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 Mr Morden wrote:
No I think you are missing his point - you claim the story has changed but w are saying it has Not - its just a different character trying to do stuff.

Considering that the nature of the character and what he represents is the crux of the issue, it is not that simple.

Did 40k "Break" for you the last time one man, Vandire took control over the whole Imperium?

No. That was a cool story, and exactly the sort of story they could do if they wanted things to happen. And it was done without any Primarchs or other demigods. Vandire and Macharius are examples of the sort of heroes and villains they should use more; ultimately completely normal people who through their cunning and strength of will achieve great things; not because they were magically empowered 'chosen ones'.

Or Living Saints walked amngst the Mortals

I don't like that the living saints have become so explicitly 'magical.' So living saints are fine when they're left more vague. More Jead d'Arc, less Suprgirl.

or the Necron fluff completely changed their entire bak story and that of the galaxy?

I kinda hate Necrons, they were a bad addition to the setting and they completely changed the Eldar Background for them. End then the C'tans were inserted anywhere and were behind everything. So yeah, that was kinda terrible. Good thing about that was however that most of it concerns super ancient history, so thus really do not affect how the setting currently functions.

In fact when you read anything written by Matt Ward? Especially see Grey Knights.

There is indeed a lot of colossally stupid stuff there. But most of that is isolated incidents that do not really much affect the setting as a whole.

If not why not?

Whilst I said that Guillimans return was the 'worst thing to happen to 40K setting' I in no way imply that other stupid things would not have happened before. It is just that logically in a list of things there is something that must be place on the top, and for me it is that.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:
We will see what GeeDubs can make of the current changes, it maybe for the better or for the worse, execution is what matters.

Narratively to me 40k has never been about "good guys" and "bad guys". Not about good and evil fighting for the fate of the universe. It's just a setting that takes place in last days of an old crumbling empire, slowly torn apart by it's own unsustainability and the new powers coming to fill the power vacuum. At best various people and cultures wish to spin a narrative of some grand struggle, maybe even try to create one for their own perceived benefit, people like the Tau or Emperor who see the world as one of binary choices.

If anything 40k is a satirical cautionary tale about empires and dictators. There is hope in this universe, but it's just not for the trouble making factions we see and play, but for the rest of the galaxy, for those countless civilizations, human or otherwise, who mostly just mind their own business, and so never get models or attention.

I do fear that 40k, while superficially looking the same, is loosing some of that deeper meaning for the sake of shallow fanficcy-ness that GS and much of the 8ed fluff have been.

Yes, absolutely.

40K was never unique. Just a patchwork of rip-offs of much greater minds.

Unique in how it combined them, perhaps.

they made primaris marines larger than old models? thats going to annoy the hell out of me. I can't play with my old models and primaris marines at the same time then. I'd OCD the hell out.

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
they made primaris marines larger than old models? thats going to annoy the hell out of me. I can't play with my old models and primaris marines at the same time then. I'd OCD the hell out.

Yeah, they look weird together. Thus it is only Primaris for from now on; the old marines are shelved. And as much I dislike the fluff, the models are gorgeous, and ultimately that's the most important thing in this hobby.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Unique in how it combined them, perhaps.

If you steal from enough sources you're bound to get some unique interactions.

Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Same can be said about every special character in the entire game.

Can't worry about fluff on the table top. Would be great if fluffy armies could actually win but they don't.

Daemonkin armies are fluffy and they can do well on the table.

Also, I disagree that Rowboat joining the setting is as big a change as you're making it out to be Crimson. The Imperium is still barely holding on, in fact it's under more pressure than ever. That's why GW needed to add girlyman, because if they hit the Imperium with all these disasters without any added suppourt then that would have been the end.

I mean, I would agree with you if RG and company had come back a bit earlier, showed up at the battle of cadia, beat abaddon's ass and crushed the traitor legions back into the Eye, but that's not what happened. What happened is the Imperium got fething blown up, right down the middle, and now everything is falling apart, and RG is the only thing holding it together. Just like the previous iteration of legendary heroes like Dante, Calgar, and Azrael were just barely holding things together before the 13th Black Crusade and the Rift.

The status quo is the same

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

Lemondish wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

There is a slight tonal difference between a game where people bring special characters all the time - and games where you don't get them at all, its all "your dudes".

But really that has varied by edition - and by faction. Most characters have been bad for their points (and I suspect if you compiled a list this would hold up in 8th). The ones that are not however have always been spammed. I mean there have been whole editions where you didn't encounter a Farseer who wasn't Eldrad.

