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 Admiral Valerian wrote:

EDIT: You know, I'm starting to think one reason why 40k is losing fans/players to Warmachine and other TT games is because its too grimdark.

Maybe, though I doubt it. Most such "heretics", myself included, still love the hell out of the fluff and general setting (and even the models, although some are far too ornate of late). We mostly play those games because they are far, far better games, and their companies, although far from perfect, are far more open with the community and aren't such humongous, pompous dicks.

I would like to see the lion wake up. (And just because he wakes up in canon doesnt mean any rules have to be changed) DA are still basically a legion so it seems like something is going on...maybe he is already awake but understands the trouble that would be started by revealing himself. Maybe he gave the order for a Supreme Grand Master so when he finally reveals himself he will have a legion at his back.

jareddm wrote:

ADB has joked that he really wished he could write a love story between the scions of two navigator houses and all the political intrigue that would revolve around it. But that GW would never allow such a book. Personally, I thought the idea sounded awesome.

What a crap idea. This Warhammer 40K not mills and boon.

 beef wrote:

jareddm wrote:

ADB has joked that he really wished he could write a love story between the scions of two navigator houses and all the political intrigue that would revolve around it. But that GW would never allow such a book. Personally, I thought the idea sounded awesome.

What a crap idea. This Warhammer 40K not mills and boon.

Well, since the usual storyidea for 40k books seems to be either "generic marine, ( optionaly smoldering with generic rage ), does awesome stuff" or "genery band of plucky guardsmen does awesome stuff", i think
Bowden's idea could be given a chance. After all, it can't get much worse

 KingDeath wrote:

 beef wrote:

jareddm wrote:

ADB has joked that he really wished he could write a love story between the scions of two navigator houses and all the political intrigue that would revolve around it. But that GW would never allow such a book. Personally, I thought the idea sounded awesome.

What a crap idea. This Warhammer 40K not mills and boon.

Well, since the usual storyidea for 40k books seems to be either "generic marine, ( optionaly smoldering with generic rage ), does awesome stuff" or "genery band of plucky guardsmen does awesome stuff", i think
Bowden's idea could be given a chance. After all, it can't get much worse

I think the key is variety. Warhammer has one of the coolest worlds but it does not have the best stories. One of the core necessities of any story is having someone to root for. It's absolutely great that they have stories with anti-heroes but it starts to stagnate when you have no good guys or at least no really likable/human characters. Look at Game of Thrones. That gak is pretty damn grimdark. One of main characters has her husband betrayed and killed, she thinks all her children are murdered, and then she watches her only remaining son killed right in front of her, not sacrificing himself but being back stabbed because one of the other characters is a complete donkey-cave and felt he'd been slighted. Then she becomes a zombie serial killer who leads a cult that kills innocent people. The series most popular character is mutilated, emotionally traumatized, and shitted upon on a regular basis. But it's also a massive literary success because you have characters to support and people still do good things and joke around. 40k has an incredible story to tell but no one has told it yet.

I agree about the variety. What a story is all about is not as important as it being well written and fits into the world - so if an acclaimed author thinks he could do a cool book about X, then by all means, why not let him? It will appeal to someone. Not every novel out there has to pander the same few focus groups.

On the other hand, I do agree that it could be a liability in terms of financial return, but from how I understand novels to work, the author carries most of the risk.

 Lynata wrote:
I agree about the variety. What a story is all about is not as important as it being well written and fits into the world - so if an acclaimed author thinks he could do a cool book about X, then by all means, why not let him? It will appeal to someone. Not every novel out there has to pander the same few focus groups.

On the other hand, I do agree that it could be a liability in terms of financial return, but from how I understand novels to work, the author carries most of the risk.

Sad to say, GW doesn't agree.

 beef wrote:

jareddm wrote:

ADB has joked that he really wished he could write a love story between the scions of two navigator houses and all the political intrigue that would revolve around it. But that GW would never allow such a book. Personally, I thought the idea sounded awesome.

What a crap idea. This Warhammer 40K not mills and boon.

Instead they all read like a Sven Hassel book, not sure which is worse.

 Lynata wrote:
I agree about the variety. What a story is all about is not as important as it being well written and fits into the world - so if an acclaimed author thinks he could do a cool book about X, then by all means, why not let him? It will appeal to someone. Not every novel out there has to pander the same few focus groups.

On the other hand, I do agree that it could be a liability in terms of financial return, but from how I understand novels to work, the author carries most of the risk.

