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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They could pull a Shamalamalan and reveal that big E has been dead the whole time.

That would be pretty cool. And the golden throne was maybe a machine planned for a long time to work as a navigation beacon. But its raw brutality required an extreme excuse to justify. That and the black ships...

I think that if such a reveal was made it would be kept secret by a select few. Imagine the average imperial citizen finding out. It would spell doom for the imperium...

Gitdakka wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They could pull a Shamalamalan and reveal that big E has been dead the whole time.

That would be pretty cool. And the golden throne was maybe a machine planned for a long time to work as a navigation beacon. But its raw brutality required an extreme excuse to justify. That and the black ships...

I think that if such a reveal was made it would be kept secret by a select few. Imagine the average imperial citizen finding out. It would spell doom for the imperium...

You can do a lot with that, Keeping the Horus heresy as myth and legend was so important to the settings tone. That i think 40k as more Super hero parody than science Fiction parody now days.
Even the Emperor as a myth, A corpse on the throne is more interesting for the setting than what it has sort of become. The Primarchs are losing there myth status and become just meh, another super hero in the setting. With even the space marines being relegated to just kinda unimportant, despite what GW keeps saying.
Too much Rule of Cool and not enough just cool stuff.

But i like the idea of there being a few thousand candidates to sit there, the emperor being special but with thousands of planets there are thousands of special people. They may have them, but no one wants to touch the switch anyway. And not every candidate will hold up. I huge risk, but they will keep putting people in untill they find the right one.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They could pull a Shamalamalan and reveal that big E has been dead the whole time.

My god,the emperor was Lord Kroak this whole time?!

I for one accept our (un)dead frog overlord!

I wouldn't be surprised if they started to move the lore into a new status quo. It helps to sell models and lore shenanigans inspire the artists. However, they've learned their mistakes with AoS so the progression in 40k will be slower and more gradual.

We will see more Primarchs returning, I would say that's inevitable. They'll probably try to add some internal Imperium conflict because soapy drama sells.

Ultimately I think the reason GW is not opposed to soup is that soup helps to sell storylines for the most part. If you can run the Imperium as a whole, Chaos as a whole, or something like Aeldari as a whole, it becomes easier to release models as you can have "Grand Alliance" factions involved in the conflict and the models could potentially target a larger playerbase than just the players of a single mono-faction. It's one of the reasons the Genestealer Cult was a brilliant move business wise as it meant Tyranid players could "expand" into their own Grand Alliance. A release for either one faction can be considered a release for both factions(unless you are a diehard mono-player).

If you think about it you only have three factions(out of nearly 30) now that don't belong to a Grand Alliance and they could probably change that with a lore progression or adding smaller mono-factions(like Harlequins) to the existing one. So I think Grand Alliance-esque approaches are very possible in the near future.

I'd say they should only bring back more of the primarchs if they don't get on with eachother and it just fractures the Imperium further. There shouldn't be hope, there shouldn't be optimism. That's not the 40K setting.

40k was inspired by many things (Dune, Lord of the Rings, 80's political nightmare of the UK, 2,000 ad comic, and world history) that are sadly not as relevant to today's youth. I grew up in the 80's, 40k's lore feels very much a product of that time. It has since been expanded upon by so many new writers that the old thread no longer seem there, or as significant. There is also the drive to please share holders that has become the driving force, for example Tau are a race that simply don't fit in to one of the central themes of 40k, that theme being stagnation, whether that be technology, or cultural. Tau are dynamic and progressive. Sure it was nice to see a new race added, but it came at the expense of several other races that were killed off in the switch from 2nd to 3rd, or other races that had been hinted at.

40k's lore as it is now is too much of a mess, one foot trying to appeal and keep oldies like myself happy, while the other is trying to appeal to the modern world's take on sci-fi and also compete with video games.

The lore is going to shift and I suspect that we will see a few of the under performing races be killed off. The setting will advance and become something different. Primaris armour for example seem heavily inspired by the likes of Iron Man, where as old Space Marines were influenced by European mediaeval armour, that is to say it got to the point of being so protective that we went back to using weapons designed to smash instead of slice.

TL/DR: GW is no longer the GW of the 80's, so it will naturally change to better reflect modern tastes and trends.

I think the newer lore has been very good, provided you don't just read 40k campaign books.

Watchers of the Throne, Dark Imperium 1&2, Devastation of Baal, Spears of the Emperor have all been fantastic novels. The Primaris introduce another element of drama and conflict, whilst the severity of the great rift adds even more desperation to a crumbling empire that finally realises drastic actions and changes are required, but it might all be too late.