It's just a natural outcome of playing competitively. People are always going to bring the best stuff. If that is named characters, then you're going to see a lot of them.

Spoletta wrote:
I prefer a dime in a dozen which is interesting to a special snowflake which is boring.

As long as you keep this setup where humanity must lose at all costs, all your narrative will always be "Here look, the heroes won the day in this battle. Oh by the way while this was happening they lost the bigger battle off screen". 100% of the times. You are always shown the little event where they win and are always told that the bad guys have won in the larger scale. So if you happen to play the bad guys, you always get said that you are winning and yet you lose in all narrations. This.Gets.Boring.

Also, as a bad guy, you will never get handed significant wins, since the imperium could not take a blow like that and the setting would be done for.

I'm afraid that most people do not get, and never did, the idea behind 40k 'static' setting (which it used to be in WHF too). The idea was that people could make their own stories about what was going to be the "next step". This is why the lore contained hints about terrible future invasions, Primarchs or Saints possibly coming back, etc. This is original reason why there were two missing legions.

Progressing lore has been tried in number of gaming settings: WM/H, L5R, Battletech and so on. It doesn't work, and why? This is because the lore must be written within the strict contraints of the product catalogue. Lore writers can never write anything really decisive because that might remove raison d'être behind an unit or faction. Imagine if Lord of the Rings was written that way. Could there ever a be scene where Ring is destroyed, Orcs wiped out and most of the Elves sail to Valinor? Of course not. All the victories and defeats would be incomplete, sometimes Sauron might capture Osgiliath with help of Mithril Claw of Doom, until some brave Dwarf threw it in a volcano, resulting to his armies retreating to where they were and so on. Endless variations of the same theme over and over again. One might maintain it for a short while, but sooner or later it is going to look ludicrous and destroy the appeal of the lore.

Tyel wrote:

Lemondish wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

There is a slight tonal difference between a game where people bring special characters all the time - and games where you don't get them at all, its all "your dudes".

But really that has varied by edition - and by faction. Most characters have been bad for their points (and I suspect if you compiled a list this would hold up in 8th). The ones that are not however have always been spammed. I mean there have been whole editions where you didn't encounter a Farseer who wasn't Eldrad.

I remember when no one played named characters at all because they were banned in tournaments, mostly because a lot of them were completely broken.

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
they made primaris marines larger than old models? thats going to annoy the hell out of me. I can't play with my old models and primaris marines at the same time then. I'd OCD the hell out.

Primaris are meant to be bigger. It is stated in the fluff that they are physically larger than regular space marines.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
It's just a natural outcome of playing competitively. People are always going to bring the best stuff. If that is named characters, then you're going to see a lot of them.

Indeed. That's why the vast vast VAST majority of people who play GW games don't play competitively. It's not a game that is meant to be played super competitively, never was, never will.

Backfire wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I prefer a dime in a dozen which is interesting to a special snowflake which is boring.

As long as you keep this setup where humanity must lose at all costs, all your narrative will always be "Here look, the heroes won the day in this battle. Oh by the way while this was happening they lost the bigger battle off screen". 100% of the times. You are always shown the little event where they win and are always told that the bad guys have won in the larger scale. So if you happen to play the bad guys, you always get said that you are winning and yet you lose in all narrations. This.Gets.Boring.

Also, as a bad guy, you will never get handed significant wins, since the imperium could not take a blow like that and the setting would be done for.

I'm afraid that most people do not get, and never did, the idea behind 40k 'static' setting (which it used to be in WHF too). The idea was that people could make their own stories about what was going to be the "next step". This is why the lore contained hints about terrible future invasions, Primarchs or Saints possibly coming back, etc. This is original reason why there were two missing legions.

Progressing lore has been tried in number of gaming settings: WM/H, L5R, Battletech and so on. It doesn't work, and why? This is because the lore must be written within the strict contraints of the product catalogue. Lore writers can never write anything really decisive because that might remove raison d'être behind an unit or faction. Imagine if Lord of the Rings was written that way. Could there ever a be scene where Ring is destroyed, Orcs wiped out and most of the Elves sail to Valinor? Of course not. All the victories and defeats would be incomplete, sometimes Sauron might capture Osgiliath with help of Mithril Claw of Doom, until some brave Dwarf threw it in a volcano, resulting to his armies retreating to where they were and so on. Endless variations of the same theme over and over again. One might maintain it for a short while, but sooner or later it is going to look ludicrous and destroy the appeal of the lore.

