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So, I was posting on a largely unrelated thread and mentioned that I couldn't think of how a writer could truly ruin the fluff behind the Imperial Guard. Make them incompetent? Hell 80% of the Guard is already portrayed that way. Make them the best individual soldiers in the galaxy? The other 20% are already like that (Cadians are just below marines, Catachans are the best jungle fighters etc.)

Anyway, what changes to the fluff of your faction could you think of that would ruin it for you?

If Sisters were shown to be somehow genetically or magically enhanced, that would ruin them.

Scientifically or logically explaining how Ork's technology and the energy they emmit during a WAAGH!

Necrons gaining back their flesh via bio-transferrance

The Eldar stumbling upon their intact Empire, which they had actually just misplaced.

Space Wolves: Take the name literally and make them werewolves in space, instead of Vikings in space. Oh wait. That already happened. Well, partly anyway. I still like bits of their current fluff.

Eldar: Take away their shtick as technologically most advanced, knowledgeable, arrogant hyper-psychic, dying race. Oh wait, that also already happened. (Well, except for the dying bit.)

Yep, GW is doing a pretty good job of killing my interest in their background.

Buttons wrote:So, I was posting on a largely unrelated thread and mentioned that I couldn't think of how a writer could truly ruin the fluff behind the Imperial Guard. Make them incompetent? Hell 80% of the Guard is already portrayed that way. Make them the best individual soldiers in the galaxy? The other 20% are already like that (Cadians are just below marines, Catachans are the best jungle fighters etc.)

Anyway, what changes to the fluff of your faction could you think of that would ruin it for you?

How is 80% of the guard incompetent?
And how are Cadians "just below space marines"?

If you made the IG an elite fighting force, that would kind of ruin them for me.

I also can't think of a way to ruin orks. Not with out completely changing them and then they aren't orks anymore anyway.

Making any Imperial faction unequivocably good guys. I like my Imperium, grim, dark, and nasty. It's why I love the setting. They're skirting dangerously close to this, in my opinion.

Manchu wrote:If Sisters were shown to be somehow genetically or magically enhanced, that would ruin them.

Yup.

Testify wrote:

Buttons wrote:So, I was posting on a largely unrelated thread and mentioned that I couldn't think of how a writer could truly ruin the fluff behind the Imperial Guard. Make them incompetent? Hell 80% of the Guard is already portrayed that way. Make them the best individual soldiers in the galaxy? The other 20% are already like that (Cadians are just below marines, Catachans are the best jungle fighters etc.)

Anyway, what changes to the fluff of your faction could you think of that would ruin it for you?

How is 80% of the guard incompetent?
And how are Cadians "just below space marines"?

Ever look at Chenkov, Penal Legions, Conscripts, or the basic Infantry Squad fluff entries in any codex? Compared to everyone else they are incompetent, losing 10 million men to capture a single fortress. As for Cadians The current codex lists them as "some of the finest troops in the Imperial Guard" lexicanum states "The Cadians are widely regarded as some of the best troops in the Imperium, short of the Space Marines themselves." granted I can't find the exact source for that claim. Cadians have always been portrayed as some of the best human warriors in the galaxy, granted due to the fame of marines it seems like every "elite" formation that isn't made up of marines is second only to the marines, whether they are storm troopers, Cadians, or Afriel Strain troopers.



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Zylor wrote:The Eldar stumbling upon their intact Empire, which they had actually just misplaced.

The Blood Raven's 5th company was lost in the warp, traveled back in time, and stole the Eldar Empire. I thought this was canon.

-Space Marines: Matt Ward doing a p good job at that

-Imperial Guard: Turn them into the new Space Marines/Mary Stu's

-SoB: Keep doing what GW is doing with them

-Chaos: Starts working with the Imperium against other factions,

-Eldar: Make them less morally ambiguous and less brutal, more noble and more like the Protoss

-Dark Eldar: Soften them

-Tyranids: Give them the Newcron treatment> No more central hivemind, Hive Tyrants have personalities and run their own swarms (One likes to collect things, one works as a mercenary, another likes to keep in his own territory, etc.)

-Orks: Go back to the Rogue Trader complete jokes, or vice versa take away any kind of humor. The current balance is the best.

-Tau: Turn them from "the best" faction and more morally ambigious/grey to Nazi oppressors

Chenkov's tactics or his troops aren't exactly "incompetent" - it's just that some regiments value the individual soldier's life even less than others, or rather they value the equipment more. Whilst Cadia may affort to clad each of its soldiers in body armour and lavishly handing out large kits of equipment, some worlds simply lack these resources as they are not regarded as a "priority" by the Munitorum. Not to mention that the Cadian Interior Guard is a convenient means for distributing training amongst the troops, whereas other IG regiments are most often raised on an "as needed" basis, in which case many of them won't be as experienced (depending on the world) and will have to use "learning by doing" a bit more than the Cadians do.

That doesn't make these regiments "incompetent", though. They'd be incompetent if they would fail in their tasks. They'd be incompetent if they would turn tail and run. Yet the grimdark truth is that they (usually) do not give up, regardless of the cost, but continue marching onward until the objective is secured. It may not seem efficient to us, but when a soldier is worth less than the weapon he is issued, then the priorities change.

