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 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Burning of Prospero talks about the Long March, where mankind left the solar system on generational ships that used sublight engines.

The Long March ships are what gave us the Knight Worlds and the Forge Worlds.

The Long March is also mentioned in all the Imperial Knights Codecies... and gives the M16 date for when humanity left our solar system for the stars.

And now the Leagues of Votann lore has expanded on this a bit further, although not to any clear degree as it's all vague and mysterious.

The issue is the AI component, the Tech Priests of Mars were a vital component of the Long March in setting up new settlements and Forgeworlds.

I Know that all this happened before the Long Night, but the Martian Priesthood has always been anti-AI, and it feels shoehorned to me to say that some of the Long March ships had extensive Artificial Intelligences.

I'm fine with the Kin being Clones and being sent into the core, it's just that the AI doesn't seem to fit in the timeline.

Now, if they had found the AI in the core-that would be an interesting twist that I would feel works better.

It's the DAOT, the technological peak of humanity when they used AI extensively, to explore and colonize the stars and other uses, with the Men of Iron (Which again, the Leagues of Votann reference).

If anything, Mars being against them is the problem here, but I don't know where that is from as I haven't heard of that before.

The Martian Priesthood that went with the Long March ships was anti-AI (Codex Imperial Knights... 8th/9th).

The part that I'm running into is there seems to be 2 major colonizations.

There is the Men of Gold. Then bad stuff happens. Then you have the human disporia where humankind leaves Old Earth aka The Long March, taking with them Omnissiah Tech Priests. Which will set up Knight Worlds and Forge Worlds.

Then really bad stuff happens and the Emperor comes along and the Great Crusade occurs and the Forgeworlds and Knights are introduced to the Imperium and forgeworlds have to swear fealty to Mars. (Adeptus Titanicus).

So there could have been the Votann AI and the Kin before the Long March.

And that would sync with the Men of Gold that traveled between the stars... before bad thing #1 happened.

But it's hard to sync them with the Long March ships.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Martian Priesthood that went with the Long March ships was anti-AI (Codex Imperial Knights... 8th/9th).

Something really doesn't sound right there. Can you give a quote for it?

That doesn't make sense if ships of the time period had AI, AI was just in extensive use in general because it's the DAOT, long march ships were sent out with an STC device which is AI, the whole Men of Iron thing, and it's just well before the Cybernetic Revolt that caused the dislike of it.

In the Adeptus Titanicus Rulebook page 9, it says:

The Custodians of knowledge preached the sanctity of the machine even as they remained vigilant for the return of true self-awareness, ever fearful that thinking machines might turn upon what remained of humanity as they had at the dawn of the Age of Strife.

This is before they talk about the Long March ships on Page 10.

The Kin have to be from before the Age of Strife.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Citation on the bolded bit?

I was under the impression that the Imperium, Mars included, were overusing AI to the point of when it revolted, they had serious issues.

*Golden Age Humanity, not the Imperium.

The Cybernetic Revolt occurred in M23, long after Humanity had started to colonise the galaxy.

Not all of the Men of Iron rebelled, but any that remained were destroyed or disappeared.

Incidentally, in the original background of the Squats, they entered their isolationist period just prior to the Cybernetic Revolt.
That would fit pretty well with the Leagues keeping their AI in service if neither the Kin nor Machines even knew about the Revolt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Kin have to be from before the Age of Strife.

The Age of Strife doesn't begin until M25, after the Cybernetic Revolt in M23 and long after the first human colony ships leave Terra in M16.

The Machine Cult doesn't form until the Age of Strife when the Golden Age of Humanity comes to an end. Various exploration fleets were sent out by the Mechanicum, which in turn founded Forge Worlds.

 Gert wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Citation on the bolded bit?

I was under the impression that the Imperium, Mars included, were overusing AI to the point of when it revolted, they had serious issues.

*Golden Age Humanity, not the Imperium.

The Cybernetic Revolt occurred in M23, long after Humanity had started to colonise the galaxy.