And I would think the massive potential of broadening their appeal would outweigh the risk. I mean you don't have to love grimdark to think 40K is fething badass. It genuinely one of if not the best space fantasy worlds out there. I understand that some people would be upset and I totally get why they would be. But they would just ignore that author. Meanwhile the new guy could bring in new fans like myself who have stopped buying most 40K novels because they already have enough bolter porn.

 Shlazaor wrote:
I understand that some people would be upset and I totally get why they would be. But they would just ignore that author.

I agree.

I mean hell, certain people already try to get away with claiming there's no homosexual characters in the setting despite the fact that there have been several... by simply ignoring their existence.

A book about a love story where Human's or Eldar's love motivates them to do badass things can both be very epic and fit within 40k.

 Melissia wrote:


I mean hell, certain people already try to get away with claiming there's no homosexual characters in the setting despite the fact that there have been several... by simply ignoring their existence.

For example...???

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I mean hell, certain people already try to get away with claiming there's no homosexual characters in the setting despite the fact that there have been several... by simply ignoring their existence.

For example...???

Grifen and Magot from the Cain series (a consistent couple over the decades that Cain served), then there was Ian Watson's books, with the gay astropath and navigator and homoeroticism galore, and it's mentioned about some side characters in the Ravenor series as well, and in a few other places.

The Imperium has bigger problems to deal with. Like witches, heretics, xenophiles, etc.

Or, to be more on topic-- Dark Angels and the constant bs they pull off

^ Touche...
Waaaittt I have one - Camille Shivani IIRC?
And DA are only half gay

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:


-There are Fallen who actually feel guilty for what they have done and they decided to hind among the Human population and redeem themselves by helping out others. This is a little stupid to me because everybody can recognize 8 feet tall giant that is wide as two or three Humans. It's not surprising they found one very quickly among the ordinary population.

You're right. It's obvious everyone knows they are a traitor marine from a civil war that occurred 10,000 years ago. I bet people are constantly reporting sightings of these Fallen to the Dark Angels as everyone knows the Dark Angels are looking for the Fallen. It's a very well known fact throughout the Imperium.

 purplefood wrote:

You're right. It's obvious everyone knows they are a traitor marine from a civil war that occurred 10,000 years ago. I bet people are constantly reporting sightings of these Fallen to the Dark Angels as everyone knows the Dark Angels are looking for the Fallen. It's a very well known fact throughout the Imperium.

That's not the point - the point is that it is very hard to hide among ordinary Humans. Especially when Dark Angels Librarians can sense Fallen exiting the warp and then they send spies among the local population to report if they see a unusually tall and wide Human. There is a story in new codex: the Fallen appeared and hide among Humans, few days later Humans got attacked by Eldar. Dark Angels saved them and picked him up right after the battle. He was able to hide just for a several days, this fact alone proves how silly is to hide among ordinary Humans.

 purplefood wrote:

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:


-There are Fallen who actually feel guilty for what they have done and they decided to hind among the Human population and redeem themselves by helping out others. This is a little stupid to me because everybody can recognize 8 feet tall giant that is wide as two or three Humans. It's not surprising they found one very quickly among the ordinary population.

You're right. It's obvious everyone knows they are a traitor marine from a civil war that occurred 10,000 years ago. I bet people are constantly reporting sightings of these Fallen to the Dark Angels as everyone knows the Dark Angels are looking for the Fallen. It's a very well known fact throughout the Imperium.

And there are none 8 ft tall abominations in the hive cities, not to mention whole galaxy of bio twisted spawn where they can hide....

So what, they are capable of telling, unerringly and amongst all the millions of ships that enter and exit the warp every day in the Imperium, which ones are housing the Fallen?

I don't buy that...

 Melissia wrote:
So what, they are capable of telling, unerringly and amongst all the millions of ships that enter and exit the warp every day in the Imperium, which ones are housing the Fallen?

I don't buy that...

They're psykers. It doesn't have to make sense. Maybe they lock on to the gene-seed's signature? Gene-seed is ultimately derived from the Emperor, so there might be some sort of psychic bs going on or something like that.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
They're psykers. It doesn't have to make sense.

It has to make sense within 40k's own system for psychic powers. And even Eldar diviners are not that consistently precise, despite being more skilled, more experienced, and more powerful than librarians.

They'd eventually fail, allowing a few to pass through their nets-- it's the nature of psychic powers that they are not perfect by any means, they're influenced by the randomness of the warp.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

You're right. It's obvious everyone knows they are a traitor marine from a civil war that occurred 10,000 years ago. I bet people are constantly reporting sightings of these Fallen to the Dark Angels as everyone knows the Dark Angels are looking for the Fallen. It's a very well known fact throughout the Imperium.

