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One over arching theme I'm seeing ehre is "ophh goodie goodie thats boring!" and thats one thing I generally hate across all settings and themes, that characters need to have rediculasly over the top flaws, or need to be "questionably evil" to be intreasting. That's not true, I find some of the most intreasting conflicts I've ever read or seen, have been two people who genuinely belive they're doing the right thing, coming into a conflict. there is a REASON "the emperor's gift" is one of my favorite 40k books. it's such an intreasting conflict because both sides really do belive, and have a strong argument for why they're in the right.


Which brings me back to trying to restore this topic to it's original purpose, me I hate the "pure villians" who don't seem to have ANY redeeming factors to them. some of the old chaos stuff was like that, and GW has, thankfully really worked to add some depth and nuance to people like Abbaddon.

 General Annoyance wrote:
I'd respect people's points about the return of Roboute Guilliman if they didn't fall into either "he's a goody two shoes" or if they weren't just a contest to see who can make the funniest alternate name to Roboute Guilliman, combined with the old tripe of Ultramarines being the worst thing to happen to 40k ever.

The arguments aren't that, though. Reading them as such makes it easier to dismiss them out of hand as conformist nonsense, but you've had three seperate reasonings from people who dislike The Rowboat and none of them fit into either of those categories.

He's a bland, poorly-handled creator's pet and part of a set of characters that should remain in the universe's mythos where they belong. Good or bad, doesn't matter to me. He sucks as a character and as a concept, and is indicative of the fail-ass Marvel/ DC design philosophy that GW creative are hewing towards. That's bad, and I believe it needs to be criticised. You don't agree. It's fine that you don't agree, but you can't pretend my objections to Robot Goggleman are based on the fact he's a "good guy". Dislike of Robert Gulliver is a popular sentiment because there are valid reasons to dislike him; there may be some people who just jump on the bandwagon, but the fact remains he's an eminently suck-ass character and one of a series of such.

The silly names are just low-ball mockery, not part of the argument. It's amusing to poke fun at people's Mary Sues, especially when the person in question is "GW's creative staff for the last 20 years".

I haven't personally seen anything that definitively said the Primarchs were done for; of the ones who weren't killed, or didn't become Greater Daemons, there was always the potential of them returning to the battlefields across the Imperium, one way or another.

Right. Because they're immortal superheroes with the strength of a thousand men who can overcome any odds and shrug off any injury and ignore the passing of time and zzzzzzzzzzz...

I wouldn't compare the Primarchs to superheroes, even Guilliman. While they were meant to be more superhuman than superhuman, only one of them left alive actually turned out as an embodiment of strength in all areas. 1/20 is hardly a good score to conclude that they're superheroes who belong where they were left.

Ten thousand years has passed since they were current, and when they were current they had superpowers. They're openly described as demi-gods as recently as "Fracture of Biel-Tan". "Demi-god" is a fancy word for "superhero". The distinctions are academic. The Primarchs are superheroes. Immortal, cape-wearing, toilet-seated superheroes, to be rolled out like so much old hat whenever GW feels the need to inject a bit of Rob Liefeld into their setting. "Here's a bunch of super-superhumans who are directly descended from Emprah! Here's a list of deeds they've each performed and qualities that they possess! Now - love them!"

Blech.

I sincerely hope for the sake of my point here that nobody has an attachment that strong with a character in 40k that they couldn't stand to see them removed from the current lore.

Your hope is misplaced. The return of Rawbutt Jigglyman is nigh - and I sincerely doubt he's coming alone. Superheroes for everyone!

Then again, some people have such an attachment to 40k races that they'll adopt their hatred for other races and the people who play/collect them, as well as addressing themselves as part of that race.

I've never seen that happen ever.

Kinda hard to take anyone's point seriously anymore...

If you stopped misinterpreting the points you'd have an easier time taking them seriously.

My point is this: Guilliman's returned - even if we could reason that having a character such as Guilliman leaning more towards the idea of doing good in the world of 40k is utter heresy (spoiler - it isn't, and never will be in humanity), we'd still have to debate over both his significance and the context of his return, which we'll have to wait for. Hence why I think the bashing of Guilliman is mostly to reinforce that hatred of Toilet Marines; let's wait to see what the reasoning behind how a Primarch (who was locked in stasis) was able to recover to fight in this age for the Imperium before we go running around with that flag.

Again, misinterpreting the objections.

