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It was only afew minutes ago as i was looking through GW's website that I realised the game has chaged abit since i started and im not sure its for the best.
Dont get me wrong some of the new models look really nice but i dont know, it feels less grim than it used to. Its alot more bright and comic that it was, all the pictures of the models are on bright sunlight planets.
And the direction all the armies seem to be taking now seems to be moving away from the medievil church fearing people in space approch.

I liked the whole medievil christianity in space approch like the witch hunters had, with penitent engines punishing those for their sins and the space marines been holy warriors.
Now it just seems to be more about looking cool, like with the tau and eldar and now the necrons new looks. What happened to all the scary imagery, the feeling of a dreded future.
It felt oppressive, now we have dawn of war spawning memes and stories in the 40k universe that could pass for more fan fiction than cannon. I miss the old codex's where every story usually ended up with the death of the main character at the hands of some horror from space, like the immortal necrons or the cursed chaos marines, its lost some of its dangerous mystery. Thats what made the necrons scary.

Though I largely agree, I feel obliged to point out that colours (and general atmosphere) are still muted compared with the eye-searing standards of the mid-1990s. Flip through a White Dwarf in the #160s if you want a retina-damagingly horrid example.

But yes, things do seem to be taking a turn back towards silver age heroics, and away from the setting's grim influences. And yes, I would be inclined to lay the blame upon he who shall not be named.

Our Spiritual Liege has deemed it necessary to make 40k less grim-dark. It shall be so.

Started with the Tau and continues with the newcrons...say hello to Empire-like Imperium in the next Codex...

So necrons arent scary? Good im going to go tell that to the one thaat is lining up his gauss gun now.

Not anymore they're not. They used to be lovecraftian nightmares from the War in Heaven led by soul-eating star vampires, now they're Tomb Kings in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

Exactly.

SM became all honourable-like instead of being xenocidal fanatics. That sucked. My BT are still xenocidal fanatics, but they're the minority now...

Necrons became about as threatening as Hello Kitty (threatening mildly, but not overly so). The Newcrons just don't give me the willies

GK went from Puritan badass to bad fanfic Radicals. It killed their awesomeness for me.

DE are about the only recent change in faction fluff i approve of, mostly. They went from S+M junkies to COOL S+M junkies with meglomania issues

Necron became more scary. A highly advance army with a soul but think thy are superior? Count me in.

They are just like every other army then..

Superiority issues and souls, and the faction too scattered and disorganised to be a real threat

Well, almost every army..

I found the newcrons to be a copy and paste job from Armybook TK, with vehicles, but if you prefer the new take on them then more power to you

Ascalam wrote:Exactly.

SM became all honourable-like instead of being xenocidal fanatics. That sucked. My BT are still xenocidal fanatics, but they're the minority now...

Necrons became about as threatening as Hello Kitty (threatening mildly, but not overly so). The Newcrons just don't give me the willies

GK went from Puritan badass to bad fanfic Radicals. It killed their awesomeness for me.

DE are about the only recent change in faction fluff i approve of, mostly. They went from S+M junkies to COOL S+M junkies with meglomania issues

The Space Marines and the Dark Eldar aren't so bad...but the Grey Knights are just damn bad. From legendary daemonhunters they became stereotypical knights and fanatics.

Necrons are now just copies of the Tomb Kings from Warhammer Fantasy.

Yeah finshed reading the Cron book last night, found it to be just.....boring.
Virtually nothing grabbed me or stood out as a cool piece of fluff.
Every codex has the little important dates/events section which give mini pieces of fluff surrounding battles/incidents. Boy was the Cron one uninspired.

As for the shift in their lore/background, I hated it for the reasons posted above.

I agree.
Necrons used to be a souless high tech army intent on destroying life for their powerful star gods.

Now they are glitchy disfuctional robots trying to regain their old empire and life. Not nearly as spooky.

Oh come on.. New Necrons are scariest army ever. Just imagine your Space Marines or Tyranids being attacked by a Necron lord that wants to steal your art!.

My Nids draw like 6 year olds on a sugar rush, he can steal away!

Tadashi wrote:the Grey Knights are just damn bad. From legendary daemonhunters they became stereotypical knights and fanatics.

Could you elaborate on this a little? I don't see it.

Ratius wrote:My Nids draw like 6 year olds on a sugar rush, he can steal away!

Your nids are as good as Picasso

Oh wowzers, this thread again, has it been 2 days already?

These threads all turn into a free for all for Ward haters, and how people keep saying the Necrons are now Tomb Kings in space......they always have been tomb kings in space, hell their only vehicle in the last codex was a floating pyramid.

English Assassin wrote:... I feel obliged to point out that colours (and general atmosphere) are still muted compared with the eye-searing standards of the mid-1990s. Flip through a White Dwarf in the #160s if you want a retina-damagingly horrid example. [/url].

