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It looks promising for sure.

That stuff about the prophecy could very well fit the rumoured return of the Lion, the symbolism is pretty on the nose about it. Circles within circles, ancient knight crying in the ashes of his victory...

mrFickle wrote:


Well I was just speculating cos I’d clearly missed that. But being that he represent the unchecked advancement of technology doesn’t mean he didn’t manifest due to a specific event or set of activities. Slaneesh was born by the actions of the eldar. Why would vashtorr have some similar kind of birth?

If i had to guess i'd say he'll encroach on some of the territory that used to be a minor aspect of Khorne back in the earlier editions: The 'science' of war and murder, basically, all the thing humans cunningly built and invented over the millenia to better kill and maim their contemporaries. Stuff like cannons, shrapnel, mines, machine guns and all that. In the older editions of Epic Khorne had an interesting menagerie of demon engines that incorporated a lot of these. Science and Engineering turned to destructive and evil purposes, in essence.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Going right back to Realms of Chaos, there are mentions of independent Daemons and Lesser Gods, with the line between the two being blurred, as it’s just a matter of how much power they hold. The implication of course is all the Gods started off as a fart in a jar Daemon, only to become swollen with power from specific emotions common across the Galaxy (ref Orgo and F’toomsh in The Young One’s, and their likelihood of being summoned, I guess)

A more recent example of a thing somewhere between Demon and God would be Drach'nyen as it was presented in Master of Mankind - basically the demi-god of the first intentional murder among men.

mrFickle wrote:
Malice is still a thing I believe? Just never talked about.

Wouldn’t it be cool if vashtorr was actually the demon Prince evolution of one of the missing primarchs

Yeah, Malal/Malice pops up about every decade in some side project, mainly as a bone thrown to the old farts Zuvassin, an even lesser known minor deity from back when, recently had a cameo appearance in the boxed game Silver Tower and a novel as well. Necoho remains AWOL, just like it would have liked it

 Haighus wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

If i had to guess i'd say he'll encroach on some of the territory that used to be a minor aspect of Khorne back in the earlier editions: The 'science' of war and murder, basically, all the thing humans cunningly built and invented over the millenia to better kill and maim their contemporaries. Stuff like cannons, shrapnel, mines, machine guns and all that. In the older editions of Epic Khorne had an interesting menagerie of demon engines that incorporated a lot of these. Science and Engineering turned to destructive and evil purposes, in essence.

Also encroaches on Tzeench through the powerful change brought on by technological development, Slaanesh due to the search for excellence fe in technical crafting. I can’t think of a Nurgle link off the top of my head, but technical development does lead to things like Crispr.

Hmmm, Nurgle could overlap through the development of bio, chemical, and cyber weapons like computer viruses and phosphex equipment.

Nurgle would feel right at home in the dehumanization and hopelessness of industrialized warfare. The trenches of WW1 are quintessentially nurglish.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Strictly speaking, any life preserving tech would be feeding Nurgle, as he’s as much a God of Life as plague. Indeed, his fondness for bacteria and viruses and that stems from having no “ranking” of lives. If one of us dies, and billions of bacteria thrive on our corpse, it’s a no-Brainer to him.

There’s a word eluding me. Like profundity, but about proliferation of life and frankly it’s pissing me off!

Fecundity?

cody.d. wrote:
Plot twist! Vashtorr is actually the ork god Bork! who just happens to be the more mek inclined of the ork gods!

Legend has it that he was imprisoned by the Emperor on Eye's Land for some time before the great crusade

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Strictly speaking, any life preserving tech would be feeding Nurgle, as he’s as much a God of Life as plague. Indeed, his fondness for bacteria and viruses and that stems from having no “ranking” of lives. If one of us dies, and billions of bacteria thrive on our corpse, it’s a no-Brainer to him.

There’s a word eluding me. Like profundity, but about proliferation of life and frankly it’s pissing me off!

Fecundity?

Yes! Thank you!

I swear, every time I was trying to recall it, Mr Brain suggested profundity, was told no, then suggested it again.

But yes. Nurgle is about fecundity and rampant life - he just sees no difference between simple and complex life, and will go with fecundity every time. But even so, if it’s Clone Tech, that does feed Nurgle as it’s still new life being born, outside of the usual natural order.

