Armageddon because narrative only existed and and characters only started driving it in 8th.

* not intended as euphemisms... Honest.

It started with the success of BLs take on the Horus Heresy. Unfortunately a lot of people seemed to really like a soap opera centred around a bunch of superheroes. So now they have turned 40K into that too. Except in HH there at least was things changing and happening (even though we already knew the main points.) Characters would change sides or die, the whole nature of the Imperium would shift. With 40K none of that happens. We have battles and events that are nominally a big deal, but the status quo will not actually meaningfully shift, and big characters cannot die as GW wants to keep selling their expensive models.

 Crimson wrote:
It started with the success of BLs take on the Horus Heresy.

I'm sure the success of the HH novels accelerated the pairing of novels with minis, but again, the idea that named characters drive the narrative of the Galaxy started earlier with Yarrick and Ghaz.

The first Armageddon novel came out in 2003, but it was about obscure "Your Dudes" type folks, and it's description doesn't mention Yarrick or Ghaz at all. The first HH book was 2006. The Yarrick series of novels started in 2013, three years before Gathering Storm.

But even though they didn't get novels until 2013, Yarrick and Ghaz DOMINATED stories about Armageddon in dexes and Dwarf articles- their soap opera interactions began with the release of the first Commissar Yarrick model in 1992, 24 years before 8th and 14 years before the first HH novel.

You might have FELT that there was no soap opera in 1992 because you were 32 years younger, and your brain processed information differently when you were a teenager, but it honestly wasn't a whole lot different than G Man vs. whoever. And even if it was, 11 years later when the Armageddon dex dropped and Yarrick got his second model, we're STILL three years before the first HH book, and the soap opera between Yarrick and Ghaz was certainly very well established by then.

Y'all gotta stop pretending none of that happened, let me drop the mic and move on.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
[
but it hasn't been a narrative between 3rd and 8th. It was a setting (and mostly was in the global campaign to, although the outcome shaped the stalemate).

Really? Because I remember that in one of the three battles, Angron showed up... But he didn't have a model at the time. If he had, it would have been no different than when Guilliman takes part in a battle that has been written about in the 8th-10th era. Ghazkul was there, Yarrick was there, both leading battles written about in great detail, so what's the difference between that (which everyone loved) and Guilliman leading a battle (which is the worst thing ever, and fundamentally changed the way the game is played)?

In fact, while Ghazkul and Yarrick literally fought each other as leaders of massive armies, when I skimmed the Wikki on Guilliman, there didn't seem to be any record of him fighting a named character with a model, meaning the conflicts from 8th to 10th were actually LESS of a character driven drama than the Ghazkull/ Yarrick conflict, because at least in Indomitus, the antagonist force left room for YOUR DUDES.

BTW, as for historical battles (which are, again, just as possible now as they were then), if you played a historical Sisters battle with OoOML that took place BEFORE the third battle for 'Geddon you'd have to paint them a different colour, because the narrative that you swear up and down wasn't a thing that happened prior to the nasty 8th-10th era says that the Martyrdom of the order at that battle was why they changed their robe colours. And if you play OoOML historical battles in the Plague of Unbelief, you have to change their name to Fiery Heart, because they only changed their name when Katherine was Martyred. And those actual game-affecting, narrative imposed limitations and guidelines existed LONG before 8th.

So yeah... Lots of narrative happening 2nd-7th, including narrative led by named characters with models, narrative that received Black Library books, etc.

Now look, you don't have to twist yourself into knots trying to explain how the ongoing character driven narrative functions differently now than it did in "the good old days" in order to justify your dislike of the new lore: it's okay to not like the new Lore. But it doesn't actually seem to be true that the narratives of named characters didn't exist and guide the growth, development and pace of the game until 8th happened.

I'm still confused. For starters, the reason I say it wasn't a narrative between those editions, is that the bones of the conflict were the same in 3rd as they were in 7th. It started in 998.M41, and was still ongoing in 999.M41. it didn't progress during that time, but it was fleshed out. The campaign got wider, not longer (until 8th). You presented it as being some ongoing plot line, that started in 2nd and was still going until it stopped in 7th, which definitely isn't true (especially as it did continue in 8th with the involvement of Chaos forces). So the campaign had a narrative, but it wasn't progressing and therefore worked as a setting that you could fight your own battles within.

No one is claiming special characters didn't exist prior to ~5th edition*, or narratives. The point of contention is that the narratives used to occur within a setting, whereas now the setting seems to be becoming one big narrative driven by a handful of movers and shakers. The issue isn't named characters existing and having narratives, it is that those named characters are central to the wider galaxy in a way they were not previously and turn up in an improbable number of major events in short succession. Yarrick was a key character in Armageddon, he wasn't also at Cadia fighting Abaddon or fighting the Tyranids on the Eastern Fringe in the same two years. Even when the two figureheads left, the conflict continued. Meanwhile, the conflict included huge scope for your own commander and the early lore for the 3rd war encouraged converting some of the lesser known regiments, chapters, or warbands.

Angron appeared in the 1st War 500 years prior.

The Yarrick and Ghazghkull rivalry actually started out as a single White Dwarf battle report between the personal armies of two staffers, which is an amusing tidbit.

Now, compare that to the current Octarius War, which was its own conflict in a stalemate. Current lore is that the planet was about to be lost by the Orks until Ghazghkull showed up and stomped some Tyranids, so the Orks are winning again. Ghaz leaves and the Swarmlord is deployed, who noms some Orks and now the Tyranids win and eat Octarius. Meanwhile, the Ork and Tyranid forces are prevented from finally escaping the Imperial cordon around Octarius by the appearance of... High Marshall Helbrecht. There are lots of new characters introduced in Octarius, but the focus has shifted to the soap opera of a handful of well-known characters rather than fleshing out the new ones. The well-known characters also have an outsized effect, easily dominating when they appear. Contrast that to Armageddon, where no single "legendary" character dominated the 3rd war and "lesser" characters were hugely important to the campaign (as they should be in such a large war).

TL;DR: the issue isn't characters and narratives existing within the setting, it is that a handful of characters are driving the key narratives and becoming the setting.


*This problem started well before 8th edition, the Ultramarines were probably the first to be afflicted with protagonism and appear all over the place at once. Actually, looking back at the thread no one else was hinging this on 8th edition, it isn't about the transition to 8th edition. The issue does seem to have become gradually worse from at least 5th edition, with 7th edition cementing the typical writing style of campaigns feeling like a badly-scripted wrestling match with dramatic reversal after dramatic reversal as new trump cards are deployed. I think that style naturally lends itself to the biggest trump cards being legendary characters showing up.

 Haighus wrote:

I'm still confused.

The argument isn't about "how narrative" pre 8th was vs. how narrative post 8th is - the argument is that the degree of narrative (whatever you feel it is) didn't change between pre 8th and post 8th as much as people are saying.

 Haighus wrote:

For starters, the reason I say it wasn't a narrative between those editions, is that the bones of the conflict were the same in 3rd as they were in 7th.

Is not the Ynarri situation the same in 10th as 8th? How bout Cicatrix? How bout Vigilus? How bout Pariah Nexus? Chalnath? Octarius? Check the thread to see how many people say nothing has changed in those places. Now personally, I would say things there did change,,, But no more or less than things changed in Armageddon, ie. my argument isn't about the degree of change, it's that whatever you perceive that degree of change to be, pre 8th and post 8th eras were the same. Some will say "lots of change" some will say "little" both are subjective, so I'm not arguing either. I'm arguing "same".

 Haighus wrote:

It started in 998.M41, and was still ongoing in 999.M41. it didn't progress during that time,

If the first battle of Armageddon didn't progress, how did a second one happen? And if the second one didn't progress, how could their be a third?

 Haighus wrote:

but it was fleshed out.

What is your take on the semantic differences between fleshed out "fleshed out" and "progressing"?

 Haighus wrote:

The campaign got wider, not longer (until 8th). You presented it as being some ongoing plot line, that started in 2nd and was still going until it stopped in 7th, which definitely isn't true (especially as it did continue in 8th with the involvement of Chaos forces). So the campaign had a narrative, but it wasn't progressing and therefore worked as a setting that you could fight your own battles within.

So this is where the vagueries of memory come in for me. I played VERY heavily in 2nd, 3rd and 4th, but I never really bothered linking my own campaigns to the story, and consequently I didn't read a lot of stuff about Armageddon. Did they write and release all of the events of Armageddon (ie. All three battles) at the same time?

Or did they write about one battle, then a few months later write about another battle, then a few months later, write about another? Because if so, that is a narrative sequence over time, just like we have now. And someone said there was a global campaign, right? And that it actually somewhat affected the lore, even if only in a limited way... Is that correct?

And again, where in time I play OoOML does actually determine how I have to paint them- at the beginning of the first battle, they had black robes; I don't remember if their mass Martyrdom happened in the 2nd or 3rd, but wherever it happened, that's when they changed the colour of their robes.

 Haighus wrote:

No one is claiming special characters didn't exist prior to ~5th edition*, or narratives. The point of contention is that the narratives used to occur within a setting,

The definition of narrative includes plot, setting, character and theme. You literally can't have a narrative without a setting, because nothing can happen unless it happens somewhere. Now, I think you know that, so obviously you're trying to express something deeper. I don't want to put words in your mouth either, but I can't take a stab at responding unless I try to figure out what you mean, so here goes:

I think you mean that events on Armageddon were contained within Armageddon and didn't impact the rest of the Galaxy.

But again, not true, because it wasn't just the OoOML at Geddon that changed their robes- in point of fct, none of them could, cuz every single one of them died. But everywhere else in the galaxy, they did.

 Haighus wrote:

whereas now the setting seems to be becoming one big narrative driven by a handful of movers and shakers. The issue isn't named characters existing and having narratives, it is that those named characters are central to the wider galaxy in a way they were not previously and turn up in an improbable number of major events in short succession. Yarrick was a key character in Armageddon, he wasn't also at Cadia fighting Abaddon or fighting the Tyranids on the Eastern Fringe in the same two years.

