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 Unyielding Hunger wrote:
Angel Exterminatus has some just beautiful examples of the Emperor's Children in action. I leave it on my bookshelves now.

Depends on what your definition of "beautiful" is, really.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Slaanesh has got to go. Not because it's too dark or adult themed or anything, but it's time that Chaos lost something that hurt. They are this random faction that can't lose and always exists, threatening something. That's so boring. Killing one of the Gods brings them more fully into the universe as a faction that can win, or be destroyed.

Cause that describes NO OTHER faction. *caugh orkstyranidsnecronsdarkeldarimperium caugh*

Honestly one of the things I've always LIKED about 40K is the setting is such a one that no matter what battles are fought, for the msot part in the GREAT scheme of things they're not making a big differance. this is nice from a narritive POV.

proably why the Tau are the least intreasting race in 40k to me too

 fallinq wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Slaanesh has got to go. Not because it's too dark or adult themed or anything, but it's time that Chaos lost something that hurt. They are this random faction that can't lose and always exists, threatening something. That's so boring. Killing one of the Gods brings them more fully into the universe as a faction that can win, or be destroyed.

Cause that describes NO OTHER faction. *caugh orkstyranidsnecronsdarkeldarimperium caugh*

I think what Silverthorne was referring to was how Chaos, more specifically Chaos daemons and the Chaos gods (not so much the mortal followers), can be viewed as being portrayed by GW as inevitably going to win, with the question just being a matter of when. To some extent I agree, but not entirely. Certainly there are some players that take the stance that no victory against Chaos accomplishes anything more than postpone Chaos's ultimate victory as daemons are just banished to return another time, with any actual daemonic permanent deaths being few and far between, and any victory often involving a faction destroying part of itself and weakening itself in the long run.

I think there should be dynamic equilibrium in 40K with all factions having possible hope of victory but also having weaknesses that render them susceptible to defeat. Orks have their vast numbers, and it is difficult to truly wipe out any population of them, but they are also divided among many pocket empires, and these individual empires that fight each other and which are susceptible to being picked off and destroyed even if the Ork race as a whole survives. Tyranids have their vast numbers too but the bulk of their numbers are not yet in the galaxy, and individual hive fleets have been defeated albeit at heavy cost. Their increasing advances into the galaxy also threaten to bring them in more conflict with the Orks and Necrons, and these 3 factions may end up cancelling out each other to some degree. Necrons like Orks are divided into many individual dynasties and there is the issue of the flayer virus and the madness many Necrons suffer from their long sleep. And so on...

To some extent GW has shifted the tone slightly in recent years. Most notably the Eldar now seem to have been given more of a hope in the background with first the introduction of Ynnead, and more recently in the Harlequin Codex the introduction of the Laughing God's secret plan to defeat Slaanesh and save the Eldar. The Valedor BL novel also seems to show that some Farseer visions of the far distant future could possibly be good for the Eldar. Specifically one of the protagonists' dying vision as he dies and is about to be taken by Slaanesh, but his precognitive vision is sharpened in those brief moments that his soul is freed from his body. What he sees as the fate of the Eldar far into the future is not stated but evidently was good enough that it made his soul sparkle with joy even as Slaanesh was seizing him.

I do not think Chaos needs Slaanesh killed off (or any other Chaos god killed off) but I certainly think Chaos should not have its victory be seen as a sure inevitable thing. So the introduction of these Eldar hopes in a way does put the ultimate victory of Chaos more into doubt. Of course, the Imperium has the hope of the Emperor returning. The old Necrons had their Great Work plan of sealing off the galaxy from the warp. Most recently the Asurmen BL novel shows the Sword of Asur as being capable of permanently killing a daemon prince, so even individual daemons might be less sure of total immortality.

BrianDavion wrote:
Honestly one of the things I've always LIKED about 40K is the setting is such a one that no matter what battles are fought, for the msot part in the GREAT scheme of things they're not making a big differance. this is nice from a narritive POV.

proably why the Tau are the least intreasting race in 40k to me too

I think the Tau could be interesting if they actually move them along. like hearing that they figured/ing out how to blow up stars is fantastic.

