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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOINbQdyiFQ

What do you think? It’s a convincing argument and big Vash is just out there at the minute with no “goody” model to buy to fight him in the campaign.

But can there be a lion without Luther?

Will Cypher become a DA character? He’s got the bosses sword after all

mrFickle wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOINbQdyiFQ

What do you think? It’s a convincing argument and big Vash is just out there at the minute with no “goody” model to buy to fight him in the campaign.

But can there be a lion without Luther?

Will Cypher become a DA character? He’s got the bosses sword after all

Meh, speculating that the Lion will return is about as controversial as predicting new Space Marine Models, he's one of the loyalist Primarchs whose return is very heavily implied and the only one besides Guilliman whose current whereabouts are definitely known. Of course he will return eventually, mainly because the model will sell and because the story needs protagonists with quasi-unlimited power as a counterweight to all the superpowered antagonists.

But the return of a Primarch is a serious affair which should coincide with other releases for his faction as well as books detailling and explaining the story and so on. The Lion would not return as a side character to fight someone that we barely even know in a side story set of books focusing on narrative play. In my opinion, it would also be much to close to the release of Angron. I think it's much likelier that the Lion will return as the centerpiece or a centerpiece for the 10th edition marine codex, and after Vashtor and the other chaos dudes had some time in the limelight and are more established both as characters and as credible threats.

Yeah, this isn't so much 'breaking speculation' as 'sighing impatiently at a watch' because GW is really late on something they've been clearly signalling for the better part of a decade. (with vaguer hints for even longer)

Or, if you're like me, being resigned to the inevitable, unwanted Big New Thing.

Voss wrote:
Yeah, this isn't so much 'breaking speculation' as 'sighing impatiently at a watch' because GW is really late on something they've been clearly signalling for the better part of a decade. (with vaguer hints for even longer)

Or, if you're like me, being resigned to the inevitable, unwanted Big New Thing.

Those mentions closer to a decade ago or longer were not "hints" at anything. They were just open-ended bits of lore to add intrigue but were never intended to go anywhere, they were not there to signal something that would be coming. They can't be "late" on something that wasn't actually meant to lead to anything.

If you say so.

The old, old stuff, sure. Just lore snippets. But if you think they weren't gearing up for Magnus and Roboute and more primarchs to follow in the _better part_ of the last 10 years (magnus was released in 2016), you missed a lot.

The Lion is the most obvious pick, especially with stories about things happening in dark depths of the Rock during Magnus' release which, again, was six years ago. People have been expecting the Lion for at least that long. So yeah, 'late' is the right word.

Voss wrote:
If you say so.

The old, old stuff, sure. Just lore snippets. But if you think they weren't gearing up for Magnus and Roboute and more primarchs to follow in the _better part_ of the last 10 years (magnus was released in 2016), you missed a lot.

The Lion is the most obvious pick, especially with stories about things happening in dark depths of the Rock during Magnus' release which, again, was six years ago. People have been expecting the Lion for at least that long. So yeah, 'late' is the right word.

It stands to reason that Roboute, The Lion and Russ were always the loyalist candidates with the highest probability of getting a 40k reincarnation. They all have their own independent codex and established line of models, and unlike Sanguinius are not extremely and setting-definingly very dead at the moment. Corax and The Khan are also not confirmed dead, but have much less standing on the model and faction side, Dorn has a big-ish fanbase, but is kinda hindered by his comic book style off-screen dead. Vulkan is MIA since the war of the beast iirc, but he is also not that hugely popular, and Ferrus is very dead for the time being.

So all in all, either The Lion or Russ is the next logical choice, and it seems they chose The Lion for the next loyalist to return. I personally thinks that works quite well for a variety of reasons: his complicated Legion with their secretive backstory opens up all sorts of dramatic possibilities for lost technology and ancient conflicts to resurge, and, quite importantly, his mobile homebase allows them to feature in any campaign anywhere in the universe without overly convoluted explanations about how they managed to show up right on planet whatsitsname.

Eventually, i think the long-term plan it to achieve some sort of balance between the demon primarchs and the loyalist primarchs, with the end state being five or six on either side, but that's more like a long-term goal that will develop over the next decade or so.

The Lion needs to return.

In terms of fighting and the prosecution of war, he is Guilliman’s superior.

And as other have said, The Rock has a vast arsenal of ancient weapons to be unleashed.

He’s the natural selection to go sort out Imperium Nihilus, especially as I understand The Rock can wholesale teleport itself (and any docked fleet), giving a huge advantage in mobility.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Lion needs to return.

In terms of fighting and the prosecution of war, he is Guilliman’s superior.

And as other have said, The Rock has a vast arsenal of ancient weapons to be unleashed.

