The Retcons you like/dislike.

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**BrianDavion**

as Carl Sagan once noted, "you've a better chance of a hybrid of a human and a petunia then a hybrid of a human and a vulcan"

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Why waste your own resources, when you can manipulate your enemies to do your work for you, who don't even know how to properly use such devices in the first place? That's how the deceiver works; he's never direct, he's always plotting. He's not a sledgehammer, he's a knife in the back. Which is why having the option to field him is dumb; he would not be fighting alongside necrons, he would be on the other side, pretending to be a military adviser.

Just because he is something of a god, doesn't mean that he can be everywhere at once. He somehow blows up a Blackstone fortress and then what?
The Eldar would notice, the others would have been reactivated, and that's something like 5 anti-C'tan / Necron devices he has to deal with. The Fortresses are really good at killing necrons, and making a full scale offensive like that would be risky, especially if you factor in Eldar reinforcements.
The Imperium would certainly notice as well, as they were using the fortresses as naval bases (albeit without the weapon systems), and they would start increasing their hunt for Tomb Worlds. Not to mention the likelihood of them making a pact with the Eldar.
Better to let chaos taint it, have the keys to activate them, and prompt the Eldar and Imperium to destroy their own weapons.

He did rally a bunch of necrons to finish off the last few fortresses, and they destroyed all but one.

I read there was only one fortress left. It got tainted by Slaanesh, and was heavily damaged by a necron fleet.

Necron resources aren't wasted. They phase out and repair. Getting someone to activate the only things that could hurt you when as far as I know there's no evidence the Eldar let alone the Imperium know how to activate them is very risky.

Blows up the next five before the Eldar can react? He's pretty fast even on a Necron ship. Do the Eldar know how to reactivate the Blackstone Fortresses? Could they smash through the Imperial defences to claim them? The Imperium doesn't side with Eldar lightly.

Where did you read that there was only one Blackstone Fortress left?

**DOGGED**

The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

**CthuluIsSpy**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Why waste your own resources, when you can manipulate your enemies to do your work for you, who don't even know how to properly use such devices in the first place? That's how the deceiver works; he's never direct, he's always plotting. He's not a sledgehammer, he's a knife in the back. Which is why having the option to field him is dumb; he would not be fighting alongside necrons, he would be on the other side, pretending to be a military adviser.

Just because he is something of a god, doesn't mean that he can be everywhere at once. He somehow blows up a Blackstone fortress and then what?
The Eldar would notice, the others would have been reactivated, and that's something like 5 anti-C'tan / Necron devices he has to deal with. The Fortresses are really good at killing necrons, and making a full scale offensive like that would be risky, especially if you factor in Eldar reinforcements.
The Imperium would certainly notice as well, as they were using the fortresses as naval bases (albeit without the weapon systems), and they would start increasing their hunt for Tomb Worlds. Not to mention the likelihood of them making a pact with the Eldar.
Better to let chaos taint it, have the keys to activate them, and prompt the Eldar and Imperium to destroy their own weapons.

He did rally a bunch of necrons to finish off the last few fortresses, and they destroyed all but one.

I read there was only one fortress left. It got tainted by Slaanesh, and was heavily damaged by a necron fleet.

Necron resources aren't wasted. They phase out and repair. Getting someone to activate the only things that could hurt you when as far as I know there's no evidence the Eldar let alone the Imperium know how to activate them is very risky.

Not always. It is possible to completely destroy a necron, past the point of repair. It turns out warp based weapons are good at that.
Considering how the Fortresses are Old One weapons used by the Eldar to fight the Necrons, and are referred to as The Talismans of Vaul...yeah, they probably know how to use them.
Think about it - if the Eldar didn't know how to use them, then there would have been no need to make sure that the Farseers can't reach them.

**Furyou Miko**

DOGGED wrote:
The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

They were always undead in space.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Yeah, that's not a new thing.
They were also always Tomb Kings in space as well, its just its more apparent in post-ward.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Not always. It is possible to completely destroy a necron, past the point of repair. It turns out warp based weapons are good at that.
Considering how the Fortresses are Old One weapons used by the Eldar to fight the Necrons, and are referred to as The Talismans of Vaul...yeah, they probably know how to use them.
Think about it - if the Eldar didn't know how to use them, then there would have been no need to make sure that the Farseers can't reach them.

