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Gadzilla666 wrote:
I liked how the Night Lords fluff in Faith and Fury depicted them as they should be: reavers luring ships into traps so as to loot and pillage them before dispatching their crews in heinous, bloody fashion. All while not relying on any daemonic crap.

Of course then the Space Mongolians show up and turn the tables because: SPACE MARINES!

Fething gw.

The story should have ended with the White Scars showing up to the asteroid field only to find a graveyard of derelict ships floating in a sea of frozen corpses. The Night Lords long gone, having accomplished their personal goals, and left the other Chaos warbands to their fate. Because they never gave a feth about their grand schemes in the first place.

But then the mighty space marines couldn't be portrayed as the rescuing Saturday morning cartoon heroes could they?

But the whole thing is set during the time when the Astartes were just starting to get primaris upgrades so of course they're going to feature heavily in the narrative.

Also, the fluff is about setting up theatres of war so you can have Your Dudes fight where ever you want and given that most people that play 40k play space marines (for some reason) they're going to have to be present all over the galaxy.

First book was a massive let down. Most of it was stuff I already knew, and I was very, very disappointed at how little there was anyway.

The others have improved. They're still not great, but there is a sense that something is being built toward. What that might be? I dunno. But suspense is something I for one enjoy.

I'm just hoping the capstone might be something like 9th Ed.

I think the problem is that the majority of PA seems to take place in the past and not the present, so by definition they can't do that much in the timeline that would affect anything too significantly in the present.

By far the worst of them is the Eldar PA book, as it actively regressed the Ynnari plotline by taking the 5th cronesword into Slaanesh's palace, thereby forcing them to have to resort to a galaxy wide Aeldari suicide pact in order to defeat Slaanesh at this point. This is underscored by the very poorly written fight with Shalaxi Hellbane, where you have the whole Ynnari crew fight her and basically get their asses handed to them until they win by the skin of their teeth and then goes full anime villain saying "That wasn't even my final form".

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Im up to blood of baal in terms of reading the fluff in the PA books.
Was it me or was it a bit uninspired?

Several books setup scenarios and then simply left them completely hanging.
Others were a bit too imperium on the backfoot -> reinforcements come in from X -> battle turned.
And others had fairly dodgy premises for the fighting.

Are GW planning some sort of super final fluff book to tie this altogether or were the books simply background for setting scenarios or narrative missions to?

Its background.

I feel like GW should have been clearer that the PA stuff is all happening BEFORE where 40k is currently set. Its exploring what happened during the 100 years of the Indomitus Crusade after the rift opened. We know no more primarchs show up, theres no major character deaths or faction shifts etc. The fluff is only there to provide narrative hooks and such. 40k fluff has always been more about providing things to base ideas around than a consistent narrative.

Is it? I was under the impression that the rift was causing more psykers to be created, hence "psychic awakening".
If its supposed to be between now and the fall of Cadia, GW really didn't do a good job of showing it. They could have at least said at the very beginning, when they were teasing it, that the books take place in the past, instead of leading people to believe that new stuff was going to happen and crazy warp stuff was on the way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Maybe it is a 'campaign' that will\can be resolved either with user submissions or at a GP (does GW do that anymore?)

I hope not.. i hated the last time... chaos vs the imperium... end result... killed Eldrad?

Didn't GW ignore the actual results and went with what they wanted?

yea, that was the point, asking for player input will unlikely affect the outcome and they will just do what they need to in order to keep things going.

next part is more for the OP here. It would be cool to get some changes going but how to do that without occasionally killing off a character that somebody loves? then if you do kill them off what happens to the model? do you give it legacy model status or stop selling it? a lot of tau and imperial guard should be dead by now, how is pask somehow everywhere in guard armies, is shadowsun being fed rejuvination treatments? Creed, Yarrick and Straken surely would have given to old age by now along with some of the inquisitors

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Im up to blood of baal in terms of reading the fluff in the PA books.
Was it me or was it a bit uninspired?

Several books setup scenarios and then simply left them completely hanging.
Others were a bit too imperium on the backfoot -> reinforcements come in from X -> battle turned.
And others had fairly dodgy premises for the fighting.