I don't share a sentiment that anything new is a mess in particular. The problem rests with the way the lore was written in the past - very much a dead end that wasn't conducive to new developments.

A lot of people who complain are reading slanted summaries from 1d4 chan or forums, and coming to conclusions with only limited information. Others are stuck in their ways and don't like any change.
The monumental success of GW and Black Library is the evidence that they are doing the right things, and that the outspoken and disenfranchised are a vocal minority.

"I don't share a sentiment that anything new is a mess in particular. The problem rests with the way the lore was written in the past - very much a dead end that wasn't conducive to new developments. " This i think is really interesting, since the old lore really was not. The old lore was very open and left a lot for expansion.
That New writing has not really used half as well as it could have. A great deal of the new is just Taking old ideas and using them as the players wanted for years.
As well as a lot of factions basically left in the dust, Seeming to be lucky to have a place in the current game at all.

Some like the sisters of silence really only need one extra unique kit, and some love and care put to the rules and could be fleshed out as a great faction to play.
And set them up for new kits, even if they are not the most popular army.
One of GWs big faults is a lot of there ideas they just half ass. And then seem to wonder why players are not entirely on board with it.

The problem for me with the old lore was we where rapidly reaching a point where there wasn't much room for new intreasting stories. I mean you can only write about the war for Armageddon, just for example, so often until it gets boring. This doesn;t mean there's no oppertunities for stories in the pre-GS era ADB's Black Legion orgin novels, and there's the War of the Beast novels that well of, intermediate quality was a good diea. but yeah, moving things ahead certainly helped. and I'll agree with Ishagu, the novels he's listed have all been AMAZING, some of the best 40k books I've read in ages. Most of the post great rift novels are amazing, not all of em, but yeah, there's some good ones out there.

In the old lore you were left to compose any battle you wanted, but you were incredibly limited in terms of any new ideas or changes to the status quo of the Imperium, the position of the Tau, etc

How can anything be left for expansion when using a new pattern of melta gun could lead to an exterminatus for tech heresy? lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
The problem for me with the old lore was we where rapidly reaching a point where there wasn't much room for new intreasting stories. I mean you can only write about the war for Armageddon, just for example, so often until it gets boring. This doesn;t mean there's no oppertunities for stories in the pre-GS era ADB's Black Legion orgin novels, and there's the War of the Beast novels that well of, intermediate quality was a good diea. but yeah, moving things ahead certainly helped. and I'll agree with Ishagu, the novels he's listed have all been AMAZING, some of the best 40k books I've read in ages. Most of the post great rift novels are amazing, not all of em, but yeah, there's some good ones out there.

Yes, you get what I'm talking about. Everything was starting to feel the same.

Also I really think people need to read those novels.
If you consider yourself a fan of 40k lore there are some seriously good pay-offs and stories there for you to enjoy. Some of the finest 40k fiction from BL.

 Togusa wrote:
I've been thinking, given everything that has happened with the coming of 8th, the launch of the primaris line, the big changes to parts of the lore, what is the likely hood that we will get an "End Times" Styled event in the coming years in the vain of what happened to WFB?

Nil, I reckon.

Call me crazy but it just seems to me to be the direction they're going.

You're crazy!

They've rebranded WFB to AoS, Games Workshop to "Warhammer." The only thing left to be rebranded is the 40K game and line, and to be honest I think the likelihood of this happening is quite high.

Yeah, but why would they? I mean, what would be the economic incentive for overhauling something that's already generating huge profits?

 Ishagu wrote:
In the old lore you were left to compose any battle you wanted, but you were incredibly limited in terms of any new ideas or changes to the status quo of the Imperium, the position of the Tau, etc

How can anything be left for expansion when using a new pattern of melta gun could lead to an exterminatus for tech heresy? lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
The problem for me with the old lore was we where rapidly reaching a point where there wasn't much room for new intreasting stories. I mean you can only write about the war for Armageddon, just for example, so often until it gets boring. This doesn;t mean there's no oppertunities for stories in the pre-GS era ADB's Black Legion orgin novels, and there's the War of the Beast novels that well of, intermediate quality was a good diea. but yeah, moving things ahead certainly helped. and I'll agree with Ishagu, the novels he's listed have all been AMAZING, some of the best 40k books I've read in ages. Most of the post great rift novels are amazing, not all of em, but yeah, there's some good ones out there.

Yes, you get what I'm talking about. Everything was starting to feel the same.