Eisenhorn was an inveterate do-gooder, yet the Eisenhorn series is one of the very few sci fi franchises I'll go out of my way to buy. Eisenhorn is just some bloke - admittedly a highly trained bloke with psychic powers, but a bloke nonetheless. Throughout that series I got to watch him struggle with everything, from his own physical limitations as "just some bloke", to the emotional demands of his calling, to the mistakes he ended up making as a result of his unwillingness to reflect on his self-righteousness. He was deeply flawed, and as a result he paid heavily for every victory he won. Show the audience your character's flaws and limits, and you can hide even the thickest plot armour beneath a veil of believability.

Show the audience an immortal superhero Spiritual Liege awakening after 10,000 years in stasis, then festoon him in toilet-tastic armour and earmark him as the leader Humanity needs to guide it through these dark times, and they have a right to ask what the hell is wrong with you. Like I said, they could take this in an interesting direction - Gullible dies after three weeks because the stasis field wasn't sealed properly, Trazyn captures him for his Pokemon collection, someone finds out the Eldar/ AdMech are pulling Gigglytan's strings and a civil war breaks out - but that isn't how they'll play it. Spiritual Liege, all the way. The Lord of the Toilet Smurfs shall sit upon the Golden Throne.

This is a point I'll never understand either; you make it sound like all that characterisation in 40k is gone because a "good guy" from another era has made a fairly predictable return to 40k.

It was failry predictable that they'd bring him out of stasis. My point is he should never have been in stasis in the first place. He should be dead, or at the very least forgotten about so new characters can take the stage, ones that aren't Spiritual Lieges and thus can develop in new and interesting ways. You don't broaden the appeal of your IP by rehashing the same comic-book gak repeatedly.

Or maybe you do. I don't know. I suppose we'll see when the post-Smurf financials come out.

Where has it gone exactly? I can still find all those, even with the return of Guilliman. Surely the return of a Primarch is an indication of how desperate the fight for survival in the Imperium has become, rather than a signpost for large amounts of "surviving against the odds".

How much more desperate would the Imperium seem if it didn't have immortal superheroes to awaken? That's what I'm asking here. How much less desperate does the Imperium seem now that they have a designated tactical genius-slash-Spiritual Liege at their head?

I assume this is memes, not being very interested in AoS myself. Still, I don't see how one important character is going to have this dramatic impact on everything that makes 40k what it is.

He's not. He's just one symptom of a slow descent into comic-book banality that the Imperium/ Chaos dynamic is taking. They were always the least-bad faction, and you rooted for them because they were the only one that wasn't actively trying to kill you 80% of the time. Now they're the designated good guys led by Spiritual Liege. Just... blech.

I heard the Eldar have a vid-tape of Roubert getting a golden shower in an Ulthwe hotel room.

He's compromised.

BrianDavion wrote:
One over arching theme I'm seeing ehre is "ophh goodie goodie thats boring!" and thats one thing I generally hate across all settings and themes, that characters need to have rediculasly over the top flaws, or need to be "questionably evil" to be intreasting. That's not true, I find some of the most intreasting conflicts I've ever read or seen, have been two people who genuinely belive they're doing the right thing, coming into a conflict. there is a REASON "the emperor's gift" is one of my favorite 40k books. it's such an intreasting conflict because both sides really do belive, and have a strong argument for why they're in the right.


Which brings me back to trying to restore this topic to it's original purpose, me I hate the "pure villians" who don't seem to have ANY redeeming factors to them. some of the old chaos stuff was like that, and GW has, thankfully really worked to add some depth and nuance to people like Abbaddon.

I absolutely agree with you. 'Pure villains' is utterly tedious as there's no depth to they're character beyond moustache twirling.

Similarly, 'pure heroes' are just as tedious. There's a similar lack of character depth, and it breaks people's ability to relate to them. I'm not necessarily saying make him evil, but certainly make him flawed.

Its an interesting point you raise about the best conflicts arising from two people who think they're doing the right thing coming into conflict. You're absolutely right. I've always thought 40k has been good at that (with a few notable exceptions). Every faction genuinely believes that what they're doing is right. If only they'd wind something in about perhaps Horus doing his Heresy thing for the good of mankind then they'd have everyone possibly being right.

That ties into the main reason why i sugget that there should be some doubt raised about Guilliman's character and motivations. He may well be completely loyal, but if people have doubt then it fuels conflict between people who by all rights should ve on the same side.

If you have Guilliman be a squeaky-clean hero-type who always does the right thing then it makes that harder. Not impossible, but definitely harder.

The main thing that actually does is make the people fighting agaist him seem stupid. If we can see how goody goody he is, then people fighting against him are only doing it because they're selfish, stupid or evil. It's much more compelling to have someone genuinely believe that Guilliman isn't all he says he is, and set out to stop him. Whatsmore, it's even more compelling if this guy might be right about Guilliman.

