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Aside from the "grim darkness" tagline, has it ever really been that grimdark? Sure, there have been dark elements in some of the lore from time to time, but it's always been chock full of absolute silliness as well, no?
Yeah, curse those Space Marine Captains and Company Commanders with their 3 Wounds.
2W would only be an issue if there weren't a system which was capable of stripping of multiple wounds at once.
Things look a lot less desperate when your baseline troop is miles better than their xenos counterparts. But nice try.
Marines *should* be better than xenos counterparts. However, the tabletop isn't a good reflection of what the lore is - realistically, you'd have one squad of Intercessors/Tacticals, and the rest of the army is guardsmen as far as the eye can see.
If the Imperium was a single army book, Space Marines would be an Elites choice comparatively.
How much better? Because now they're well beyond Necron Warriors, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, etc. That's a problem. The core units of even elite xenos races are far below Intercessors. Chaos Space Marines as well and that's even more poignant. The historical parity has been thrown under the bus, and it's bad for the imagery.
The flavor of their eliteness has also changed into a frankly dumber version. What was once a focus on discipline (ATSKNF) has now become primarily (and much more simple-minded) "moar bigger." It's a degradation.
They're physically tougher and heave weapons that pack more of a punch an that's conveyed in their stats. Marines have balance issues atm but that's jsut due to the new books, fluffwise I think you need to brush up, ATSKNF was a reflection of their psycho-indoctrination, not their discipline. Their elite nature is they're given the imperiums best armour and weapons and then enhance the best of the best physically and mentally to be unstoppable killing machines.
Contrast that with an exarch who is a tall spindly xenos not much stronger than a human, wearing lightweight armour for mobility who excel because they practise with their combat style as a way of life. They're not winning arm wrestles with a space marines.
90's in pop culture where the edgy over the top years. Vampire the masquerade for intance was out in 91. Garbage pail kids in 89. I could find many other examples but I am lazy.
Are (were) 'nt the 2010 more appealed by dark but moral stories ? I mean it's the Super-heroes movies decade...
I feel like 90's were grimdark years when 10's are nobledark ones. GW writers are certainly not following a trend as much as they simply are the product of their environnement, like we are.
The only problem is that IMO nobledark doesn't fit the wh40k setting at all and makes it look plainly silly.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/24 09:56:22
Contrast that with an exarch who is a tall spindly xenos not much stronger than a human, wearing lightweight armour for mobility who excel because they practise with their combat style as a way of life. They're not winning arm wrestles with a space marines.
If 40k was even remotely realistic, Eldar basic weapon would outrange anything in imperial arsenal save maybe lascanons. The skuricat is a handheld railgun. The energy it packs makes the bolter explosive shell a little firecracker.
Of course this has never had any bearing on game itself, where since 3rd ed it's just been a submachine gun bolter.
As for strenght, it shouldnt matter any way, both sides have some sort of powered suit (eldar just have a more advanced kind) and as such raw muscle power has zero impact on how much power the servos/artificial muscles can transfer. That's something a lot of people fail to grasp. A power armor doesn't work like "natural strenght+X". It can't add power to your hit, it replaces your power fully with however much the machine can exert. If you push it over it's limit, it will just break.
Not if is is blesed. Then the only limit it has is your faith.
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
Karol wrote: Not if is is blesed. Then the only limit it has is your faith.
Brother, get the Sororitas here, we need to fortify this Powerarmor by blood.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
I've been disappointed by the newer Codexes and supplements over the last few years. There's been a shift away from the old style of books with plentiful amounts of grayscale artwork with more emphasis on theme and composition rather than detail. These days, reading the unit pages feels like browsing a product catalogue with the high res photos of each unit in colour schemes that don't resonate. The old photo gallery section which was fine as its own thing as has been cut down so much that its inclusion is basically pointless. Where there is art in the books, its hit or miss, and almost always where GW have hired a digital artist off the internet to draw something hyper-detailed and cleanly drawn that strictly resembles the associated products where older art show something more distinct and fascinating.
