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CrashCanuck wrote:

Lord Chiasson wrote:

Draigo- So a simple single Supreme Grand Master grey knight best a Daemon Primarch of Nurgle, has time to rip his chest cavity open, then proceeds to carve his former master's name in it and just keeps on truckin. And this is believable? A Daemon Primarch.....who I believe its said to be in the same room the plauges he has eat away armor and flesh alike....really?

Maugan Ra- from what I have read so far just seems like there making him into a Eldar Calgar, an Eldar one man army who defines what an eldar warrior should be

Mephiston- The BA I use to love but now I would like to see him suddenly reveal he is worshiping chaos and then start a civil war within the chapter. Or he could possibly just become a reborn Sanguinious.

The only believable part about Draigo for me is that he has done some impressive things while in the warp and made himself not worth the time of the Greater Daemons there. As far as him splitting a Daemon Primarchs chest open and carving a name into his heart, yeah that's just insane.

You've got it backwards. Beating a Daemon Primarch is fine enough, considering numerous other less suitable characters have taken out arguably more powerful Daemons than Mortarion, it isn't ridiculous. How it happened is stupid, I'll give you that. However, having a single person, even a Grey Knight, run around in the Warp killing Greater Daemons and being utterly immune to the will of the Chaos Gods is stupid and over the top. It says in the same damn Codex that the Warp is dangerous even for Grey Knights, in the Interceptors entry, and they only enter it for moments at a time.

I think GW/BL sort of defeat themselves when they write rediculous fluff like Draigo. True, it's 40k and anything is possible, but...when they've spent so much time and money over the years making fluff 'rules' (as it were), they do have a nasty habit of breaking them.

Do I love over-the-top good guy pwnge? Yeah, I do. But I love a well-written story more. There have been numerous times that GW/BL have killed their heroes in some sort of awesome way and while that sucked, I appreciated the story as a whole. Some of this newer stuff is...well, fun but lacking in substance.

Do I think Calgar holding a gap in a fortress wall is silly? Not really. In fact, when comparing the other chapter masters (Dante, Logan, Azrael) he doesn't get much face time so I'm happy he get's noticed for more than The Battle for Ultramar.

Mephiston? I only know what I've read on Lexicanum. On the board he's silly, almost broken, but I've seen him killed by a FW team so...yeah.

Draigo is...well, Draigo.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
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.

Lelith Hesperax was killed in a Nick Kyme novel, I think it was Firedrake, by a Salamander Chaplain.

Back on topic, I agree with the changes to the Necrons "history", amongst others, it sure sounds like the Emperor can just go ahead and die and the Imperium will be just fine.

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

Maybe if they all just made angry faces and screamed a lot...oh wait that is what space marines do...

clively wrote:

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
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.

Lelith Hesperax was killed in a Nick Kyme novel, I think it was Firedrake, by a Salamander Chaplain.

That makes me sad. She is one of the best Female 40k models.


Also, Eldrad and Urian Jacobus are also dead playable characters.

IronSnake wrote: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.

This doesn't show up much in fluff, but Ork Warbosses are actually very smart, especially when compared to the rank and file Ork Boy. Make of that what you will...

IMO, I think that the setting itself is still inherently grimdark, but the writing in the codices often very poorly emphasizes that. It's hard to notice that Draigo's situation could be considered grimdark when not a single thing in the Warp can so much as give him pause, and as iproxtaco mentioned before the notion that he is completely immune to the will of the Chaos Gods is ridiculous. The Grey Knight codex also tries its hardest to make Daemons non-threatening. Take Mortarion, not merely a Daemon Prince, a Daemon Primarch, and as such far above the norm for such beings. Draigo beating him isn't inherently silly or dumb, but the way it was written was. That didn't read like some epic struggle of a lone warrior triumphing against all odds in mortal combat with a foe who once burned down entire worlds at the head of the greatest army in the galaxy at the time, it read like some punk beating up his kid brother. This makes Mortarion, and his masters, look like jokes, and hurts Chaos' (The essentially main villainous faction) credibility. The Grey Knights codex has more examples, though Draigo's exploits are just the most triumphant ones. There is a single loss in the Grey Knights codex I can remember, every other example is just them pwning Daemon ass like it's not a thing.

