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Personally I love the change. It allows GW to keep the "Imperium is doomed" without a huge change, as the Eldar/Necron begin ignoring them to focus on Chaos. It could also allow an Imperial civil war between moderates and conservatives.

Choose your sides now, ladies and gentlemen.

Another point of view is that of the Imperials on Cadia. They are going to die if they stay on the planet. The xeno's which have proven allies of convenience, offer them a chance to live and get proper revenge on Abby. They would be absolutely mental and failing in their duties to the emperor if they passed up the chance.


Also, look at this from a non-imperial perspective. For me, its the Chaos Fans (My 2nd favourite after guard). Did chaos succeed? Technically, but I reckon most fans would be upset with how they did. However, for once Chaos felt like a proper unstoppable force, coming so close to their goal that the eldar and necrons both focused on them.
I don't know any eldar fans, so I can't say much for their perspective.
If the necron fans like Trazy, then they probably loved this. If they don't, then maybe not.

Bottom line, its not always about the Imperium winning by themselves, or the Imperial fans always getting the fluff they want. I think most people get that, but it bears repeating.

DorianGray wrote:
As anyone can see from the poll results that NO ONE is happy with the fluff in Fall of Cadia. GW blew it AGAIN.

The Imperium needs to go back to raving genocidal racist murderers of aliens as they have always been and as the Emperor wills it. I hope this series ends with the extinction of the Eldar race with the human's taking over the Webway and hunting down all their craftworlds and destroying all their spirit stones.

When your only poll options are "I don't like it" & "Mouthfrothingly hate it! Raaagh!", it's not surprising you only have results of people saying the didn't like it.... you didn't give anyone a chance to vote to say they like it or are fine with it or whatever.

This is worse than the many polls made by another user... and that's saying something.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
This is worse than the many polls made by another user... and that's saying something.

lol, sick burn

Not insulted at all, but as a Black Legion player and a Cadian player I feel that my 9 year old nephew could have come up with a better narrative.

DorianGray wrote:
One of the founding principals of the Imperium and a prime human feeling is hate for all things Xenos. It is essentially law that any human, Space Marine, etc shoot and kill any Xenos on sight even irrationally because the Emperor wills it. If the Tau sends you a diplomatic envoy you kill it, if Orks freebooters suggest you hire them you kill it, if Eldar suggest you fight Chaos together you kill it. The Imperium of Man prides itself on relentless almost comically irrational hate for anyone who is not like them and xenophobia outdoing even the Nazis of human history.

SO HOW IN THE WORLD IS CREED/CELESTINE/SPACE WOLVES now working with Necrons, Dark Eldar, and worst of all the ELDAR? Fighting Chaos is no excuse for this unspeakable irredeemable heresy. The fluff has it so even the inquisitor is going along with this. Humans are naturally hateful mean vicious creatures. We clubbed all the Neanderthals to death on our own planet because they were so bloody ugly. We exterminated countless "peaceful/trading" Xenos civilizations during the Great Crusade along with the hostile ones because they were a threat even if they were at medieval age tech living in huts and we liked it. This is why all the other minor Xenos like space-mining Demurig and Kroot hate us because the Imperium/humans are insane genocidal murderers but we are proud of this. Be to human is to kill Xenos - because they are like parasites and cockroaches in the milky way galaxy that is only meant for beautiful humanity.

Is anyone upset that GW has ruined the fluff? The book even hints that the Astronomicon is ELDAR TECH? Wtf is this Heresy. Imperium would never rely on flithy Xenos technology as a centerpeice of humanity. 40k is ruined. This is complete bullcrap. Humanity is pure and holy we would never work with flithly Eldar, Dark Eldar, and the rest of them. All the previous times in the fluff it was only a temporarily alliance for extremely short periods and we planned to betray and kill them afterwards.

Are you guys happy with this heretical Necron/Eldar/Imperium alliance going on? I just can't.. Wow. I hope after Chaos is defeated, Imperium has a plan to butcher every single Eldar in their stupid glass-dome paradise city ships because this is such unspeakable heresy on the levels never seen before.

