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.

Got to say I’m very disappointed with what has happened but more so in the manner in which it happened.

To have the Eldar’s whole end game flushed down the sewer after decades of build-up is frankly terrible. But was it really necessary to add insult to injury by having such an important event kicked to the curb in a box set designed to sell another faction, not even being given the full campaign treatment it deserved.

So if I'm reading that little excerpt from Death Masque right, instead of all the dead eldar's souls being funneled into the new god, a bit of their energy was used to create what we presume is a mini Ynnead, but otherwise everything is business as usual? Seems a bit anti-climactic.

Thinking about it I guess there is no way GW could let the plan succeed. All the inifinity circuits would be drained so no more wraith constructs until there are some more dead eldar willing to pilot them. Since the infinity circuits are left intact and something was formed from it all, this is a best of both worlds, I suppose.

I see.

Can I have your stuff? Since you are raging out, and all.

And, the Harlequins have some pretty good plot power, considering they kidnapped a space marines (Ultramarines) strike force and delivered them to Commoragh before the Space Marines stirred.

Oh and correction, it's the Tau that win everything they are involved in.

 Crazyterran wrote:


Oh and correction, it's the Tau that win everything they are involved in.

Unless you count their run-ins with Dark Eldar or Necrons. Tau stand out as unique because they are the only faction to have a pretty good (but not flawless) track record versus the Imperium, which to many imperial fans ironically means that the Tau win everything.

Yes, their first run ins with the DarkEldar and Necrons were as naive civilians/earth caste opening their doors for the new races and getting reminded why this setting is grim dark.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Yes, their first run ins with the DarkEldar and Necrons were as naive civilians/earth caste opening their doors for the new races and getting reminded why this setting is grim dark.

They were beaten by harlequins too (and they did not attempt a naive first contact) when the Tau discovered an adrift long-abandoned craft world, and to be fair the Tau were only able to stop one of the smallest ever known hive fleets from exterminating their entire race with the help of the Imperium. Also prince Yriel has had success pirating Tau fleets according to the Craftworld Codex. So essentially Eldar > Tau > Imperium > Eldar. Hope that cleared things up.

Cosmic Schwung wrote:
So if I'm reading that little excerpt from Death Masque right, instead of all the dead eldar's souls being funneled into the new god, a bit of their energy was used to create what we presume is a mini Ynnead, but otherwise everything is business as usual? Seems a bit anti-climactic.

Thinking about it I guess there is no way GW could let the plan succeed. All the inifinity circuits would be drained so no more wraith constructs until there are some more dead eldar willing to pilot them. Since the infinity circuits are left intact and something was formed from it all, this is a best of both worlds, I suppose.

The infinity circuits are drained, so not quite business as usual.

 Crazyterran wrote:
I see.

Can I have your stuff? Since you are raging out, and all.

And, the Harlequins have some pretty good plot power, considering they kidnapped a space marines (Ultramarines) strike force and delivered them to Commoragh before the Space Marines stirred.

Oh and correction, it's the Tau that win everything they are involved in.

When are you people going to learn to distinguish between the Harlequins and the Craftworld Eldar?

They're different factions. Harlequins normally do extremely well in the fluff (with Death Masque being a big outlier) while Craftworld Eldar universally get their heads kicked in by the Imperium whenever they appear.

Let me make my stance clear, here: I am angry, as a fan of a separate faction, because the Craftworld Eldar got so unbelievably shafted in this lore piece.

Animus wrote:

Cosmic Schwung wrote:
So if I'm reading that little excerpt from Death Masque right, instead of all the dead eldar's souls being funneled into the new god, a bit of their energy was used to create what we presume is a mini Ynnead, but otherwise everything is business as usual? Seems a bit anti-climactic.

Thinking about it I guess there is no way GW could let the plan succeed. All the inifinity circuits would be drained so no more wraith constructs until there are some more dead eldar willing to pilot them. Since the infinity circuits are left intact and something was formed from it all, this is a best of both worlds, I suppose.