It's less a 'everyone needs to be slightly evil because 40k grimdark'. It's 'everyone needs to have somethig a little supicious about their character to fuel conflict between other characters'.

Thats how you avoid 'saturday morning cartoon villains'.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

And look at the fact that his entire Legion was pretty much intact after the assault on Terra, while all the other Legions took massive beatings, some almost to the point of being wiped out. Some would question the timing and convenience of their "inability" to commit to the battle. Even Russ and Jonson (sp?) dropped what they were doing to make best possible speed to contribute. What did Sweet Baby Row do? Quelled an Eldar incursion, which translates to an entire Legion vs. a few hundred Eldar. Good expenditure of resources. SOMEONE has to question that.

.

Yeah. UM were obviously supposed to disobey warmaster(before he was revealed to be traitor). You know? His superior officer he was expected to obey like emperor?

Yeah. Makes sense.

At least it makes his character interesting, rather than just a bland vanilla do-gooder...

Well if you don't care anything about internal logic or sense...

tneva82 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

And look at the fact that his entire Legion was pretty much intact after the assault on Terra, while all the other Legions took massive beatings, some almost to the point of being wiped out. Some would question the timing and convenience of their "inability" to commit to the battle. Even Russ and Jonson (sp?) dropped what they were doing to make best possible speed to contribute. What did Sweet Baby Row do? Quelled an Eldar incursion, which translates to an entire Legion vs. a few hundred Eldar. Good expenditure of resources. SOMEONE has to question that.

.

Yeah. UM were obviously supposed to disobey warmaster(before he was revealed to be traitor). You know? His superior officer he was expected to obey like emperor?

Yeah. Makes sense.

At least it makes his character interesting, rather than just a bland vanilla do-gooder...

Well if you don't care anything about internal logic or sense...

So you think only bland do-gooders have internal logic or sense?

Wait, before we get embroiled in anything, let me just clarify because sarcasm doesn't translate too well online. Are you in favour or in opposition to the 'Guilliman's actions are suspicious' angle?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I heard the Eldar have a vid-tape of Roubert getting a golden shower in an Ulthwe hotel room.

He's compromised.

Depends who from.

The return of the primarchs in 30k has been done poorly. I liked the emprah and the primarchs as half forgotten legends of the ancient past. Now we have a boatload of novels about them and im less than impressed. Cheap, cliche ridden and most of the time downright badly written menchildren in mediocre stories with comicbook superpowers who would have been unsuitable to lead a Kindergarden group let alone an empire.
Not everything needs to be iluminated and not everything needs to be explained especialy when the result of doing so does little to improve the overall narrative.

My second gripe are the "new" Grey Knights. I strongly prefered their 3rd edition incarnation as stoic and extremely dedicated if perhaps somewhat one dimensional demonhunters. No feasting under a demon's skull or warptraveling grandmasters but only the distant reward of being finaly laid to rest forever on Titan and a brothercaptain's seemingly endless feud with a Changer of Ways.
Despite their task they were considerably less over the top than their current incarnation, using teamwork, skill and indomitable faith instead of giant babycarriers to banish even the nastiest of daemons.
For that i loved them. Oh, and the new plastic miniatures suck. Don't get me wrong, 50% of each miniature is awesome but the legs...oh god the legs...who in his right mind created such idiotic poses?

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
So you think only bland do-gooders have internal logic or sense?

Wait, before we get embroiled in anything, let me just clarify because sarcasm doesn't translate too well online. Are you in favour or in opposition to the 'Guilliman's actions are suspicious' angle?

What internal logic you would say that supports open rebellion by Guilliman against Horus(when he was still head of Imperial army)?

We aren't talking about minor issue. We are talking about disobeying your superior officer. The one Emperor told you to obey. That's open rebellion.

tneva82 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
So you think only bland do-gooders have internal logic or sense?

Wait, before we get embroiled in anything, let me just clarify because sarcasm doesn't translate too well online. Are you in favour or in opposition to the 'Guilliman's actions are suspicious' angle?

What internal logic you would say that supports open rebellion by Guilliman against Horus(when he was still head of Imperial army)?

We aren't talking about minor issue. We are talking about disobeying your superior officer. The one Emperor told you to obey. That's open rebellion.

So we are arguing for the same point then. Or at least a similar one. That there's more nuance to Guilliman's situation than just 'loyalist hero', and that should be played up more.

Will Robot Girlyman actually make a difference long term, his "special ability" was to take other peoples ideas,tactics and strategies and refine them with the benefit of his aditonal resources due to his own empire with little actual innovation of his own.

While he is in his element against his brothers and chaos he is 10000 years behind the curve on the emerging races such as Necrons and Tau. I can see him gettting his shiny metal butt kicked by races using new technology and tactics and strategies.