Not all of the Men of Iron rebelled, but any that remained were destroyed or disappeared.

Incidentally, in the original background of the Squats, they entered their isolationist period just prior to the Cybernetic Revolt.
That would fit pretty well with the Leagues keeping their AI in service if neither the Kin nor Machines even knew about the Revolt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Kin have to be from before the Age of Strife.

The Age of Strife doesn't begin until M25, after the Cybernetic Revolt in M23 and long after the first human colony ships leave Terra in M16.

The Machine Cult doesn't form until the Age of Strife when the Golden Age of Humanity comes to an end. Various exploration fleets were sent out by the Mechanicum, which in turn founded Forge Worlds.

The Adeptus Titanicus Rulebook has the Age of Strife before the Long March.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
In the Adeptus Titanicus Rulebook page 9, it says:

The Custodians of knowledge preached the sanctity of the machine even as they remained vigilant for the return of true self-awareness, ever fearful that thinking machines might turn upon what remained of humanity as they had at the dawn of the Age of Strife.

This is before they talk about the Long March ships on Page 10.

The Kin have to be from before the Age of Strife.

But what you're quoting there appears to be from after the age of strife.

They can't be fearful they might return and do what they did "at the dawn of the Age of Strife." if it's before then.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

The Adeptus Titanicus Rulebook has the Age of Strife before the Long March.

Then the Long March you're talking about isn't the initial colonisation of the Galaxy by Golden Age Humanity then is it?

It's likely that this is in reference to the various exploration fleets sent out by Mars that then founded the Forge Worlds that were then encountered by the Great Crusade.

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
The amount of armies that are just different colour schemes of power armour should suggest there's no issue with having recurring themes.

IMO they should go down the votann aesthetic of ornate ancestor heads and carvings on more things for the higher spec stuff rather than just hitech.


They should look like reverred walking monuments to the votann and their culture rather than just relatively generic space amour with some runes.


IMO the iron kin would have looked so much more interesting if they were built with sculpted visages and bodies, like walking dwarf golems with stylised faces etc.

The viking-baroque style would help make them look more interesting.

I a m really glad they did not do that. I am also glad they're not old school squats. I think the aesthetics they chose are excellent. Granted, I have some small gripes, but those are more about the execution.

I have never liked any dwarf archetype before, but I do like the Leagues. I think their practical DAOT stuff is a breath of fresh air to overly stuffy and stagnant 40K. That being said, this probably means a lot of people who like classic dwarf stuff might not find them that appealing.

I think game-wise they have not really found their groove though, and I am not quite sure what they should do about it. 40K has so many factions that is hard to introduce new unique playstyles. But they need more units though, that is obvious. And like some have already said, they should do more with the ironkin. They're a cool concept, but game wise they might as well not exist. They're just couple of hanger on assistants or models that mechanically do not differ from living squats in any way. So I think expanding ironkin would be an obvious way to emphasise the lore and fill the unit roster at the same time.

there are two aspects at play, the dwarfen archetype and the DAOT survivors. They could be completely separate concepts, but GW smushed them together. But they've not really done justice to the dwarfen aspect in doing so, which kind of makes them being the space dwarf faction a bit superfluous. The dwarf aspect needs to be relevant to retain it at all, and they've not really managed that yet. They're just doing the DAOT thing.

40k has plenty/too many human factions, 2/3rds+ are humans, whether zealous, engineered or spikey (or alien mutant). DAOT is just another human faction. Making them more dwarfen and less human provides more variety than just another human army. Having them develop their own completely divergent and unrelated aesthetic from other humans is IMO far more interesting than just another slice of the already thinly sliced human pie.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
The amount of armies that are just different colour schemes of power armour should suggest there's no issue with having recurring themes.

IMO they should go down the votann aesthetic of ornate ancestor heads and carvings on more things for the higher spec stuff rather than just hitech.


They should look like reverred walking monuments to the votann and their culture rather than just relatively generic space amour with some runes.