Okay, cool- this seems to confirm my previous interpretation- it's about confining the characters to a single series of narrative events in a single theatre of war. And you know what- I'll concede a little here... but within limits. First, I think that there is more connectedness between events- like the Cicatrix was a really big deal, and had an impact on most of the galaxy, in a way that maybe Geddon didn't. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the galaxy IS still big enough, and the game still flexible enough that you can choose to ignore it, but that doesn't invalidate your point.

I think the other thing that might be happening is that GW might be developing more ongoing conflicts at a time than they did pre 8th due to having a larger stable of writers. Conflicts may be separated by 20 or 50 of GAME time, but they are both being written about and developed simultaneously, so it doesn't FEEL that way.

And a final note: the higher the rank of the character, the more likely they are to be involved in a campaign- not necessarily deployed to fight in ground battles, but to be in-theatre to command and coordinate the Fleet and ground troops. Sometimes for sure they may deploy... But others, the writing only indicates that they order this deployment or that deployment. And yeah, if you're a Chapter Master, you won't be physically at every BATTLE, but every decision made by your army goes through a chain of command that ultimately leads back to you. And when you're a High Lord, this is even more significant.

In any case, I am seeing some of your points here, I just think its a little more complex than you're giving it credit for.

 Haighus wrote:

Even when the two figureheads left, the conflict continued. Meanwhile, the conflict included huge scope for your own commander and the early lore for the 3rd war encouraged converting some of the lesser known regiments, chapters, or warbands.

Angron appeared in the 1st War 500 years prior.

The Yarrick and Ghazghkull rivalry actually started out as a single White Dwarf battle report between the personal armies of two staffers, which is an amusing tidbit.

Great, confirmed my question from earlier; the conflict wasn't presented all at once, it did develop over time.

 Haighus wrote:

Now, compare that to the current Octarius War, which was its own conflict in a stalemate. Current lore is that the planet was about to be lost by the Orks until Ghazghkull showed up and stomped some Tyranids, so the Orks are winning again. Ghaz leaves and the Swarmlord is deployed, who noms some Orks and now the Tyranids win and eat Octarius. Meanwhile, the Ork and Tyranid forces are prevented from finally escaping the Imperial cordon around Octarius by the appearance of... High Marshall Helbrecht. There are lots of new characters introduced in Octarius, but the focus has shifted to the soap opera of a handful of well-known characters rather than fleshing out the new ones. The well-known characters also have an outsized effect, easily dominating when they appear. Contrast that to Armageddon, where no single "legendary" character dominated the 3rd war and "lesser" characters were hugely important to the campaign (as they should be in such a large war).

Okay, I just opened Octarius books from 9th. On the first two pages, I read about Kryptman, Planetary Governor Abrahoma Bentaal, Stugborg Face Grinda, Fabricator General Ezmeralda Brynlokh. All of these are characters that I could convert, like the ones you mention were a part of Geddon. I also read about Legio Crucius and Kopides, and knight house Feurus of Soebus. On pages 30 and 31, it names Dark Kraken marines (which got LOTS of development in WD flash points- I think a few pieces of wargear, and some named dudes, all of which we're encouraged to convert), as well as the Atlantean Spears and Obsidian Jaguars Chapters- you know, those lesser known forces that you praise Geddon for including, right? And the list goes on- knight houses, regiments, a DW Watch Fortess, etc. And to further encourage conversion, book 2 includes rules for looted vehicles. There are colour schemes for all the marine chapters mentioned above, etc.

Now, you say Ghaz shows up, and I don't doubt that. But in my skim so far, I don't see him mentioned yet. Funny, huh? Cuz I did see all the other stuff of written about. Could it be that you think Ghaz is the huge mover and shaker because he's the part you remember, rather than that he drove the plot?

I have to wrap up this post because of work, but I'll be back. Thank you for encouraging me to reread my two 40k Octarius books, the dozen or so WD flashpoints and the KT Octarius book more deeply than I did the first time. Honestly, I bought them for rules cuz MY DUDES, and didn't read much of the lore. But I do want to see just how much of that material is devoted to Helbrecht and Ghaz and how much is devoted to those other minor players in the conflict.

If you've got the books, I'd encourage you to do the same. It might be eye openning for both of us.

 Haighus wrote:

*This problem started well before 8th edition, the Ultramarines were probably the first to be afflicted with protagonism and appear all over the place at once. Actually, looking back at the thread no one else was hinging this on 8th edition, it isn't about the transition to 8th edition. The issue does seem to have become gradually worse from at least 5th edition, with 7th edition cementing the typical writing style of campaigns feeling like a badly-scripted wrestling match with dramatic reversal after dramatic reversal as new trump cards are deployed. I think that style naturally lends itself to the biggest trump cards being legendary characters showing up.

Which was EXACTLY my whole point, right?

Will reply to the rest later, but you are the first person to raise 8th as an inflection point for this. The conversation prior to that was talking about overall trends. Choosing to focus on 8th is a bit weird.

 Gert wrote:

It's the founding myth of the Imperium.

Part of the problem is that the HH series was sold as "the real historical truth behind the myth", so it isn't just a funding myth of the Imperium.

But also the whole plot cancers that were the Perpetuals and the Dark King and Enuncia (you know, Dan Abnett's plot cancers).

I mean, the whole siege of Terra becomes an afterthought to the "Infinite Chaos Horus vs Dark King Emperor for the multiverse* or something", everyone else literally doesn't matter.

*Also the ridiculously rising of the stakes, they no longer are fighting for humanity or the Imperium, they are fighting for the ("multi)universe and reality itself". The whole thing absurdly escalated beyond "founding myth of the Imperium" and if you are going to fight for the entirety of reality then yeah the other factions should be included.

Part of the problem is just that as theoretically open as a big universe is, if you don't focus on a small piece of it you quickly exhaust the real storytelling possibilities.

The main problem with 40k stories is they're essentially a mad lib: "The Space Marines arrived to defend ______ from the forces of ______. It turns out that the planet was developing a super weapon and the real villains are Chaos." Even if the planet is saved, the Inquisition arrives at the end and blows up everything anyway.

The main issue just comes down to the IoM itself. It's the only thing "at stake" but as long as it remains fundamentally unchangeable there's nothing left to put on the table. They've lost legions and worlds and sectors and while the "nothing matters or will be missed" is cool in theory, the reality is it robs stories of purpose.

We're just REALLY feeling it now because they flirted with the possiblity of change and we're now stuck with the reality that its an empty promise. There's a ton of incredible things they COULD do with the rift and the primarchs and the emperor and everything, but now that we've seen that all of that changes nothing, the reality of "nothing actually matters" makes it hard to get invested in any of it.

The Eye of Terror campaign, 2002, late 3rd edition, seemed kind of "special/fluff relevant character focused". It also had narrative consequences - but that fueled hostility. (I.E. Eldar have done okay vs Chaos - I know, lets perma kill Eldrad, oh wait hang on, bring him back...).

You then had the Storm of Chaos campaign for WHFB which prompted even more negativity/outrage from the fans. I think it contributed in part (along with a litany of other complaints) to the death of the official GW forums around this time.

At this point GW seem to have decided that they can't win, so tried some campaigns mostly with a bunch of newish non-Codex characters (I think they got expanded narratives over the previous few years in White Dwarf etc) they could kill off for narrative effect. I think that's how The Fall of Medusa V went down anyway. But... again, partly because it was a bunch of new(ish) characters I don't think as many people cared.

Anyway then the campaigns ended.

I guess you can argue at this point "its a setting not a story" had triumphed - but I'm not sure that was ever GW's intention. Roll on 5th, roll on Ward's Ultramarines, and the rest is history.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
The response 'you can do x' kinda misses the point. The criticism is about the companies approach to its setting. We can obviously do anything at any time. Up to and including rewriting the rules and setting.

But for a commercial product that attracts customers that we play games with, if they move heavily towards 'massive galaxy altering actions of the skywalker family in no time at all', you doing your own thing diverges more and more into alternative fan fiction as with their customer base harder to engage others.

Even the biggest things like Cadia falling or the cicatrix maledictum doesn't mean you can't narrative something in a rando system that is mostly untouched by those events.

Do you NOT want the story of 40k to have characters? Because every single story is centered around characters.

I think I mostly agree with Vlad here. If you want to tell stories about your guys fighting over small stakes or even pointless stakes in an ultimately unimportant corner of the galaxy, that's still totally possible! This 40k-as-setting approach still works.

It's just that, in addition to that small-stakes stuff that we're all used to from pre-8th, we're now also occasionally moving a few plot threads forward to give the impression that the setting isn't 100% static and to tell some new, potentially cool stories.

Your chapter of marines can still be fighting warbands no one has ever heard over for control of mcguffins that don't matter to the wider setting just like they did in the past. But while your guys are doing that, there's a (very slowly moving) storyline going on that you can choose to tie your own armies into if you're so inclined.

My craftworlders can be hunting down mcguffins and harvesting spirit stones to hold out one more day or I can say that they're doing a job for Yvraine in hopes of eventually making a difference. Yvraine's exploits can be as (ir)relevant to the stories I'm telling with my craftworld as I want. If I were a Biel-Tan player, I'd have to acknowledge in my fluff that my craftworld was a little worse for wear following Yvraine's introduction, but that's just a thing that sometimes happens when your faction gets new lore.

Similarly, some Salamanders would have to acknowledge that primaris exist, but can otherwise carry on beating up xenos and treasure hunting Vulkan's artefacts. Or they can send some bodies to help with the Indomitus Crusade if I want to feel like I'm connected to the "main story."

tldr; people who want their stories/battles to not matter to the larger setting can still have that. There just also happens to be a few "main" stories going on in the galaxy, and those stories happen to involve a lot of the big-name movers and shakers of the galaxy.

Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

Yet nothing prevents you from creating your own warboss leading his own waagh away from what Ghaz is doing...

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

Yet nothing prevents you from creating your own warboss leading his own waagh away from what Ghaz is doing...

