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 nintura wrote:
You aren't looking at it in his light. The way he wants it, GW could never make new stories and such because they didn't think to make these characters and/or storylines 20 years ago when they started out.

Or they would have to do it smarter than deus-ex-machine that suddenly comes and solves everything.

Everything is solved? Missed that bit

Deus Ex Machina.

Like....like how Horus just sort of dropped his shields, allowing The Emperor to board and fight him one-on-one? I mean, what a stroke of luck, eh?

Or how Khaine wasn't actually destroyed by Slaanesh, and instead became shards of himself because narrative reasons.

Or how Tyranids, a latecomer species to Rogue Trader, just sort of appeared in the galaxy because

Vorian wrote:
Again: what exactly? Everything is perfectly consistent.

There is no Deus Ex Mechanica other than RG coming back fulfilling something that has been a possibility from pretty much the start of the Primarchs existing

I read the Rise Of The Primarch fiction, and it felt dull and lacklustre.

There was no heat coming from those pages.

Vorian wrote:
Everything is solved? Missed that bit

I know right? Seems they dont know how the storyline goes. Lemme explain.

Good guys start off, doing great, gonna win.

Good guys falter, bad guys reveal evil plan. Thing looks grim for the good guys.

Good guys pull off new plan, make a come back. Bad guys struggle.

Repeat the 2nd and 3rd part over and over. Right now, the Imperium is pulling out it's latest plan to survive. The bad guys have just massively increased (new warp rifts, imperium torn in half, etc etc). The good guys are revealing their new plans by making newer, better guys. They have the upswing, but they are still faltering. The empire is still losing ground. They are fighting to not lose, not to retake ground.

So last I checked, they didnt solve anything....

The whole TONE is inconsistent.

I can (fairly happily) accept that some bonkers Admech Magos has been brewing up Hypermarines in his secret Martian Fortress of Secrecy, also making (Slightly) better bolters and (Slightly) better armour. For 10,000 years. And while things repeatedly go to hell, with the Wars for Armageddon, 12 Black Crusades, Nova Terra Interregnum, Age of Apostasy and sudden invasion of the Hive Fleets doing absolutely nothing to help the Imperium even though he could, because he hasn't been told that the time is right. That's properly Imperium bonkers, Grimdark "If only people stopped to think everything wouldn't be so horrid" that we've known and loved for decades. And it avoids the Centurion trap ("Here's a new thing! It's actually been around in the Imperium for centuries but we just didn't mention it before")

I can slightly accept RG making a comeback. That's been seeded in the lore since Index Astartes, though I didn't think they'd pull the trigger.

What should happen, because Grimdark, is that as soon as RG wakes up he takes a look at just how unfeasibly dreadful the Imperium has become and declares a massive genocidal war. Once more the Imperium has sown the seeds of it's own doom by waking a Primarch, which seemed like a great idea but really wasn't.

The only hope previously in 40k was that Mankind would hold onto existence, by the skin of its teeth, long enough to evolve into a sufficiently powerful psychic race that it would be able to resist Chaos. And that wasn't going to happen any time soon. That was Big E's long term goal.

The new setting is going to be a revival story. The way it's set up it can't be anything else. Even if individual events go south, humanity is on a generally upward trend from a bad position (that just got worse due to the big warp tear in the galaxy, but starting from worse and starting from bad are indistinguishable if your overall trajectory is up.

Cramming it into the last 4.3 seconds of M41 is just daft, but they've painted themselves into a corner with that one. I still don't think story progression is a good idea, at all, but they've shot themselves in the foot with that one and there's no way to reattach the toes, so whatever.

Contrast to Warhammer, the setting that they ACTUALLY BLEW UP (still a really daft move) where there was always some degree of hope due to the general technological advances of the Empire, the introduction of the colleges of magic, the fact that the Elves were doing a pretty decent job of keeping the world from being sucked into a vortex... Warhammer was never Grimdark.