IMO the iron kin would have looked so much more interesting if they were built with sculpted visages and bodies, like walking dwarf golems with stylised faces etc.

The viking-baroque style would help make them look more interesting.

I a m really glad they did not do that. I am also glad they're not old school squats. I think the aesthetics they chose are excellent. Granted, I have some small gripes, but those are more about the execution.

I have never liked any dwarf archetype before, but I do like the Leagues. I think their practical DAOT stuff is a breath of fresh air to overly stuffy and stagnant 40K. That being said, this probably means a lot of people who like classic dwarf stuff might not find them that appealing.

I think game-wise they have not really found their groove though, and I am not quite sure what they should do about it. 40K has so many factions that is hard to introduce new unique playstyles. But they need more units though, that is obvious. And like some have already said, they should do more with the ironkin. They're a cool concept, but game wise they might as well not exist. They're just couple of hanger on assistants or models that mechanically do not differ from living squats in any way. So I think expanding ironkin would be an obvious way to emphasise the lore and fill the unit roster at the same time.

there are two aspects at play, the dwarfen archetype and the DAOT survivors. They could be completely separate concepts, but GW smushed them together. But they've not really done justice to the dwarfen aspect in doing so, which kind of makes them being the space dwarf faction a bit superfluous. The dwarf aspect needs to be relevant to retain it at all, and they've not really managed that yet. They're just doing the DAOT thing.

40k has plenty/too many human factions, 2/3rds+ are humans, whether zealous, engineered or spikey (or alien mutant). DAOT is just another human faction. Making them more dwarfen and less human provides more variety than just another human army. Having them develop their own completely divergent and unrelated aesthetic from other humans is IMO far more interesting than just another slice of the already thinly sliced human pie.

If i've understood what you mean there then this is my issue with the Votann designs too.

Lore wise they absolutely do have the Dwarf elements, but the models not so much. They said they didn't want them to be "dwarfs in space" but saying that to me sounds like a misunderstanding of what that even means as an idea. It didn't mean literal WHF Dwarfs in Space with gromril mail and horned helmets and all that, doing "___ in space" means to take the archetype and it's expected elements, and put them in as a sci-fi suitable version. Instead it's like they, for some reason, thought things like the Beards were "fantastic specific" elements rather than just "dwarf archetype" features that were expected and didn't include them, resulting in a design that moves away from what the whole point of it was meant to be being Space Dwarfs.

Yeah. Eldar are still space elves, but they're a unique expression of space elves.

They maintain all the motifs of elegance, grace, curves, colours and themes that you'd expect in elves, without literally just being high elves in space. For some reason they've failed to do the same thing with the space dwarfs.

I find eldar so much more interesting as an elf archetype than the WFB elves, and yet I love the WFB dwarfs more than the squats/votann.

Yeah I'd have been equally interested in the Votann background if they were just normal humans with the same DAOT theming. It's really cool stuff, and something missing from the setting. Them being short abhumans doesn't do much for me, especially because in so doing they lose that incorrigible nature of Dwarves that made the Squats appealing to me.

But you know I can see why they decided to put their two ideas together - if you really wanted to do DAOT survivors and then you get told they're doing Squats, I can see thinking "Oh cool I can make this work!"

Not really what they need but I'd like to see the Leagues of Votann lean into their Ironkin buddies and do something a little differently than other armies.

I'm not sure the idea can be balanced in a way that makes it both useful and fun to use, but ... I envision a sort of transformer combo unit like Devastator - made up of the Constructicons when they combined. Or like Voltron. Did the power rangers do the same thing and combine mechazoids or whatever? Anyway...

A unit of six small infantry that can move really fast but have weaker weapons, that can combine to form a larger walker unit with (much?) slower movement, higher toughness, better saves and weapons, but less OC.

I dunno. Just seems like something none of the other factions do and Leagues of Votann having Ironkin buddies seems like it could work if the points and abilities are balanced properly.

 dadx6 wrote:
Not really what they need but I'd like to see the Leagues of Votann lean into their Ironkin buddies and do something a little differently than other armies.