Though the rules are VERY slim on customization for said Warboss.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

Yet nothing prevents you from creating your own warboss leading his own waagh away from what Ghaz is doing...

That's just the narrative equivalent of 'It doesn't matter if GW's rules are bad because you can go off and write your own', or 'It doesn't matter that new Corteaz is a terrible model because you can sculpt your own'.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

Yet nothing prevents you from creating your own warboss leading his own waagh away from what Ghaz is doing...

Perhaps much of the complaint here is that these characters are more integral to the game itself. Historically they've been kind of terrible, but nothing really does what Ghaz does in Ork armies and Calgar is basically the only reason to run a compliant chapter.

 LunarSol wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

Yet nothing prevents you from creating your own warboss leading his own waagh away from what Ghaz is doing...

Perhaps much of the complaint here is that these characters are more integral to the game itself. Historically they've been kind of terrible, but nothing really does what Ghaz does in Ork armies and Calgar is basically the only reason to run a compliant chapter.

Thats a more reasonable (although very different) argument than what OP brought up IMO.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

That's just the narrative equivalent of 'It doesn't matter if GW's rules are bad because you can go off and write your own', or 'It doesn't matter that new Corteaz is a terrible model because you can sculpt your own'.

And yet old 40k pretty much worked on that logic with its heavy emphasis on model conversion, narrative forging and scratch building.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Ghazghkull is a good example of a character who has suffered 'protagonist syndrome' as time has gone on: He started off as an example of an Ork warlord who was special essentially because the narrative of Armageddon (or, the narrative window through which the reader happened to be viewing the 40K'verse) focussed on him. Now though, he's the leader of all Ork-kind, converses with the Ork gods, literally teleports around the galaxy, only becomes stronger when he gets decapitated, Armageddon is actually Ullanor in disguise... Now the narrative window is following Ghazghkull because he's the most important character in universe..

Right. He is basically and ork primarch now. I liked it more when the special characters were just detailed examples of similar characters there were generic version of. Now we have these unique super beings that warp the setting around them and are several orders of magnitude more important and special than your generic chapter masters, warbosses etc.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

With few exceptions, unique characters should be a specific build of a generic character.
Calgar? Chapter Master with Master Crafted Fists and Storm Bolter.
Rotigus? Fancy GUO with the sorcery options.
Haarken? Lord with Jump Pack and Master Crafted Power Lance or something.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I think I mostly agree with Vlad here. If you want to tell stories about your guys fighting over small stakes or even pointless stakes in an ultimately unimportant corner of the galaxy, that's still totally possible! This 40k-as-setting approach still works.

It's just that, in addition to that small-stakes stuff that we're all used to from pre-8th, we're now also occasionally moving a few plot threads forward to give the impression that the setting isn't 100% static and to tell some new, potentially cool stories.

Personally I agree with that- but when those major plot threads are being driven by the same limited roster of characters showing up again and again, it makes the setting feel trite, contrived, and small. The setting is so big that they could easily invent Macharius-esque Guard commanders, rising Chaos warlords, unexpected Hive Fleets, minor Craftworlds, Inquisitors, and so on and have them plausibly effect significant change.

Instead it's always Guilliman or Mortarion or Abaddon or Vect or Ghazghkull or whoever behind it. Only the stars get to make any major impact, and everyone else is just window dressing.

Have any of those characters actually made a meaningful change? They get a lot of spotlight, but in terms of actual accomplishments they've done as much as any major character the game has ever fixated on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I've said it before, I'll say it again:

With few exceptions, unique characters should be a specific build of a generic character.
Calgar? Chapter Master with Master Crafted Fists and Storm Bolter.
Rotigus? Fancy GUO with the sorcery options.
Haarken? Lord with Jump Pack and Master Crafted Power Lance or something.

Making more characters 1 per army like Epic Heroes would go a long way to help with stuff like this.

 Haighus wrote:
Will reply to the rest later, but you are the first person to raise 8th as an inflection point for this. The conversation prior to that was talking about overall trends. Choosing to focus on 8th is a bit weird.

No one explicitly said 8th- that's true. But ANY reference to Gulliman is 8-10, any reference to Gathering Storm is 8-10. A reference to Votann is 8-10.

And sorry, I take it for granted that "Modern 40k" is understood to be 8-10 simply because 3rd-7th were compatible, and 8th blew it all up with printed Indexes and ushered in Primaris. Kind of a "tell me you're talking about 8-10 without telling me you're talking about 8-10" kinda thing.

You mentioned Octarius, and both Octarius campaign books were 9th. We've talked about Pariah, which had books in 8th, 9th and 10th.

 LunarSol wrote:
Have any of those characters actually made a meaningful change? They get a lot of spotlight, but in terms of actual accomplishments they've done as much as any major character the game has ever fixated on.

This highlights a big part of my problem with them, and the current trend in 40k's background.

GW seems to have created this weird paradox, where we get the Big Important Characters plastered all over the setting at every opportunity, giving it the Saturday morning cartoon feel, yet simultaneously refusing to actually progress the storyline in any meaningful way. It feels like the worst of both worlds. The big characters overshadow what would have been big events, either through their presence making everything else seem inconsequential, or the lack of their presence meaning GW tend to treat it as such.

Two solid examples spring to mind. Firstly, the return of Guilliman had the potential to genuinely progress the narrative and crate conflict within the Imperium itself. Having such a pivotal character return, with direct knowledge of the Emperor's non-divinity suggested loads of really interesting conflicts and schisms within the Imperium. But none of that happened, because GW seem scared of making such a big narrative change. Secondly, look at the Rubicon Primaris, the "dangerous" process of allowing GW to continue to sell established....no, sorry, the "dangerous" process of turning a firstborn Marine in to a Primaris. The success rate for named characters is 100%. Would it have been too much to ask for one or two to die during the process? Would it really have hurt the bottom line all that much if Shrike, for example, died and a new Raven Guard character had to be created? Or Corbulo, who no longer has a model anyway?

Slipspace wrote:
Would it have been too much to ask for one or two to die during the process? Would it really have hurt the bottom line all that much if Shrike, for example, died and a new Raven Guard character had to be created? Or Corbulo, who no longer has a model anyway?

Gotta save new models for some named characters for 11th.

And while I agree that the success rate for crossing the Rubicon Primaris is suspiciously high, it's not too hard to imagine the outcry from fans if a named character died on the operating table.

Speaking of named characters being everywhere, it gets into the rules as well. I recently considered upgrading my Eldar collection, and Ynnari are a nice way to field both types of Eldar together. But you can only have an Ynnari force if Yvraine is leading it! Isn't this supposed to be a galaxy spanning cult with countless of followers? Apparently not! Unless Yvraine is present, the followers do absolutely nothing.

The idea behind at least some of the special characters is that their impact is their leadership, not their prowess.

Did G man PERSONALLY achieve lasting change? No. But GW would say that without his leadership in the formation of Indomitus Crusade Fleets, the Cicatrix could have ended the Imperium, and even with his leadership, it still might.

Did Leontus personally achieve lasting change? Nope. But GW would say that without the Solblades, the Tyrannic war would be lost.

As for the Ynarri, no, they aren't a galaxy spanning organization; they're a Cult. Until Yvraine convinces you to join, you can't. Now she's been recruiting for three editions, so she's getting closer to making an actual faction- she's got some high profile supporters now- Jain Zar and Lelith among them, cuz Girls Just Wanna Have Fun... But galaxy spanning is a stretch.

Personally, as a Crusader, I would say that Yvraine has to be the warlord during the first fight every unit participates in, but once they're recruited, they remain loyal and can function independently. But the base game, being built for stand-alone battles, doesn't give players the opportunity to express such story driven distinctions on the table.

 Crimson wrote:
Speaking of named characters being everywhere, it gets into the rules as well. I recently considered upgrading my Eldar collection, and Ynnari are a nice way to field both types of Eldar together. But you can only have an Ynnari force if Yvraine is leading it! Isn't this supposed to be a galaxy spanning cult with countless of followers? Apparently not! Unless Yvraine is present, the followers do absolutely nothing.

I'm pretty sure Ynnari is the exception, where GW forces Yvraine as a "tax" to allow it. Realistically, Ynnari should be it's own codex with a specific selection of units

Part of the phenomenon to me seems that a) warhammer has gotten much bigger than it's ever been in terms of media presence and b) GW wants to have an IP with which to sell licenses to other companies and also nostalgia to much of its audience.

In the 90s when I developed an interest in the warhammers and eventually had money to buy minis and books etc. it was at least thinkable that I might be able to read every studio book, or keep up with white dwarf, or read every novel. The sheer volume of stuff coming out since Black Library spun up makes it next to impossible to even think about doing it, let alone actually do it. I think that overwhelmingness has toned down a little since the glut of HH material (and I've read or listened to literally all of it; don't do it) but there's still far too much to keep up with.

Part of what that results in, I think, is an explosion of poorly remembered or misunderstood fluff bits that some hack then writes into Warhammer Wiki without citations, or an influence tells all their followers and then they think the thing is canon. GW also does occasional retcons as well - while I'm on board with custodes and bretonnian knights being taken from all human sexes, they did change out of the blue, just like when Black Templars became weirdos in 3E.

So when it comes, then, to the sheer size of the franchises, and GW trying to hawk it to other parties, it makes sense from a faceless megacorp perspective to try to rein it in and make it more prepackaged so you can sell more lunchboxes. There was this interesting anecdote in a video chat recently where the hosts were pontificating about how many more views lore videos get than other videos, and the thought was that maybe it's easier to feel engaged via someone else telling you a story than it is to sit down and paint, or dredge through books looking for obscure references to concoct your own story, or arrange a game when you have regular life stuff to deal with.

I do think we're in an age of where Recognisable Character Franchises are the order of the day, and this isn't a particularly new phenomenon either - historiography is rife with Important Person History coming and going in popularity.

It's not just that GW wants to sell licenses to video games though, it's also that us older folks are as involved in nostalgia as younger folks are into retro stuff. Corbulo's a great example - I think it's silly that every named space marine is becoming embiggened with no real trouble despite all the inane stuff about how it's so dangerous, and also there are people who are annoyed he didn't get an update.