If memory serves from the livestream, it’s less the existence of technology that feeds Vashtorr, and more innovation. So if I designed say, a new Lasgun? That design process is his smorgasbord, with each Lasgun then produced according to the template being, I dunno, a mote of flour dust. Nourishment, but to a much lesser individual degree. But a Jokaero adapting one of said Lasguns, is a sandwich.

Hence I’m pretty sure he’s playing Abaddon for a fool. A final victory of Chaos, before he ascends, would, arguably, cause galactic anarchy, replacing advancement with superstition, ritual and rote. And that constant, constant trickle he gets now is still moving him closer to Godhood than a complete arrest or lessening of that trickle.

And it’s not so much The Imperium he’s sneakily preserving for sake of his dinner table, but the current status quo.

Vasthorr could, for the near future, end up being something like an Evil Merlin to Abaddon as Evil Arthur... especially if the Lion returns, who also has a lot of Arthurian motives going on, and Arthurian Legend / Dark Ages britannia is one way to look at the Imperium Nihilus. For added tin foil, don't limit yourself to the classics of Arthurian literature, but include the New Age stuff like Mists of Avalon as well, which is chock-full of faux celtic religion and myth, which of course nicely ties into the Eldar background in general and Exodites in particular... hmmm...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So apparently the latest WD confirms Arks of Omen will consist of five books - not the four teased during that reveals show. With a “technically sixth” volume being presented in White Dwarf.

Number 5 is probably the Lion... that would at least explain why they have not yet teased the book. That would allow him to squeeze in just before tenth edition.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Mmm... WD DLC.

Tried and tested my dude. For what it’s worth, I’ve greatly enjoyed the Flash Point articles over the past few years.

Yeah, everything that increases the value of WD is a good thing. As long as they eventually collect it in an anthology or make it available otherwise, why not. Back in the day almost every issue of WD had 'DLC', did not do any harm.

 Gert wrote:
By the time GW ever decides to bring the Lost Primarchs into 40k then everyone on this forum will be long dead.
They can milk the armies that need updates for years while adding piecemeal Marine units to keep the masses happy.

If they keep the current pace they can easily do multiple decades of slow-burn plot advancement just by having a single primarch return every couple of years, and that's before we get into shenanigans like multiple independet shards, clones, reincarnations, living saints, warp ghosts and all the other possibilities that already canonically exist in the setting.

FYI Arbitor Ian has a new video up that deals with the lore found in AoO: Angron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkVIRfU3rGM

Iracundus wrote:
Is it said anywhere why Angron can now seemingly not be banished for any length of time? That time he got banished on Armageddon he was out of action for 100 years and a day.

He got the favour of the dread entity Mha Ke'Tyng, imbuing him with constant availability

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As I’ve speculated before, I think Vashtorr is pulling a fast one on Abaddon.

As a Daemon/nascent God powered by innovation, a Galaxy descended full into Chaos doesn’t help him much.

I reckon whatever he has up his sleeve is purely about him reaching Godhood, at the expense of Chaos’ greater victory. Because once you’re a God, there doesn’t seem a whole lot of retribution that’s going to stick.

Hence the Daemon Inversed may be him fixing or turning on some important piece of tech which empowers The Rock.

One of the articles on the community page mentioned that Vashtorr acts a bit like the classic fairy-tale Devil or Djinn do: he sticks exactly to the contract you made with him, but he usually ensures that that contract has loopholes or tricks in it that get him the upper hand.

tneva82 wrote:

 Segersgia wrote:
I really think that there are interesting ways of having Angron's immortality create an interesting narrative.

If factions realise that killing him isn't an option anymore, they might look for ways that neutralize hime without banishing him.

Like how? Talk to him and send flowers & chocolate?-)

By the most imperial of sanctions: trapping him in constant paperwork.

On a more serious note: Stasis fields or shunting him into one of the readily available weird parallel/pocket dimensions might work. Tesseract vaults, a bubble in the Webway, stuff like that. Had to be somewhere where the Dark Gods can't easily reach, and ideally where he can't just kill himself and reappear elsewhere.

