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I got some time today to actual sit down to read the fluff portion of the 7th edition rule book. When I got to the timeline of events, the first thing I noticed was the skull hourglass in the middle of the page with the symbol of the Aquila on top and the Chaos star on the bottom and as you flipped the pages the red substance (going to assume it's blood) pours from the Imperial side to the Chaos side until on the last page only a little of the Imperial side is still filled with Chaos mostly filled. I then got around to reading the timeline and sure enough it begins with documenting lots of victories for the Imperium and as it went on less and less victories for the Imperium with stalemates happening quite often, xenos victories and Chaos victories (Which seems to mostly revolve around Huron Blackheart scoring most of the victories for a Chaos force, think they need to elect Huron to run the Black Crusades) with coming to that last page a ton of losses for the Imperium and the setting up for multiple battles that have not concluded (The Defense of Baal, Sanctus Reach, Dark Vengeance, Damnos, and the 13th Black Crusade being the most notable). By the look of it, the Imperium is in bad shape and stand a good chance to loose everything should just on of those major conflicts end in a lose.

So, wanted to get some opinions, is this GW just setting up tension for their grim, dark future of Warhammer 40k but should the storyline ever progess, the Imperium would win with some heavy losses and still continue with the stagnation of battles that define the galaxy c.M40+ or would they be so bold as to advance the storyline and have something drastic happen that would fracture the Imperium as a whole? We saw what they did when they tried to have the players determine the events of the 13th Black Crusade when a lot of Chaos victories happened, they ret-conned and reset to be right as the 13th is happening. The other thing stacked against them actually having a giant blow happen to the Imperium is that the majority of armies in 40k are Imperial forces so what could they do to still have all those even if the Imperium was dealt a major blow? I mean if Baal fell, that would have huge effects on the Blood Angels in particular.

I know a lot of 50k predictions are that the Imperium is fractured and pretty much gone but the Mankind exists still. Is that what is destined to happen? Are these the end times for the Imperium? Maybe another Age of Strife repeat? Or is it just tension for GW to set up the campaign boxes they have been selling lately? They can only go so far and then would have to advance the storyline to make more campaign boxes. They have done Dark Vengeance, and Sanctus Reach and I have a feeling that the release of the new Blood Angels codex will coincide with a possible campaign involving the defense of Baal with what they have been doing with the Sanctus Reach conflict so what would the future hold? Any thoughts or is it going to the regular "Imperium is doomed and won't see the light of 50k should it ever get there."?

Here is an image of what the galaxy will look like in 50k.



Yup, there wont be anything, because the nids ate it all.

I just wish Star Child was still canon.

It's a setting, not a story. 40K has always had that "fifteen minutes to midnight" vibe.

It's sad but I think it's the end times, but to continue the story at least one faction will die may it be Chaos, The Imperium, and Eldar/ Dark Eldar but I wouldn't worry its just GW trying to get more money (I hope). I hope they move forward but it took me awhile to understand 40k is just a setting.

 Envihon wrote:
(Which seems to mostly revolve around Huron Blackheart scoring most of the victories for a Chaos force, think they need to elect Huron to run the Black Crusades)

This

I guess my one problem is a stagnation of the genre, they can only keep the setting locked at 999M41 for so long before people would get bored of the property but at the same time utterly destroying a faction would also make people who love that certain faction to leave Warhammer 40k.

Now do I think the Imperium is really going to destroyed as a faction? Not entirely, I do think that this 15 minutes to midnight setting is a way to keep the tension but how to keep it that way without alienating your audience? They already sort of did it when they said "40k fans, we are going to let you determine the results of the 13th Black Crusade! Oh nevermind, we want to reset it instead!". Properties can be known for ret-conning, I mean comic properties have been doing for how long and they are still around? But they can't just keep resetting things, there needs to be some progress.

There are many ways to take this property into the 42nd millennium with many avenues for it to take but I still wouldn't want to see the Imperium entirely falter even though it seems to be everyone's favorite punching bag for the force that will be knocked off the board first. There are just many things that could happen and the prediction of 1d4chan's 50k could be entirely wrong. Who knows what effects of the increased psyker population could do for the Imperium, we don't know and GW is tight lip about it. Whether they will give us a conclusion to Sanctus Reach like they did Valedor, we don't know but it eventually has to go somewhere.

I understand it is a setting, I just don't want to see thing stagnate necessarily.

nah they have 40,000 years of stuff to explore - the Horus Heresy alone is getting much love and loads of great stuff.

a couple of BL authors have gone beyond M41

I guess my one problem is a stagnation of the genre, they can only keep the setting locked at 999M41 for so long before people would get bored of the property but at the same time utterly destroying a faction would also make people who love that certain faction to leave Warhammer 40k.

Well, it's worked for 30 years now, so...

Well the only way think they can pull it off when it comes to concluding events like the Defence of Baal, would be to give another play style. Like how the Crimson fists are now essentially composited of veterans and scouts. So one list style to represent the BA before the fall of Baal, and one representing one afterwards.

 Envihon wrote:
I guess my one problem is a stagnation of the genre

Super Heroes in Space , Batman, Superman, etc , : i.e Space Marines , is pretty darn stale. Not to mention utterly revolting .

But , like the man said :

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, it's worked for 30 years now, so...

As long as I can steal Land Raiders and Stalkers for a more interesting faction, and as long as Super Heroes in Space pays GW's bills , I don't care much.

 Mr Morden wrote:
nah they have 40,000 years of stuff to explore

And an entire galaxy to explore,

Lash ' uddra , The Endless Swarm ? Sounds like an interesting C'Tan !
So I go to look him up and find ...........Nothing.

There are a thousand and one things they haven't even touched on yet.

Subscribed for later reading.

 Ciciro wrote:


I just wish Star Child was still canon.

What's so good about the Star Child? It gives hope in a grimdark universe.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 Ciciro wrote:


I just wish Star Child was still canon.

What's so good about the Star Child? It gives hope in a grimdark universe.

You can't have darkness without light. If everything is all gak, all the time, every place, with no hope of there ever being anything other than gak, and there never WAS anything than gak, it's just as boring and bland as the polar opposite.

In order to have grim-dark you need carefully included bits of small hope / goodness, otherwise it's just tacky and corny.

I have often wondered if there is any mileage to booting up a 50k for GW, I am sure most of us would blindly buy it like lemmings running off a cliff tbh..

Nah. I don't care what happens in another 10K years.

I don't really give much of a gak about what happened 10K years ago.

I like the setting as-is in M41.

I think that GW will eventually have alternate dimensions for the out come of the milky way galaxy. For example, they will make novels and game models for what would happen if say Tau beat all the other races or if the tyranids did consume everything, they would do this for all the races so no one gets left out and no faction gets crushed. We still have a while but then again GW seems to be teasing with the locked date.

I just hope they actually have the primarchs come back. can you imagine the epic battles that would come if they actually had that?

 Psienesis wrote:
Nah. I don't care what happens in another 10K years.

I don't really give much of a gak about what happened 10K years ago.

I like the setting as-is in M41.

I don't think that I would invest in a Horus Heresy army but I do like reading the books a great deal, I like seeing how everything became so fethed up and seeing where everything went wrong through the eyes of the people that were there. It gives fleshes things out just a little more than just being rumors of that legendary time. That is what the pre-Great Crusade can be used for in my eyes and the War in Heaven when it comes to the Eldar and Necrons.