Hmm well its happened in the official fluff since day one - the Imperium of Man has its pragmatic moments and characters and throughout the fluff, be that Codex, White Dwarf or Black Library there are hundreds of instances of co-operation between humanity and various Xenos.

Many of these are quire small, others huge - they range from Ambassadors, Space Wolves honouring fallen Eldar through to fleets co-operating in open battle in the Gothic Sector.

Almost all are short term alliances against a common foe - usually Chaos or Tyranids. These alliances seldom last longer than the conflict as neither side really trusts the other.

The elder themselves said way back in the old Adeptus Titanicus rules something along the lines "Mon-Keigh, understand that we do not fight with you, we fight against Horus"

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
As anyone can see from the poll results that NO ONE is happy with the fluff in Fall of Cadia. GW blew it AGAIN.

The Imperium needs to go back to raving genocidal racist murderers of aliens as they have always been and as the Emperor wills it. I hope this series ends with the extinction of the Eldar race with the human's taking over the Webway and hunting down all their craftworlds and destroying all their spirit stones.

When your only poll options are "I don't like it" & "Mouthfrothingly hate it! Raaagh!", it's not surprising you only have results of people saying the didn't like it.... you didn't give anyone a chance to vote to say they like it or are fine with it or whatever.

This is worse than the many polls made by another user... and that's saying something.

From reading the original post, and seeing the poll, I strongly suspect the OP has a very dry sense of humour (that's a compliment from a Brit btw).

DorianGray wrote:
One of the founding principals of the Imperium and a prime human feeling is hate for all things Xenos. It is essentially law that any human, Space Marine, etc shoot and kill any Xenos on sight even irrationally because the Emperor wills it. If the Tau sends you a diplomatic envoy you kill it, if Orks freebooters suggest you hire them you kill it, if Eldar suggest you fight Chaos together you kill it. The Imperium of Man prides itself on relentless almost comically irrational hate for anyone who is not like them and xenophobia outdoing even the Nazis of human history.

Humans have worked with Eldars in the past as well. What's so special snowflakety snowflake here to get so upset?

"It was fine when they did it before but now it's bad"?

tneva82 wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
One of the founding principals of the Imperium and a prime human feeling is hate for all things Xenos. It is essentially law that any human, Space Marine, etc shoot and kill any Xenos on sight even irrationally because the Emperor wills it. If the Tau sends you a diplomatic envoy you kill it, if Orks freebooters suggest you hire them you kill it, if Eldar suggest you fight Chaos together you kill it. The Imperium of Man prides itself on relentless almost comically irrational hate for anyone who is not like them and xenophobia outdoing even the Nazis of human history.

Humans have worked with Eldars in the past as well. What's so special snowflakety snowflake here to get so upset?

"It was fine when they did it before but now it's bad"?

Of course it is. It is the main focus of a relevant narrative! We can't have them be rational (or follow other cases of canon) for once instead of frothing morons.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit creepy when they see people in this fandom rabidly cheering for the mass speciocide of fictional aliens?

 Robin5t wrote:
Am I the only one who finds it a bit creepy when they see people in this fandom rabidly cheering for the mass speciocide of fictional aliens?

Nope. I thought this was an RP thread for a good minute.

Also, yeah, this poll is the biggest troll-poll I've seen on this site thus far - and I didn't think it could get worse. The results are so skewed probably because the poll question and the topic question are complete opposites, and the poll only has one answer in reality, because no matter what you pick, it affirms OP's position because both answers equal being unhappy with the story.

The very good story, I might add.

DorianGray wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
Humans work with Xenos all the time. It's a picking the lesser of two evils thing; they may be zealous xenophobes in general, but they're usually not stupid.

We only work with them to kill them later though after they help us kill other Xenos at this moment. The fools muhaha. Right?

Then I suggest you also kill all psykers, ratlings and ogryns to begin with. Then move on to wulfen and the death company. If you want to be pure then be pure.