The infinity circuits are drained, so not quite business as usual.

Does it actually say that? I haven't got a copy of Death Masque yet so I can only go by what's been posted. I know the plan was to drain the circuits as all the dead would be funneled into Ynnead, but that final bit of text says the dead only gave part of their sentience before it was all interrupted.

Cosmic Schwung wrote:
Does it actually say that? I haven't got a copy of Death Masque yet so I can only go by what's been posted. I know the plan was to drain the circuits as all the dead would be funneled into Ynnead, but that final bit of text says the dead only gave part of their sentience before it was all interrupted.

The ritual reached its climax. The souls of Eldar had been moved from the Infinity Circuits to the crystalline sands of the moon, then the ritual went wrong.
It wasn't partially committed. The whole thing is described as a cosmic wager, and you don't get your money back if you lose a bet.
Even if the universe was feeling generous, the Crystal Seers had been shattered, meaning the souls had no way of returning to their Infinity Circuits.

Animus wrote:

Cosmic Schwung wrote:
Does it actually say that? I haven't got a copy of Death Masque yet so I can only go by what's been posted. I know the plan was to drain the circuits as all the dead would be funneled into Ynnead, but that final bit of text says the dead only gave part of their sentience before it was all interrupted.

The ritual reached its climax. The souls of Eldar had been moved from the Infinity Circuits to the crystalline sands of the moon, then the ritual went wrong.
It wasn't partially committed. The whole thing is described as a cosmic wager, and you don't get your money back if you lose a bet.
Even if the universe was feeling generous, the Crystal Seers had been shattered, meaning the souls had no way of returning to their Infinity Circuits.

I'm gonna laugh if this causes the plot event of Slaanesh getting full from all the Eldar souls it devoured all at once and somehow the Sig...I mean Ultramarines/Grey Knights showed up to "capture" Slaanesh.

Animus wrote:

Cosmic Schwung wrote:
Does it actually say that? I haven't got a copy of Death Masque yet so I can only go by what's been posted. I know the plan was to drain the circuits as all the dead would be funneled into Ynnead, but that final bit of text says the dead only gave part of their sentience before it was all interrupted.

The ritual reached its climax. The souls of Eldar had been moved from the Infinity Circuits to the crystalline sands of the moon, then the ritual went wrong.
It wasn't partially committed. The whole thing is described as a cosmic wager, and you don't get your money back if you lose a bet.
Even if the universe was feeling generous, the Crystal Seers had been shattered, meaning the souls had no way of returning to their Infinity Circuits.

Wow, yeah that's a colossal mess! I assumed the souls were still in the infinity circuits and were transferring their power from there as the ritual progressed.

I wonder where they all went. I don't like the idea of them just fizzling out.

 Vankraken wrote:
I'm gonna laugh if this causes the plot event of Slaanesh getting full from all the Eldar souls it devoured all at once and somehow the Sig...I mean Ultramarines/Grey Knights showed up to "capture" Slaanesh.

I have a feeling something like this will happen, not the capture but the soul bloat, Slaanesh will go dark for a while while he gets rebooted in Age of Sigmar and 40k simultaneously.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cosmic Schwung wrote:

Animus wrote:

Cosmic Schwung wrote:
Does it actually say that? I haven't got a copy of Death Masque yet so I can only go by what's been posted. I know the plan was to drain the circuits as all the dead would be funneled into Ynnead, but that final bit of text says the dead only gave part of their sentience before it was all interrupted.

The ritual reached its climax. The souls of Eldar had been moved from the Infinity Circuits to the crystalline sands of the moon, then the ritual went wrong.
It wasn't partially committed. The whole thing is described as a cosmic wager, and you don't get your money back if you lose a bet.
Even if the universe was feeling generous, the Crystal Seers had been shattered, meaning the souls had no way of returning to their Infinity Circuits.

Wow, yeah that's a colossal mess! I assumed the souls were still in the infinity circuits and were transferring their power from there as the ritual progressed.