It's exceedingly difficult, the constructs can just be replaced (unless they use the "mind" of a Necron as well) and they had sufficient numbers to wage a galactic war. They aren't lacking for numbers.

Millions of years ago they were used. Two apocalyptic scenarios have occurred since then. I wouldn't be surprised if the Eldar didn't even know what they were (hence why they didn't keep a better eye on them or try to retrieve them). How would the Eldar be able to claim them in the first place? Without the ability shut down the Blackstone Fortresses like Abaddon they'd need vast numbers to assault them (and also ensure they didn't damage them). Instead the Deceiver apparently helped the most powerful Warp weapons in the galaxy to an enemy who half life in the Warp.

Plus going back to my original point it takes away agency from the main character of another faction just to make the Necrons seem stronger.

**Furyou Miko**

The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

**Xyptc**

Furyou Miko wrote:
The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

The Deceiver is the C'tan that works best post-Ward too. The fluff around C'tan shards describes them growing stronger and smarter as they merge together, and the more shards that combine the closer the resulting C'tan is to the greater monster it once was; more and more of the original personality comes forth, and it desires ever more strongly to reunite with the rest of itself. Dozens of Deceiver shards running rampant around the galaxy, all of them playing the trickster, goes some way to justifying the massive reach of the Deceiver's influence on the fluff.

Heck, the shards might not even be properly aware of one another's existence; their plots to find one another and generally be giant douches could actually get in each others' way, which is an interesting concept too.

**CthuluIsSpy**

I actually like the concept of C'tan shards. Its just that I don't like how they came about; rather than Necrons rebelling, it should have been the Eldar who shattered them with the Black Stone Fortresses, preferably during the chaos of the Enslaver Plague.
Thus locating and reassembling the C'tan could have been a Necron strategic goal. The Deceiver in this case would have been a C'tan who's been partially reassembled, and working in the shadows to regain more shards and weaken potential threats.

But nope, gotta nuke the necron background and make them into warring robo-Egyptian human like dynasties, who somehow destroyed their creators, who in turn should have been smart enough to put into place some way of ensuring control.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

Furyou Miko wrote:
The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

It might be scary if he wasn't introduced in such an encompassing manner like the rest of the C'tan.

Plus I maintain that helping the warpiest faction gain the most powerful warp weapons is weird for the anti-warp guys. How'd he even achieve that anyway? Going into the Eye of Terror would be extremely dangerous.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:But nope, gotta nuke the necron background and make them into warring robo-Egyptian human like dynasties, who somehow destroyed their creators, who in turn should have been smart enough to put into place some way of ensuring control.

I like the some are independant from the C'tan thing but it would've been simpler to say that it was Eldar\Old One\whatever attack X that caused some Necrons to regain free will. Then you get the still-slaves vs the dynasties with the C'tan still on top of some of them. Combined with the shards some Necrons would be trying to reunite them some would be striving to keep them separate.

Speaking of the Shards I think Forgeworld made the whole thing worse with the Transcendent C'tan. Despite them being playable the C'tan Shards in the Codex at least terrified the Necrons. They were supposed to be a last resort style thing and the idea of one escaping was horrific for them. Then with the Transcendent C'tan they apparently unleash combined Shards knowing that if their containment fails they'd be freed and are apparently okay with that.

**thepowerfulwill**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Furyou Miko wrote:
The Deceiver's whole shtick is taking agency away from other factions. That's why he's so terrifying.

It might be scary if he wasn't introduced in such an encompassing manner like the rest of the C'tan.

Plus I maintain that helping the warpiest faction gain the most powerful warp weapons is weird for the anti-warp guys. How'd he even achieve that anyway? Going into the Eye of Terror would be extremely dangerous.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:But nope, gotta nuke the necron background and make them into warring robo-Egyptian human like dynasties, who somehow destroyed their creators, who in turn should have been smart enough to put into place some way of ensuring control.

