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So now that Guilliman's back the rumor mill says that the story's going to turn into more of a new Great Crusade for the Imperium, but what I want to know is how can there be a new Great Crusade? Even with Guilliman, the Imperium is probably weaker now than it was in the aftermath of the heresy, from millenia of stagnation and the rise of so many new and powerful enemies, I'd say the Imperium is in the worst state it's ever been in, regardless of whether Roboute Guilliman's back. He just has so much on his plate, and not to mention there are apparently warp storms all over the galaxy now. Wasn't the Great Crusade launched because there weren't any warp storms? Wouldn't this just doom the Imperium even further? I mean Games Workshop could always write whatever they like but the way I see it the Guilliman showed up just too late to save the Imperium.

If they were to move forward with that narrative then I'd be absolutely in love with the new direction, but I'm seeing "New Great Crusade" being thrown around and I'm thinking that maybe the whole "crimson path" and "end times" thing is just being retconned. The Orks are going to stop the Tyranids, the Imperium and Eldar are going to stop Chaos, and the Necrons are just going to occasionally pop up in the background just to stay relevant, and the whole "grim dark" thing is slowly being replaced by more and more hope, which doesn't fit 40k. How are they going to reconcile "the grim darkness of the 41st millenium" with this?

One man's Crusade is another's Heresy, maybe Papa Smurf sets off on Crusade 2 (Primarch Boogaloo) just to discover how fubbed the IOM is and turns the fleet back to Earth to give Dad a proper talking to this time , resulting in a nasty unwinnable civil war as the IOM fractures

As for warpstorms it's only going to get worse, at some point the Ynnead, Slaanesh, and maybe Cregorach show down will happen causing all manner of wibbly across the warp and real space, still not sure Ynnead is the saviour it's touted as but GW seem determined to stick 'neeshi in a corner so suspect some kind of Ynnead victory

I like the Grimdark and hope it stays but the odd bit of silly humour needs to return, but actual funny not just Kokney / Ozzie Orks

Little has changed - yeah RG is back but he is horrified by what has become of the imperium, his return is part of the grim dark - we see through his eyes that his dream has becoem a nightmare and now he has to fight to preserve that nightmare.

I suppose it could be perceived that Warhammer 40K is going away from the whole grimdark thing with shards of hope returning to the setting. I wouldn't even doubt that Games Workshop testing the waters to see if that would give them a new audience as the darker than dark, gritty, 90's comic feel has become something of a cliche and feels a little dated.

However, given the game's propensity to allow the players to decide what parts of the setting like to be considered true and which parts they don't being false, I imagine many older players will keep on keeping on with the grimdark looking for sinister agendas and dark machinations in everything. While other players might see this as a turning point in the setting having a few points of light giving hope to what has always been a crapsack universe.

It just depends if GW keeps going with the meta-plot and how specific they get with its direction.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I think 40K is moving away from the creeping decline and slow death and moving more towards an all or nothing last chance with the enemy at the gates. So not so much less grimdark as a different grimdark

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
I suppose it could be perceived that Warhammer 40K is going away from the whole grimdark thing with shards of hope returning to the setting. I wouldn't even doubt that Games Workshop testing the waters to see if that would give them a new audience as the darker than dark, gritty, 90's comic feel has become something of a cliche and feels a little dated.

Hopefully this isn't the case, otherwise they are going to alienate their core audience. There are so many other sci-fi settings out there that tried to market to a broader audience & collapsed in the process. I'm here for grim dark, not a space drama. Which is largely what the recent Gathering Storms books were. Everything was centered around the emotions of demi-gods, while everything else took a backseat.

The day is brightest before the dusk.

I'm hoping all these alliances and resurrected heroes exist only to make the climax of this story seem all the darker.

When the rest of the Eldar pantheon lies at Slaanesh's feet, quivering and with their mouths agape, when the High Lords of Terra have Guilliman impaled upon the spires of Terra, when Abaddon holds Celestine's skull as a chalice, then we'll see how noblebright 40k has become.

Pretty sure they are toning down the grimdark. To be honest though Ive been hoping it would be toned down some for a long time- its just been so rediculous at times it parodies itself, and I think it reached a certain critical mass under Kirby mandating skullz on everything.

And now we have the Custodes, where there isnt a single skull on the whole kit. (Which Im a big fan of, design wise)

What is grimdark is a matter of perspective. Maybe a quick death would have been for the best of humanity. Guilliman is no less a genocidal tyrant than the forces of Chaos. The only difference is that Guilliman want's to rule while Chaos is nihilistic by nature. In the end, the two choices of humanity are slavery beneath the boots of a murderous authoritarian and militaristic regime and slavery to daemons.