It still strikes a little fear in me whenever I read a book and the necrons or 'nids are mentioned. It always has that sense of, "Oh crap, a lot of people are going to die now". I still get that feeling now, even though with the recent codex, it seems that the necrons are given more heart and soul, but to a less extent. I always liked the idea that necrons were killy killy, anything that breathes dies, but I guess it could seem a little more grimdark that even they have to ally with enemies cuz of the 'nid threats.

Draigo's exploits are just a little ludicrous. Going up against a primarch is serious business and the fact that he manages to carve his name onto Mortarion's heart?

I don't mind GW's slight turn from grimdark, because I don't see it as much of a change. The tyranids are still a pretty scary force as well as those necrons (WHO WONT DIE), and the Imperium struggles to maintain their grip on their own planets, many of which are either lost to chaos, lost because of some idiots in power, nom'd by nids, wiped out by awakening tomb worlds, or a host of other threats.

I think the BL books have just mainly been focusing on those epic battles of heroism, SM, CSM, those super giants, in an attempt to get the mainstream hormonally charged teens into this hobby. Frankly I don't mind, I'm one of those teens. But a whole lot of heroic battles doesn't win wars.

We'll be back!

Dunno if anyone read the Fall of Damnos, but the 'crons stomped all over people, SMs included. The PDF might as well have not even been there and the Ordinatus they had...well, read the book.

Necrons still scare the bejesus out of me.

Frankenberry wrote:Dunno if anyone read the Fall of Damnos, but the 'crons stomped all over people, SMs included.

Funnily enough I heard the exact opposite.

They crushed the normal 'umies, only for the Space Marines to stomp ass.

Its the focus more than the overall content that lets down the grim darkness of it all. I'll use the Tyranid codex as an example.

A lot of people die. A lot. Most of it is glossed over in favour of human heroics though.

Macragge? Most of the Macragge system is ravaged. Go read about Prandia, for instance. Most of the Ultima Segmentums Guard and Naval assets are wiped out, along with a good portion of the plot armoured Ultramarines. Calgar is just about slaughtered by the Swarmlord. The ultimate sacrifice of self destructing an irreplaceable battleship snatches victory from the bugs.

Kraken? Iyanden is reduced to a fraction of its original inhabitants. Ichar IV and other planets are ravaged. Victory is again snatched from the bugs at the last minute, this time by Prince Yriel.

Leviathan. Untold carnage. Multiple systems wiped out, inclusing Space Marine fortress worlds and Gryphonne IV, an irreplaceable major Forgeworld. Reading the little boxouts on the glactic map of Leviathan, while some bits stick out like Maugan Ra holding off a fleet by himself, the vast majority is worlds dying, the Imperium making fighting retreats form engagements (the worst thing you can do against Tyranids), and loss of territory.

Even the minor fleets Naga, Gorgon, etc do untold damage and destroy multiple worlds.

Yet, it's all written in such an utterly sterile way that there's no sense of dread. These 'space locusts' are destroying world after world, and its actually in print in the book, yet it's done in such an unmemorable way no one actually recalls any of it and don't see the dread of fighting a hive fleet. The memorable content focuses on heroics defeating the hive fleets, which again, takes away from the dread. When the majority of the memorable fluff for the army in its own codex is about them losing, they don't come across as a threat.

The main problem is they're written up heroes of the Imperium utterly without fear, and made them the focus of the fluff. When these peerless heroes, who are one in a trillion among the fighting forces of the Imperium, see their planet falling down around them from untold billions of giant bugs, or daemons exploding from warp rifts, Eldar appearing from nowhere and slicing their forces to bits, and don't give a gak and look for the next Avatar to strangle with their bare hands, you end up changing the tone of what you're reading.

Void__Dragon wrote:

Frankenberry wrote:Dunno if anyone read the Fall of Damnos, but the 'crons stomped all over people, SMs included.

