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Two Space Marine codices after the release of the original Dawn of War and they still havent made it into the codex proper. I believe the 6th edition codex did mention their name at one page, which is probably the furthest GW has ever gone into adopting a video game's material into their "official" codex canon, but damn.

The Blood Ravens are an awesome chapter and certainly have a big fanbase by now to no longer ignore them, unless GW does so on purpose.

In the 6th edition codex they added a metric crapton of insignificant chapters most of us have never heard of, but hey, the Blood Ravens get no section for themselves. Not even in the unknown founding section, where 2 pages dedicated to them would have made all the difference. I'm not asking for Blood Ravens Chapter Tactics since they arent a first founding Legion, but let's be honest here. The Blood Ravens have accumulated enough history over the course of 6 video games to easily fill out 2 pages worth of pure fluff. From their unknown founding to ample amount of psykers to the exterminatus of Cyrene to the Tatratus, Kronus and Kaurava campaigns all the way to the defense of subsector Aurelia from the Tyranid invasion and subsequent Chaos incursion and eventual ascension of Gabriel Angelos to Chapter Master. Heck, just like the Crimson Fists got their own chapter master, I think Gabe could have been introduced as a new IC in the 6th ed dex as well. Months went into the development of the new SM codex I am sure...and they couldnt dedicated a couple hours to creating his character and rules? I'd give him a master-crafted daemon hammer, Iron Halo and 6" bubble of raising LD of nearby squads to 9 if it wasnt higher; otherwise nothing special. Would have definitely been awesome.

So yeah...why does GW disregard the Blood Ravens?

Don't they not incorporate a whole lot of third-party material in general?

Because what starts as an index astartes footnote stays a footnote I guess.

Wish they would be in there too, but didn't they say allot of what Blood Ravens didn't happen? I mean, some of their stuff is set in the 42 millennium isn't it? Also, what's cannon in the Dawn of War games (other then Boreal screwing up) is up to the players/the game developers.

Maybe they just don't want some 3rd party showing them up in the lore section or something xD

But wait! Didn't Captain Titus and that sergeant get models, or something as a nod? Of course, they were labeled as non-canon as well, but still.

Maybe we're lucky just to have these tiny bits...

Inquisitor Adrastia ordered the Grey Knights to mind wipe them and now they fight like <Insert Preferred Chapter Tactics>

I think one of the reasons is the chronology and the nature of the games themselves. there's a lot of fluff for them, and no shortage of fans (I didn't paint my marines that way for nothing!), but only DoW1 and the base DoW2 actually have a fixed plot. There's some official stances from Relic on the others, (BR win on Kronus, IG win on Kaurava), but the nature of the games means a lot of what they are is up the playerk and Relic, should they choose to revist the Ravens.

From what I recall, GW basically gave Relic the right to do basically whatever they wanted with that chapter; GW wouldn't stop them unless it was something seriously setting-breaking, and since they're no longer GW's baby, they don't really want to give them their due, especially since the future of the DoW games is in question.

Then there's the trivial matter that the later games take place in M42.

That being said, with supplements in existance, and they're mostly focused on groups with fluff and relatively minor rule changes, it wouldn't be impossible to see a Blood Ravens supplement with some special rule letting them take more librarians alongside something else and a minor named character with chapter-specific relics. Since they seem to be wanting to do companies for Marines, perhaps an m41-era 3rd Company supplement with Captain Angelos, rather than chapter master, maybe even Isador Akios, seeing as they're pretty standard in appearance, easily represented via existing models.

I wouldn't say the ship has sailed on them appearing in some capacity yet; they only be mentioned in passing, but they do have one token picture in the model section, and if another DoW ever appears possible, they might do a supplement to drum up support or anticipation; anything's possible.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
I think one of the reasons is the chronology and the nature of the games themselves. there's a lot of fluff for them, and no shortage of fans (I didn't paint my marines that way for nothing!), but only DoW1 and the base DoW2 actually have a fixed plot. There's some official stances from Relic on the others, (BR win on Kronus, IG win on Kaurava), but the nature of the games means a lot of what they are is up the playerk and Relic, should they choose to revist the Ravens.

From what I recall, GW basically gave Relic the right to do basically whatever they wanted with that chapter; GW wouldn't stop them unless it was something seriously setting-breaking, and since they're no longer GW's baby, they don't really want to give them their due, especially since the future of the DoW games is in question.

Then there's the trivial matter that the later games take place in M42.

That being said, with supplements in existance, and they're mostly focused on groups with fluff and relatively minor rule changes, it wouldn't be impossible to see a Blood Ravens supplement with some special rule letting them take more librarians alongside something else and a minor named character with chapter-specific relics. Since they seem to be wanting to do companies for Marines, perhaps an m41-era 3rd Company supplement with Captain Angelos, rather than chapter master, maybe even Isador Akios, seeing as they're pretty standard in appearance, easily represented via existing models.

