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That however has all changed. In a fundamental resifting of the main storyline, GW is retconning the events of Dark Imperium. Rather than taking place 112 years post-Great Rift they take place 12 years after the opening of the rift, moving back the timeline by a significant amount. In addition, the events in Dark Imperium do not represent the conclusion of the Indomitus Crusade, and are being changed to just mark the end of the first phase of it. This means that rather than the Crusade being somewhat ancient history, 100ish years in the past, it is now the current event happening in 40k. This reshapes the ongoing narrative in major ways, and means the game “story” is now that of the Crusade to which we no longer know the end.

Source: https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/12/warhammer-40k-gw-just-retconned-8th-edition.html

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

Guy Haley explained it in the Black Library Preview (link).
While it's interesting I'm not sure it'll actually change anything much. What's more interesting that GW have actually announced it - they've stealth-revised books before (mainly the HH ones).

Every retcon tends to make the setting more convoluted, so generally speaking I don't like them. But if we talk about the retcon of a novel published three years ago circa, well this is something totally wrong, because it means they didn't think about what they were writing at that time. Even if I always thought that the Indomitus Crusade shouldn't end with the Plague Wars, because in my opinion the ultimate goal of the Indomitus Crusade should have been to reunify the Imperium.

Someone on the BoLS article explained my thoughts perfectly.
It seems they set 40k up to follow in AoS's footsteps with the release of 8th, but got cold feet and scrambled to changea lot of that.
So the present 40k timeline wasn't well thought out, or it was thought out in the context of a universe that never actually came to be.
This is a patch on that.

That's a pretty big change. It's been a while since I've read Dark Imperium, but would the change from 112 to 12 years after the Great Rift change that book a lot? Or would it just affect the lore that (now) takes place after it?

DigestPantheon wrote:
That's a pretty big change. It's been a while since I've read Dark Imperium, but would the change from 112 to 12 years after the Great Rift change that book a lot? Or would it just affect the lore that (now) takes place after it?

honestly the impact is pretty minimal. and that it wasn't the end of the crusade but just the end of phase one is how I've always seen it. between that and time shinnagens, this is a pretty minimal change

Given the wibbly-wobbly state of reality in 40k, this shouldn't surprise anyone.

Ugh. How do they screw up this badly?

A functional timeline for the next decade of releases was something game companies mastered back in the 80s.

Voss wrote:
Ugh. How do they screw up this badly?

A functional timeline for the next decade of releases was something game companies mastered back in the 80s.

Eh who knows perhaps the whole idea was birthed along with the AoS 0.0 launch plans and set in motion then with the idea that they'd push the narrative into the 42nd era and call the game "Warhammer 41". Then AOS blewup and someone finally got through to managers that they are going to run out of 40K story time lore wise which will mean either going back;restarting (DC/Marvel superhero style) or winding something back to give them more time. Because they've 30 years of 40K marketing and throwing all that out the window isn't that productive product and marketing wise. Esp when the vast majority of customers will still call it 40K.

It means they might now be thinking on ways to slowly change the brand name and branding to disconnect the lore year with the marketing name of the product. Perhaps with AoS now being "Age of Sigmar" and not "Warhammer" they might shift it so that 40K is now referred to more as "Warhammer" slowly over the next few years so that when they shift to 41 its a big event but not marketing changing.

Voss wrote:
Ugh. How do they screw up this badly?

A functional timeline for the next decade of releases was something game companies mastered back in the 80s.

Not only did GW obviously fail to plan ahead (who'd a thunk it?); they essentially removed in-universe dating, despite the in-universe Imperium having a well established dating system which specifically accounts for wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-ness.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

Voss wrote:
Ugh. How do they screw up this badly?

A functional timeline for the next decade of releases was something game companies mastered back in the 80s.

Not only did GW obviously fail to plan ahead (who'd a thunk it?); they essentially removed in-universe dating, despite the in-universe Imperium having a well established dating system which specifically accounts for wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-ness.

AoS doesn't even HAVE a dating system and it took a long while to even get any maps or ideas of where anything is.

I think the core issue is GW doesn't have a single author or team that really has a strong tight fisted handle on the lore. It's a group think thing and because its a side to the main product its allowed to get a little out of hand from time to time

If you don't specify when/where you are, nobody can tell you that you're lost.

It's genius!

 Lord Damocles wrote:
If you don't specify when/where you are, nobody can tell you that you're lost.

It's genius!

IT's how AoS lore currently sort of works. There are major events that link up; but yeah its a pain not really knowing when things happen in relation to each other. It's something I hope changes - I'd be ok with a few hundred yeares of iffy timescale lore and then things slowing down.