Funnily enough I heard the exact opposite.

They crushed the normal 'umies, only for the Space Marines to stomp ass.

The same thing happened with Siege of Vrax. The Chaos alliance brought the IG and SM chapters to the brink of defeat as well as managing to summon the most fearsome Bloodthirster in existence (an unprecedented feat) ….Then comes along Inquisitor Hector Rex and the Grey Knights. Hector Rex single-handedly defeats Angrath in a one on one duel and the Grey Knights quash the remaining enemy forces. The first and second halves of the story feel unrelated IMO with the first half feeling like a “classic” 40k/grim dark struggle and the second half more of a comic book.

Something I’ve noticed recently with the 40k fluff pieces in the rule books/FW supplements is that the writers tend to put a “happy ending” in the storyline, often via the IoM being victorious. What the writers usually miss is that “happy endings” don’t work in the 40k Grim Dark setting when the entire purpose is the eternal war between the various factions (with none of the factions being the “good guys”). The notion to have “good guy” comic book style victories just unbalances the Grim Dark setting IMO as it portrays IoM as the far dominant faction, particularly when Matt Ward writes the majority of IoM codex fluff.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

clively wrote:

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
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.

Lelith Hesperax was killed in a Nick Kyme novel, I think it was Firedrake, by a Salamander Chaplain.

That makes me sad. She is one of the best Female 40k models.


Also, Eldrad and Urian Jacobus are also dead playable characters.

Its not Lelith, IIRC that novel is set in the Horus Heresy when she had not yet been born

SylvanaSekNadin wrote: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.

Mind...blown...

Mr Morden wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

clively wrote:

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
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.

Lelith Hesperax was killed in a Nick Kyme novel, I think it was Firedrake, by a Salamander Chaplain.

That makes me sad. She is one of the best Female 40k models.


Also, Eldrad and Urian Jacobus are also dead playable characters.

Its not Lelith, IIRC that novel is set in the Horus Heresy when she had not yet been born

The Tome of Fire books, which Firedrake is part of, are set in the 'modern' 40k setting. So that was Lelith Hesperax.

Here's another thing you have too reflect on: How much grim darkness is too much? You can quite easily overstep the mark and hit the area of offensiveness and maybe even tastelessness (is that word?) if you make everything too dark.

TheCrazyCryptek wrote: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 Imperium always had its angelic equivalents. Living Saints were an early example (third edition), but even its regular saints were capable of doing things like beating a hive tyrant in single combat.

This is why I like the Imperial Armour campaigns: The Imperium regularly gets the sh*t kicked outta em. Don't get me wrong I am an Imperialist through and through but I am a little sick of the mary-sueishness that has invaded imperial codexes in the last few years. I haven't read the new necron dex but from what I've seen I won't like it one bit fluff wise. I liked it when the necron were mindless unfeeling emotionless butchers, they have been humanised by GW making them less frightening.

Ugly Green Trog wrote:This is why I like the Imperial Armour campaigns: The Imperium regularly gets the sh*t kicked outta em. Don't get me wrong I am an Imperialist through and through but I am a little sick of the mary-sueishness that has invaded imperial codexes in the last few years. I haven't read the new necron dex but from what I've seen I won't like it one bit fluff wise. I liked it when the necron were mindless unfeeling emotionless butchers, they have been humanised by GW making them less frightening.

I agree sir, the IA campaigns are very well written and thought out by and large, and it seems sometimes they actually played out the scenario/story on TT before setting it to paper, the gentlemen at Forgeworld always produce a quality fluff read.

candy.man wrote:

Void__Dragon wrote:

Frankenberry wrote:Dunno if anyone read the Fall of Damnos, but the 'crons stomped all over people, SMs included.

Funnily enough I heard the exact opposite.

They crushed the normal 'umies, only for the Space Marines to stomp ass.