I think one of the problems modern 40k faces, if you can call it a problem, is how big 40k has become.

When the setting was created and embellished upon, inspiration was drawn from other grimdark literature and pop culture.

Now, many of the staff have grown up with 40k as this huge thing in British culture. This means they may have been less exposed to other inspirations, so 40k has turned inward and become a bit of a parody of itself.

I think changing the lense through which we view 40k freshens it up and opens up the opportunity to tell new stories in the setting, or even moving the setting forward.

I'm getting a sense of this as well, the baroque and Gothic influences on the Imperium of Man do seem to be played down in the most recent fiction.

However, looking back to recent campaigns like Medusa V and the introduction of the Vostroyans, the focus on the 'blanchitsu' style of modelling and gaming in White Dwarf even the recent introduction of the Sisters of Silence show that there is still plenty of room in the universe for this style in the 40k universe.

The killing off of the Cadians, which for me represented the most egregious example of colourless copying of current military practices, is a good opportunity for a more interesting Imperial Guard regiment to take centre stage as well.

Hopefully Roboute will become ensnared in the serpentine world of Imperial politics, his attempts to sweep away Imperial bureaucracy will be met with unyielding inertia, his attempts to use religion as a tool to legitimise his rule with further enmesh the Ecclesiarchy into the fabric of the Imperium and so although he can achieve some decent military victories and reinstate the borders of the Imperium it becomes no less and oppressive and backwards looking place to live.

I hope not. This universe is so grimdark it literally coined the term grimdark.

Things are darker when you've got hope - because that hope can be dimmed or taken away altogether.

Take away a man's reason to fight, and he won't.

Guilliman and Ynnead are very interest plot toys.

Pre-Guilliman's return, the Imperium was mired in superstition, and so far from the Emperor's view of the future it's not even funny. Yes, the Emperor was at best a xenocidal maniac - but he had a clear goal. Pacify the galaxy that mankind might live in peace, have armies strong enough to maintain that peace.

40k? The Imperium fights for survival - and could probably do a better job with just a modicum of enlightenment. Consider the Monkies In The Cage. By the 41st Millenium, nobody really knows the why anymore, and the instructions have become so perverted from their origin it's not funny.


Ynnead? Well, its occurrence has fractured Eldar society. Not in a Horus Heresy way - at least not yet. But for the first time since The Fall, the Eldar as a species have hope. As mentioned above, hope is a double edged sword.

At present, we've no idea how, when or even if these interesting plot toys might resolve themselves. The Imperium could split into warring or at least disparate factions - or it could emerge the strongest it's been since before The Heresy. Guilliman's best hope is that he's clearly spoken to His Dad - and has the backing of the Custdoes. Kind of damned near impossible for the High Lords to countermand him. Orders from the horses mouth, and the legitmate heir to the throne....

Ynnead? We could see the death of Eldrad - possibly the eventual dissolution of the current Eldar ways of life. Really depends on whether and will they properly awaken Ynnead.

So whilst a couple of candles have been lit - all they've done is serve to show just how dark times have become.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Little has changed - yeah RG is back but he is horrified by what has become of the imperium, his return is part of the grim dark - we see through his eyes that his dream has becoem a nightmare and now he has to fight to preserve that nightmare.

Mr Morden doesn't often get things this right, but when he does...

...he knocks it out of the park!

And even if *more* "Good" Primarchs come back, they'll be balanced out by the "Bad" ones getting more active too.

IF this leads to the Tau and the Tyranids (and hell, why not, the Necrons too) getting wiped out though - than it will all be worth it!

I suspect the contrary.

With The Imperium tied up fighting Chaos off, something's gotta give somewhere, and that makes it Xenos O'clock!

Orks, maybe.

Everyone else is borked!

I dunno. Tau build well and rapidly - and sometimes in colony fleets.

With the recent fighting in and around the Damocles Gulf, they may be in good shape to regain ground - and be given a good chance to properly fortify.

And if they can capture/recruit a bunch of Navigators, that's a serious game changer.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And if they can capture/recruit a bunch of Navigators, that's a serious game changer.

Not really. The issue is you actually need to be a psychic race to fully understand how Warp drives work. So the Tau are literally incapable of fathoming, much less building, a true Warp Drive.

Their only real hope is to both secure a source of navigators and have some psychic servant race build they Warp Drives AND Geller field generators. That last bit is the really important part. The Tau can get away without using Geller fields right now because they don't fully enter the Warp. but if they ever do get real Warp Drives, they're going to lose every ship they send into the warp as the ship will be completely exposed to the warp. They'll basically be jumping into a pool of nuclear waste naked.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And if they can capture/recruit a bunch of Navigators, that's a serious game changer.