 Imateria wrote:
I just really hope that webway portal all the marines walked through led back to dungeon somewhere in Commoragh.

Came here to say exactly this.

Hundreds of Templars cautiously retreat through the alien portal, only to find themselves materialising in the Crucibael arena at the heart of Commorragh. Betrayed and disoriented, they're cut down to a man (despite their brave and valiant struggles).

Deep within the bowels of Commorragh, sick and twisted minds set to work creating their latest masterpiece.

*Cue release of new Dark Eldar covens GMC made of chopped-up bits of Templar

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
As anyone can see from the poll results that NO ONE is happy with the fluff in Fall of Cadia. GW blew it AGAIN.

The Imperium needs to go back to raving genocidal racist murderers of aliens as they have always been and as the Emperor wills it. I hope this series ends with the extinction of the Eldar race with the human's taking over the Webway and hunting down all their craftworlds and destroying all their spirit stones.

When your only poll options are "I don't like it" & "Mouthfrothingly hate it! Raaagh!", it's not surprising you only have results of people saying the didn't like it.... you didn't give anyone a chance to vote to say they like it or are fine with it or whatever.

This is worse than the many polls made by another user... and that's saying something.

I am with you here. I voted no because I am not insulted by them breaking the fluff.

Finally we get to see a "Come the Apocalypse" scenario that the allies chart depicts.

I don't mind If humans worked with some factions of the Tau, Eldar and maybe a Kabal that vastly separates itself from Com town...

In fact it's stupid to fight all these aliens at once... why not make some pals?

Because usually those 'pals' will stab you in the back at a second's notice?

Hard to forge lasting alliances (or 'act sensibly') when damn near every single alien race you encounter is hostile.

The reason the Imperium is as xenophobic as it is...is because they've learnt the hard way that consorting with xenos gets you killed.

bollocks. The Imperium has been at the forefront of arriving somewhere and just saying we don´t like you DIE.

Just read the Horus Heresy

 rawne2510 wrote:
bollocks. The Imperium has been at the forefront of arriving somewhere and just saying we don´t like you DIE.

Just read the Horus Heresy

Yep. Learnt from their experiences during The Old Night.

In 40k, aliens are nasty b*stards. Humanity are nasty b*stards. Anyone that's not a nasty b*stard tends to die quickly as the other nasty b*stards sense an opportunity.

Rampant xenophobia is a genuinely sensible foreign policy for them.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 rawne2510 wrote:
bollocks. The Imperium has been at the forefront of arriving somewhere and just saying we don´t like you DIE.

Just read the Horus Heresy

Yep. Learnt from their experiences during The Old Night.

In 40k, aliens are nasty b*stards. Humanity are nasty b*stards. Anyone that's not a nasty b*stard tends to die quickly as the other nasty b*stards sense an opportunity.

Rampant xenophobia is a genuinely sensible foreign policy for them.

In fairness, the heresy places as much blame on the Imperium itself as the Xeno's

Interex- Mainly a case of misunderstanding, but the Imperium still escalated the situation into War.
Auretian- Hrous declares war on them without provokation, but nobody gives a damn.
Laer- The Imperium actually considered making friends with them, but Fulgrim wouldn't have any of that.
Diasporex- They have xeno's, so they must die.

None of those started a full out war with the Imperium, although in fairness none were exactly pacifistic cultures. But there is a literal mountain of fluff about Xeno and Human working together and then parting amicably. Obvious examples include:
The entire fething planet of Tallarn with the Eldar.
A whole bunch of Tau fluff.
Battlefleet Gothic's fluff.
Both of Cain's books that feature the Tau
The 2nd Gaunt's Ghosts book.
The thing with the blood angels and the Necrons.
And finally, although it hurts my soul to bring it up, the alliance between Gabe and Macha in the DoW books.

Bottom line, there has been cooperation all the time, from Tallarn back in the old edition to BA/Necrons recently. Why is this particular fluff a problem?

