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Two things I miss from the older (RT to 3rd edition) artworks:

1.) Black and White pencil sketches. The full color art is nice and all, but it just doesn't do it for me the same way the old artwork did and in many cases has somewhat of a CGI feel to it. Might just be nostalgia though.

2.) Art that isn't exclusively combat-related. The overwhelming majority of art I am seing in recent codizes/rule books is the samey motive of "one army, crammed shoulder to shoulder, is engaging another army, also crammed shoulder to shoulder, in close combat while both sides fire every single weapons barrel at point blank range."
The older art also had those scenes but not overwhelmingly so. There were also many artworks about landscapes, space travel and the bizarre civilian life people in the Imperium have.

Aash wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
"Grimdark" started, need I remind you, as a joke term for bad writing.

I’m unaware of “grimdark” originating as a term for bad writing. Rather it is a term used specifically in reference to the 40K tag line: “ In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimdark

I also wouldn't equate it with just 'horrible fascism' of an utterly totalitarian state that purges it's own citizens routinely (although that is part of it). Instead, for me (and this is going back to 1st edition) it was always meant to be about the loss of hope.
Humanity had it's one, great chance at ascending to something greater and they blew it. Now, all that remains is war. And, it's 40,000 years in the future, so we're still doing it!
It sprung very much from the old late 80s British satire of 2000AD, of William Gibson, of Dune and of Thatcher's Great Britain - a negative image of Roddenbury's Star Trek - but it was all so bleak that you had to have some satirical humour in there, which you see dotted around Rogue Trader and the books that came out at that time.
Over the years you have these concepts (that were very much meant to be tongue in cheek) - entire world sentenced to destruction via killer virus and orbital bombardment - because of a single case of Chaos etc. actually become a serious concept.
And so that almost 'comedic' interpretation (of how bad things are, deliberately over the top) became an actual reality within the game world. I think we saw that a lot from the change from 1st to 2nd edition, although bits did still remain (the Orks essentially being football hooligans and London dockers and having a selection of mk1 exploding legs, up until 3rd/4th editions).

You'll see Rick Priestly, Dan Abnett talk about this in the same way, and it's something that has diverged as a setting as the game, miniatures and background have developed over the past decade where the part about 'loss of hope' has receded into the background (and there have been quite a few discussions in the Background section about this topic).
'New Designs' of armour and vehicles being discovered that are an improvement on what went before, troops that are 'immune' to Chaos (!)
Heroes that were dead ("frozen in status at the moment of their death, the fatal wound still visible") have been replaced by 10" high miniatures resplendent in brilliant primary colours.
The level of 'enemy' has been turned up to 11 too, but there isn't the same overriding atmosphere of pending doom that surrounded earlier editions, and it's now taken on an aspect of Alliance vs. Horde helping to prompt a never-ending selection of new rules and miniatures.

Perhaps what sums it up more than anything else is the Crimson Fists, who went from being all but annihilated by their own missiles accidentally landing on their own troops in Rogue Trader (them being destroyed on the front page of the rulebook, but fighting on till the last which was the heroic bit!) to now still being about and fighting as a chapter.

the ancient wrote:


I think theyre just trying to appeal to the asian market, every since they made dow3. With its apm, bright flashy colours for everything.

You know, the one thing that's never changed since 4th edition is idiots who think they know things proclaiming that It's All Over Now, GW Is Just Going To Market To The Asians And Turn 40k Into One Of Those Brightly Colored Japanime Shows.

Pretty much ever since the Tau entered the game people have been shrieking about this, and - while it's stupid to assume any company operating in a capitalist framework would say NO to any market segment - the idea that GW is going to change the game to be brighter to try and market to Asia has never stopped being the dumbest take.

1) Asian media is on average MUCH more in line with 1980s british grimdark than, for example, american media made for teenagers. GW would never be aiming to enter the market space pitching 40k as an alternative to Sailor Moon or Hello Kitty, they'd be trying to compete with the gunpla market, which tends to feature some pretty dark fething stories. Asian media is pretty much the only place where you can summarize a story like "and then the monsters from beyond our reality tore open a giant portal that warped and destroyed the world, and that was the end" and someone might say "wait, which thing are you describing here?"

2) Trying to compete with the gunpla market. Gee whiz where should we bring our hideously overpriced plastic model game and try to heavily market it enough to alter the story? Gwarsh why don't we try the countries where you can get models that are as detailed and high quality as the ones we sell if not more, where they're a massive cultural phenomenon, and where they cost a tiny fraction of the price of our stuff?