He’s the natural selection to go sort out Imperium Nihilus, especially as I understand The Rock can wholesale teleport itself (and any docked fleet), giving a huge advantage in mobility.

Also, on the more subtle side, the arthurian motives of the Lion are a good fit for the 'Dark Ages' aesthetic the Imperium Nihilus is going for, although 'Viking' Russ would feel at home there quite well too

True.

Guilliman does need a Proper Contemporary. Being a Primarch, he can never rule out those around him don’t feel they can speak with true candour. As such, there are no checks and balances on his plans.

Think of Horus’ Mournival. A select group there to naysay and force him to soberly inspect his own plans for flaws.

Guilliman needs that. And military commander worth their salt needs that. They needn’t be Peers as such. Just folk with the confidence that pointing out flaws won’t lead to demotion or other punishment.

The Lion brings that. Whilst more ruthless than Guilliman, he is effective. And I’d argue the Imperium Nihilist needs the sort of ruthless dynamism The Lion does so well. Not just victories for the Imperium, but crushing defeats for enemies. The sort of defeats there’s nothing left to regroup or rearm. A butt kicking so hard your butt is kicked square off up into that tree over there.

It would also give the Imperium Nihilus a singular figurehead, who in terms of authority (perceived or actual) is head and shoulders above the others. No King Among Equals. An actual King. Someone of gravitas and skill enough to get it organised and folks heads smashed in.

It does sort of have that in Commander Dante. But ultimately, his authority stems from long service in a Primogenitor Chapter. The Lion? The Lion is a Primarch. In Imperial Terms there’s only one type of being more revered. And he’s been on the bog for Millenia.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

Voss wrote:
Yeah, this isn't so much 'breaking speculation' as 'sighing impatiently at a watch' because GW is really late on something they've been clearly signalling for the better part of a decade. (with vaguer hints for even longer)

Or, if you're like me, being resigned to the inevitable, unwanted Big New Thing.

Those mentions closer to a decade ago or longer were not "hints" at anything. They were just open-ended bits of lore to add intrigue but were never intended to go anywhere, they were not there to signal something that would be coming. They can't be "late" on something that wasn't actually meant to lead to anything.

Yep.

The 40k was supposed to be setting for players to mess around. There wasn't hints about Lion returning as there wasn't intention to bring them back.

Then nu-GW decided it wants to turn 40k into saturday cartoon and make some cash with primarch.

It….it still is a setting for us to play around in?

We’ve 10,000 years of Imperial History to muck up about in.

No-one is forcing you to field anything you feel is too modern.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It….it still is a setting for us to play around in?

We’ve 10,000 years of Imperial History to muck up about in.

No-one is forcing you to field anything you feel is too modern.

A bit of movement in the setting is necessary and good - after 20 years of piling loaded guns on the mantlepiece, a few of them have to be fired eventually or the stakes in the setting evaporate. A couple of clocks set to minutes to midnight are exciting and tiltilating, a whole sack full of them, combined with the notion that none of them can actually go off, just feels boring, like a saturday morning cartoon where every week introduces new, ever bigger villains and plots, but every episode ends with a return to the status quo and nothing ever really matters.

I don’t think that the lion will be of particular benefit to Guilliman strategically as he’s more likely to take the rock all over the dark half of the galaxy smashing the place up looking for Luther and Cypher, although I have a feeling cypher may become a HQ choice for Dark Angles.

It’s still a way to unify the Imperium Nihilus, adding pressure to Abaddon’s forces.

He may not necessarily take orders from Guilliman, but then would he need to? With the Nachmund Gauntlet the only stable link between the two, close coordination mag simply not be possible.

But just having a super competent ally wrangling Imperial Forces may be enough, as it’s a level of unity and organisation Abaddon may well struggle with.

Just having The Rock spearheading Retribution Fleets may prove enough, given how ridiculously powerful it is. Certainly enough to clobber enemy fleets that might be arrayed against it, at least at first,

With that level of coordinated threat, the forces of Chaos that wide will similarly need to start pulling together, or risk being picked off piecemeal. That in turn can bring relief, as you’re likely to see less opportunistic raiding, as the ships are needed elsewhere.

Which in a sense is the Imperium’s main advantage. It’s slow and ponderous to respond, that’s true. But when it is responding? It’s a colossal task to stop it. The other advantage is Chaos is a more serious threat to others than The Imperium right now.

If Chaos wins? Everyone loses. If The Imperium wins? You might be able to ride it out, especially as it will have taken a mauling in the process of driving back the tide of Chaos, and will likely need a period of rearming and wound licking before it can start actively reclaiming lost territories.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Just having The Rock spearheading Retribution Fleets may prove enough, given how ridiculously powerful it is. Certainly enough to clobber enemy fleets that might be arrayed against it, at least at first,

With that level of coordinated threat, the forces of Chaos that wide will similarly need to start pulling together, or risk being picked off piecemeal. That in turn can bring relief, as you’re likely to see less opportunistic raiding, as the ships are needed elsewhere.