SeanDrake wrote:
Will Robot Girlyman actually make a difference long term, his "special ability" was to take other peoples ideas,tactics and strategies and refine them with the benefit of his aditonal resources due to his own empire with little actual innovation of his own.

While he is in his element against his brothers and chaos he is 10000 years behind the curve on the emerging races such as Necrons and Tau. I can see him gettting his shiny metal butt kicked by races using new technology and tactics and strategies.

Not quite certain I buy that interpretation.

The Great Crusade was a giant leap into the unknown for Mankind. They knew less about what was really out there than the Imperium at large today. Many of the planets they would have encountered and conquered would have used new technology and tactics to what they'd encountered before.

That's not saying that he wouldn't get caught with his trousers down against some of the nastier new threats, and much though I like him to have flaws, I think the interpretation of him as someone who is completely lacking in innovation is a bit reductive.

It's the details that get my back up...

Retinal lenses - what the feth are they? Space Marine power armour has auto senses, such that when you put the helmet on you don't use your eyes and ears any more, the inbuilt cogitator feeds audio and visual signals direct to the brain. As originally described, a marine sees without seeing his helmet obstructing his view.

When they describe the hero of the minute slinging his power hammer or what have you across his back - how? What does every SM have on his back? Yep, a big bulky power pack. You're not slinging any weapon over your back, there's nowhere for it to go.

Whatever happened to auto-reactive shoulder guards?

tneva82 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
So you think only bland do-gooders have internal logic or sense?

Wait, before we get embroiled in anything, let me just clarify because sarcasm doesn't translate too well online. Are you in favour or in opposition to the 'Guilliman's actions are suspicious' angle?

What internal logic you would say that supports open rebellion by Guilliman against Horus(when he was still head of Imperial army)?

We aren't talking about minor issue. We are talking about disobeying your superior officer. The one Emperor told you to obey. That's open rebellion.

What open rebellion are you talking about?

 BBAP wrote:
The arguments aren't that, though. Reading them as such makes it easier to dismiss them out of hand as conformist nonsense, but you've had three seperate reasonings from people who dislike The Rowboat and none of them fit into either of those categories.

Then forgive me if I have interpreted them as such. Kinda hard to interpret them as anything different when they are filled with memes/dismissive language though.

He's a bland, poorly-handled creator's pet and part of a set of characters that should remain in the universe's mythos where they belong. Good or bad, doesn't matter to me. He sucks as a character and as a concept, and is indicative of the fail-ass Marvel/ DC design philosophy that GW creative are hewing towards. That's bad, and I believe it needs to be criticised. You don't agree. It's fine that you don't agree, but you can't pretend my objections to Robot Goggleman are based on the fact he's a "good guy". Dislike of Robert Gulliver is a popular sentiment because there are valid reasons to dislike him; there may be some people who just jump on the bandwagon, but the fact remains he's an eminently suck-ass character and one of a series of such.

So the idea of a Space Julius Cesar doesn't appeal?

Maybe I just like Ancient Roman history too much.

The silly names are just low-ball mockery, not part of the argument. It's amusing to poke fun at people's Mary Sues, especially when the person in question is "GW's creative staff for the last 20 years".

The term Mary Sue seems pretty overused in 40k these days. I thought 40k allowed us to skip character development for more explosions and Chainsword noises, honestly. It's nice to have well developed characters like Eisenhorn, but not everyone needs to be in that same league to get the story across, especially superhuman warriors bred and trained exclusively to win wars and kill hordes of Xenos and Heretics.

Right. Because they're immortal superheroes with the strength of a thousand men who can overcome any odds and shrug off any injury and ignore the passing of time and zzzzzzzzzzz...

Ask Ferrus Manus if he's got his head on the right way yet

Ten thousand years has passed since they were current, and when they were current they had superpowers. They're openly described as demi-gods as recently as "Fracture of Biel-Tan". "Demi-god" is a fancy word for "superhero". The distinctions are academic. The Primarchs are superheroes. Immortal, cape-wearing, toilet-seated superheroes, to be rolled out like so much old hat whenever GW feels the need to inject a bit of Rob Liefeld into their setting. "Here's a bunch of super-superhumans who are directly descended from Emprah! Here's a list of deeds they've each performed and qualities that they possess! Now - love them!"

Blech.

If Demi-gods are superheroes, what does that make the gods of 40k then?

I'm still not seeing the superhero thing though. Superhuman yes, obviously, but none of them seemed to be strong enough to change the course of time for their advantage when it was time to take a side.