This so much and why it feels like the idea that things are worse than ever feels hollow and poorly shown. GW can't due to the need to continue to sell the same models from the same faction do anything to radical but continues to add more and more new and shiny things. The IOM is worse than ever, but some how now has the resources to make even better marines with even better weapons, including lost tech. We now how even better knights, and I'm sure that's just the start. So any fluff of o no half the IOM is in trouble feels meaningless.

Backfire wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I prefer a dime in a dozen which is interesting to a special snowflake which is boring.

As long as you keep this setup where humanity must lose at all costs, all your narrative will always be "Here look, the heroes won the day in this battle. Oh by the way while this was happening they lost the bigger battle off screen". 100% of the times. You are always shown the little event where they win and are always told that the bad guys have won in the larger scale. So if you happen to play the bad guys, you always get said that you are winning and yet you lose in all narrations. This.Gets.Boring.

Also, as a bad guy, you will never get handed significant wins, since the imperium could not take a blow like that and the setting would be done for.

I'm afraid that most people do not get, and never did, the idea behind 40k 'static' setting (which it used to be in WHF too). The idea was that people could make their own stories about what was going to be the "next step". This is why the lore contained hints about terrible future invasions, Primarchs or Saints possibly coming back, etc. This is original reason why there were two missing legions.

Progressing lore has been tried in number of gaming settings: WM/H, L5R, Battletech and so on. It doesn't work, and why? This is because the lore must be written within the strict contraints of the product catalogue. Lore writers can never write anything really decisive because that might remove raison d'être behind an unit or faction. Imagine if Lord of the Rings was written that way. Could there ever a be scene where Ring is destroyed, Orcs wiped out and most of the Elves sail to Valinor? Of course not. All the victories and defeats would be incomplete, sometimes Sauron might capture Osgiliath with help of Mithril Claw of Doom, until some brave Dwarf threw it in a volcano, resulting to his armies retreating to where they were and so on. Endless variations of the same theme over and over again. One might maintain it for a short while, but sooner or later it is going to look ludicrous and destroy the appeal of the lore.

sure except 40k didn;'t progress the lore at all and had the exact same thing happen. There is a balance in moving the lore, what was happening is that 40k was getting stale, GW needed to shake things up a bit. now that they have I expect we'll return to the days of "event conflicts" ala 3rd editions armageddon, black crusade etc days

 Crimson wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
they made primaris marines larger than old models? thats going to annoy the hell out of me. I can't play with my old models and primaris marines at the same time then. I'd OCD the hell out.

Yeah, they look weird together. Thus it is only Primaris for from now on; the old marines are shelved. And as much I dislike the fluff, the models are gorgeous, and ultimately that's the most important thing in this hobby.

Same reason I shelved my old Death Guard army. Every unit was the Forge World DG conversion kits and I had spent a lot of time on them over the years. With the release of the new DG range all the models were a much shorter and the scale was just off, plus the new models were amazing so naturally a reboot was in order.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I prefer a dime in a dozen which is interesting to a special snowflake which is boring.

As long as you keep this setup where humanity must lose at all costs, all your narrative will always be "Here look, the heroes won the day in this battle. Oh by the way while this was happening they lost the bigger battle off screen". 100% of the times. You are always shown the little event where they win and are always told that the bad guys have won in the larger scale. So if you happen to play the bad guys, you always get said that you are winning and yet you lose in all narrations. This.Gets.Boring.

Also, as a bad guy, you will never get handed significant wins, since the imperium could not take a blow like that and the setting would be done for.

I'm afraid that most people do not get, and never did, the idea behind 40k 'static' setting (which it used to be in WHF too). The idea was that people could make their own stories about what was going to be the "next step". This is why the lore contained hints about terrible future invasions, Primarchs or Saints possibly coming back, etc. This is original reason why there were two missing legions.

Progressing lore has been tried in number of gaming settings: WM/H, L5R, Battletech and so on. It doesn't work, and why? This is because the lore must be written within the strict contraints of the product catalogue. Lore writers can never write anything really decisive because that might remove raison d'être behind an unit or faction. Imagine if Lord of the Rings was written that way. Could there ever a be scene where Ring is destroyed, Orcs wiped out and most of the Elves sail to Valinor? Of course not. All the victories and defeats would be incomplete, sometimes Sauron might capture Osgiliath with help of Mithril Claw of Doom, until some brave Dwarf threw it in a volcano, resulting to his armies retreating to where they were and so on. Endless variations of the same theme over and over again. One might maintain it for a short while, but sooner or later it is going to look ludicrous and destroy the appeal of the lore.

Someone who gets it. People were clamouring for years for GW to "advance" the story in WFB and look what happened there - the old world went kaboom and half of the players armies were invalidated overnight. (AOS is improving but has taken them 3 years to get to this point)

The Newman wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Lemondish wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

There is a slight tonal difference between a game where people bring special characters all the time - and games where you don't get them at all, its all "your dudes".