Not really. The issue is you actually need to be a psychic race to fully understand how Warp drives work. So the Tau are literally incapable of fathoming, much less building, a true Warp Drive.

Their only real hope is to both secure a source of navigators and have some psychic servant race build they Warp Drives AND Geller field generators. That last bit is the really important part. The Tau can get away without using Geller fields right now because they don't fully enter the Warp. but if they ever do get real Warp Drives, they're going to lose every ship they send into the warp as the ship will be completely exposed to the warp. They'll basically be jumping into a pool of nuclear waste naked.

Step 1) Acquire Navigators.

Step 2) Feed Navigators to Kroot.

Step 3) Hope that Kroot physiology works that way.

Step 4) If it does, then use your Navigator-variant Kroot to build warp-capable ships.

Step 5) Either conquer the galaxy or watch it all backfire as the Kroot start vomiting daemons all over the inside of your ships.

There can be no despair without hope.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And if they can capture/recruit a bunch of Navigators, that's a serious game changer.

Not really. The issue is you actually need to be a psychic race to fully understand how Warp drives work. So the Tau are literally incapable of fathoming, much less building, a true Warp Drive.

Their only real hope is to both secure a source of navigators and have some psychic servant race build they Warp Drives AND Geller field generators. That last bit is the really important part. The Tau can get away without using Geller fields right now because they don't fully enter the Warp. but if they ever do get real Warp Drives, they're going to lose every ship they send into the warp as the ship will be completely exposed to the warp. They'll basically be jumping into a pool of nuclear waste naked.

Step 1) Acquire Navigators.

Step 2) Feed Navigators to Kroot.

Step 3) Hope that Kroot physiology works that way.

Step 4) If it does, then use your Navigator-variant Kroot to build warp-capable ships.

Step 5) Either conquer the galaxy or watch it all backfire as the Kroot start vomiting daemons all over the inside of your ships.

Between steps 1 and 2, there's a few things a half-realistic Tau Empire might consider:

Step 1a) Analyze the genetic differences between Navigators and regular humans.
Step 1b) Develop, using those genetic differences, Navigator clones to determine if genetics are sufficient to grant the benefits of Navigating.
Step 1c) Analyze, through extensive and secret testing (using Kroot that have been "corrupted" by Ork/Tyranid/Chaos "taint", but actually including Kroot that haven't eaten any/enough of any of the above to actually be modified), the nature of Kroot genetic integration.
Step 1d) Determine the best method of genetic integration, and use their technology to reproduce EXACTLY the correct meals for the Kroot to have the BEST CHANCE of integrating the Navigator gene into their DNA.

I would say instead of "grimdark" GW may be aiming for something I call "brightdark". There are pinpoints of hope for each faction in order to cast the darkness into greater relief. If it is all just black on black, there is no contrast.

I'm fine with this so long as the beacons of hope don't become too Utopia-like or suffer from Mary Sue plot armor. Each faction should have an endgame, but still be susceptible to possible failure. For a long time, Chaos (mortals & daemons) was cast as this ultimate victor against which it was all utterly hopeless. I don't think the Chaos factions should get this free pass of being guaranteed ultimate victory. They should be as susceptible to failure as any other faction. Their potential failure path lies in potentially how the return of RG (and other loyalist Primarchs or even the Emperor) might reform the Imperium, and how the Ynnari might awaken Ynnead and destroy (or at least cripple) Slaanesh. Do I expect this to happen? No, since GW will not kill off Chaos or any other faction. However Chaos might certainly suffer some setbacks in the background.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And if they can capture/recruit a bunch of Navigators, that's a serious game changer.

Not really. The issue is you actually need to be a psychic race to fully understand how Warp drives work. So the Tau are literally incapable of fathoming, much less building, a true Warp Drive.

Their only real hope is to both secure a source of navigators and have some psychic servant race build they Warp Drives AND Geller field generators. That last bit is the really important part. The Tau can get away without using Geller fields right now because they don't fully enter the Warp. but if they ever do get real Warp Drives, they're going to lose every ship they send into the warp as the ship will be completely exposed to the warp. They'll basically be jumping into a pool of nuclear waste naked.

Step 1) Acquire Navigators.

Step 2) Feed Navigators to Kroot.

Step 3) Hope that Kroot physiology works that way.

Step 4) If it does, then use your Navigator-variant Kroot to build warp-capable ships.

Step 5) Either conquer the galaxy or watch it all backfire as the Kroot start vomiting daemons all over the inside of your ships.

Except Kroot are already a psychic race, and have their own navigators. They keep this a secret because Kroot aren't actually fully subservient to the Tau Empire. The full level of the Kroot technological advances actually surpasses the Tau in terms of FTL travel, Kroot mercenaries are found across the whole Galaxy.