I like the some are independant from the C'tan thing but it would've been simpler to say that it was Eldar\Old One\whatever attack X that caused some Necrons to regain free will. Then you get the still-slaves vs the dynasties with the C'tan still on top of some of them. Combined with the shards some Necrons would be trying to reunite them some would be striving to keep them separate.

Speaking of the Shards I think Forgeworld made the whole thing worse with the Transcendent C'tan. Despite them being playable the C'tan Shards in the Codex at least terrified the Necrons. They were supposed to be a last resort style thing and the idea of one escaping was horrific for them. Then with the Transcendent C'tan they apparently unleash combined Shards knowing that if their containment fails they'd be freed and are apparently okay with that.

I don't think they would be "totally ok with that" I always thought unleashing one of those things was the necron version of calling down an exterminatus on the planet they are standing on.

**Don Savik**

I for one am glad the necrons got redone. Having one faction be 'the big bad unstoppable evil who created all the races and is actually behind everything' in a game with multiple factions that are all supposed to be in perpetual war is just stupid.

Its like when nid players have to constantly remind people that nids are unstoppable and nobody can do anything about them. Cool plot armor bro.

I like competition. Not childish bragging.

**King Pariah**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Speaking of the Shards I think Forgeworld made the whole thing worse with the Transcendent C'tan. Despite them being playable the C'tan Shards in the Codex at least terrified the Necrons. They were supposed to be a last resort style thing and the idea of one escaping was horrific for them. Then with the Transcendent C'tan they apparently unleash combined Shards knowing that if their containment fails they'd be freed and are apparently okay with that.

GW did the transcendent C'tan in escalation. Forgeworld had nothing to do with it.

**AegisGrimm**

It's not really a retcon per-se, but it chafes me to hear so many people turning the Imperial worship of the "machine spirit" from a toungue-in-cheek parody of humans attributing spirits to everything, to everything mechanical harboring some sort of mechanical warp-sprit/pokemon that you have to literally appease or it won't work right.

Iin the older days it used to just be a Judge Dredd/heavy metal grim joke of "Machine doesn't work right? Oh, you must have pissed it off" being a horrible measure of how far upper-learning has regressed to shamanistic levels in the Imperium, not a reality.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

thepowerfulwill wrote:

I don't think they would be "totally ok with that" I always thought unleashing one of those things was the necron version of calling down an exterminatus on the planet they are standing on.

I don't recall it really being portrayed that way. Or at least not enough for me.

Should the Tesseract Vault be destroyed or the C'tan let loose it'd almost certainly be able to escape. How that supposedly hasn't happened yet is beyond me. The unit doesn't mesh with the background. A single C'tan shard escaping is supposed to be terrifying for the Necrons. With the Tesseract Vault they will sometimes release a Transcendent C'tan with seemingly no controls or bonds. Yet none seem to have escaped for some reason.

King Pariah wrote:GW did the transcendent C'tan in escalation. Forgeworld had nothing to do with it

Righto, my mistake.

**nomotog**

The more I think about the more I think that retconing the tau to be less good was a mistake. In theory it gives them a little edge and lets you do more, but GW was never able to do anything fun with that edge or more flexibility. Also it ruined one of the best parts about the tau. They remind people what bad is. With everyone being different shades of evil it's easy to forget that they are evil and not justified evil either. Just evil. Also good tau give a nice contrast to everything else.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

nomotog wrote:
The more I think about the more I think that retconing the tau to be less good was a mistake. In theory it gives them a little edge and lets you do more, but GW was never able to do anything fun with that edge or more flexibility. Also it ruined one of the best parts about the tau. They remind people what bad is. With everyone being different shades of evil it's easy to forget that they are evil and not justified evil either. Just evil. Also good tau give a nice contrast to everything else.

Tau were always at least invadey and they also had the Ethereals at the top of their hierarchy.

They were never that friendly.

**nomotog**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
nomotog wrote:
The more I think about the more I think that retconing the tau to be less good was a mistake. In theory it gives them a little edge and lets you do more, but GW was never able to do anything fun with that edge or more flexibility. Also it ruined one of the best parts about the tau. They remind people what bad is. With everyone being different shades of evil it's easy to forget that they are evil and not justified evil either. Just evil. Also good tau give a nice contrast to everything else.
Tau were always at least invadey and they also had the Ethereals at the top of their hierarchy.