Now we've ditched Warhammer, we're in the process of ditching the original feel of 40k, and GW is in danger of having two settings that are tonally identical but with different levels of technology.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Deus Ex Machina.

Like....like how Horus just sort of dropped his shields, allowing The Emperor to board and fight him one-on-one? I mean, what a stroke of luck, eh?

Or how Khaine wasn't actually destroyed by Slaanesh, and instead became shards of himself because narrative reasons.

Or how Tyranids, a latecomer species to Rogue Trader, just sort of appeared in the galaxy because

Deus Ex Machina is a plot device that even the greats have used in the past, with HG Wells' War of the Worlds being a prime example.

There is nothing wrong with using it on a rare occasion, but not as a crutch to prop up an entire universe as GW seem to do.

That's lazy in my book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Graphite wrote:
The whole TONE is inconsistent.

I can (fairly happily) accept that some bonkers Admech Magos has been brewing up Hypermarines in his secret Martian Fortress of Secrecy, also making (Slightly) better bolters and (Slightly) better armour. For 10,000 years. And while things repeatedly go to hell, with the Wars for Armageddon, 12 Black Crusades, Nova Terra Interregnum, Age of Apostasy and sudden invasion of the Hive Fleets doing absolutely nothing to help the Imperium even though he could, because he hasn't been told that the time is right. That's properly Imperium bonkers, Grimdark "If only people stopped to think everything wouldn't be so horrid" that we've known and loved for decades. And it avoids the Centurion trap ("Here's a new thing! It's actually been around in the Imperium for centuries but we just didn't mention it before")

I can slightly accept RG making a comeback. That's been seeded in the lore since Index Astartes, though I didn't think they'd pull the trigger.

What should happen, because Grimdark, is that as soon as RG wakes up he takes a look at just how unfeasibly dreadful the Imperium has become and declares a massive genocidal war. Once more the Imperium has sown the seeds of it's own doom by waking a Primarch, which seemed like a great idea but really wasn't.

The only hope previously in 40k was that Mankind would hold onto existence, by the skin of its teeth, long enough to evolve into a sufficiently powerful psychic race that it would be able to resist Chaos. And that wasn't going to happen any time soon. That was Big E's long term goal.

The new setting is going to be a revival story. The way it's set up it can't be anything else. Even if individual events go south, humanity is on a generally upward trend from a bad position (that just got worse due to the big warp tear in the galaxy, but starting from worse and starting from bad are indistinguishable if your overall trajectory is up.

Cramming it into the last 4.3 seconds of M41 is just daft, but they've painted themselves into a corner with that one. I still don't think story progression is a good idea, at all, but they've shot themselves in the foot with that one and there's no way to reattach the toes, so whatever.

Contrast to Warhammer, the setting that they ACTUALLY BLEW UP (still a really daft move) where there was always some degree of hope due to the general technological advances of the Empire, the introduction of the colleges of magic, the fact that the Elves were doing a pretty decent job of keeping the world from being sucked into a vortex... Warhammer was never Grimdark.

Now we've ditched Warhammer, we're in the process of ditching the original feel of 40k, and GW is in danger of having two settings that are tonally identical but with different levels of technology.

Good post.

What GW needed was evolution, not revolution.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Vorian wrote:
Again: what exactly? Everything is perfectly consistent.

There is no Deus Ex Mechanica other than RG coming back fulfilling something that has been a possibility from pretty much the start of the Primarchs existing

I read the Rise Of The Primarch fiction, and it felt dull and lacklustre.

There was no heat coming from those pages.

Ok, *insert dude meme about opinions*

None of that is Deus Ex Mchanica or inconsistent with the universe.

Graph, I fail to see your point. RG woke up with the imperium engulfed in Chaos, he's now mounting a forlorn hope to try and stem the tide. All perfectly consistent

What would not be consistent is he woke up, ignored Chaos and launched some genocidal campaign against humanity... that's... ... I have no words.