Your hope is misplaced. The return of Rawbutt Jigglyman is nigh - and I sincerely doubt he's coming alone. Superheroes for everyone!

The Lion will be next, surely. I look forward to it, as someone who always wanted to see the legendary Primarchs back fighting in the 41st Millennium.

I guess this is the problem - people would rather they stay as figures of legend. I still need clarification on why we should just let them fade into obscurity, though.

I've never seen that happen ever.

I have

If you stopped misinterpreting the points you'd have an easier time taking them seriously.

Again, misinterpreting the objections.

Eisenhorn was an inveterate do-gooder, yet the Eisenhorn series is one of the very few sci fi franchises I'll go out of my way to buy. Eisenhorn is just some bloke - admittedly a highly trained bloke with psychic powers, but a bloke nonetheless. Throughout that series I got to watch him struggle with everything, from his own physical limitations as "just some bloke", to the emotional demands of his calling, to the mistakes he ended up making as a result of his unwillingness to reflect on his self-righteousness. He was deeply flawed, and as a result he paid heavily for every victory he won. Show the audience your character's flaws and limits, and you can hide even the thickest plot armour beneath a veil of believability.

Show the audience an immortal superhero Spiritual Liege awakening after 10,000 years in stasis, then festoon him in toilet-tastic armour and earmark him as the leader Humanity needs to guide it through these dark times, and they have a right to ask what the hell is wrong with you. Like I said, they could take this in an interesting direction - Gullible dies after three weeks because the stasis field wasn't sealed properly, Trazyn captures him for his Pokemon collection, someone finds out the Eldar/ AdMech are pulling Gigglytan's strings and a civil war breaks out - but that isn't how they'll play it. Spiritual Liege, all the way. The Lord of the Toilet Smurfs shall sit upon the Golden Throne.

Okay, so from what I see here the problem you have with Guilliman is that his path to glory was too straightforward, which created a bland character, yes?

Disregarding past actions that made Guilliman an interesting character to me, such as personally questioning the Emperor's orders and underestimating two of his fellow Primarchs, both of which he was lucky to walk away from, don't you think anything might happen after this event that might provide such a flaw to run on with his character?

It was failry predictable that they'd bring him out of stasis. My point is he should never have been in stasis in the first place. He should be dead, or at the very least forgotten about so new characters can take the stage, ones that aren't Spiritual Lieges and thus can develop in new and interesting ways. You don't broaden the appeal of your IP by rehashing the same comic-book gak repeatedly.

Or maybe you do. I don't know. I suppose we'll see when the post-Smurf financials come out.

Has he been repeatedly brought forwards, though? I think even with his return, he's likely going to be trumped by the return of the other Daemon Primarchs who have not yet come to light.

How much more desperate would the Imperium seem if it didn't have immortal superheroes to awaken? That's what I'm asking here. How much less desperate does the Imperium seem now that they have a designated tactical genius-slash-Spiritual Liege at their head?

Desperate enough to continue work on a 10,000 year old project to bring him back to life. I still have lots of questions on how it was done, honestly.

He's not. He's just one symptom of a slow descent into comic-book banality that the Imperium/ Chaos dynamic is taking. They were always the least-bad faction, and you rooted for them because they were the only one that wasn't actively trying to kill you 80% of the time. Now they're the designated good guys led by Spiritual Liege. Just... blech.

I don't see how his return makes the Imperium of Man any better than they were before. He's going to be very influential, sure, but he's not going to change the way the IoM will fight this war, even if he wanted to.

 General Annoyance wrote:

I've never seen that happen ever.

I have

I mean, I sometimes use "I" or "we" when referring to my preferred faction. It's not really a conscious thing, though maybe it does say I'm a bit too into 40K . I just think it's kinda funny. In any case, I wouldn't get upset if I referred to someone's faction as "you" and they weren't happy about it.

Do I actually want to go around lighting people on fire? No. Do I take the Sisters dislike for traitor/xeno/witch seriously (in terms of allies and so on)? Yeah, but I can joke about it.

Interesting topic in any case. I only spoke up because I don't think it's inherently negative, though the user in your example let themselves get a little heated.

 Servant of Dante wrote:
Interesting topic in any case. I only spoke up because I don't think it's inherently negative, though the user in your example let themselves get a little heated.

A little?

You did go to page 3, right?

Honestly, fluff wise, I now hate the prophecy/prediction/legend (whatever you want to call it of an end times when the Primarchs would return, the Pheonix lords would return and so on.

