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True that, inconsistencies are all over the place, exacerbated in the case of 40k because it is not the project of one, rather the piling of over 2 decades of lore added by innumerable different authors through several channels (codices, video games, books...).

But hey, and that links us back to the topic at hand, you just need to admit it and pretend to be fooled! Or re-imagine whatever bothers you.

When people say "old fluff wss better as it showed how bad the Imperium was", which exact books are people thinking of?
I'd really like to have some examples. Not because I doubt the claim but because I'd like to read these books
Usually I find 40K fluff just not that deep. It's more about action, less about thinking.

Brickfix wrote:

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Most books are still aimed at the wide end of the hobby trumpet, it’s GWs way and always will be.

But I have read a few marine books where there are still flashes of marine dickness. Like rynns world, and hellsreach. There are times where the marines are real arrogant knobs.

We could say in essence that the "satire" is still there obviously, but it is not advertised, couldn't we? Sums it up fairly I think.

Deadnight wrote:Like the best things, its not in your face. It's there, waiting and ready to be discovered with a little digging.

I agree with both posts above. The more blatant power fantasy is "in your face", but there are a lot of hidden gems that really do it for me.
But if learned not to mind inconsistencies. As an engineer I couldn't watch most action movies with sci-fi elements if I cared to much ^^

Thirded, or fourthed. Lost count but I agree.

I have semi 'given up' on the lore. Not that I've given up on reading up on it and liking parts that concern my armies (Orks and Chaos), but as far as hoping things will change or accepting certain things I don't like in the story? Yeah, pretty much.

Now, I'm biased because I play Xenos and heretics, but there's some things in the fluff that bug me. Mostly with the Imperium, in fact the only Imperium factions I like are the Astra Militarium and the Adeptus Soroitas. The narrative is all over the place, and the whole idea of Custodes to me being super duper duper not space marines doesn't fit well with me.

That, and my factions normally get the short end of the stick as far as fluff.

.Orks? They're going after Angron and other than that are doing nothing.

.Necrons? What are they even doing atm?

.CSM? They're on a treasure hunt with Abby and Vashtorr..riveting story.

I get GW wants to not make the story go too far ahead so everyone can have a codex and lore, but sometimes they either try to keep the status quo or they push their narrative and you get Primaris.

I found the Eisenhorn novels (when read by Toby of course) to be the first time in ages I've actually found the 40k setting interesting. Yes 40k is all schlocky, mostly nonsensical has power levels depending on whatever the author/marketing department wants it to be... but compared to anything else I've read I found Eisenhorn just used the setting to great effect by using the setting to explore a myriad of interesting-yet-generic sci fi stuff without getting too slavish towards the "actual fluff"

Other than that I occasionally talk to someone who is into 40k and they start harping on about Space Marine characters and what will happen with X Y Z and my brain just wants to bail out and run away. Call me jaded but it's all just whatever serves that particular author/business decision.

Jaredthefox92 wrote:
I have semi 'given up' on the lore. Not that I've given up on reading up on it and liking parts that concern my armies (Orks and Chaos), but as far as hoping things will change or accepting certain things I don't like in the story? Yeah, pretty much.

Now, I'm biased because I play Xenos and heretics, but there's some things in the fluff that bug me. Mostly with the Imperium, in fact the only Imperium factions I like are the Astra Militarium and the Adeptus Soroitas. The narrative is all over the place, and the whole idea of Custodes to me being super duper duper not space marines doesn't fit well with me.

That, and my factions normally get the short end of the stick as far as fluff.

.Orks? They're going after Angron and other than that are doing nothing.

.Necrons? What are they even doing atm?

.CSM? They're on a treasure hunt with Abby and Vashtorr..riveting story.

I get GW wants to not make the story go too far ahead so everyone can have a codex and lore, but sometimes they either try to keep the status quo or they push their narrative and you get Primaris.

Agreed. We need more Xenos on Xenos or Xenos on chaos action. Don't get me wrong I play two imperial armies, but still, stories without the Imperium are a real charm. And, on a sidenote, that'd let 2 none imperial factions get models for once, maybe... But I doubt that'll happen anytile soon.

