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The difference between sorcery and what Imperial psykers do has never been clearly or explicitly defined by GW or BL AFAIK.

However by observing what CSM sorcerers do in 40K, it seems to involve dealing with warp entities and making deals (sometimes one sided deals through coercion) with them, whereas "normal" psychic powers just involve channelling the power of the warp directly. An analogy would be a normal psyker scooping buckets of water out of the ocean (the warp) to do work, while a sorcerer is getting a creature of the ocean to scoop up water and do what the sorcerer tells it to do. A sorcerer seems to be able to potentially get more done because they are not personally doing all the heavy lifting, but eventually any deal has its price and the sorcerer has to pay up (or find a way to wriggle out or negate the pact's price).

Not so, why would there be malific powers vs sanctic and only the grey knights are able to use malific powers without being corrupted. Sorcerers are like librarians but they also use 'sorcery' and have made pacts to do so.

I would like them to leave the established stories alone, like the HH. They have ruined that. Their own stories in theirs own campaigns etc are fine and a good read. The stuff telling the “history” of things is ruining the background all together. More books like baneblade and titanicus and haunts ghosts. Build there own narratives. Not ruin perfectly good ones.

I’d like to see more books with ORKS as the main characters too. Like evil SUNZ.


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 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Not so, why would there be malific powers vs sanctic and only the grey knights are able to use malific powers without being corrupted. Sorcerers are like librarians but they also use 'sorcery' and have made pacts to do so.

I know I like to disagree with you on here and don’t want to be trollish but think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Sorcerer, psyker, witch. It’s all a matter of perspective. Tomatoe tomartoe. It’s all the same.

Not really, I'm not invested in it.

In general psychic powers are a case of 'you either have it or you don't'. An aspect of sorcery is it can be used by otherwise non psykers.

Various chaos codecies go into the difference between psykers and sorcerers.

There is an element of 'they're the same but different' to them, I'll concede you that.

Arguing that the TS knew what they were doing is laughable. They had personal demons that they thought were benevolent and trusted teachers. Magnus was told repeatedly that he did not know what he was messing with and he needed to stop. \

Now to be fair, the Emperor could have handled the situation a lot better but the Big E was doubling down hard on winning another galaxies worst dad award, he does love his bling.

Russ if anything comes off much wiser by knowing that to fully cut off using the warp was a bad idea but doing so should be like taking a thimble of water to ones throat, not stripping down and jumping into the demon infested waters to play with the sharks.

I'd like to read a UR-025 story from its perspective.

I fall down on the SW being hypocrites in this debate. Rune priests are clearly just librarians who try to make out like theyre not using a few totems and giving themselves a different name. Its all down to semantics and a case of the victor writing the history.

I'm not sure, actually. The Eldar psykers (at least Warlocks and Farseers) use runes to channel their psychic powers for greater control and a degree of protection from accessing the warp directly. It's possible that the Space Wolves' use of runic magic is doing something similar. By binding their psychic abilities into fixed forms and rituals they're reducing the avenues of attack for predatory warp entities - the runes act as a psychic firewall, in a way.

Now, it'd be nice if that's considered anywhere in the novels, rather than just me making it up by analogy with the Eldar, but I'll take it.

And really, "but it's different when I do it, because I'm the good guy" isn't an attitude unique to the Space Wolves.

Russ and the wolves are hypocrites because they were one of the driving forces behind the edict of Nikaea which banned all psychers in the legions from using their powers not just sorcery which I agree is different, whilst still using their own psychers.

If Russ had been indifferent to psychers or just wanted to limit them or ban sorcery they would not be hypocrites but he wanted a total ban on all psychers in the legions with no intention of stopping his own psychers from using their powers, that’s why he’s a Hypocrite.

The others who disobeyed the edict either never agreed with it in the first place or were undecided. Plus they all obeyed at fist and only disobeyed when they realise how effective they are against Deamons. So they can be called out for disobeying the Emperor but are not Hypocrites.

Things I hate: people who misuse the word 'hypocrisy'.

If the Wolves genuinely believe what their runepriests do is different from what Thousand Sons sorcerers do, then they're not hypocrites. They might well be wrong, but hypocrisy is pretending to believe something you don't actually believe, not believing something that is incorrect.

I don't even see why having a hypocritical barbarian tyrant and his army (Russ and the Wolves) is even a problem.

Why does everyone have to be right and proper?

 Duskweaver wrote:
Things I hate: people who misuse the word 'hypocrisy'.

If the Wolves genuinely believe what their runepriests do is different from what Thousand Sons sorcerers do, then they're not hypocrites. They might well be wrong, but hypocrisy is pretending to believe something you don't actually believe, not believing something that is incorrect.

I don't think genuine belief changes much with what is considered to be hypocritical, according to the dictionary definition it's: "a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel", the SW definitely seem to claim to have the moral highground of not being "witches" and pushing for the ban of all psykers in legions yet continue to openly have rune priests be active in their legion despite this contradicting their stance. Definitely a case of "do what I say, not what I do".

