Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

CpatTom wrote:I have nothing against impromptu alliances. I think they are realistic to consider when two forces face an enemy that out classes them. That being said, Cron's were not a force that would be interested in Alliance of any sort prior to the change in fluff. As the nids sit now, I dont reasonably see how they could be in an alliance either, and I leave that choice up to the Nid players, cause Im not the biggest nid fan anyway.

I'm just going to quote the passage in question for clarity, because apparently I just can't leave this one alone:

Blood Angels Codex, 5th Edition wrote:955.M41 The Gehenna Campaign.
Commander Dante and the 3rd Company battle against the Necron Legions of the Silent King amidst the dusty wastes of Gehenna. For three weeks, neither side can seize the upper hand, with Dante's tactical brilliance stretched to its limits in countering the time-space manipulations of the Silent King. The stalemate is broken only when a Tyranid splinter fleet enters orbit, forcing the two armies to break off hostilities and fight the common foe. The impromptu alliance proves to be the Tyranids' undoing. Following the final battle at Devil's Crag, Dante and the Silent King go their separate ways, both forces now too battleworn to guarantee victory over the other, and, at least for the Blood Angels, the idea of turning on those they had so recently fought alongside, a rather distasteful one.

The way I read it, there's plenty of room for the Necrons to be emotionless here. For all we can see, following the Tyranid attack, the Silent King was making the mathematically superior decision, which happened to be the same decision as Dante-- but only the Blood Angels attached an emotional significance to it. Their sense of honor colored the events to give them a feeling that there had been something approximating an alliance-- the Silent King likely felt nothing at all. While it's tenuous, it could even be read as an example of how emotional humans and other organic beings are compared to the cold, unfeeling Necrons.

Whatever the reason, the moral of the story is not that Matthew Ward writes traditionally hateful races as Best Friends Forever, but that the Blood Angels are Emperordamn heretics who foster positive feelings for The Alien and should be cleansed instantly and with great violence.

As for Tyranids... I've already made it clear here and elsewhere that I really don't like them, so I don't have a lot more to say beyond "I would enjoy it if someone could find a good way to get rid of them or destroy them in sufficient numbers to make them less of an unstoppable threat".

Ixion wrote:As for Tyranids... I've already made it clear here and elsewhere that I really don't like them, so I don't have a lot more to say beyond "I would enjoy it if someone could find a good way to get rid of them or destroy them in sufficient numbers to make them less of an unstoppable threat".

Heh, reading that, I've come to realise two things. One, you seem to expect the 40k universe to actually make sense (they haven't discovered photosynthesis - they don't need to, because 40k is all SCIENCE!, not science.) Two, you have a view of the Imperium that is only portrayed by the grunts (we can stop everything!), rather than the people that make decisions. Practically every threat in the galaxy can end the Imperium. The grunts are fed propaganda to fuel their courage against these horrors, the people issuing the propaganda know how hard the fight is, but it's better to fight than lay down and die.

Just look at the effort needed to stop incursions. Behemoth took a huge amount of effort, an entire sectors Navy and Guard as well as the Ultramarines entire chapter to stop. Kraken was stopped by an entire Craftworld and Eldar pirate fleet as well as the Ultramarines (again) and the same sectors Navy and Guard. They're not alone. Look ar Armageddon, a single planet. Multiple Space Marine chapters and regiments of Guard as well as fleets were needed to stop it. Look at the 13th Black Crusade. Unimaginiable resources were sent to stop it. The Imperium doesn't view the galaxy with anything other than fear.

The Tyranids are what the 40k universe needs. One of your criticisms was they are a faceless horde of bugs - that's entirely the point. It's a well trodden sci fi archetype, like every other race in 40k. Having a race of faceless, visceral enemies who want nothing more than to tear you to peices to fight emphasises the heroes and the heroics used to fight them, without blurring it with heroics from the faceless horde.

This is one of the reasons I didn't like the old Necrons. They occupied the same niche. They were a faceless horde of robots who just want to kill everything. They had the C'tan, but they weren't really a 'face' for the Necron race. The new fluff moved them away from this and focussed the faceless horde archetype right back on Tyranids. Then they gave them the Swarmlord, which was dumb, and gave them a face.

-Loki- wrote:The Tyranids are what the 40k universe needs. One of your criticisms was they are a faceless horde of bugs - that's entirely the point. It's a well trodden sci fi archetype, like every other race in 40k. Having a race of faceless, visceral enemies who want nothing more than to tear you to peices to fight emphasises the heroes and the heroics used to fight them, without blurring it with heroics from the faceless horde.