And that's where I feel the biggest hit to the "grimdark" atmosphere of the game has been. I still flick through my 4th and 5th edition IG Codexes to look at the art and read the written material, whereas I only open the newer ones if I need to check a rule.
Case in point, Its art like this that sticks with me when I close the book and put it away:
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/24 10:51:00
Mr.Omega wrote: These days, reading the unit pages feels like browsing a product catalogue with the high res photos of each unit in colour schemes that don't resonate.
Overread wrote: I think there's also a few other things going on
1) Some of the Grim Dark is in peoples minds more so than ever in the lore. Often people who tended to read less of the books and more just the codex and rulebooks. Building off the artwork and chatter with other fans they built a mental picture of a Grim Dark setting that was way darker than the Imperium as a whole.
2) GW is outreaching to new markets and side markets. Things like the books for kids and "chibi" models or even boardgames might, by some, be interpreted as dilution of the IP or even a shift in the IP away from Grimdark. In truth its simply GW taking the existing IP and applying it to other markets with suitable adjustments.
3) Not everyone actually reads the lore - in fact I'd argue the majority never open a Black Library book. So sometimes they see the happier/hopeful elements appearing here and there and they assume that things are changing. Whereas if they read more of the stories they'd realise that stories with hope and victory and good things ARE present in the lore and have been for a very long time. It's just something they either never identified with or even encountered.
4) The Imperium are the Good Guys - well kinda I mean they are the victorious good people who dominate the lore and books. So with material written by them for them of course they come off as the winners. That the Space Marines are defending an Empire of bloated madness where people toil in vast hive cities every day of their lives. Left with only scant time to eat, sleep and breed; with all the rest devoted to slave level labour with NO health and safety. Where peoples heads are sliced and diced to make servitors - brainddead machines to replace actual AI; where the rich might live for generations and go quite mad and insane; where whole planets can be lost within the administrative nightmare; where if you annoy the wrong guild member you can find your worlds cut off from the Imperium for generations.
Heck where the main mode of space travel is quite literally flying through hell.
Yeah its still very Grim Dark. Heck I'd argue that Grim Dark relies on hope and good things because its only by having them that they can be lost.
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment"
You can't have darkness without first having light to lose. You can't have darkness without a beacon of light to slave and fight and die toward.
This is the answer to this threads question. Simple as.
Yeah, curse those Space Marine Captains and Company Commanders with their 3 Wounds.
2W would only be an issue if there weren't a system which was capable of stripping of multiple wounds at once.
Things look a lot less desperate when your baseline troop is miles better than their xenos counterparts. But nice try.
Marines *should* be better than xenos counterparts. However, the tabletop isn't a good reflection of what the lore is - realistically, you'd have one squad of Intercessors/Tacticals, and the rest of the army is guardsmen as far as the eye can see.
If the Imperium was a single army book, Space Marines would be an Elites choice comparatively.
How much better? Because now they're well beyond Necron Warriors, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, etc. That's a problem. The core units of even elite xenos races are far below Intercessors. Chaos Space Marines as well and that's even more poignant. The historical parity has been thrown under the bus, and it's bad for the imagery.
The flavor of their eliteness has also changed into a frankly dumber version. What was once a focus on discipline (ATSKNF) has now become primarily (and much more simple-minded) "moar bigger." It's a degradation.
Well don't forget Necron Warriors were actually degraded themselves with the release of Ward's codex. Also Elites could always be below another army's troop choice. Forget that Grey Knights used to be 25 points a pop?
CaptainStabby wrote: If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.
jy2 wrote: BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.
vipoid wrote: Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?
MarsNZ wrote: ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
Necrons are interesting to me because one thing people keep asking for is "change" in the setting. Yet as GW has changed the necrons through their timeline - from almost mindless terminators, to steadily awakening lords with minds and personalities; the change has had some pushback.
It's an interesting display of how we get attached to a singular view of "our" factions and whilst we might desire change; at the same time we don't really want change.