GW doesn't tone down the grimdark to appeal to the Asian market. GW tones down the grimdark to appeal to the domestic market. Grimdark as a trend seems to have peaked in the 80s and 90s in GB and in the 90s and 00s in the US, and people seem to be losing their taste for relentlessly nihilistic fiction in both areas, at least looking at popular media that has done well vs popular media that has flopped and been panned. Most of the ultra-dark storytelling coming out today tends to be stuff that either does badly trying to imitate the earlier successful things (see: Everything DC movies have done since The Dark Knight) or that people still like because they're fans of that earlier stuff (like the continuing series of tone-sequels and direct sequels to Dark Souls.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Semper wrote:
I felt the grimdark was, overall, more lost with the model sculps than the actual lore. Specifically, the daemons who have never seemed more camp/cartoonish. Compare the GW GUO with the Forge World one and you've got it demonstrated perfectly. Yeah, the Sisters were very on tone but there has definitely been a little watering down in the model sculps.
.

Uh.

https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/images/tzeentch/tzeentch-threesome.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTonBjyKeBPXQ1QGxLLE1rCXyvBLFusbd1Ruw&usqp=CAU

https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/images/tzeentch/lord-of-change-001.jpg

IMO they've got a LOOOOOOOOONG way to go if they want to match the level of cartooniness of the original chaos sculpts....Those get REAL silly with it. Even the previous generation of, say, Lord of Change (which I adore) had that ultra cartoony proportionality going on with his giant head and giant hands and tiny knobbly arms and his little pot belly.

 Pacific wrote:

Aash wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
"Grimdark" started, need I remind you, as a joke term for bad writing.

I’m unaware of “grimdark” originating as a term for bad writing. Rather it is a term used specifically in reference to the 40K tag line: “ In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimdark

I also wouldn't equate it with just 'horrible fascism' of an utterly totalitarian state that purges it's own citizens routinely (although that is part of it). Instead, for me (and this is going back to 1st edition) it was always meant to be about the loss of hope.
Humanity had it's one, great chance at ascending to something greater and they blew it. Now, all that remains is war. And, it's 40,000 years in the future, so we're still doing it!
It sprung very much from the old late 80s British satire of 2000AD, of William Gibson, of Dune and of Thatcher's Great Britain - a negative image of Roddenbury's Star Trek - but it was all so bleak that you had to have some satirical humour in there, which you see dotted around Rogue Trader and the books that came out at that time.
Over the years you have these concepts (that were very much meant to be tongue in cheek) - entire world sentenced to destruction via killer virus and orbital bombardment - because of a single case of Chaos etc. actually become a serious concept.
And so that almost 'comedic' interpretation (of how bad things are, deliberately over the top) became an actual reality within the game world. I think we saw that a lot from the change from 1st to 2nd edition, although bits did still remain (the Orks essentially being football hooligans and London dockers and having a selection of mk1 exploding legs, up until 3rd/4th editions).

You'll see Rick Priestly, Dan Abnett talk about this in the same way, and it's something that has diverged as a setting as the game, miniatures and background have developed over the past decade where the part about 'loss of hope' has receded into the background (and there have been quite a few discussions in the Background section about this topic).
'New Designs' of armour and vehicles being discovered that are an improvement on what went before, troops that are 'immune' to Chaos (!)
Heroes that were dead ("frozen in status at the moment of their death, the fatal wound still visible") have been replaced by 10" high miniatures resplendent in brilliant primary colours.
The level of 'enemy' has been turned up to 11 too, but there isn't the same overriding atmosphere of pending doom that surrounded earlier editions, and it's now taken on an aspect of Alliance vs. Horde helping to prompt a never-ending selection of new rules and miniatures.

Perhaps what sums it up more than anything else is the Crimson Fists, who went from being all but annihilated by their own missiles accidentally landing on their own troops in Rogue Trader (them being destroyed on the front page of the rulebook, but fighting on till the last which was the heroic bit!) to now still being about and fighting as a chapter.

Great post. Grimdark was never intended to be taken that seriously, neither was the setting as a whole and it has suffered ever since they decided it should be imo.

I like how realistic it is. Aside for the magical stuff it mirrors the working of daily life perfectly. And is a lot more realistic too, compering to some other sci fi systems.

When stuff is a joke, it become strange and stops to matter. And on more personal level, I have problems with getting jokes so it just creates another barrier of entry.

I like how w40k, can easily explained with stuff like so it is just like 1871 or 1881 or 1907 etc. Makes it more cross cultural too, because someone who plays it in Serbia, maybe doesn't have a 1881, but he has a 1991-4, so while we both think of different same things, the same things did happen and are realistic, which makes stuff easier to understand.

Karol wrote:
I like how realistic it is. Aside for the magical stuff it mirrors the working of daily life perfectly. And is a lot more realistic too, compering to some other sci fi systems.

I mean no.

40k is significantly farther from 'hard sci fi' than most sci fi universes outside of the ones that just don't bother coming up with explanations for anything, like Star Wars. And even comparing to star wars, 40k tends to explain more of the basic functions of the universe with "it's magic".