Today's hype article for AoO III is up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/03/03/arks-of-omen-vashtorr-catches-the-dark-angels-between-the-rock-and-a-hard-place/

It contains an interesting tidbit: apparently, Vashtorr made a deal with an AI to be able to predict the Rock's movements. Said AI is connected to 'a clueless Inquisitor of the Ordo Astartes' like a footnote in the article says. This may or may not be related to the Dark Angels' small stockpile of lobotomized AI battle robots from the Dark Age of Technology...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Lion Sleeps Tonight…but he’s gonna get up soon, and have his arse in his hands!

I mean, if there's a deal there has to be something that Vashtorr offered the AI as well... freeing their trapped 'brothers' could be it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I suspect once we’ve read Vashtorr, we’ll be able to make more accurate guesses.

I'd not take that as a given considering GW's usual quality of writing

xerxeskingofking wrote:
so, games workshops open day reveals include the fact that the 4th arks of omen book is "arks: Farsight", and is based on a bad moons vs farsight enclave battle.

Puretide’s protege is now piloting a bleeding-edge XV-86 Supernova battlesuit, designed specifically to suit his needs by O’Vesa, the Earth Caste scientist who fights by his side as one of the Eight – Farsight’s hand-picked crew of companions. Though similar to the XV-8 Crisis suit, this hot rod sports greatly enhanced command and control suites, all guided by a fancy on-board AI – dubbed Supernova

The infamous Bad Moons warlord Nazdreg, master of tellyporta taktiks, has taken up the reins of the War of Dakka – a never-ending conflict fuelled by the Orks’ desire to beat the Farsight Enclaves at their own shooting game.

Strange visions draw O’Shovah back to the ominous world of Arthas Moloch, and just as he seems to be ready to vanquish the Orks once and for all, disaster strikes. It wouldn’t be an Arks of Omen book without an Ark or two showing up, after all…

intresting the explicit mention of the AI on his suit......

If i'm allowed to go Paranoid for a moment:

- The AI is called 'Supernova', which is of course the name for an exploding star
- We have a Tarot card called 'The Star' with text that talks about a newborn star
- As the ever-observant Matrindur points out, Farsight's suit has some sort of 'chip' in it:

- This chip prominently displays a sigil that looks a lot like the Dark Angel Hexagrammaton:

- The Hexagrammaton are the 'Six Wings' of the Dark Angels in the Heresy era
- One of these wings is the 'Iron Wing'
- In the Heresy, this Iron Wing included the fearsome Excindio Class Battle Automata, which were in fact lobotomized Men Of Iron war machines: sentient AIs
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Ironwing#Excindio-Class_Battle-Automata
- These automata, even in their much-reduced and lobotomized state, are considered so dangerous that they were only released into battle under close observation, fitted with explosive failsafes and furnished with only the bare minimum reactor charge and ammunition that they needed to finish their missions, for fear of them breaking free
- Vashtorr is also said to have made a deal with an Astartes-related AI that allowed him to locate the Rock
- What the AI gained from this is currently unknown
- There is at least one Man of Iron currently at large in the Galaxy, last seen on the Blackstone Fortress of the game of the same name, his current location and goals are unknown

All of this is very much beginning to look like too much of a coincidence to be random chance - it begins to look like there's a conspiration afoot to release the cybernetic terrors of Old Night on an unaware galaxy!

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:
Seems like great logical thinking to me. Can see it being a bit less complicated when GW reveals whatever it is but you have put together the hints in a logical way that fits the background especially the use of AI in the story thus far...exciting times.

It's probably just the Talisman of Arthas Moloch relic, but from time to time i like a good yarn

mrFickle wrote:
The idea of the rock being destroyed is an interesting one but I doubt it, it’s been a core bit of lore since day 1. Plus whatever they want is on the rock so they don’t want to destroy it.

Unless the rock is destroyed and then out of the warp appears the rock from another point in time full of friendly fallen to save the day

Blasting the rock into smaller, but still rock-y chunks could be a way to handwave Dark Angels appearing in a lot of battles simultaneously in 10th edition.

Basically the meme 'I acquire: one victory over the Rock / You acquire: a fleet of Space-Hulk-sized rock-lites'

Also, i could see a darkly comedic result from that, with the DA being big on keeping secrets and all: it's not like that many outside folks have seen The Rock or have accurate information about its dimensions and capabilities, so in the future the DA could easily pretend that every single one of these sub-rocks is 'The Rock' and nurture a reputation for being in many places at once etc., which of course would be pretty handy to ge fallen-hunting off the record or sweep sightings of the fallen under the Rock, eh, rug. Basically they would just not tell anyone the Rock was destroyed, and go on acting like nothing happened.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Vashtorr is up for pre-order next week.