Are GW planning some sort of super final fluff book to tie this altogether or were the books simply background for setting scenarios or narrative missions to?

Its background.

I feel like GW should have been clearer that the PA stuff is all happening BEFORE where 40k is currently set. Its exploring what happened during the 100 years of the Indomitus Crusade after the rift opened. We know no more primarchs show up, theres no major character deaths or faction shifts etc. The fluff is only there to provide narrative hooks and such. 40k fluff has always been more about providing things to base ideas around than a consistent narrative.

Is it? I was under the impression that the rift was causing more psykers to be created, hence "psychic awakening".
If its supposed to be between now and the fall of Cadia, GW really didn't do a good job of showing it. They could have at least said at the very beginning, when they were teasing it, that the books take place in the past, instead of leading people to believe that new stuff was going to happen and crazy warp stuff was on the way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
Maybe it is a 'campaign' that will\can be resolved either with user submissions or at a GP (does GW do that anymore?)

I hope not.. i hated the last time... chaos vs the imperium... end result... killed Eldrad?

Didn't GW ignore the actual results and went with what they wanted?

yea, that was the point, asking for player input will unlikely affect the outcome and they will just do what they need to in order to keep things going.

next part is more for the OP here. It would be cool to get some changes going but how to do that without occasionally killing off a character that somebody loves? then if you do kill them off what happens to the model? do you give it legacy model status or stop selling it? a lot of tau and imperial guard should be dead by now, how is pask somehow everywhere in guard armies, is shadowsun being fed rejuvination treatments? Creed, Yarrick and Straken surely would have given to old age by now along with some of the inquisitors

It’s fairly easy to have a huge campaign in the 40k universe dictated by user submissions. Even with repercussions on the setting if done with care and thought.
Every system can be important, and still be only small in a galaxy. Campaign could be a highlight peace each November over 4 years and still effect the setting as a whole only a small point.

Throw in some custom character's, no special ones In the game. Players can build from the normal charecter kits if they want. Could be a fun event

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only Imperial victory.

Its a fundamental change in the system.
It used to be a war game. Now its all heros doing kewl stuff and saving the day!.

One is fun and the other is lame and dreadful.

I have to nearly beg to play a game where half the list aren't characters that should be dead 1000's of times over.

I feel like GW should have been clearer that the PA stuff is all happening BEFORE where 40k is currently set. Its exploring what happened during the 100 years of the Indomitus Crusade after the rift opened. We know no more primarchs show up, theres no major character deaths or faction shifts etc. The fluff is only there to provide narrative hooks and such. 40k fluff has always been more about providing things to base ideas around than a consistent narrative.

Whaaa? Is this definite? I thought it was set in current days?

If not that does certainly explain why it feels like a "narrative history story(ies)".

one thing is that no matter what the changes are, it's never eneugh, some people claim that chaos hasn't had any "signfcigent wins" for god's sake!

the great rift and imperium nihlus aside that's just silly.

Codex Death Guard basicly has the death guard destroying the Minotaur chapter's geneseed. this is a storied Marine chapter well known by the players, and featured in some FW books.

the Ultramar world of Iax, long described as a gem in the crown of Ultramar (the planet was first mentioned back in the 2nd edition ultramarines codex) gone..

but stuff like this people dismiss as "unimportant because it won't make a differance" nevermind that generally speaking 40k is too big a setting for victories for ANY side to make much differance to the greater scheme of things (and when those fights come up 99% of the time it'll lead to "a lot of people dying, everything of value at the target being destroyed, but nothing really changing" ya know.. grim dark

I don't know how popular an opinion it is, but I really don't like a lot of the directions that the fluff has been going in. Things like technological advancement and "hope" just do not sit right with me. I liked the decaying, horrible mess that was the Imperium. So I pretty much ignore everything after the 13th Black Crusade started.

Then again, I can just play games in my preferred time period and ignore all of the new stuff.

BrianDavion wrote:
one thing is that no matter what the changes are, it's never eneugh, some people claim that chaos hasn't had any "signfcigent wins" for god's sake!

the great rift and imperium nihlus aside that's just silly.