Now, when it was just nothing more than some far off doomsday prophecy that the fictional world will never actually reach, sure, cool, nice little added realism, all cultures have these sorts of mythos. The reason I wish it had never been written for 40k is that GW is actually trying to live up to it and create that as part of the ongoing universe and everything is leading up to it. Seriously, such prophecies could have been simple wishful thinking, talking about some time in the distant future (couple dozen millennia) or simply left with no specified time frame. But for some reason, GW feels the need for it to actually happen.

 General Annoyance wrote:

 Servant of Dante wrote:
Interesting topic in any case. I only spoke up because I don't think it's inherently negative, though the user in your example let themselves get a little heated.

A little?

You did go to page 3, right?

Hehe no I did not. I saw they were being silly and left. I'll go read the rest, since I commented on it.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
So you think only bland do-gooders have internal logic or sense?

Wait, before we get embroiled in anything, let me just clarify because sarcasm doesn't translate too well online. Are you in favour or in opposition to the 'Guilliman's actions are suspicious' angle?

What internal logic you would say that supports open rebellion by Guilliman against Horus(when he was still head of Imperial army)?

We aren't talking about minor issue. We are talking about disobeying your superior officer. The one Emperor told you to obey. That's open rebellion.

What open rebellion are you talking about?

tneva thinks that my theory way up this page was that Gorrila-arms disobeyed the Warmaster and was pursuing his own agenda, when my post was that he was IN ON IT THE WHOLE TIME and was there to conquer the Imperium through subterfuge rather than open conflict. Fulgrim had to be silenced for knowing the truth, Gogglemane just didn't count on Fulgrim being better and poisoning him. Unless that was also part of the plan...

At this point I don't even know who we're talking about...

Still talking about Big Bobby G.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
One over arching theme I'm seeing ehre is "ophh goodie goodie thats boring!" and thats one thing I generally hate across all settings and themes, that characters need to have rediculasly over the top flaws, or need to be "questionably evil" to be intreasting. That's not true, I find some of the most intreasting conflicts I've ever read or seen, have been two people who genuinely belive they're doing the right thing, coming into a conflict. there is a REASON "the emperor's gift" is one of my favorite 40k books. it's such an intreasting conflict because both sides really do belive, and have a strong argument for why they're in the right.


Which brings me back to trying to restore this topic to it's original purpose, me I hate the "pure villians" who don't seem to have ANY redeeming factors to them. some of the old chaos stuff was like that, and GW has, thankfully really worked to add some depth and nuance to people like Abbaddon.

I absolutely agree with you. 'Pure villains' is utterly tedious as there's no depth to they're character beyond moustache twirling.

Similarly, 'pure heroes' are just as tedious. There's a similar lack of character depth, and it breaks people's ability to relate to them. I'm not necessarily saying make him evil, but certainly make him flawed.

Its an interesting point you raise about the best conflicts arising from two people who think they're doing the right thing coming into conflict. You're absolutely right. I've always thought 40k has been good at that (with a few notable exceptions). Every faction genuinely believes that what they're doing is right. If only they'd wind something in about perhaps Horus doing his Heresy thing for the good of mankind then they'd have everyone possibly being right.

That ties into the main reason why i sugget that there should be some doubt raised about Guilliman's character and motivations. He may well be completely loyal, but if people have doubt then it fuels conflict between people who by all rights should ve on the same side.

If you have Guilliman be a squeaky-clean hero-type who always does the right thing then it makes that harder. Not impossible, but definitely harder.

The main thing that actually does is make the people fighting agaist him seem stupid. If we can see how goody goody he is, then people fighting against him are only doing it because they're selfish, stupid or evil. It's much more compelling to have someone genuinely believe that Guilliman isn't all he says he is, and set out to stop him. Whatsmore, it's even more compelling if this guy might be right about Guilliman.

It's less a 'everyone needs to be slightly evil because 40k grimdark'. It's 'everyone needs to have somethig a little supicious about their character to fuel conflict between other characters'.

Thats how you avoid 'saturday morning cartoon villains'.

I dunno you don't need characters to nesscarily be suspicious as you need clashing personalities and agendas. those can be every bit as good as suspicions. one of my favorite 40k stories is proably the emperor's giftthere was no real suspicions there or anything what there was was differant priorities, world views etc simply clashing we need more of that, and I'm hoping we'll see it in the future, I sincerly doubt we';ll see much sign of it in Rise of the Primarch simply because they're not covering the story THAT closely. but little side paragraphs like "Gulliman was breifly slowed due to a dispute between the Imperial Guard and the Admech as to weather it was more important to save the people on planet X or the holy cog. he eventually managed to make them work together..." could make for epic novels in and of themselves. I have a hunch that we're gonna see some fantastic novels set during the gathering storm, or at least I hope GW doesn't miss this oppertunity

 General Annoyance wrote:
Then forgive me if I have interpreted them as such. Kinda hard to interpret them as anything different when they are filled with memes/dismissive language though.