This is one of the reasons I didn't like the old Necrons. They occupied the same niche. They were a faceless horde of robots who just want to kill everything. They had the C'tan, but they weren't really a 'face' for the Necron race. The new fluff moved them away from this and focussed the faceless horde archetype right back on Tyranids. Then they gave them the Swarmlord, which was dumb, and gave them a face.

Someone has to be the alien (or robot, just beyond human comprehension), which I believe is what you are getting at. I'm not a Nid player, and if all the nids players wanted to be "distasteful" friends with Blood Angels, I'd be ok with that. Just I dont feel Chaos is really all that scary, not in the same vein as the nids (incomprehensible to the human mind). Chaos is seeded with emotion that can be felt and grappled with, when broken down into the basest natural components and reformed into a portion of the Hive Mind there is no resistance.

Anyway, I liked the Necrons and the Nids being the opposites of the same sort of coin, but the new Necron fluff allows for more variety in the creation of dynasties and all that, and new opportunities for creativity are always a good thing. So, basically, I wouldn't want the nids going all "human" psyche, but I don't play them, so my opinion on the matter is far less important than those who do.

Ixion wrote:The way I read it, there's plenty of room for the Necrons to be emotionless here. For all we can see, following the Tyranid attack, the Silent King was making the mathematically superior decision, which happened to be the same decision as Dante-- but only the Blood Angels attached an emotional significance to it. Their sense of honor colored the events to give them a feeling that there had been something approximating an alliance-- the Silent King likely felt nothing at all. While it's tenuous, it could even be read as an example of how emotional humans and other organic beings are compared to the cold, unfeeling Necrons.

Except that the Necrons now have a new outlook on (un)life. So now it's possibly not so unusual for the Silent King to show emotion.

Just I dont feel Chaos is really all that scary, not in the same vein as the nids (incomprehensible to the human mind). Chaos is seeded with emotion that can be felt and grappled with,

I think that's more the fault of GW. If they wanted to put some effort into it, they could make Chaos much more alien. Emphasize how alien and uncaring the Powers are and how the followers tend to be deluded idiots who think that their "gods" value the followers more than they actually do.

Eumerin wrote:I think that's more the fault of GW. If they wanted to put some effort into it, they could make Chaos much more alien. Emphasize how alien and uncaring the Powers are and how the followers tend to be deluded idiots who think that their "gods" value the followers more than they actually do.

Truth.
Here is to hoping the influx of Chaos that must surely be upon us will right this.

-Loki- wrote:Heh, reading that, I've come to realise two things. One, you seem to expect the 40k universe to actually make sense (they haven't discovered photosynthesis - they don't need to, because 40k is all SCIENCE!, not science.) Two, you have a view of the Imperium that is only portrayed by the grunts (we can stop everything!), rather than the people that make decisions. Practically every threat in the galaxy can end the Imperium. The grunts are fed propaganda to fuel their courage against these horrors, the people issuing the propaganda know how hard the fight is, but it's better to fight than lay down and die.

Just look at the effort needed to stop incursions. Behemoth took a huge amount of effort, an entire sectors Navy and Guard as well as the Ultramarines entire chapter to stop. Kraken was stopped by an entire Craftworld and Eldar pirate fleet as well as the Ultramarines (again) and the same sectors Navy and Guard. They're not alone. Look ar Armageddon, a single planet. Multiple Space Marine chapters and regiments of Guard as well as fleets were needed to stop it. Look at the 13th Black Crusade. Unimaginiable resources were sent to stop it. The Imperium doesn't view the galaxy with anything other than fear.

The Tyranids are what the 40k universe needs. One of your criticisms was they are a faceless horde of bugs - that's entirely the point. It's a well trodden sci fi archetype, like every other race in 40k. Having a race of faceless, visceral enemies who want nothing more than to tear you to peices to fight emphasises the heroes and the heroics used to fight them, without blurring it with heroics from the faceless horde.

This is one of the reasons I didn't like the old Necrons. They occupied the same niche. They were a faceless horde of robots who just want to kill everything. They had the C'tan, but they weren't really a 'face' for the Necron race. The new fluff moved them away from this and focussed the faceless horde archetype right back on Tyranids. Then they gave them the Swarmlord, which was dumb, and gave them a face.

