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Or get killed by a C'tan-

No way back from Ctan smackdown, no way, no how

If the Nightbringer was mutating into him, which he wouldn't as you don't get any kind of survive after death shenanigans from Ctan, he'd just abandon his body in a ball of solar flame and reform elsewhere

Re the Avatar: also by every SM hero that they want to promote as being badass, several hive fleets, few Daemons...

I think you mean Lucius, but that works too.

And he still got his ass handed to him by an Ork Warboss..


WAaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Does anyone remember when fluff wasn't THIS fethed up?

When the Emperor was a dead human warlord, on a throne that was built AFTER he was beat down?

I honestly expect them to say 'oh and by the way, he was 90 ft tall..' officially some time, and the Golden Throne will suddenly expand. E's fluff seems to be something of a circlejerk among the BL writers.



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I also liked the marines as xenophobic, intolerant a-holes who's attitude towards xenos was to eradicate them, no questions asked, and who were as likely to get killed in the fluff as the guys they were fighting.

The RT art usually had marines being shot, stabbed, burned, violated... I miss that stuff. These days it's usually a school-photo action shot on a hill. with the chapter master at the too, and one (there's always one ) making a silly face.

Not a rant, so much as a remeniscence to better days..

He can pretend :0)

Why he'd want to be an untrasmurf defeats me though

Because of all the fanboys?

He was a powerful warrior (especially is you read the redonculous BL books) but currently is a dead and withered parsnip in a big golden life support machine.
His ability to fight anyone right now unassisted (in the material world) is next to nil.

As to 'but he can singlehandedly feth up all four chaos gods' arguments, they're getting fed by the imperium way to well, to want to kill the golden goose

Horus isn't up there either

If we're going to include deity level powers i call Gork

If the dragon hadn't been damaged first...

If the emperor's fluff wasn;t written by Imperium fanboys..

Lot of If

OK, so how about this:

Who, unagumented, unarmed and undressed is the baddest warrior

So just set a robot on him :0)

Or find someone emotionless (they do exist) to go after him..

I think it's only if you feel pleasure in his death. If you felt repugnance at killing him, or simply couldn't care less I doubt it would work

Or you nuked the planet he happened to be on, all unaware

Exterminatus sometimes has a beneficial effect

'Old-one eye Rapid Regen, S 10 Crushing Claws and a Bitch of a model.'

The last, possibly. When I still had him, and was assembling him he claimed more than a metaphorical pound of flesh with those lobster claws...

Fluffwise, he's not bad, but tends to be put down by 'Marines uber alles' like every xeno badass.

In play I've never really had much luck with him, when I still played nids..


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I'm assuming by 'bitch of a model' you mean 'bitch to assemble '

Fluff armour

Slaanesh likes sick kicks, so he's her favourite sitcom

Makari the grot

Ghazzy disagrees

I've broken Avatars of Khaine over his mega-armoured knee in many games. It would take the destruction on the craftworld to put him permanantly of of action, but he can be beat down.

Hell, i've killed him with a big mek before that accidentally shot himself into close combat with Burny Mc Biceps


As pointed out above a God (Nightbringer) beats Demigod any day

'Yes Angron can but not the night bringer....The night bringer isnt the God of war unlike the Avatar of Khain '

No, he's the God of Death

And the reason that every single race (except the orks for some reason) is afraid of death.


The reason that Big E isn't on here is the rather depressing tendency of the fluffwriters to bend at the knees and worship him every chance they get, or at least I hope so.

Also bear in mind that most of the Emperor's deeds are so long ago that they are legends, and have since been maginified The doink got owned (not killed, but very nearly so) by a run of the mill Warboss also, remember

(Added note (unless they retconned this too).. Horus pretty much destroyed the Emperor also, and would have if the Emperor didn't finally summon up the dregs of his will to frazzle him. I'm sure they make it out as a lot more onesided in recent fluff, but in the older stuff i grew up on the Emperor was Horus's chewtoy for most of the battle

The Avatar of Khaine is a tiny fragment of the original, along with thousands of other on other craftworlds and settlements. He isn't Khaine anymore, just a travel-sized version of him that's low on batteries

'So random aliens can be that powerful, but the amalgamation of hundreds or thousands of Shaman can't?
'

It's more the 'and then the emperor smacked him down, the end..' crap that always ends the story. How about him losing occasionally (warboss excluded) and backing off to lick his wounds.