But really that has varied by edition - and by faction. Most characters have been bad for their points (and I suspect if you compiled a list this would hold up in 8th). The ones that are not however have always been spammed. I mean there have been whole editions where you didn't encounter a Farseer who wasn't Eldrad.

I remember when no one played named characters at all because they were banned in tournaments, mostly because a lot of them were completely broken.

Yeah, remember how broken Coteaz was at 185 points?
Nope. Me neither.

Please tell us how many of the special characters were broken.

So I wanna touch on Centurion suits for a bit

So this was a pretty recent kit, more or less. (I actually like them, the Devs at least) As we know these units got ret conned into the lore. Which people tend to not like.

So how do you add new models/units without moving forward?

Most special characters were generally worse than the generic ones. I play mostly space marines and at least in 7th at least, you saw the Khan and that's about it. Smash F----er wasn't a special character and he was far more problematic.

 fraser1191 wrote:
So I wanna touch on Centurion suits for a bit

So this was a pretty recent kit, more or less. (I actually like them, the Devs at least) As we know these units got ret conned into the lore. Which people tend to not like.

So how do you add new models/units without moving forward?

Generally, by looking backward. The Trygon, Haruspex, Hunter, Vindicator, Wave Serpent etc. were all new kits to 40K at some point. But they weren't new units in the lore, they already existed in Epic versions of 40K.

Or specifically in the Centurions case, I think it would have gone better without saying "Yep, they've always been here!". Rather better was the introduction of the Land Raider Crusader, which was that it existed specifically for a chapter that you're just hearing about in detail (the Black Templars during 3rd Ed.) and then allowing the other chapters to use it more over the next few years. Not to mention the Land Raider was already a familiar concept/kit.

But half the problem with the Centurions is their aesthetic and their goofy man-in-armor-in-armor concept. I know 40K has some goofy things about it but the Centurions were pretty jarring.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

The Newman wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Lemondish wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

There is a slight tonal difference between a game where people bring special characters all the time - and games where you don't get them at all, its all "your dudes".

But really that has varied by edition - and by faction. Most characters have been bad for their points (and I suspect if you compiled a list this would hold up in 8th). The ones that are not however have always been spammed. I mean there have been whole editions where you didn't encounter a Farseer who wasn't Eldrad.

I remember when no one played named characters at all because they were banned in tournaments, mostly because a lot of them were completely broken.

Yeah, remember how broken Coteaz was at 185 points?
Nope. Me neither.

Please tell us how many of the special characters were broken.

3rd edition. A lot of the Chaos characters would destroy an opposing army all by themselves if you got good over-run rolls, Abaddon in particular. The Nightbringer and the Deciever were also in the 300-400 point range and perfectly capable of tanking and then destroying everything you could hope to throw at them. The big ork dude was up there too.

 fraser1191 wrote:
So I wanna touch on Centurion suits for a bit

So this was a pretty recent kit, more or less. (I actually like them, the Devs at least) As we know these units got ret conned into the lore. Which people tend to not like.

So how do you add new models/units without moving forward?

I think the backlash with Centurions wasn't so much to do with a new unit being hand waved into existence as always being there, it was more to do with the 10 year old fanboy design of "let's have power armoured dudes wear more power armour!"

Aggressors fixed what Centurions should have been from the start

The Newman wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

The Newman wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Lemondish wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

There is a slight tonal difference between a game where people bring special characters all the time - and games where you don't get them at all, its all "your dudes".

But really that has varied by edition - and by faction. Most characters have been bad for their points (and I suspect if you compiled a list this would hold up in 8th). The ones that are not however have always been spammed. I mean there have been whole editions where you didn't encounter a Farseer who wasn't Eldrad.

I remember when no one played named characters at all because they were banned in tournaments, mostly because a lot of them were completely broken.

Yeah, remember how broken Coteaz was at 185 points?
Nope. Me neither.

Please tell us how many of the special characters were broken.

3rd edition. A lot of the Chaos characters would destroy an opposing army all by themselves if you got good over-run rolls, Abaddon in particular. The Nightbringer and the Deciever were also in the 300-400 point range and perfectly capable of tanking and then destroying everything you could hope to throw at them. The big ork dude was up there too.

Which proves you remember incorrectly. So thanks for proving me right. Nightbringer and Deceiver being broken? Please.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
So I wanna touch on Centurion suits for a bit

So this was a pretty recent kit, more or less. (I actually like them, the Devs at least) As we know these units got ret conned into the lore. Which people tend to not like.