I wouldn't say the ship has sailed on them appearing in some capacity yet; they only be mentioned in passing, but they do have one token picture in the model section, and if another DoW ever appears possible, they might do a supplement to drum up support or anticipation; anything's possible.

Relic don't own the rights to Warhammer 40k games any more, the company was divided up and it's unsure who got the rights, IIRC

There is the possibility of the chapter getting a codex supplement.

They did get a painted model in the unknown founding section of the model pictures section of the SM codex, so thats something at least!

You'd think they would've at least supported the Blood Magpies what with Dawn of War gaining some fame with their "target demographic". Hell I never even played Dawn of War and I have my own Blood raven army.

Maybe their reasoning was that it would be sort of difficult to support every fan favorite army? I mean a multi million dollar company should be able to do this in theory but this is gee dubs we are talking about...

And I'd totally buy a supplement for them. If they do ever make one, the chapter relics table should say "You make take any Chapter Relic listed in Codex Space Marines in addition to..." whatever.

GW has enough Chapters on its plate as is. The Blood Ravens were Relic/THQ's baby. Just another fan fiction chapter really. GW did the smart thing back in the fay and gave them an IA to make them "official" and showed them in Codex: Space Marines both in 5th, and in 6th.

But the Blood Ravens are kinda silly, just like most fan fiction chapters end up being. Special Snowflake syndrome. You even see it in Forgeworld chapters, lol.

Mysterious background, unknown geneseed, extra special Librarian Chapter Master...

GW did it right. Acknowledge them for fan service, and let Dawn of War handle their fluff.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
GW has enough Chapters on its plate as is. The Blood Ravens were Relic/THQ's baby. Just another fan fiction chapter really. GW did the smart thing back in the fay and gave them an IA to make them "official" and showed them in Codex: Space Marines both in 5th, and in 6th.

But the Blood Ravens are kinda silly, just like most fan fiction chapters end up being. Special Snowflake syndrome. You even see it in Forgeworld chapters, lol.

Mysterious background, unknown geneseed, extra special Librarian Chapter Master...

GW did it right. Acknowledge them for fan service, and let Dawn of War handle their fluff.

You forgot 4th, they even had some chapter tactics back then as well and were used as an example for Customizing your own chapter.

Also we pretty much know who their geneseed and background come from, thanks to hints both in the fluff itself, black library incorporating it, and why they want to hide it so badly.

Calling official Chapters "fan fiction" is pretty silly.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Calling official Chapters "fan fiction" is pretty silly.

If the Chapter in question conforms to many of the stereotypes of fanfiction, then it's a valid observation. (And it does. And it is. )

Honestly, as to the original question, I think there was just a finite amount of space, and the Blood Ravens, as the 'video game' chapter, were not given top priority. I don't think it's an intentional slight. I don't know how popular they are where you play, but I've seen far more Sisters players than Blood Angels players.

GW hates the Blood Ravens because they're a successor chapter to the Thousand Sons, which GW also hates. :p

First rule of Blood Ravens is don't talk about Blood Ravens!
They are not really a part of GW canon (yet?).

probably because aesthetically they are just a lame copy of blood angels.

as for the fluff, thousand sons blah blah. dont care, didnt read. lol

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
First rule of Blood Ravens is don't talk about Blood Ravens!
They are not really a part of GW canon (yet?).

They were mentioned in the 4th edition codex as a chapter.

They were officially canonized by the Space Marine Codex.

Alsoooo

http://web.archive.org/web/20070209053624/http://uk.games-workshop.com/spacemarines/bloodravens-indexastartes/assets/index-astartes-blood-ravens.pdf

But yeah don't ever expect a SC for them, or anyone else unless they have a model for it already.

Not sure about the 6th Edition Codex, but the 5th Edition SM Codex had painted Blood Ravens models in it.

Good enough for me. They've already got some good lore and what-not, it would've really just been copy/paste into the Codex if they wanted to include it. I consider them as canon as the Ultramarines.

6'th edition Space Marine codex, Page 155, Unknown Foundings, Second image from the bottom on the left side of the page, A Blood Raven. So they are in the new codex.

I don´t see any "hate" here.

Blood Ravens were developed by Relic/THQ, but they were accepted into the "official canon". They appear in the Codex: Space Marines. In different editions.

The question should be: "why doesn´t GW love the Blood Ravens with passion?", or "why doesn´t GW love the Blood Ravens as much as I do?".

Answer: because there are many chapters and they come from an external source.