I have no issue with him being uber, although the shaman-summoned fluff is crap IMO, but he ought to not just handwave an autowin in every story 'after a mighty battle..'

Re- the Warboss Incident:

Given that the Great Crusade started with just one system, and slowly grew who knows how big it was at the time? ork Waaaghs can be massive, and still be under a warboss rather than a green demigod If it was soon after leaving Earth (likely, given that orks are all over the galaxy and the imperium didn't exist yet) the Crusade probably wasn't that huge, and was more eailiy threatened..

As to the Ctan it is known, not rumored that they were as powerful as they were, pre their long sleep. Records exist from the time. The current incarnations are much like the Avatat of Khaine in that they are a vastly weakened remnant of the original.

I take it that's the current rewrite of the fluff, then. I remember reading the account of the battle in WD back a few editions where horus was beating him to pulp, partly due to the emperor's not wanting to destroy him i grant you, but mainly due to the fact theat horus was absolutely beastly in CC.

It was seeing a random terminator (in this story) attacking him and being anihillated with a casual thought that made E realize that Horus was too far gone, and H was distracted for the tiny period of time it took to fry the mook over easy that gave E an opening to basically empty the last of his power into blasting Horus. I'll have to see if i can find the story, because it sounds miles better than the current attempts at story writing.

'For the big E wavin' his hand and getting an autowin, he has been known to hold all four CG out of the materium at the same time. If even one got through, it would likely be enough to destroy the galaxy. That's how powerful he is. And khorne, who is weaker than Him, is "able to smite world's with a single blow" (rough C:CD quote)

He beat the mightiest C'tan.

HE KILLZ EVRYTIN!
'
Voila- autowin..

Correction- even assuming you're right: KILLD everything He's a corpse. His physical combat skills are zero right now, and there's no conclusive proof to show that he's even home any more

If he could hold off all four chaos gods with little problem it just highlights the problem i have with the 'Emprah is best' club.

If he's that frickin' powerful how come he can't handwave the eye of terror away, evaporate the chaos gods, benchpress the Ork race and simultaneously invent a low-fat snack that builds muscles with no effort

oh wait, he already did on the last one...

If he's powerful enough to make legions kneel and chaos gods grovel then why does he even need a home fleet or the Golden Throne? How come Terra was trashed during the Horus Heresy, right up to his Palace's gates?

also, just so you know, orks use the term Overlord, overfiend, arch-lunatic etc without it meaning demigod Titles are personal taste for orks


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A thought also- wasn't the Dragon critically injured already, on top of being depleted from aeons in its tomb? I'm sure that I read that somewhere.

Not much of a victory then Try it again vs a full strength Ctan


*edited for spelling and sarcasm*

Firstly- no it wasn't. A C'tan at full strength considers a sun a light snack and is a vast energy being larger than a planet. Its powers are literally stated as godlike. (necron codex)

They can ignore reallity at will and phase through objects as if they aren't even there. Being punted physically into Mars from Earth wouldn't even phase one. At worst it would rupture the Necrodermis shell (assuming the Ctan allowed itself to impact the surface instead of coast clean through it. A C'tan is a starfaring entity, so why would being knocked to mars bother it?

It can walk through anything, so how is it trappable, unless it wants to be. It can (if its powers are anything like the Nightbringer at it's worst (the novel Nightbringer) teleport/travel at obscene speed through space.

I believe the Dragon also had several Blackstone fortresses beating it down at some point prior to this, greviously wounding it? Doesn't sound like full strength to me.