Everybody hating each other and everything being miserable all the time does not magically make a setting 'more realistic'. 40k features such non-magical explanations as:

-Human corpses being used as a major food source for a megacity

-Preserved, lobotomized human brains being a viable way to run simple machinery functions

-gene-enhanced superwarriors with a dizzying array of the stupidest most juvenile ideas for biological 'enhancements' that cause anyone who's taken a basic anatomy class to immediately facepalm. "KWOOOOR they've replaced their ribcage with A SOLID ARMOR PLATE - no way you're getting a knife through that mate, DESIGN FLAW REMOVED" *genetically enhanced superwarrior immediately suffocates and dies because of how lungs work*

Often, in a setting, explaining a stupid thing that you just did because it looks cool is worse than just not explaining it at all. We don't get an explanation (in the movies, yes I know theres a billion-word wookipedia article on this exact thing and every other exact thing) as to why lightsabers in star wars cut through everything except for laser blaster bolts which they perfectly deflect back at the person who shot at them. It just works like that because it kicks ass for it to work like that.

If you answer the question "so, on these worlds that house a hundred billion people and they're all in giant gothic architecture megacities, what do they eat?" with "KWOOOOOOOOOR they all eat CORPSES ground into DUST isn't that METALLLLL?" then it raises the immediate problem of "but how? We know that a person who cannibalizes another fully grown person gets enough food to survive for like...a week. And it takes 20 odd years to get a person fully grown. Wouldn't a society that eats corpses just...be dead real fast?"

If you never really address the situation of what people eat, and instead just have like one scene where the character drinks some kind of space beverage, then its like, OK. you've established that there is food in your science fiction universe. Moving on.

-Human corpses being used as a major food source for a megacity

yeah more or less what happened to some places durning the 1919-1920 war, and what happened durning the holdomor, and later durning the siege of stalingrad.

-Preserved, lobotomized human brains being a viable way to run simple machinery functions

you mean like people being worked to death without being given enough food to function, so they act like as if they were "mindless drones" in the words of people that saw those things durning WWII.

-gene-enhanced superwarriors with a dizzying array of the stupidest most juvenile ideas for biological 'enhancements' that cause anyone who's taken a basic anatomy class to immediately facepalm. "KWOOOOR they've replaced their ribcage with A SOLID ARMOR PLATE - no way you're getting a knife through that mate, DESIGN FLAW REMOVED" *genetically enhanced superwarrior immediately suffocates and dies because of how lungs work*

yeah so something like wehrmacht pumped on amfetamies or Wlasovs battalion pumped on that and vodka, ridding in APCs and Tanks fighting people armed with hands and stones. That is what I would describe the space marine melee expiriance. Only thing that is missing is puting civilians on the APCs, so the freedom fighters have to shot them if they want to stop the tanks.

Often, in a setting, explaining a stupid thing that you just did because it looks cool is worse than just not explaining it at all

It doesn't look cool to me, but I can understand it by comperation. I don't like the fact the fact that members of my family became martyrs, because they were the wrong type of ortodox in 1881. But it makes easier for me to understand how the Church in w40k functions. there is absolutly nothing in w40k I find nice or good. It is horrible, but it is horrible of the kind I understand. In comperation, to Star Wars, I don't understand Star Wars lore and why people ac in it the way they do. Both the good and the bad people.

then it raises the immediate problem of "but how? We know that a person who cannibalizes another fully grown person gets enough food to survive for like...a week

It is less, because you won't be able too cook and butcher it properly and you are going to have to hide it from other families. So am not really understanding the argument here.

And it takes 20 odd years to get a person fully grown. Wouldn't a society that eats corpses just...be dead real fast?"

Not if you rotated the places, and limited it to groups you wanted to eliminate. And hunger every 2-3 years with mass cases of conibalism were the norm here durning the dulge, durning the great north war, durning WWI when the front moved through our country 7 times till 1920 and as WWII showed us in Poland you can have the population feed at under 800 calories a day for 6 years and you only lose less then 1/5th of the entire population. So it can function. It doesn't function well for the people, but for those who are in power it works good enough.

So, here we're going to do that fun argumentative tactic of "I say a thing, you say 'oh so you mean like *other thing that is not at all what I meant*'"

And we're going to do it a lot, apparently.

Karol wrote:

yeah more or less what happened to some places durning the 1919-1920 war, and what happened durning the holdomor, and later durning the siege of stalingrad.

No, I mean like this being presented as an ongoing system that has lasted long enough that there are whole "noble families" based on the commodity of corpse-starch, and this being presented as a long-term system. You're comparing it to something that happened to a city during a period where a massive fraction of its population was being decimated every day. The population of Stalingrad during that period of five months dropped MASSIVELY, which is not what's described in Necromunda.

The whole point of the concept of 'hive cities' in 40k is that this is where the limitless supply of human lives that get sacrificed in the imperium's gigantic wars come from. But every time we're shown a hive city in fiction, it functions like all these historical events where populations went into massive declines.

you mean like people being worked to death without being given enough food to function, so they act like as if they were "mindless drones" in the words of people that saw those things durning WWII.