I wonder where they all went. I don't like the idea of them just fizzling out.

I'm of the opinion that most would be devoured by Slaanesh. So that they can match up with AoS fluff, where Slaanesh eats too many souls and needs to sleep it off.

 Crazyterran wrote:
I see.

Can I have your stuff? Since you are raging out, and all.

And, the Harlequins have some pretty good plot power, considering they kidnapped a space marines (Ultramarines) strike force and delivered them to Commoragh before the Space Marines stirred.

Oh and correction, it's the Tau that win everything they are involved in.

How...how is the Harlequins ability to kidnap a single Space Marine Strike Force some sort of 'story breaking' development? I mean...Ultramarines...you do know the victories they have had right? So your bar for a 'plot-armoured faction' is taking out a single strike force of said faction? By this measure every single faction in the game has ludicrous plot armour.

Additionally, the Tau, I hate seeing this because it just isn't true. If you're going to allege the Tau win everything adduce the material evidence for it. The Tau lose the following battles to the Imperium; Voltoris, Kvariam Alpha, Styx, K'ail, Pallia, Vesh'yo and a Tau Fleet and base near Ethron's Harbour.

These are only the defeats I remember off hand, that's what? Seven? So don't come with 'Tau win everything' unless you can literally point to every single battle the Tau win and show they win, you're literally lying.

I cannot believe that in the immediate aftermath of this what we automatically go to is how the Imperium loses too much instead of, say, the Craftworld Eldar's near endless string of failures.

 Anemone wrote:
the Craftworld Eldar's near endless string of failures.

Do remember that that is kind of their whole shtick, as the "ancient but dying race". This is just Eldar doing Eldar things*, again.

*Eldar things being "dying".

Being a 'dying race' doesn't mean 'loosing all battles' High Elves were a dying race, as were Dark Elves and Wood Elves, but they still won battles.

Besides by that logic the Imperium is described as a 'Crumbling Empire' but that doesn't mean they can only lose.

Or what, is your argument that Eldar are a 'dying race' so in Fluff they must always lose?

 Anemone wrote:
Additionally, the Tau, I hate seeing this because it just isn't true. If you're going to allege the Tau win everything adduce the material evidence for it. The Tau lose the following battles to the Imperium; Voltoris, Kvariam Alpha, Styx, K'ail, Pallia, Vesh'yo and a Tau Fleet and base near Ethron's Harbour.

These are only the defeats I remember off hand, that's what? Seven? So don't come with 'Tau win everything' unless you can literally point to every single battle the Tau win and show they win, you're literally lying.

I think the idea is that Tau might lose battles but they "win" the overall conflict although it usually is a pyrrhic victory. Its kinda hard for the Tau to have major defeats as they don't have much in the way of ground to give up without being at risk of exposing the plot hole of the Tau being overwhelmed and destroyed.

I cannot believe that in the immediate aftermath of this what we automatically go to is how the Imperium loses too much instead of, say, the Craftworld Eldar's near endless string of failures.

In my opinion it makes sense that Eldar continue to lose and to fail to fight against their destiny. The theme of the Eldar is this superior race that falls due to their own hubris and indulgence that spawns a cosmic horror that is destined to destroy them. And despite the vast majority of the Eldar race being destroyed by this event they still have a relatively large group who continue to fight the inevitable by essentially throwing everyone else in front of the Slaanesh bus to buy time while the other main group attempts to suppress themselves, foresee the future, and use stones to save their souls to delay the inevitable. The Eldar split themselves into two parts of the same original concept and yet collectively they continue down the same path of their demise of being overindulgent hedonist (Dark Eldar) and arrogant supremacist who see themselves above everyone else and even above fate (Eldar).

 Vankraken wrote:

 Anemone wrote:
Additionally, the Tau, I hate seeing this because it just isn't true. If you're going to allege the Tau win everything adduce the material evidence for it. The Tau lose the following battles to the Imperium; Voltoris, Kvariam Alpha, Styx, K'ail, Pallia, Vesh'yo and a Tau Fleet and base near Ethron's Harbour.

