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In many a discussion with my friends, all of which Warhammer 40k fans who play tabletop and read 40k novels we have recently began to notice a certain pattern in the new codexes that GW has been releasing.

I am referring to the fact that, in many of the newer codexes, the lore just doesn't seem as dark and...I think hopeless is too strong a word, but its close. The older lore was that the Imperium was always on the verge of collapse and only barely holding on. While I haven't seen anything that directly says this isn't still the case other things have me thinking.

Marneus Calgar holds a gate against an entire Ork army for a day and a night. (Space Marine Codex)
Maugan Ra defeats an entire tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan by himself. (Tyranids Codex)
Mephiston kills Carnifexes and a Hive Tyrant with his bare hands(forgot where I read that) and his entry could be interpreted that he is 'unlocking more of the gene-seeds potential' therefore becoming a mini-primarch.
The emergence of many angel/ghost like warriors. In older lore, the forces of chaos had demons, allies from the warp. Now, Imperial forces seem to have been given an equivilant (The Sanguinor, Damned Legionaires, Ghost Knight)
The new Necrons lore(which I still like, despite the above) basically changes Necrons from evil, to more on the side of neutral effective making things alittle easier for the 'good' races.
The fact that in every book, it seems the Avatar of Khaine and Bloodthirsters are just there to get beat down by some space marine character to prove they are tough.
Last, but certainly not least, Lord Kaldor Draigo. This guy actually lives in the realm of chaos and hasn't been killed yet. Not only that, but he easily defeats any demons that come after him and......

he carved a name into Demon Primarch Mortarion. When I first read this, I had to do a double take because this type of thing was unheard of. Demon Primarchs previously took hundreds of grey knights to banish(Angron, first war for Armageddon)

There are more examples of this out there in various novels, but I won't go into that. In previous codexes, it just didn't seem like things where so...optimistic and there where still heroes, but not like this.

I also want to state that with the exception of Draigo, I don't actually mind the 41st millenium getting alittle brighter. I just wanted to know if I'm the only one who has noticed this change in WH40k lore.

For me the main issue has been the loss of the sense of dread/foreboding/fear rather then the dark aspect.
The setting is still grimdark, millions are sacrificed each day, war is constant, poverty is rife, live is cheap, threats abound but with each codex of late army X is now the new super threat to the Galaxy, ready and able to take on anyone who gets in their way and pound them flat.
Some of the DE stories and fluff I found just nonsense. Nids are now simply nowhere as threatening or foreboding as they once were, infact I'd say they are the least of Humanities threats right now, Chaos is teetering on comical, Crons now have a well defined and explicit purpose etc etc.
Something definetly got lost along the way.

TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
Marneus Calgar holds a gate against an entire Ork army for a day and a night. (Space Marine Codex)
Maugan Ra defeats an entire tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan by himself. (Tyranids Codex)
Mephiston kills Carnifexes and a Hive Tyrant with his bare hands(forgot where I read that) and his entry could be interpreted that he is 'unlocking more of the gene-seeds potential' therefore becoming a mini-primarch.
The emergence of many angel/ghost like warriors. In older lore, the forces of chaos had demons, allies from the warp. Now, Imperial forces seem to have been given an equivilant (The Sanguinor, Damned Legionaires, Ghost Knight)
The new Necrons lore(which I still like, despite the above) basically changes Necrons from evil, to more on the side of neutral effective making things alittle easier for the 'good' races.
The fact that in every book, it seems the Avatar of Khaine and Bloodthirsters are just there to get beat down by some space marine character to prove they are tough.
Last, but certainly not least, Lord Kaldor Draigo. This guy actually lives in the realm of chaos and hasn't been killed yet. Not only that, but he easily defeats any demons that come after him and......

he carved a name into Demon Primarch Mortarion. When I first read this, I had to do a double take because this type of thing was unheard of. Demon Primarchs previously took hundreds of grey knights to banish(Angron, first war for Armageddon)

All of these examples you mentioned, besides Maugan Ra and the Legion of the Damned, were created in Mat Ward codices. While they weren't necessarily his ideas (particularly the Newcrons) he was the only person who was given credit for them by GW, and sadly he will get the blame for all this from the majority of the internet. IMHO, he shouldn't be allowed to touch the lore and work exlusively on the rules, which he actually does really well.

I'd blame the loss of Grimdark on the amount of Space Marine codices coming out. The sheer number of special Space Marine characters means that each one needs to do something special to stand out, and the ones that are meant to be the best have to do the almost ridiculous to appear even more powerful.