I think I actually like the concept of Chaos' victory being the ultimate, inevitable end. It meshes well with the nihilism of the setting.

Three pages on a bait thread, great job dakka!

You had something better to discuss?

That being said I'm not doing a damn thing either!

Slaanesh will probably get retconned so as to make AoS fans parents more inclined to let them keep their toys. Can't have kids running around the house shouting things like "my penis fingers wound on a 3+". It would scare the neighbors and probably result in social services showing up.

So there is the why of the matter, now just to figure out how to do it. GW will probably just let Wardsave take care of it and Slaanesh will get caked by some new Susan, probably in a very graphic and silly way.

Slaanesh has been replaced in AoS by the Horned Rat in the Chaos heirarchy, so there's no mystery on that front.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Slaanesh has been replaced in AoS by the Horned Rat in the Chaos heirarchy, so there's no mystery on that front.

Which is funny, because the Horned Rat's domain is a lot of the EXACT SAME STUFF as Nurgle, with a bit of Tzeentch thrown in...oh, and he's a rat. I honestly thought the Horned Rat and Nurgle were going to be revealed to be related at some point. Like maybe they're cousins or something.

Anyway, it's nice to know that any players with Slaanesh daemons need not apply for AoS. Another reason for me not to bother with that game. Don't worry though, other Warhammer Fantasy players, your time is coming too. My strong hunch is that, as new additions of AoS come out, the rules that make old Warhammer Fantasy armies viable will fall by the wayside and the new, pricier plastics will take precedence. You're basically ALL gonna get Sisters of Battle'd

 fallinq wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Slaanesh has been replaced in AoS by the Horned Rat in the Chaos heirarchy, so there's no mystery on that front.

...

Don't worry though, other Warhammer Fantasy players, your time is coming too. My strong hunch is that, as new additions of AoS come out, the rules that make old Warhammer Fantasy armies viable will fall by the wayside and the new, pricier plastics will take precedence. You're basically ALL gonna get Sisters of Battle'd

Of course, I don't think anyone expect to play The Empire or Bretonnia in 1-2 year and if thet do they are clearly blind to the signs. There is a reason why they put jokes rules on the old models. They aren't meant to be played except in some legacy throwback game. plus the new models so far have different scale and will certainly have an overall design from the originals.


whi knows maybe Skaven will be a new faction in Warhammer 40K soon...

 Silverthorne wrote:
Slaanesh has got to go. Not because it's too dark or adult themed or anything, but it's time that Chaos lost something that hurt. They are this random faction that can't loose and always exists, threatening something. That's so boring. Killing one of the Gods brings them more fully into the universe as a faction that can win, or be destroyed.

I'd like to see the Emperor turn out to be a manifestation of Khorne, and then the Emperor consumes Khorne and becomes the new God of War, only he is rooting FOR the Imperium instead of Khorne's policy of destroying it. It would be interesting, but, of course, it would feth everything up, so it would probably actually suck.


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 Delicate Swarm wrote:
I don't think Slaanesh can really be called the god of Excess. Chaos gods are based on emotion. Excess isn't an emotion. Rather, Chaos followers tend to take the emotions that their gods embody/desire and take them to extremes.

Khorne followers take bloodlust to excess. They take concepts like martial perfection and militarism to extremes as well, living lives of rigid self denial, as opposed to Slaaneshi self indulgence.

Tzeentch followers take ambition to the extreme. Ahriman ambitiously created the rubric, now he ambitiously seeks to end it. Although ambition can certainly be a good thing, it can cause a person lots of agitation.

Nurgle is the opposite of Tzeentch. He takes stagnation to the extreme. Many who fall to Nurgle do so because they fear death. A Nurgle follower is the opposite of a Tzeentch follower, they aren't really upset by much, so much so that they aren't really bothered by death and decay, because that's just the natural way of things, everything dies.