Still a huge shame, as I said I loved hearing the narration of Valedor, I mean, a story with Eldars teaming up against nids. It is pretty straightforward but so pleasing!

I mean, part of the lore as a sandbox, which is my take on it, is to provide you inspiration to get your own stories rolling, and hopefully for GW grab a few plastic toys along the way. Any story can give you great ideas or starting points!

What do we want? Xenos fluff!
When do we want it? Now!!

But xenos and non imperials get models all the time. Necron got a new model line, tyranids, eldar get new models every edition, Votan came out and new primaris orks got models too, as well as GSC. If more xeno armies were to get models, then all the IG, Ad Mecha and SoB would have to lose their release windows.

Karol wrote:
But xenos and non imperials get models all the time. Necron got a new model line, tyranids, eldar get new models every edition, Votan came out and new primaris orks got models too, as well as GSC. If more xeno armies were to get models, then all the IG, Ad Mecha and SoB would have to lose their release windows.

No, they should get more windows allocated from codex primaris leutnant, that is the difference.

Karol in that hot and spicy alternate reality as usual where there's gak like Primaris Orks.

I gotta get me some of what he smokes at some point, he was gonna hook me up but we had a whole miscommunication, and the stuff got left in the white house of all places...

Honestly because BL had a mandate to make lore about Imperials for a long time there's a woeful lack of Xenos focused lore. Tyranids its somewhat understandable as they don't have a "voice", but every other Xenos force has very few books.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Karol wrote:
But xenos and non imperials get models all the time. Necron got a new model line, tyranids, eldar get new models every edition, Votan came out and new primaris orks got models too, as well as GSC. If more xeno armies were to get models, then all the IG, Ad Mecha and SoB would have to lose their release windows.

No, they should get more windows allocated from codex primaris leutnant, that is the difference.

Xeno races generaly get more models then marines. How many IF, IH or CF dedicated marines do we get per edition? In 8th and 9th, it was considered lucky to get 2 characters. On top of that xeno and non imperial races are finished in one or two waves, making it possible for someone to have an army ready under 4-5 years. While with marines, the players are waiting for bikers and jump pack characters for the 3ed edition now. Same with corresponding units for those to join too. And those are general units, not faction specific marine units. Also I am not sure how would you want to get more windows. An edition has a pre set lenght and the number of releases is known more or less in advance.

Karol in that hot and spicy alternate reality as usual where there's gak like Primaris Orks.

how are the big orks called. If I call them big, no one will know which I am talking about. But primaris orks everyone knows which ones I am talking about. Got a new character, new unit, two versions of a mega hog, new trike leader, buggies and a new box of boys followed by commandos and character for them. Meanwhile A RG or WS player got maybe a character for his army? My dudes got 1 character model in 2 edition, got no new model in 8th. Meanwhile something like eldar got banshees, their big character, the pirates and characters with off shot games. CF didn't even get a character, they litteraly got nothing just a bad set of rules.

What do models releases have to do with the lore?

Story wise I can see the point of imperial focused books but it would be nice the the aliens weren’t just characterless enemies.

The catachan book that came out recently was as much an ORK book as catachan one. It was better than I thought.

And Karol, they are called Beastsnaggas.

Karol wrote:


Xeno races generaly get more models then marines. How many IF, IH or CF dedicated marines do we get per edition?