I'm not sure the idea can be balanced in a way that makes it both useful and fun to use, but ... I envision a sort of transformer combo unit like Devastator - made up of the Constructicons when they combined. Or like Voltron. Did the power rangers do the same thing and combine mechazoids or whatever? Anyway...

A unit of six small infantry that can move really fast but have weaker weapons, that can combine to form a larger walker unit with (much?) slower movement, higher toughness, better saves and weapons, but less OC.

I dunno. Just seems like something none of the other factions do and Leagues of Votann having Ironkin buddies seems like it could work if the points and abilities are balanced properly.

Would be cool, but you'd also presumably be looking at a $100+ kit give that you'd need a model for the mech version and separate models for the squad version. Also raises questions when the squad is half dead but still turns into a similarly big guy.

Here's a cool way they could've done the Votann. They were the Squats/Demiurg/whatever from the lore we love, and they've been corrupted by the Votann, which they discovered in the Galactic Core.

Personally I think time is a big factor, the armies we buy now as adults are the ones we've been reading about and pouring over pictures of in White Dwarf and codices for decades.

There's a little snotling somewhere sitting in his tree house and whistfully dreaming over his first box of Votaan Troopers I'm sure!

 Kroem wrote:
There's a little snotling somewhere sitting in his tree house and whistfully dreaming over his first box of Votaan Troopers I'm sure!

Citizens of the Imperium, I have read with great dismay the reports of young recruits expressing a desire to align themselves with the vile xenos scum that infest the galaxy. Let it be known that such sentiments are an affront to the Emperor's divine will and a betrayal of the sacred duty we all share to purge the galaxy of these abominations.

The Emperor's light shines brightly upon the Imperial forces, and it is through our unwavering loyalty and unyielding resolve that we stand as the last bastion of humanity against the encroaching darkness. To choose the path of the alien is to embrace heresy and to turn your back on the one true way.

I command all who read this to rally behind the banner of the Imperium. Join the ranks of the Space Marines, the Astra Militarum, or any of the other noble forces that serve the Emperor. Stand tall and proud, knowing that you are fighting for the survival of humanity and the glory of the Imperium.

Remember, children, the Emperor's gaze is upon you. He sees your every action and knows your every thought. Choose wisely, for the fate of the galaxy rests in your hands. May the Emperor's light guide you and may His will be done.

For the Emperor!

Looks like this is the timeline:

M15: Huge sublight ships start to leave Terra to colonize individual star-systems, called the "Long March" because the ships must travel so far so slowly
M18: The warp-drive is invented allowing for interstellar networks to form: this begins the "Dark Age of Technology"
M20: Widely considered the "Golden Age" of humanity, the height of Dark Age civilization
M23: The cybernetic revolt begins, plunging the entire galaxy into a war in which humans are largely victorious but suffer catastrophically
M25: Human civilization is unable to recover from the damage caused by the rebellion and devolves into violent barbarism, starting the "Age of Strife"
M30: The Emperor unifies Terra and begins the Great Crusade, starting "The Imperium of Man"

It wouldn't make sense for sublight ships to try and colonize the galactic core because the planets are uninhabitable, so the core must have been colonized in the M18-M20 period. AI was certainly widely in use by M20 so presumably that's where the Votann supercomputers come from. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Men of Gold = "Golden Age" humans, Men of Stone = clones created for labor (especially mining), and Men of Iron = fully autonomous AIs and robots.

Presumably the cybernetic revolt was actually successful in the galactic core, where the ratio of robots and clones to true humans was the highest, but was lost everywhere else. Therefore the Votann computers decided to consolidate their power over the clones and hide in the core rather than go out and fight the otherwise victorious humans, and have been using the millennia to fortify their position and accumulate as much power as they can waiting for the humans to counter-attack.

I actually quite like this fluff, it's ambiguously sinister without the over-the-top "I have dead babies on my tank" stuff that a lot of people seem to demand as "grimdark" but which has only ever represented a minority of armies in the game.