They were never that friendly.

The farther you go back the more friendly they are particularity in the eyes of the fans. Fan theory actually informs a lot of tau fluff. For example, the idea that the tau are a hierarchy. That was never in the fluff and, as far as I know, still isn't. That is more of fan creation.

**Furyou Miko**

Uh, no, the Tau progression of advancement, with Trials by Fire and such, was laid out very clearly in the codex. Likewise, the status of Ethereals as the 'ruling caste' (being above the others). Non-Tau as being second-class citizens was at the very least talked about in Gav Thorpe's novel, Kill Team, as well.

The heirarchical and fixed nature of Tau society is firm and definite GW fluff.

**nomotog**

Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, no, the Tau progression of advancement, with Trials by Fire and such, was laid out very clearly in the codex. Likewise, the status of Ethereals as the 'ruling caste' (being above the others). Non-Tau as being second-class citizens was at the very least talked about in Gav Thorpe's novel, Kill Team, as well.

The heirarchical and fixed nature of Tau society is firm and definite GW fluff.

Often people aren't talking about hierarchy in terms of progress and advancement. They are mostly talking about it in the second sense you mention where tau are first class and everyone else is second class. It's explicitly not the case in the codex.

**Furyou Miko**

What's the codex quote on the subject?

**BrianDavion**

I think it's worth noting the lack of vespid or kroot special characters etc. the Tau are very much "in the driver seat"

**TheWanderer**

AegisGrimm wrote:
It's not really a retcon per-se, but it chafes me to hear so many people turning the Imperial worship of the "machine spirit" from a toungue-in-cheek parody of humans attributing spirits to everything, to everything mechanical harboring some sort of mechanical warp-sprit/pokemon that you have to literally appease or it won't work right.

Iin the older days it used to just be a Judge Dredd/heavy metal grim joke of "Machine doesn't work right? Oh, you must have pissed it off" being a horrible measure of how far upper-learning has regressed to shamanistic levels in the Imperium, not a reality.

totally agree, the original premise was to do with tech priests and the populous as a whole not understanding how the machine worked and the rituals where jsut millenia of repeated dogma to get them to work.

"apply holy lubricate to the dowangle, strike thrice with the divine hammer of claw on the left dowaddey, and then while chanting the third machine code chant press firmly with holy rigtheous fury on the big red button of firing"

basically, apply lubricate, whack the thing into alignment and press fire.

The idea is that there is an element in the ritual that fixes the mechanical fault and its jsut human ignorance and religious fervour that leads them to believe they are apeasing some machine "spirit" with the religious aspects.

**nareik**

AegisGrimm wrote:
It's not really a retcon per-se, but it chafes me to hear so many people turning the Imperial worship of the "machine spirit" from a toungue-in-cheek parody of humans attributing spirits to everything, to everything mechanical harboring some sort of mechanical warp-sprit/pokemon that you have to literally appease or it won't work right.

Even GW is 'guilty' of this. According to the Chaos Space Marine codex even something as simple as a scalpel has a spirit, which gets stronger the more harm it performs. It's pretty much the linchpin of mutilator fluff that they collect great/ancient weapons to commune with and consume their spirits.

**KingmanHighborn**

Arbitrator wrote:

Every new technological addition to the Space Marines (Centurions, Wolf Wolf Wolf Wolf Machines)
Astra Militarum/Tempestus Scions pointless name 'development'.
Chaos-sort-of-won-the-13th-Black-Crusade-but-not-really-because-that-would-upset-Loyalist-players.
Even seeing a Grey Knight gets you killed/mind wiped.
That weird indecisive nonsense about Guardsmen being killed if they fight Chaos once despite the entire existence of Cadia.

Dislike:
Retconning the Space Marines to have always had the following:
Stormtalon
Stormhawk
Centurions
Stormraven (should be Blood Angels and Grey Knights ONLY...and really just Blood Angels cause...boo Grey Knights)
Grav Weapons
Hunter
Stalker
Ironclads
Land Speeder Storm

The major army name changes, ALL of them:
Adeptus Asartes sure...the Space Marines have always had that name, but Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions is BS.