I do think there's also an extent to which small-group agreements are just less common in the age we're in. If you're a younger person you probably don't have the space to regularly have games at home, and if you're older you're just busier than you were a decade or two ago, and all of us are constantly distracted in the era of attention economics. So our idea of engagement tends to be internet stuff - whether it's old-timey message boards like here or reddit or FB groups or youtube comments, and in THIS context it's much easier for us all to have opinions about a small universe than a big one. Even on a local leve, My Dudes fight My Friends' Dudes a bunch because I have the fortune of playing at home with friends, but even if I were to go to an FLGS nearby they've no interest in what we're up to, and most people I encounter aren't going to have a similar arrangement so we can't even trade tales of Our Respective Plots. But I can go and we can have a (bad, because neither of us have read it all) discussion about the Lion coming back.

All of that long winded waffle aside though, I'm sympathetic to PenitentJake's point - if a given person and their friends are tired of this Saturday Morning situation where Big People fight a bunch but nothing ever changes, it's really up to play groups to do their own thing.

 ultimaratio wrote:
If the galaxy is a galaxy, why jump around a timeline, when literally anything could happen in the space we know, and don't know, for almost any reason imaginable? Even with warp travel, there could be millions of worlds and wars going on in a small puff of gas, that nobody's ever heard of (or forgot about). So why constrain the setting to the scale of a few characters in a few stories, whose paths even cross, when there's so much room for new civilizations and armies? The timeline doesn't even matter, because we already know the Imperium will always be at war, or there isn't a game.

Tl;Dr is They used to; the fans didn't want it.


Met jervis about 15 years back at an Irish con. He talked about how, back in third ed, they presented a 'bare bones' kind of framework, thinking people wanted to make their own chapters and have their own stories. Nah, feedback for the most part was people wanting more lore/stories of named characters/chapters etc. They're a business. They catered to what the fans wanted. In the time since, 'character led setting' is basically the norm now for any IP.

Choose a far-flung space, ideally the Eastern Fringe (no bias here) and set your homebrew in it. I've done this myself. Galaxy's plenty big; don't just limit yourself to what's on the page.

Deadnight wrote:

 ultimaratio wrote:
If the galaxy is a galaxy, why jump around a timeline, when literally anything could happen in the space we know, and don't know, for almost any reason imaginable? Even with warp travel, there could be millions of worlds and wars going on in a small puff of gas, that nobody's ever heard of (or forgot about). So why constrain the setting to the scale of a few characters in a few stories, whose paths even cross, when there's so much room for new civilizations and armies? The timeline doesn't even matter, because we already know the Imperium will always be at war, or there isn't a game.

Tl;Dr is They used to; the fans didn't want it.


Met jervis about 15 years back at an Irish con. He talked about how, back in third ed, they presented a 'bare bones' kind of framework, thinking people wanted to make their own chapters and have their own stories. Nah, feedback for the most part was people wanting more lore/stories of named characters/chapters etc. They're a business. They catered to what the fans wanted. In the time since, 'character led setting' is basically the norm now for any IP.

It doesn't necessarily follow that the two options are 'make your own story' or 'superhero story'.

Also, having read Jervis' Standard Bearer articles for years, what he believes is, let's say, extremely malleable, based on the current GW design philosophy...

 Lord Damocles wrote:
It doesn't necessarily follow that the two options are 'make your own story' or 'superhero story'.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at.

Look at the Imperial Armour books. They cover interesting campaigns involving new characters and locales. The Badab War narrative would not have been improved by shoehorning Guilliman and Mortarion in and having their WWE cage match determine the outcome of the conflict. If GW isn't keen to actually disrupt the status quo, then telling self-contained stories that don't lean on the familiar cast of some two-dozen characters is straightforward enough.

For me it's a big whatever- I'm not especially invested in an ongoing storyline that is transparently going nowhere- but I do resent the hell out of character-centric narratives creeping into the rules.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
It doesn't necessarily follow that the two options are 'make your own story' or 'superhero story'.

Also, having read Jervis' Standard Bearer articles for years, what he believes is, let's say, extremely malleable, based on the current GW design philosophy...

There are still plenty of 40k books that are self-contained, pretty much no one reads them aside of whatever fandom niche they are filling.

I mean, how many people even know who is Magus Davien (without googling her)?

Sales wise, most of the fans want and focus on the illusion of the narrative by purchasing and reading books that follow named characters with a model.

 catbarf wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
It doesn't necessarily follow that the two options are 'make your own story' or 'superhero story'.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at.

Look at the Imperial Armour books. They cover interesting campaigns involving new characters and locales. The Badab War narrative would not have been improved by shoehorning Guilliman and Mortarion in and having their WWE cage match determine the outcome of the conflict. If GW isn't keen to actually disrupt the status quo, then telling self-contained stories that don't lean on the familiar cast of some two-dozen characters is straightforward enough.

For me it's a big whatever- I'm not especially invested in an ongoing storyline that is transparently going nowhere- but I do resent the hell out of character-centric narratives creeping into the rules.

Since lots of people really do love ongoing main storylines,there's a lot to be said for the Badab war or something on the same scale becoming the the ongoing storyline. That fills the most rudimentary function for a campaign book, which is that players use it as a model for their own campaign in some other sector, or piggyback right into the badab campaign itself.

People love talking alternate heresies, what if X legion had been on the other side. If Imperial Armour is the ongoing storyline, then alt-badab isn't even an alternate universe. Any of the Terran chapters in the Badab War could be on the rebel side of some other conflict. The Carcharodons, Salamanders, and Sons of Medusa could all get on the wrong side of the the local Administratum for their own reasons. The Sons of Medusa flat out come from a civil war themselves. The main Indomitus et al story does not do any of this. Guilliman isnt a template for your gaming group's characters or campaigns

 catbarf wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
It doesn't necessarily follow that the two options are 'make your own story' or 'superhero story'.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at.

Look at the Imperial Armour books. They cover interesting campaigns involving new characters and locales. The Badab War narrative would not have been improved by shoehorning Guilliman and Mortarion in and having their WWE cage match determine the outcome of the conflict. If GW isn't keen to actually disrupt the status quo, then telling self-contained stories that don't lean on the familiar cast of some two-dozen characters is straightforward enough.

For me it's a big whatever- I'm not especially invested in an ongoing storyline that is transparently going nowhere- but I do resent the hell out of character-centric narratives creeping into the rules.

I never bought any of the IA campaign books- they did always seem interesting, but again, FW with higher prices, resin, shipping and exchange rates (some of which has improved over the years), FW was always less accessible than GW.

But after breaking out all of the amazing 9th ed stuff, the campaign books and flashpoints... I'd say they did exactly those things. Sure, some named characters were there- just like Huron was at Badab. That may not be quite the same, because I think Badab might have been Huron's origin story (again, don't care enough about marines to dig). But I don't think the involvement of named characters in Chalnath, Octarius or any of the other 9th ed campaign books prevented anyone from playing their dudes, and certainly more than enough resources were provided to allow players to do those things.

In the 9th Hardback campaign books, there were dozens of lesser characters that don't have models to inspire conversions or act as templates for our own creations; there were lots of new planets and star systems, complete with galactic maps (though unfortunately no planet-based maps). The White Dwarf Flashpoints took it to a higher level- creating additional missions, theatre of war rules to facilitate play in particular regions, sometimes minor relics. We got alternate ways to create armies via army of renown rules; we got supplementary material for key subfactions. The only "problem" with 9th's campaign play/ ongoing narrative approach from my perspective is that there was almost too much; I put quotes around "problem" because no one was ever required to use it all, so there's a ready made solution. But I did feel like the material could have been better curated and organized- we didn't need 3 mission packs and two hardback books per season.

I am finding 10th campaign books to be much less satisfying, despite the fact that they are exclusively Crusade materials. The replacement of Flashpoints with mediocre Bunker content in WD really hurts too. I bought Tyrannic War, because I never bothered with the release box, and needed Crusade rules. I was disappointed enough that I didn't bother with Pariah, though by most accounts, it's the better of the two. If Tyrranic War had provided army creation rules for Solblade forces, it would have gone a long way. Theatres of War rules for planets in the Bastior Subsector, even better.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
Would it have been too much to ask for one or two to die during the process? Would it really have hurt the bottom line all that much if Shrike, for example, died and a new Raven Guard character had to be created? Or Corbulo, who no longer has a model anyway?

Gotta save new models for some named characters for 11th.

And while I agree that the success rate for crossing the Rubicon Primaris is suspiciously high, it's not too hard to imagine the outcry from fans if a named character died on the operating table.

For one, they're named characters because they're exceptional; a chapter's most hearty stock capable of things beyond their brothers. I'd expect their success rate be higher.

That said, for two, all the Rubicon/Primaris stuff is just a cobbled together handwave for what was supposed to be a resculpt line. Marines were just going to be outfitted in new armor and scaled up as part of a reboot, but GW panicked after the Sigmar outrage and cobbled together some generic lore justification instead. It's really not worth taking very seriously. Even in the fluff its pretty unimportant and hand wavy.

Regarding the issue of narratives that increasingly focus on special characters, I would add another issue - it makes the galaxy feel far less dangerous because the sods never actually die.

(At least, no characters who can't just come back to life through regeneration or whatever actually die.)

Yes, characters like Rowboat Guilliman are tough. However, this is supposed to be a galaxy full of untold horrors and weapons that can devastate entire worlds. The entire point of the setting was that casualties were inflicted on planetary scales.

It's one thing for Guilliman et al. to make important decisions from a relatively safe position, but when he's constantly fighting on the front line, it's hard to believe that no bomb or artillery shell has ever landed on him (even more so when you consider that he's the size of a fething tank). Or that his craft/drop-pod/whatever wasn't blown out from under him. Or that even his entire spaceship has never been destroyed, leaving him to fall into the nearest planet in a meteoric fireball.

You can argue these would be unsatisfying, but the point is that 40k battlefields are supposed to be unimaginably dangerous regardless of who you are.