Overread wrote: Necrons are interesting to me because one thing people keep asking for is "change" in the setting. Yet as GW has changed the necrons through their timeline - from almost mindless terminators, to steadily awakening lords with minds and personalities; the change has had some pushback.
It's an interesting display of how we get attached to a singular view of "our" factions and whilst we might desire change; at the same time we don't really want change.
Progressive change to a setting does not have to line up with a character change. The change to necrons come with both good and bad, I think for the setting it was probably a good change on the whole.
But for a character change, it’s mostly turn them into villain charecter profile 3. You could probably turn them into humans and there character would stay largely the same at times.
Could also be some of the modern writing is just soo bad, which is hard to divest from the change at times.
Grim dark I think for most of my time with 40k has come up as an excuse for something dumb, rather than as truly a theme or setting it follow. I was not there at the start, but even starting at the end of 2nd I have never really felt it’s any darker than other things I have read or read today.
Slayer-Fan123 785726 10724508 wrote:
Well don't forget Necron Warriors were actually degraded themselves with the release of Ward's codex. Also Elites could always be below another army's troop choice. Forget that Grey Knights used to be 25 points a pop?
That is hard to forget considering their cost in the codex.
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
Post-coming of M42, things are not looking good at all, the galaxy is being currently framed on the brink of destruction, especially since we just came off the heels of the 13th black crusade, and the formation of the great rift.
++No xeno shall escape my sight, THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!++
++FOR THE LION!++
Having played for two decades (not as long as some, I admit) I do feel like it's stayed relatively consistent but they have smoothed out some of the grim darker edges in my opinion. It's nothing dramatic but you notice some of the elements being toned down from time to time.
For me, case and point are the daemon models and Plague Zombies. If you look specifically at the Horrors and compare the current crop to Juan Diaz's there's certainty an element of horror lost. The newer ones look like cartoon puppets whilst Diaz's look like literal horrors as you see razor toothed blobs with thin, ape-like arms tearing their way out of one another.
Similarly with the poxwalkers vs plague zombies (I am NOT commenting on the name, but the actual model) and how they went from literal shambling disease ridden human corpses, stripped to the bone or decaying with a creepy glow emanating from empty eye sockets to smiling/campy grotesques that barely resemble a human; there's once again an element of horror lost in my opinion.
Finally is the daemon prince model. The current one is awful, it literally looks like a campy saturday morning cartoon villain. I've seen similar effects (the new Bloodthirster and Great Unclean Ones lack an implicit danger/'realism' the LOC, KOS and forge world GUO seem to harbour). I know I mention horror but these specific examples are areas where the horror of these entities added to the 'grim dark' tone of 40k.
Then there's the odd examples in fluff too - flayed ones are a decent example. How they went from insane psychopaths, driven mad by the transference to new metals forms so they tear the skin off victims in a macabre attempt of 'feeling' biological again.
But I don't know if my former complaints are just examples of some bad sculpts and the latter just a slight shift.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/02/24 13:49:21
Gadzilla666 785726 10723600 wrote:
Right, unlike Poland. See any Gorgoroth concerts lately?
I don't know what a gorgoroth is.
A heavy metal band who recorded a concert in Poland for a live DVD only to be arrested and have all the footage seized because it was considered by the authorities to be offensive to religion. That wouldn't happen in America.
Ah stuff like that, yeah you get for prison for offending religion here. But you have the exact same thing, just not for catholics.
Uh, no. in my area there is a group of "Satanists" (I put quotes because they are not actually, they just legally register themselves as such for political purposes) and they go around putting up huge statues of satan and holding satanic prayers to stop the government from putting christian symbols in spaces owned by the government.
Legally if the government does allow, say, a christian group to put up a statue of jesus or hold a public prayer, they have to allow any religious organization to participate as well. so the "Satanists" come and ask "Hey, do you want to have a statue of jesus and a statue of Satan, or would you rather have no statues at all?"
I can't really think of anything that could be more offensive to religion than that, and that is pretty much 100% allowed here.
Yeah, curse those Space Marine Captains and Company Commanders with their 3 Wounds.
2W would only be an issue if there weren't a system which was capable of stripping of multiple wounds at once.