So Eldar getting plastic updates to 30 year old models means that somehow IF/IH/CF doesnt count as having gotten those kits? :

Termis
Primaris Lt #200
Termi librarian (that you can also use in your GK)
Biologis
Termi captain
Sternguard
Ballistus
Infernus
Desolation
Brutalis
Gravis captain
Primaris ancient
Primaris company champ
Heavy intercessors
10 names characters
Primaris Chaplain
Assault intercessors
Bladeguard vets
Erads
Techmarine
ATV
Firestrike
Bunker
Gladiator (x3)
Storm speeder (x3)
Bladeguard LT/Captain/Ancient
Judiciar
Chaplain
Outriders

vs Eldars getting :

Autarch on foot (update of an existing kit)
Rangers (update of an existing kit)
Shroud runners (actually new)
guardians x2(update)
Maugan ra (update)
dark reapers (update)
warlocks( updates)
Shining spears(update)
avatar (update)
corsairs (new)


(oh and lets disregard that BT getting unique stuff is a thing too)

You really gotta stop with your stupid anti-eldar mind. You keep acting selfish and crying about your GK not getting new models but then turn around and basically spit on people that play other armies than you that also want model releases.
Is eldar OP right now? Yes. Doesn't change the fact that they havnt got a meaningful model expansion since rogue trader


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

Meanwhile A RG or WS player got maybe a character for his army? My dudes got 1 character model in 2 edition, got no new model in 8th. Meanwhile something like eldar got banshees, their big character, the pirates and characters with off shot games. CF didn't even get a character, they litteraly got nothing just a bad set of rules.

FFS

RG and WS are SPACE MARINES

Litterally every single SM release is playable in those armies.

Whens the last time Iyanden/Mephrit/Rusted Cog/Viorla/Black Heart/Leviathan/etc got a subfaction specific model?

And yeah, it sucks that GK aren't more supported models by GW and they totally should get more than one names character every two edition.

Banshees were released in 8th ed, and was simply a model update from gakky finecast ones. Their big character, you mean the Avatar? The midget that was smaller than a space marine before? Yeah, another model update. "Pirates" (Corsairs) were new, but clearly just an add-on from Killteam.

CF ARENT AN ARMY, theyre a <removed - please do not circumvent the language filter like that again> SUBFACTION.

Oh and you know what, i've seen plenty of people get the Leviathan marines and make modernised GK out of them, the Termis are pretty easy to convert, so are the characters (and you could even do the ballistus -> dreadnought conversion too)

By Karols metric there were zero models for Orks in 8th, there were only 8 kits for Evil Sunz. In 9th there were about 8 for Snakebites and 3 for Orks.

Andykp wrote:
What do models releases have to do with the lore?

I guess GW will usually try to put them in some context, like in the whole imperial armour series and it's stories (well, Taros was not the best if you ask me, sad the imperials were too idle and the desert/guerrilla aspect of tallarns wasn't properly staged but i digress). So new fig are likely to call for more lore. I don't say they necessarily do. I say there may be a good chance that both go together.

I'd also imagine the other way round is possible, something appearing in the lore and thus getting models, but aside from characters, no exemple comes to mind so this is just a hypothesis.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

Andykp wrote:
What do models releases have to do with the lore?

I guess GW will usually try to put them in some context, like in the whole imperial armour series and it's stories (well, Taros was not the best if you ask me, sad the imperials were too idle and the desert/guerrilla aspect of tallarns wasn't properly staged but i digress). So new fig are likely to call for more lore. I don't say they necessarily do. I say there may be a good chance that both go together.

I'd also imagine the other way round is possible, something appearing in the lore and thus getting models, but aside from characters, no exemple comes to mind so this is just a hypothesis.

Oh I get that, I meant that the discussion was about the lore and how to deal with what you don’t like and became moaning that marines got too many releases.

aye sorry, I misunderstood!

The /s tag is important to avoid big miscommunications. :-D

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
By Karols metric there were zero models for Orks in 8th, there were only 8 kits for Evil Sunz. In 9th there were about 8 for Snakebites and 3 for Orks.

Did snake bites have separate books for them edition after edition the way DA, SW or BA had? They didn't. This makes them a subfaction in an ork codex. Marines may, through GW greed, have to buy 2 books to run one army, but those chapters were and still are separate factions. Again, even if you exclude marines from this comperation. Orks, necron, DE, eldar, Votan etc got tens of models. Meanwhile something like my dudes got 1 special character in 2 editions. BA got a special character and an Lt. SW got a special character, IF and RG got a special character. Only DA got multiple characters and BT are the only marine faction that got a partial faction model reset. But even if those were to be counted it is still fewer models, then those release for xeno and non imperial factions.