Whether you think the developments fit into the 40k universe or not, you're opinion on that matter is just that, an opinion. It should behoove some to step down from their high horses. If you're respond to someones arguments with snarky oneliners or talk about other users above their heads, you should know that it is you that come across as the culprit.

Progressing a central story line in a galaxy with 400 billion stars always felt sketchy at best. In my personal opinion the GW fluff-writers have been shrinking the "feel" of the galaxy for quite some time now.

As an aside, is psychology rules out of the game now?

Again, as said, the new stuff is not Humanity regaining ground. It's fighting to NOT LOSE. It's survival with no hope of reviving at the current time. This latest crusade as mentioned before, is about retaining and strengthening what the empire has left. It's not going out to beat the enemy on it's grounds.

 nintura wrote:
Again, as said, the new stuff is not Humanity regaining ground. It's fighting to NOT LOSE. It's survival with no hope of reviving at the current time. This latest crusade as mentioned before, is about retaining and strengthening what the empire has left. It's not going out to beat the enemy on it's grounds.

That's another 40k problem in my book: there seems to be no hope of victory.

In World wars, you won by defeating Germany or Britain, depending on what side you were on.

In Star Trek, powerful though they are, you know where the Borg and the Dominion are

etc etc

40k seems to have no end in sight, and that feels weird as well, because how do you defeat Chaos? Hell, at least with the Tyranids, if you blow up enough fleets, you might win, but Chaos?

It's odd to me.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Deus Ex Machina.

Like....like how Horus just sort of dropped his shields, allowing The Emperor to board and fight him one-on-one? I mean, what a stroke of luck, eh?

Lol. You do know Horus did that deliberately right? Not luck. Strike at Terra was intended to be quick strike to win the war in one stroke as Horus knew long term war wouldn't be in his best interest. Especially as he had ensured parts of enemy were out of position.

However this little thing called "time" is funny thing. It keeps going. Terra defended itself better than Horus expected. And 3 little things appeared. Specifically Ultramarine fleet(largest legion of all), Dark angel fleet and Space wolves fleet that were about to reach Sol.

Horus gamble had failed. Big time. He was going to get sandwitched between Emperor's palace which was still going to take a long time to take out and 3 legions worth of reinforcements from rear.

Horus forces would get ANNIHILATED if they stayed there as it was. Only way for Horus was, you guess it, decide the battle right now! So he used chaos to block Emperor from realizing help was almost there and dropped shields.

He WANTED Emperor to come there. It was no luck. It was deliberate GAMBIT. Only way he could win the war. Simply keeping shields up would mean he would get annihilated. Defeated. Killed. Totally crushed. His little rebellion was over...Unless he can kill the Emperor and do it NOW. But unless he can get Emperor out of palace face to face that's not possible as it would take far too long to force way all the way so...Yeah option was get wiped out or drop shields and hope Emperor takes the bait.

Honestly have you even read HH fluff? That was fairly basic thing hard to miss if you read how battle of terra went out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Deus Ex Machina.

Like....like how Horus just sort of dropped his shields, allowing The Emperor to board and fight him one-on-one? I mean, what a stroke of luck, eh?

Er, what?

Horus dropped his shields because he wanted to tempt the Emperor into a 'one on one' fight.

He thought he had the chops to get it done that way, because the Siege was taking too long, and he knew that Loyalist reinforcements were rapidly approaching (Russ, the Lion and maybe Guilliman too at this point?) and knew the Siege was about to be broken.

He gambled on an all or nothing approach and got the 'nothing' result.

How did you miss this?!?

Anyway, 8th Edition is still managing to have me looking forward to playing 40K again - and I say bring back as many Primarchs as possible!

Advance the storyline!

YES!

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 nintura wrote:
Again, as said, the new stuff is not Humanity regaining ground. It's fighting to NOT LOSE. It's survival with no hope of reviving at the current time. This latest crusade as mentioned before, is about retaining and strengthening what the empire has left. It's not going out to beat the enemy on it's grounds.

That's another 40k problem in my book: there seems to be no hope of victory.