Of course its also because GW is focusing on AoS lore being the tale of gods and godlike beings at present; so human lifespans aren't worth a lot

I thought it was really weird how they seemed to be gearing up for this big event and then suddenly the event was over a century ago without any real chance to play in the sand.

 LunarSol wrote:
I thought it was really weird how they seemed to be gearing up for this big event and then suddenly the event was over a century ago without any real chance to play in the sand.

Bad narrative design, unfortunately.

I guess in terms of narrative of the universe as a whole, I think it'd make several characters' statuses significantly less ambiguous. Creed and Ciaphas Cain for example, would be more likely to still be alive at "current time".

But honestly, if rejuvenation treatments can be likened to rolling 3+ on a D6 with -1 for each consecutive roll and always succeed on a natural 6, it's not that hard to headcannon some characters in a galaxy of untold trillions just got lucky to survive until 100 years after end M41.

So yeah, agreed, not much's changed. Narrative still bad.

 lcmiracle wrote:
I guess in terms of narrative of the universe as a whole, I think it'd make several characters' statuses significantly less ambiguous. Creed and Ciaphas Cain for example, would be more likely to still be alive at "current time".

Creed got tesseract labyrinthed in Fall of Cadia, first years of M42. Going by Vail's notes, Cain is already dead by the 200s-ish M42 when she's writing.

I thought they already solved the date issue by Girlyman realising that all the dates were wrong and were actually 1000 years fast, so as we moved into M42 he just rolled it back to M41 again.

I also think they made AoS particularly date/place ambiguous, my understanding is that all takes place in 'bubbles' in the realm of magic, so nothing applies at all beyond the context of the story (how convenient).
I sort of imagined the warp storm could be heading in the same direction, they would maintain the same overall 40k tone, except now everyone is in warp pockets with no way for external considerations like "dates" and "places" to throw off the narrative.

What GW should have done if they wanted large scale timey-wimey confusion caused by the warp is just gone with the Elder Scrolls solution - Dragon Breaks.

A Dragon Break is when the timeline is broken, and splits into multiple different, simultaneous, mutually exclusive timelines; which after a period (which can be different in each timeline) all link back up.
So far example all of the different possible endings of Daggerfall happened at once, but the timelines all linked up again by Morrowind.
Made even screwier, because the in-universe historians are aware that it happens.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
What GW should have done if they wanted large scale timey-wimey confusion caused by the warp is just gone with the Elder Scrolls solution - Dragon Breaks.

A Dragon Break is when the timeline is broken, and splits into multiple different, simultaneous, mutually exclusive timelines; which after a period (which can be different in each timeline) all link back up.
So far example all of the different possible endings of Daggerfall happened at once, but the timelines all linked up again by Morrowind.
Made even screwier, because the in-universe historians are aware that it happens.

Could also explain why there were three different stories as to who got killed (besides Sanguinius) by Horus as the Emperor was fighting him. An Imperial Fists Terminator, a Custodes, and an Imperial Guardsman (probably Imperial Army unless time travel). And at least one of them may have been Pius.

That duel is exactly the kind of thing that would cause a Dragon Break in Elder Scrolls, too.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:
I guess in terms of narrative of the universe as a whole, I think it'd make several characters' statuses significantly less ambiguous. Creed and Ciaphas Cain for example, would be more likely to still be alive at "current time".

Creed got tesseract labyrinthed in Fall of Cadia, first years of M42. Going by Vail's notes, Cain is already dead by the 200s-ish M42 when she's writing.

Well according to Lexicanum, he was recalled to duty during the 13th Black Crusade, the site also claims that "Cain presumably died sometime in the first or second century of M42". That means 100 to 200 years post great rift in M41. So if they push the timeline back to around 12-ish years post great rift, Cain would be presumed "alive" at "current time. That's why this is a retcon.

The part of Creed is interesting tho, never heard of it before.

None of this addresses the main issue with the Dark Imperium events- in the real world, a lot of new players have armies that can't participate in 10,000 years of historical campaigns.

Armageddon, The Sabbat Worlds, 13th Black crusade. Nary a Hellbalster or a Gravis to be seen.

A majority of Marine chapters or Eldar or Ork armies have continuity through those periods, so your M41 Eldar army can show up in the Gothic Sector wars or whatever.

Ynnari and Primaris are tethered firmly to some of the worst writing the game has seen, and about 12 years of in universe time.

Further- its harder to place emotional stakes on your homebrew campaign when great crusade 2.0 is happening a sector over, with a reborn Primarch leading the charge.