The end result is that the enemies of the Imperium just seem weaker, and it's hard to see how their situation is so desperate with these heroes present.

Thats what confuses me about the mortarion thing he has nearly all of nurgles plagues and Lord Kaldor Draigo dosnt catch one........WTF!?!?!? I say he is a daemon and people are aloud their apinion.

I completely agree.

When I first got into the hobby I was like "wow, a game where humans are actually losing...bad" and I thought it was really cool, the whole "its only a matter of time before we die thing".

But now that I am in the hobby it seem like the imperium is winning, and they don't have a hard time with any threat now.

For every lost battle, or huge war...they have another single person destroy a threat that would otherwise take armies. Which in turn, takes away the impact of that loss As well, these heroes don't die(we know it doen't hurt sales, just look at eldrad) but it does make for one hell of a story.

Hazard30 wrote:For every lost battle, or huge war...they have another single person destroy a threat that would otherwise take armies. Which in turn, takes away the impact of that loss As well, these heroes don't die(we know it doen't hurt sales, just look at eldrad) but it does make for one hell of a story.

Well that's not entirely true, just mostly true, you do get the odd character that is dead in the lore, but available as a character in the game. (oddly the only one I can think of is Captain Tycho) I am sure there were others. The idea with that is that when people play it might be some previous historic battle from when that character was still alive. However I agree with the sentiment that it should have more characters dying off.

TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
Marneus Calgar holds a gate against an entire Ork army for a day and a night. (Space Marine Codex)
Maugan Ra defeats an entire tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan by himself. (Tyranids Codex)
Mephiston kills Carnifexes and a Hive Tyrant with his bare hands(forgot where I read that) and his entry could be interpreted that he is 'unlocking more of the gene-seeds potential' therefore becoming a mini-primarch.
The emergence of many angel/ghost like warriors. In older lore, the forces of chaos had demons, allies from the warp. Now, Imperial forces seem to have been given an equivilant (The Sanguinor, Damned Legionaires, Ghost Knight)
The new Necrons lore(which I still like, despite the above) basically changes Necrons from evil, to more on the side of neutral effective making things alittle easier for the 'good' races.
The fact that in every book, it seems the Avatar of Khaine and Bloodthirsters are just there to get beat down by some space marine character to prove they are tough.
Last, but certainly not least, Lord Kaldor Draigo. This guy actually lives in the realm of chaos and hasn't been killed yet. Not only that, but he easily defeats any demons that come after him and......

Holding a gate for a day like that is pretty amazing but he is a chapter master, and specifically in a bottleneck and highly defensive position. With the lack of tactics orks generally prefer, it would be quite possible for him to pull this little stunt off.
Never heard of Maugan Ra, so I wont comment.
Mephiston, he is special, I am of the opinion he sold his soul to chaos and is actually a demon prince, but that's just me.
Sanguinor - I admit, he is kind of silly, The impression they give is that he is the psychic manifestation of the nobility of the blood angels, but yeah silly character.
Legion of the Damned have been around for a while, When I first heard of them they seemed cool, but they just don't really fit anymore, I would drop them personally.
Ghost Knights, well these come from the grey knights codex which is just crap from beginning to end. I guess you could say because all grey knights are psyckers they can have things like this, but like the sanguinor, its silly.
The new necron lore, I am divided on, I know why they made it like that, but I completely agree, the kill all life thing was way more menacing. The new lore is ok though.
Greater demons getting the beat-down, I agree here, thinking back to the demon codex, I dont even remember any greater demons actually achieving anything either, this is a good point.
Draigo, well he is obviously the reincarnation of the emperor, how else can he do all the crap they say he did in the codex. (seriously 2 worst pages of writing ever.)

All in all, you are right, humanity isn't as surrounded by darkness anymore especially with the necrons no longer on a massive genocidal purge. However, I would say they have been focusing a lot more on humanity being wiped out from within. There has been a lot more focus on possible corruption and such within the imperium making it a little fractured. Its still pretty dark, characters may not die, but a lot of the fluff focuses on the sheer levels of slaughter that happens everywhere. Perhaps instead of being dark its turned more violent?

Part of me blames the video games (even though I think the games are really good). Orks especially take away the foreboding and grim'ness of 40K with their speech and silliness. If they spoke less and didn't use broken english in a funny manner, I would take them more seriously.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:

Hazard30 wrote:For every lost battle, or huge war...they have another single person destroy a threat that would otherwise take armies. Which in turn, takes away the impact of that loss As well, these heroes don't die(we know it doen't hurt sales, just look at eldrad) but it does make for one hell of a story.