(side note- the fluff writer, as well as being a Fanboi, has no grasp of history, since it says that all this happened in the time of Emperor Diocletian. There's about a 1000 year difference between that and the middle ages The passage inthe book is related as being a symbolic vision rather than literal fact, from what I remember

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian )


The Emperor's light is specifically stated in the rulebook as fading, the Golden Throne is malfunctioning way beyond the capacity of the Mechanicus to repair, and the Emperor is no longer responding to 'prayer' from his subjects. The imperium is specifically mentioned as being doomed if the throne fails, which it is currently doing. Even if he WAS the most powerful being in existence (I doubt it, but each to their own) I doubt he is now.


'Wolf Time? I know the reference to Nordic myth, but i'm drawing a blank on any fluff by this name, and so is Lexicanum. Care to elaborate?


*edit for spelling and link*

'It obviously isn't bigger than a planet since:
A-Nightbringer is fairly small for a god (if you think about it)
B-In the Necrodermis shell they are much smaller than when they are energy beings.
C-It was trapped in the Noctis Labrynthus, on Mars, without anyone actually knowing. '



The natural form of a ctan is an energy being larger than a planet. This is specified in the codex. The Necrodermis is a suit to focus them down to a level where they can interact with other beings, and seems to be about 15 ft tall, more or less by the Ctan's choice.

'Those records are mostly legend and myth. They're not really reliable. On the other hand, apparently they can eat stars, which is admittedly quite impressive. They're powerful no doubt, but who knows just how powerful.'

The eldar records were laid down at the time. They are probably a lot better than myth, though still not as good as observation directly of the Ctan at full strength by a contemporary viewer. They are kept in the black library.

'Well, he backed off to the Golden Throne to lick his wounds for 10,000 years. Is that not enough? '

Given that people keep arging that he's using the time to benchpress khorne while dropkicking tzeentch over nurgle not really. Especially since the fluff is edging towards him being reborn/having planned this all along/etc..



'The fluff's the same. It's just a question of how easily you view the Emperor as having used that psychic power, and whether or not it left any permanent affects on him. '

The fluff on the emperor's battle is similar. The difference is the emphasis.Was the emperor fending off Horus, unwilling to hurt him or was he getting mulched and made a last ditch, desperate attack.. very different story

'The Eldar were using swords. It's never said, to my knowledge, that they actually had any sophisticated technology or way to make records at the time they facing the C'tan and the Necrons. '

If all the Eldar had were swords, there would BE no eldar. The eldar were created by the Old Ones, who were still around at this point in the fluff. Do you think they just said 'now hit them, while we and our advanced as hades tech sit over here?'
That was what they told the orks

Non-powerweapon swords vs Necrons is a futile and brief battle. I doubt you could even significantly hurt them- An equivilent might be the Conquistadors vs the locals. The Conquistadors lost a few men for every hundred or more they killed, due to far superior armour and weapons, not to mention terror I think more died of disease than wounds.

And that's assuming that the Necrons forgot to bring an Orb, Monoliths, Destroyers that can fly above sword reach etc..

I think we can assume that either the eldar had a decent level of tech, or were provided with high tech wargear



'Personally I quite enjoy the idea of a human being the biggest power in the galaxy. It makes a bit of a change to "oh, this species are better than humans in every way, albeit a tad arrogant" and "the humans can't possibly match their numbers and bloodlust" stereotypes that seem to permeate fantasy and to an extent science-fiction (or maybe just science-fantasy - never really understand the distinction myself; surely science-fantasy comes under science-fiction?).'

Humans Uber Alles (sp?) is just as common a trope in SF. I agree with you that science fantasy is a subset of Sci-fi. A lot of 'hard-scifi' fans would disagree, but who cares

I'm ok with a human being seriously potent, even being the best (i suppose..) but the 'i bunch up your best guy like used kleenex' writing style and the Fanboys (oh the fanboys) that then smacktalk every xeno race, at every game rub me a bit raw.

If 40K had the xenos factions equally represented with humanity i would have less of a problem with Humanity being touted as being best (by humanity) but when ALL the Black Library fluff (barring about 2 books i think) and 90% of the codex fluff is doing it it gets a little less 'wow, that's heroic!' and more 'and the latest tall tale is...' especially when a good chunk of the fluff in the Xenos codexes is doing it too..

