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...What would it be?

Maybe it is something small like an unimportant but named character lives rather than dies, maybe you'd like to un-retcon something GW retconned, bring back the squats, do something big like stop Horus from being corrupted, the list is endless.

No limits to your post, your change can have as big or small an effect as you want (within reason).

Personally? I could say something like keep Guilliman dead or have him decapitated properly by Fulgrim but I think I'd rather go for something less impactful: I would have liked to have seen Curze more active in the Heresy and before his death. By this I mean I'd have liked to have seen him do more tormenting of the remaining loyalist Primarchs, perhaps leading to some leaders of the Imperium breaking down because of the haunting of Curze and I would be intrigued to see what methods he would use on each Primarch. I have an image of, in the lead up to Guilliman's conflict with Fulgrim, the Night Crawler tormenting Guilliman and slowly driving him to the point of insanity, by the time he faces Fulgrim Guilliman is no longer the stoic leader he once was: turned jumpy and paranoid by the torture of Curze he would be no match for Fulgrim. Guilliman can still survive afterwards but I would have liked to have seen some truely Batman esk torment like we saw on Nostramo. I would keep Curze's death because it showed just how tormented Curze had become due to his 'split'.
I really love Curze's character and want to see him really get into people's minds, especially thoughs who believe their mind is impervious.

What about you all? What would you change?

Other than just moving the story forward more? Hm...

I would probably create new characters that could be on par with the Primarchs, rather than bring all of them back. They are the big characters of the Horus Heresy, and bringing them back can make some of their prior events feel less significant. If they don't handle it carefully, it might make the fluff feel off.

But anyways, I would come up with new Primarch-level characters who could be significant threats both as strategists and combatants. Beef up Abaddon and Farsight, bring Ghazgul up in power, and give the Imperium a new hero that hasn't been seen before. A new Necron Overlord, another tactical genius for the Guard, and maybe a new Autarch for Eldar.

Retcon the Orks to be less annoying/unfunny?

Either that or scrap any mentions of divinity towards SM's, make them superior to the average Guardsman, sure, but elevating them to gods of war and other nonense is just gakky.

I liked the old RT era tyranids more. Where they didn't just nom everyone, but were more slaver+fleshcrafter race. I remember thinking they sounded really cool/creepy as a kid. I'd love to see tyranids backed up by a host of different slave races, even if all RT really had was zoats.

Plus, the Tau have kinda moved away from the whole "multiple races fighting together" theme to focus on bigger battlesuits, which annoys me.

I don't know if this counts as changing "one thing", but I wouldn't have fleshed out the Horus Heresy. I liked it better when it was a mysterious "time of the gods" type legend that may or may not have been true.

SilverAlien wrote:


Plus, the Tau have kinda moved away from the whole "multiple races fighting together" theme to focus on bigger battlesuits, which annoys me.

Likewise, I'd change them to be more about the other races. Make the Auxilia actually matter.

Primarus marines - removed. Actual marines are primarus marines power level. Done.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:


Plus, the Tau have kinda moved away from the whole "multiple races fighting together" theme to focus on bigger battlesuits, which annoys me.

Likewise, I'd change them to be more about the other races. Make the Auxilia actually matter.

I want to add my one change to further push this one. Can I do that?

 Xenomancers wrote:
Primarus marines - removed. Actual marines are primarus marines power level. Done.

May as well pretend that's already the case, because there's a good chance it'll have the same ultimate effect anyway.

I would love to add a loyalist faction perhaps st Drusus cult or something similar to unmask Gulliman and crawl or the foul heretics that they are.

I'd make the Avatar of Khaine win fights.

I would have had Roboute engineer, with the help of Cawl, a set of new Primarchs from the Emperor's DNA. One for each chapter. Then, I would also have the rest of the Daemon Primarchs return, along with Daemon-Hybrids with races other than human. For instance, a Daemon-Prince mutated from an Ork.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Primarus marines - removed. Actual marines are primarus marines power level. Done.

While I'd go the other way and retcon the recent reveal that existing Marines can be upgraded to Primaris

The new Marines aside I would get rid of the Necrons needing the webway for there FTL, and also retcon the retcon about the Tyranids not using the warp for FTL travel. After that I would go through every bit of fluff that mentions troop numbers and add at least a couple of zeros to the end of the numbers.