Well that's not entirely true, just mostly true, you do get the odd character that is dead in the lore, but available as a character in the game. (oddly the only one I can think of is Captain Tycho) I am sure there were others. The idea with that is that when people play it might be some previous historic battle from when that character was still alive. However I agree with the sentiment that it should have more characters dying off.

Eldrad ain't doing so hot either.

With the change to the Necrons, the setting did become less grimdark. The Necrons are still a threat to the Imperium, but they're no longer the at the same threat level as the Tyranids. While I'm still torn on the new fluff direction for Necrons (it's more flexible, but it gets rid of some of what made them unique), I believe that the setting is better when there's only one force that's out to exterminate all life in the galaxy.

IronSnake wrote:Part of me blames the video games (even though I think the games are really good). Orks especially take away the foreboding and grim'ness of 40K with their speech and silliness. If they spoke less and didn't use broken english in a funny manner, I would take them more seriously.

Orks are fething slowed. The way they speak is the most annoying thing in the 40k canon, even more annoying when fans emulate it.
They definately should have taken a leaf out of Blizard's book and made the orks a proud, ancient warrior-people. Would make them a lot more threatening too, than just mindless savages.

Durza wrote:I'd blame the loss of Grimdark on the amount of Space Marine codices coming out. The sheer number of special Space Marine characters means that each one needs to do something special to stand out, and the ones that are meant to be the best have to do the almost ridiculous to appear even more powerful.

The end result is that the enemies of the Imperium just seem weaker, and it's hard to see how their situation is so desperate with these heroes present.

There have always been more Space Marine codexes than the other factions. This is nothing new. 2nd Edition had Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves. 3rd added Black Templars and changed Ultramarines to just "Space Marines" (which makes better business sense). And all of these codexes have merely been updated as time went on. And their Special Characters have always done crazy things. If too many Space Marine codexes is the problem, then the universe has never been grimdark at all. I think the couple dozen special characters can exist and not drag down the feeling of grimdark simply because they exist. I mean, they wouldn't be special if they hadn't done anything heroic. And there's a lot of galaxy out there for them to fight in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

IronSnake wrote:Part of me blames the video games (even though I think the games are really good). Orks especially take away the foreboding and grim'ness of 40K with their speech and silliness. If they spoke less and didn't use broken english in a funny manner, I would take them more seriously.

The setting was supposed to be grimdark, but it never actually was. You aren't supposed to take Orks seriously. Pulsa Rokkits, snotling firing Shokk Atakk Guns, armies that sometimes self destructed, Mad Maxx style spinoff game... It's Fantasy in space. Sure, they've tried to get away from that, but it's impossible in a game with Space Elves and Space Orks and Space Dwarves and Space Ogres and Space Halflings and...

I understand. And that makes sense, but their speech bothers me. Not their goofy ad-hoc weaponry and tactics. lol

If the setting has become less grimdark, then in all honesty I can only approve. The extreme despair, bitter horror and slow death the setting relies on are too much for me to suspend my empathy to enjoy.

This is why I gravitate so strongly to older material (1st and 2nd editions); in the earliest works, you could play in a dwarven biker gang with trucker caps and shotguns, traveling on through an adobe shanty town full of Mad Max style punks and thugs with mohawks and leather jackets and fishnets and steel studs. The universe was dark, and also grim in parts, but it didn't need to matter. You had your boots on the ground, living in the 41st millennium, not just mourning it while fighting a battle against an implacable foe that you know you can't win.

I don't see anything noble in fighting a futile battle. If there really is no hope, it doesn't matter if you survive to fight another day-- you're already dead, and everyone else, is, too. I have no interest in playing a dead guy.

[ cue fifty guys coming in and loudly complaining about how their favorite faction is actually winning ]

Retcon of the Necrons certainly reduced the grimdark. From a mysterious tide of silent death seeking to destroy all life on behalf of their Star Gods to divided kingdoms with differing agendas, a sense of honor, and lacking FTL travel. A perfect example is that the most powerful Necron dynasty is a "mustering threat on the imperium's Eastern Fringes". They're just localized now threat wise.

I think while the Dark Eldar and Tyranids Codex's do a good job of keeping the grimdark in 40k, the other 5th Ed Codex's have purposefully reduced it. Especially Wards, who can't have Space Marines lose.