In World wars, you won by defeating Germany or Britain, depending on what side you were on.

In Star Trek, powerful though they are, you know where the Borg and the Dominion are

etc etc

40k seems to have no end in sight, and that feels weird as well, because how do you defeat Chaos? Hell, at least with the Tyranids, if you blow up enough fleets, you might win, but Chaos?

It's odd to me.

First you like a post that talks about GrimDark then say it sucks because there's no hope? I dont think you understand what GrimDark means... There's not meant to be hope. It's a struggle. You are playing the elite (well, you were, but not now) of the empire in an attempt to save a world from some kind of the thousand threats out there.




Oh and for clarification, you can never blow up enough Tyranids. Their penultimate swarm is nearly the size of the galaxy in which you are fighting. Possibly larger. Eventually, the universe WILL fall to the nids. The only way to fight them is by not being here i.e fighting from the warp or some alternate dimension. but then it's only a matter of time before they figure out how to breach it, or they move on to the next galaxy.

I came from my FLGS, he said 8th Edition can be pre ordered next week.

 nintura wrote:
Again, as said, the new stuff is not Humanity regaining ground. It's fighting to NOT LOSE. It's survival with no hope of reviving at the current time. This latest crusade as mentioned before, is about retaining and strengthening what the empire has left. It's not going out to beat the enemy on it's grounds.

But that's your opinion. For all you know, the plot may actually develop similar to AoS where the Imperium starts a new crusade to take back what they have lost with these new superhumans.


Me, I dislike the plot development, and I would disagree with one poster who said the community at large had been wanting a plot development for ages. Maybe a vocal minority wanted a plot advancement but I know plenty of players who like things just the way they are, but don't post on forums.

40K the game couldnt be predicated on the great crusade. Why, because the Imperium never lost, ever sector, ever planet they came across was brought into the fold, no one could resist. How fun would it be to play a game where you knew you were playing the victors. In order for people to play all the armies they were created (against super humans), it had to be during a time of decay. If you were playing Space Marines, you are trying to turn back chaos against all hope, if you are playing Xenos you are accelerating the decline of humanity. It gave a certain feel to the actual games you were playing (at least for me). That sense of being on the edge, stemming the tide, protecting those that cannot protect themselves, etc. That's where alot of us wanted the game to stand still. Kind of like if you are playing a game revolving around WW2. Most likely you play that game because you enjoy something about the era, you don't want plot advancement. If people wanted to play WWI games, why would they break out the civil war figures? GW has an era (even on the eve of destruction) where they could still create but yet not advance the timeline and it worked as evidenced by everyone here. If people were so upset with the lack of timeline advancement, they would have left the game.

The AoS timeline is a joke, and was part of the reason I sold off all my fantasy models. There really isn't any grim dark left. Why, because we know now that even if Chaos wins, the good guys will just reappear somehow/someway, GW destroyed that aura of desperation. The same thing could be said for 40k. So if things get too grim, don't worry, some character we haven't ever heard of will appear to save humanity- that really takes something away from the plot which translates onto the battle board.

Granted, some folks don't care about the fluff at all, they like the models, its all good. Also, there are those that care about the fluff, but don't care about the game. However, I would say the majority of us enjoy the fluff which creates a better atmosphere for gaming.

Frankly as soon as the first primarch hit the gaming table for 40k I knew my time was limited in the game. 30k they worked as they were apart of the fluff and frankly there was so many weapons of mass destruction Primarchs could be dealt with more easily than 40k. I don't think that will be the case with 40k and I think battles will devolve into what we see in AoS. I'd ,love to be proven wrong, but I have lived through 30 years with GW and to be honest, I think most of the guys who really influenced the game I love are gone now or in roles where they don't directly influence the game as much. I think the new writers are putting their spin on things and the models and fluff reflect it.

We can argue about opinions and this and that, but I would think people could at least agree (especially the old timers) that the models and influences have changed in the past 2-3 years.