Banshees were released in 8th ed, and was simply a model update from gakky finecast ones. Their big character, you mean the Avatar? The midget that was smaller than a space marine before? Yeah, another model update. "Pirates" (Corsairs) were new, but clearly just an add-on from Killteam.

The last model update for my dudes was in 5th ed. Since then eldar got. Multiple characters, new tanks, Wright Knights, new walkers, jetbikers, special characters, new aspect warrior models, the avatar, terrain, pirates etc Every edition they get new models. And those often come with updated powerful rules. Marines have to wait for the end of an edition and their 2.0 books to have fun playing their army, and even then it is often a thing for only a small part of the marine factions. CF got nothing CF in 8th and 9th. I don't think they were given anything in prior editions to that either. And with the game being shaped in the way that the same units are best played as one faction, who cares if there is unit X release and technicaly your faction could use it, when it is not an optimal way to play. Then that unit may as well not exist. And unlike armies like eldar marines can't just slam 400pts of ineffcient units, because they neither get powerful enough rules or low enough points costs to do that. On top of that even for armies like ultramarines or their clones , and assuming they want to use primaris, the unit options exists, but are so bad that no one wants to run them.

Take the leviathan box. The dread is bad, the flamer dudes are attrocious, the termintors are okey as are the sternguard, but it is better to take desolators, the librarian and terminator captin have no units to be run in the meta right now and the cpt has a horrible weapon load out, the phobos Lt costs like an assasin, but is a worse version of him or her.
This leaves box with the gravis apothecary, which is okeyish considering gravis are okeyish. The prior starter set was very similar. Full of models that never got used. Who used sentry guns, bunkers or the blade guard ancient in 9th ed?

Castellan Crowe was 5th edition?

Karol wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
By Karols metric there were zero models for Orks in 8th, there were only 8 kits for Evil Sunz. In 9th there were about 8 for Snakebites and 3 for Orks.

Did snake bites have separate books for them edition after edition the way DA, SW or BA had? They didn't. This makes them a subfaction in an ork codex. Marines may, through GW greed, have to buy 2 books to run one army, but those chapters were and still are separate factions. Again, even if you exclude marines from this comperation. Orks, necron, DE, eldar, Votan etc got tens of models. Meanwhile something like my dudes got 1 special character in 2 editions. BA got a special character and an Lt. SW got a special character, IF and RG got a special character. Only DA got multiple characters and BT are the only marine faction that got a partial faction model reset. But even if those were to be counted it is still fewer models, then those release for xeno and non imperial factions.

Banshees were released in 8th ed, and was simply a model update from gakky finecast ones. Their big character, you mean the Avatar? The midget that was smaller than a space marine before? Yeah, another model update. "Pirates" (Corsairs) were new, but clearly just an add-on from Killteam.

The last model update for my dudes was in 5th ed. Since then eldar got. Multiple characters, new tanks, Wright Knights, new walkers, jetbikers, special characters, new aspect warrior models, the avatar, terrain, pirates etc Every edition they get new models. And those often come with updated powerful rules. Marines have to wait for the end of an edition and their 2.0 books to have fun playing their army, and even then it is often a thing for only a small part of the marine factions. CF got nothing CF in 8th and 9th. I don't think they were given anything in prior editions to that either. And with the game being shaped in the way that the same units are best played as one faction, who cares if there is unit X release and technicaly your faction could use it, when it is not an optimal way to play. Then that unit may as well not exist. And unlike armies like eldar marines can't just slam 400pts of ineffcient units, because they neither get powerful enough rules or low enough points costs to do that. On top of that even for armies like ultramarines or their clones , and assuming they want to use primaris, the unit options exists, but are so bad that no one wants to run them.