These are only the defeats I remember off hand, that's what? Seven? So don't come with 'Tau win everything' unless you can literally point to every single battle the Tau win and show they win, you're literally lying.

I think the idea is that Tau might lose battles but they "win" the overall conflict although it usually is a pyrrhic victory. Its kinda hard for the Tau to have major defeats as they don't have much in the way of ground to give up without being at risk of exposing the plot hole of the Tau being overwhelmed and destroyed.

I cannot believe that in the immediate aftermath of this what we automatically go to is how the Imperium loses too much instead of, say, the Craftworld Eldar's near endless string of failures.

In my opinion it makes sense that Eldar continue to lose and to fail to fight against their destiny. The theme of the Eldar is this superior race that falls due to their own hubris and indulgence that spawns a cosmic horror that is destined to destroy them. And despite the vast majority of the Eldar race being destroyed by this event they still have a relatively large group who continue to fight the inevitable by essentially throwing everyone else in front of the Slaanesh bus to buy time while the other main group attempts to suppress themselves, foresee the future, and use stones to save their souls to delay the inevitable. The Eldar split themselves into two parts of the same original concept and yet collectively they continue down the same path of their demise of being overindulgent hedonist (Dark Eldar) and arrogant supremacist who see themselves above everyone else and even above fate (Eldar).

The Tau point is just incorrect; Kvariam Alpha, Styx, Vesh'yo and Pallia are all individual conflicts which the Tau lose with no 'greater' victory elsewhere. They simply engage in the battles and lose. The Tau have won a single 'wider' conflict and even then that 'victory' is actually described as a loss by the canon book itself.

Again, there is no material evidence to prove this point.

As for the Eldar point; the Eldar do not need to lose everything, I find it actually startling that in the fluff for a game with a number of factions and players the idea is that one faction's 'thing' should be that it loses constantly, and I totally disagree that the Eldar's 'thing' is losing constantly via hubris, learning from their mistakes is exactly what the Craftworld Eldar represent compared to their hedonistic days. Encapsulating in one faction as representing a single facet 'loss' is silly in my opinion and misses the point of how inherently unfair it is to have the fluff continue to have a single faction have no purpose beyond loosing.

 Anemone wrote:
Being a 'dying race' doesn't mean 'loosing all battles' High Elves were a dying race, as were Dark Elves and Wood Elves, but they still won battles.

Besides by that logic the Imperium is described as a 'Crumbling Empire' but that doesn't mean they can only lose.

Or what, is your argument that Eldar are a 'dying race' so in Fluff they must always lose?

No, my opinion is that dying races mustn't cease to be "dying". Any hope must be fleeting.

The Imperium does play up the "Crumbling Empire" part often and well. Remember: Chaos/Tyranids/Necrons will ultimate win (and, because this is GW, it will be Chaos that wins).

Really, we couldn't have had Ynnead awake because it would potentially weaken Chaos (on a "real" level, not just "oh we found an artifact that will bind 1 greater daemon" or whatever), and that's against the #1 rule of the setting.

Note that i'm not saying that "Chaos always wins", just like I'm not saying that "Eldar must always lose". Narratively speaking, Chaos must never be weakened, Eldar must never stop dying, the Imperium must never stop crumbling, the Orks must never stop Waaagh-ing, the Necrons must never stop awakening, and the Tyranids must never stop swarming. So, when a huge thing like "destroying a Chaos god and allowing the resurgence of the Eldar race" is about to happen, obviously it is going to be stopped. Did it need to be stopped by Deathwatch? No, I guess it would have been more satisfying to have the plan been stopped by Ahriman or some Slaanesh champion.