No I mean like, again, these things being presented as such sustainable long term solutions that they've been around for TEN THOUSAND YEARS - compared to our society that, were you to go back 1/10th of that time we are barely out of the stone age. You continue to cite examples of gak that happened in places where a society was literally burning itself to the ground as fast as humanly possible but 40k pretends that these kind of systems are sustainable.

yeah so something like wehrmacht pumped on amfetamies or Wlasovs battalion pumped on that and vodka, ridding in APCs and Tanks fighting people armed with hands and stones. That is what I would describe the space marine melee expiriance. Only thing that is missing is puting civilians on the APCs, so the freedom fighters have to shot them if they want to stop the tanks.

No, I'm talking about 1/2 of the space marine 'bio-enhancements' being just complete utter fantasy (eating brains to get memories...OK....) and 1/2 being things that would just kill your gene-enhanced dude instantly. Not "get a few weeks of fighting out of this crazed lunatic then he burns himself out" but "this thing could not breathe. It would just die in a few minutes before you had finished with the surgery."

Also, AGAIN, you're citing an example of something that massively reduces the lifespan of a person to something that's presented as massively extending the lifespan of a person basically indefinitely.

It is less, because you won't be able too cook and butcher it properly and you are going to have to hide it from other families. So am not really understanding the argument here.

40k presents ideas that occurred during the most brutal, population-shrinking periods of human existence as something that could be sustained for 10,000 years while massively expanding the human population. Over and over and over again. And people pretend that makes it "More realistic" because they like to be edgelords. 40k is the sci fi universe equivalent of those fantasy suits of armor fething made of spikes and blades that would shred the wearer instantaneously if he ever tried to move.

Not if you rotated the places, and limited it to groups you wanted to eliminate. And hunger every 2-3 years with mass cases of conibalism were the norm here durning the dulge, durning the great north war, durning WWI when the front moved through our country 7 times till 1920 and as WWII showed us in Poland you can have the population feed at under 800 calories a day for 6 years and you only lose less then 1/5th of the entire population. So it can function. It doesn't function well for the people, but for those who are in power it works good enough.

As with all your claims: I'm just gonna press X to doubt.

Don't bother arguing with Karol.

Lots of Polish people think that we're still in WW2. Him thinking that 40k is actually relatable to real life just shows that and is completely mental.

40k is meant to be a parody of real life. The setting takes Real life examples of stupid situations and pushes it to 11 while making it the norm, just like you've pointed out with servitors and corpse-starch industries.

The fundamental problem isn't that 40k presents an unsustainable theocratic-fascist dystopia that is too busy alternating between self-flagellation and self-fellation to meaningfully reform, but rather that there are some fans out there who think this is the desirable state of affairs in-universe (and some worse fans who think so out-of-universe too though I'll grant they're rarer).

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Don't bother arguing with Karol.

Lots of Polish people think that we're still in WW2. Him thinking that 40k is actually relatable to real life just shows that and is completely mental.

40k is meant to be a parody of real life. The setting takes Real life examples of stupid situations and pushes it to 11 while making it the norm, just like you've pointed out with servitors and corpse-starch industries.

Sure. The only thing I'm pointing out is how utterly silly the "I like Dark Gritty Depressing Thing because it's more realistic than Normal Run of the Mill Thing."

This most commonly comes up when you talk about stuff like ASOIAF, where people love to insist that this fantasy universe that is basically exactly as fantastical as every other fantasy universe is somehow more realistic because people do a kill and you get to see all them GUUUUUUUUUUTS.

TLDR: Silly and unrealistic in a way that 15 year old boys like and silly and unrealistic in a way that children like is the same level of silly and unrealistic.

the_scotsman wrote:

-gene-enhanced superwarriors with a dizzying array of the stupidest most juvenile ideas for biological 'enhancements' that cause anyone who's taken a basic anatomy class to immediately facepalm. "KWOOOOR they've replaced their ribcage with A SOLID ARMOR PLATE - no way you're getting a knife through that mate, DESIGN FLAW REMOVED" *genetically enhanced superwarrior immediately suffocates and dies because of how lungs work*

Ah, but clearly the lungs have since been replaced by the INHALE-A-TRON 30000, which is powered by QUANTUM MEGA-BATTERIES, each of which contains CONCENTRATED WARP ENERGY, harvested using A PINT OF TEARS FROM A THOUSAND DYING ORPHANS!

I think the new fluff is better than old, and I think there are a lot of people talking about what they believe the old fluff to have been without going back to read it today and realize what it actually was. The impression the fluff delivers is what matters, not the literal writing. And I feel that the writing of old would not only fail to deliver as effectively to the modern reader, it would flop entirely. Seriously, go back and read it. By modern standards, it isn't that good. Yeah there are gems, and those are the parts we rightfully recall with the most detail and still bring up today, just like how some of the old artwork is timelessly fantastic. But those old books had a lot of art other than those great pieces, most of it merely 'meh' by today's standards and some of it pretty bad. The writing is the same.

the_scotsman wrote:

the ancient wrote:


I think theyre just trying to appeal to the asian market, every since they made dow3. With its apm, bright flashy colours for everything.