They've popped up in painting sections in at least one codex (I've only got the 5th ed one handy). Perhaps they didn't want to blur the lines between the tabletop game and video games any further than it is. Alternatively, the codex was just too full for any more special rules.

However, I see your point. A paragraph in the rulebook about their relic-gathering tendencies isn't that hard. "Tonight, on Hoarders: Blood Raven Gabriel Angelos has been collecting the Emperor's cutlery for the last 70 years..."

Blood Ravens are non-codex anyway. No devastators, or sternguard/vanguard.

xruslanx wrote:
Blood Ravens are non-codex anyway. No devastators, or sternguard/vanguard.

They use devastators and veterans. Which you can see in dawn of war 2 with Veteran coloring on the Marines backing Tarkus, and Avitus who is a Devastator Sargent. They are very much a codex based chapter with these exceptions below.

However the main differences is that they use librarians in nearly all positions, not uncommon to find Librarian-Captains, librarians in command of starships, outposts, and 1st company has several squads comprised entirely of Librarians, and even their Chapter Masters used to also be the Chief Librarian, though broken with Gabriel in charge now.

Along with the Ordo Psykana, which is basically a hidden group of librarians and servitors that basically recover archeotech and knowledge.

If they were represented though, their psykers would also be given Divination, due to their strong future sight and warp planning.

da001 wrote:I don´t see any "hate" here.
Blood Ravens were developed by Relic/THQ, but they were accepted into the "official canon". They appear in the Codex: Space Marines. In different editions.
The question should be: "why doesn´t GW love the Blood Ravens with passion?", or "why doesn´t GW love the Blood Ravens as much as I do?".
Answer: because there are many chapters and they come from an external source.

This, really. +1

GW has already mentioned them in their own material, which already goes a very long way considering how they (oftentimes fortunately) tend to ignore what 3rd party writers come up with. To expect that they invest even more resources into actually fleshing out what is, in the end, somebody elses' baby is just expecting too much, and though I could understand the desire, I would think that the Ravens' fans should have known what they were getting into when they decided to go with that Chapter.
Perhaps they will see some more development in a future PC game, now that the license has a new owner?

The 5th edition Blood Angels Codex would be another source where they were mentioned, by the way.

GW leaves the Blood Ravens alone so Relic can do whatever they want with them. The whole point of the Blood Ravens was so that Relic could do what they wanted with a Space Marine chapter without stepping on any toes, fluff-wise.

 Brother SRM wrote:
GW leaves the Blood Ravens alone so Relic can do whatever they want with them. The whole point of the Blood Ravens was so that Relic could do what they wanted with a Space Marine chapter without stepping on any toes, fluff-wise.

Of course this means that Black Library and FFG have expanded them out as well. FFG's representation in Honour the Chapter was actually pretty good for the Blood Ravens.

Digital codex supplement is the best bet for Blood Ravens.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
Blood Ravens are non-codex anyway. No devastators, or sternguard/vanguard.

They use devastators and veterans. Which you can see in dawn of war 2 with Veteran coloring on the Marines backing Tarkus, and Avitus who is a Devastator Sargent. They are very much a codex based chapter with these exceptions below.

However the main differences is that they use librarians in nearly all positions, not uncommon to find Librarian-Captains, librarians in command of starships, outposts, and 1st company has several squads comprised entirely of Librarians, and even their Chapter Masters used to also be the Chief Librarian, though broken with Gabriel in charge now.

Along with the Ordo Psykana, which is basically a hidden group of librarians and servitors that basically recover archeotech and knowledge.

If they were represented though, their psykers would also be given Divination, due to their strong future sight and warp planning.

And this is why it wasn't made official. Serious fanfic vibe right there. Librarian squads? With Divination?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
Blood Ravens are non-codex anyway. No devastators, or sternguard/vanguard.

They use devastators and veterans. Which you can see in dawn of war 2 with Veteran coloring on the Marines backing Tarkus, and Avitus who is a Devastator Sargent. They are very much a codex based chapter with these exceptions below.

However the main differences is that they use librarians in nearly all positions, not uncommon to find Librarian-Captains, librarians in command of starships, outposts, and 1st company has several squads comprised entirely of Librarians, and even their Chapter Masters used to also be the Chief Librarian, though broken with Gabriel in charge now.

Along with the Ordo Psykana, which is basically a hidden group of librarians and servitors that basically recover archeotech and knowledge.

If they were represented though, their psykers would also be given Divination, due to their strong future sight and warp planning.

And this is why it wasn't made official. Serious fanfic vibe right there. Librarian squads? With Divination?

Yeah, I don't buy the librarian squads. GW outright said "Blood Angels have more Librarians than any other chapter" when they did the previous BA book with Libby Dreads. If ANYONE is fielding Libby squads, it would be BA, not the Ravens.