If you could change one thing about the 40k setting what would it be?

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**DontEatRawHagis**

My one change would be to breakup the Imperium of Man into separate factions. Particularly via the Space Marine Chapters, Ad Mech, and Terra. Essentially I’d like that after the Horus Heresy the various Primarchs create their own mini-Imperiums while Terra separates to worship the Corpse god. Yes they might ally with each other, but each behaves as a separate independent political power.

Why would I want this? Because in a couple of Narrative Campaigns I’ve seen there are a lot more Imperium players than any other faction. Orks just have Orks, but Imperium has Space Marine Chapters, Imperial Guard, Adeptus Custodes, Ad Mech, SoB, etc... a friend of mine had his Narrative campaign collapse because the Imperium players took too much of a head start. Honestly probably his own fault for having the factions in the first place. Need some rivalries happening or something.

What would be the one thing you’d change?

**solkan**

"break up the Imperium of Man into separate factions"? You don't need to change any of the background. You just need to get people to stop and realize that the Imperium of Man is in the situation that it's in because it IS NOT a single unified faction. Neither is anyone else.

"Faction based" narrative campaigns are contrary to the background material, and usually the result of lazy thinking.

Disclaimer: If you're going to do a faction based campaign, about the only way you can reflect the way the setting works is encourage factional infighting, to the point where the faction with the most players is going to spend the most time fighting against themselves (scoring points for the players at the expense of the "side").

Seriously, the background is littered with stuff like "During such-and-such great conflict, the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels encountered each other, there was a disagreement, and that disagreement became an excuse to settle old grudges by attacking. Naturally, both sides claim the other side started it."

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Simply?

Increase the head count in Space Marine Chapters to 10,000.

Because 1,000,000 Marines has been, and always will be, a drop in the ocean.

Sure, keep the Lore that even a single squad can turn a Warzone on its head. That bit is fine with me.

But given attrition, travel time and the sheer number of active zones in any given war? 1,000,000 is just far, far too few.

**pm713**

I'd change who writes the lore to someone better at it than GW.

**Da Boss**

I would change it so that Necrons are primarily a digital species that can inject their consciousness into any suficiently advanced technology.
Necron warriors are actually the "Men of Iron" robots created by humans in the Dark Age of Technology, and Necrons taking them over caused the ban on AI in the Imperium. The weirder stuff like Tomb Spyders and so on are the "Original" necron chasis. Monoliths are the storage facilities for the necron personalities.
I just find it weird that Necron Warriors look so much like human skeletons, so I think it makes more sense if they are actually created by humans and only repurposed by the necrons for their own nefarious use.

**Grimtuff**

Make it so it is a setting once more, and not a terrible GoT-esq storyline that revolves around a couple of dozen individuals and apparently no-one else.

The galaxy is vast, inconceivably so, yet here we have Girlyman bumping into the same faces over and over again.

**bibotot**

Primaris Marines being introduced gradually rather than just shoving 50,000 new Space Marines into your face out of nowhere. This really cheapens the plot and makes the Space Marines look stupid rather than powerful beings.

**NinthMusketeer**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply?

Increase the head count in Space Marine Chapters to 10,000.

Because 1,000,000 Marines has been, and always will be, a drop in the ocean.

Sure, keep the Lore that even a single squad can turn a Warzone on its head. That bit is fine with me.

But given attrition, travel time and the sheer number of active zones in any given war? 1,000,000 is just far, far too few.

This, exactly.

**=Angel=**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply?

Increase the head count in Space Marine Chapters to 10,000.

Because 1,000,000 Marines has been, and always will be, a drop in the ocean.

Sure, keep the Lore that even a single squad can turn a Warzone on its head. That bit is fine with me.

But given attrition, travel time and the sheer number of active zones in any given war? 1,000,000 is just far, far too few.

I disagree but don't want to derail.

Spoiler:

If I was to change one thing it would to have Cawl die and his facilities/collegues burned to the ground. Without him, none of the admech can keep the primaris project(or the equipment) going and primaris equipment becomes relic stuff that cant be reproduced. Primaris marines get folded into rank and file and handed regular boltguns, advanced bolters/plasma weapons are preserved for veteran marines. Primaris vehicles become a 1 per army relic choice.

Primaris biological component is reduced to a strategem that halves the wounds an army takes for a battleround. Without guidance from Cawl the process is deemed too risky and normal geneseed implantation resumes.

**Not Online!!!**

A stronger focus on PDF/ Mortal traitors over CSM/ daemons.

ATM chaos is seemingly just CSM with daemons and some legion auxilia, kinda.

But i admit i am biased

**BrianDavion**

Not Online!!! wrote:
A stronger focus on PDF/ Mortal traitors over CSM/ daemons.

ATM chaos is seemingly just CSM with daemons and some legion auxilia, kinda.

But i admit i am biased

I think it might happen to a degree, the orders of battle for vigilus and faith and fury specificly named traitor guard forces, and we're seeing traitor guard minis in BSF... we might see traitor guard apper.

that said I can only imagine they'd be pretty much to chaos what guard are to the IoM narrativly. mostly there as a "hopelessly out matched force" to be saved by Marines

**Excommunicatus**

I'd make it so that almost every single major event doesn't sound like Garth Marenghi trying to be Ayn Rand.

"And yay the elves did achieve fully automated luxury space communism and yay did they lose themselves to pleasure and yay then verily a hellbeast did eat them".

Wut.

**Ratius**

Give more background on various species/factions out there. Not saying they have to have models/kits but show who else is fighting rather than more orks, chaos and eldar.....