Take the leviathan box. The dread is bad, the flamer dudes are attrocious, the termintors are okey as are the sternguard, but it is better to take desolators, the librarian and terminator captin have no units to be run in the meta right now and the cpt has a horrible weapon load out, the phobos Lt costs like an assasin, but is a worse version of him or her.
This leaves box with the gravis apothecary, which is okeyish considering gravis are okeyish. The prior starter set was very similar. Full of models that never got used. Who used sentry guns, bunkers or the blade guard ancient in 9th ed?

In your first post you mentioned WS, CF and Ravenguard, which are pretty much comparable to other factions' subfactions.
DA, SW and Blood Angels are a little different, though since 7th already nearly every SM release was usable by them as well.
Grey Knights are their own thing and always were, historically they have stronger ties to Sisters and Agents of the Imperium than to other Space Marines concerning Codizes. When people talk SM they practically don’t mean Grey Knights.
So yes, Grey Knights don’t profit from the Space Marine favouritism GW has. Same way Death Guard didn't get anything out of the CSM releases in 9th. I don’t know why you hate eldar so much and defend SM, when your faction is in a similar position modelwize like Dark Eldar and GW didn't even throw you a bone with a GK Upgrade kit for any of the endless Primaris.

Also, it doesn't work when you treat SM as at least 6 factions(SM, SW, DA,BA, BT, GK) but throw factions that share no units at all (Orks, Necrons, Eldar,Tyranids) together as one "xeno faction".

For what it's worth Karol, there is a part of me that's hopeful for new GK Termies this ed... I just think if GW wants to push Termies, they need to lean in and do it right.

I'm also hoping for an Agents dex with model support. I don't know how you feel about the fluff of GK as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus, but I tend to see Inquisition models as releases for the armies of their Chambers Militant.

Brickfix wrote:
Even if most of the books about space marines show them as noble knights protecting the weak citizens, the life of the ordinary human in M41 is still absolutely awful. It shows that the hero can be an noble and courageous as possible, it still doesn't change anything for the average human because the system is oppressive. And nothing can change it.

It may not be directly written in any novel, but it's still there. 40k for me is a (exaggerated) warning where humanity can go wrong, and I believe it conveys that message pretty well. All while allowing some power fantasy about generic super soldiers, immortal robots and technology mixed with magic. And it's still a sales vehicle in the end, so some stuff has to be taken with some (or a lot of) salt.

Well, see for me it's both. It's a fictional setting with some slight satirical undertones that have been gradually scraped away over time. I can't say that I don't enjoy, like, or even admire some of the characters in the Imperium (The Emperor of Man is probably my favorite character in the setting due to how morally complex he is and just alien the authors portray him (I don't like it when they make him stupid though and insinuate he wanted the Heresy to happen or something). I don't think every planet within the Imperium is bad for a citizen to live on, but like 75-90% of the planets are either: absolute gak, barely skirting by on scraps, or are roleplaying there favorite dystopian regime. With all that said, I don't think they're the good
guys, they're clearly not.

However, the authors tendency to depict not just Space Marines, but all of the Imperial Military as "just, righteous, assailed on all sides, and even morally correct in their actions" is a little too much for me too comfortably call it a genuine satire.

Too me it's a business. Just like every other franchise, whatever sub-text or message they were trying to push was lost amongst the development of GW into the more corporate entity that it is nowadays. You start to see the tonal shift around the 3rd edition of 40k with darker art, stories, more grimderp/less grimdark, and an overall more "realistic" aesthetic to the setting as as whole. It allowed a lot of people to take the somewhat absurd elements of the setting, more seriously and interpret them from a more creativity-based lense and less of a dour, political thrashing POV.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Castellan Crowe was 5th edition?

No, but he massively outscales the other standard Grey Knight units. Nobody wants squats in their space marine army. In fact, scale is such a massive issue that the most recent factions (3rd edition and onward) are the only ones who're scaled in a correct manner and the majority of factions are incorrectly proportioned to how they're supposed to be lorewise.

Look at the standard Rhino and tell me with a straight face 12 of the new MK6 marines could fit inside of it. The Deimos-pattern Rhino is a little better because battle-brothers can hang off it's sides, but still it's very small.

It’s still a model update to GK.