You can call the WW2 Red Army incompetent for its tactics, but in the end they still beat an enemy who was much more professional and had a technological advantage. That is what, for example, Chenkov's Valhallans are all about: perseverance. Perseverance being able to keep up with or even beat training and equipment. That is way closer to the core idea of the Imperial Guard than Cadians, as the training and equipment areas are obviously dominated by the Space Marines.

Buttons wrote:lexicanum states

Lexicanum states a lot.

Anyhow, here's my list:

Imperial Guard: I'm with nomotog on this one. Making them elite would ruin them for me.
Chaos: Stealing the "sex" from Slaanesh. It's part of his/her portfolio dammit! Give the miniatures a PG rating if you have to but don't trash the 80s punk fluff.
Space Marines: Making them too perfect, too independent, too special snowflake, too successful in battle. For some Chapters, this is already the case. Fortunately not for all.
SoB: Giving them magical abilities or inflating their numbers. The current rarity as well as the ambiguity of their faith abilities works just right for me.
Tau: Like Harriticus. Morally grey is much better than having them pure white (too good) or black (evil)

Necrons - too late- been done already.
Grey Knights - ditto


Orks- Make them unrandom and unfun. The random, wacky yet mindlessly violent fluff is one of the big draws for me.

Dark Eldar- Make them goody goodies who live to serve the Emperor..

SM- Make the Ultramarines the ONLY ones that get any coverage.. oh wait

Lynata wrote:SoB: Giving them magical abilities or inflating their numbers. The current rarity as well as the ambiguity of their faith abilities works just right for me.

About the rarity thing, I think the SM fluff handles this well: chapters of 1000 but who knows how many chapters? With Sisters, the same thing is accomplished with the Lesser Orders Militant. I'd say an order of Sisters to be much "rarer" than Guardsmen (no unified forces of millions of them as with a Guard army) but many, many more than Space Marines.

Sisters of Battle: Have them trade in power armor for high heels and skin tight leather outfits and the like 'cause that is how to sell more models the Ecclesiastes roll now.

Manchu wrote:but many, many more than Space Marines.

Then they'd show up more often than Space Marines, wouldn't they?

On that note, I approve of GW's decision to re-print the force disposition charts from Armageddon 3 and the 13th Black Crusade in the rulebook. Now everyone can see how many Sisters were fighting there compared to the number of Astartes and Guard.

Kris Knives wrote:Sisters of Battle: Have them trade in power armor for high heels and skin tight leather outfits and the like 'cause that is how to sell more models the Ecclesiastes roll now.

Ugh! I forgot, add the high heels to my list as well. Thankfully this seems to be limited to Blanche's art so far...

Lynata wrote:Ugh! I forgot, add the high heels to my list as well. Thankfully this seems to be limited to Blanche's art so far...

TBF, even primarchs wear high heels according to John Blanche.

Manchu wrote:TBF, even primarchs wear high heels according to John Blanche.

I need to see those pictures.

*wolf whistle*

Oh my, he's looking fabulous!

Jaghatai unfashionable? In-KHAN-ceivable!

Make the Eldar somehow less psychically potent than the other races.

Giving the White Scars Dreadnaughts in official Fluff. I mean, how stupid can you BE to do that? I mean they wouldnt even have the armor on hand give it the the fallen hero. Thank the Emperor no one did that

They could ruin the Alpha Legion fluff, by changing it.

They could ruin orks by having there be a greater intelligence behind the scenes pulling their strings, perhaps the last Old One. I doubt it'll happen, but in most fantasy settings the orcs are working for someone, whether they are Sauron's loyal subjects doing his bidding, or just pawns in the demonic assault on Azeroth.

If the Imperial Guard was stated to pretty much only win with Space Marine assistance, that would ruin their fluff for me.

Bludbaff wrote:They could ruin orks by having there be a greater intelligence behind the scenes pulling their strings, perhaps the last Old One. I doubt it'll happen, but in most fantasy settings the orcs are working for someone, whether they are Sauron's loyal subjects doing his bidding, or just pawns in the demonic assault on Azeroth.

I don't think that would be bad, if it stayed nice and orky. Like if Grots were initially the last remaining old ones and tried to control the orks, but failed and ended up becoming slaves to the orks. After thousands of years of abuse, they forgot what they once were and accept their lot in life.

I think the guard should stay the way they are in the fluff.
I don't want them to become more elite but they would be totally ruined for me if they are portrayed as more incompetent and useless without marine support.

I think they currently have a good balence with some regiments having the abiliy to be considered elite and others winning through huge numbers and overwhelming firepower.. all the good stuff..

Zylor wrote:The Eldar stumbling upon their intact Empire, which they had actually just misplaced.

lol.

Anyways, the guard fluff is ruined by the guard looking more elite. The more regular guardsmen become like stormtroopers (or, emperor forbid, marines), the more their fluff is ruined. Anything that references guard arriving quickly to a scene, or doing anything whatever involving precision wrecks it. One of the reasons I really don't care for valkyries, fluffwise.

To me, the fluffy soul of the Imperial Guard comes from page 7 of the current guard codex: "That sufficient troops arrive at a crisis point is only because of the sheer mass of troops and vehicles deployed by the Departmento Munitorum in the first place".

As for how to wreck orks, one word: metachloriens.

Having a repeat of Sanguinius' mutation within the Blood Angels