Which in a sense is the Imperium’s main advantage. It’s slow and ponderous to respond, that’s true. But when it is responding? It’s a colossal task to stop it. The other advantage is Chaos is a more serious threat to others than The Imperium right now.

If Chaos wins? Everyone loses. If The Imperium wins? You might be able to ride it out, especially as it will have taken a mauling in the process of driving back the tide of Chaos, and will likely need a period of rearming and wound licking before it can start actively reclaiming lost territories.

For now, we will have Chaos on the offensive with that whole ''Arks of Omen'', well, arc - these are supposedly weaponized and mobilized space hulks, which should be challengig enough for imperial forces to overcome. Putting the Arks up against The Rock fits very well thematically - all the more reason that the return of The Lion may be the focus of 10th edition, after the villains had some time in the spotlight to establish them.

Space Hulks are an odd one.

They can be vast, sure. Comprised of dozens of vessels. But that doesn’t mean each constituent ship has working weapons and defences.

Orky Space Hulks are dangerous because Orky-Know-Wotz and general preference for big dakka and mayhem ensures they’re festooned with proper Orky guns and Power Fields regardless. Chaos ones? It’s gonna depend.

Have they fortified, reinforced and taken the time to get what can be working working, or just found a way to get them moving in the desired direction? That of course remains to be seen.

But if it’s the latter, despite their sheer size they may not be much of a match for what is now essentially a purpose built mobile battle station, strong enough to its foundations is survived it’s parent world being destroyed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Space Hulks are an odd one.

They can be vast, sure. Comprised of dozens of vessels. But that doesn’t mean each constituent ship has working weapons and defences.

Orky Space Hulks are dangerous because Orky-Know-Wotz and general preference for big dakka and mayhem ensures they’re festooned with proper Orky guns and Power Fields regardless. Chaos ones? It’s gonna depend.

Have they fortified, reinforced and taken the time to get what can be working working, or just found a way to get them moving in the desired direction? That of course remains to be seen.

But if it’s the latter, despite their sheer size they may not be much of a match for what is now essentially a purpose built mobile battle station, strong enough to its foundations is survived it’s parent world being destroyed.

True, true. The old BFG rules for hulks also put them in the region of a couple of battleships for power, which is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of thing. On the other hand, a single Hulk was enough to form the backbone of the attacking force in both the first and second war for Armageddon, while the attacking force in the third war had at least four hulks. And who knows what effect Vashtorr and his deal with Abaddon have on their overall effectivity - and how many hulks the new fleets have. If the chaos forces show up with dozens of them that's certainly a force to recon with.

It’s more their resilience, and when done right, the frankly staggering amount of warriors/soldiers/psychopaths/loonies they can transport to a warzone.

But if you’ve not taken the time to make what essentially a bunch of wrecks up and running? You still need to get there.

Armageddon also saw a significant Orky Fleet presence, which again helps.

I think what I’m wibbling about is that a Space Hulk itself isn’t as dangerous as folk think.

But. And this is the sort of but Sir Mixalot is terribly fond of? If, by hook or by crook, you’ve got it’s constituent ships up and running? You’ve got guns, potentially very, very “not seen even during the Crusade” very powerful guns, all at proper jaunty angles, throwing standard Naval Tactics right out then airlock, as your victim can’t predict where the next broadside will come from.

Thing is one space hulk can be very different to another a who knows what crazy tech is available on them. The arks of omen make me guess that we’re talking about really old ships, maybe generational vessels or long distance stasis vessels from the golden age. Which means they might be full of men of iron which fits the dark mechanicum theme.

But the warp being the warp they could also be from the future carrying who knows what

Voss wrote:
If you say so.

The old, old stuff, sure. Just lore snippets. But if you think they weren't gearing up for Magnus and Roboute and more primarchs to follow in the _better part_ of the last 10 years (magnus was released in 2016), you missed a lot.

The Lion is the most obvious pick, especially with stories about things happening in dark depths of the Rock during Magnus' release which, again, was six years ago. People have been expecting the Lion for at least that long. So yeah, 'late' is the right word.

The problem is you're assuming that open-ended pieces of lore are specifically added because they're meant to be leading up to something at a later date, when that isn't necessarily the case. And even further assuming that something like what's happened on the Rock has to be a hint at this massive lore changing event rather than simply being part of its own independent story that just focuses on the Fallen or some other aspect of the setting.