You know, the one thing that's never changed since 4th edition is idiots who think they know things proclaiming that It's All Over Now, GW Is Just Going To Market To The Asians And Turn 40k Into One Of Those Brightly Colored Japanime Shows.

Pretty much ever since the Tau entered the game people have been shrieking about this, and - while it's stupid to assume any company operating in a capitalist framework would say NO to any market segment - the idea that GW is going to change the game to be brighter to try and market to Asia has never stopped being the dumbest take.

1) Asian media is on average MUCH more in line with 1980s british grimdark than, for example, american media made for teenagers. GW would never be aiming to enter the market space pitching 40k as an alternative to Sailor Moon or Hello Kitty, they'd be trying to compete with the gunpla market, which tends to feature some pretty dark fething stories. Asian media is pretty much the only place where you can summarize a story like "and then the monsters from beyond our reality tore open a giant portal that warped and destroyed the world, and that was the end" and someone might say "wait, which thing are you describing here?"

2) Trying to compete with the gunpla market. Gee whiz where should we bring our hideously overpriced plastic model game and try to heavily market it enough to alter the story? Gwarsh why don't we try the countries where you can get models that are as detailed and high quality as the ones we sell if not more, where they're a massive cultural phenomenon, and where they cost a tiny fraction of the price of our stuff?

GW doesn't tone down the grimdark to appeal to the Asian market. GW tones down the grimdark to appeal to the domestic market. Grimdark as a trend seems to have peaked in the 80s and 90s in GB and in the 90s and 00s in the US, and people seem to be losing their taste for relentlessly nihilistic fiction in both areas, at least looking at popular media that has done well vs popular media that has flopped and been panned. Most of the ultra-dark storytelling coming out today tends to be stuff that either does badly trying to imitate the earlier successful things (see: Everything DC movies have done since The Dark Knight) or that people still like because they're fans of that earlier stuff (like the continuing series of tone-sequels and direct sequels to Dark Souls.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Semper wrote:
I felt the grimdark was, overall, more lost with the model sculps than the actual lore. Specifically, the daemons who have never seemed more camp/cartoonish. Compare the GW GUO with the Forge World one and you've got it demonstrated perfectly. Yeah, the Sisters were very on tone but there has definitely been a little watering down in the model sculps.
.

Uh.

https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/images/tzeentch/tzeentch-threesome.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTonBjyKeBPXQ1QGxLLE1rCXyvBLFusbd1Ruw&usqp=CAU

https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/images/tzeentch/lord-of-change-001.jpg

IMO they've got a LOOOOOOOOONG way to go if they want to match the level of cartooniness of the original chaos sculpts....Those get REAL silly with it. Even the previous generation of, say, Lord of Change (which I adore) had that ultra cartoony proportionality going on with his giant head and giant hands and tiny knobbly arms and his little pot belly.

Almost like they were sculpted in a time when the art was in its infancy, tools were more rudimentary and there was hardly any people doing it. Its like comparing medieval art to contemporary.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Karol wrote:
Strange. I see nothing wrong with it. If you need to get a job done you just do it. Why shouldn't the GK harvest the sisters? Sooner or later the position would be overwhelmed, the planet would be lost to the warp and then it would start again on another planet. By harvesting the sisters blood, the GK get the weapon they needed to perform a banishment on a large scale.

Why they did it isn't the problem. It's the fact that its a really dumb idea and reeks of trying too hard to be dark. Why didn't the grey knights just ask if the sisters would donate blood? Why slaughter them? Its also contradictory because such a slaughter would please Khorne and make the forces stronger if anything.

Honestly I don't care about 40k fluff that much. I will say I feel like GW are moving in a direction that is removing a lot of ambiguity about the setting. They've been consistently portraying the Emperor as definitely an donkey-cave for a while now and removing a lot of subtlety from Chaos. Nuance and shades of grey that made the setting GrimDark are getting less and less emphasised in favor of extremes. Hm. Maybe its not 40k getting more NobleBright and real life getting more GrimDark by comparison.

The greyknights are the hammer of the inquisition. They don't ask for anything. They have one goal - to eliminate chaos from the galaxy - anything that furthers them in their task will be done without hesitation. They will not lament ether. They would slaughter a whole world to see it not turn to choas. Seems pretty Grim dark for sure to me. A good sister would knell willingly to the knife to know they died in service to the emperor. If they resist they likely were corrupted anyways and it is better to be safe than sorry. Never read any of that story you are talking about but it is always easy to justify the greyknights actions IMO. The inquisition in general adds a lot to the grimdark of the setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

-gene-enhanced superwarriors with a dizzying array of the stupidest most juvenile ideas for biological 'enhancements' that cause anyone who's taken a basic anatomy class to immediately facepalm. "KWOOOOR they've replaced their ribcage with A SOLID ARMOR PLATE - no way you're getting a knife through that mate, DESIGN FLAW REMOVED" *genetically enhanced superwarrior immediately suffocates and dies because of how lungs work*

Ah, but clearly the lungs have since been replaced by the INHALE-A-TRON 30000, which is powered by QUANTUM MEGA-BATTERIES, each of which contains CONCENTRATED WARP ENERGY, harvested using A PINT OF TEARS FROM A THOUSAND DYING ORPHANS!

