Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Having been playing since the very beginning of warhammer 40k as a game in the good old Rogue Trader days, there are a lot of things I have noticed change in the fluff. Some for the better and some for the worse (depending on your point of view lol). What changes have you noticed and what do you think about them? Here are a few ...
1.Space Slann. They have been totally removed. Not ommitted but outright removed. Not a big deal for me as they only had a few models for them and as a tie to the fantasy, I felt that the tie was to the current (at the time) fantasy slann instead of what I felt actual space slann would be like.
2. Ork reproduction. Didnt have the early ork books but werent they done by older male orks wandering off or some such. When gorkamorka came out they were turned into mushroom people. I was not a fan ofthe whole spore spawning thing.
3. Squats killed off. I felt they were an important part of the game and loved them. Suddenly one day the fluff says "oh yeah, they were eaten by the bugs a long time ago". Kinda silly to ret-kill them off. Still wandering how the bugs selectively went through all of space and ate up only the squats. Did they taste better than anything else? lol
4. Using each others stuff. Who remembers space marines carrying shuriken catapults and harlequins riding about in land raiders?
5. Equipment shartages? How about such things as guardsmen and marines riding about on jetbikes and such.
The list goes on and on and on. List a few.

1) The Emperor used to be alive... like, actively alive in M40, doing things on Terra.

2) It used to be a Fantasy game in Space, hence half-Eldar Space Marines that moved between Chapters and had different jobs (like Librarian this week, Devastator next week...).

3) The Squats got Squatted because they were too damned silly for the direction the game was going. Their schtick was also replaced, almost entirely, by the Imperial Guard.

4) Spore-Orks make more sense, being that they're aliens and not just Fantasy monsters. This isn't LOTR in Space.

5) Factions stopped sharing things when it became a more dystopian, less-Fantasy setting. Now, the wargear helps define the faction, and give them each their own unique flavor.

6) Because grimdark.

7) Slaan were replaced by the Old Ones. Well, not really, just renamed... but as it is no longer WFRP in Space, the links between 40K and Fantasy have been all but severed.

There are also the ork old ones. Am I correct in remembering that that they were the snotlings who used the orks as brute labor soldiers and that the brain boyz/snotlings kept their intelligence through special mushrooms until the day the orks rebelled and ate them all themselves. This caused the brainboys to get stupid and the roles reversed?

Lets not forget the fact that chaos powers are almost old buddies now. At one point they refused to work with their hated enemies and the only thing stopping them from winning was the fact they fought each other so much. Not to mention units always being in their magic number.

This brings us to khorne. Now they are all raving lunies who are too stupid to know what a trigger is. Khorne used to be also about martial prowess. heck, when it came to heavy weapons being gifted or mutated onto champions and all, the khorne followers were the most likely to recieve these boons.

The change to the Chaos Gods is mostly, I think, for ease of writing. With the way the balance of the game has shifted, each mono-god list would need to be a viable, stand-alone army, rather than borrowing elements from the others to fill out the appropriate roles.

Of course, in the first case, this would somewhat tend to make Chaos Armies somewhat one-note, as there would have to be, basically, equivalent units across all five of the armies (4 Gods and 1 Undivided).

The Chaos Gift rules changed ages and ages ago, so the variety of mutations changed, and they focused more on the World Eaters as the poster-children of Khorne, and thus emphasized assault and CQC.

Tigurius used to be a half-elf. Ultramarines used to be 2nd Founding. Leman Russ founded the Space Wolves far more recently. The "Big Guns" quote got changed. Imperial Guard used to wear Space Marine power packs as jump packs. Ollanius Pius came after the random Terminator version of the story (and yes, I still own the original source of both versions) Traitor Legions used to be called Treacher Legions. Horus originally escaped with the rest of the Treacher Legions to the Eye of Terror. The Mentor Legion used to be an elite squad that worked with other chapters to learn from them and train them in return instead of lame isolationists whose name does not work any more. Dark Angels used to be cool. Rainbow Warriors. Space Marines used to conduct stop-and-searches on backwater planets in the Maelstrom. Pedro Kantor used to be Pedro Cantor. Pedro Cantor used to be an arrogant gakker. People ,such as Nisk Ran -Thawll, used to be granted an audience with the Emperor. Chaos used to be cool. And scary. And sexy. And have less skulls. Except Khorne, who always had skulls.

That's true. About the skulls I mean. But, somehow, when GW started moving towards more family-friendly fare, the Slaaneshi warcry "Boobs for the Boob God!" was lost. Twas a sad day.

Psienesis wrote:
2) It used to be a Fantasy game in Space, hence half-Eldar Space Marines that moved between Chapters and had different jobs (like Librarian this week, Devastator next week...).

Actually, he was an Astropath who had been attached to Space Marine Chapters, not an actual Space Marine. This is a common misconception.

EVIL INC wrote:
2. Ork reproduction. Didnt have the early ork books but werent they done by older male orks wandering off or some such. When gorkamorka came out they were turned into mushroom people. I was not a fan ofthe whole spore spawning thing.
3. Squats killed off. I felt they were an important part of the game and loved them. Suddenly one day the fluff says "oh yeah, they were eaten by the bugs a long time ago". Kinda silly to ret-kill them off. Still wandering how the bugs selectively went through all of space and ate up only the squats. Did they taste better than anything else? lol

I was fine with the original depiction of the Sporks. Seemed like a fairly interesting way to explain them. That Ork spores if undetected could eventually turn into an infestation. When they started poofing and regrowing at ridiculously rapid rates (like being able to regrow casualties fast enough to stall a Hive Fleet), it got pretty stupid.