There are plenty of bits of lore and storylines that have gone nowhere further because that's not what they were for. I can't even really recall anything significant that was foreshadowed and then followed up in a way that meant it was their intent to do that in the first place, outside of a single quite vague hints of Squats back in 2020. It seems extremely rare for any "hints" to actually have been meant to be intentionally hinting at anything that was going to happen. The open-ended nature of those pieces of lore is there to add mystery and intrigue to the setting, not because there's some sort of plan they're following and want to foreshadow something many, many years in advance.

Like just what was "gearing up" for Roboute's return before it happened within the past 10 years as you claim? That was something that came out of nowhere.

I just want to know which GW staffer dug out Lionel Johnson's poetry and decided to base a chapter on it.

Talk about esoteric...

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I just want to know which GW staffer dug out Lionel Johnson's poetry and decided to base a chapter on it.

Talk about esoteric...

If I had to make a stab in the dark and guess, probably someone that took an elective college class, remembered a name that vaguely sounded old and Gothic, and looked at the title of the first work they could find by that person.

 cuda1179 wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I just want to know which GW staffer dug out Lionel Johnson's poetry and decided to base a chapter on it.

Talk about esoteric...

If I had to make a stab in the dark and guess, probably someone that took an elective college class, remembered a name that vaguely sounded old and Gothic, and looked at the title of the first work they could find by that person.

But it's not just any poem, right? I mean there's a...hmmm...connotation to it, you know?

I mean, is it even permitted to discuss the point of the poem and the presumed applicability to the legion?

Because back in the day, it was a huge inside joke, but some jokes are no longer allowed.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:
The problem is you're assuming that open-ended pieces of lore are specifically added because they're meant to be leading up to something at a later date, when that isn't necessarily the case. And even further assuming that something like what's happened on the Rock has to be a hint at this massive lore changing event rather than simply being part of its own independent story that just focuses on the Fallen or some other aspect of the setting.

There are plenty of bits of lore and storylines that have gone nowhere further because that's not what they were for. I can't even really recall anything significant that was foreshadowed and then followed up in a way that meant it was their intent to do that in the first place, outside of a single quite vague hints of Squats back in 2020. It seems extremely rare for any "hints" to actually have been meant to be intentionally hinting at anything that was going to happen. The open-ended nature of those pieces of lore is there to add mystery and intrigue to the setting, not because there's some sort of plan they're following and want to foreshadow something many, many years in advance.

Like just what was "gearing up" for Roboute's return before it happened within the past 10 years as you claim? That was something that came out of nowhere.

One example that came to my mind is the army box with Eldar and Deathwatch. The elves wanted to create a god while DW tried to and IIRC actually stopped the ritual. Not much later the Yncarne was available for purchase.

Releasing the Lion would be a great way to drop some Primaris Terminators or Jump units.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Releasing the Lion would be a great way to drop some Primaris Terminators or Jump units.

The lion would also want to unleash the power of the HH tech stored in the rock. Might also brink back the other wings of the dark angels like the dread wing

mrFickle wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Releasing the Lion would be a great way to drop some Primaris Terminators or Jump units.

The lion would also want to unleash the power of the HH tech stored in the rock. Might also brink back the other wings of the dark angels like the dread wing

GW seem to be interested in expanding into that direction themselves, we got a literal Man of Iron in the Blackstone Fortress game, we have whatever the Votann and Ironkin exactly are, and now that Techno-Demon makes an appearance on the side of chaos. Getting some stuff out of the Rocks murdercloset fits perfectly.

We know the DA have secret STCs as well, maybe we could see ravenwing jet bikes

mrFickle wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Releasing the Lion would be a great way to drop some Primaris Terminators or Jump units.

The lion would also want to unleash the power of the HH tech stored in the rock. Might also brink back the other wings of the dark angels like the dread wing

Arguably more importantly? Being a Primarch, The Lion would have the authority to unleash such devastating weapons.

Which also kind of extends to the Codex Astartes, as I’m not sure, and am failing to research, whether The Lion himself ever consented to follow it, being all disappeared at the time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

mrFickle wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Releasing the Lion would be a great way to drop some Primaris Terminators or Jump units.

The lion would also want to unleash the power of the HH tech stored in the rock. Might also brink back the other wings of the dark angels like the dread wing

Arguably more importantly? Being a Primarch, The Lion would have the authority to unleash such devastating weapons.

Which also kind of extends to the Codex Astartes, as I’m not sure, and am failing to research, whether The Lion himself ever consented to follow it, being all disappeared at the time.

The lion was unconscious at the time of codex astartes being written. I think the dark angles consented to follow it with the caveats of the death wing and raven wing but only ever intended to pretend they were following it. The dark angles know that you can do whatever you want as long and no one find out and if they do you shoot them. Simples