I mean...they also upgrade the lungs with other modifications. There is honestly no telling with genetic enhancements. These could be realistic in the future as genetic enhancements are almost strictly illegal as is cloning because they are considered moral sins basically everywhere. Hence...Girm dark. Morally depraved.

Marines have a third lung, but still have their standard lungs.

As for the Grey Knights story from 5th:


Apparently this got reconned a bit now that GW is like "well, they can fall to Chaos, but anyone who falls is replaced by a Sister with the same name and the fallen Sister is purged" approach:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Marines have a third lung, but still have their standard lungs.

As for the Grey Knights story from 5th:


Apparently this got reconned a bit now that GW is like "well, they can fall to Chaos, but anyone who falls is replaced by a Sister with the same name and the fallen Sister is purged" approach:

Should have brought some purfiers. 7th eddition GK codex has some great stuff on the topic. Gk slaughtering whole worlds after defeating chaos on them. Including even space marine who assisted in the purge. GK do not fck around with corruption.

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

-gene-enhanced superwarriors with a dizzying array of the stupidest most juvenile ideas for biological 'enhancements' that cause anyone who's taken a basic anatomy class to immediately facepalm. "KWOOOOR they've replaced their ribcage with A SOLID ARMOR PLATE - no way you're getting a knife through that mate, DESIGN FLAW REMOVED" *genetically enhanced superwarrior immediately suffocates and dies because of how lungs work*

Ah, but clearly the lungs have since been replaced by the INHALE-A-TRON 30000, which is powered by QUANTUM MEGA-BATTERIES, each of which contains CONCENTRATED WARP ENERGY, harvested using A PINT OF TEARS FROM A THOUSAND DYING ORPHANS!

The reasonable assumption to make is that seeing as the rib cage is a fused plate but lungs still work, the lungs must have been modified in such a way as to still function. But since the average person is not going to even think about that, any competent writer would know to exclude such information in favor of other fluff people would actually be interested in. I'd say if they went into details like that all the time anyone who's taken a basic writing class would immediately facepalm

the_scotsman wrote:

This most commonly comes up when you talk about stuff like ASOIAF, where people love to insist that this fantasy universe that is basically exactly as fantastical as every other fantasy universe is somehow more realistic because people do a kill and you get to see all them GUUUUUUUUUUTS.

a think this comes more from the fact that the story is a 1:1 copy of englisch history class lessons with Dragons and Undead and people find it more realistic because they remember some of those things from school (also why people get bonkers about the ending because it makes no sense in that context)

making a fantasy series with a central or eastern european theme and it will be different as those things are than much more exotic and "unrealistic"

for 40k it is similar, stuff that people know from somewhere else is seen as more realistic because it happend in the real world
no matter how short the real event was or how bad it worked out, there is a connection therefore it is realistic

that is why specific themes work in specific regions of the world and not in others, if there is no real world connection it does not feel real
(we could also argue about immersion with rules, were those who "know" about specific settings in real live think that different rules are more realistic than those who don't know, suppression/pinning VS killing for example)

Yep.

If you read the post I was responding to there, it said "Daemons have never seemed more camp/cartoony". I was just pointing out that, nope, daemons were WAY WAY MORE camp/cartoony in their first incarnations than in any modern sculpt, up to and including the slippity sloop blooper.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

This most commonly comes up when you talk about stuff like ASOIAF, where people love to insist that this fantasy universe that is basically exactly as fantastical as every other fantasy universe is somehow more realistic because people do a kill and you get to see all them GUUUUUUUUUUTS.

a think this comes more from the fact that the story is a 1:1 copy of englisch history class lessons with Dragons and Undead and people find it more realistic because they remember some of those things from school (also why people get bonkers about the ending because it makes no sense in that context)

making a fantasy series with a central or eastern european theme and it will be different as those things are than much more exotic and "unrealistic"

for 40k it is similar, stuff that people know from somewhere else is seen as more realistic because it happend in the real world
no matter how short the real event was or how bad it worked out, there is a connection therefore it is realistic

that is why specific themes work in specific regions of the world and not in others, if there is no real world connection it does not feel real
(we could also argue about immersion with rules, were those who "know" about specific settings in real live think that different rules are more realistic than those who don't know, suppression/pinning VS killing for example)

True, and that's probably on some level what people mean when they say something is 'realistic' but more often I think people just equate 'everything is grim and bad and people are always persistently donkey-caves to each other' to 'realistic.'

For example, take the fact that in 40k it appears that current human ethnic divisions remain, but people are just grouped into 'planets' instead of countries. You've got "planet china" with the white scars on it, and "planet norway" with the space wolves on it, and "Planet Russia" with the valhallans on it, etc.