Sorry, as someone who doesn't follow the 40K fiction intensely as some of you evidently do, there is practically no difference in the 40K fiction between 7th and 8th other than Imperium having a clear leader figure now.

Even if Kharadon Overlords become the new squats, it's just a new name for the meat in the grinder of eternal war.

40K is eternal war. No faction will ever win, and for obvious reasons humanity will never truly lose.

I think we'll all have to agree to disagree on the direction of 40k.

 nintura wrote:
Oh and for clarification, you can never blow up enough Tyranids. Their penultimate swarm is nearly the size of the galaxy in which you are fighting. Possibly larger. Eventually, the universe WILL fall to the nids. The only way to fight them is by not being here i.e fighting from the warp or some alternate dimension. but then it's only a matter of time before they figure out how to breach it, or they move on to the next galaxy.

You can never blow up enough 'Nids using methods that obey the laws of nature. Fortunately, the Warp exists.

 adamsouza wrote:
Sorry, as someone who doesn't follow the 40K fiction intensely as some of you evidently do, there is practically no difference in the 40K fiction between 7th and 8th other than Imperium having a clear leader figure now.

Even if Kharadon Overlords become the new squats, it's just a new name for the meat in the grinder of eternal war.

40K is eternal war. No faction will ever win, and for obvious reasons humanity will never truly lose.

There are story elements that tell us which factions will win/lose eventually. But again, that's all based on what codex you read and how much time passes. As stated above, Tyranids will eventually win, at least this galaxy. As deadly as they seem to be in the story right now, you're only seeing the small laps of the wave upon the shores and not seeing the actual breadth of the ocean. The races in this universe will eventually have to flee or find new refuge (like the D-eldar). However, this is probably thousands of years into the future, which we'll never get to.

But you're right in that this moving of the storyline literally means nothing in the end. It solves nothing. Humanity is still beset on all sides (even more so now after this massive warp rift, cutting off half the empire), RG finally woke up though I do like the idea of the Empire having a leader again, I liked it even more when it was just a dead corpse. I was really hoping RG would do something about how the empire has changed to worshiping his dead dad. Maybe declaring war on the highlords of Terra, but maybe he realizes the true danger they are in now and a change of leadership would only weaken the empire.

Jesus I must be getting old. I've always hated playing the humans in these games, certainly imperialistic ones and here I am defending them....

Edit - nevermind someone already made my point for me.

First things first, the story is already written. Nothing anyone writes here in this forums is going to generate change from within GW - while the books are physically in circulation, the new 40k is functionally published and as such it would require two things form GW to 'fix'. fist, it would require admission of error, which they have never done and will never do. Second, it would require a great deal of work to write better, more forward-thinking lore and abandon their current trajectory...

It's a take it or leave it situation for us players. The new Primaris Space Marines are stupid as hell in terms of lore, but the models are noticeably more well-proportioned and look like what the Space Marine models should have looked like ages ago. This is how things will go from now on.

IMO, Warhammer 40,000 just died. I can lament this as long as I want by holding onto my older edition books and playing with other people who do the same, or I can play GW's new game 'Generic Table-top Wargame: Future Fiction Edition'.

That being said - it isn't all bad. There are silver linings to this abysmal new setting.

Since the fine work of better writers has been overturned, almost anything can happen now. Think about that. Sure it means that garbage will also happen, but at least everyone can have their own garbage. Now that RG is back (And let's face it - we all knew that if it ever did happen, it would be RG. GW just can't help themselves). By reviving the most annoying, least interesting, least grim-dark characters in the setting, they took a misstep. But it set a precedent and now that Primarchs are coming back and their Demon Prince pals are climbing out of their warp-rift vacation planets, we'll get to enjoy meaningful characters whose return to the stage would make actual sense. The Lion - who according to the last DA codex is already awake and just chillin' until he decides to actually do something, or Vulkan & Khan, who both have no reason to not be anywhere the writers want. Hell, at this point they should just bring back Dorn since (according to comic book logic) is totally still alive. He probably regenerated his hand or had one genetically remade since they can do that crap in the far future. The only character that wouldn't make sense to come back would be Sanguinius but... what the hell right!? Let's just bring him back and say that RG was secretly reviving him too in his spare statis-time... or that he secretly started it 10,000 years ago and it's just now getting done.