Okay, win and loss ratio's don't matter here and should not matter. The discussion at hand is the great injustice done to the Eldar simply to push an already lucrative Space Marine Chapter that didn't need pushing. This was completely senseless, they've stripped all hope for the Eldar and perpetuated this... Well, stupid gimmick of losing. I will say right now that anyone who believes they should lose is stupid, incoherent, bias nut cases. When you see the lore and have a good grasp of why they follow certain paths, the idea of them becomes mind boggling, especially the Harlequin losing how they did.

Any number of things could have been done to push their Space Marines but essentially kicking one faction off the board was not one of them. What this all represents is GW obsession with Space Marines that they're willing to compromise other major factions simply to push them. It'll start with this and progress into other factions. Soon we'll have a wide spread fertilizer made by some Ultramarine that kills Ork Spores or Grey Knights begin a quest to capture Daemon Primarchs... And succeed.

So none of this is about wins and loses but the injustice and what it represents.

I wonder how Space Marysue players would react if the Harlequin faction had been introduced with them shanking Calgar, effortlessly slaughtering the Custodes and killing the emperor.

Would "the empire is supposed to be crumbling" be acceptable to them?

This is a starter box. Little jimmy and Johnny pick it up, and expect a cool story with an epic battle between two forces that THEY get to decide in their game!

Instead jimmy gets to read about how cool Johnny's guys are and how they totally killed the crap out of all Jimmy's guys with no problem whatsoever.

Have fun!

 Anemone wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 Anemone wrote:
Additionally, the Tau, I hate seeing this because it just isn't true. If you're going to allege the Tau win everything adduce the material evidence for it. The Tau lose the following battles to the Imperium; Voltoris, Kvariam Alpha, Styx, K'ail, Pallia, Vesh'yo and a Tau Fleet and base near Ethron's Harbour.

These are only the defeats I remember off hand, that's what? Seven? So don't come with 'Tau win everything' unless you can literally point to every single battle the Tau win and show they win, you're literally lying.

I think the idea is that Tau might lose battles but they "win" the overall conflict although it usually is a pyrrhic victory. Its kinda hard for the Tau to have major defeats as they don't have much in the way of ground to give up without being at risk of exposing the plot hole of the Tau being overwhelmed and destroyed.

I cannot believe that in the immediate aftermath of this what we automatically go to is how the Imperium loses too much instead of, say, the Craftworld Eldar's near endless string of failures.

In my opinion it makes sense that Eldar continue to lose and to fail to fight against their destiny. The theme of the Eldar is this superior race that falls due to their own hubris and indulgence that spawns a cosmic horror that is destined to destroy them. And despite the vast majority of the Eldar race being destroyed by this event they still have a relatively large group who continue to fight the inevitable by essentially throwing everyone else in front of the Slaanesh bus to buy time while the other main group attempts to suppress themselves, foresee the future, and use stones to save their souls to delay the inevitable. The Eldar split themselves into two parts of the same original concept and yet collectively they continue down the same path of their demise of being overindulgent hedonist (Dark Eldar) and arrogant supremacist who see themselves above everyone else and even above fate (Eldar).

The Tau point is just incorrect; Kvariam Alpha, Styx, Vesh'yo and Pallia are all individual conflicts which the Tau lose with no 'greater' victory elsewhere. They simply engage in the battles and lose. The Tau have won a single 'wider' conflict and even then that 'victory' is actually described as a loss by the canon book itself.

Again, there is no material evidence to prove this point.

As for the Eldar point; the Eldar do not need to lose everything, I find it actually startling that in the fluff for a game with a number of factions and players the idea is that one faction's 'thing' should be that it loses constantly, and I totally disagree that the Eldar's 'thing' is losing constantly via hubris, learning from their mistakes is exactly what the Craftworld Eldar represent compared to their hedonistic days. Encapsulating in one faction as representing a single facet 'loss' is silly in my opinion and misses the point of how inherently unfair it is to have the fluff continue to have a single faction have no purpose beyond loosing.