Things look a lot less desperate when your baseline troop is miles better than their xenos counterparts. But nice try.
Marines *should* be better than xenos counterparts. However, the tabletop isn't a good reflection of what the lore is - realistically, you'd have one squad of Intercessors/Tacticals, and the rest of the army is guardsmen as far as the eye can see.
If the Imperium was a single army book, Space Marines would be an Elites choice comparatively.
How much better? Because now they're well beyond Necron Warriors, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, etc. That's a problem. The core units of even elite xenos races are far below Intercessors. Chaos Space Marines as well and that's even more poignant. The historical parity has been thrown under the bus, and it's bad for the imagery.
The flavor of their eliteness has also changed into a frankly dumber version. What was once a focus on discipline (ATSKNF) has now become primarily (and much more simple-minded) "moar bigger." It's a degradation.
They're physically tougher and heave weapons that pack more of a punch an that's conveyed in their stats. Marines have balance issues atm but that's jsut due to the new books, fluffwise I think you need to brush up, ATSKNF was a reflection of their psycho-indoctrination, not their discipline. Their elite nature is they're given the imperiums best armour and weapons and then enhance the best of the best physically and mentally to be unstoppable killing machines.
Contrast that with an exarch who is a tall spindly xenos not much stronger than a human, wearing lightweight armour for mobility who excel because they practise with their combat style as a way of life. They're not winning arm wrestles with a space marines.
A game piece that is an elite infantryman with a rifle that shoots essentially the width of the entire board versus a melee-only specialist whose job is to kill elite infantry....who should win in melee?
Obviously the guy with the 30" range gun, right? It makes the most sense for him to win in melee?
Ok, how about this: That same elite infantry, who can fistfight and win against specialized melee units, in a shooting fight with another factions' infantry who dies instantly in melee. Who should win at a 30" range shooting duel?
Obviously that first guy right? He should be able to win at shooting vs the shooting-only specialist. It just makes sense.
nah. Marines being "Decent at everything, but worse than other races' specialists at what they're specialized in" is what gave the game some semblance of balance. Marines being cartoonishly superior to everyone at everything, including versus other races specialized units that do only one thing is what leads groups to just...stop playing versus marines.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/24 13:58:05
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
I can't really think of anything that could be more offensive to religion than that, and that is pretty much 100% allowed here.
You should know that the law, in theory, protects ALL religious fee-fees. So yes, the Satanists could in theory sue every single christian artwork outside of place of worship. It's not going to happen because the whole damn country has been hijacked by jesus fondlers, but in theory it works for all religions, as it doesn't protect religion per se,it protects religious feelings of individuals. Still dumb, mind you.
I can't really think of anything that could be more offensive to religion than that, and that is pretty much 100% allowed here.
You should know that the law, in theory, protects ALL religious fee-fees. So yes, the Satanists could in theory sue every single christian artwork outside of place of worship. It's not going to happen because the whole damn country has been hijacked by jesus fondlers, but in theory it works for all religions, as it doesn't protect religion per se,it protects religious feelings of individuals. Still dumb, mind you.
maybe in the US, in our country when a satanist offended the catholic church, he had to get a go fund me to pay up. If he wasn't a know celebrity he would end in jail time too. One has to be a state recognised religion here to be protected by law, cults, sects or satanists can never be registered and never count as religion. While their followers are publicly rediculed, save for cities like warsaw.
If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain.
Yes, GW is trying to lose the Grim Dark. It's not very kid friendly. GW made that partnership with Barnes and Noble. Had to do a double take when I saw "Blitz Bowl" which is a renamed Blood Bowl, and "Combat Arena" instead of Kill Team.
Kara Sloan shoots through Time and Design Space for a Negative Play Experience
There is a definite gap between GW marketing and the 40K lore. The marketing team is doing its damnest to pass the models off as “your heroes”, but the lore contains all sorts of allusions to grim darkness that gets passed over by most of the customer base.