 =Angel= wrote:
Ynnari and Primaris are tethered firmly to some of the worst writing the game has seen, and about 12 years of in universe time.

This is 100% intentional.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
Ynnari and Primaris are tethered firmly to some of the worst writing the game has seen, and about 12 years of in universe time.

This is 100% intentional.

I don't think it's so much intentional in and of itself.
Rather, GW wanted to implement something new (Ynnari, Primaris, etc) and in order to do that they have two choices "oh yeah this was always a thing, you just didn't know it" and "something changed and this is now a thing".
The former is feasible for introducing a slight variant of a Leman Russ from an obscure Forgeworld, but falls apart if you're trying to insert a new god and functionally a new major faction.
So they went with the latter, but that involves advancing the story line and of course therefore means the new stuff doesn't work 'historically'. But that's not an issue for GW because the sort of person that cares about using a 1945 tank in a 1943 battle isn't very common in 40k.

I think the lack of any timeline by GW now is just laziness as it means they don't have to really factcheck continuity in terms of tracking dates. I mean for many of the older editions I was tracking continuity better than some of the people at GW. Like I found a major continuity error in Gav Thorpe's Jain Zarr book.

I think Ynnari could work as an introduction if it is used for example to introduce things like Exodites. There was a hint in the Phoenix Rising things about young Exodites wanting to take action rather than be isolationist. However the Ynnari would need more development as an independent faction with units of its own rather than just a faction that consists of a few characters and otherwise just using units from other faction lists.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
Ynnari and Primaris are tethered firmly to some of the worst writing the game has seen, and about 12 years of in universe time.

This is 100% intentional.

I don't think it's so much intentional in and of itself.
Rather, GW wanted to implement something new (Ynnari, Primaris, etc) and in order to do that they have two choices "oh yeah this was always a thing, you just didn't know it" and "something changed and this is now a thing".
The former is feasible for introducing a slight variant of a Leman Russ from an obscure Forgeworld, but falls apart if you're trying to insert a new god and functionally a new major faction.
So they went with the latter, but that involves advancing the story line and of course therefore means the new stuff doesn't work 'historically'. But that's not an issue for GW because the sort of person that cares about using a 1945 tank in a 1943 battle isn't very common in 40k.

40k has even more leeway than you'd think. A more recently founded chapter might have taken the name of an extinct chapter- so your Celestial Lions, founded in M41, could be played in a game set during the Vandire Heresy or whatever, handwaving them as a different Celestial Lions, or even The Cosmic Felines.

If the Primaris release had been an update to the existing line rather than a replacement product, they could have been massaged into the game proper. Mark 7 'Aquila' power armour: 'Primaris' pattern. The entire Ultima Founding is assumed to be taking place in a continuing story and didn't exist before it, which somewhat limits what you can do with them narratively.

If Primaris Marines had simply been Cawl magicing up a new set of armour, and Rowboat making an errata to the codex for new tactics, it would have been a lot better than "Your oldmarines are now obsolete."

Hecaton wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
What GW should have done if they wanted large scale timey-wimey confusion caused by the warp is just gone with the Elder Scrolls solution - Dragon Breaks.

A Dragon Break is when the timeline is broken, and splits into multiple different, simultaneous, mutually exclusive timelines; which after a period (which can be different in each timeline) all link back up.
So far example all of the different possible endings of Daggerfall happened at once, but the timelines all linked up again by Morrowind.
Made even screwier, because the in-universe historians are aware that it happens.

Could also explain why there were three different stories as to who got killed (besides Sanguinius) by Horus as the Emperor was fighting him. An Imperial Fists Terminator, a Custodes, and an Imperial Guardsman (probably Imperial Army unless time travel). And at least one of them may have been Pius.

That duel is exactly the kind of thing that would cause a Dragon Break in Elder Scrolls, too.

Paging Ordo Chronos...

 BaconCatBug wrote:
If Primaris Marines had simply been Cawl magicing up a new set of armour, and Rowboat making an errata to the codex for new tactics, it would have been a lot better than "Your oldmarines are now obsolete."

Sure, but then they wouldn't have been able to invalidate the secondary market and force people to buy new stuff.

Hecaton wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
If Primaris Marines had simply been Cawl magicing up a new set of armour, and Rowboat making an errata to the codex for new tactics, it would have been a lot better than "Your oldmarines are now obsolete."

Sure, but then they wouldn't have been able to invalidate the secondary market and force people to buy new stuff.

But they haven't invalidated the secondary market.

In a few years it might be more difficult to find buyers for secondhand Firstborn, but that's the same with almost all older/outdated models anyway.