First, let me thank you for taking a look at my article, and for coming up with a detailed response. Now, to dissect that response.

I'll be blunt; I'm biased in favor of the Imperium. I hate the fact that it's losing, so I continually try to find ways of making it better, to the point of ripping out hunks of their history and status quo. An Imperium that can't handle a few hundred alien invaders with blind enthusiasm and a prayer on their lips has no respect from me-- and when I say Imperium, I mean the whole thing, from Guardsmen up to Lord Inquisitors. The setting already has too much sad sack nonsense where everyone is going to die sucking their sidearm in a dark corner.

I am fully aware of all the fluff that can be cited to make a case for the Tyranids being inexorable. That was never my point; I'm not interested in how things are, so much as how they should be-- at least as the setting appears to me. I don't see any glory in holding back a tide of mindless monsters, not when there's so much more to be had by defeating an enemy as thinking and feeling as you are. The battles in 40K are not fought only with weapons, but with ideas, for from those come the motivation to fight. The Tyranids just want to eat everything, and that is boring. They are ants at a picnic, with nothing to offer philosophically, and scaling them up from billions to trillians into the quadrillions doesn't change that-- even the Orks have their Waaaagh! to give their lives purpose.

And before anyone asks, yes, I do sometimes question if I actually like 40K. I think the answer is yes, I do, but less like a verbose work of classic literature and more like a box of legos-- rather than a musty volume of long facts to be analyzed and memorized, a collection of rich, varied parts I can rip apart and slam together for my own amusement-- and I do realize what an unpopular stance that is.

CpatTom wrote:Someone has to be the alien (or robot, just beyond human comprehension), which I believe is what you are getting at. I'm not a Nid player, and if all the nids players wanted to be "distasteful" friends with Blood Angels, I'd be ok with that. Just I dont feel Chaos is really all that scary, not in the same vein as the nids (incomprehensible to the human mind). Chaos is seeded with emotion that can be felt and grappled with, when broken down into the basest natural components and reformed into a portion of the Hive Mind there is no resistance.

Probably a large part of my contentions are that I don't see the value of an unknowable, inhuman enemy in a setting like 40K. It's much easier to hate something that hates you back.

Eumerin wrote:Except that the Necrons now have a new outlook on (un)life. So now it's possibly not so unusual for the Silent King to show emotion.

True. And that just makes the persistent complaints about Necrons and Blood Angels having tea parties and pillow fights even more ridiculous.

Eumerin wrote:I think that's more the fault of GW. If they wanted to put some effort into it, they could make Chaos much more alien. Emphasize how alien and uncaring the Powers are and how the followers tend to be deluded idiots who think that their "gods" value the followers more than they actually do.

Chaos, as written, has a lot more in common with humans than any other race-- their history is directly bound up with that of the Imperium. Of course, I'm using "Chaos" to refer to the Chaos Space Marines and cultists, not the actual daemons and Chaos Gods. Those I could see as being more alien, but it would be hard to make them so without losing what they are now: crystallizations of everything that the Imperium sees as evil. In their pure form, they're leather-clad punks with mohawks and piercings listening to metal and wearing their pants too low, while curmudgeonly old Grampa Imperium angrily shakes his Power Cane while gumming his Lightning Dentures and yells at them to get off his cosmic lawn. Only with more people dying.

Ixion wrote:First, let me thank you for taking a look at my article, and for coming up with a detailed response. Now, to dissect that response.

I'll be blunt; I'm biased in favor of the Imperium. I hate the fact that it's losing, so I continually try to find ways of making it better, to the point of ripping out hunks of their history and status quo. An Imperium that can't handle a few hundred alien invaders with blind enthusiasm and a prayer on their lips has no respect from me-- and when I say Imperium, I mean the whole thing, from Guardsmen up to Lord Inquisitors. The setting already has too much sad sack nonsense where everyone is going to die sucking their sidearm in a dark corner.

They simply are not winning in any sense of the word. Even the heroics of great people like Draigo are a footnote in how badly humanity is losing its war for survival. What you want and whats happening in the fluff simply do not gel.

I get what you want out of it, I really do. Maybe sticking with Crusade era fluff would be more your style. But arguing this sort of thing with current fluff simply does not worl. The Imperium is falling. Enemies are on all sides and within waiting to strike. It's the core theme of the whole universe they've set up.