Codex Death Guard basicly has the death guard destroying the Minotaur chapter's geneseed. this is a storied Marine chapter well known by the players, and featured in some FW books.

the Ultramar world of Iax, long described as a gem in the crown of Ultramar (the planet was first mentioned back in the 2nd edition ultramarines codex) gone..

but stuff like this people dismiss as "unimportant because it won't make a differance" nevermind that generally speaking 40k is too big a setting for victories for ANY side to make much differance to the greater scheme of things (and when those fights come up 99% of the time it'll lead to "a lot of people dying, everything of value at the target being destroyed, but nothing really changing" ya know.. grim dark

yeah it's almost like 99% of the literature outside of the various factions' codexes are books about loyalist space marine victories, that couldn't have anything to do with peoples' perceptions.

The minotaurs? Seriously? Can we not find a significant space marine defeat for any of the 15-20 chapters that currently have actual rules in the game to make your case, even tucked in to a codex for a bad guy marines chapter?

GW also looooves to make sure all the defeats/losses are stuff we've never heard of or stuff that's been briefly mentioned that's right NEXT to the big important thing, and all the wins are the named characters and chapters that exist in the game.

Oh no, not the minotaurs! Not the Knights of Blood! Not the world right next to fenris! Not the fifth moon of Ultramar! All these terrible imperial defeats! Chapter Master Slanglesmith, introduced 12 minutes ago, has perished horribly!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The heroes will always win in 40k. It's baked right into the fluff. Look at the fluff for every single one of the bad guy factions:

Necrons: When killed, they get warped back to the tomb world. This means named characters can die.

Chaos/Daemons: When killed, they can be recreated by the chaos gods whenever narratively conveneient. Named characters can die.

Tyranids: When killed, they can be respawned by the Hive Mind whenever convenient. Named characters can die.

Drukhari: When killed, they can be respawned by the Haemonculi. Named characters can die.

Orks: Ork Docs can revive orks who have been beheaded, bisected, chopped up or otherwise dispatched. Named characters can (effectively) die.

Genestealer Cults: Have no named characters, so they can just be totally disposable. however, the same character "tropes" spawn in each cult, meaning any number of primuses, maguses etc can be killed while changing nothing.

now the shiny happy good guy heroes:

Imperial Guard, Tau, Eldar, Space Marines: All cannot be brought back if they die, meaning they will basically only be killed when GW no longer wants to make their model, as was recently the case for color sargeant whatshisface, the most signficant imperial death of the entire fall of cadia saga.

the sole exception on the imperial side is Saint Celestine, making her the designated imperial whipping girl whenever we want to pump up a big baddie before they get their ass handed to them in single combat by a space marine.

the_scottsman

Nailed it. the game has fundamentaly changed to Marines are heros and heros never die.

Having played since Rogue Trader came out, i saw it coming with the introduction of the named heros.
You can not be a wargame in a dark universe if the "heros" never die.
Its now the good guys always win.

Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

Oh god the wrestling comparison makes too much sense.

The Alpha Legion's whole deal is basically that Vince McMahon bit he did with Austin.

The Sanguinator basically RKO'd the Avatar.

The Blood Angel and Necrons tag teamed against the nids.

Now I just want Ghazkull to German Suplex a Knight and for Al'rahem to go all Iron Sheikh.

Fans: heroes can never die!

Games Workshop: laughs in Mephiston.

Seriously though, how many times has that guy died so far? It’s at least twice. Maybe more?

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

There is an obvious distinction between how gw treats factions with a heroic bright clean aesthetic vs the factions with an evil dark spiky aesthetic.

Which factions have "killable" named characters just highlights how suspenseless it makes the narratives they construct.

Its a bit like the star wars prequels or prequels in general. Oh god who is gonna win this fight, obi wan kenobi or Shlabooboo Glankledonk, bad guy ive never heard of?

I'm still annoyed about General Grievous. They introduced a cool character in III, and they kill him off. Ditto with Dooku. It was pretty unceremonious too.