So how do you add new models/units without moving forward?

Generally, by looking backward. The Trygon, Haruspex, Hunter, Vindicator, Wave Serpent etc. were all new kits to 40K at some point. But they weren't new units in the lore, they already existed in Epic versions of 40K.

Or specifically in the Centurions case, I think it would have gone better without saying "Yep, they've always been here!". Rather better was the introduction of the Land Raider Crusader, which was that it existed specifically for a chapter that you're just hearing about in detail (the Black Templars during 3rd Ed.) and then allowing the other chapters to use it more over the next few years. Not to mention the Land Raider was already a familiar concept/kit.

But half the problem with the Centurions is their aesthetic and their goofy man-in-armor-in-armor concept. I know 40K has some goofy things about it but the Centurions were pretty jarring.

I think centurians would have been gone better if they made it more obvious it was a normal marine with a exoskeleton for heavy weapons. I understand the concept of them but yeah the design could have been better.

Anyway yeah, previous units that are established in the fluff, there's oodles of work there that's for sure. But that number is finite none the less. By moving forward even just a little it opens the flood gates for new concepts for things that never appeared in the fluff before. I assume Tau have units in the fluff that aren't modeled yet but compared to other races you can't slot new stuff in, their worlds haven't been decimated like the Imperium

But with the crusader that's a little different that was a tank that's been around for quite a while with the Black Templars eventually doing a conversion. Centurian suits are like nothing else in the Imperium, even the redemptor Dreadnought has similarities to Kastellan robots.


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 NurglesR0T wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
So I wanna touch on Centurion suits for a bit

So this was a pretty recent kit, more or less. (I actually like them, the Devs at least) As we know these units got ret conned into the lore. Which people tend to not like.

So how do you add new models/units without moving forward?

I think the backlash with Centurions wasn't so much to do with a new unit being hand waved into existence as always being there, it was more to do with the 10 year old fanboy design of "let's have power armoured dudes wear more power armour!"

Aggressors fixed what Centurions should have been from the start

Yeah I want a nemesis dreadknight but not that model. That's where I draw the line

Yeah, the problem with the Centurions was that they looked completely silly.

 Crimson wrote:
Yeah, the problem with the Centurions was that they looked completely silly.

Those are definitely a model without a lot of middle ground. Either you think they're silly or you think they're one of the best looking models in the range.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

The Newman wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

The Newman wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Lemondish wrote:

Mordian2016 wrote:
Seeing Guilliman running around every SM table diminishes the fluff about him

Eh, I don't think any action taken in a game like this can be said to 'diminish the fluff'. I mean, I killed both Morty and Magnus last week. Should I be upset that their role in the fluff is diminished because a scout sniped one and the other took a thunder hammer to the toe from a nobody? I hardly think that's fair.

That's not to say the prevalence of Guilliman in marine lists today isn't annoying - it's just annoying for reasons other than him being really good, a cool model, and a neat dude.

There is a slight tonal difference between a game where people bring special characters all the time - and games where you don't get them at all, its all "your dudes".

But really that has varied by edition - and by faction. Most characters have been bad for their points (and I suspect if you compiled a list this would hold up in 8th). The ones that are not however have always been spammed. I mean there have been whole editions where you didn't encounter a Farseer who wasn't Eldrad.

I remember when no one played named characters at all because they were banned in tournaments, mostly because a lot of them were completely broken.

Yeah, remember how broken Coteaz was at 185 points?
Nope. Me neither.

Please tell us how many of the special characters were broken.

3rd edition. A lot of the Chaos characters would destroy an opposing army all by themselves if you got good over-run rolls, Abaddon in particular. The Nightbringer and the Deciever were also in the 300-400 point range and perfectly capable of tanking and then destroying everything you could hope to throw at them. The big ork dude was up there too.

Which proves you remember incorrectly. So thanks for proving me right. Nightbringer and Deceiver being broken? Please.

I'll cop to remembering the Star Gods out of the wrong edition, they weren't even introduced until 4th. The Nightbringer could still tank every heavy weapon you could fit into a 2000 point list for 3-4 turns in a row without dying and he'd slaughter anything he could reach. Although it could take him a few rounds to demolish a big unit, he didn't have that many attacks.

My dislike for the Centurion models were one they looked kind silly, like can that thing even walk? The other were they weren't needed. The marine line didn't need much other than scouts getting a refreshed kit IMO. The range is more or less complete and GW should have focused it's energies one getting the other factions into plastic or digging into the fluff and bringing in new factions.