The same thing happened with Siege of Vrax. The Chaos alliance brought the IG and SM chapters to the brink of defeat as well as managing to summon the most fearsome Bloodthirster in existence (an unprecedented feat) ….Then comes along Inquisitor Hector Rex and the Grey Knights. Hector Rex single-defeats Angrath in a one on one duel and the Grey Knight quash the remaining enemy forces. The first and second halves of the story feel unrelated IMO with the first half feeling like a “classic” 40k/grim dark struggle and the second half more of a comic book.

Something I’ve noticed recently with the 40k fluff pieces in the rule books/FW supplements is that the writers tend to put a “happy ending” in the storyline, often via the IoM being victorious. What the writers usually miss is that “happy endings” don’t work in the 40k Grim Dark setting when the entire purpose is the eternal war between the various factions (with none of the factions being the “good guys”). The notion to have “good guy” comic book style victories just unbalances the Grim Dark setting IMO as it portrays IoM as the far dominant faction, particularly when Matt Ward writes the majority of IoM codex fluff.

Dead men walking had the Imperium lose.

A majority of the chaos novels have the imperium losing.

Depends when the novels were written and what the setting was. If the novels you’re referring to are the Horus Heresy ones then they don’t count as end result for these stories have been pre-established (they’re not allowed to change the endings).

The happy endings/“not so Grim Dark environment” is only a recent shift that started to occur in 4th and escalated greatly in 5th. It’s easier to find “Grim Dark” stories where the IoM loses in stuff written during previous editions than stuff written in the current edition. The general majority among recent fluff tends to have the IoM victorious at the end of the story (even if exterminatus/equivalent can be counted as a downside).

-Loki- wrote:

Mr Morden wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

clively wrote:

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
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.

Lelith Hesperax was killed in a Nick Kyme novel, I think it was Firedrake, by a Salamander Chaplain.

That makes me sad. She is one of the best Female 40k models.

Also, Eldrad and Urian Jacobus are also dead playable characters.

Its not Lelith, IIRC that novel is set in the Horus Heresy when she had not yet been born

The Tome of Fire books, which Firedrake is part of, are set in the 'modern' 40k setting. So that was Lelith Hesperax.

Ah right - ok sorry about that - I thought you meant the HH Salamanders novel where the Dark Eldar turn up..... Is she dead dead in the novel as Dark Eldar can be regrown from bits and pieces...... also now I come to think of it did she also get killed in a earlier novel getting old and can't remember

I actually like the Draigo story. Considering normal humans don't get sucked back into the warp when the demonic invasion retreats, it's pretty clear he's at least partially demonic by this point. Sure, he may still fight for humanity whenever the chaos gods decide to let him off his leash a little, but in the end, he's still their bitch. It's a neat play on the Sisyphus tale. He's not immune to the will of the warp, he's just dancing for their amusement.

Mephiston also has something not so human in him, but I doubt it's still on the side of the empire. If space marines could become ultra-powerful by tuning into their geneseed, it would have been brought up before. Now, what in this setting, grants excessive powers, especially to psykers? What's also known to cause major personality shifts? Possession! I'd say infiltrating a space marine chapter with what, statline wise, appears to be a daemon prince certainly sounds grimdark enough.

I like the people tragically trapped in bodies of steel the necrons are now pulling. Then again, there's nothing to say a C'tan shard didn't get off of it's leash in the millenia the Necrons slumbered, and took over a few tomb worlds from which to devour life. The old fluff isn't invalidated, merely expanded. Why rewrite old fluff?

If you guys like the fluff that much, just play 40k Roleplay, those books produced by Fantasy flight are extremely true to the themes laid down in 2nd/3rd edition. The lore is consistent and well developed, and there is an actual reason for knowing anything about it (Story Telling).

I have a feeling that FF's 40k will end up being very different than GWs 40k, I hope FF doesn't cave in to them and just stays true to what they are writing.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote: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.

There are quite a few, see the linked thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/397196.page

Ultimately everything goes through a cycle. You need the Imperium losing at times and winning at others. Otherwise they may as well just come out with 6th edition and tell us that the Imperium is in full retreat and is going to lose.

Yeah... that's a lot of fun. Better to have the fluff go through a roller coaster of wins/losses to keep it balanced.