Someone might look at that and say "that's more realistic because the human races wouldn't just all of a sudden get along!" but..I don't know. Historically we've seen that when humans encounter more humans with wildly different cultures, the distinctions they previously made between say, british and irish and welsh people or whatever become less and less important to them. It seems much more realistic to go the star trek route of "hey man we found aliens with six heads and three nostrils, we're all just humans now."

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reasonable assumption to make is that seeing as the rib cage is a fused plate but lungs still work, the lungs must have been modified in such a way as to still function.

No, the reasonable assumption is that the writer has no clue how lungs work.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
But since the average person is not going to even think about that, any competent writer would know to exclude such information in favor of other fluff people would actually be interested in. I'd say if they went into details like that all the time anyone who's taken a basic writing class would immediately facepalm

But surely the exact same applies to the whole thing of SMs replacing their entire rib cages with armour? Except that it raises some key questions which the author doesn't even attempt to address.

Hmmmm.

Not sure its about Grimdark - but I think ASOIAF was "realistic" - at least in the first 3 books - because it followed a sort of whodunnit logic. A leads to B leads to C. The general plot, character development, world building all flows reasonably well. Everything feels "earned" rather than plot armour/deus ex nonsense. Characters die and it isn't "gg, the end" - its "and the story continues with the rest."

I'm not sure books 4+5 were as good for this (and have limited hope for the next two, given the TV series became a trainwreck) but still.

I'm not sure what that says about the Grimdark - because yes, if the 40k universe was vaguely realistic everyone in it is dead. The plot armour is that everyone is constantly being resurrected. To a degree this works with generic NPC planets but it makes telling a narrative difficult, because almost anything meaningful is being obliterated on a near constant basis.

Really I think Grimdark was meant to be ironic/tongue in cheek, then it became "no, that but serious, bring us all the edgelords" and now its trying to spin a narrative but that brings its own ludicrousness as the same few characters zip around the galaxy fighting each other.

the_scotsman wrote:

Someone might look at that and say "that's more realistic because the human races wouldn't just all of a sudden get along!" but..I don't know. Historically we've seen that when humans encounter more humans with wildly different cultures, the distinctions they previously made between say, british and irish and welsh people or whatever become less and less important to them. It seems much more realistic to go the star trek route of "hey man we found aliens with six heads and three nostrils, we're all just humans now."

this is a reason why 40k is liked by a lot of people, they can make their Russian WW2 Army without feeling bad about playing Russians as those are just humans but the planet they came from has this theme

yet a whole planet covered all the time in snow is nothing people would live at in the first place and no way there would be reasonable industry to build specific themed tanks
but playing WW2 Russians without feeling bad let you forget about it and it feels much more realistic if you don't think too much about it

that something like a Russia themed planet exists at all, 38000 years in the future with 3 major events that removed nearly all history of the past and mankind being exiled on planets for several thousand years is more than unrealistic
this is like driving to Egypt and expecting that everyone is dressed like Pharaos 5000 years ago

 Xenomancers wrote:
Should have brought some purfiers. 7th eddition GK codex has some great stuff on the topic. Gk slaughtering whole worlds after defeating chaos on them. Including even space marine who assisted in the purge. GK do not fck around with corruption.

It's pretty clear that GK's are interested in killing civilians because it allows them to flex on other Imperium factions by killing their friends. They go far beyond what's sensible and into senseless tyranny, just like the rest of the Imperium. They're probably feeding Khorne with their massacres.

[read in the graveliest, most world weary voice you can possibly imagine]

Grimdark been goin' down the grate ever since players were permitted to paint [alliteration intended] their models in more than: black, gray/grey, browns/tans and desaturated/drab greens. Grimdark was completely, irredeemably ruined the moment Goblin Green paint was an acceptable color for anything 40k. I curse you Goblin green with all my heart's hate!!! Even now, if everyone stopped using colors other than those above it's too already late. Far, far too late. Because in grimdark if things get better, even for a moment it isn't grimdark. Because things can never get better in grimdark. Ever. Ever-ever. We should have had a never not gnashed our teeth and rended our wardrobes that this day would come. Maybe then, only then, could have grimdark continued for one more day.

We should have known this would happen when lead models, lead paint and lead brushes contained in lead packages were no longer sold. Now, where there was only nihilism and hopelessness, there is only not-nihilism and not-hopelessness.

 vipoid wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reasonable assumption to make is that seeing as the rib cage is a fused plate but lungs still work, the lungs must have been modified in such a way as to still function.

No, the reasonable assumption is that the writer has no clue how lungs work.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
But since the average person is not going to even think about that, any competent writer would know to exclude such information in favor of other fluff people would actually be interested in. I'd say if they went into details like that all the time anyone who's taken a basic writing class would immediately facepalm

But surely the exact same applies to the whole thing of SMs replacing their entire rib cages with armour? Except that it raises some key questions which the author doesn't even attempt to address.