The marketing aspect has been bleeding into the artwork for some time now, and the imagery has lost a lot of the “war journalist” look and become more modeling propaganda to sell the settings and models.
It’s all kind of funny to me - I use to abhor some of the grim undertones of the setting, and the Tau’s initial nobleness and appearance as perhaps 40K’s only good guys is what initially drew me to the faction. That’s changed over time - both the Tau naivety and my regard for 40K’s grim background, and it seems the company has reversed things - the Tau seem darker and the grinding bureaucratic nightmare of the imperium feels far more noble bright than it ever has.
catbarf wrote: Can't have it looking like the Imperium might not be the good guys, after all.
catbarf wrote:We are told that the Imperium is in its most desperate hour, beset on all sides by numerous foes, and crippled by being split in two, with the Imperium Nihilus in the process of crumbling away.
We are shown new Primaris reinforcements coming to newly-awakened Guilliman's aid so that he can beat back the Imperium's foes, and major events/campaigns are either a win for the Imperium or at worst a draw. From a tabletop perspective there is nothing to suggest that the Imperium is any worse off. No units or technologies are more restricted as the means for their replenishment is lost in Nihilus. Imperial Guard aren't any worse off for the loss of Cadia. Cawl is pulling new inventions out from under his hat to make Space Marines more technologically advanced and lethal than ever. If you're an Imperium player things are pretty good.
IMHO the best part of the 40k setting has always been that the "good guys" run an empire that is incomprehensibly horrific compared to any of history's cruelest and bloodiest regimes, and yet they are still some how the least worst bunch in the galaxy (from a human's point of view anyway). For me, the grim darkness of the Imperium has always been about the state of the Imperium itself rather than its status as an empire perennially on the brink of collapse. Though it would be refreshing for them to actually properly win or lose some conflicts, the whole concept of the Imperium Nihilus should give ground for something other than seemingly constant Pyrrhic victories.
Semper wrote:But I don't know if my former complaints are just examples of some bad sculpts and the latter just a slight shift.
In the case of Chaos Daemon it's a bit of both -- the early plastic kits really suffer from technical limitations (they couldn't put as much detail in the kits) and design choices (aesthetic nods to the older, somewhat goofier metal sculpts rather than translating the much admired Diaz sculpts to plastic). The poses of many of the miniatures in the Bloodletter and Pink Horror kits are also quite bad imho, I'd be all over the Horrors if they looked closer to their smaller blue selves.
Yeah, curse those Space Marine Captains and Company Commanders with their 3 Wounds.
2W would only be an issue if there weren't a system which was capable of stripping of multiple wounds at once.
Things look a lot less desperate when your baseline troop is miles better than their xenos counterparts. But nice try.
Marines *should* be better than xenos counterparts. However, the tabletop isn't a good reflection of what the lore is - realistically, you'd have one squad of Intercessors/Tacticals, and the rest of the army is guardsmen as far as the eye can see.
If the Imperium was a single army book, Space Marines would be an Elites choice comparatively.
How much better? Because now they're well beyond Necron Warriors, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, etc. That's a problem. The core units of even elite xenos races are far below Intercessors. Chaos Space Marines as well and that's even more poignant. The historical parity has been thrown under the bus, and it's bad for the imagery.
The flavor of their eliteness has also changed into a frankly dumber version. What was once a focus on discipline (ATSKNF) has now become primarily (and much more simple-minded) "moar bigger." It's a degradation.
They're physically tougher and heave weapons that pack more of a punch an that's conveyed in their stats. Marines have balance issues atm but that's jsut due to the new books, fluffwise I think you need to brush up, ATSKNF was a reflection of their psycho-indoctrination, not their discipline. Their elite nature is they're given the imperiums best armour and weapons and then enhance the best of the best physically and mentally to be unstoppable killing machines.
Contrast that with an exarch who is a tall spindly xenos not much stronger than a human, wearing lightweight armour for mobility who excel because they practise with their combat style as a way of life. They're not winning arm wrestles with a space marines.