Tantalisingly?

The third instalment of Arks of Omen zeroes in on the siege of the Rock, as Vastorr searches for a powerful component in his diabolical goal. The Dark Angels aren’t taking this invasion lightly, and rally their forces as a mysterious third party enters the slaughter.

Wonder who or what that might be.

Based on the intepretation of the last couple of Tarot cards, it's probably Starro the conqueror.

xerxeskingofking wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Vashtorr is up for pre-order next week.

Tantalisingly?

The third instalment of Arks of Omen zeroes in on the siege of the Rock, as Vastorr searches for a powerful component in his diabolical goal. The Dark Angels aren’t taking this invasion lightly, and rally their forces as a mysterious third party enters the slaughter.

Wonder who or what that might be.

my money is on the necrons, purely based on the list of other boarding action factions with rules in this set (Chaos Daemons, Necrons, Tyranids, Genestealer Cults, the Death Guard, and the Adeptus Mechanicus).

that, or the Fallen themselves come out to play......


I mean, it COULD still be the Lion, but im honestly of the opinion if they were waking him up, we would have seen the model by now. I wasn't active in the hobby over G mans wakeup, how did that play out? was that a blindside suprise that was revealed in the lore then a model, or was the model showcased and then the novels disribed his return?

IIRC we knew a lot of the Guilliman and Primaris stuff from tie-in novels before his rules and model showed up, but i may be wrong.

Concerning the topic: i wonder what the '6th book' that's gonna be serialized in White Dwarf is going to be - and if it gets Tarot Cards as well. One outside/curveball option i could see is that AoO V is about something else, and then the Lion shows up on the conclusion of 'book' VI, which would be almost at Warhammer Fest...

 Segersgia wrote:
The fourth card for this book is daemon inversed, and its description involves infighting. I’m betting Vashtorr is going to get backstabbed by one of his allies, like the rogue AI he’s teamed up with, or the Fallen could be a foil in his plan, seeing as they are allied with chaos.

That's one interpretation, but it could also just mean that Vashtorr is the one that does the backstabbing, for example by retreating once he has gained whatever it is that he's after, and thus leaving Abaddon and his greater schemes to fend for themselves. In this case, Vashtorr would represent the self-defeating nature of chaos, even though he wins his personal battle.

 Olthannon wrote:


Do we know who the member of the Ordo Astartes is?

Presumably someone investigating the Dark Angels / Fallen and all their secrets.

There have not been a lot of named Ordo Astartes members so far - Lexicanum knows four - and it might be a completely new one, but if they reuse one they already namedropped my money is on Ardeus Teth:

Ardeus Teth is an Ordo Astartes Inquisitor, who wonders what kind of secrets and artefacts the Space Marine Chapters must keep within their hidden vaults and libraries. He has gone so far as to say he would sacrifice a dozen worlds for just a glimpse of such treasures and a hundred to own them.

Sounds like the sort of dude who could be tricked into making deals with a Daemon.

mrFickle wrote:

I have a feeling that Vashtorr will succeed in taking what ever he needs from the rock as it seems to be an important part of the middle of the story, in fact I expect that the arks of omen story will result in Abbadon getting all the things he’s looking for, winning more territory but failing to achieve his ultimate goal of taking over the imperium of man. And vashtorr will have a foothold in real space setting up a release of a new faction in a few years for 10th ed

I mainly think that Vashtorr will be the one doing the backstabbing because he's described as an entity you can't trust, that's always out for his own profit, makes deals where he somehow always ends up on the side that gets the upper hand and so on. All of that is being told at the moment, and none of it has yet been shown. Of course there is room for stories in which characters like that get bested at their own game, or tricked by a greater trickster etc., but for that to have any weight and impact you first need to establish that that is an uncommon occurence. The 'Fall of the master conspirator' trope is only dramatic and cool if it's a once-in-a-lifetime event, not when it happens during the literal first appearance of the character. So i think that this particular story will end in success for Vashtorrr, possibly to the detriment of the larger war effort.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:On Farsight? Bit of clarification from Warhammer Community today.