With any fiction there will come a point where the reader needs to fill in the gaps. If you TRY to avoid filling them there is not a single setting out there which does not fall apart completely.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reasonable assumption to make is that seeing as the rib cage is a fused plate but lungs still work, the lungs must have been modified in such a way as to still function.

No, the reasonable assumption is that the writer has no clue how lungs work.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
But since the average person is not going to even think about that, any competent writer would know to exclude such information in favor of other fluff people would actually be interested in. I'd say if they went into details like that all the time anyone who's taken a basic writing class would immediately facepalm

But surely the exact same applies to the whole thing of SMs replacing their entire rib cages with armour? Except that it raises some key questions which the author doesn't even attempt to address.

With any fiction there will come a point where the reader needs to fill in the gaps. If you TRY to avoid filling them there is not a single setting out there which does not fall apart completely.

On second thought, you're right. Clearly it's genius writing and beyond all criticism.

 vipoid wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The reasonable assumption to make is that seeing as the rib cage is a fused plate but lungs still work, the lungs must have been modified in such a way as to still function.

No, the reasonable assumption is that the writer has no clue how lungs work.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
But since the average person is not going to even think about that, any competent writer would know to exclude such information in favor of other fluff people would actually be interested in. I'd say if they went into details like that all the time anyone who's taken a basic writing class would immediately facepalm

But surely the exact same applies to the whole thing of SMs replacing their entire rib cages with armour? Except that it raises some key questions which the author doesn't even attempt to address.

With any fiction there will come a point where the reader needs to fill in the gaps. If you TRY to avoid filling them there is not a single setting out there which does not fall apart completely.

On second thought, you're right. Clearly it's genius writing and beyond all criticism.

No fiction is beyond all criticism, but let's be honest: complaining they don't fill out ALL the details? That's not a criticism, it's a nitpick.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
I agree, seems like some of the grimdark has been kept but the humour has been drained out. It was one of my main reasons for starting with Orks when I started 40k. Out of all the current factions it seems they are the only ones who kept the humour in that made me fall in love with 40k. Don't get me wrong I greatly enjoy KNC's grimdark thread and it has it's place, but there needs to be humour too, and not just in Orks. One of the greatest pieces of 40K backgrond I've ever read were the comics about the Redeemer (I think?) and his wacky adventures across Necromunda. Sure, when taking straight it was extremely grimdark too, but it also had humour and that was what made it amazing to me.

I think there is still humor. Onager Gauntlet? Onager is a kind of Asian donkey, making every attack with the weapon a donkey punch. The Ad Mech also think a the Dunecrawler looks like a Donkey (hence the "Onager" name). Plus they unironically cribbed DaVinci's sketches as actual designs.

So the jokes are still there, the problem is when the jokes crop up (like Jokareo), the community's more vocal elements flip out on them and complain that those elements are "ruining" everything.

It's certainly better then 3rd edition, which is where most of humor got drained out through.

3rd was where most of the humor died, but it's been trickling back in since then. At least Cain is still VERY canon which helps a lot too.

Alsol I think a lot of the humor is now more subtle. which is important if you wanna be taken seriously. such as "Inqusitor obi-wan sherlock clousto" is silly and rediculas but it's a little too blatent. it takes you out of the setting and immediatly reduces it to a joke. the Onager gauntlet by comparison is something that can slip past you, until you notice it and have a LOL moment

BrianDavion wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
I agree, seems like some of the grimdark has been kept but the humour has been drained out. It was one of my main reasons for starting with Orks when I started 40k. Out of all the current factions it seems they are the only ones who kept the humour in that made me fall in love with 40k. Don't get me wrong I greatly enjoy KNC's grimdark thread and it has it's place, but there needs to be humour too, and not just in Orks. One of the greatest pieces of 40K backgrond I've ever read were the comics about the Redeemer (I think?) and his wacky adventures across Necromunda. Sure, when taking straight it was extremely grimdark too, but it also had humour and that was what made it amazing to me.

I think there is still humor. Onager Gauntlet? Onager is a kind of Asian donkey, making every attack with the weapon a donkey punch. The Ad Mech also think a the Dunecrawler looks like a Donkey (hence the "Onager" name). Plus they unironically cribbed DaVinci's sketches as actual designs.

So the jokes are still there, the problem is when the jokes crop up (like Jokareo), the community's more vocal elements flip out on them and complain that those elements are "ruining" everything.

It's certainly better then 3rd edition, which is where most of humor got drained out through.

3rd was where most of the humor died, but it's been trickling back in since then. At least Cain is still VERY canon which helps a lot too.

Alsol I think a lot of the humor is now more subtle. which is important if you wanna be taken seriously. such as "Inqusitor obi-wan sherlock clousto" is silly and rediculas but it's a little too blatent. it takes you out of the setting and immediatly reduces it to a joke. the Onager gauntlet by comparison is something that can slip past you, until you notice it and have a LOL moment

Exactly. They killed the really obvious stuff, but slipped in other jokes and puns instead.