Just remember that at the end of the day, this is pseudo-collectable wargame. I can think of none that have meaningful narratives or quality writing. 40k was a historical anomaly in that regard and it looks like it's time has been spent. It remains the wargame, but the narrative no longer matters.

As a player who has always valued the background, lore, and setting so highly, it is actually quite freeing to see them burn. There is nothing left for GW to gak all over. It has some finality and is sort of freeing.

Well, it's a good thing you're still allowed to post opinions on how you feel.

 nintura wrote:
Well, it's a good thing you're still allowed to post opinions on how you feel.

Cheers to that!

It'd be kind of interesting if Chaos managed to play on RG's hubris and turn him though. Think about it, Guilliman comes back, things are looking up, and then his pride and the immense pressure on him finally makes him snap and the Imperium's brilliant hope turns to awful mockery. It'd essentially be the "Guilliman Heresy", I know, but it'd be proper Grim-Dark, and in a sense it'd be even more tragic than the Heresy because RG would have the benefit of hindsight and the Chaos Gods would STILL win that fight.

Ive always found the human side of the story in any game to be boring. They are always the heroes doing heroic things. They are the action hero stars to their own movies. They have no story, no build up of how they win, just that they do, and always at the last minute when things always seem down and at their lowest. RG coming back and making new marines is just that. It's literally nothing new so why does it change things?

Show me the real stories. You always get to see how a particular chaos lord came into power. You always get to see their plans and how they place the pieces. The bad guys always build the fight, but the good guys just always win through perseverance in the end by strength of will or luck. This is why no matter what GW does with the empire, I'll never care how it affects the over-arching story, because it doesn't matter.

Show me the story of the nids. How they came from another galaxy and are so massive, even on a galactic scale, we cannot see the other side of their swarm.

Show me how the old necrons worshiped their star gods who didn't give two gaks about you or your soul. How they just wanted to devour you like some Final Fantasy villain who just wants to return everything to nothingness.

Even on a more lighter note, show me how the orks dont care about literally anything but fighting. They don't care about dying. That's even simpler and better than anything about the empire.

RazorEdge wrote:
I came from my FLGS, he said 8th Edition can be pre ordered next week.

Thanks for posting, yes it seems there are more and more people from europe reporting this today.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

To clarify if the info is correct this would mean preorder on the Warhammer Fest weekend

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It'd be kind of interesting if Chaos managed to play on RG's hubris and turn him though. Think about it, Guilliman comes back, things are looking up, and then his pride and the immense pressure on him finally makes him snap and the Imperium's brilliant hope turns to awful mockery. It'd essentially be the "Guilliman Heresy", I know, but it'd be proper Grim-Dark, and in a sense it'd be even more tragic than the Heresy because RG would have the benefit of hindsight and the Chaos Gods would STILL win that fight.

How about it turns out to be mecha Gulliman, as part of a Mars/Necron conspiracy to make the empire of man mindless lackeys of some far superior Dynasty.

Lulz aside, Im really iterested to see what they do with the BA now. GW struggle to make them interresting in the actual game,so perhaps they thought of something else than death company to let them compete with vanilla marines.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

Deus Ex Machina is a plot device that even the greats have used in the past, with HG Wells' War of the Worlds being a prime example.

There is nothing wrong with using it on a rare occasion, but not as a crutch to prop up an entire universe as GW seem to do.

That's lazy in my book.

To be fair, the actual greats found any Deus ex Machina plot devices to be lazy writing. Plato, Aristotle and Antiphanes all criticized the use of it more than two thousands years ago.

Another new rumour I head was that GW have taken delivery of a tankful of Carcharodons and a couple of new motorbikes.

Rumour is there going to be used sometime in the next few weeks.