Maybe it would be more appropriate for him to be slain in an epic duel with Abaddon or the Swarmlord or Mortarion etc. Except that never happens either.

When the plot-armour is this thick, it makes it hard to feel that anything is at stake because the named characters are, to all intents and purposes, immortal and invulnerable. It would seem to run entirely counter to the Grimdark setting where lives beyond number are sacrificed to keep the Imperium afloat. A setting where billions may die because an administrator lost a file and omitted to send them crucial supplies, yet such a mistake would merit little more than a footnote. A setting where even the greatest of men are no more than a slightly brighter spark, lost in a galaxy of stars. When they die, and die they will, they will not be missed.

Oh except for the writers' pet characters, who are all indestructible supermen. They are/were present for every single important battle ever, regardless of time or location, and who are so super hyper mega special that they had to be enlarged to size of small buildings just to shoulder the weight of their plot-armour.


EDIT: just to clarify further, my point is not that these characters should die. My point is, when they are constantly on the frontlines (as opposed to acting primarily as distant strategists), then it becomes increasingly hard to justify that they haven't died. That one of the myriad of unavoidable deaths that could so easily befall anyone on a 40k battlefield hasn't befallen them.

Malifaux has always done an exceptional job of getting this right. A big part of that is that the stories are always written from the perspective of a nobody who has no plot armor. From their perspective, the named characters from the table top are all effectively impossible monsters and if they ever appear in the story, the actual protagonist is probably dead or worse. 40k as a setting would probably benefit from something similar.

 LunarSol wrote:

For one, they're named characters because they're exceptional; a chapter's most hearty stock capable of things beyond their brothers. I'd expect their success rate be higher.

Yet Ragnar survived despite being mortally wounded, Calgar was seriously wounded, Lemartes is so coco that he has to be kept in stasis normally...

Tyran wrote:
There are still plenty of 40k books that are self-contained, pretty much no one reads them aside of whatever fandom niche they are filling.

I mean, how many people even know who is Magus Davien (without googling her)?

Sales wise, most of the fans want and focus on the illusion of the narrative by purchasing and reading books that follow named characters with a model.

I think there's a distinction to be drawn here between novels and campaign books. Many (albeit not all, but there are plenty of all sorts these days) of the novels follow characters who are very localised in the setting. Gaunt is perhaps the most famous, but various Ghosts do suffer consequences a bunch. I don't really have any beef with the novels and I don't think that's what this is about, especially since relatively few of the novels promise anything galaxy-shaking (or if they do, it's often revealed to be an incorrect assessment by the viewpoint characters).

PenitentJake wrote:

But after breaking out all of the amazing 9th ed stuff, the campaign books and flashpoints... I'd say they did exactly those things. Sure, some named characters were there- just like Huron was at Badab. That may not be quite the same, because I think Badab might have been Huron's origin story (again, don't care enough about marines to dig). But I don't think the involvement of named characters in Chalnath, Octarius or any of the other 9th ed campaign books prevented anyone from playing their dudes, and certainly more than enough resources were provided to allow players to do those things.

In the 9th Hardback campaign books, there were dozens of lesser characters that don't have models to inspire conversions or act as templates for our own creations; there were lots of new planets and star systems, complete with galactic maps (though unfortunately no planet-based maps). The White Dwarf Flashpoints took it to a higher level- creating additional missions, theatre of war rules to facilitate play in particular regions, sometimes minor relics. We got alternate ways to create armies via army of renown rules; we got supplementary material for key subfactions. The only "problem" with 9th's campaign play/ ongoing narrative approach from my perspective is that there was almost too much; I put quotes around "problem" because no one was ever required to use it all, so there's a ready made solution. But I did feel like the material could have been better curated and organized- we didn't need 3 mission packs and two hardback books per season.

I am finding 10th campaign books to be much less satisfying, despite the fact that they are exclusively Crusade materials. The replacement of Flashpoints with mediocre Bunker content in WD really hurts too. I bought Tyrannic War, because I never bothered with the release box, and needed Crusade rules. I was disappointed enough that I didn't bother with Pariah, though by most accounts, it's the better of the two. If Tyrranic War had provided army creation rules for Solblade forces, it would have gone a long way. Theatres of War rules for planets in the Bastior Subsector, even better.

That's interesting, and I might have a peruse through some 9E stuff if someone local has some I can borrow. I tapped out of 40k's studio plot stuff after Psychic Awakening - and I don't know if 9E's campaigns changed it up - because none of those stories actually went anywhere. The Badab War ended, T'ros is in Tau hands, Vraks was reconquered (but is more or less dead) etc. etc. There were consequences for the protagonists and antagonists of the setting; even though those consequences were localised, the story had a beginning and a middle and an end. Psychic Awakening's plots, Vigilus, and the Pariah Nexus at least all seem like "here's a flare-up, not it continues into endless war". Which is fine, but that's the setting as a whole. I'm quite happy to be wrong on this point though; if any of the campaigns actually tell a tale that comes to a close, that's a good thing in my view and I might check it out.

LunarSol wrote:Malifaux has always done an exceptional job of getting this right. A big part of that is that the stories are always written from the perspective of a nobody who has no plot armor. From their perspective, the named characters from the table top are all effectively impossible monsters and if they ever appear in the story, the actual protagonist is probably dead or worse. 40k as a setting would probably benefit from something similar.

The HH novel Master of Mankind dallied with that a bit - you never got the Emperor's perspective. Periodically something else gets released, but I do think 40k's novels and short stories go in this direction much more, and are far better for it. Ufthak Blackhawk doesn't run into Ghazgkull (albeit he does encounter Badrukk, but Badrukk isn't exactly possessed of an impossible schedule), for example.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

For one, they're named characters because they're exceptional; a chapter's most hearty stock capable of things beyond their brothers. I'd expect their success rate be higher.

Yet Ragnar survived despite being mortally wounded, Calgar was seriously wounded, Lemartes is so coco that he has to be kept in stasis normally...

There's a reason my second point is the much longer one. Primaris fluff is a handwave at best.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Lemartes is so coco that he has to be kept in stasis normally...

That's a somewhat unfair characterisation - he's apparently fallen to the Black Rage, but not been consumed by it, due to his willpower. He's apparently quite sane when outside of stasis, not a frothing loon like others who have fallen.

catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I think I mostly agree with Vlad here. If you want to tell stories about your guys fighting over small stakes or even pointless stakes in an ultimately unimportant corner of the galaxy, that's still totally possible! This 40k-as-setting approach still works.

It's just that, in addition to that small-stakes stuff that we're all used to from pre-8th, we're now also occasionally moving a few plot threads forward to give the impression that the setting isn't 100% static and to tell some new, potentially cool stories.

Personally I agree with that- but when those major plot threads are being driven by the same limited roster of characters showing up again and again, it makes the setting feel trite, contrived, and small. The setting is so big that they could easily invent Macharius-esque Guard commanders, rising Chaos warlords, unexpected Hive Fleets, minor Craftworlds, Inquisitors, and so on and have them plausibly effect significant change.

Instead it's always Guilliman or Mortarion or Abaddon or Vect or Ghazghkull or whoever behind it. Only the stars get to make any major impact, and everyone else is just window dressing.

You're not wrong, but I tend to think of it like this: the setting loves being hyperlethal and killing off seemingly powerful characters left and right to make a point. One of the main things that defines a named character being a named character is that they're death-resistant enough to stick around long enough for you to bother learning their name. So by virtue of being survivable enough to last more than 5 minutes, they become one of the minority of characters in the galaxy who could conceivably show up in multiple stories. And thus the multi-part narratives tend to be about or at least involving those characters. They *could* have had some random farseer jumpstart the birth of Ynnead instead of Eldrad, but that would have been kind of random and not especially satisfying. By using Eldrad there, you can reinforce the idea that Eldrad is, in fact, out there doing stuff and is, in fact, powerful enough to be adjacent to some pretty major events.

Like, Cawl coming out of nowhere to make marines+ felt random and unearned. Whereas Bile making progress on his own marine+ project feels more "earned" because we've been watching him do it for irl decades.

I also think part of it is just that a lot of players in the canon don't have a ton of actual lore, and some of us kind of want to see the characters/factions we like doing stuff. Like, the Fracture of Biel-Tan could have been the Fracture of Some Craftworld You've Never Heard Of. (See: the Doom of Malan'tai.) But by making it a big name people have heard of and might even play on the tabletop, it adds a major event to the lore of a popular craftworld and gives those events a more more gravitas. Heck, I kind of feel like Yvraine is an example of this. Lady Malys's lore, her beef with Vect, the harlequins' meddling with the Ynnead prophecy, and even Yvraine's fan (which was a gift from Malys), all make it seem like they could easily have made Lady Malys the leader of the Ynnari. It would have been an interesting and reasonable progression of the existing lore, and I would absolutley love some more Malys lore. But instead we got Yvraine from out of nowhere, and it kind of felt like a missed opportunity.

Slipspace wrote: The success rate for named characters is 100%. Would it have been too much to ask for one or two to die during the process? Would it really have hurt the bottom line all that much if Shrike, for example, died and a new Raven Guard character had to be created? Or Corbulo, who no longer has a model anyway?

It just wouldn't have been very satisfying or interesting. In the same way that it wouldn't be very satisfying or interesting for a bunch of unused Marvel/DC superheroes to get unceremoniously shot to death by bank robbers off camera. The fans of those characters would be annoyed, and everyone else wouldn't care. You're right that the rubicon being seemingly easy to cross for any character with a name is weird, but I don't think the problem that creates is well-solved by doing a bunch of named characters dirty. Even if they don't have models.

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Like, Cawl coming out of nowhere to make marines+ felt random and unearned. Whereas Bile making progress on his own marine+ project feels more "earned" because we've been watching him do it for irl decades.

It's quite a good comparison really. Bile was created as a heresy era character that appears in the modern era making marine+ soldiers just like cawl.

However, the only difference is that Bile's marine+ audacity has had 29 years for players to feel he 'earned' it, while Cawl has not. So from this, the earned aspect to me is almost entirely realworld time since the character's creation, rather than literary originality.