Mudrat wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

 rawne2510 wrote:
bollocks. The Imperium has been at the forefront of arriving somewhere and just saying we don´t like you DIE.

Just read the Horus Heresy

Yep. Learnt from their experiences during The Old Night.

In 40k, aliens are nasty b*stards. Humanity are nasty b*stards. Anyone that's not a nasty b*stard tends to die quickly as the other nasty b*stards sense an opportunity.

Rampant xenophobia is a genuinely sensible foreign policy for them.

In fairness, the heresy places as much blame on the Imperium itself as the Xeno's

Interex- Mainly a case of misunderstanding, but the Imperium still escalated the situation into War.
Auretian- Hrous declares war on them without provokation, but nobody gives a damn.
Laer- The Imperium actually considered making friends with them, but Fulgrim wouldn't have any of that.
Diasporex- They have xeno's, so they must die.

None of those started a full out war with the Imperium, although in fairness none were exactly pacifistic cultures. But there is a literal mountain of fluff about Xeno and Human working together and then parting amicably. Obvious examples include:
The entire fething planet of Tallarn with the Eldar.
A whole bunch of Tau fluff.
Battlefleet Gothic's fluff.
Both of Cain's books that feature the Tau
The 2nd Gaunt's Ghosts book.
The thing with the blood angels and the Necrons.
And finally, although it hurts my soul to bring it up, the alliance between Gabe and Macha in the DoW books.

Bottom line, there has been cooperation all the time, from Tallarn back in the old edition to BA/Necrons recently. Why is this particular fluff a problem?

In regards to the Tallarn, it wasn't just any Eldar. It was freakin' Biel Tan . The biggest Human haters among the Craftworld Eldar.


The hardy folks of Tallarn must have made one hell of an impression on the Biel Tan Eldar.

That's why I said some forms of Eldar, Tau and DE.

In order for this to work I'm not saying sit down every night and tell jokes while you both eat at the dinner table. I'm talking about having a common understanding that there are better people and things to fight out there then two semi civilized governments or entities warring it out. Examples include Orks, Nids, Chaos, Crons, other dangerous alien races.

This is going on to be horrible to say but think of the Imperium like Nazi Germany or Rome. You can't fight everyone and have lines surrounding your territory and expect to win or be successful. Nazi Germany were fighting a front against the Soviets and the US and her allies. The Romans were fighting fronts with Asian and the Barbarians to the North-West.

Sometimes having friendships that normally wouldn't happen but beneficial to both factions is the lessor of two evils. I think some Eldar would appreciate this and I know the Tau would seeing as how small their empire is.

usmcmidn wrote:


This is going on to be horrible to say but think of the Imperium like Nazi Germany or Rome. You can't fight everyone and have lines surrounding your territory and expect to win or be successful. Nazi Germany were fighting a front against the Soviets and the US and her allies. The Romans were fighting fronts with Asian and the Barbarians to .

ueh.... by the time west RE fell majority of their armed forces was "barbarian". Auxilla we're traditionally barbarians (e.g. Caesars Britain campaign, batavian auxilla swam rivers and flanked the natives.

Romes early success in Italy, a large part was binding other "italian" cities to them. (and the reason Hannibal lost was the strength of these alliances).

Romes fell for a lot of reasons, but not xenophobia.

Nazi Germany, especially easy front, had people from all over Europe in SS and Romania, Bulgaria, Finland fought ussr directly.

also Nazi Germany had excellent relation with and support for/from Muslim leaders.

EDIT: And East time famously had the varangian guard. After manzikert most of ERE army was mercenary until its final fall.

For diplomacy/foreign policy west Rome is almost identical to the tau.

 Fruzzle wrote:

usmcmidn wrote:


This is going on to be horrible to say but think of the Imperium like Nazi Germany or Rome. You can't fight everyone and have lines surrounding your territory and expect to win or be successful. Nazi Germany were fighting a front against the Soviets and the US and her allies. The Romans were fighting fronts with Asian and the Barbarians to .

ueh.... by the time west RE fell majority of their armed forces was "barbarian". Auxilla we're traditionally barbarians (e.g. Caesars Britain campaign, batavian auxilla swam rivers and flanked the natives.

