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The way I see it 40k is a beautiful creation because it mixes horror scifi and fantasy in just the right amounts. If you get rid of horror than you have Mass Effect, if you get rid of scifi then you have Castlevania, if you get rid of fantasy then you Alien. Its all about keeping the right balance. My question is what needs to be increased and what needs to be decreased.

Personally I want more horror. Perverted science(Fabiuos Bile and Dark Eldar), screaming galleries, having to chose between being a fool and a monster, psychology of pain and terror, bad vs evil.

I find some of the scifi irritating, I don't care how sci cannons work,

Fantasy has gotten a little out of control too, especially with the Eldar and Necrons.

I agree, I would like to see more horror.

Not to say I want less sci fi or fantasy. There's so little sci fi in 40k as things stand but that's probably because it really falls into the fantasy genre.

But what really sets 40k apart is its potent blend of gothic and Lovecraftian horror.

I'd like to see more SF in it.

LESS fantasy and LESS OTT baroque horror.

(It's more gaudy than gothic).

[spoiler]baroque horror.

I prefer techno horror.

 Manchu wrote:
Not to say I want less sci fi or fantasy. There's so little sci fi in 40k as things stand but that's probably because it really falls into the fantasy genre. But what really sets 40k apart is its potent blend of gothic and Lovecraftian horror.

You nailed it, I really agree with this

 Manchu wrote:
I agree, I would like to see more horror.

Not to say I want less sci fi or fantasy. There's so little sci fi in 40k as things stand but that's probably because it really falls into the fantasy genre.

But what really sets 40k apart is its potent blend of gothic and Lovecraftian horror.

This pretty much. W40K has and always been, Science Fantasy first and foremost, with more fantasy than other Sci Fantasy fictions, like Star Wars- which is why I really love it. Chaos is the perfect Lovecraftian horror, with the Chaos Space Marines and their minions serving as the Deep Ones, it just all meshes really well. I just think that they need to develop the younger factions. The Imperium, Chaos, and Dark Eldar all fit perfectly together as of now, with the Necrons slowly slipping into their perfect place. I really think though that the Eldar, Tau, and Orks need more tweaking until they fit with the art style, and Tyranids just need to be developed more. But W40K could definetly use more horror. Stop using Tyranids simply as a mob of Worfs to be beaten up, give them teeth and have them do some major actual damage- bring them to their ALIEN roots, and expand the Genestealers (maybe a whole Codex for a Genestealer faction, or a supplement that allowed them to take Guardsmen as allies to serve as cultists).

But horror also can be overdone. Orks simply can't be grimdark senseless evil with no humor- it'll destroy the faction and why it even exists. Meanwhile, the Tau need to be developed more, and Eldar need to be a bit more horrific and disturbing. Pound home the strange alien appearance Eldar are sometimes described as possessing as opposed to the lithe and appealing humans.

Manchu wrote:

changerofways wrote:

Wyzilla wrote:

What these people said!

I'll take more of everything

More well done Lovecraftian horror.

It needs to be more adult in its approach to being grimdark; more upfront about what its actually all about, like taking prepubescent boys and using surgery, mind control and brainwashing to turn them into space marines.

More horror. We can get science fiction from any number of sources, but this horror/sci fi blend from very few.

More humour. It used to have a lot more dark humour and horror of an adult tone. Now it's trying to be 'grimdark' but in a way palatable to younger audiences. This means it both less humorous while the horror has been toned back. The fluff of recent years strikes me as adolescent fan fiction, the Grey Knights codex especially.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
More humour. It used to have a lot more dark humour and horror of an adult tone. Now it's trying to be 'grimdark' but in a way palatable to younger audiences. This means it both less humorous while the horror has been toned back. The fluff of recent years strikes me as adolescent fan fiction, the Grey Knights codex especially.

Depends on the faction. Chaos fluff has increased considerably in the horror of the eldritch abomination "you're fethed" area, including Daemons, CSM's and the Lost and the Damned. It's gotten completely out of hand and spiraling into nonsense with the likes of the Ultramarines and Grey Knights.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
More humour. It used to have a lot more dark humour and horror of an adult tone. Now it's trying to be 'grimdark' but in a way palatable to younger audiences. This means it both less humorous while the horror has been toned back. The fluff of recent years strikes me as adolescent fan fiction, the Grey Knights codex especially.

Depends on the faction. Chaos fluff has increased considerably in the horror of the eldritch abomination "you're fethed" area, including Daemons, CSM's and the Lost and the Damned.

Actually, I think Chaos fluff was gutted badly. The Newcrons introduced the zenith of cosmic horror, when even the so-called gods can't feel safe. After that, a bunch of slaves crawling in the mud for the favor of some random gods is just as far from scary as it can get.

Oh, they definitely need to shape up in regards to their adult themes.