Ixion wrote:I am fully aware of all the fluff that can be cited to make a case for the Tyranids being inexorable. That was never my point; I'm not interested in how things are, so much as how they should be-- at least as the setting appears to me. I don't see any glory in holding back a tide of mindless monsters, not when there's so much more to be had by defeating an enemy as thinking and feeling as you are. The battles in 40K are not fought only with weapons, but with ideas, for from those come the motivation to fight. The Tyranids just want to eat everything, and that is boring. They are ants at a picnic, with nothing to offer philosophically, and scaling them up from billions to trillians into the quadrillions doesn't change that-- even the Orks have their Waaaagh! to give their lives purpose.

Ah, but you see, this is where you are getting confused. They have an overriding hunger that drives them, but they do other things while eating. They don't make new creatures, for example, for the fun of it. A key part of Tyranids is they're trying to adapt to become the ultimate predator. Assuming they're unthinking is also a mistake - while they don't have internal power struggles or emotions in the conventional sense, they do think. Mostly it's in the style of tactics - how to overcome foes. This is, again, part of the ultimate predator part of them.

You say they're boring, do you mean as something to actually play? I rather think, at least if you find them boring to play, they're at least great to fight. They give you the ultimate enemy. Hordes of scuttling gaunts, weapon beasts striding among them unleashing volleys of fire, leaderbeasts and even bigger creatures smashing through your lines. It's the sort of thing you get from that scene in Starship Troopers. You know which one. Regardless of the quality of the movie, that scene on Planet P was awesome, and Tyranids evoke that kind of desperation at least as opponents. I like playing them for this reason - to be the unrelenting bad guy that my opponent fights desperately against.

Ixion wrote:And before anyone asks, yes, I do sometimes question if I actually like 40K. I think the answer is yes, I do, but less like a verbose work of classic literature and more like a box of legos-- rather than a musty volume of long facts to be analyzed and memorized, a collection of rich, varied parts I can rip apart and slam together for my own amusement-- and I do realize what an unpopular stance that is.

I think it's more you want more from the fluff than GW is willing to give you.

-Loki- wrote:They simply are not winning in any sense of the word. Even the heroics of great people like Draigo are a footnote in how badly humanity is losing its war for survival. What you want and whats happening in the fluff simply do not gel.

I get what you want out of it, I really do. Maybe sticking with Crusade era fluff would be more your style. But arguing this sort of thing with current fluff simply does not worl. The Imperium is falling. Enemies are on all sides and within waiting to strike. It's the core theme of the whole universe they've set up.

I know. I know all too well, and I resent it. I have, in fact, considered working more the Crusade period-- hey, living Emperor for a change!-- but I can't seem to let myself give up on a victorious modern Imperium; I've spent too much time twisting and mangling the fluff to that end. When I was first introduced to 40K, I got the mistaken impression that the Imperium was the top of the pile, occasionally being harassed by aliens and monsters it could deal with via an epic fighting battle campaign of war, but without straining itself too bitterly. Those first impressions really got me excited about the setting, but almost everything I've read on it since has slowly added to my disappointment.

-Loki- wrote:Ah, but you see, this is where you are getting confused. They have an overriding hunger that drives them, but they do other things while eating. They don't make new creatures, for example, for the fun of it. A key part of Tyranids is they're trying to adapt to become the ultimate predator. Assuming they're unthinking is also a mistake - while they don't have internal power struggles or emotions in the conventional sense, they do think. Mostly it's in the style of tactics - how to overcome foes. This is, again, part of the ultimate predator part of them.

You say they're boring, do you mean as something to actually play? I rather think, at least if you find them boring to play, they're at least great to fight. They give you the ultimate enemy. Hordes of scuttling gaunts, weapon beasts striding among them unleashing volleys of fire, leaderbeasts and even bigger creatures smashing through your lines. It's the sort of thing you get from that scene in Starship Troopers. You know which one. Regardless of the quality of the movie, that scene on Planet P was awesome, and Tyranids evoke that kind of desperation at least as opponents.

You have a point here; as enemies, they are actually kind of fun in their own way. At the same time, it feels kind of superfluous-- every other race has billions or trillions of forces that could be fought with the same vigor, and the added bonus of clashing ideologies. Somehow the image of fighting diehard believers appeals to me more than that of fighting what amounts to a tidal wave with claws and fangs, but that's probably due to my fondness for religious themes than anything else.

