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Durza wrote:Or maybe they'll start behaving and use a regular codex like everyone else.

I spat coffee on my keyboard. Exalted.

I would love to see the story advance.
I doubt it will happen but it oculd be quite cool if they kill the emporer......

Prehaps the emporer dies and one of the primarchs comes back? It is certainly possible:

Codex Space Marines wrote:Pg 15 There are some, however, who claim the primarch's wounds do change. They say that Guilliman's body is slowly recovering and that his wounds show mysterious signs of healing.

It would make for some interesting plot development.
What would happen if the Imperium lost it's leader?
Who would they follow?
Would chaos take over?

RaptorsTallon wrote:I would love to see the story advance.
I doubt it will happen but it oculd be quite cool if they kill the emporer......

Games Workshop have created a hugely popular, million-unit selling setting, they are not going to muck about with it.

RaptorsTallon wrote:

Codex Space Marines wrote:Pg 15 There are some, however, who claim the primarch's wounds do change. They say that Guilliman's body is slowly recovering and that his wounds show mysterious signs of healing.

It would make for some interesting plot development.
What would happen if the Imperium lost it's leader?
Who would they follow?
Would chaos take over?

/Fluff Cap On\

It wont happen. Considering the Golden Throne has been online for 10,000 years and is only now starting to weaken, its probably got a few centuries left in it at least. Also, in the name of freedom of interpretation, I took Guilliman's regeneration as messianic propaganda issued in the darkest of times to give hope to the Ultramarines and Imperium as a whole.

Though if we play this what-if game, I'm always drawn to the religious split over the Emperor's future, namely how many conservatives fear the Resurectionists trying to bring back the Emperor. The Imperium is so rotten, so stagnated I think any major upheval regarding its central government and in particular God and his sons would be catastrophic, regardless of intentions; civil wars, heresies, rebellion, millenarian nihilism, combined with ever growing xenos/Chaos threat. It adds to the bleak nature of the 40k universe for the better IMO. The Imperium is sinking and any major reforms at this point would probably only make things worse.

If 5th edition introduced anything "new" it did so with some of the fluff background in the rulebook (I'll leave codexes out of this for a moment) and the history of the Imperium. and what you got with the Imperium is clear proof of a rather cyclical pattern of behaviour - there are always "positive" periods where things go better and they start expanding, advancing, etc. but they reach a point where they start to contract again for whatever reason (running out of momentum, internal dissention, etc.) and things start collapsing inwards on itself.

We have also seen an Imperium that has almost fallen apart several times since the Heresy, has lost billions if not trillions of people (and pskyers - remember that BT bit and the loss of all those astropaths and millions of starships) and it still goes on. Its a big, sluggish, monolithic thing, but its also godawfully resilient no matter how much you break it up. In fact the only serious "issue" was the whole "the Golden throne can't be fixed no more" - and the implications of that are vague aside from being slightly ominous.

Even if Guilliman really is healing, it means nothing. 10,000 years later, it still hasn't healed enough for them to even be able tell whether or not it is healing. So apparently it will take another million years before we would see any real progress.

Orblivion wrote:Even if Guilliman really is healing, it means nothing. 10,000 years later, it still hasn't healed enough for them to even be able tell whether or not it is healing. So apparently it will take another million years before we would see any real progress.

Or his healing is like a capacitor... 10k years of build up and then one morning the wound is gone (read the descriptions of primarch deaths... some serious energy is pent up inside those guys)

BTW: I don't believe this IS how it works, just a somewhat plausible theory

THINGS I WOULD LOVE TO SEE HAPPEN (but almost definitely won't):

1) Failing of the Golden Throne becomes more noticeable. Warp travel starts becoming more and more risky as the Astronomican fades, the Emperor's Tarot is failing, and worlds continue to lose contact with each other.

2) Progress of the current Black Crusade. Does Abbadon finally make it past Cadia, end his streak of failure, and actually start crusading? Or does Cadia push his forces back into the Eye. If they do, is Cadia strong enough to resists another attack? And what about the Necron pylons on Cadia that are keeping the Eye in check?

3) What's Ghazzy been up to since Armaggedon? He must be up to something big.

4) Return of or word about some of the surviving(?) Primarchs. Possible return of Corax, Russ, Khan, the Lion, and/or Vulkan. Also what about Luther and Cypher?

5) Necrons waking up en masse and showing the galaxy what a huge threat they actually are (this will most likely happen). Maybe some sort of alliance of the "good" races to repel them?

6) Word on Eldrad. Is he really dead? Is he alive in the spirit matrix of the Blackstone Fortress? He does still have some active spirit stones, after all.

7) The Tau continuing to expand until they actually pose a significant threat to the Imperium. Maybe some more ally races.

8) Tyrannids come back to Macragge with a vengeance. Ultramarines get knocked down a few pegs and end up homeless and fleet based, start actively crusading like the Black Templars.

That's all I can think of now, but I think seeing a few of these come to pass would be really cool.

Durza wrote:

gabrielhorus wrote:Three facts:

The Imperium is really taking some heavy hits.
The Xenos and Traitors are exposing themselves to the Imperial counter attack.
6th edition will be the most bloody yet.

The fact that the Imperium is being attacked on all sides means that any counter attack would simply weaken their defenses elsewhere.

The point is that the Chaos and xenos are exposing themselves. And How.
Chaos: Trapping the vast majority of their forces on Cadia. Imperial counter attack could severely deplete Chaos legions.
Tau: Starting to expand before recovering from the space marine crusade against them. They will have too few warriors to hold the worlds and the Imperium will knock them back further.
Eldar: Letting the locations of several craftworlds slip.

Chaos have only got Abaddon's forces on Cadia. Typhus is home free, and there isn't much word on what Ahriman or Lucius are up to.