Joey wrote:

IronSnake wrote:Part of me blames the video games (even though I think the games are really good). Orks especially take away the foreboding and grim'ness of 40K with their speech and silliness. If they spoke less and didn't use broken english in a funny manner, I would take them more seriously.

Orks are fething slowed. The way they speak is the most annoying thing in the 40k canon, even more annoying when fans emulate it.
They definately should have taken a leaf out of Blizard's book and made the orks a proud, ancient warrior-people. Would make them a lot more threatening too, than just mindless savages.

Orks are the comic relief faction. They're supposed to be silly, and the speech emphasizes this. You have super-human monks who live in a constant state of warfare, formerly omnicidal robots, still omnicidal spacebugs, dying ancients, utterly corrupt and depraved ancients, Super-human traitors, technologically competent new kids, looking to bring down the big kids on the block, and an army composed of simple men armed with the worst weapons imaginable and simple hope. With all that grim darkness a faction that is by all rights completely silly is seriously important. Even dramas have their jokes, tension can only be stretched so far. And like everything in 40k, they are hyperbolicly what they are, and what they are is silly. I would argue that Orks have become to serious as of late.

IronSnake wrote:I understand. And that makes sense, but their speech bothers me. Not their goofy ad-hoc weaponry and tactics. lol

"Orkses is never defeated in battle. If we wins, we wins. If we die, we die, and dat don't count as defeat. And if we runs fer it, then we get to come back for anuvver go!" Orky Proverb, Codex Imperialis 2nd Edition, lol.

I'll agree that sometimes the voices are a bit weird. Cockney Ork Bosses yelling "Git offa mah ship Spess Mahreen!" seems a bit... odd.

Yeah that bit was directly from Space Marine the game. Excellent game... but that part was just pure cheese. The orks would be more menacing if they were to just simply roar with the occasional EXTREMELY broken english. The fact that they have a handle on the english language always struck me as extremely odd, but to be able to throw complete perfect sentences together coupled with their weird accent just makes it cheesy.

A low gutteral growl and "off... ship!" would suffice. But meh. It is what it is.

IronSnake wrote:Orks especially take away the foreboding and grim'ness of 40K with their speech and silliness. If they spoke less and didn't use broken english in a funny manner,

Oi! Orks isn't silly ya zoggin' git! See how funny you's fink we is when you's gots your 'ead on top'uv da boss's pole!

Ok ok...

Orks are a lot more threatening in the books, so I find. They don't usually speak english in BL publications and they tend to be more nasty. There's a scene in Gunheads that mentions orks torturing human children to get their parents to do work for them.

I think the necrons were changed because their old fluff was less marketable. Their character was that they had no character. The tyranids already did that, and they did it much better. With one codex the necrons gone from being my least favourite race to a race that seriously intrigues me. Does it make them less grimdark cause they have a face now? I guess, but as long as they aren't rewritten into a reasonable, benevolent race then the damage to the drop in their grimdarkatude won't be too big. Of course, I haven't actually read the new codex...

As for an overall change in tone, I don't really see it. A handful of the specific examples the OP named were Mat Ward's stuff and I notice he likes to write about heroic individuals doing great things.

Durza wrote:I'd blame the loss of Grimdark on the amount of Space Marine codices coming out.

I'm fairly sure your jury's still out on whether or not the SM variant codices are responsible for cancer, so this doesn't exactly shock me.

I, much more rationally, blame the proliferation of Black Library novels which, while certainly good at least in some cases, pretty much require upbeat endings, as most authors want to write a series rather than a one-off. Even if not, they don't want to leave you depressed. A string of novels where the protagonists die horrible deaths at the end, always, would eventually turn most readers off.

Seaward wrote:
I, much more rationally, blame the proliferation of Black Library novels which, while certainly good at least in some cases, pretty much require upbeat endings

Which BL books have you read? Clearly you've never read 15 Hours.

CuddlySquig wrote:

Seaward wrote:
I, much more rationally, blame the proliferation of Black Library novels which, while certainly good at least in some cases, pretty much require upbeat endings

Which BL books have you read? Clearly you've never read 15 Hours.

I haven't, no.

Everything by ADB, most everything by Abnett, a fair amount of McNeill's, and of course some Sandy Mitchell.

I honestly try to avoid everything else.

The Horus Heresy series has a lot of downer endings, with the occasional bittersweet ending.

Void__Dragon wrote:The Horus Heresy series has a lot of downer endings, with the occasional bittersweet ending.

Really? We may just have a different idea of what a downer ending would be, then.