But Bile was the new character on the block trying to improve on the emperor's designs at one point as well - before the 2nd ed chaos codex no one would dare suggest such a thing, and then bam here's a character that's apparently been around for 10,000 years doing this thing that's lore bending. For me this is a nostalgia bias from the player base rather than any kind of objective analysis.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Like, Cawl coming out of nowhere to make marines+ felt random and unearned. Whereas Bile making progress on his own marine+ project feels more "earned" because we've been watching him do it for irl decades.

It's quite a good comparison really. Bile was created as a heresy era character that appears in the modern era making marine+ soldiers just like cawl.

However, the only difference is that Bile's marine+ audacity has had 29 years for players to feel he 'earned' it, while Cawl has not. So from this, the earned aspect to me is almost entirely realworld time since the character's creation, rather than literary originality.

But Bile was the new character on the block trying to improve on the emperor's designs at one point as well - before the 2nd ed chaos codex no one would dare suggest such a thing, and then bam here's a character that's apparently been around for 10,000 years doing this thing that's lore bending. For me this is a nostalgia bias from the player base rather than any kind of objective analysis.

Absolutely! Though with the important distinction that Bile's super marines were usually implied to be like, monstrous abominations, probably deeply flawed in some major ways. Which was inkeeping with other lore (like the cursed founding) that all added to this theme of, "Tampering with the all-but-perfect work of the Emperor leads to horrific outcomes." Whereas Cawl, on the other hand, not only seemed to get to ignore that theme but was also implied at one point to have successfully fixed all those gosh darn genseed flaws the Emperor apparently couldn't figure out how to fix. (Newer lore has sort of ammended both of those points.)

The issue with Cawl was that he was yet another weirdly immortal super guy* that does big things singlehandedly. It would have felt far more palatable had there instead been a "Belissarian Conclave" that had worked tirelessly for ten millennia to improve the Astartes. (And usually failing like with the Cursed Founding.)

* Seriously, if you're not that, you cannot have agency in the current GW lore. Normal(ish) people are just props for the immortal superheroes, who are the only ones who can ever accomplish anything.

 Crimson wrote:

* Seriously, if you're not that, you cannot have agency in the current GW lore. Normal(ish) people are just props for the immortal superheroes, who are the only ones who can ever accomplish anything.

Sort of a chicken and egg thing here, I think. Being a named character usually means you have to have a way of living for a long time so that there's a half-plausible explanation for you showing up on a bunch of different tables. A "superhero" without rejuve treatments or phoenix armor or tau stasis tech is kind of hard to justify giving a bespoke datasheet.

In Cawl's case, let's say he wasn't immortal. That would either make it sting even more that some rando just showed up and made marines+ overnight. Let's replace Cawl with the Belisarius Conclave. Now we have one fewer annoying Marty Stu's, sure, but we're still just sort of... throwing out a lot of the "don't tamper with the Emperor's work" theme we'd already established. Like, the primaris lore would still be cringe. We'd just have to direct our cringe at the vague, faceless concept of the Belisarius Conclave instead of having a specific dude to hang it on.

 Crimson wrote:
The issue with Cawl was that he was yet another weirdly immortal super guy* that does big things singlehandedly. It would have felt far more palatable had there instead been a "Belissarian Conclave" that had worked tirelessly for ten millennia to improve the Astartes. (And usually failing like with the Cursed Founding.)

* Seriously, if you're not that, you cannot have agency in the current GW lore. Normal(ish) people are just props for the immortal superheroes, who are the only ones who can ever accomplish anything.

I think that's the only solution GW has found for the consequences of such a vast, lethal and hopeless setting. The only way for them to get around the 'you will not be missed' concept is to make them immortal so they can always be around...

It's not a good solution, but they clearly don't want to have to invent a half dozen ultramarine chapter masters every decade to follow the attrition rate they should have....


If you look at the history of the factions of 40k, the current chapter masters of the most important chapters are complete outliers in terms of their longevity. Every chapter has had dozens of them, all falling in battle like they should at respectable points in time. but as soon as they contract protagonism, they are suddenly the longest serving chapter master in the chapter's history, all coincidentally at the same time.

Shrike as a character has existed for a while, but only just become chapter master. But as you can see the previous master never had protagonism, so was just there to be killed off to further Shrike's character.


Back in 2nd ed, only chaos characters and the phoenix lords were the immortal types, but in all cases they had downsides - sacrifice the soul to dark gods, or eat the precious souls of your species to continue to function.

Even the primarchs weren't listed as immortal back then.

But we're now at a point where it's the only cred worth having.


EDIT: and then there is the weird intersection of worfing and uber warriors where characters that CAN die, seemingly always defeat everything they fight because defeat in 40k is inevitably in hth combat and results in someone dying. While those that actually ARE immortal can be defeated all the time because they can just come back - well so long as they aren't imperial characters. There's also the loose imperial protagonism protection at play. so then you get daemon primarch/avatar/phoenix lord punching bags because they can never actually die.

While the Ragnar's of the setting are winning all the time because it's either win or die.

I'm not sure the Bile/Cawl clash can be described as nostalgia. I think it ties in with the narrative versus setting argument.

We know Bile has been tinkering with New Men/Marines+ for 10,000 (or 29 real) years. So yeah, if he actually manages to do it, this doesn't feel like an alien imposition - its instead just narrative progress. "Guy tries something, guy fails, guy tries again, he gets closer, guy keeps trying, eventually he gets it." That's why it feels like its been earned.

Cawl by contrast... didn't exist, until he did, and viola, he's achieved the seemingly impossible with the Primaris, with massive setting changes as a result. He hasn't really had a narrative because we've gone from start to finish instantly. The setting has changed.

This is always going to be a problem with new characters when you have extensive existing fluff. I.E. look at Vashtorr. I think GW have been relatively restrained with what could be (kind of still is) a very lore bending character. But you are kind of stuck. We know he's new. But if you go with "he just wasn't a thing before now" he's kind of boring. But if he's "secretly" been behind lots of events in 40k, it feels like a cheap and dubious imposition. Its clearly not true as he's only been made up now. Just as we know circa 4th edition no one at GW was thinking "right, there's going to be this Ad Mech character called Cawl, and in about 10-12 years time there will be these things called Primaris Marines."

I kind of like Yvraine and the Ynnari - but as Wyldhunt said, arguably she's an imposition too. She's a weird hybrid of Lady Malys and Iyanna Arienal. But arguably because of that, "narratively" Eldar Lore had been set up for something like the Ynnari coming into existence. So it didn't feel like a breach even if Yvraine stole other people's clothes (literally.)

Tyel wrote:
I'm not sure the Bile/Cawl clash can be described as nostalgia. I think it ties in with the narrative versus setting argument.

We know Bile has been tinkering with New Men/Marines+ for 10,000 (or 29 real) years. So yeah, if he actually manages to do it, this doesn't feel like an alien imposition - its instead just narrative progress. "Guy tries something, guy fails, guy tries again, he gets closer, guy keeps trying, eventually he gets it." That's why it feels like its been earned.

Cawl by contrast... didn't exist, until he did, and viola, he's achieved the seemingly impossible with the Primaris, with massive setting changes as a result. He hasn't really had a narrative because we've gone from start to finish instantly. The setting has changed.

This is always going to be a problem with new characters when you have extensive existing fluff. I.E. look at Vashtorr. I think GW have been relatively restrained with what could be (kind of still is) a very lore bending character. But you are kind of stuck. We know he's new. But if you go with "he just wasn't a thing before now" he's kind of boring. But if he's "secretly" been behind lots of events in 40k, it feels like a cheap and dubious imposition. Its clearly not true as he's only been made up now. Just as we know circa 4th edition no one at GW was thinking "right, there's going to be this Ad Mech character called Cawl, and in about 10-12 years time there will be these things called Primaris Marines."

I kind of like Yvraine and the Ynnari - but as Wyldhunt said, arguably she's an imposition too. She's a weird hybrid of Lady Malys and Iyanna Arienal. But arguably because of that, "narratively" Eldar Lore had been set up for something like the Ynnari coming into existence. So it didn't feel like a breach even if Yvraine stole other people's clothes (literally.)

I'm not seeing the difference with bile. He didn't exist in 1994 and the voila he appears in 1995 having achieved the impossible of creating advanced space marines.

His in universe story is basically a mirror of cawl's. They both even have backups of themselves to extend their longevity. The only difference is that the fanbase has had 29 years to get used to bile. If anything you could argue bile is less realistic because unlike him, cawl has complete access to the base marine blueprints, unlimited imperial manpower and materiel and holy remit to keep going until he gets there. Bile by comparison had to scrape his way, reverse engineer the genome and lacks a galactic Empire's deep pockets to bankroll him.

That Biles ability to reverse engineer the emperor's creation is not questioned by fans at all but a guy that literally got given the base code making improvements gets lambasted is clearly double standards based in the appeal to tradition fallacy.

The way I tend to handle narrative events that seem like they come out of nowhere is to create a narrative structure and play it out. I mention this with Torchbearer Crusades all the time- but a historical Cawl campaign is cool too.

So game one could be an HH game set 10k years a go- Cawl is a green Magos, and he has access to exclusively Mechanicum forces.

If he gets enough objectives (or whatever), he can build marines... These aren't yet Primaris, but they are Marines that he created.

Fast forward 3k, and now Cawl is at Heroic Status. Collect objectives to build better, but still not Primaris Marines.

Fast-forward to Legendary Cawl 4k years later. Now he is testing actual Primaris.

You get the idea. If GW didn't do it, don't whine- do it yourself. They didn't lament the lack of a speeder in the Rogue Traders- they built their own out of a deodorant bottle. We celebrate that, while refusing to do it in the modern era, instead blaming GW that it hasn't been done. In this very thread, we're simultaneous blaming GW for fleshing out the Heresy, while also blaming them for not fleshing out Cawl's? Either you want the backstory or you don't.

Just seems weird to me.