I'm looking at the grand scheme of things. Losing a planet or a battle is small potatos compared to the bigger campaigns that the Tau had their Pyrrhic victories. Same for the Eldar in their continuous defeat on a grand scale. As to the fluff of Death Masque if the Eldar won in birthing a Eldar God then that would of been a massive victory and would be a 180 to their dying race status. Having their gambit foiled and their pieces scattered fits the inevitability of death and doom that is the grimdark setting of Warhammer. Maybe that one part stayed together and shot off will be the seed to grow into a new chance for the Eldar or maybe it is their hopes and dreams flying out the window to be lost forever.

Vankraken, you're missing the complete concept of this entire twist of events. Everything that happened, all those events were completely unnecessary. They're making an already weak faction look exceptionally weaker simply to push more Space Marine sales. Whether or not things do pan out in the end, the Death Watch are the champions. They mowed down a troupe of Harlequins with their sheet metal cocks, foiled the most powerful psyker in the galaxy but left a flicker of hope. That little flicker could be noting depending on how sales turn out but overall, it's little more than nothing. With the success of 30K, everything is going to become more Space Marine orientated and focused while others are openly crapped on by said Space Marines. That flicker of light can't compensate for anything, won't compensate for anything except to introduce new models for Eldar.

In conclusion, this is the beginning of one massive Space Marine push and every other faction suffering for it. I can see Trazyn's vault being plundered already.

@Rihgu: No one is suggesting the Eldar cease being 'dying'; I said the Craftworld Eldar have a near constant stream of failures and then you quoted me and said that it was their 'thing'.

Also how is the Imperium playing up 'Crumbling Empire'? What major section of the Imperium has any the recent narrative campaigns 'Crumbled'?

There are 101 different outcomes to Death Masque to preserve the status quo which did not involve having the primary special character of the Craftworlds defeated and outwitted by a Death Watch Captain and did not involve deactivating all Infinity Circuits and Craftworlds.

@the_scotsman: That is exactly part of the problem I've had with some of my friends! My older brother had little to no enthusiasm for the plastic Eldrad because of how certain we both were that Eldrad and the Eldar would, again, lose to the Marines.

Where is a starter set or narrative campaign book which is just a clear victory for a non-Imperium faction in which they fight the Imperium?

@Vankraken: How is losing six planets small potatos but, the victories you are mentioning, gaining one planet and a burnt husk somehow automatically mean the Tau 'always win'? The empirical data does not add up.

@Benny Badmen: This is what I've feared with the current fluff's direction for a while now and why my interest in it is withering.

I want the factions to have a chance to do well in the fluff, all of them, I don't like the constant near-surety in all narrative releases of Imperium victory.

 Benny Badmen wrote:
Vankraken, you're missing the complete concept of this entire twist of events. Everything that happened, all those events were completely unnecessary. They're making an already weak faction look exceptionally weaker simply to push more Space Marine sales. Whether or not things do pan out in the end, the Death Watch are the champions. They mowed down a troupe of Harlequins with their sheet metal cocks, foiled the most powerful psyker in the galaxy but left a flicker of hope. That little flicker could be noting depending on how sales turn out but overall, it's little more than nothing. With the success of 30K, everything is going to become more Space Marine orientated and focused while others are openly crapped on by said Space Marines. That flicker of light can't compensate for anything, won't compensate for anything except to introduce new models for Eldar.

In conclusion, this is the beginning of one massive Space Marine push and every other faction suffering for it. I can see Trazyn's vault being plundered already.

They went with the narrative option that looks like it pushed the doomsday clock forward without actually changing the status quo too much. They are creating narrative events to get people interested and to stir the pot to create excitement. Just like the Curse of the Wulfen has the Wolves being attacked by the Imperium. The most likely event of that story will be the Wolves surviving, tensions flaring up, new threats arising, etc but ultimately nothing truly changes in the grand scheme of things. Birthing a powerful new god is a major shake up and probably doesn't fit with their goal to creep things along.