Also I really think people need to read those novels.
If you consider yourself a fan of 40k lore there are some seriously good pay-offs and stories there for you to enjoy. Some of the finest 40k fiction from BL.

How far are you going back ? Considering at least 20 years ago there was experimentation on tech. The 3rd edition necron book had some.
The 3rd edition eldar book also lists that the reason that its best to leave eldar tech alone is its often trapped, and often ends with the attempt at use causing death.
The imperium was even less stupid xenophobic, and more cautious xenophobic.
With references to both eldar and tau in diplomacy. Since if you do not need to start wars with very dangerous aliens, They did not. GW using all that badly is just what they did.
But current lore is in no way more open to progress, and has just forgot about a lot of what made the old stuff so imaginative as well.

I am going to echo Ishagu's sentiment. Even if I wasn't much into the novels I felt the setting becoming somewhat stale over the years. With all that has happened in the past three years I have felt more invested in the setting because I feel like my factions are playing their part in the grand scheme of the universe. Because of that I am more interested in weird narrative/open campaigns that don't revolve around min-maxing stuff. I feel more inclined to play out the scenarios that are shaping the current landscape. Hell, I loved the Konor event and played a lot during that summer because it felt like things were happening then and there in the 40k universe.

Echoing the other “we’ve had the 40K equivalent already” posts.

 Ishagu wrote:
In the old lore you were left to compose any battle you wanted, but you were incredibly limited in terms of any new ideas or changes to the status quo of the Imperium, the position of the Tau, etc

How can anything be left for expansion when using a new pattern of melta gun could lead to an exterminatus for tech heresy? lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
The problem for me with the old lore was we where rapidly reaching a point where there wasn't much room for new intreasting stories. I mean you can only write about the war for Armageddon, just for example, so often until it gets boring. This doesn;t mean there's no oppertunities for stories in the pre-GS era ADB's Black Legion orgin novels, and there's the War of the Beast novels that well of, intermediate quality was a good diea. but yeah, moving things ahead certainly helped. and I'll agree with Ishagu, the novels he's listed have all been AMAZING, some of the best 40k books I've read in ages. Most of the post great rift novels are amazing, not all of em, but yeah, there's some good ones out there.

Yes, you get what I'm talking about. Everything was starting to feel the same.

Also I really think people need to read those novels.
If you consider yourself a fan of 40k lore there are some seriously good pay-offs and stories there for you to enjoy. Some of the finest 40k fiction from BL.

right there's only so many ways you can tell the "space marine chapter and the guard fights a action agsinst a tyranid invasion" before it becomes "same story differant colour armor" situation. now we've got some new story telling possiabilities. like "how do Primaris Marines handle running agaisnt Necrons" "what happens when chaos lord so and so decides to carve out an empire of his own in an area of imperium nihlus that is guarded by a space marine chapter cut off from resupply and reinforcements?" (which BTW is the premise of the Emperor's Spears) All the old stories can be told, but there are chances for no ones, and new twists on old stories to be told

 Ishagu wrote:


I don't share a sentiment that anything new is a mess in particular. The problem rests with the way the lore was written in the past - very much a dead end that wasn't conducive to new developments.

This is why the new lore is a mess, as it is forgets that the old lore wasn't a dead end. Throughout the codexes and editions new snippets of info were produced that expanded upon the established lore and kept the internal consistency of the themes. 40k was a setting of fallen from grace, decline, and stagnation. In that in mirrored a lot of Greek mythology, and a few world faiths. Even within that seeming limiting setting their was scope for creativity, due to the sheer scale of the galaxy, and also the age and mystery around events.

The new lore is undoing a lot of that, and even worse explaining the mystery... that has robbed the setting of a lot of its appeal and charm. The writers had no planned narrative for the setting to take, no arc or solution to the mysteries.

It is telling that of the original writers few of any remain, it feels like the new writers are wiping the slate clean, so they can tell their own stories.

surte various codices put little side bars with new stuff there but let's face itm, it was never going anywhere. it's like that special box the grey knights have described in their 5E codex. sure it's fun to speculate, but it's clear that GW had no plans to go anywhere with it, it was meaningless

@Stonehorse

The setting has had a lot of the mystery and mysticism removed before the fall of Cadia. We have great insight into the warp, a highly detailed account of the Horus Heresy and the Primarchs, etc. What mystery are you referring to?

No one is saying that things haven't been changed. That doesn't mean it's a mess, it means it's changing. It had to, or it would remain in the same spiral of repetition.