Fluff may change in the future, it is all possible that Imperium will not be on the defensive - but offensive. But it all depends if GW continue the story.

I apologize on the behalf of my American brothers that don't have a proper appreciation for Orky speech and realize that they just want to get some bovver in and put a boot to your gob.




A.S.M.A.B.

Joey wrote:They definately should have taken a leaf out of Blizard's book and made the orks a proud, ancient warrior-people. Would make them a lot more threatening too, than just mindless savages.

No, please, no.

First, Orks are fine as they are now. Second, 'Blizzard's book' stole blatantly from GW. It wasn't until Warcraft III when their orcs became medioeval Klingons, lifting from Ronald D. Moore and John M. Ford (those two guys allegedly "redesigned" the soviet-inspired Klingons of TOS to make them fit into TNG, giving them their warrior ethics and a coherent system of beliefs) instead.

See, WoW was already in planning shortly after Warcraft II and before Warcraft III was even released. Probably Blizzard wanted orcs to have an appeal as a potential Player Race on an RPG or MMO. Thing is, Warcraft I and II had their orcs farting, talking cockney and acting stupid.

Back on topic, I'd say the biggest damage to the grimdark was done when those 'starchild' and 'Emperor as an actual god' theories were introduced in the (otherwise fairly grimdark) 3rd ed. Isolated episodes of military prowess such as those introduced by Ward matter little when you're pointlessly struggling against extinction. If said extinction can be avoided by supernatural means the struggle ceases to be pointless, you're merely buying time until the miracle happens, the Emperor is reborn as a God in the Warp and mankind rises again. Hope, in the big picture, removes that 'impending doom' feeling.

Good thing they wrote a fair dose of uncertainty into those theories. It didn't prevent fans from taking them to the letter, though.

Agent_Tremolo wrote:Back on topic, I'd say the biggest damage to the grimdark was done when those 'starchild' and 'Emperor as an actual god' theories were introduced in the (otherwise fairly grimdark) 3rd ed. Isolated episodes of military prowess such as those introduced by Ward matter little when you're pointlessly struggling against extinction. If said extinction can be avoided by supernatural means the struggle ceases to be pointless, you're merely buying time until the miracle happens, the Emperor is reborn as a God in the Warp and mankind rises again. Hope, in the big picture, removes that 'impending doom' feeling.

Good thing they wrote a fair dose of uncertainty into those theories. It didn't prevent fans from taking them to the letter, though.

That theory's been dropped, or at least never again mentioned by GW anyway, thankfully . It's on Lexicanum and is actually the only place I really saw it, IIRC.

Seaward wrote:

CuddlySquig wrote:

Seaward wrote:
I, much more rationally, blame the proliferation of Black Library novels which, while certainly good at least in some cases, pretty much require upbeat endings

Which BL books have you read? Clearly you've never read 15 Hours.

I haven't, no.

Everything by ADB, most everything by Abnett, a fair amount of McNeill's, and of course some Sandy Mitchell.

I honestly try to avoid everything else.

You've read almost everything by Abnett, and yet you say the stories end on a good note... ?

Almost every Gaunt's Ghost story ended on a gakky note. It's like "Hooray we defeated the chaos forces! Buuuut we lost half the regiment in the process. -next book- Yay we defeated the chaos forces! Buuuuuut bragg is dead. -next book- Yaaaaay we defeated the chaos forces! Buuuuut ____ is dead. -next book- Yaaaay we defeated the chaos forces! Buuuuut ____ has terminal cancer."

Same with Eisenhorn. Abnett's books are some of the most despressing, grim dark books I have ever read in any genre.

I personal like a little silliness in the fluff, I mean its all just meant to tie together the models that you see on the table top to a grander stage. The fluff in a codex is meant to be pro that army, it would be kinda silly if you lost in your own book and there are a large number of Imperium codexs...so...yeah.

To give an idea of where i am coming from through, the Caiaphas Cain series is my favorite book series.

"Grim" only works if you have something to lose, and you have something to play off of. Like hope. If you have nothing but grim and despair and utter futility it becomes self defeating and loses its impact. It's like trying to say you can have shadows in a completely dark room. 2nd Edition was good with balancing the grim and the hope, as well as adding in a dash of the humor.

If it were intended as parody that would be different, since parody is supposed to be silly. But it is only unintentionally hilarious now, because it is nothing but doom and gloom (at least going by the codexes.) So having it lighten up over time the way the novels and FFG material does is, in my mind, a good thing. It restores a balance.