I think of the character dump of that era, Cawl is largely fine. Mechanicus as a whole is full of weirdos working on things that almost always result in disaster and their untimely death, so when one succeeds, that character suddenly becoming "known" doesn't feel particularly out of place.

I think Cawl mostly just becomes a locus for hate of Primaris in general, which I can't help but feel like is a grudge that's gone on far too long. They're just a Space Marine redesign. Whatever "better" they might be touted as ultimately results in them being what Marines have always been. It's just a resculpt line and flimsy lore padding they used to keep firstborn in the game while they rolled out the redesigns really hasn't changed anything. They're just Marines, same as they've always been.

 Hellebore wrote:
I'm not seeing the difference with bile. He didn't exist in 1994 and the voila he appears in 1995 having achieved the impossible of creating advanced space marines.

His in universe story is basically a mirror of cawl's. They both even have backups of themselves to extend their longevity. The only difference is that the fanbase has had 29 years to get used to bile. If anything you could argue bile is less realistic because unlike him, cawl has complete access to the base marine blueprints, unlimited imperial manpower and materiel and holy remit to keep going until he gets there. Bile by comparison had to scrape his way, reverse engineer the genome and lacks a galactic Empire's deep pockets to bankroll him.

That Biles ability to reverse engineer the emperor's creation is not questioned by fans at all but a guy that literally got given the base code making improvements gets lambasted is clearly double standards based in the appeal to tradition fallacy.

But Bile wasn't successful. He's not typically making better stable Space Marines - he's a mad scientist making monsters. I half remember a rule in one codex that said you treated any unit he "upgraded" as casualties at the end of the game if that mattered for victory conditions even if they didn't die during the game. (Although there's been a lot of codexes so could be confused/making this up from something else.)

I mean I'm not even a Primaris Hater. If GW want to make Primaris go nuts. Heresy I know, but I thought the Intercessors were a significant improvement as models on the Tactical Marines they replaced.
But I'd rather the lore was lead there by breadcrumbs. As opposed to "this can't be done - oh wait, its done now."
So for example we've had bread crumbs that Bile would make "Chaos Primaris" - but since the Primaris concept seems to have died (i.e. GW they don't want a separation in the future), that's unlikely. So instead the breadcrumbs seem to be more leading towards Bile tinkering with "Chaos Custodes". That may never happen - but if it did, it wouldn't be from nowhere. Whereas if GW created "Alchemist Lord Dave" to create "Chaos Custodes" you could say "surely its the same" - but it just wouldn't be. Its an invention into the lore rather than working with what's already there.

(I'm not saying anyone especially wants Chaos Custodes before there's massive outcry.)

 LunarSol wrote:
They're just a Space Marine redesign.

In pure corporate terms, yes; but that's missing [ignoring] the point of the complaints with regards to them narratively.

They're 'just a Space Marine redesign' which upended millennia of tradition in essentially every Chapter, re-wrote Marine organisation, reverted the changes made in the Codex from Heresy organisation, contradicted the Imperium's technological stagnation, are accepted by basically everyone; and yet arrived from literally nowhere narratively and were imposed on a long established setting requiring the existing Firstborn to be literally killed off to make way for them.

'Just a Space Marine redesign' would be rolling the scale change out to the core Marine range, and maybe adding a new armour mark.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
They're just a Space Marine redesign.

In pure corporate terms, yes; but that's missing [ignoring] the point of the complaints with regards to them narratively.

They're 'just a Space Marine redesign' which upended millennia of tradition in essentially every Chapter, re-wrote Marine organisation, reverted the changes made in the Codex from Heresy organisation, contradicted the Imperium's technological stagnation, are accepted by basically everyone; and yet arrived from literally nowhere narratively and were imposed on a long established setting requiring the existing Firstborn to be literally killed off to make way for them.

'Just a Space Marine redesign' would be rolling the scale change out to the core Marine range, and maybe adding a new armour mark.

Let me be clear. When I say just a Space Marine redesign, I'm not talking in the fictional setting. I just mean in real life. The lore of "better" marines was always a flimsy excuse to give some degree of compatibility to the old sculpts until their replacements were ready. Had GW not balked on an End Times full reboot, the lore would just be "marines got new armor during the time skip" and all the rubicon surgery stuff to explain why some models are taller than others wouldn't be a thing.
The lore does not dwell on Primaris superiority anymore and neither should the players. Marines are just marines again and firstborn just don't exist, because there really wasn't ever supposed to be a distinction in the first place.

Custodes lore tends to emphasize that Space Marines are basically a rush job rather than "perfect" creations, and that clearly implies a lot of improvements could be done.

But I cannot recall if that is new lore or old lore.

 LunarSol wrote:
Marines are just marines again and firstborn just don't exist

But they did and do.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Marines are just marines again and firstborn just don't exist

But they did and do.

They did, but don't really anymore. Like, sure, lore from 8th is full of nonsense like "these new Primaris aren't so bad after all" and the like, but modern stories don't refer to Firstborn at all outside of occasionally mentioning that a marine is old enough to have had the Rubicon surgery. You're not seeing marines anymore that aren't Primaris, because there aren't really any units anymore that have to be first born. It doesn't even seem like the Rubicon surgery prevents you from wearing Terminator armor, though realistically it should. It's just not important to the setting anymore because its role as a marketing patch is largely over.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
They're just a Space Marine redesign.

In pure corporate terms, yes; but that's missing [ignoring] the point of the complaints with regards to them narratively.

They're 'just a Space Marine redesign' which upended millennia of tradition in essentially every Chapter, re-wrote Marine organisation, reverted the changes made in the Codex from Heresy organisation, contradicted the Imperium's technological stagnation, are accepted by basically everyone; and yet arrived from literally nowhere narratively and were imposed on a long established setting requiring the existing Firstborn to be literally killed off to make way for them.

'Just a Space Marine redesign' would be rolling the scale change out to the core Marine range, and maybe adding a new armour mark.

What Damocles said.

As well as the lore you have a redesign of the ascetic. Suddenly the vehicle range hovers (apart from the land speeders that are now mario carts), the classic vehicles are awkwardly forgotten and the high tech redesign is bizarrely married to stubbers of all weapons.

Now a redesign where they got all the bolt weapons and all the Imperial Guard tank and infantry weapons had the bolters taken away and replaced with stubbers (insert Guiliver edicts etc.) would have at least been something. Instead the look isn't grimdark, the weapons make even less sense, the model scale triggered a round of enbiggening with the SOBs are now primaris size, etc. etc.

Sisters are not the same size as Primaris, like at all.

Also lmao, sure Space Marines were "grimdark". The bright blue and gold round dudes with big white emblems where the further up the ranks you get the more shiny you become.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Marines are just marines again and firstborn just don't exist

But they did and do.

They did, but don't really anymore. Like, sure, lore from 8th is full of nonsense like "these new Primaris aren't so bad after all" and the like, but modern stories don't refer to Firstborn at all outside of occasionally mentioning that a marine is old enough to have had the Rubicon surgery. You're not seeing marines anymore that aren't Primaris, because there aren't really any units anymore that have to be first born. It doesn't even seem like the Rubicon surgery prevents you from wearing Terminator armor, though realistically it should. It's just not important to the setting anymore because its role as a marketing patch is largely over.

The 10th edition Crusade rules for Space Marines make a VERY clear distinction. You can't promote Scout company units to be either Tactical or Devastator Squads, and you can't promote units to be Vanguard Veterans, either (even if they're a Firstborn unit!).

Tyel wrote:(I'm not saying anyone especially wants Chaos Custodes before there's massive outcry.)

I totally want Chaos Custodes - think of the modeling opportunities!

I do think the Astartes rescaling could have and should have been handled differently. I can understand coming off the back of the rather poor End Times to AoS transition GW was scrabbling for a different softer reboot option for a core 40k element and probably went for something a little TOO soft.

Either that, or they literally didn't have a plan ala the Star Wars sequel trilogy but managed to survive it anyway. 8E spent quite a few words speculating about how New Space Marines might be different from Old Space Marines but now as we're seven IRL years into it that seems to have largely faded away.

And, perhaps, from a business PoV, all that makes sense; I don't know that your average casual purchaser is watching internet people, let alone reading the novel line or following the supplement churn in 8th and 9th where most of the Primaris: Will they Won't They plots were presented. Or at least, they don't seem to be following the plot and deciding not to buy Space Marines.

The stat differential between old and new marines has been collapsing steadily, and even primaris stuff is collapsing a bit ala the intercessor bolt rifle stat. If I'm explaining 40k to someone new to it, there's nothing terribly engaging about the Primaris plot at all. Just tell someone these are Space Marines and the company decided to make them bigger and did a bad explanation and move on.

What IS a bit of a shame is that instead of just a direct rescale we also got a reorg, and that's just harder to match your model collection to without a bunch of extra work and/or proxying, but that's happened to lots of other factions before; it's just that it generally used to land lightly on the Space Marines.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
They're just a Space Marine redesign.

In pure corporate terms, yes; but that's missing [ignoring] the point of the complaints with regards to them narratively.

They're 'just a Space Marine redesign' which upended millennia of tradition in essentially every Chapter, re-wrote Marine organisation, reverted the changes made in the Codex from Heresy organisation, contradicted the Imperium's technological stagnation, are accepted by basically everyone; and yet arrived from literally nowhere narratively and were imposed on a long established setting requiring the existing Firstborn to be literally killed off to make way for them.

'Just a Space Marine redesign' would be rolling the scale change out to the core Marine range, and maybe adding a new armour mark.

It's interesting that had Cawl been a throw away line in an outbox from a codex in 3rd, or even 6th ed, like the quiescent perils of the c'tan, doing something mysterious, and they pulled that thread out, I think you'd see less problems with it. GW have mined most of their history though, so there are fewer of those available now.

Which ironically is the same as Bile - there were zero hints or suggestions about mad chaos apothecaries modifying the geneseed until he was released.


I'm not particularly a fan of the whole primaris thing, but it's going to be completely impossible to make people comfortable with 'new' things in 40k unless they decided to plan out a decade long slow burn. Which wouldn't happen because the return isn't fast enough.

