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I haven't been paying much attention to the fluff development since I got back into 40k, so I'm sitting here reading this newfangled Fall of Cadia book and I have a few questions about it, plus some unrelated ones.

- Saint Celestine, formerly an enigmatic Legion of the Damned-style force of nature, is now an actual person who has conversations with other persons. My question is this: what?

- Greyfax thinks Celestine is a "false saint" and a "witch". Again... what?

- I know GW said there'd be no "End Times" for 40k, but given all the heinous gak happening in this book is it possible there might be a "Time of Endings"? Perhaps a "Termination of Events"?

- The Warp is coming to eat everything. How does that affect Tyranids? Can they eat Daemons?

- How are Tau players going to justify participation in this campaign/ event/ whatever? Far as I know their anime fan spacecraft don't have warp drives and they're thousands of light years away from the Eye of Terror. Does it just pass them by? Also what happens to them when the Warp bleeds into realspace at the "Ending of Times"?

Saint Celestine was an enigmatic figure only because she was a relatively unknown person before she found the armor of Saint Katherine. She was a particularly deadly Repentia Sister, but that's about it.

Greyfax thinks she's a psyker because some of her powers are obviously psychic in origin like her resurrection. She "forgot" that the Emperor, Celestine patron, is a psyker.

Tyranids can kill daemon but they can't be eaten. They aren't biomas. On the other hand, the Shadow in the Warp caused by the Hivemind is anathema to daemon since it's "souless". It makes their incarnation in real space extremely difficult. No, Tyranids are far from being defenseless against them. In fact, I would say that, beside Necrons, they are those who are the most well equiped to deal with daemons.

Tau's are usually included in campaign of such size by two things. The first one being the fact that while the Imperium recoil and concentrate its forces away from them, they push onward. The second one is by simply using the warp anomalies close to them to make them face daemons and other forces of Chaos. When the Warp starts to bleed into real space, its not bound to be only through the Eye of Terror.

I don't think we are heading toward a "End Time" the size of what saw Warhammer Fantasy die, but we are seeing the early step for a rather extansive change in 40K timeline and its offered model lines. It's too early to predict what will be replaced or tanked, but the model line of 40K is now too bloated to be manageable. Decent game balance is almost impossible in part due to this and many of those models are sold and produced at a lost. If Games-Workshop will never destroy 40K IP because its his flagship, it cannot reasonnably feed such a mess for years to come without loosing a lot of money.

Tau have been retconned away from proto-warp drives to some sort of weird slip drive or something. It works more like star trek warp drive. A big unresolved plot point is them trying to discover better FTL and they need it now more than ever with the gulf in flames. This FTL plot point has been shoved down out throats jmore or less since Tau's inception it's been a big deal and mentioned frequently. Almost like the Eldar Ynead thing. So my bets are on that being a thing. I also think it seems likely the Tau will resolve the FSE and TE conflict with Farsight taking control (less likely but still probable).

Or they could do something totally unexpected which would be neat. With the damocles gulf on fire and being described in such a hostile way it reminds me of a proto-warp storm of some sort.

I think there is a good chance the next Tau book will be them discovering this new form of FTL or improving it to the point they can move about the galaxy and strike stuff much further away.

It all depends on how GW approaches it.

Edit
I forgot one thing. In Mont'ka and I think Kauyon the Tau use weather control satellites? Or something? It never really specifics except that its atmospheric control but at one point the Tau are able to have a raging rad storm 10 feet from this perfectly clear blue sky thanks to their tech. The goal of Prefecta was to get the geothermal/weird energy underneath the planet which would jump start the conquest further into the gulf due to its potency. So there is a lot of mention of weather and stuff. I have no idea if this was just campaign and story specific or if this is GW trying to think of a new Tau weapon or a way to get Tau to have their own weird versions of psychic powers or what. It could be nothing at all for all I know. Think Biotics/Omnitool abilities in mass effect as opposed to weird psychic magic.

 BBAP wrote:

- Greyfax thinks Celestine is a "false saint" and a "witch". Again... what?

I think Greyfax came out of the same pokeball as the 30k marines. I assume she is not horus heresy old, not too far after when the imperial church started taking control. Pre celestine. So when she sees her all she thinks is heresy because she is from before Celestines time. Could be wrong on that point.

- The Warp is coming to eat everything. How does that affect Tyranids? Can they eat Daemons?

- How are Tau players going to justify participation in this campaign/ event/ whatever? Far as I know their anime fan spacecraft don't have warp drives and they're thousands of light years away from the Eye of Terror. Does it just pass them by? Also what happens to them when the Warp bleeds into realspace at the "Ending of Times"?

I have a theory on this.

As someone stated Nids are actually one the best forces fluff wise to fight chaos. Rumor has it one of the stories coming up is supposed to be a conclusion to/what happens after hive fleet leviathan fighting all those orks. Well lets pretend the end of that is the nids winning. The total collected biomass of that ork world combined with the massive leviathan hive fleet would make it by far the largest tyranid fleet to exist in the setting to date.

What if chaos is on a b line for terra and the nids break free and head for the astranomicon as they kind of have been. The hive fleet intercepts chaos and stops them dead in their tracks. But the end result is everyone faced with the even bigger threat of the massive hive fleet. Tau, Necrons, the Imperium and the Eldar all have had run ins with the Nids and all understand the threat. If the Elder let humanity loose to the nids every planet taken is a zero sum loss for the nids and a net gain of every body killed making the fleet even more dangerous for who ever is left. It's the perfect story arc to have every army in the game unite to stop the nids. Tau get involved here because everyone basically has to be involved.