This. Less grim dark? Have you seen the older models?
I always thought WH40k seemed to be pretty goofy and wacky back in the day and now tried to be more serious since the fluff has evolved into something that people take very seriously.
Both from codex and miniature design there seems to have been an evolution from a crazy comic design to a very dark and realistic fashion (which of course has also come with the greater detail they can manufacture now a days). If necessary I can post some picture but its easier to just look at some stuff from 2nd edition and then look at some of the current releases.

Third edition was probably the point when 40k was the most grimdark. Thing is, it was almost TOO much so. It was grimdark to the point of ridiculousness. The fluff was in danger of becoming a parody of itself. It was very much a whiplash from the bright heroics of the earlier editions. I do appreciate that the game takes itself more seriously than in the early days. But if it is too serious, it's like a preteen who just learned to swear. It just screams "Look at me, I have mature content."

It's nice to see a balance between the two extremes.

ashrog wrote: I do appreciate that the game takes itself more seriously than in the early days. But if it is too serious, it's like a preteen who just learned to swear. It just screams "Look at me, I have mature content."

Isn't this the truth.

People complain about Tau and Necron not being grimdark enough. It's nonsense. Tau have a shiny facade but a dark secret in that they're probably mind controlled. Necron are a race that destroyed themselves to save themselves. That's mature grimdark. Some people seem to think grimdark means skulls all over everything and man we can do so much better than that.

I want more psychological grimdark.

Fire_for_effect wrote:This. Less grim dark? Have you seen the older models?

For what it's worth, I think that whilst the models have become somewhat more serious (ridiculous overplayed skull and pauldron clichés aside), the fluff has taken a sharp turn away from "Grimdark" and into "Cool and Awesome", removing much of the more controversial content and replacing it with a somewhat more simplified "we kick ass in space" attitude. This is not the fault of a single individual like Mat Ward, this is GW as a company adapting to the next generation of its target audience, following the current trend of focusing entirely on the action like in some Michael Bay movie. And 40k is by far not the only franchise where I noticed this development - have you ever compared the older writing for the Warcraft setting with the current version of the MMO?

Though as for the miniatures, there are a couple things that bothered me. Daemonettes turning from creepy but sexy succubi into ugly hags is one, or Marines more and more ursurping the Sisters' style (iron halo? come on). About the new 'cron minis I'm on the fence, some look better, some look worse. Old DE Wytches definitely looked better than new ones, if only because they actually had a somewhat female shape befitting their alleged grace and mobility instead of looking like a gang thug on steroids.

When did it happen? 1E, Rogue Trader. And 2E. Then things got more grimdark. And then less.

Just get used to the ideas that things go through cycles, it happens. I'm sure things will get grim-darker in the future.

Though the RPG stuff is still plenty grimdark.

But DE Wyches ARE gang thugs on steroids..

I liked the older models for them too

I have a few of the old (tiny) daemonettes on steeds. The new daemonettes don't look nearly as good

I think it's becoming more and more hidden. For instance the art in this book:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440352a&prodId=prod1380072a

Lovely grim dark goodness. The codexes are getting more colorful and heroic. Black Library seems to keep the tone however.

Didn't we just have a thread a couple weeks ago about 40K getting too grimdark?

I think the trend started in the 90s, when GW started attempting to appeal to a broader base of customers. They had to PG-13 their stuff from R, and make it so moms did not freak out when their kids bought the books/models.

From a business model, it makes perfect sense. If your daemonettes are sporting breasts, christian conservative mommies are not going to want their 12 year old buying the miniatures.

The one thing i do miss a lot about the old necron codex vs the new necron codex... all of the old fluff/stories were written by guardsmen, captains, generals who saw what the necrons did. The necrons didn't write their own fluff, they were merely legends, almost ghosts in space that you were scared to ever meet.

I do appreciate they gave the necrons more fluff/character, but at the same time, keep them menacing

Cryage wrote:The one thing i do miss a lot about the old necron codex vs the new necron codex... all of the old fluff/stories were written by guardsmen, captains, generals who saw what the necrons did. The necrons didn't write their own fluff, they were merely legends, almost ghosts in space that you were scared to ever meet.

I do appreciate they gave the necrons more fluff/character, but at the same time, keep them menacing

I agree there. They didn't need to explicitly explain so much of the necron society. It should have been hinted at. They should have shown us research notes and eyewitness accounts, not actual information about them.

Look back to the early 90s... You'll find that 40k was a helluva lot brighter and comical than now.

its not surprising really, typically when economies are in decline and peoples day to day lives are looking a bit grim-dark they tend to want their escapist entertainment to be a bit more upbeat, and when times are booming like in the late 80's and 90's our entertainment tends to take on darker tones. if 40k is still around in the next decade I would expect things to swing back to more grim dark a bit more than it is now.