My main concern, as expressed in the blog post, was that as they are, they are absolutely guaranteed to win by sheer numbers, to say nothing of their universal versatility. While I'm not as fond of them as I am of the Imperials, I do feel for all the other cool factions who must inevitably be wiped out at some point in the future, near or far. There's some great stuff in there, and the realization that all of it is terminally inferior to the bugs strikes me as... not really wrong, but less than they deserve.

-Loki- wrote:I think it's more you want more from the fluff than GW is willing to give you.

At the end of the day, despite all my oratory, you're probably right. It's why I spend so much time making my own things-- they're never going to give me what I really want, so I have to cobble it together from fragments. It's a patchwork incompatible almost point-for-point with any existing canon, but it's mine. Ultimately, I don't think we're really disagreeing on any particular point; I'm just looking for something that doesn't exist, and won't unless I make it myself.

*shrug* C'est la guerre.

Ixion wrote:You have a point here; as enemies, they are actually kind of fun in their own way. At the same time, it feels kind of superfluous-- every other race has billions or trillions of forces that could be fought with the same vigor, and the added bonus of clashing ideologies. Somehow the image of fighting diehard believers appeals to me more than that of fighting what amounts to a tidal wave with claws and fangs, but that's probably due to my fondness for religious themes than anything else.

Going to have to disagree. OTher opponents definitely do not evoke the same desperation when fighting them. Mainly because other enemies tend to run out of bodies. To draw another parallel to that scene in Starship troopers, the bit where Michael Ironside stands up and assesses the situation, and looks over the wall. All he sees is more Arachnids pouring over the hills and more flying in and tankers crawling up and just so many you can't see the end.

That's where the desperation comes in. Even against Orks, even at Armageddon, they didn't have that many bodies. They attacked in groups, and led by very distinct individuals. One of the best bits of fluff I've read about the amount of bodies Tyranids throw into a fight is something about watching it from space, and seeing so many Tyranids it was like ink spilling across paper, and moving like convulsing muscles. That's where the dread somes from. Another good idea is looking at the picture in the back of the Apocalypse book, with the lone Imperial stronghold completely surrounded, Titans and Biotitans duking it out, Space Marines making surgical strikes against key areas. That's war against the Tyranids, and that's not what any other foe presents.

It's a real shame that the current rules don't represent this. The worst thing they did was replace the Without Number upgrade for gaunts with Tervigons. It doesn't give the same sense of numbers.

Ixion wrote:My main concern, as expressed in the blog post, was that as they are, they are absolutely guaranteed to win by sheer numbers, to say nothing of their universal versatility. While I'm not as fond of them as I am of the Imperials, I do feel for all the other cool factions who must inevitably be wiped out at some point in the future, near or far. There's some great stuff in there, and the realization that all of it is terminally inferior to the bugs strikes me as... not really wrong, but less than they deserve.

Not true - there's a reason there used to be a rule called 'Shoot the big Ones'. Killing the synapse creatures disorients the swarm, enough that you can form good counter attacks. Defeating Tyranids comes from knowing what to strike, when to strike it and and making it count. If you can take down synapse creatures, particularly the Dominatrix, you pretty much defeat their invasion.

Ixion wrote:At the end of the day, despite all my oratory, you're probably right. It's why I spend so much time making my own things-- they're never going to give me what I really want, so I have to cobble it together from fragments. It's a patchwork incompatible almost point-for-point with any existing canon, but it's mine. Ultimately, I don't think we're really disagreeing on any particular point; I'm just looking for something that doesn't exist, and won't unless I make it myself.

*shrug* C'est la guerre.

Nothing wrong with that. 40k is meant to be made 'yours'. It annoys me how much people have lost when it comes to making your own stuff in 40k. If you want your Imperium to be in a new golden age, do it. Just don't expect people to accept it as official. Which is not bad unless you argue it as official.

Ixion wrote:

Eumerin wrote:I think that's more the fault of GW. If they wanted to put some effort into it, they could make Chaos much more alien. Emphasize how alien and uncaring the Powers are and how the followers tend to be deluded idiots who think that their "gods" value the followers more than they actually do.

Chaos, as written, has a lot more in common with humans than any other race-- their history is directly bound up with that of the Imperium. Of course, I'm using "Chaos" to refer to the Chaos Space Marines and cultists, not the actual daemons and Chaos Gods. Those I could see as being more alien, but it would be hard to make them so without losing what they are now: crystallizations of everything that the Imperium sees as evil. In their pure form, they're leather-clad punks with mohawks and piercings listening to metal and wearing their pants too low, while curmudgeonly old Grampa Imperium angrily shakes his Power Cane while gumming his Lightning Dentures and yells at them to get off his cosmic lawn. Only with more people dying.