That's not the point - the point is that it is very hard to hide among ordinary Humans. Especially when Dark Angels Librarians can sense Fallen exiting the warp and then they send spies among the local population to report if they see a unusually tall and wide Human. There is a story in new codex: the Fallen appeared and hide among Humans, few days later Humans got attacked by Eldar. Dark Angels saved them and picked him up right after the battle. He was able to hide just for a several days, this fact alone proves how silly is to hide among ordinary Humans.

Like hell it isn't hard.
It's an entire damn galaxy.
Even if they narrowed it down to a single planet with no one but the Fallen on they'd have a hell of a time finding him if he didn't want to be found.

 Melissia wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
They're psykers. It doesn't have to make sense.

It has to make sense within 40k's own system for psychic powers. And even Eldar diviners are not that consistently precise, despite being more skilled, more experienced, and more powerful than librarians.

Human psykers (or the more powerful and talented ones) arguably have the edge in raw power over even Eldar psykers. Maybe they do lock on to the gene-seed's psychic signature. If you can lock on to something, then it would or rather should be more reliable than just randomly throwing a bunch of Wraithbone runes and trying to decipher a meaning/gain a vision from the resulting psychic effect.

Lock on to the geneseed? I get what you are saying but how does one "lock on to a geneseed"? A wizard did it is not a good answer.

I think we can all agree there's no reasonable way for Dark Angels to find a member of the Fallen who doesn't want to be found.

 Shlazaor wrote:
Lock on to the geneseed? I get what you are saying but how does one "lock on to a geneseed"? A wizard did it is not a good answer.

A tingling in the special sense all touched by the warp has, and maybe they suffer a vision of the heresy committed during that dark age. At least that's my interpretation of the Librarians.

As opposed to the untold quadrillions of others that have been touched by the warp in some way or other (IE, everyone who isn't a blank)?

 purplefood wrote:
I think we can all agree there's no reasonable way for Dark Angels to find a member of the Fallen who doesn't want to be found.

Page 10 of new Dark Angels codex: Dark Angels Librarians can sense their psychic signatures for a limited amount of time when they arrive in real space again. For that limited amount of time they can probably nailed it down to a system, maybe even a planet. It is then when they send Deathwing or other available forces to capture them, that explains how they found the Fallen hiding among Humans population several days after he appeared.
The only thing I am not sure is the strenght of their sense, I highly doubt that they can monitor entire Imperium. But his story tells us that they can monitor quite a lot, either they have stations on some remote parts of the galaxy or their psychic sense can cover as much as half of astronomicon.

 Melissia wrote:
As opposed to the untold quadrillions of others that have been touched by the warp in some way or other (IE, everyone who isn't a blank)?

Yeah but at least the Fallen Ones have the memory or at least the psychic imprint of their actions during the Fall of Caliban which the Dark Angels Librarians can sense. That's how I imagine psykers would work. And I add they are attuned to it due to their Primarch. Stranger things have happened, like the Blood Angels thinking they are Sanguinius. You can buy into it or not at your own accord.

 purplefood wrote:

Even if they narrowed it down to a single planet with no one but the Fallen on they'd have a hell of a time finding him if he didn't want to be found.

Just nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Great thread, lots of interesting reading. But the post that caught my eye was :

 Lynata wrote:

Bobthehero wrote:Death Korps, 100% pure quality never faltering human lemmings.

My mind just auto-conjured an image of 8-bit pixel Guardsmen running across a two-dimensional battlefield, whilst the player is putting down trenches, ladders and Commissars. "How many Krieg Guardsmen can you guide into the breach?"

Somebody turn this into a game!

Taken me most of today, and the graphics aren't mine, but I present to you, the first level of In To The Breach!
You have 2 Commissars, just click to add them!

http://breach.eu01.aws.af.cm/

It's very much a prototype, but I might consider developing it more!

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
I think we can all agree there's no reasonable way for Dark Angels to find a member of the Fallen who doesn't want to be found.

Page 10 of new Dark Angels codex: Dark Angels Librarians can sense their psychic signatures for a limited amount of time when they arrive in real space again. For that limited amount of time they can probably nailed it down to a system, maybe even a planet. It is then when they send Deathwing or other available forces to capture them, that explains how they found the Fallen hiding among Humans population several days after he appeared.
The only thing I am not sure is the strenght of their sense, I highly doubt that they can monitor entire Imperium. But his story tells us that they can monitor quite a lot, either they have stations on some remote parts of the galaxy or their psychic sense can cover as much as half of astronomicon.

And as Melissia said, that violates established psyker rules. 40k is full of inconsistent writing. That drives people away.