At least GW had the balls to kill off Aun'va. Where has their spine gone?

the_scotsman wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

There is an obvious distinction between how gw treats factions with a heroic bright clean aesthetic vs the factions with an evil dark spiky aesthetic.

Which factions have "killable" named characters just highlights how suspenseless it makes the narratives they construct.

Its a bit like the star wars prequels or prequels in general. Oh god who is gonna win this fight, obi wan kenobi or Shlabooboo Glankledonk, bad guy ive never heard of?

Except that's not where the dramatic tension in.... jesus christ 99% of movies comes from. you know damn well that in most movies the protagionist isn't going to die. the intreasting point is HOW they get out of it. it's the same with novels. you don't go into a novel that is an ultramarines novel, and expect the novel to end with "rock falls and everyone dies" when gak like that happens, it's a suprise because it's outside the norm. we don't see Abaddon losing in the end in his novels eaither now do we?

BrianDavion wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

There is an obvious distinction between how gw treats factions with a heroic bright clean aesthetic vs the factions with an evil dark spiky aesthetic.

Which factions have "killable" named characters just highlights how suspenseless it makes the narratives they construct.

Its a bit like the star wars prequels or prequels in general. Oh god who is gonna win this fight, obi wan kenobi or Shlabooboo Glankledonk, bad guy ive never heard of?

Except that's not where the dramatic tension in.... jesus christ 99% of movies comes from. you know damn well that in most movies the protagionist isn't going to die. the intreasting point is HOW they get out of it. it's the same with novels. you don't go into a novel that is an ultramarines novel, and expect the novel to end with "rock falls and everyone dies" when gak like that happens, it's a suprise because it's outside the norm. we don't see Abaddon losing in the end in his novels eaither now do we?

I dunno man, I've been watching a lot of Tarantino recently. . .

The problem is they write stories around these named characters. They'd have a lot more freedom if they wrote about not-them. It would also make the universe feel larger, because not everything that's published would be about those same people.

BrianDavion 785394 10716223 wrote:


Except that's not where the dramatic tension in.... jesus christ 99% of movies comes from. you know damn well that in most movies the protagionist isn't going to die.

Maybe in american movies. In asian and slavic cinema the main hero often ends up dead, dead inside or loses everything at the end of the movie. The how stuff happens, doesn't really matter that much. Everyone knows how the system grinds you down, don't even have to be an adult to know it. people want distinct heroes and villains , and realistic settings. And not the gulliman and primaris save everyone. that is why I liked the PA4. the imperials don't achive a thing, but lose draigo, stern and the new DA primaris captin.

This is why I really like the Ian Watson Space Marine book. the main characters are nobodies. They're just some kids who wind up as scouts and later marines. Two out of three don't make it, and the last remaining guy is not the most sympathetic of people. And overall it has zero bearing on the galaxy.

Also a Zoat pulls the head off one of them, which is great.

The point is that settings are larger than characters and shouldn't be constrained to them

And 40k is not a protagonist-led narrative. You aren't choosing between playing Voldemort or Harry Potter, you're choosing between playing a force of death eaters or Dumbledore's secret army.

40k is a game where you choose a faction to play. You aren't told when you look at what you want to get that 'those guys are the main characters and these guys are the mook chaff they pose on after slaughtering them'.

Each faction is sold to you as equal to the others. If GW wants to continue down this limited character centric path, they need to rebrand their game along those same lines and admit to people that their armies aren't equal and won't ever be treated as such.

The notional mortality of factions seems like a weird criticism because do any of the named characters from evil factions actually die?

I mean... "Evil Chaos Lord Dave" might die - but Ahriman doesn't. Tbf not bothered reading Evil Ritual book, so if he does this is a bad example, but I doubt it - and same for other named characters. Ghaz might *lose* at the close of the upcoming book, but I think there is a zero percent chance he ends up *dead*. In practice he won't even lose, rather just go *Zog this, I'm out.* Logically though he can't very easily win, because if he does then all the Space Wolves are dead. (I guess just some of them could be, but...)