I really wouldn't draw a distinction between "all good' and 'all bad'. 40k has its own share of extremes, but it also tends to take a more 'gray area' approach, especially in the way the various factions are portrayed (noone is wholly good, or wholly bad.. all factions can have their good people and their bad people... which is rather plausible and makes sense, since it adds depth and variety to all the races.)

This applies to stories as well. just because 'The Imperium wins' doesn't mean its all sunshine and flowers. What was the cost in winning? How many troops were lost? how many civilians were killed? Was this war conducted for good and honorable reasons, or was it on the personal vanity/greed of someone else (that happens quite a bit)? While this war was going on did it leave some other planet exposed (EG a war on planet X may very well leave planet Y exposed to Dark Eldar raids - the Imperium does not have infinite resources.) Was the planet devastated? How long will it take to rebuild/ Can it rebuild? And so on. I honestly can't think of any Imperial 'victory' that did not come at a high cost (or a loss for that matter.) Especially if its written by Forge World (It'll be interesting to see whether the Imperium or the Eldar are the bigger punching bags there.)

For my part, I tend to prefer the FFG material from a purely fluff perspective as well as the novels. It's researcjhed, well fleshed out, and generally rather consistent. It also keeps to the tone of 40K without totally and uttelry descending into parody or sounding like propoganda the way the codexes do. Or like they novellized the tabletop battles the way Imperial armour books do (not a good way to do it, since its doubtful game mechanics are an accurate reflection of reality....)

Connor MacLeod wrote:I really wouldn't draw a distinction between "all good' and 'all bad'. 40k has its own share of extremes, but it also tends to take a more 'gray area' approach, especially in the way the various factions are portrayed (noone is wholly good, or wholly bad.. all factions can have their good people and their bad people... which is rather plausible and makes sense, since it adds depth and variety to all the races.)

This applies to stories as well. just because 'The Imperium wins' doesn't mean its all sunshine and flowers. What was the cost in winning? How many troops were lost? how many civilians were killed? Was this war conducted for good and honourable reasons, or was it on the personal vanity/greed of someone else (that happens quite a bit)? While this war was going on did it leave some other planet exposed (EG a war on planet X may very well leave planet Y exposed to Dark Eldar raids - the Imperium does not have infinite resources.) Was the planet devastated? How long will it take to rebuild/ Can it rebuild? And so on. I honestly can't think of any Imperial 'victory' that did not come at a high cost (or a loss for that matter.) Especially if its written by Forge World (It'll be interesting to see whether the Imperium or the Eldar are the bigger punching bags there.)

By the most part you are correct in that there are no “good guys” in 40k. I will say that “the cost of winning” isn’t necessarily an adequate enough drawback to making the IoM victorious when in comes to victories as it works against the overall purpose of 40k, being the eternal intergalactic war in a grim dark future.

What I’ve personally found is by having the IoM constantly victorious, it downplays severity of the setting and at the same time unbalances the IoM’s image in comparison to the other factions. The IoM currently has the appearance of being the far dominant faction in 40k which in turn weakens the image of the other factions which in turn, makes the setting “less grim dark”. Personally I think this is probably one of the reasons why the IoM is going to be portrayed in 6th edition as being on the back foot (if the rumours prove true).

Warmachine does the eternal war torn setting better in my opinion as their fluff does a better job of keeping the balance between all the factions. No faction or character ever gets a serious leg up (in terms of images or victories) over the other, which IoM makes the setting seem far more eternal and grim than 40k.

When I first read about the tyranids from my friend I was quite excited about their plot, the idea of some external mindless threat that surpassed everything else was a damn good idea (especially the fact that the defeat fleets so far are just a small test of the galactic armada to come).
What I don't like was when I read my own codex and discovered that DE just kinda strolled in, made some monsters, and destroyed a hive fleet while everyone else was fighting tooth and nail loosing almost entire craftworlds/fortress worlds in the process.

Anyway the astronomican is dieing so soon warp travel for the imperium will be decimated, than the xeno's will have their day....or the emperor becomes a god.