It's amazing how something just having been around for a while grants it legitimacy. I don't doubt that in 18 years Cawl will be as part of the fabric of 40k as Bile is now.

 Hellebore wrote:

It's amazing how something just having been around for a while grants it legitimacy. I don't doubt that in 18 years Cawl will be as part of the fabric of 40k as Bile is now.

That's likely true, but it could also be like the Tau, where despite being about a year younger than the Black Templars changing from being a Codex Chapter there's still people wailing and gnashing their teeth about it.

Some of that again just goes back to volume of content; if going forward either Cawl gets lots of backfilling OR the primarising quietly just stops getting mentioned, eventually it'll just fade out of consciousness as the volume of stuff that either normalises it or ignores it outweighs the amount that talks about the controversy.

Interesting thought about the red herrings being mostly mined; I'm not quite sure that's true. We've had more plot hooks here and there over the years; it's just that GW doesn't often go to the recent ones. Presumably the generation that grew up thinking about those 80s and 90s hooks is more interested in chasing those down - perhaps when the next turning of the clock happens there'll be a wave of staff mining loxatl, hrud, the ordo chronos, or other stuff from 90s and 00s.

The thing is Cawl has quite a bit of stuff already. Main feature of Gathering Storm, 2 novels with him as the main character, side character in HH to help establish his ancient history, side character in Dark Imperium.

People just don't like new things because they want the old things to be the main things.
Heck look at Ahsoka from SW. Hated when she was new, now one of the most loved characters after a decade of media exposure.

 LunarSol wrote:
I think of the character dump of that era, Cawl is largely fine. Mechanicus as a whole is full of weirdos working on things that almost always result in disaster and their untimely death, so when one succeeds, that character suddenly becoming "known" doesn't feel particularly out of place.

I think Cawl mostly just becomes a locus for hate of Primaris in general, which I can't help but feel like is a grudge that's gone on far too long. They're just a Space Marine redesign. Whatever "better" they might be touted as ultimately results in them being what Marines have always been. It's just a resculpt line and flimsy lore padding they used to keep firstborn in the game while they rolled out the redesigns really hasn't changed anything. They're just Marines, same as they've always been.

they're just marines, but marine players have so many opinions about what marines should be that any small change in the design would evoke controversy. the fact that they put a name and such a point on this change just gives people a target for gg-like behaviors. even if GW had committed to a simple range refresh, with no lore attached, people would have been pissed because designs would still be changing

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Tyel wrote:(I'm not saying anyone especially wants Chaos Custodes before there's massive outcry.)

I totally want Chaos Custodes - think of the modeling opportunities!

when i started picking up custodes, i made the call for it to be a chaos-corrupted force, and it's been fun to integrate that in different ways. doubt we're ever going to get models or lore for that but it's a fun thing to consider and convert

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

The 10th edition Crusade rules for Space Marines make a VERY clear distinction. You can't promote Scout company units to be either Tactical or Devastator Squads, and you can't promote units to be Vanguard Veterans, either (even if they're a Firstborn unit!).

That's rules though, not anything to do with the narratives being presented. In the narrative, Tac/Dev/Vanguard marines just don't exist anymore.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

The 10th edition Crusade rules for Space Marines make a VERY clear distinction. You can't promote Scout company units to be either Tactical or Devastator Squads, and you can't promote units to be Vanguard Veterans, either (even if they're a Firstborn unit!).

That's rules though, not anything to do with the narratives being presented. In the narrative, Tac/Dev/Vanguard marines just don't exist anymore.

Huh? Is that true? I havnt read enough recent SM lore to know about that

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

The 10th edition Crusade rules for Space Marines make a VERY clear distinction. You can't promote Scout company units to be either Tactical or Devastator Squads, and you can't promote units to be Vanguard Veterans, either (even if they're a Firstborn unit!).

That's rules though, not anything to do with the narratives being presented. In the narrative, Tac/Dev/Vanguard marines just don't exist anymore.

Huh? Is that true? I havnt read enough recent SM lore to know about that

Not to put words in their mouth, but I think what LunarSol means is that these days, when we meet a new marine in a novel, it's not mentioned whether he's Primaris or First Born. Similarly, stories about crossing the Rubicon are passe now- I don't remember when the last one happened. It's not that anyone has published anything saying "There are no Primaris now" - it's just that distinctions aren't being made.

As for gaps in the Crusade Promotion system for Marines- I think that across the board, GW's track record on promotion mechanics is too weak to assume that this is an intentional lore-based decision. I don't think Sisters have a way for a Palatine to become a Canoness, and Sisters Squads can only become Seraphim or Dominions by first taking a Penitent vow and then Redeeming themselves.

That said, I also think that differentiating between rules and lore entirely is not really viable either- rules and lore are undeniably connected, and when BL Fiction conflicts with rules (ie. 5 space marines can solo an entire enemy army), it is clearly the BL Fiction that is misrepresenting the game, not the rules. I've said elsewhere that even when I like BL Fiction (and some of it is great), I don't actually consider it to be lore. It is fiction about Lore.

Lore, from my perspective, comes only from game books. It is far more likely to be consistent with the actual game, which is the root of all things 40k. Unfortunately, it isn't always consistent from edition to edition- but within any given edition, it's usually a better representation of what actually happens on the table than any of the BL books- even the good ones.

I haven't entirely ruled out trying to eventually write a BL book, but if I ever do, it will be based on an actual Crusade campaign so that everything that happens in the book will be table-top possible for the edition in which it was written, and I think far more BL fiction should follow that guideline.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

The 10th edition Crusade rules for Space Marines make a VERY clear distinction. You can't promote Scout company units to be either Tactical or Devastator Squads, and you can't promote units to be Vanguard Veterans, either (even if they're a Firstborn unit!).

That's rules though, not anything to do with the narratives being presented. In the narrative, Tac/Dev/Vanguard marines just don't exist anymore.

Huh? Is that true? I havnt read enough recent SM lore to know about that

I don't read enough of it to say yes in full confidence, but as I've seen certainly this edition there's just Primaris. Intercessors show up everywhere in place of Tacticals as the faceless grunts and Gravis pops up where Devs would normally fill that role.

In particularly its EXTREMELY noticeable in Space Marine 2, where you get to walk around the battle barge and see a pretty complete presentation of an active company out of combat. It paints a very clear picture of what GW wants to sell modern marines as and that separation between Firstborn and Primaris definitely isn't a part of it.

They do take the time to take Titus from his original game self through the Rubicon to Primaris, but even that's done in a way that never directly compares the two. Like you never feel that "this old model could use an upgrade" vibe that people see Primaris as when its mostly a commercial product. Narratively, it just feels like marines have gotten an equipment refresh in the last couple centuries.

 PenitentJake wrote:


Not to put words in their mouth, but I think what LunarSol means is that these days, when we meet a new marine in a novel, it's not mentioned whether he's Primaris or First Born. Similarly, stories about crossing the Rubicon are passe now- I don't remember when the last one happened. It's not that anyone has published anything saying "There are no Primaris now" - it's just that distinctions aren't being made.

As for gaps in the Crusade Promotion system for Marines- I think that across the board, GW's track record on promotion mechanics is too weak to assume that this is an intentional lore-based decision. I don't think Sisters have a way for a Palatine to become a Canoness, and Sisters Squads can only become Seraphim or Dominions by first taking a Penitent vow and then Redeeming themselves.

That said, I also think that differentiating between rules and lore entirely is not really viable either- rules and lore are undeniably connected, and when BL Fiction conflicts with rules (ie. 5 space marines can solo an entire enemy army), it is clearly the BL Fiction that is misrepresenting the game, not the rules. I've said elsewhere that even when I like BL Fiction (and some of it is great), I don't actually consider it to be lore. It is fiction about Lore.

Lore, from my perspective, comes only from game books. It is far more likely to be consistent with the actual game, which is the root of all things 40k. Unfortunately, it isn't always consistent from edition to edition- but within any given edition, it's usually a better representation of what actually happens on the table than any of the BL books- even the good ones.

I haven't entirely ruled out trying to eventually write a BL book, but if I ever do, it will be based on an actual Crusade campaign so that everything that happens in the book will be table-top possible for the edition in which it was written, and I think far more BL fiction should follow that guideline.

They do still mention it when they release character model updates. That's basically all done for now bar Space Wolves (we'll see if we get a Logan and Njal update) though I think there's a chance the next time the codex supplements get a new version we might get Sammael and Corbulo etc. So there's a little still happening, but for the most part it's not worth a mention.

I do think writing BL fiction so it feels like it represents the game rules would narrow the universe further, though. It used to be the case that the fiction was where you saw things that didn't make it on the table, so you got the sense that the galaxy is large and varied and the game is capturing a specific portion of it for out-of-universe commercial success. Doing less of that would make it feel smaller than it already is, to me.

I think it's more that the actual company structure of marines and their nomenclature has changed.

Now a battle company is made up of:

Battleline
close support
fire support

units.


The concept of a tactical marine is now a weapon load out of battleline unit, so they don't really get mentioned.

The traditional company formation uses the unit name to describe their position in the company which is a bit different.

The identity of a company was tac/ass/dev designations.


Those have gone down in the nomenclature from company level divisions to squad level divisions within the new battleline company division.

Originally the tactical squads was the entirety of the battleline division of a company.

A higher level and more extreme example might be taking the name deathwing from the 1st DA company and demoting it to just a type of unit within the first company and renaming the company 'battlewing' or something. Although the name still exists, it sits in a different and lesser part of the heirarchy.

I think the real problem is that there are just too darn many units. I almost long for the days when your choices were Tactical, Assault, and Devastator - maybe some Scouts, Bikes, and Veterans for flavor.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
I think the real problem is that there are just too darn many units. I almost long for the days when your choices were Tactical, Assault, and Devastator - maybe some Scouts, Bikes, and Veterans for flavor.

Ironically GW wants that back too, to control their product line sizes... They just want to be able to replace them with the same number of new units every few years to get you to buy them again.