The counter argument though is that... in grand meta terms, no, Chaos never does win. And yes, only something like Terra or Macragge matters. Because people vaguely care about them. I've vaguely invested in the Ulthwe Craftworld. I don't really care how many freshly invented Eldar Craftworlds are nomed by aliens or Slaanesh or Dark Eldar or whatever.

I mean... Chaos had Cadia for a few weeks, months. But look, RG is back now, and lo, the Imperium is bigger and badder than ever.

Yes its split by the rift - but that doesn't seem to matter. Chaos can conquer and raze ten trillion planets we have never heard of - or are small occasional mentions deep in the fluff - and so long as the Imperium can turn up with exactly the same resources (or in fact, better Primaris) next year, it doesn't matter. It doesn't impact the story because those planets might as well not exist. Chaos conquering them or not hasn't changed anything. We don't even get maps showing conquered Chaos territory - we just get "Chaos woz here, until it wasn't"

I mean I'm happy for GW to prove me wrong - but all those *is 40k a setting or a story" were in vain. Its a setting, we just moved the dial forward 100 years to allow for Imperial tech to improve a bit and gain some new characters.

The Eldar are still dying, the Tyranids are still on their way, the Necrons are still waking up, and both Orks and Chaos are bouncing round the galaxy krumping planets and then getting krumped by the Imperium as the plot demands.

 Insectum7 wrote:

I dunno man, I've been watching a lot of Tarantino recently. . .

The problem is they write stories around these named characters. They'd have a lot more freedom if they wrote about not-them. It would also make the universe feel larger, because not everything that's published would be about those same people.

More of an aside but I'd also like to see GW doting on special characters rulewise.

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

Well they are bringing out action figures

Watch GW throw a massive curveball in the future after all the PA books are done.
They put out a new campaign book. It has a huge prologue in which it details how all the major characters that aren’t in plastic kick the bucket from dying in battle or Rubicon failure. Some characters have heroic last stands while others are unceremoniously gutted.

I feel obliged to note that not a single major character was featured in Faith and Fury (well unless you count Kor Pheron, who doesn't have a model)

Yeah, they absolutely are. Off the top of my head, kharn got killed in the last campaign where his model got released, magnus died in gathering storm, swarmlord died in his whole intro story, urien died in the last fluff piece I read with him in it...classic fluff conclusion to a story arc is the hero just barely prevailing over the bad guy.

Im gonna go with Karol on this one: it is narratively much more interesting if I don't know the main characters are going to make it at the end. Give me Pathologic over Assassin's Creed 12 please. GoT seasons 1-4 over 5-7.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

Oh god the wrestling comparison makes too much sense.

The Alpha Legion's whole deal is basically that Vince McMahon bit he did with Austin.

The Sanguinator basically RKO'd the Avatar.

The Blood Angel and Necrons tag teamed against the nids.

Now I just want Ghazkull to German Suplex a Knight and for Al'rahem to go all Iron Sheikh.

Ooooh! The Orks are the Dudey Boys, and Cypher is Edge! That makes Vulkan Dude Love, and the Russ is either Mankind or Cactus Jack? Robby is Kurt Angle

BrianDavion wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Oh Emperor, has the 40k plot become professional wrestling? I just have this weird Heel/Face idea in my head now.

I think the entire idea of 40k having "good guys" is stupid. Even at best they should be doing horrible things because they are forced to.

There is an obvious distinction between how gw treats factions with a heroic bright clean aesthetic vs the factions with an evil dark spiky aesthetic.

Which factions have "killable" named characters just highlights how suspenseless it makes the narratives they construct.

Its a bit like the star wars prequels or prequels in general. Oh god who is gonna win this fight, obi wan kenobi or Shlabooboo Glankledonk, bad guy ive never heard of?

Except that's not where the dramatic tension in.... jesus christ 99% of movies comes from. you know damn well that in most movies the protagionist isn't going to die. the intreasting point is HOW they get out of it. it's the same with novels. you don't go into a novel that is an ultramarines novel, and expect the novel to end with "rock falls and everyone dies" when gak like that happens, it's a suprise because it's outside the norm. we don't see Abaddon losing in the end in his novels eaither now do we?

First Claw would like a word.

(Of course they can't, because they're DEAD!)