50 Shades of Grey was a horrible embarrassment - the BDSM equivalent of the new Black Templar fluff - and in the post-50 shades world, the way Dark Eldar are handled is even more embarrassing than ever. They're BDSM Ninja Space Elves, only without any of the things that make BDSM a viable lifestyle (safe, sane and consensual, people!). Why are they treated as "teehee giggle sexy elf people"?

Dark Eldar should be a top shelf army, not marketed to the kiddies.

I tend to grumble this in every thread where this sort of thing pops up but more humour. I don't mean turn into full on comedy but over the years the sly Judge Dredd style humour has eroded in the name of grimdark. Only the Orks seem to be holding the line.

EDIT: Beaten to the punch by Treesong, missed your post sorry.

The 40k universe is ridiculous, its baroque, hammy and bizarre and that's why I love it. I find some of the uber serious 300-style hero fetishism frankly pretentious. Take the Imperium for instance. While fluff is happy to point out the terrible lives of citizens, the unending war, the religious zealotry, I still get the impression of a slick fighting machine and beyond being told the End Times are coming I don't really feel the Imperium is crumbling, some additions like the Thousand Rebellions aside. There used to be a lot more focus on the bureaucratic, borderline Kafkaesque nature, with civil servants on Terra actually becoming deranged and forming hive gangs in the bowels of the planet, while others kept meticulous records of planet's that had been destroyed decades or even centuries before. Basically I want the Imperium to not only be authoritarian but also incompetent

However I will back more horror/alien-ness too, though little gems like the Xenology book have already done a great job in this respect. The Lovecraftian nature of the warp, the truly bizarre nature of minor races (the Umbra and that one who fight wars as a form of performance art are two stand outs for me) etc. And yes on the Eldar. Another example of telling rather than showing. I only really know they're 'weird' because GW simply says they are and references to the Fall. Its probably why they're the race I don't dislike but simply ignore, they have a lot of potential but are currently bland Space Elves.

with the release of the new chaos line, I think there needs to be more a sci fi aspect to the game.

I think one reason that so much of the humour has gone is that a lot of people directing the fluff now were too young when they got into the hobby to understand the humour and took it all completely seriously.

I know that's my problem. ^^;

More humour. More Crazy. More Sherlock Obi-Wan Clouseau.

Less bone-dry, overtly serious Horus-Heresy-style boredom.

I'd like to see some graphic depictions of the Warp, and battles set within it.

I think that 'dystopia' should be one of the options in the poll... Of course, there's already a lot of it the way it is now, but since it's not the same as 'horror' it probably should be a separate choice.

I feel the Space Marines need a few less heroic chapters and more horrific chapters. Chapters like Black Templars, Minotaurs and Charcharodons need to be focused on more often.

So more horror for me and maybe a little more sci-fi.

More Fantasy for me. Horror is good too, but I think it really needs to work on a more per story basis, rather than just a blanket thing for the setting.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
More humour. It used to have a lot more dark humour and horror of an adult tone. Now it's trying to be 'grimdark' but in a way palatable to younger audiences. This means it both less humorous while the horror has been toned back. The fluff of recent years strikes me as adolescent fan fiction, the Grey Knights codex especially.

Depends on the faction. Chaos fluff has increased considerably in the horror of the eldritch abomination "you're fethed" area, including Daemons, CSM's and the Lost and the Damned.

Actually, I think Chaos fluff was gutted badly. The Newcrons introduced the zenith of cosmic horror, when even the so-called gods can't feel safe. After that, a bunch of slaves crawling in the mud for the favor of some random gods is just as far from scary as it can get.

This is an Iron Warrior. If he fails to notice you, you are blessed and may die a painful and short death at the hands of the current enemy, Orks, Guardsmen, Tyranids, or maybe another Janissary. Or maybe you'll survive, continue to eat the paste made from the ground up bodies of your fellow human slaves of the Iron Warriors- the dead and the sickly. Maybe you'll live long enough to rise up the ranks of the Janissary force, slowly bleeding away all empathy and sympathy as you learn the most effective way to survive is to torture and brutalize your own men into action to ensure an Iron Warrior doesn't immediately execute you for failing to meet their exponentially increasing standards. Or maybe your commanding officer will simply shoot you to make an example out of you to motivate the men and ensure that he isn't executed by the Iron Warriors.