Give Karol a break. He has every right to be salty given Grey Knights position as the Drukhari of the Imperium when it comes to rules and models. That is to say, no Imperial Faction has seen less models (ooh, model update of a useless special character) nor more of a reduction in units and wargear options (5 nemesis force weapons now share 1 profile) on the remaining units since Grey Knights in their glory days.

 alextroy wrote:
Give Karol a break. He has every right to be salty given Grey Knights position as the Drukhari of the Imperium when it comes to rules and models. That is to say, no Imperial Faction has seen less models (ooh, model update of a useless special character) nor more of a reduction in units and wargear options (5 nemesis force weapons now share 1 profile) on the remaining units since Grey Knights in their glory days.

no, i won't give him a break, his discourse is egoistical and uninformed (and oh so repeated in every thread, no matter the topic).

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Give Karol a break. He has every right to be salty given Grey Knights position as the Drukhari of the Imperium when it comes to rules and models. That is to say, no Imperial Faction has seen less models (ooh, model update of a useless special character) nor more of a reduction in units and wargear options (5 nemesis force weapons now share 1 profile) on the remaining units since Grey Knights in their glory days.

no, i won't give him a break, his discourse is egoistical and uninformed (and oh so repeated in every thread, no matter the topic).

Yeah, Karol has made their huge biases known and NOBODY should give them any quarter.
They were sold a gakky army in 8th by someone in their hellscape of a meta(taking full advantage) and play against (anecdotally) full on donkey-cave players. They chose to double down on that mindset and began projecting it onto EVERY.SINGLE.THREAD, even after being informed that not everywhere is his level of Dante's Inferno.

@OP, as far as the righteous Impérium is concerned, keep in minds that the lore is told via an in universe character voice of sorts.

This implies that at first glance, the universe is no more satirical or absurd. Only over the top

But, it also implies, one you understand the GW trick "everything is canon, everything is not canon, this is all in universe chronicles", that you can read the Imperium as the absurd pile of lie and horror it is.

Your right in your statement though, I'm just pointing how your statement perfectly meets what we've determined earlier in the thread before it became a fistfight with Karol.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
When people say "old fluff wss better as it showed how bad the Imperium was", which exact books are people thinking of?
I'd really like to have some examples. Not because I doubt the claim but because I'd like to read these books
Usually I find 40K fluff just not that deep. It's more about action, less about thinking.

I'm on my phone so I can't give precise details, but here are some books and concepts you might be interested in
Firstly the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books are good. The heroes aren't heroic, and you get a ground level view of the Imperium. And they are definitely more 'thinky' than other books. Similarly some of the early books in the Horus Heresy show how the Imperium is not the good guys. I'm particularly thinking of tr Imperium's interactions with smaller human factions, like the Interex or the Diaspora (sp?). You may have to Google to find the books- wikis are your friend. Similarly there is a mechanicum series which involves characters from the age of technology. Priests of Mars trilogy. Haven't read it, but I know those characters are not fond of modern humanity. At all.

The Warhammer horror series is also fairly low level, so may be good. But I haven't read them either.

 JNAProductions wrote:
It’s still a model update to GK.

That doesn't look well with the rest of the miniature range. This is a problem with every power-armored army (save MAYBE Sisters and Primaris). Everything's out of scale with one another and makes your army look really goofy on the tabletop. The
transport capacity on vehicles has also been raised, so now a tiny little metal box will spit out a horde of power armor and you're left wondering how the laws of physics haven't been broken yet. Trust me GW knows this, they just don't wanna shell out
the dosh for new molds and also want to profit off of their existing range already. Otherwise, why would they make MK6 and Terminators bigger in the last 2-4 years?

It's sad when your only decent model ranges are a handful of Imperial factions (Knights, AdMech, and Guard), Daemons (really pushing it though with the ancient 4th edition sculpts), Dark Eldar (suffers from the same problems that the Daemons do), Necrons, and Tyranids/Genestealer Cults. I'd buy a gak ton of armies and models, if GW would get there scale situation under control.