BrianDavion wrote:
surte various codices put little side bars with new stuff there but let's face itm, it was never going anywhere. it's like that special box the grey knights have described in their 5E codex. sure it's fun to speculate, but it's clear that GW had no plans to go anywhere with it, it was meaningless

You mention 5th edition, which is ironic... as that is when 40k died.

The change to Necron background and models, Centurions, Tau Riptide, Grey Knights Dread Knight, etc. That was the start of the rot, the old guard had left, and the new blood wanted to put their stamp on it. That stamp showed a creative bankruptcy, which has only increased and been built upon.

GW learned from the death of WFB that a big dramatic change is too much of a risk, especially with their cash cow (40k), so instead, we'll see slow gradual changes... like all the old marines going to Direct Only, then not being restocked, then rules not being written for old models. Space Marines, namely Primaris Marines are the test bed, if they go well, we'll see the equivalent happen to most if not all the races... my money is on Eldar Aspect Warriors being the next thing GW replace with a new unit(s), then fade the old ones into history.

Most of the old stuff added to expand the lore was inconsequential fluff that had little to nothing that affected the universe at large. After several editions I just zoned out and said "whatever".

If I were to evaluate the old and new based on my own perceptions I would say that the old-style 40k was a good basis for a competitive tourney based game(even if the rules didn't support that) because the fluff was stale and unchanging for the most part. You were there to beat your opponent to pulp and the lore was - for all intents and purposes - a background noise. The new style is more supportive of fluff and narrative play.

It's why Horus Heresy felt better during 7th edition. It felt more progressive(storywise) compared to its 40k counterpart.

Ultimately I understand very well the desire of the game designers to want to evolve the story. There is nothing more uninspiring than working on a world that just never progresses any further than explaining what food delicacy is typical for a certain sector and why you have to sacrifice a battalion of Sororitas for that particular dish(just to make it grimdark enough for the teens). Even if they were to fire all the designers and hire new ones the new ones would still be in favour of evolving the story just to keep themselves interested. People want to be creators in a fantasy universe, not just its aging caretakers.

 stonehorse wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
surte various codices put little side bars with new stuff there but let's face itm, it was never going anywhere. it's like that special box the grey knights have described in their 5E codex. sure it's fun to speculate, but it's clear that GW had no plans to go anywhere with it, it was meaningless

You mention 5th edition, which is ironic... as that is when 40k died.

The change to Necron background and models, Centurions, Tau Riptide, Grey Knights Dread Knight, etc. That was the start of the rot, the old guard had left, and the new blood wanted to put their stamp on it. That stamp showed a creative bankruptcy, which has only increased and been built upon.

GW learned from the death of WFB that a big dramatic change is too much of a risk, especially with their cash cow (40k), so instead, we'll see slow gradual changes... like all the old marines going to Direct Only, then not being restocked, then rules not being written for old models. Space Marines, namely Primaris Marines are the test bed, if they go well, we'll see the equivalent happen to most if not all the races... my money is on Eldar Aspect Warriors being the next thing GW replace with a new unit(s), then fade the old ones into history.

A bit overly dramatic there. Clearly you don't like change.

40k has had it’s end times it’s just that after the “Spectacular” launch of AoS they bottled it and went with 8th edition.

 Ishagu wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
surte various codices put little side bars with new stuff there but let's face itm, it was never going anywhere. it's like that special box the grey knights have described in their 5E codex. sure it's fun to speculate, but it's clear that GW had no plans to go anywhere with it, it was meaningless

You mention 5th edition, which is ironic... as that is when 40k died.

The change to Necron background and models, Centurions, Tau Riptide, Grey Knights Dread Knight, etc. That was the start of the rot, the old guard had left, and the new blood wanted to put their stamp on it. That stamp showed a creative bankruptcy, which has only increased and been built upon.

GW learned from the death of WFB that a big dramatic change is too much of a risk, especially with their cash cow (40k), so instead, we'll see slow gradual changes... like all the old marines going to Direct Only, then not being restocked, then rules not being written for old models. Space Marines, namely Primaris Marines are the test bed, if they go well, we'll see the equivalent happen to most if not all the races... my money is on Eldar Aspect Warriors being the next thing GW replace with a new unit(s), then fade the old ones into history.

A bit overly dramatic there. Clearly you don't like change.

No, I like change, what I don't like is change for the sake of change and/or to sell new models. Case in point, when 5th edition hit the shelves Space Marines were already a complete product line, however GW's policy is to add something new to each faction for each edition, as Space Marines are always first inline, we got Centurions. They are just awful, from the models to the way they were shoehorned into the background, and also due to serving no role that was lacking. That is the sort of change I don't like, it adds nothing of value and just cheapens the overall product.