Not running away in the face of a dire situation takes discipline, regardless of where it comes from. Bravery, indoctrination, loyalty to brothers-in-arms, whatever. Worthwhile to note that ATSKNF was different and often a superior rule to plain "Fearless" through the editions, too. So not just mindless bravery, but calculated bravery. That's discipline.
As for Aspect Warriors, they have tended to be roughly on-par with Space Marines (with the exception of Warp Spiders and Dark Reapers whose wargear sets them far ahead). Dire Avengers and Striking Scorpions have always been rough equivalents to marines with a little give or take. Intercessors blow them out of the water, and it's bad.
Well don't forget Necron Warriors were actually degraded themselves with the release of Ward's codex. Also Elites could always be below another army's troop choice. Forget that Grey Knights used to be 25 points a pop?
Yes, and the degradation of Necron Warriors was a bad move.
I'm not talking about FOC "Elites", I'm talking about supposed-to-be-elite-warriors regardless of FOC. Aspect Warriors and Necron Warriors imo should be considered "elite" infantry. Certainly CSM should.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/24 16:48:18
Mr.Omega wrote: Where there is art in the books, its hit or miss, and almost always where GW have hired a digital artist off the internet to draw something hyper-detailed and cleanly drawn that strictly resembles the associated products where older art show something more distinct and fascinating.
Couldn't agree more.
To me the most standout example is in the Death Guard book, simply due to the juxtaposition of it. On one page you have the PBC artwork, with the blander than bland artwork, which is just literally copy and paste the Dark Imperium minis, it's so bad there are a pair of Plague Marine twins on the right of the pic (I also just noticed when getting my DG book out for this the PBC has the seam on its hull for how the mini goes together... ), it's just an uninspired copy and paste.
However, on the following page we have one of my favourite newer pieces of 40kk art. It's a menagerie of madness of what a Nurgle daemon invasion would look like. It grabs the feel and insanity of what a Nurgle tallyband is without resorting to just copy and pasting the actual models. There are things going on in the background which do not (necessarily) have represented minis like the giant bell warshrine, which can easily spark the imagination to kitbash one from a Screaming Bell (which is what artwork should do IMO. 'Member this CSM pic and the amount of Defiler conversions it spawned before the actual mini came out?). The Nurglings, the worm things and whatever that is behind them all go together to make an inspiring piece of art.
Games Workshop Delenda Est.
Users on ignore- 53.
If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them.
The Tau you don't "see" it, its a subtle mind washing; chemical, social pressure that makes you want to conform.
Every sentient species uses social pressure. It's how we don't poop on the floor. But hey, keep trying to equalize the genocidal regime which kills more of it's citizens than it's enemies to a mildly authoritarian oligarchy.
mrFickle wrote: Do you think GW is trying to make the 40k universe a bit less dystopian? It always will be but I feel like they are trying to make it less grim and dark. The tau robots and battle suits have always looked a bit too utopian to me, probably bars on the other places you see this kinds of designs. The new primaris models, whilst being excellent, feel a bit GI joe in the 41st century. Now we’re getting Bandai action figures and all sorts of stuff. Are the slowly re engineering the setting in a attempt to appeal to..... happier people?
It began with the introduction of the cute smiling Nurglings. Killed the horror of the warp right there. This comes from a Nurgle player who uses exclusively old metal Nurglings.
“Do not ask me to approach the battle meekly, to creep through the shadows, or to quietly slip on my foes in the dark. I am Rogal Dorn, Imperial Fist, Space Marine, Emperor’s Champion. Let my enemies cower at my advance and tremble at the sight of me.”
-Rogal Dorn
Strg Alt wrote: It began with the introduction of the cute smiling Nurglings. Killed the horror of the warp right there. This comes from a Nurgle player who uses exclusively old metal Nurglings.
So 1990 then?
Seriously, check out Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned. Nurglings are smirking, mischievous, cartoonish things even then. The 'grimdark all the time' thing is mostly a 3e invention. They've toned it down a bit since then but it's still IMO darker than it was in Rogue Trader and (in particular) 2e.
- 10,000 pts CSM 
), it's just an uninspired copy and paste.