Romes early success in Italy, a large part was binding other "italian" cities to them. (and the reason Hannibal lost was the strength of these alliances).

Romes fell for a lot of reasons, but not xenophobia.

Nazi Germany, especially easy front, had people from all over Europe in SS and Romania, Bulgaria, Finland fought ussr directly.

also Nazi Germany had excellent relation with and support for/from Muslim leaders.

EDIT: And East time famously had the varangian guard. After manzikert most of ERE army was mercenary until its final fall.

For diplomacy/foreign policy west Rome is almost identical to the tau.

Thanks for this. As a casual historian I probably would have gone mouth-frothingly crazy and then typed something much less eloquent.

Mudrat wrote:

 Fruzzle wrote:

usmcmidn wrote:


This is going on to be horrible to say but think of the Imperium like Nazi Germany or Rome. You can't fight everyone and have lines surrounding your territory and expect to win or be successful. Nazi Germany were fighting a front against the Soviets and the US and her allies. The Romans were fighting fronts with Asian and the Barbarians to .

ueh.... by the time west RE fell majority of their armed forces was "barbarian". Auxilla we're traditionally barbarians (e.g. Caesars Britain campaign, batavian auxilla swam rivers and flanked the natives.

Romes early success in Italy, a large part was binding other "italian" cities to them. (and the reason Hannibal lost was the strength of these alliances).

Romes fell for a lot of reasons, but not xenophobia.

Nazi Germany, especially easy front, had people from all over Europe in SS and Romania, Bulgaria, Finland fought ussr directly.

also Nazi Germany had excellent relation with and support for/from Muslim leaders.

EDIT: And East time famously had the varangian guard. After manzikert most of ERE army was mercenary until its final fall.

For diplomacy/foreign policy west Rome is almost identical to the tau.

Thanks for this. As a casual historian I probably would have gone mouth-frothingly crazy and then typed something much less eloquent.

As a fellow casual historian I can relate to that ! But than I also hate how people "go off" on people on the internet for not knowing something and my friendly side won out!

I'm sure I also have some misunderstandings/misrememberings in that post.

My pleasure

The imperium coorperating with Xenos under extreme conditions is nothing new.


The Black Templars cooperating with xenos is completely unexpected. The story doesn't give us time to go through the thoughts in the black Templar leaders head. I suspect a few words from Celestine would be enough to get him on board, if they were believed to come from the emperor himself.

The Imperium is pragmatic if nothing else. If the choice is "Work with the filthy xeno now to purge them later" versus "Dying horribly" the Imperium will usually pick the former.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
The imperium coorperating with Xenos under extreme conditions is nothing new.

The Black Templars cooperating with xenos is completely unexpected. The story doesn't give us time to go through the thoughts in the black Templar leaders head. I suspect a few words from Celestine would be enough to get him on board, if they were believed to come from the emperor himself.

Yeah it's less the Imperium in general co-operating with xenos. That's happened on multiple occasions. It's more that it's the Black Templars.

If you put a Blood Angel in a room with a Tau Fire Warrior and a Tyranid Ravenor he'd probably make an agreement that the Fire Warrior would plink away at the Ravenor with his super-shooty gun while he tied it up in close combat, and maybe...just maybe they'd get out of the room alive.

If you put a Templar in a room with a Fire Warrior and a Ravenor the Fire Warrior would suggest this course of action, the Templar would burn the filthy xeno alive with his flamer and try and beat the Ravenor to death with his mace. Either he'd win and the threats would be purged, or he'd die a glorious death in the name of the Emperor.

Templars would rather die than align with xenos. Remember, this is the army that in a universe of fantastically powerful ranged weaponry chooses to stride purposefully across the battlefield and hit the enemy in the face with their massive sword. Stubbornness is sort of their schtick, even if it is nonsensical.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
The imperium coorperating with Xenos under extreme conditions is nothing new.