I'd make Sisters of Battle not cannon fodder or armor paint. It's why Fall of Cadia is my favorite piece of fluff. Even marines sucked compared to Sisters in that book.

ERJAK wrote:
I'd make Sisters of Battle not cannon fodder or armor paint. It's why Fall of Cadia is my favorite piece of fluff. Even marines sucked compared to Sisters in that book.

I'm going to expand on this by saying I would delete almost everything Matt Ward ever wrote.

I'd move the fall of the thousand sons away from the heresy and into Gorge's Vandire reign of blood.

Why? So the downward spiral and decay of the imperium is clearer. Untill the beast arises we had no real concept of what was the imperium like between the HH and 40K.

TS are I think the legion most exemplary of the dream being destroyed by tragedy and betrayal. It would take the least retconning the HH as well. Just have them fight alongside the emperor in the webway and have Magnus be 'lost/ unavaible when the shields go down so Malcador has to take the throne.

Leave most of the primarchs gone/ dead and don't bring the angel back the bloody one.

All of the loyalist Primarchs are dead. They were hope in a forgotten age, hope that humanity shall never have again.

Marxist artist wrote:
don't bring the angel back the bloody one.

What?

Squats getting un-squatted

More of a Horus Heresy thing, but I always wish they added a little more depth to Horus' fall than simply Chaos+daddy issues. It seemed a little thin to be honest.

I wish they added more regarding the nature of the destruction of the two lost legions, and the resentment it caused in the Primarchs.

I'd change all reference of ''The Emperor' to something mundane, like 'Dave".

SilverAlien wrote:
I liked the old RT era tyranids more. Where they didn't just nom everyone, but were more slaver+fleshcrafter race. I remember thinking they sounded really cool/creepy as a kid. I'd love to see tyranids backed up by a host of different slave races, even if all RT really had was zoats.

Plus, the Tau have kinda moved away from the whole "multiple races fighting together" theme to focus on bigger battlesuits, which annoys me.

And Dark Eldar have the fleshcrafter / slaver thing now too.

I would add a golden age of the IoM. Rather than being a 10,000 year long gak show, I think it would have been more interesting to have had another golden age in between the Horus heresy and "Modern" times. It doesn't even have to be dark ages of technology good, just a time of progress and increased social equality that was smashed by internal strife. you could set up a cycle where humanity is smashed by their own hubris.

It sure beats "We caught the dumb 10,000 years go, and never recovered".

nareik wrote:
And Dark Eldar have the fleshcrafter / slaver thing now too.

Oh yeah, I honestly forget about them quite a bit. Particularly the covens.

Retcon Kaldor Draigo, that fluff is ridiculous and disregards what is supposed to be possible.

Or drop a zero on all the amounts of time, would be far more reasonable.

NECRONS! dear gawds necrons! They went from what I consider the most terrifying aspect of the game, an ancient unknowable evil to emogyptian gaks. They used to be scary in a way that they were completely unrelatable. their goals, numbers, everything about them was mystery and terror. Then they became a ridiculous caricature of tomb kings. Sure give them "characters" or what have you to bolster their strength, but they have the worst fluff in 40k history.

I'd un-retcon the Orks. Bring them back to the glorious fluff found in "Waaaagh! Orks."

Those are the Orks I fell in love with.

Not a big fan of Ctan turning into pokemon.
Don't care if even a Primarch is in terminator armour, no somersaults or backflips please, no Rule of Cool here.
Please leave the Primarchs alone, both in fluff and in crunch. They were best as half forgotten legends surrounded in myths and speculation.
I want a book on Snikrot. Like Predator style creepy. His entry describes him scalping victims, hanging and or staking them alive to bleed to death on locations where they can be found by their comrades. Less focus on slapstick humour to entertain us and more focus on a beast with a sadistic sense of humour that is horrifying.

Kill the Emperor and have him become a Chaos God, Legion of The Damned infest the warp purging Heretics left and right.

I'm changing my answer to removing all of Matt Ward's fluff, because I was reminded how much I hate some of it.

Kaldor Draigo can stay, but only because fan interpretations of him are hilarious.