Is it really that difficult to pick content from between some low-ball wisecracks? I don't think so.

So the idea of a Space Julius Cesar doesn't appeal?

Whenever you see Caesar in fiction he's presented as a manipulative megalomaniac who bought, bartered and beat his way into the hearts of the masses with borrowed coin and other mens' blood. If that's the direction GW take with The Rowboat then fair enough - hackneyed as it is, it's more engaging than "lol designated hero prodigal son spiritual liege new emprah lol". That's what they're lining up for The Rowboat. No wickedness, no avarice, no complexity outside the odd internal monologue as he gazes wistfully out a window and laments the deaths of his soldiers in a way Julius Caesar wouldn't. None of that. Just "Spiritual Liege". See if I'm wrong.

The term Mary Sue seems pretty overused in 40k these days.

If the shoe fits, right?

I thought 40k allowed us to skip character development for more explosions and Chainsword noises, honestly.

I'm free as I ever was to build armies and play games without regard for the fluff. Problem is, GW have decided that the narrative backdrop to the game system they've maintained for 28 years has to "advance", and that means their characters can no longer be the unobtrusive, static scenery pieces they have been up to this point. They need to develop, GW needs to develop them, and the return of Primarch superheroes suggests to me they're going to develop them along the lines of a Rob Liefeld gak-comic. The fact they've chosen to bring back the Elminster of 40k says only bad things about the direction the narrative will take.

I stand to be corrected, of course, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

If Demi-gods are superheroes, what does that make the gods of 40k then?

... gods?

I'm still not seeing the superhero thing though. Superhuman yes, obviously, but none of them seemed to be strong enough to change the course of time for their advantage when it was time to take a side.

Batman's "superpower" is being very rich and going to the gym a lot. He loses sometimes too. He's still a superhero, yet the dude who submerges a metal dragon in lava and walks away with metal hands isn't. Likewise, Superman's super power is being invincible and better than a human being in every conceivable way (i.e. a Primarch, and before you say "thye can't fly though" - Sanguinius). He loses sometimes too. Still a superhero.

The distinctions are academic to me. The Primarchs are superheroes, and having them in 40k makes the galaxy one big superhero comic. Ask me how interested I am in playing the the bit-part Genestealer Cult villain or the Adepta Sororitas third-fiddle in "Rowboat-Force and The Primarch League". The answer is "not very". I'd rather go find a game system where my £800 army actually has a stake in the narrative.

Okay, so from what I see here the problem you have with Guilliman is that his path to glory was too straightforward, which created a bland character, yes?

... what? He's a genetically engineered superhero who fell from heaven in a meteorite and punched his way to the top in true superhero fashion. It's the same story as every other Primarch; there was never any danger he wouldn't make it to the top of anything because he can beat 1,000 men to death with his fists without breaking a sweat.

Now he's coming back to punch his way to the top at the head of The Primarch League and the Imperium. Zzzzzzz.

Disregarding past actions that made Guilliman an interesting character to me, such as personally questioning the Emperor's orders and underestimating two of his fellow Primarchs, both of which he was lucky to walk away from, don't you think anything might happen after this event that might provide such a flaw to run on with his character?

Sure it could. It won't, is what I'm betting.

Has he been repeatedly brought forwards, though?

They've been talking about the Rowboat popsicle forever and a day. I remember reading about it in the 4th Ed BRB. "All the Primarchs are either vanished, dead, or in Hell - except the Spiritual Liege dude who is slowly healing in stasis you guise omg HINT HINT!"

I think even with his return, he's likely going to be trumped by the return of the other Daemon Primarchs who have not yet come to light.

Fall of Cadia 2 mentions "a snake-bodied [REDACTED]" fighting alongside the Emperor's Children somewhere. if Fulgrim reappears and kills Robot Jellyman with a BDSM whip I would buy £2,000 worth of models just on principle.

Desperate enough to continue work on a 10,000 year old project to bring him back to life. I still have lots of questions on how it was done, honestly.

Continue work on? Belisarius Cawl has been sitting on a deus ex machina for 10,000 years, and now, with the Ynnari's help, he's about to deliver it to Rowboat so the Spiritual Liege can walk among us again.

If anything can save 8th Edition it'll be Yvraine and the Ynnari. They're up to something here, and it could be something awesome. Except it won't be because Spiritual Liege cannot lose due to being the new Emprah and zzzzzz....

I don't see how his return makes the Imperium of Man any better than they were before. He's going to be very influential, sure, but he's not going to change the way the IoM will fight this war, even if he wanted to.