The Black Templars cooperating with xenos is completely unexpected. The story doesn't give us time to go through the thoughts in the black Templar leaders head. I suspect a few words from Celestine would be enough to get him on board, if they were believed to come from the emperor himself.

Yeah it's less the Imperium in general co-operating with xenos. That's happened on multiple occasions. It's more that it's the Black Templars.

If you put a Blood Angel in a room with a Tau Fire Warrior and a Tyranid Ravenor he'd probably make an agreement that the Fire Warrior would plink away at the Ravenor with his super-shooty gun while he tied it up in close combat, and maybe...just maybe they'd get out of the room alive.

If you put a Templar in a room with a Fire Warrior and a Ravenor the Fire Warrior would suggest this course of action, the Templar would burn the filthy xeno alive with his flamer and try and beat the Ravenor to death with his mace. Either he'd win and the threats would be purged, or he'd die a glorious death in the name of the Emperor.

Templars would rather die than align with xenos. Remember, this is the army that in a universe of fantastically powerful ranged weaponry chooses to stride purposefully across the battlefield and hit the enemy in the face with their massive sword. Stubbornness is sort of their schtick, even if it is nonsensical.

Fair points, I guess the Templars get talked out of it by Celestine, Creed and the other commanders. To my knowledge we don't know who commands the BT on Cadia, so we can't say how likely this course of action is.

Yeah I suppose a living saint would be one of the few beings capable of persuading a Templar not to burn xenos on sight.

I'm still hoping it will end in betrayal though. Something like the portal actually leads to another warzone somewhere else in the galaxy, and the eldar just dump the Templars there unassisted.

Eldar get to manipulate the mon'keigh to suit their own ends, and the Templars get to be all awesome and Marine-y and hit things with their swords and stuff.

Technically they help each other out, but it's only as a thinly veiled superscript to their own self-interest.

Frankly, i think its about time.

Look, i understand, there's an aesthetic right? Grimdark!

But somewhere along down the line Common Sense > Grimdark....

I think that's been the most unbelievable aspect of 40K for me. Not the Bugs that Eat Everything, the Killer Robots from Egypt, the Green Skin soccer hooligans,

But in the face of overwhelming odds and unrelenting horror......... people who can -sorta- stand each other are still fighting each other.

I compare that with the situation in Warhammer Fantasy toward the EndTime. Do Dwarves hate Elves. sure. Do Humans distrust them? of Course. And all of them dislike Vampires/Undead....

And yet Chaos and the Skaven (who i guess stand in for the Tyranids in Fantasy) are coming...and they hate all of you... and they will probably kill you all.

So...until this overwhelming and collective threat is dissipated, it might behoove everyone to just focus on fighting the Greater Threat. We can go back to stabbing each other in the back later.


Peoples, Countries, Governments, etc. do this -all- the time in the real world.

And i also think that...ultimately, even if there is not so much permanent alliances but, "higher degree of cooperation" between the Imperium, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Tau....

......they are still screwed.




I actually had a thread about it on this board a while back.

Let's pretend for a moment that the Imperium decided to formally recognize the Tau Empire as a Treaty Partner.

Does anything -really- change? Yes, the Imperium and the Tau are not fighting each other........


....still doesn't stop Chaos from trying to come through.....
....still doesn't stop Greenskin Waaaghs!.....
....still doesn't stop Necrons from rising up.....
...still doesn't stop the Tyranid invasion fleets....

Let's add the Eldar (Craftworld/Dark/Exodite) to this Treaty Party....

Anything change in everyones favor?

Only thing i can think of is Webway Access...

Webway Access ain't going to stop the New and Improved 13th Black Crusade...

Not going to end the fighting on Armageddon..

Those Hive Fleets are still inbound.


The point i'm trying to make is that even if we were to get a full on real world style "Grand Alliance" akin to World war II allies....still doesn't seem to put too much of a dent in their collective enemies forces.