If those creative resources had been focused on fleshing out a previously mentioned race, say the Hrudd, that would have been much better, and kept within the pre established background, while also advancing the game.

stonehorse wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
surte various codices put little side bars with new stuff there but let's face itm, it was never going anywhere. it's like that special box the grey knights have described in their 5E codex. sure it's fun to speculate, but it's clear that GW had no plans to go anywhere with it, it was meaningless

You mention 5th edition, which is ironic... as that is when 40k died.

Ironic, considering that the fanbase for 40k is at it's largest, the company's profits are through the roof, and community engagement is at an all time high.

Sounds like you really, REALLY don't like change.

The change to Necron background and models

For the better. Now your Necrons have personality and a degree of customisations beyond "hurr durr i'm the terminator" - you can still have that if you like, the lore still accepts that, but they're way more interesting now.

Of course, that's an opinion.

That was the start of the rot, the old guard had left, and the new blood wanted to put their stamp on it. That stamp showed a creative bankruptcy, which has only increased and been built upon.

Creative bankruptcy? What do you mean?
Again, sounds a lot like "anything that came after this arbitrary time period is automatically bad".



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stonehorse wrote:
No, I like change, what I don't like is change for the sake of change and/or to sell new models.

Hate to say it. but they are a company. Once they've sold a full army to someone, what then? Can't guarantee them doing another faction, so you update and create new stuff for an existing one.

Case in point, when 5th edition hit the shelves Space Marines were already a complete product line, however GW's policy is to add something new to each faction for each edition, as Space Marines are always first inline, we got Centurions. They are just awful, from the models to the way they were shoehorned into the background, and also due to serving no role that was lacking. That is the sort of change I don't like, it adds nothing of value and just cheapens the overall product.

But we also got Stormtalons, Stormravens and Stalkers/Hunters, as the aerial and anti-aerial units.

Centurions added a heavy fire support unit. And how else are you supposed to add in a unit, in a faction that is heavily anti-progress without introducing a shift in the setting?
People complained about Centurions being added with no fleshed out lore, and people complained about Primaris being added, saying there shouldn't have been any.

If those creative resources had been focused on fleshing out a previously mentioned race, say the Hrudd, that would have been much better, and kept within the pre established background, while also advancing the game.

And add to the saturation of too many races as it is? We don't need every race to be playable - leave that for homebrew and personal projects.

It's why T'au probably should be expanded more to incorporate more auxiliary elements.

It's true, my interest in Necrons dropped mightily with their 5th Ed codex. It was like a cartoon compared to the previous one.

Yes, you could still make an army based off the older lore, but the gravitas as a faction died for me.

And that's not "muuuh, you don't like change!". It's not, because the addition of the Necron 3rd ed Codex lore was a huuuge change. But it was change I appreciated.

But Necrons were just metal Tyranids before that.

It's more scary in a way, more boring and uninspired in another.

GW will not go full off the deep end, end times (unless it starts to fail). They had the golden goose in 40k and at the time a failing shrinking game in warhammer fantasy. They relaunched because the risk was small, worse case it put it out of their misery best case they throw new models out, streamline the game and get 2 golden geese.

Lucky for them the gamble paid off and they get to move more plastic than ever.

In 40k we are seeing the story move, primarchs return etc, so we are getting a gradual shallow dip into 40k changes. I think we will seem more primarchs and legions fleshed out, more chaos forces and hopefully more xenos forces.

They do seem to be culling old discontinued or never existant kits in the indexes and I expect thosesame index options will not be in 9th edition indexes/codexes unless they decide to make new models for it.

 Ishagu wrote:
But Necrons were just metal Tyranids before that.

It's more scary in a way, more boring and uninspired in another.

That, obviously, is your opinion.

Imo the Necron threat was far greater, and far more sinister during the 3rd ed book. Tyranids wipe out all life, but the Necrons/Ctan would spiritually kill the galaxy by sealing of tge warp, and then keep life around, but harvest humans and other specis like cattle.

And the Pariah lore, daamn. . .

Dai wrote:
Didn't that kind of happen towards the end of 7th

Not exactly. The Gathering Storm just moved the 40K story forward for the first time in 30 years.

SG

I think end times is a good way to put it. Just like the Endtimes the concept of advancing the story is a good one, but the way they did it was completely at odds with what made the original story cool