**Hellebore**

Ratius wrote:
Give more background on various species/factions out there. Not saying they have to have models/kits but show who else is fighting rather than more orks, chaos and eldar.....

I agree, except I would replace the absolutely gratuitous amounts of imperial material and focus it on ALL xenos. Telling people their neglected xenos factions are being further ignored to focus on other xenos while imperial players get their uninterrupted deluge of material is pretty rough

**AnomanderRake**

Fire all the writers who think they're working in a fantasy setting. "Gods" is the manner in which humans refer to forces beyond their understanding, the "Chaos Gods" do not have discrete personalities, don't talk to people directly, don't have egos, desires, can't be tricked or defeated, they're elemental forces beyond the understanding of sentient beings. I shouldn't be reading "but Khorne wanted (thingamajig) and reached out and fiddled with the underlying nature of reality".

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Pretty sure those paid to write the background are the ones on the right of things there though?

The Big Four have always had distinct personalities, going back to Realms of Chaos?

**AnomanderRake**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Pretty sure those paid to write the background are the ones on the right of things there though?

The Big Four have always had distinct personalities, going back to Realms of Chaos?

If you go back to the question it says "if you could change one thing...". They write personalities into the Chaos Gods, I disagree. They're 'right' in the sense that that's canon because they get to write it that way but we're not here arguing about what's canon, we're here talking about what we personally would change if we had the power to.

**Excommunicatus**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Pretty sure those paid to write the background are the ones on the right of things there though?

The Big Four have always had distinct personalities, going back to Realms of Chaos?

Having read Black Library books, I'm loth to defend Black Library authors even a little.

**Mercurius**

Add stuff like Chaos Eldar, or even just add some new chaos-worshiping xenos. I don't like the fact that Chaos, supposedly this galaxy-spanning corrupting force that can only be defeated when every being that feels true emotion dies, only seems to have human or astartes followers.

**Excommunicatus**

Slap a Daemon head on an Aeldari, then.

It looks good, even if you can't paint for [Expletive Deleted].

Spoiler:

**flandarz**

I'm pretty sure there are representatives of all the races with Chaos. The human component is just stupid huge because they practically split in half during the Heresy, so 99 out of every hundred Chaos folks you see are gonna be human.

**Hellebore**

2nd ed codex Eldar described chaos Eldar and they sounded pretty interesting

**BrianDavion**

AnomanderRake wrote:
Fire all the writers who think they're working in a fantasy setting. ".

THEY ARE WORKING IN A FANTASY SETTING.

I mean seriously, yuou have guys in plate armor fighting each other with swords and casting "psykic spells" 40k is basicly fantasy cleverly disguised as sci-fi

**Excommunicatus**

Not all that cleverly, in fairness. It's just orcs, elves and demons.

With some fascists.

**Brutus_Apex**

Fire all the writers who think they're working in a fantasy setting. "Gods" is the manner in which humans refer to forces beyond their understanding, the "Chaos Gods" do not have discrete personalities, don't talk to people directly, don't have egos, desires, can't be tricked or defeated, they're elemental forces beyond the understanding of sentient beings. I shouldn't be reading "but Khorne wanted (thingamajig) and reached out and fiddled with the underlying nature of reality".

40K is a fantasy setting. It isn't Sci-fi. Never has been, hopefully never will be.

The definition of Sci-fi is that the setting needs to be based in reality, even if technology hasn't reached a place where that could be possible. 40k is in no way possible, it's not rooted in reality at all. You know, hence the daemons, gods and sorcery etc...

Thats the beauty of the setting, its Fantasy in space, just like Star Wars. It should be gods, magic, swords and sorcery +space.

I would personally like to destroy the Tau and Primaris. They are both terrible for the lore and the game, they are too high tech. They don't belong in the setting.

Also, I would like Dark Eldar to be a psychic race like the craftworld eldar.

**Insectum7**

There are numerous sci-fi settings with psychic abilities, extradimemsional beings, and incoporeal entities of godlike power.

Heck, you can find all those in Star Trek.

**Psionara**

Make the T’au Empire bigger. As of now it has minimal control of its expansion spheres and with the introduction of the Imperium, Tyranids, etc. trying to go full force on them makes them seem unlikely to survive. I am by no means a T’au player, but wish for them to have a more prominent background.

**AnomanderRake**

BrianDavion wrote:
AnomanderRake wrote:
Fire all the writers who think they're working in a fantasy setting. ".

THEY ARE WORKING IN A FANTASY SETTING.

I mean seriously, yuou have guys in plate armor fighting each other with swords and casting "psykic spells" 40k is basicly fantasy cleverly disguised as sci-fi

Let me rephrase.

Fire everyone who thinks they're writing a Warcraft-D&D bland high fantasy setting instead of a Lovecraft-Dune-Night's Dawn existential horror pseudo-fantasy setting and tries to diminish the horror elements by, for instance, sending Kaldor Draigo to run about in the Warp beating up the Chaos Gods.

**flandarz**

I think part of what makes the Tau unique IS their small size (combined with their short time on the galactic arena). They really haven't had to deal with the near constant and overwhelming threats the other Factions have, and it has allowed for their quick growth and that hint of naivete that makes them Tau and not just another jaded empire.

**pm713**

flandarz wrote:
I think part of what makes the Tau unique IS their small size (combined with their short time on the galactic arena). They really haven't had to deal with the near constant and overwhelming threats the other Factions have, and it has allowed for their quick growth and that hint of naivete that makes them Tau and not just another jaded empire.

Agreed. The fact that the Tau are the baby empire is one of my favourite things about them.