Retconning the Hrud from Space Skaven into stupid fish monsters with an even stupider backstory.

Horus going from having two talons to a talon and mace. (I just like the old version 10,000x times better.)

That looks so much more menacing.

The Grey Knights went from heroes that fight to protect the innocent against daemons to cowards that kill anybody that sees a daemon or fights chaos. As mentioned above, despite the fact of imperial regiments fighting them day in and day out regularly. They also went from a squad here or there ATTACHED to an Inquisitor, to being a full on army itself despite not even having the numbers or recruitment drive that other chapters have. You shouldn't SEE an army of Grey Knights, seeing one SQUAD is tantamount to 'oh shi- planet's being overrun by chaos'

Also not sure so much retcon, but splitting daemons away from Chaos Space Marines.

Also I thought it was the Raven Guard that were the Native Americans?

Like:

*crickets chirp*

**AegisGrimm**

Originally, the company of Dark Angel marines that became the Deathwing during the cleansing of a world from a Genestealer Cult had a very native American feel to them.

**Nova_Impero**

KingmanHighborn wrote:
Arbitrator wrote:

Every new technological addition to the Space Marines (Centurions, Wolf Wolf Wolf Wolf Machines)
Astra Militarum/Tempestus Scions pointless name 'development'.
Chaos-sort-of-won-the-13th-Black-Crusade-but-not-really-because-that-would-upset-Loyalist-players.
Even seeing a Grey Knight gets you killed/mind wiped.
That weird indecisive nonsense about Guardsmen being killed if they fight Chaos once despite the entire existence of Cadia.

Dislike:
Retconning the Space Marines to have always had the following:
Stormtalon
Stormhawk
Centurions
Stormraven (should be Blood Angels and Grey Knights ONLY...and really just Blood Angels cause...boo Grey Knights)
Grav Weapons
Hunter
Stalker
Ironclads
Land Speeder Storm

The major army name changes, ALL of them:
Adeptus Asartes sure...the Space Marines have always had that name, but Astra Militarum and Tempestus Scions is BS.

Retconning the Hrud from Space Skaven into stupid fish monsters with an even stupider backstory.

Horus going from having two talons to a talon and mace. (I just like the old version 10,000x times better.)
That looks so much more menacing.

The Grey Knights went from heroes that fight to protect the innocent against daemons to cowards that kill anybody that sees a daemon or fights chaos. As mentioned above, despite the fact of imperial regiments fighting them day in and day out regularly. They also went from a squad here or there ATTACHED to an Inquisitor, to being a full on army itself despite not even having the numbers or recruitment drive that other chapters have. You shouldn't SEE an army of Grey Knights, seeing one SQUAD is tantamount to 'oh shi- planet's being overrun by chaos'

Also not sure so much retcon, but splitting daemons away from Chaos Space Marines.

Also I thought it was the Raven Guard that were the Native Americans?

Like:

*crickets chirp*

I guess you hate the Horus Heresy that Forge World has done then.

**MarsNZ**

DOGGED wrote:
The Necron retcon, I have never liked it. They were the big bad boys in the 40K universe, the ultimate menace, and their awakening was the ominous advance of an incoming doomsday, an impending war for survival for everybody else.
They are now just undead in space.

They were just metal Tyranids.

Personally I'm glad that the atrocious oldcron fluff has been purged.

**KingmanHighborn**

It's meh, overpriced meh at that. As far as Horus himself goes I mean. There's a certain rabid animal look he had in the old artwork, the dual talons with built in prototype stormbolters was cool. He also kinda reminds me of Kane from the WWE.

This: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Horus-the-Warmaster-Primarch-of-the-Sons-of-Horus

It's generic bad guy in black armor. He doesn't even really evoke a sense of fear in me.

Plus I could just imagine those claws breaking Sanguinius's neck and body more.

So TLDR, no hate, just Horus is bland....and Forge World is even crazier overpriced then the normal GW shtick.