Fate struck again when Farsight found himself on a dead world named Arthas Moloch. Here he was attacked by mysterious red-skinned aliens never before seen by the Empire. The expedition’s attendant Ethereals were slain by these bloodthirsty creatures, who appeared seemingly from nowhere, and only the discovery of a strange talisman and conveniently battlesuit-sized sword allowed Farsight to close the portal disgorging the attackers.

Strikes me the Hexagrammatic Talisman is the talisman mentioned - and so not a new development.

Well, as i said:

Tsagualsa wrote:It's probably just the Talisman of Arthas Moloch relic, but from time to time i like a good yarn

That being said, all that stuff about Arthas Moloch may still be who-knows-what after all: Arthas Moloch is pre-imperial, there's not records of it being visited during the great crusade, and the Talismans were found 'hanging around the necks of mysterious, faceless statues' in a 'temple' where the Dawnblade was stored. So it may or may not be related to pretty much anything, really, but anti-warp talismans, faceless statues and blades that utilize strange chronomancy to prolong the wearers life are all hinting towards necrons.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, the Hexagrammatic thing came from somewhere, and isn’t necessarily unique to Caliban or The Dark Angels.

Could be the Dawnblade is indeed a Daemon or Cursed Weapon. The statues and talismans forming a cage to secure it from Warp denizens.

The newer fluff for the Dawnblade mentions that it works with 'chronophagic alloy', not via souls or warpcraft like other 'souldrinker'-type weapons. That could of course just be what the demonweapon wants you to think, but imho that's techno-sorcery, not vanilla sorcery.

But anyway, the Dawnblade has been a surprising number of things, back in the day it was heavily hinted to be of eldar origin, but that got retconned as well. So who knows, another soft-retcon may always be in the cards. Don't want to steer the thread too far off topic, we can and will probably revisit this once the Farsight book comes out.

 Plant wrote:
Looks like the third party is Belakor.

SHOCK upon the ROCK! Just when Azrael was going to be counted out, the watchers open up a side entrance, and OH MY GOD! you're not gonna believe this, it's Belakor, with the FOLDING CHAIR! Oooooh, that's gonna hurt!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The first reviews for AoO: Vashtorr are going up, here is one from Guerilla Miniature Games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2c-8nyEmSo

The first ~5 minutes are about the background, so beware of spoilers. The bit about how Vashtorr got to interrogate the AI - which is, in fact, from the Dark Age of Technology - is pretty cool*

*

Boosykes wrote:
So the more this goes on the more I think the prophecy from the first book is from the perspective of luther.

Spoiler: vashtorr failes to get the last piece but he thinks he know how to get the piece to come to him.

luther and cypher know the rock better than anyone so one of them could stand a chance of getting on and off the rock again with thier lives and the key. And of the two luther is know for being a Prophet

Vashtorr is apparently using his triple-agents to lure the Dark Angels to the Somnium system, hoping that they bring the Key fragment with them. This makes me guess that the fragment is some piece of wargear they'd reasonably take with them, probably one of their special swords or something. Isn't there a sword made from a prehistoric meteor or something in the DA armoury?

Also, the Somnium system is where 'an army of the Fallen of hitherto unknown size' is said to be rallying in the DA codex, so the plot thickens.

From the Lion reveal article:

On the tabletop, the Lion is the consummate swordsman, balancing raw power and preternatural skill, scything through humanity’s foes like wheat. Those lucky few who live long enough to return a blow are met with a bone-crunching wave of force, as the fury of the Emperor Himself resounds from his shield.

Calling it now: in the fight between the Lion and Angron, Angron will try to Khorne-Blast the Lion like he did with that MacGuffin in his own book, but the Shield of the Emperor will throw the attack back at him and that is what banishes him for good - for now.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So despite Angron’s many daemonic advantages, I’m not expecting a Deus Ex reason as to why Lion comes out on top.

The last couple of Heresy books also really hammered it in that becoming a Demon Prince is not a straight upgrade for a Primarch, but a best a sidegrade, and in many aspects actually lessens them as beings and powers, because instead of the fined-tuned whatever it is that the Emperor made them they're now a bog-standard Slave to Darkness and suffer at least as many vulnerabilities and limitations as they gain raw power.