I'm okay with SW being hypocrites, what I'm not okay with is how they seem to get away with pissing off multiple branches of the Imperium at some point and getting away with it by virtue of being first founding and being a playable faction. They piss off the Ecclesiarchy, they piss off the Inquisition, kill off a GK GM and basically....don't really get any serious long-term repercussions. Especially when you see a good chunk of other loyalist chapters get turned on so quickly over basic misunderstandings.

"a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel"

That's Duskweaver's point - if the Space Wolves believe that their rune priests are different to the thousand Sons' sorcerors (and they are - they don't all consort with daemons ), then they're feigning nothing, their behaviour is not contradicting their behaviour.

A distinction without a difference lends itself well to hypocrisy.

 Duskweaver wrote:
Things I hate: people who misuse the word 'hypocrisy'.

If the Wolves genuinely believe what their runepriests do is different from what Thousand Sons sorcerers do, then they're not hypocrites. They might well be wrong, but hypocrisy is pretending to believe something you don't actually believe, not believing something that is incorrect.

I think you'd have to be an idiot, or very deluded to believe that it's something different

they're hipocrites unless you think Lemen Russ, a PRIMARCH was unable to figure out his rune preists where psykers

It's explicitly pointed out in A Thousand Sons when Russ is waiting under Nikea in the Quiet room.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
Things I hate: people who misuse the word 'hypocrisy'.

If the Wolves genuinely believe what their runepriests do is different from what Thousand Sons sorcerers do, then they're not hypocrites. They might well be wrong, but hypocrisy is pretending to believe something you don't actually believe, not believing something that is incorrect.

I think you'd have to be an idiot, or very deluded to believe that it's something different

They are different though. Rune Priests have strict boundaries and stick very much with their tribal origins. Thousand Sons had no boundaries, actively ignored boundaries and stuck their nose wherever they could in terms of the Warp. The main issue for Russ was that he could trust the Rune Priests to see the line and stay behind it. The Thousand Suns couldn't hence why there's a portal to demons on Terra only the Emperor can keep shut nowadays.

pm713 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
Things I hate: people who misuse the word 'hypocrisy'.

If the Wolves genuinely believe what their runepriests do is different from what Thousand Sons sorcerers do, then they're not hypocrites. They might well be wrong, but hypocrisy is pretending to believe something you don't actually believe, not believing something that is incorrect.

I think you'd have to be an idiot, or very deluded to believe that it's something different

They are different though. Rune Priests have strict boundaries and stick very much with their tribal origins. Thousand Sons had no boundaries, actively ignored boundaries and stuck their nose wherever they could in terms of the Warp. The main issue for Russ was that he could trust the Rune Priests to see the line and stay behind it. The Thousand Suns couldn't hence why there's a portal to demons on Terra only the Emperor can keep shut nowadays.

That's not the source of contention though. The hypocritical aspect has to do with the fact that the SW were not up for restricted psyker usage ala Librarius but rather outright banning the use of psykers altogether in the Legiones Astartes. Despite the Edict going their way, they never stopped using Rune Priests openly. THAT is what is hypocritical about their usage of them, despite them basically getting to tell all the other Legions "NOPE NO PSYKERS FOR ANYBODY!" they continue about their merry way using their own saying "Except Us "

 Grimskul wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
Things I hate: people who misuse the word 'hypocrisy'.

If the Wolves genuinely believe what their runepriests do is different from what Thousand Sons sorcerers do, then they're not hypocrites. They might well be wrong, but hypocrisy is pretending to believe something you don't actually believe, not believing something that is incorrect.

I think you'd have to be an idiot, or very deluded to believe that it's something different

They are different though. Rune Priests have strict boundaries and stick very much with their tribal origins. Thousand Sons had no boundaries, actively ignored boundaries and stuck their nose wherever they could in terms of the Warp. The main issue for Russ was that he could trust the Rune Priests to see the line and stay behind it. The Thousand Suns couldn't hence why there's a portal to demons on Terra only the Emperor can keep shut nowadays.

That's not the source of contention though. The hypocritical aspect has to do with the fact that the SW were not up for restricted psyker usage ala Librarius but rather outright banning the use of psykers altogether in the Legiones Astartes. Despite the Edict going their way, they never stopped using Rune Priests openly. THAT is what is hypocritical about their usage of them, despite them basically getting to tell all the other Legions "NOPE NO PSYKERS FOR ANYBODY!" they continue about their merry way using their own saying "Except Us "

The Librarius wouldn't actually do anything in the 30k mindset though. It depended entirely on following orders which the main problem child of the 1k Sons wouldn't do and most of the others were suspect.

Honestly, I find it weird that Wolves get this much flak for being anti psyker while having psykers when the Big E wanted to turn everyone into a psyker, was one and used his powers constantly but still banned them.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
"a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not : behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel"

That's Duskweaver's point - if the Space Wolves believe that their rune priests are different to the thousand Sons' sorcerors (and they are - they don't all consort with daemons ), then they're feigning nothing, their behaviour is not contradicting their behaviour.

