Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How do?

Just semi-clocked a thread about the Men of Iron, a mythical rumour type thing from pre-Imperial History. And as these things do, it got my grey matter fizzing about what other horrors might've occurred during The Long Night.

Not only are there fully sentient machines taking over the role of master (no, not The Master. He's a timelord, silly), but all sorts of psychic abominations and genetically enhanced warriors and monsters.

Just typing this, I've figured it might be most interesting limited to a single planetary system, or part of a sector. But I for one would love to see a post-apocalyptic type game set in those darkest of days, simply because it's got so much narrative potential.

Please note, I've only used '20k' as a cheap monicker. I'm not looking to focus this on a specific century - just the general era.

What I personally would like to see is the war between the Old Ones and the C'tan with their Necrontyr slaves receive the Horus Heresy level of treatment.

The Xenos of 40k have a rich and colourful background, it is a crying shame that it isn't fleshed out more.

I think that's something I'd have to know more about first, before I jumped in either way. We only really have the vaguest snippets of fluff about that time period.

Which is what makes it interesting

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Which is what makes it interesting

In the same way the Horus Heresy was interesting before the books were written and revealed that everyone involved was as dumb as a pile of rocks

Sometimes things in a fictional world's past shouldn't be fleshed out as the imaginations of the readers/viewers/players can come up with stories and ideas miles beyond what the actual writers of the universe can.

When I first started playing 40k in early 2nd ed, Rhana Dandra was a small but very immersive lore snippet in Eldar codex. It held the entire tragedy of post-fall Eldar and really, really built the character for this faction for me. And then, many years later, we got Death Masque and now I have to live solely in headcanon.

Then, reinvented Necromunda somehow lacks this thick climate of the original - models are a bit to fancy, official painting schemes and artwork to clean, boards to colourfull...

I'm not interested in HH anyhow, quite shallow story blown out of scale with only Mechanicum models being something trully fresh compared to regular 40k range, so I cannot tell if it's nailed or failed attempt at a dark part of faction history as it never got me hooked.

All of those examples show that '80-'90 GW that could make something grimdark enough to be interesting depiction of The Long Night, or Eldar Fall or War in Heaven isn't there anymore.

And we already have a setting/community grimdark, open and mouldable enough to tell '20k' stories pretty well - your depiction in OP just screams Inquisimunda20k to me...

The problem with the 20K setting is that the “war” against the Men Of Iron was essentially hiding in the deepest bunker possible and praying that they killed themselves. The Men of Iron had constructs capable of literally cutting chunks out of planets, “coiling across space and consuming suns”, and all sorts of borderline-godlike feats. It’s less Terminator and more Clash Of The Titans except the Titans are even more OP.

 Verviedi wrote:
The problem with the 20K setting is that the “war” against the Men Of Iron was essentially hiding in the deepest bunker possible and praying that they killed themselves. The Men of Iron had constructs capable of literally cutting chunks out of planets, “coiling across space and consuming suns”, and all sorts of borderline-godlike feats. It’s less Terminator and more Clash Of The Titans except the Titans are even more OP.

Mot of the combat in 40K can't be represented in 40K. Epic and BFG were about the closest you can come to representing the scope. Plus you already have at least 2 factions that represent cataclysmic weapons of mass destruction using armies: Necrons and Tyranids. Seriously, could a single chapter of SM realistically stop a tyranid splinter fleet from eating a planet? If the Necrons need a planet destroying super weapon they can easily pull them out of their metal butts from the War of Heaven whenever they need it. Is it really a big deal that you can destroy an entire star system and not have a real impact on the setting due to the scope being a galactic scale.


Personally I think that there is a lot of potential in a 20K setting with actual sci-fi humans, a technological singularity, and pre-fall Eldar as well as potential for new xenos threats. On other threads about 20K, the major complaints against it I found were that there isn't any real fluff on 20K (I personally see this as a good thing as it gives you more freedom to do more unique things), they might not do a good job with it, it would take away from 40K releases, and one of my all time favorites: that the setting already exists in the book Dune. I think the big resistance to it is one that is never spoken though and that is that there are no Space Marines, so the bulk of 40K players don't like the idea.

Ah yes... back when Orks ruled the galaxy until GW decided to give Goldenman and girlyman plot armour to defeat da Orkz.

All this time I thought it was WAAAGH, apparently it is pronounced WAAAAH!

Sounds like a suitable idea to run a role playing game in.

If it floats your boat go for it and enjoy it. I'll pass, but if a stunning model results, share it.