The IoM has always had a superhero at its head. The Emprah was fine, because The Emprah was a sealed superhero in (or rather, on) a can. Now Rawbutt is stepping forward to take his "rightful" place as new Emprah and Spiritual Liege, so the IoM is being led by a living, breathing superhero who will descend from heaven to right every wrong and reverse every success the evil aliens and Daemons manage to inflict.

Warhammer 40,000: Age of Girlyman. In stores summer 2017. I think I'll go and play Infinity.

Chapter size, its my biggest bugbear. 1000 of anything operating piecemeal in vast galactic war with their own space fleet was always going to be a failure lore-wise.

I know they are super heroic warriors,.... fine if the spend their days fighting cultists or rebels but they fight super villian deamon associating bad guys,... or planet munching space bugs. so it cancels itself out.

One major battle or missile strike or nuke and your chapter would be nearly wiped out, super hero or not. It was an idiotic design flaw.

Chapters should have been legion sized, while legions should have been in the millions.

If they were to retcon anything, it should be chapter strength.

OldSod wrote:
Chapter size, its my biggest bugbear. 1000 of anything operating piecemeal in vast galactic war with their own space fleet was always going to be a failure lore-wise.

I know they are super heroic warriors,.... fine if the spend their days fighting cultists or rebels but they fight super villian deamon associating bad guys,... or planet munching space bugs. so it cancels itself out.

One major battle or missile strike or nuke and your chapter would be nearly wiped out, super hero or not. It was an idiotic design flaw.

Chapters should have been legion sized, while legions should have been in the millions.

If they were to retcon anything, it should be chapter strength.

I've always just headcanon'd that that was absolutely the case, and any lower numbers espoused in the codices are just ignorance and misinformation.

40k's great like that

It's okay because they actually don't spend most of their time fighting alone. Usually there's guardsmen or pdf or skitarii fighting and they're the special forces.

OldSod wrote:
Chapter size, its my biggest bugbear. 1000 of anything operating piecemeal in vast galactic war with their own space fleet was always going to be a failure lore-wise.

I know they are super heroic warriors,.... fine if the spend their days fighting cultists or rebels but they fight super villian deamon associating bad guys,... or planet munching space bugs. so it cancels itself out.

One major battle or missile strike or nuke and your chapter would be nearly wiped out, super hero or not. It was an idiotic design flaw.

Chapters should have been legion sized, while legions should have been in the millions.

If they were to retcon anything, it should be chapter strength.

This post. X1000.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:
It's okay because they actually don't spend most of their time fighting alone. Usually there's guardsmen or pdf or skitarii fighting and they're the special forces.

There's still not nearly enough. The Eldar and Tau can both wipe out multiple chapters of 1000 in a day with their shooting and don't get me started on Nids. Invasions of Nids would be counted in the billions or even trillions. Good luck, chief. The BA would have been trivially run over by the Tyranids in Shield of Baal.

This probably warrents its own thread but I always thought whole 1000 marine thing could work with a bit more thought.

First off figure they spend 99% of their time fighting rebel PDF, cultists, backwater Xenos races, feral orks and other armies that are lucky to have a missile launcher. The evenly matched table top games we see with marines against other marines, chaos marines, Necrons, Eldar, Nids, well-equipped IG would be rare, Superbowl battles they have once or twice a decade.

But second, and more important, Marines should always be attacking. If there's a million orks attacking a million guardsmen, the marines don't have to go through to the million orks. They slip into orbit, use librarians and surveillance to pin point the warboss, and drop on his camp. Could 100 marines win World War II? If they started in North Dakota sitting in Rhinos, no. If they start in Orbit and drop directly on Hitler's bunker, then yes. And that's how they should be written.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
This probably warrents its own thread but I always thought whole 1000 marine thing could work with a bit more thought.

First off figure they spend 99% of their time fighting rebel PDF, cultists, backwater Xenos races, feral orks and other armies that are lucky to have a missile launcher. The evenly matched table top games we see with marines against other marines, chaos marines, Necrons, Eldar, Nids, well-equipped IG would be rare, Superbowl battles they have once or twice a decade.

But second, and more important, Marines should always be attacking. If there's a million orks attacking a million guardsmen, the marines don't have to go through to the million orks. They slip into orbit, use librarians and surveillance to pin point the warboss, and drop on his camp. Could 100 marines win World War II? If they started in North Dakota sitting in Rhinos, no. If they start in Orbit and drop directly on Hitler's bunker, then yes. And that's how they should be written.

But marines aren't even that good. And there's WAY too much fluffl with them NOT being used that way. The 1000 marine thing can not work on a galactic scale no matter how you use them.