By all means, leave the cultists and other followers as they are. They're former humans, so they should show signs of that. The changes, imo, should be made at the daemonic level. Emphasize how the powers really don't care about their followers at all. Part of the problem, imo, is the term "gift". It makes you think that the item in question is something that was given as something to help the recipient. But the older fluff implied otherwise. It implied that the reason for the "gift" was because something caused one of the powers to take a closer look at you one day and your physical body couldn't handle the raw chaos directed your way by that gaze. Tzeentch didn't say, "I think I'll give my champion a tentacle because it'll help him out." Tzeentch didn't even really think consciously about giving you anything. Tzeentch instead happened to glance at you one day and your body was twisted by the raw chaos directed toward you by his mere glance and you sprouted a tentacle as a result. But the fact that you even got a tentacle was completely random. You just as easily could have had your internal organs turned to granite or your arm sprout another face or your left leg turn into a puddle of goo. And then, given the followers' need to believe that their gods actually care about them, those followers arbitrarily decide, "Oh, that mutation's useful. That must mean that Tzeentch is impressed with you! It's a gift!" Whereas if your leg had turned to goo, they'd decide, "That mutation sucks. You're missing a leg now. That must mean that Tzeentch is disappointed with you."

Leave the followers human(ish) but emphasize how they're deluded when they think that their patron powers actually care about any of them.

You forget that these mutations tend to happen when they do something worthwhile.

People just don't turn into Daemon Princes because KSlaanesh looks at the funny, normally a Champion of the Emperor's children went and conquered 3 system's and he grows a tail.

What about things like Blessing of the Blood God, where Khorne's might protects you from Force Weapon's and Psykers?

Deadshot wrote:You forget that these mutations tend to happen when they do something worthwhile.

People just don't turn into Daemon Princes because KSlaanesh looks at the funny, normally a Champion of the Emperor's children went and conquered 3 system's and he grows a tail.

What about things like Blessing of the Blood God, where Khorne's might protects you from Force Weapon's and Psykers?

GW's old Realms of Chaos books (i.e. Slaves to Darkness and Lost and the Damned) had a system in place where you could build your own mini-warband, fight against other mini-warbands run by other players, and see whether your champion would turn into a daemon prince or become a spawn. I don't remember all of the details, but basically at some point your champion would be evaluated. If the character was lucky, he or she would be elevated to daemonhood and retire. If your character was unlucky, he or she would turn into a spawn and someone else would take over the warband (or, occasionally, the warband might decide to keep following their now-spawned champion...). From what little I remember, the fewer mutations your character had at that point, the more likely you would become a daemon prince. The more mutations you had, the more likely it was that you would become a spawn. Or in other words, the more times your champion had received little "blessings" like that tail you mentioned or an extra arm, the more likely it was that your champion would become a spawn. And the reasoning was quite straightforward - your character's physical body had been altered too many times by the "gifts" that had been received, and it couldn't handle the extra stress needed to ascend to daemonhood with the mind still intact. So... spawndom. So in short, the very things that your champion believed to be helping him or her were also the very things that threatened to screw him or her over in the end.

Fortunately for your aspiring champion not all gifts received were mutations. But mutations - the thing that most readily comes to mind when one thinks of Chaos in the Warhammer settings, and the things that are supposedly "gifts" provided by the Powers - were the one thing that could ultimately sabotage your attempt at daemonhood.

As for things like the Blessing of the Blood God? That's not too hard to rationalize. There's a reason why Draigo hasn't started mutating despite the fact that Nurgle has no doubt glanced his way a few times. The logical inference is that by aligning themselves with Chaos, the followers of Chaos probably cause a little extra Chaos power to flow through them. They've already allowed themselves to become dangerously exposed to the power of Chaos, and that's why mutations affect them and not those who don't follow Chaos. And it's why those who are particularly aligned with one power or another are able to enjoy a few extra odds and ends (such as the aforementioned resistance to Force Weapons and Psykers) that otherwise would not be available.

Vendetta 476 wrote:

soladrin wrote:No, because that was the worst "twist ending"ever invented.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/whatatwist797456.jpg/sr=1