The end result could leave splinter fleets scatting in every direction while every faction in the game is extremely depleted. Orcs from the loss on that world, chaos from the end of their 13th crusade and everyone else from the combined effort to stop the newly massive leviathan. This "everyone is worse off than ever" would be the perfect way to establish the new state of the galaxy and kick off an 8th edition.

from a narritve POV that's a problematic idea, you have too many factions being denied the "big grand battle" I suspect that the Xenos races will be involved on their own fronts. we know the silent king is VERY concerned about the 'nids. I'd be expecting a Necron vs 'nids theatre to open up, mindless machines vs mindless creatures. with humanity caught in the middle!

 BBAP wrote:
I haven't been paying much attention to the fluff development since I got back into 40k, so I'm sitting here reading this newfangled Fall of Cadia book and I have a few questions about it, plus some unrelated ones.

- Saint Celestine, formerly an enigmatic Legion of the Damned-style force of nature, is now an actual person who has conversations with other persons. My question is this: what?

- Greyfax thinks Celestine is a "false saint" and a "witch". Again... what?

- I know GW said there'd be no "End Times" for 40k, but given all the heinous gak happening in this book is it possible there might be a "Time of Endings"? Perhaps a "Termination of Events"?

- The Warp is coming to eat everything. How does that affect Tyranids? Can they eat Daemons?

- How are Tau players going to justify participation in this campaign/ event/ whatever? Far as I know their anime fan spacecraft don't have warp drives and they're thousands of light years away from the Eye of Terror. Does it just pass them by? Also what happens to them when the Warp bleeds into realspace at the "Ending of Times"?

1) " The Warp is coming to eat everything. How does that affect Tyranids? Can they eat Daemons?"

- anyone in realspace doesn't want to live in the warp, so basically its chaos vs everyone. Tyranids act as predators. Chaos acts as predators. Its a fight for ressources, for survival. The Tyranids may have it a little bit easier to hunt their prey which is threathened by chaos, but otoH this ressource is not umlimited... Short Term the Tyranids could benefit , long Term they got to do something about chaos or they must travel to another Galaxy and this takes time and strains the fleets.

2) " How are Tau players going to justify participation in this campaign/ event/ whatever? Far as I know their anime fan spacecraft don't have warp drives and they're thousands of light years away from the Eye of Terror. Does it just pass them by? Also what happens to them when the Warp bleeds into realspace at the "Ending of Times"?"

- The Tau are irrelevant. GW expects the Tau players to buy new Armies ...

The Problem isn't new and will not go away. GW put the Tau into a corner to protect them, but this has a price.

When its royal rumble time, you are either in the ring and get to do your best to claim the prize, or your outside and safe and.. with not shot at anything. Can't have both.

A Fall of Cadia is a piece of Cake eaten by Traitors and Loyalists ( space humans ) where some Space Elfs and some Space Undead may be invited to have some too. Not at this party? Just wait for yours.

One of the things that could happen is a Tau/Ultramarine alliance *sigh*. Because of course we would have to with grand alliances kinda sorta being a thing.

epronovost wrote:
Saint Celestine was an enigmatic figure only because she was a relatively unknown person before she found the armor of Saint Katherine. She was a particularly deadly Repentia Sister, but that's about it.

What I mean is she used to be this semi-legendary figure who'd show up when the chips were down for the Sisters, stick around just long enough to smite all the BBEGs, then vanish in a puff of incense smoke. She might've bellowed a few supplications here and there but she wasn't having conversations - she just arrived, led the charge, then poofed when the baddies were done in. Now she's like, stopping back after the battle to check everyone's dandy, chillaxing on the bridges of warships and arguing with Inquisitors. Maybe I read her wrong initially, but to me it seems like a big change for the character. Not that that's a bad thing, but it seems quite jarring to me.

Gamgee wrote:Tau have been retconned away from proto-warp drives to some sort of weird slip drive or something. It works more like star trek warp drive. A big unresolved plot point is them trying to discover better FTL and they need it now more than ever with the gulf in flames.

I'm surprised it hasn't been resolved before now, especially if they've been planning "End Times: The Retconning" for a while. Just seems a bit silly to have the Tau sitting in a corner while everyone else dukes it out.

Lance845 wrote:I think Greyfax came out of the same pokeball as the 30k marines. I assume she is not horus heresy old, not too far after when the imperial church started taking control. Pre celestine. So when she sees her all she thinks is heresy because she is from before Celestines time. Could be wrong on that point.

Makes sense to me.

 BBAP wrote:


What I mean is she used to be this semi-legendary figure who'd show up when the chips were down for the Sisters, stick around just long enough to smite all the BBEGs, then vanish in a puff of incense smoke. She might've bellowed a few supplications here and there but she wasn't having conversations - she just arrived, led the charge, then poofed when the baddies were done in. Now she's like, stopping back after the battle to check everyone's dandy, chillaxing on the bridges of warships and arguing with Inquisitors. Maybe I read her wrong initially, but to me it seems like a big change for the character. Not that that's a bad thing, but it seems quite jarring to me.

From her earliest incarnation in the Witch Hunter Codex, Celestine was described as a figure who did talked, debated and interracted with people normaly until her apparent death. The way she was described and her revered nature amongst the Sisterhood makes her look much legendary, elusive and mythical than she really was. Much like every hero and great figure the way we report their actions affect a lot our perception of them. Celestine, even invested with awesome powers and bearing the relics of Saint Katherine, was still just a women and was behaving much like any other Sister of Battle. She was an examplary one of course.