The focus on Space Marines is something I don't really care for as I find the other factions (specifically Xenos) to be more interesting but for better or for worse IoM and more specifically Spess Mahreens are the big sellers. I do think Eldar losing in a campaign box is a bit of an overreaction to claim that GW is going to be turning 40k into 30k (aka space marines being 90% of the game). The rumors for content coming up look interesting and we shall see how things pan out.

@Vankraken: But the clear difference I'm referencing is evident in your post; In Wulfen the Space Wolves will win, and in Death Masque the Space Marines won as well, it becomes the sole constant.

EDIT: Besides unless Warzone Fenris ends with most of the system dead, the Chapter left incapable of using its ships and Logan Grimnar defeated by, like, a random Thousand Son Sorcerer then its not comparable to the level of defeat the Craftworlds suffered at the hands of 13 Death Watch Marines (and Eldrad's continuing stupidity).

I know exactly what you're talking about. There was so much left to be explored and imagined that they never needed to advance the plot. You have 40 Thousand years of history and events to cover yet they push the plot... IT'S STUPID! Nothing needs to be pushed but added. It's these biases that ruin any possible push... And the Imperium isn't going to crumble, we all know that. They only say that to satiate all the wailing non-Imperium players begging for a leg up. 'It's okay, the Imperium is failing'. If anything, they'll bring the primarchs to take control and revitalize the Imperium.

Edit: Have you ever read that book? The man at Edmonton GamesWorkshop actually gave me a refund when I brought it back and told him it was a waste of time. Not exactly a refund but he let me swap it for The World Engine, which was FANTASTIC! Anyway, erasing all hope for the Eldar to have any endgame or resurgence is shaking things up; it's leading towards eliminating an entire faction. That campaign depicted them as freaking morons getting molested by Death Watch... HOW!? Well, they're that confident in the Space Marines that they can crap all over any other faction and let the money flow cause... IT'S SPACE MARINES!

 Anemone wrote:
@Vankraken: But the clear difference I'm referencing is evident in your post; In Wulfen the Space Wolves will win, and in Death Masque the Space Marines won as well, it becomes the sole constant.

Tau "won" in the Mont'ka book because it doesn't change the grand scheme of things. Space Wolves losing would be the removal of an entire sub faction which is a major shake up in terms of the structure of the hobby.

Tau didn't win Mont'ka. The book itself calls it a defeat, at most its a Pyrrhic victory and, again, the fluff itself called Mont'ka a defeat for the Tau.

Also that's 1 example, do you know how many of these starter sets and narrative campaigns the Imperium has won?

Besides the Craftworld Eldar have had their entire fleet deactivated so why can't another faction suffer something similar then if it isn't a problem?

EDIT: Besides, why not let the Orks win Sanctus Reach then?

The thing is that there was no need for Ynnead to have anything to do with this release; they could have simply released a Deathwatch box set with them fighting some random farseer. Both Eldar and Marine players could have enjoyed playing this without it affecting the wider fluff to much. There was a conscious decision made at GW to remove Ynnead and effectively screw over any future that the Eldar might have had. And for what? Just so the space marines can look cool. If GW are pushing forward with the End Times why then have they effectively removed the Eldar from playing any role in it before it's even begun.

To those saying that the Eldar’s defeat in Death Masque somehow maintains the status quo then I have to ask what have you been reading exactly? These events do not in any way maintain the so called status quo of the setting. It may not directly affect the other factions but for the Eldar this is a massive shift. In a single starter box set the Eldar have just lost everything, their last great hope has just been trampled into the dirt and left for dead and if GW follows through then they have just crippled the Craftworlds and their fleets on top of losing the Infinity Circuit and all the souls that it contained.

In a single stroke GW has effectively removed the Eldar as a relevant force in the setting and this saddens me to no end. I’m sorry if I’m coming across as a bit angry but I am and it’s not because of what has happened but how it happened. To have such a vital part of Eldar lore just cast aside so easily in a simple box set is just frustrating beyond belief. Sorry just needed to vent a bit.