It's like going fishing with a guy, and listening to him telling you about this huge fish he reeled in. The first time you're impressed (even accounting for story inflation) and think that it's pretty cool. The seven hundredth time, it's getting a bit stale, especially when he doesn't tell you about the ones he lost, and interrupts your own stories to tell more of his

*edit for spelling/clarity*

I have to agree that Yarrick is a badass, though he's about #3 on my badass list.

Anyone who can survive being run over by an ork battlefortress is ok in my book

And there we have my #1

Ghazzy is awesome.

It always seems to come as a suprise when he beats down some other army's uber-bloke, at least to it's owner

'They were capable of using their full pyschic might before the Warp became as disturbted and filled Warp predators as it is now. Until the Enslavers managed to break through, technological weapons may have been fairly obsolete. Even if they did have the technology, most of it would likely be weaponised, not for recording information. '

'Know your enemy' ring a bell? If you can't record information on an enemy it's far harder to beat them.

'I hear Orks (well, Krork) were designed to fight the Enslaver Plague, not the Necrons? '

You hear this where? In the Necron codex they're mentioned as being used vs the Necrons.

'f the natives were capable of tearing the Conquistadors apart with their minds, sure. Even then, the Conquistadors enlisted a lot of the locals to fight with them. The Aztec's were hated by pretty much all of their neighbours (and Cortez was crafty besides).'

Um, who says the eldar were all zoanthropes in disguise? I've never read anything of the sort

"Possibly, but I doubt it would be useful for accurately storing information. If it was and they still had it, why would the Harlequin's be such an important part of their history? '

Because the Harlequins guard the Black Library, and don't even let other eldar access it much. Also because the eldar do everything in a stylized fashion.

'I ususally find that humans generally greater determination or some such not actually manifest ability. The aliens typically seem to be stronger, more advanced or psychic. '

Sometimes. Other times the humans are the posterchild, and therefore all the other races are marginalized to make the humans the inportant ones (Manifest Destiny etc)..




'

'Swords vs. Necrons IS largely useless, however in dead men walking the Krieg guardsmen managed an impressive amount of bayonet kills (in the eyes, damage gauss power cells etc. etc.) '

Did the author remember that they self repair at all? The only part of Dead Men Walking i've read is the sample with the flayed ones. It sounded like a good book

Unified humanity is about as likelt as Unified Ork IMO. They keep having to execute worlds for having turned away from the Emperor etc.. Problem with doing that is that you have to KEEP doing it..

I would love to see the fluff having the IOM devolve into civil war, with Terra and about half the IOM against renegade guard and astartes unde a new 'emperor' that they either see as a reborn Big E (wasn't there something about Sebastian Thor thereabouts) or as a replacement for the corpsesicle

It would explain why almost every game i see at tournament is Marine vs Marine, or Marine vs Guard in the ruins of an imperial world (make some alien scenery already, GW !) ..

I wish that the fluff-writers would make up some new names though..

The Illuminati? Really? *sigh*

Killing and possibly raising the emperor would work for me, as it would at least break us loose from 40K Groundhog Day

If they weren't such an overused and hackneyed plot device i would be ok with it

Illuminati the Masquerade

Illuminati! Emo-psycho in disguise.... (to transformers theme music)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio ... (i guess )

Nothing wrong with a little conspiracy theory to lighten an otherwise dull evening

And that could have been handled much more politely by using Dakka's PM system.

I'm usually posting using th quick reply box, as the system at work has a bad habit of crashing if it has to go back and forth on pages (ancient computer).

If it offends you that much i'll try to get this hunk of junk to let me do it without crashing.

I think they were originally after warriors with actual playable rules

I field The Emperor of Mankind!

Beep I win...

Makes for a very dull game It makes for rather dull fluff too, but you can ignore that

While we are on the subject i nominate the Old Ones' greatest warrior, whoever he was

That and he spends most of his time scheming against himself..

Schitophrenia (sp?) FTW

Also the Ctan are only playable in their rather reduced current state... The original power versions are a bit further up the scale