What does Slaanesh take to extremes? Pleasure? Lust? I would say sensation and particularly pleasure-in-sensation; of satisfaction, delight, ecstasy, feelings of transcendence and so on and so forth.

And Pride, Vanity, and Envy go with this too. When you start to view the universe as existing solely to give you sensations, well, narcissism follows suit. Having your ego stroked can be just as pleasurable as...well, you know.

Personally, I much prefer this vision of the Chaos Gods, and it was my original vision of Slaanesh and Khorne (though I partially disagree with Tzeentch and Nurgle), however it has slowly been altered by other people's perceptions and different fluff. Please provide a source, because this is the vision of Slaanesh that makes the most sense (there aren't emotions attached to just plain "excess", therefore there can be no God of Excess, as there would be no energies to form the God), with the emotions and energies of pleasure and sensation and ecstasy being what Slaanesh is all about.

 dusara217 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Delicate Swarm wrote:
I don't think Slaanesh can really be called the god of Excess. Chaos gods are based on emotion. Excess isn't an emotion. Rather, Chaos followers tend to take the emotions that their gods embody/desire and take them to extremes.

Khorne followers take bloodlust to excess. They take concepts like martial perfection and militarism to extremes as well, living lives of rigid self denial, as opposed to Slaaneshi self indulgence.

Tzeentch followers take ambition to the extreme. Ahriman ambitiously created the rubric, now he ambitiously seeks to end it. Although ambition can certainly be a good thing, it can cause a person lots of agitation.

Nurgle is the opposite of Tzeentch. He takes stagnation to the extreme. Many who fall to Nurgle do so because they fear death. A Nurgle follower is the opposite of a Tzeentch follower, they aren't really upset by much, so much so that they aren't really bothered by death and decay, because that's just the natural way of things, everything dies.

What does Slaanesh take to extremes? Pleasure? Lust? I would say sensation and particularly pleasure-in-sensation; of satisfaction, delight, ecstasy, feelings of transcendence and so on and so forth.

And Pride, Vanity, and Envy go with this too. When you start to view the universe as existing solely to give you sensations, well, narcissism follows suit. Having your ego stroked can be just as pleasurable as...well, you know.

Personally, I much prefer this vision of the Chaos Gods, and it was my original vision of Slaanesh and Khorne (though I partially disagree with Tzeentch and Nurgle), however it has slowly been altered by other people's perceptions and different fluff. Please provide a source, because this is the vision of Slaanesh that makes the most sense (there aren't emotions attached to just plain "excess", therefore there can be no God of Excess, as there would be no energies to form the God), with the emotions and energies of pleasure and sensation and ecstasy being what Slaanesh is all about.

Personally I I think that "excess" could be rephrased as "obsession," which is a sort of emotional state. And of course, obsession is pretty much synonymous with addiction. So this would make Slaanesh the god of addiction.

The gods have always been described as having multiple "aspects." I think if we want to render them down to just one thing, it's more of an outlook on existence than an emotion:
Tzeentch is the god of "I'm bored, let's mix things up just because."
Nurgle is the god of "Nothing changes for the better and everything's useless. Let it run its course until it runs out."
Khorne is god of "I'm sick of all this crap, just destroy it all!"
Slaanesh is the god of, "Let's take whatever we like and CRANK IT UP TO 11!"

I think this illustrates the conflict between the gods well, and also the appeal of the different gods to mortals. Haven't you encountered people in your own life whose philosophy seems pretty close to one of the above?

OP confirmed to be Khorne shilling.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Khorne and Slaanesh would be far more terrifying if Khornates started having competitions of "how many prisoners of war can you decapitate without rest" while Emperor's Children just go to town on a planet.

Ooh, and stuff like, "how many can you kill in a single swing," "disemboweling for time," or even "how much blood can you get out of someone without killing them?" That'd be something, at least.