They thought they were different from the Salamanders' psykers, too. Whatever way you want to slice it, Russ wanted to convince the Imperium that all magic is evil except his own, specific magic - you can argue whether that's the result of delusion or manipulation but either way it's still hypocrisy.

pm713 wrote:
Honestly, I find it weird that Wolves get this much flak for being anti psyker while having psykers when the Big E wanted to turn everyone into a psyker, was one and used his powers constantly but still banned them.

I think it's more that at this point everyone agrees that Big E is a bastard, people still try to defend Russ.

 lifeafter wrote:
I want another inquisition book along the lines of Ravenor or Eisenhorn, but with new characters. I think it'd be interesting to explore how the reappearance of Bobby G is impacting the politics of the Ordos and some of the decisions they're making.

It'd be nice for Abnett to do the other two books in the Pariah trilogy - not that I've finished the first one yet.

 Grimskul wrote:
The Blood Angels also make a lot more sense, since Sanguinius was terrified about the Emperor purging his Legion over the Red Thirst and had several cover ups by killing those affected. AFAIK, Russ didn't put down those who succumbed to the Wulfen curse.

How much of an issue was the Curse of the Wulfen during the HH, compared to the Werewolf Lord of the Dance experts we now have in 40k?

 Mr Morden wrote:
40k novels I want

a complete Amberely Vail novel

That could be cool - it'd be interesting to see her take on the events of Duty Calls, for example, especially with the manipulation of the Guard to get Cain's unit sent to the conflict.

* * *

Given the above conversation, I'd like to see a HH short story which proves Russ not to be a hypocrite - just to watch Dakka burn...

Wulfen were less of an issue in 30k in a way. They got sent to the 13th and got sort of...unleashed on enemies that warranted it. Of course GW dumped on all that when they went from barely controllable beasts to soldiers who can barely talk but have decent enough control to use weapons...

pm713 wrote:
Wulfen were less of an issue in 30k in a way. They got sent to the 13th and got sort of...unleashed on enemies that warranted it. Of course GW dumped on all that when they went from barely controllable beasts to soldiers who can barely talk but have decent enough control to use weapons...

Interestingly in Curse of the Wulfen or Wrath of Magnus they state that the Wulfen's Frost Axes and Thunderhammer/Storm Shields have been hanging on the walls of the Fang longer than anyone can remember - of course they never ask Bjorn his opinion on that, that would be logical - the Frost Claws are the Wulfen's own design and build.
I'd also counter that Wulfen might be able to find themselves over time, the freshly turned Wulfen in Curse of the Wulfen and Wrath of Magnus were noted as being wild and are a danger to everybody around them but the Wulfen from the Warp were the only ones that weren't berserk, cranky and dangerous but not absolutely berserk - maybe a few thousand years of constant fighting allows them to rediscover themselves?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Wulfen were less of an issue in 30k in a way. They got sent to the 13th and got sort of...unleashed on enemies that warranted it. Of course GW dumped on all that when they went from barely controllable beasts to soldiers who can barely talk but have decent enough control to use weapons...

Interestingly in Curse of the Wulfen or Wrath of Magnus they state that the Wulfen's Frost Axes and Thunderhammer/Storm Shields have been hanging on the walls of the Fang longer than anyone can remember - of course they never ask Bjorn his opinion on that, that would be logical - the Frost Claws are the Wulfen's own design and build.
I'd also counter that Wulfen might be able to find themselves over time, the freshly turned Wulfen in Curse of the Wulfen and Wrath of Magnus were noted as being wild and are a danger to everybody around them but the Wulfen from the Warp were the only ones that weren't berserk, cranky and dangerous but not absolutely berserk - maybe a few thousand years of constant fighting allows them to rediscover themselves?

Curse of the Wulfen and Wrath of Magnus were better on the rubbish pile. They literally just pulled Wulfen weapons from nowhere with no basis for them, the only one with a modicum of sense in it is the grenade launcher.

The whole point is that they're irreversibly crazy and berserk and need supervision from a Priest or Jarl. That's why it's a CURSE which is really not seen in the newer stuff which made it seem like Wulfen were just better.

What do I want?

More stuff like the Xenology and Index Chaotica (or whatever it was called).

Part artbook, part story. Genuine curiosities of the background to tease and titillate the hobbyist.

 Mr Morden wrote:
40k novels I want

a complete Amberely Vail novel
A sequal to Lord of Night
More Sisters of Silence stories
More Navy fiction.

I want a sequel to LotN too!

I know it won't happen but a "war in heaven " series that dealt with the events of the necrontyr, their war with the slann, the coming of the c'tan, the creation of the krork and the eldar, the rise of the Necrons, the end of the slann, the shattering of the c'tan and maybe the creation of the chaos gods from the turmoil created by the war in heaven, that would be interesting.

Why does everyone keep saying that the wolves didn't stick to Nikea?

One of the HH TS books is set right after Nikea. There is a SW Rune Priest that was "attached" to a TS force that was led by Ahirman. After Nikea Ahirman blatantly asks this same Rune Priest why he doesn't use his powers anymore with the reply something to the effect of "my father forbids it".


On topic, I'm foaming at the mouth for the next GG novel and I would like to see some more detail into the Indominus Crusade.