Squats aren't any sillier than wolf chariots, and wolf cavalry, or throne walkers. At this point, dwarf space bikers are fairly serious compared to the rest of 40K, lol. The problem for the Squats was that they didn't occupy a distinct space in the universe. Boiled down to their basic element, they were basically slower, tougher IGuardsmen. Which is really what they should have become. A sub-faction for the IGuard. It was a bit shortsighted to get rid of them, and somewhat inconsiderate to fans who had invested in the models. They could have easily inserted a "Squat Squad" and "Squat Heavy Weapons Squad" into the 2nd Ed IGuard Codex, or sold a Squat supplement for the IGuard book.

And I don't know if the Squats were ever officially killed in the fluff, were they? I know that was just an offhand comment by Jervis (probably annoyed by repeatedly being asked what happened to the Squats).

Squats and Beastmen were mentioned in White Dwarf Weekly 11 so they aren't dead dead. I always got the impression that the Studio just didn't like them and canned them for that reason only, all that talk about being unable to re-write them et cetera always just sounded like bunkum to me.

The creators of the orks were and as far as I am concerned always will be the snotlings during a time when they had the right mushrooms to become Brain Boyz. The marsupial ork reproduction method and the normal, sexual reproduction from 2nd Edition being rewritten bothers me less; it seems clear that those ideas were just put out there until the Studio landed on the fairly obvious idea that the orks being part algae/fungal meant they could just reproduce via spores. Rapid growth seems like a step in the wrong direction though.

Poor old Illiyan, the Ultra-Marines were basically ret-conned after just one month! After they defined the implants that make a Space Marine the earlier Rogue Trader background didn't make sense in a lot in instances because of that.

Leman Russ was originally an Imperial Army Commander, before he was retconned to the Space Wolves Primarch, iirc...

Realms of Chaos and Slaves to Darkness was when Chaos was coolest...

the Space Slann model was not as cool as the Aztec Fantasy versions:(...

Zoats!!!

Tyranids used to be able to take a unit from any other army, via mind control, ala Wrath of Khan...
a bug in the ear of some Dark Reapers, and the 'Nids had some nice firepower in the backfield...

Guard used to roll in Rhinos, and would use Blood Axe Orks for their own ends...

it was a topsy-turvey world back in the day...
good times...

cheers
jah

I'm glad some of these changes took place.

Chaos used to be multi race.

As in you could have a chaos army that has traitor legionnaires, slaaneshi eldar, zoats, khorne orks, wizards with FB spells in 40k setting..etc

RT era had off table support, which is mostly not exist ant now, and the army creation process is of course a lot less random.

anyone remember armies who could buy 2d6 characters? Oh I rolled a 10, my army is all characters with some vortex missiles as off board support.

Oh I rolled a 2, and rolld 0s for my d6-3 results for all my elites....gg friends!

 jah-joshua wrote:
Leman Russ was originally an Imperial Army Commander, before he was retconned to the Space Wolves Primarch, iirc...

That's an urban myth, he was presented in the RT rulebook as:
Marine Commander
Imperial Record AA/SW 05/015. f19.P&. Profile Leman Russ. Born 2612016.M32. Guranta D Gurantan system.
Commissioned Adeptus Terra as special agent 0134041.M32. First rose to imperial notice during the Lucan Crusade. Appointed Imperial Commander Lucan 0333042.M42. Intrumental in founding Adeptus Astartes unti 4 'Spacewolves'. Suffered severe alviola damage during acid storms on Susa. Transplanted with model cybron-osmotic gill.

An obscene number of people like to take that original source and insert the word Army or Guard between Imperial Commander when quoting it rather than look up what an Imperial Commander was - it was in fact the rank held by Planetary Governors and Space Marine Chapter Masters.



Ultramarines were originally a 3rd founding chapter, then they were changed to the 3rd chapter of the 1st founding, then had their number swapped with the Emperor's Children. This is why the sculpted chapter banner in the Calgar + Honour Guard set erroneously has a III on it instead of XIII. (a booboo to be sure, since the art department had remembered to update the number for Insignium Astartes a whole edition earlier)

Ravenwing was originally the Dark Angels 7th company and they all rode jetbikes.

The loyalist legions on Isstvan V were originally disbanded and purged from all records for their failure.

Horus was at one point stated to have been possessed by a daemon during the warrior lodge initiation on Davin.

Night Lords used to wear black and red and worship khorne, then changed to blue and worshipping khorne, then changed to blue and not despising those who worship.

Black Templars and Space Wolves were originally staunch codex chapters.

Salamanders used to wear yellow armour with black lines on.

As a bit of interesting side trivia, the Blood Angels and Iron Hands were the first two "Codex Chapters", listed in WD 105, though it was called the "Codex Imperialis" at that point.

I used to run Beastmen and Dreadnaughts in my old IG army before their fluff changed

One part of the fluff I thought was really cool were the Sensei. They were literal sons of the Emperor who wandered the galaxy, and on occasion, redeemed those who had turned to chaos, champions included.