Or maybe he will notice you, deciding that your pitiful existence has somehow offended him. Maybe he'll simply back-hand you like the pathetic wretch you are, pasting your thoughts against the wall behind you, spilling out your futile hopes and wishes for all to see in their raw, organic form. Or maybe he'll decide a true example needs to be made to terrify the mortals- impale your hands on meat-hooks and lower you into a pit of molten slag by a centimeter for each ten seconds, maybe even electrocuting you as you are slowly lowered into the molten pool of metal. Or maybe he'll decide that his cape of raw human flesh needs mending, and decides to skin you live with his combat knife for all to see as true nudity is exposed, removing the epidermis and chucking a gibbering chunk of muscle on the ground to be picked up and churned into food for the rest of the men while the Iron Warrior stitches your hide together to complete his fleshy garments. Or maybe he'll decide that daemon technology of his requires sacrifice, and that you must be slowly sucked clean of all blood by servitors to then be washed over the possessed technology, ensuring that you survive the process to feel limbs go dry and watch as your life force washes and feeds the cursed machine.

So no, Chaos is indeed perfect as it. GW simply needs to stop beating around the bush and straight out reveal the favorable pastimes of Chaos Space Marines and Cultists of Chaos.

Yeesh, that is one evil fether

Good thing we can kill dozens of him per shot with all the AP3 large blasts out there these days.

I'll kick in another vote for horror. Chaos really has some good potential for it. Really, as is, some of the stories in codexes are pretty horrific sounding. Like when Perturabo attacks a forge world and turns all of their factories into giant, walking monsters. Stuff like that as a BL novel would be fun.

Oh, also another vote for more Lovecraftian stuff too. Lovecraftian Chaos is pretty damn disturbing.

Edit: wrong Primarch.

 Troike wrote:
when Mortarion attacks a Mechanicus world and turns all of their factories into giant, walking monsters. Stuff like that as a BL novel would be fun.

That sounds awesome.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The fluff of recent years strikes me as adolescent fan fiction, the Grey Knights codex especially.

 Wyzilla wrote:
It's gotten completely out of hand and spiraling into nonsense with the likes of the Ultramarines and Grey Knights.

Sadly, this is true of GK fluff generally rather than just in their 5E dex. In the 6E Nids dex, the GK effectively belay Inquisitor Kryptman's evacuation order as to a cathedral world in the path of Hivefleet Leviathan. Why? Because there was a Chaos artefact within the planet. So there are a few problems with this: (1) why not evacuate the civilian population of the planet anyway? (2) what did the GK think the Nids would do with the artefact? (3) did the GK think their tiny force could hold back a tendril of Leviathan? Setting all of that aside, guess what the entire planet was massacred by the Nids (despite, as the text goes out of its way to mention, the heroic charge of not one but two Dread Knights whoopty gak) -- and here's the real kicker -- this massive slaughter of human lives is actually what it took to activate the artefact. Seemingly, the GK presence guarding the artefact was pretty much a waste of time and, worse, led not only to the annihilation of the planetary population but because of that also caused the direct opposite of what they were (moronically) trying to prevent by staying there in the first place.

 Wyzilla wrote:

This is an Iron Warrior. If he fails to notice you, you are blessed and may die a painful and short death at the hands of the current enemy, Orks, Guardsmen, Tyranids, or maybe another Janissary. Or maybe you'll survive, continue to eat the paste made from the ground up bodies of your fellow human slaves of the Iron Warriors- the dead and the sickly. Maybe you'll live long enough to rise up the ranks of the Janissary force, slowly bleeding away all empathy and sympathy as you learn the most effective way to survive is to torture and brutalize your own men into action to ensure an Iron Warrior doesn't immediately execute you for failing to meet their exponentially increasing standards. Or maybe your commanding officer will simply shoot you to make an example out of you to motivate the men and ensure that he isn't executed by the Iron Warriors.

Or maybe he will notice you, deciding that your pitiful existence has somehow offended him. Maybe he'll simply back-hand you like the pathetic wretch you are, pasting your thoughts against the wall behind you, spilling out your futile hopes and wishes for all to see in their raw, organic form. Or maybe he'll decide a true example needs to be made to terrify the mortals- impale your hands on meat-hooks and lower you into a pit of molten slag by a centimeter for each ten seconds, maybe even electrocuting you as you are slowly lowered into the molten pool of metal. Or maybe he'll decide that his cape of raw human flesh needs mending, and decides to skin you live with his combat knife for all to see as true nudity is exposed, removing the epidermis and chucking a gibbering chunk of muscle on the ground to be picked up and churned into food for the rest of the men while the Iron Warrior stitches your hide together to complete his fleshy garments. Or maybe he'll decide that daemon technology of his requires sacrifice, and that you must be slowly sucked clean of all blood by servitors to then be washed over the possessed technology, ensuring that you survive the process to feel limbs go dry and watch as your life force washes and feeds the cursed machine.

Alternatively, I can shoot him in the face with a plasma gun and he will die like anyone else. Or blast him with artillery. Or better yet, I can just wait until he explodes into a blob of mutated flesh because his god "blessed" him with spawndom.

Yeah, he can do nasty things with me, but I can do nasty things with him too. And at the end of the day, I can still say that at least my god won't turn me into a brainless abomination just because reasons.

You're a Tau, you have no god.